'Parks And Rec' Should Time Jump One Last Time

For Parks and Recreation's seventh and final season, they've gone where Pawnee hasn't been before — to the future. The season picked up in the year 2017. The time jump allowed for the folks behind Parks to speed up some storylines, and also completely pass what was sure to be an awkward Leslie-Knope-is-pregnant season (awkward, but hilarious, none the less). Considering they've already jumped forward once, might Parks and Rec jump into the future again for the series finale? If only to once again show us that everything in the future is A-OK.

Here's the big thing about the Parks finale: we NEED to know that everyone is happy in the end. We need to know that April and Andy have an awesome-sauce time living in Washington, D.C. We need to know that Ben is a super successful Congressman, and Leslie becomes president, and then their children all become Supreme Court Justices (wishful thinking). We need to know that Ron continues to redact personal information from files. We need to know that Donna and Joe live happily ever after. We need to know that Tom and Lucy do, too (is it too much to hope for babies for them?). And, we need to know that Jerry/Terry/Larry/Gary lives by whatever name he wants. This is why Parks needs to do another little time jump at the end of the series.

Other series have done it before, both comedy and drama. Most recently Parenthood moved time up a bit to show us the Bravermans a little ways down the road. 30 Rock even gave us a glimpse into the future, with flying cars and an immortal Kenneth. In an interview with TVLine, executive producer Mike Schur explained that the Parks writers watched the Six Feet Under finale before they started writing the final episode of Parks, and Six Feet Under jumps into the future, too (by detailing how all the characters ultimately die — but that's only keeping in line with the show).

This idea wouldn't be so far fetched, if only because Parks has already done it once before. And the show has never been about surprise twists and sudden turns, so the finale will more than likely wrap everything up nice and neat, while giving us total and complete closure for Pawnee. But, the best way to do that would be another tiny glimpse into the future of these characters we have come to love so much over the past seven seasons.

We'lll find out the fate of everyone Tuesday night when Parks wraps up for good, something none of us will ever be emotionally prepared enough to deal with. Hey, maybe another little time jump will show us that they've perfected the technique to bring Li'l Sebastian back from the dead. That would help cushion the blow.

Images: Colleen Hayes/NBC; Giphy