Parks & Recreation has one of the best TV finales of the decade as it managed to give all its main characters happy endings, but not all of them deserved it, especially Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari). Parks & Recreation earned the hearts of the audience thanks to its tone and sense of humor, as well as its relatable and charming characters who the audience saw go through many ups and downs in their personal and professional lives, with most of them growing and becoming better people than when the series started, though that wasn’t the case with all of them.
Set in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, Parks & Recreation was led by Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), through which the audience met her closest friends and coworkers, among them Tom Haverford. Tom worked with Leslie at the Parks Department but spent most of his time focusing on a variety of business ideas that, ultimately, never worked, and he also stood out for his sarcastic personality. At the end of Parks & Recreation, Tom married Lucy and became a best-selling author after his restaurant, Tom’s Bistro, failed, but looking back at his whole history throughout Parks & Recreation, there are a couple of reasons why Tom didn’t deserve a happy ending.
5 Tom Was Disrespectful To Women Throughout Parks & Rec
Tom’s sarcastic and cocky attitude made way for some of the most memorable comedic moments in Parks & Recreation, but it also made him quite problematic. Tom was overconfident but also self-centered, and he was rude to different characters (particularly Jerry, who he constantly bullied, even in times when the rest were more understanding of good old Jerry), but he was mostly disrespectful to women. Tom considered himself a ladies’ man and even though he was married at the beginning of Parks & Recreation (though it was a green card marriage), he constantly and aggressively flirted with various women and didn’t stop when they showed no interest.
Tom went as far as to be a judge at the Miss Pawnee pageant just to flirt and meet new women, and he constantly hit on Ann Perkins from the moment he met her, and they eventually dated, though that was a disaster. Tom also tended to sexualize and demoralize women, and he didn’t handle rejection well, such as when he tried to blackmail his ex-wife, Wendy, when they divorced. Tom wasn’t just disrespectful to the women he tried to attract, but also to his coworkers, particularly Leslie, who was nice, understanding, and ive of him, but Tom didn’t really care about their job and even used Leslie for his own benefit, which leads to the next reason why Tom didn’t deserve a happy ending in Parks & Recreation.
4 Tom Took Advantage Of His Friends
Throughout Parks & Recreation, Tom took part in different events where his friends needed some extra help, and while this might seem like Tom was being a good friend, more often than not it turned out that he had plans of his own. A big example of this is when Leslie was running for office and her friends from the Parks Department stepped in to help her. Leslie asked Tom’s high-end entertainment company, Entertainment 720, for help to put on a Meet and Greet for Pawnee’s businesspeople, but Tom ended up using this chance to promote himself and the company, rather than Leslie and her campaign, embarrassing her in the process. Tom also took advantage of his friends’ help when he came up with new and crazy business ideas that ultimately failed, and he was also very manipulative throughout the whole series.
3 Tom Was The Most Selfish Of The Parks & Rec Group
Linked to the above reason why Tom didn’t deserve his happy ending in Parks & Rec is the fact that, out of all the main characters in the series, he was the most selfish. Tom constantly stole others’ spotlight to make it about himself, as he couldn’t stand someone else getting all the attention. Among Tom’s most infamous selfish moments in Parks & Recreation is when he presented the Man of the Year award to Ben Wyatt at the Pawnee Bicentennial Gala. Tom’s speech started well until he made it about himself, talking about how much he has helped Pawnee and his businesses, such as Tom’s Bistro, and never talked about Ben and his accomplishments. Another example is when he took control of Ben’s bachelor party because he was bored, even though Ben wanted to play board games and drink beer with his friends. Tom proposed they went to a new bar called Essence, and even though Chris pointed out that it was Ben’s night, Ben agreed to it if the rest wanted to go – and as soon as they arrived, it was clear that it was a place that would only appeal to Tom.
2 Tom Never Actually Cared About His Job In Parks & Rec
Although not all the employees at the Parks Department were satisfied with their job, as was Ron Swanson’s case, they always did what they were supposed to, but not Tom Haverford. Tom was the of the Parks Department and Leslie described him as her “right-hand man”, but he rarely did something at his job. Leslie asked him for help various times, and he didn’t really have to do much, such as write down her thoughts when she had a good idea, help her community garden in the pit, or hide Easter eggs for the children to find. Instead, Tom spent most of his time coming up with new business ideas that would never truly succeed, and even worse was that his friend, Jean-Ralphio, was always backing up (and even funding) his ideas, thus keeping him away from actually doing his job.
1 Tom Never Learned From His Mistakes
The main characters in Parks & Recreation went through a lot over the course of seven seasons, and their character development led to their satisfying and well-deserved happy endings, but the same can’t be said about Tom. Unlike his friends, Tom didn’t change much since Parks & Recreation season 1, and he was constantly selfish and manipulative, and though he seemed to be on a better path when he got back with Lucy, the Parks & Rec finale proved that Tom was still the same in many, many ways. Surely, not everything about Tom Haverford was bad and he has good qualities as well (his perseverance, for example), but looking back at his history in Parks & Recreation, he didn’t really deserve his happy ending, at least not without learning some important lessons.
