Parks & Recreation saw different couples that became fan favorites, but the main one was Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt – and there’s a subtle detail throughout Parks & Recreation that makes their relationship even better. The 2000s saw a variety of sitcoms, with many of them becoming fan favorites, and among the best TV shows of the decade is Parks & Recreation, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. Parks & Recreation had a rough start, but it quickly found its own voice and it lived on for seven seasons, coming to an end in 2015.
Set in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, Parks & Recreation gave the audience a look into Pawnee’s Parks Department at City Hall through eternal optimist Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler). Over the course of seven seasons, the audience saw Leslie go through a variety of obstacles in her professional life, but she always found the best solution not just for her and the Parks Department but for her beloved Pawnee as well. Parks & Recreation also followed Leslie's personal life closely and saw the whole journey of her relationship with Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott), who ended up becoming her husband and the father of her triplets.
Ben Wyatt was introduced in Parks & Recreation season 2 when he and Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) arrived in Pawnee to save it as it was on the edge of bankruptcy. Leslie and Ben didn’t get along at first as she didn’t like his plan to save the city, which included firing people from the Parks Department and cutting her budget. Leslie and Ben eventually started to get along, and they started secretly dating between seasons 3 and 4, and in the latter season, they made their relationship official even though Chris had forbidden inter-office dating. Ben proposed to Leslie in Parks & Recreation season 5 and they married in that same season, and their relationship was made even better and more heartwarming through one subtle detail: a wooden box they used in key moments of their careers and relationship.
Parks & Recreation season 4 started with Leslie deciding to run for city council with Ben’s encouragement, but this also meant the end of their relationship (though that didn’t last long), and during dinner, Ben gave Leslie a gift in a wooden box: a “Knope 2012” button. After getting back together, Ben resigned from his job in order to save Leslie’s, and after a somewhat dark phase where he was unemployed and tried different hobbies, Leslie asked him to be her campaign manager, and he accepted. In Parks & Recreation season 4’s finale, Ben is offered to run a congressional campaign in Washington D.C., so he and Leslie decided to continue their relationship long-distance, and Leslie gave him a gift in the same wooden box: a Monument figurine.
The wooden box made one final and important appearance in Parks & Recreation season 5. In it, Ben successfully ran the congressional campaign and was offered another one, this time in Florida, but he turned it down so he could return to Pawnee with Leslie. Ben then proposed to Leslie, and he carried the ring in the same wooden box where he gave her the button and which she later used to give him the figurine. A detail as subtle as a reused wooden box makes Leslie and Ben’s relationship even better and more heartwarming as it shows that they paid attention to even the smallest and most heartfelt details, and the wooden box marked some key moments in their relationship. Leslie and Ben went through many ups and downs in Parks & Recreation, but they overcame every obstacle and built a beautiful family while also pursuing their dreams in their professional lives.