Parks and Recreation hilariously predicted the "off the rails" ending to Game of Thrones. The NBC sitcom debuted in 2009 before it came to end in 2015 after seven seasons. Parks and Rec's final season aired just as the HBO epic fantasy was gearing up to begin its fifth season. It seems as though the Parks and Rec team had an inkling that the Game of Thrones ending would not please a large portion of viewers.
At the start of Parks and Rec season 7, the timeline jumped three years into the future. The final season was set in 2017 as Leslie Knope served as the Midwest Regional Parks Director. Most surprising was the fact that Leslie and Ron Swanson no longer worked together and their friendship seemed to be over. Since leaving the Parks Department, Ron started his own construction company called "Very Good". In the first handful of episodes following the time jump, Leslie and Ron were pinned against each other as rivals until their friends stepped in.
During the season 7 episode "Leslie and Ron", Ben, April, Andy, Donna, Tom, and Jerry (Larry/Terry/Garry) decided to lock Leslie and Ron in the old Parks Department office overnight. The group hoped that the pair would be forced to work out their issues so they could go back to being friends. After they were trapped in the office, Leslie pleaded with Ben to open the door. She also interestingly proclaimed: "Game of Thrones is on tonight, it's the series finale! Khaleesi is marrying Jack Sparrow. God, that show has really gone off the rails."
How Parks And Rec Predicted Game Of Thrones' Ending
So technically the timeline doesn't match with the real Game of Thrones series finale. The final episode aired in May 2019 and the Parks and Rec episode was set in 2017, but it actually aired in 2015. The point of Leslie's line was to take a jab at the hit series and pretend that it went downhill as the seasons went on. Well, four years after that Parks and Rec episode aired, that came true in the eyes of many viewers. It's safe to say that many fans would agree that the Game of Thrones ending had "gone off the rails" since an overwhelming percentage of viewers were disappointed by the final season.
There was obviously no Jack Sparrow involvement as suggested by Leslie but there was one character who joined Game of Thrones who drew Pirates of the Caribbean comparisons. Euron Greyjoy had a heavy Pirates vibe and he did marry a prominent female character, although it wasn't Khaleesi. Even more interesting was the fact that this Game of Thrones joke wasn't the only prediction that was correctly made in Parks and Recreation's final season. The sitcom predicted that the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series in 2016 through an episode that aired a year earlier.