Remember Lot 48? (You may better remember it as the Pit behind Ann’s house.) It seems its days as a giant-sized hole are numbered though, as Leslie goes on the radio to send out an ad calling for any and all potential architects to submit their designs for the park. Things appear bleak – one submission even finds its way out from behind bars – but there seems to be hope when Leslie and Ben find a decent application from a Wreston St. James. Everything on his resume sounds perfect – until Leslie finds out that he’s from Eagleton, because in Leslie’s mind, anyone from Eagleton is pure evil.
Ben urges Leslie to at least meet the guy, as he’s the first – and only – legitimate application they’ve received. They meet Wreston at the park he designed for Eagleton, and it is stunning. It’s so amazing that it doesn’t even need trash cans. If someone accidentally – or on purpose like Leslie – litters, a friendly (and perhaps evil; those two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive) Eagletonian jogs over to pick up the trash. Ben is completely blown away, while Leslie remains unimpressed.
While Leslie and Ben are looking things over in enemy territory, the others are helping Tom fix up a rundown store he recently purchased for his new business Rent-A-Swag. When they first walk into the store, it’s pretty underwhelming – except for the raccoon that somehow found its way inside. Luckily for Tom, everyone cares about him succeeding in his new business endeavor and get to work right away on the store.
After their tour of the park, Leslie, Ben and Mr. St. James go back to City Hall. Despite his incredibly qualifications and sincerity, Leslie cannot see past the fact that he is from Eagleton (despite the fact that Leslie herself was born in Eagleton). Ben talks to Leslie, though, and reminds her that there really are no other options available and convinces her to apologize to Wreston, which takes several attempts.
After Leslie’s apology, two people from Wreston’s office show up with a model of what the Pawnee park will look like. It’s awful. Words cannot describe the anger in Leslie Knope’s voice when she said “You've got five seconds to get out of here or I will rip your throats out.” Meanwhile, Ben tries to attack the two evil Eagletonians.
Ben being Ben though, can’t quite believe that Wreston would do something like that. He decides to meet up with him and ask him what went wrong. It turns out that Wreston had nothing to do with that caricature of park life. He tells Ben that he actually fired the people who pulled the prank on Leslie and Ben – just as Leslie runs into the restaurant yelling “You butt-faced, pompous jerk!” and starts spraying silly string on Wreston’s head. (Have I mentioned that Leslie Knope is my hero? Because she is.)
Back at Rent-A-Swag, despite all the fixing, the store still looks rather sad. This causes Tom to have a minor freakout, prompting Ann to take him out for waffles and a pep talk. At the diner, she hands him a wad of cash, telling him that the others took up a collection, and that he came pay them back with one share of a stock each. This cheers Tom up and seems to give him a new sense of excitement for his business. It also gives him the drive to really make Rent-A-Swag look nice. Even Ron Swanson concedes that the store is nice, saying, “I hate all of this, which probably means it’s good.”
Rent-A-Swag isn’t the only new awesome addition to Pawnee though. Wreston brings Leslie and Ben the model he designed for the park and it is gorgeous. Perhaps through this collaboration between Pawneeans and Eagletonians, the two towns will become friends again – or maybe not. At least with Rent-A-Swag, Pawnee will definitely be the better dressed one.