Li'l Sebastian
In the episode, as the parks department prepares a funeral for Pawnee's famous miniature horse Li'l Sebastian, Leslie and Ben struggle to keep their workplace romance a secret.
The episode featured guest appearances by Megan Mullally as Ron's ex-wife Tammy, Ben Schwartz as Tom's friend Jean-Ralphio and retired basketball player Detlef Schrempf as himself.
Leslie announces Li'l Sebastian, Pawnee's beloved celebrity miniature horse, has died and the parks department will hold a memorial service for him.
As the city prepares for the memorial service, Leslie and Ben are caught making out by a maintenance worker named George, so they send him home with a gift certificate in exchange for his silence.
Unfortunately, George had the propane for Li'l Sebastian's eternal flame, which results in later confusion behind the scenes, that Leslie and Ben struggle to fix throughout the night.
Jerry is sent to get propane for the flame but buys lighter fluid instead; this causes a huge fireball to shoot into the air when Ron lights it, which singes off his eyebrows, part of his mustache and hair.
Impressed by the memorial service and the harvest festival Leslie previously organized, they believe she would be a good candidate for upcoming city council seats, or possibly the mayoral position.
[2][4] The final few minutes of "Li'l Sebastian" introduced major developments for several of the characters, including Leslie being approached with the idea to run for elected office, which has been a lifelong dream for her.
[1][5] Although Schur said the writing staff had a general idea of where the newly introduced storylines should go, the exact stories had not been completely worked out yet and the writers would be brainstorming how to handle them over the summer.
[13] The character Li'l Sebastian, a miniature horse beloved by the residents of Pawnee, was first introduced in "Harvest Festival", which was also written by Goor.
"[6] Schur said his favorite scene in the episode was when Leslie arrives at her secret meet-up spot with Ben, only to find Ron waiting there, and awkwardly tries to insist there is no affair.
"[6] Immediately after "Li'l Sebastian" first aired, a "Producer's Cut" version was made available on the official NBC.com website, which included an additional six minutes of material.
[15] While trying to have a moment of silence for Li'l Sebastian in the parks department office, the staff is interrupted by a custodian playing the Shania Twain song "Man!
At one point, Leslie tells Ben she is going to kiss him both like former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt,[10][18] and former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
[22][24] In its 10:30 p.m. timeslot, "Li'l Sebastian" was outperformed by the fourth season finale of the ABC medical drama series Private Practice, which was seen by 7.45 million household viewers.
Club called it the best Parks and Recreation episode so far, and compared the cliffhanger and "many of the bittersweet moments leading to it" to the comedy series Freaks and Geeks.
He said Li'l Sebastian's funeral brought out the best in the characters, and that the episode "combined slapstick, authentic stakes and a holistic picture of the oddball history and commonalities that bond the folks we've come to know in Pawnee".
[7] The Atlantic writer Scott Meslow called the episode a "triumphant exclamation point at the end of Parks and Recreation's third season", and described every moment as "uproariously funny".
[10] Paste magazine writer Garrett Martin called the episode a "tour de force that expertly wrapped up an excellent season".
Garrett said the show's characters were "so vivid and instantly memorable" that the death of Li'l Sebastian really felt like a major event, even though he had only previously appeared in one other episode.
Porter praised that the final scenes presented so many changes for the characters but never felt out of control, which he attributed to "the cast's ability to play things at just the right level and the writers for knowing just how cartoonish Pawnee can be without tipping too far".
[19] Nick McHatton of TV Fanatic praised the episode, and said he found particularly hilarious the scene about Leslie and Ben accidentally pocket dialing Ron during their sexual roleplaying.
