Every rose has its thorn.

And sometimes the thorn turns on the rose and fucking stabs it and almost ruins it, even though it's otherwise a totally sweet-ass rose.

What I'm trying to say is, Parks and Recreation is back tonight. It's a likable and hysterically funny show and the two new characters that they introduced at the end of last season are a great addition to the cast which ought to help to make this third season the best yet and I so badly want to love but the show unconditionally, but it has a massive, gaping flaw, and it's impossible for me to understand how nobody involved in the show recognizes this: it's the recurring "joke" about how everybody holds the totally-inoffensive Jerry in utter contempt and barely even recognizes that he's a human being. A lot of people on the AVClub think this is funny, due to what I can only imagine are serious personality defects of some sort, but for normal people, it really damages the show. They seemed to be feinting at addressing the problem in the episode last season where Jerry lies about having been mugged in order to avoid his coworkers' abusive mockery and Mark points out that this might be indicative of deeper problems with this dynamic, but that seems to have gone out the window. At the beginning of the first episode of this new season, Leslie hurls a painting Jerry's working on into a lake. I mean, what the hell, Parks and Recreation writers? I was so stunned that I wasn't able to laugh at anything 'til after the first commercial break. Leslie's supposed to be a likable character--and she is, generally. But then, you have these bizarre lapses into sociopathy from her and pretty much everyone else on the show. Goddamnit. This would be, like, my fourth favorite TV show ever (The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad) if not for this crap, but you are forcing me to feel highly ambivalent about my love, and I hate that. Grrr!