Tomorrow night, the cast of Parks and Recreation will reunite for a special that will also serve as a fundraiser for Feeding America. The beloved NBC sitcom went off the air in 2014 after a final season set in 2017, and while showrunner Mike Schur was reluctant to do any kind of reunion or special, he felt that our current situation of social distancing and the importance of thoughtful government necessitated a new episode of Parks. He tells THR, "I didn't think Parks and Recreation would ever reunite; the show had a point to make and we made it and it ended and there was no compelling reason to do it — but this is as compelling a reason as there is."

The original pitch from NBC execs was to get the cast to do a table read of a prior episode, but once the cast responded, they decided a better use of everyone's time was to do something new and speaking to our times without specifically making it about COVID-19. Per THR:

"The whole special is not about the disease," Schur said. "It's about people coping with it and navigating their daily lives. The most important theme of the show is: Leslie Knope believes in friendship. She was loyal and friendly and put all her eggs in the power of friendship. It's about her connecting with people and holding that group of characters together at a time when they're unable to leave their homes. That's the running theme."

According to THR, "Actors were sent rigs with a tripod and iPhone, lights and microphones, all of which were disinfected. The cast filmed themselves using iPhones while Schur and other members from the Parks creative team looked on from other angles via Zoom." While writing the script only took three to four days, Schur said that the production itself was "slow and laborious" and that he doesn't see this as the future of television since it's a collaborative artform.

As for what to expect from the episode itself, it will make adjustments for why characters who are supposed to be together are broadcasting separately, but it will also avoid revealing Leslie Knope's political future, which was purposefully left vague in the series finale. The episode will be canon, but it's more about what's happening to these characters right now rather than what happens to them in the future (which the finale already kind of covered anyway).

The Parks and Recreation special airs tomorrow night at 8:30pm ET/PT, and it's preceded by at special Paley Center tribute to the series at 8pm on NBC.