Aubrey Plaza Brought Back The Eternally Cranky April Ludgate With Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope For A ‘Parks And Rec’ Reunion On ‘SNL’

There’s a chance the first time you saw Aubrey Plaza was on Parks and Recreation. For seven seasons she played April Ludgate, the eternally cranky small town government employee who rarely spoke above a withering monotone. Since then Plaza has shown incredible range. Last year she played both the desperate schemer in Emily the Criminal and an unraveling member of the nouveau riche on The White Lotus. But for her first-ever SNL, Plaza dusted off the character that made her name.

Plaza’s April joined Michael Che and Colin Jost on Weekend Update, ostensibly to encourage young viewers to get involved in local government despite, you know, how weird people are about such matters these days. It was, inevitably, like pulling teeth. Her advice included becoming a dog catcher, but instead of doing your job she advised you “just say you couldn’t find any.”

She was soon joined by a much more enthusiastic colleague, Leslie Knope, the eternally bubbly mid-level bureaucrat played by SNL alum Amy Poehler. However, Leslie found herself more enamored with being on the long-running sketch show. Instead of begging people to join local government, she grilled Jost and Che on how the show works. Eventually she even told a joke — not a mean one, but a nice one about a dog.

You can watch the Parks and Rec reunion in the video above.