Central Park – Dog Spray Afternoon

By: Paige Zinaman

The episode starts with an ominousness feel as Bitsy (Stanley Tucci) gets off the phone with a mystery man while telling Helen (Daveed Diggs) that everything is done and he is coming. Bitsy explains to Helen that it is a graffiti artist that is coming to wreak havoc on Central Park. Bitsy reveals that this man will be doing so much graffiti that New Yorkers will call it a plague. As they talk the mystery guy gets to work while Bitsy heads to bed. Birdie (Josh Gad) appears and starts talking about how Bitsy is being a “buttsy” and tells everyone that to be a narrator there are rules that he must follow. Two of such rules are that he can’t tell Owen (Leslie Odom Jr) and Paige (Kathryn Hahn) about what’s going and because “NO SPOILERS” is another one of his reasons. He goes into a song about how there’s so much he wants to say but he can’t and so he bleeps everything as a video montage plays.

Owen, Paige, Molly (Kristen Bell) and Cole (Tituss Burgess) are at the table that morning where Paige is super tired from researching what the Mayor told her. Paige tells everyone what happened and then falls asleep at the table. Owen receives word that someone has posted graffiti on the fountain to which Molly gets excited  and tells Owen she’ll go with him. Meanwhile, Helen meets with a man who Bitsy called to go over estate papers. Helen, who didn’t know he was coming, tries to get some sort of idea if she was mentioned in any of the papers he was there to talk about. It’s then that Bitsy tells Helen that she wants her to take Shampagne out for a walk as a radical treatment as his mood hasn’t changed since he arrived back home. Helen suggests they hire another dog “therapist” to which Bitsy freaks out because the last time they hired one she almost lost Shampagne forever. Bitsy informs Helen that the therapist sent her a collar that broadcasts a signal so she can see where Shampagne is at the whole time.

Back at Central Park Owen, Molly and Elwood (Rory O’Malley) arrive at the fountain to see the word “Shart” sprayed on the base of it. Owen mentions how it’s not funny and that certain things are off limits for people to graffiti. Molly, who is quick to agree, is also shut down by Owen when she’s about to say what she likes about it. Owen tells everyone to look mad at it.  Molly points out that he’s doing the nervous thing where he wipes his hands on his shorts, telling him that she thinks his shorts are confused and scared. Owen apologizes and tells them that taggers makes him anxious because now he’s going to have to call Gootch (Daniel Van Kirk) who happens to be Owen’s tagger informant. This news is shocking to Molly who tells Owen as much when he asks if she thinks he’s too uncool to have a tagger informant. Owen tells Elwood to turn on the power washer but to still look mad as he sprays the paint off. Somewhere on the other side of the park Cole is feeding the birds when he spots Shampagne and Helen walking. He runs to them just as Shampagne jumps at Cole. Cole talks to the dog as Helen watches on. She suddenly tells Cole that it’s time to go. As they walk away Cole tells her that she’s lucky she gets to do all of this with Shampagne. Cole asks Helen if he could hold the leash to which Helen asks if Cole would want to take Shampagne for a walk. He excitedly agrees to it and takes the pup out for a walk. As she sits she starts to think about the reasons why she puts up with Bitsy and starts singing. All of Helen’s feelings come to life during this song, a true break for her character.

Paige is on her search when everything starts to go wrong around them from coffee spills to stairs crumbling. Back at the park Owen meets with Gootch about who has been spraying the park. Gootch tells Owen that the “Shart” guy is making everyone mad because he’s spraying stuff they’d never touch but also spraying over other people’s graffiti as well. Gootch goes on to say that if he knew who was doing it he’d tell him because he’s giving “defacing public property a bad name.” Owen gets up to leave after telling Gootch to let him know if he hears anything else and wishing him luck with his homework. Meanwhile, Helen gets comfortable on the bench and starts to take off her shoes only to decide to quickly put the shoes back on. She gets spooked by Cole and Shampagne suddenly standing there. He shows Helen the new trick he taught Shampagne that earns a small quick smile from Helen. She tells Cole they need to go before asking if he’ll be available the next day at the same time. Cole quickly answers yes and hugs an unexpecting Helen who thought Cole was attacking her.

Back at home Molly watches from the basement stairs as Owen is frantically looking in boxes for paint thinner that his guys need and not finding the emergency stash that he thought he had. Molly offers Owen her nail polish remover to which he turns and asks her if it will get paint off a seesaw. Before anyone could say another word Elwood (radios in and tells Owen that the “Shart” guy took it up another level, when Owen and Molly arrive, they see that he spray painted of all things…. a tree. After pointing out the vain in his face, Owen and Molly take to the store to get flashlights and everything they’d need to catch the tagger when he comes back.  Molly asks how they’ll know where he’ll be to which Owen tells her that they can look at a map and try to map out all the places he’s tagged and go from there.

Helen comes into Bitsy’s office with a tray carrying pills for both Bitsy and Shampagne only realizing how similar they look and not knowing which one belongs to who. Bitsy who is still in with her estate lawyer tells Helen that they are busy and to come back later. Helen offers to get them all tea so they could get stuff done only to be cut off by Bitsy who tells Helen they need privacy because Shampagne has papers to sign. Helen who is shocked by this news asks how a dog could sign papers and have it be legal to which Bitsy’s lawyer informs her that in the state of New York, paw prints are legally binding. Owen, Molly, Elwood and the rest of the park crew meet up and look over the map and photos of everything that “Shart” has targeted. Owen tells them there’s something to each place the tagger hit, they start connecting the dots to find that he’s spelling the word “Shart” throughout the park only leaving one spot undone to which Owen says he’s going to stake out with Molly to avoid anyone getting overtime. Bitsy reads the newspaper headline and starts to sing a little victory song about being the smartest person in the world. Helen comes to Bitsy to tell her that Shampagne’s good leash is at the cleaners (it’s not) so she has to use the old one. Bitsy who isn’t really paying attention waves Helen off telling her to not forget to do the whole loop because they had extra custard after lunch.

Meanwhile at Paige’s office, she is finally onto something when she finds that each sale was never to an individual buyer and always to a corporation. To which is pointed out that it’s typical New York real estate where big companies are buying up parts of the city. Once Marvin (Tony Shalhoub) walks away to the break room, Paige continues her search and suddenly finds that they all have the same tax numbers. That it’s one company that is buying the mayor’s real estate and the prices he’s selling for. Paige tells them that it’s based in Panama but is soon at a roadblock when Marvin tells her that they do it that way because no one can find information about it. Helen is angry walking Shampagne and basically yelling at him over the papers that Bitsy had him “sign.” Helen runs into Cole and starts to pull Shampagne away from Cole to follow through with her plans. Owen and Molly are setting up things for the night when a guy appears, and they start talking about the graffiti to which the guy starts acting dodgy and says he doesn’t like graffiti and starts asking if they’re going to stay there to which they said yes. Birdie runs down Paige and asks how her investigation is going to which she responds not great and goes on about how much she’s gone through before Birdie blurts out a major spoiler to Paige that it’s Bitsy. At the entrance of the park, Helen tries to follow through with her plan but couldn’t do it when Cole shows up spooking Helen they start to leave when Shampagne sees a squirrel and darts for it only to have Cole run for him as a bus comes at them and Helen saves them both. Molly and Owen are staking out when Paige and Cole show up and tell them it won’t work if they laugh and have lights, Molly notices that they had met the tagger before in the park because he has the same tick as Owen and was waiting them out as they caught him.