The year is 2017—or at least it will be on the seventh and final season of NBC’s Parks and Recreation—and the future brings all sorts of new technology, plus at least one new face.
Gryzzl, the chill company that agreed to hook up Pawnee with free wi-fi in the season 6 finale, will play a significant role in the show’s final run, as Pawnee residents are beta-testing its phones, tablets and other cool gadgets. Which means that not only will Workaholics star Blake Anderson return as Gryzzl CEO Mike Bean, The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone will be introduced as another upbeat exec from the company named Roscoe Kwang-Toftig. “He is vice president of cool new shizz, and that’s his actual job title,” Parks and Recreation executive producer Michael Schur tells EW.
The story lines involving Gryzzl will explore the theme of privacy—or lack thereof—in the digital age. “They are using Pawnee as a bit of a petri dish,” he says. “They, with the best of intentions, are creating technology, and when people are like, ‘This creeps me out,’ they’re like, ‘What’s the problem? This is amazing!’”
Anderson will pop up in the season premiere while Taccone (who has directed two episodes of Parks in previous seasons) will guest-star later in multiple episodes.
Season 7 begins a week from today, Jan. 13, and the guest roster for this final batch of episodes also includes Paul Rudd, Jon Hamm, Rachel Dratch, and Megan Mullally.
For more on Parks and Recreation as well as this winter’s most promising TV programming, pick up this week’s issue of EW.
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