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Amy Poehler: 'Parks' finale ends with 'a very exciting last moment'

Amy Poehler is setting up “Parks and Recreation” viewers to have high expectations for Thursday’s season finale. Packed with guest stars, including First Lady Michelle Obama, the one-hour episode will feature Pawnee’s benefit concert and have a “very exciting last moment,” Poehler told reporters during a conference call last week.“I just want to underline that the last minute or so o
Michelle Obama appears in the season finale of "Parks and Recreation."
Michelle Obama appears in the season finale of \"Parks and Recreation.\"Steve Jennings / NBC

Amy Poehler is setting up “Parks and Recreation” viewers to have high expectations for Thursday’s season finale. Packed with guest stars, including First Lady Michelle Obama, the one-hour episode will feature Pawnee’s benefit concert and have a “very exciting last moment,” Poehler told reporters during a conference call last week.

“I just want to underline that the last minute or so of our season finale, the last moments are really important, and big things happen that kind of show you where we’re going and where a lot of the characters are going or shows you where they may go,” she said. “So I would encourage everybody to make sure that they watch until the very end.”

Leslie (Amy Poehler) and Ben (Adam Scott) in the\"Parks and Recreation\" season finale.
Leslie (Amy Poehler) and Ben (Adam Scott) in the\"Parks and Recreation\" season finale.Steve Jennings / Today

In addition to Obama's appearance, the NBC comedy’s season finale, “feels like a huge kind of live event,” with recurring actors Megan Mullally, Billy Eichner, Henry Winkler and Lucy Lawless, as well as members of the Decemberists and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Poehler said.

“What’s exciting about working on ‘Parks’ always is that we keep moving things forward and never kind of sitting still as far as what happens to people,” she said. “People leave, they get new jobs, they get married, they break up — so I think it’s another example of big change happening for a lot of people, and I think fans of ours will be really excited coming into season seven about what this season’s finale will mean.”

What can be bigger than Leslie (Poehler) and Ben (Adam Scott) having triplets? In last week’s episode, the happily married power couple learned Leslie is carrying three babies. Leslie took it well, while Ben freaked.

“Leslie is a very ... is famously sort of an overachiever and having her body overachieve in terms of, you know, starting her family just seemed like a very logical thing to have happen,” executive producer Mike Schur said during the conference call. “And, you know, then the more we talked about it, you know, twins was sort of like OK, that’s, you know, that’s one level of overachievement, but triplets, that’s a real — that’s a winner.”

In the finale, Leslie will finally decide if she will leave her beloved Pawnee to accept the National Park Service job in Chicago.

“Even though this is the first time she’s been pregnant and she’s going to have children, she’s actually been a working mother for a while — even before she was married — because Pawnee is her kid,” Poehler said. “So she’s been like always torn between her town and doing what’s right for it, making sure she gives it enough time and herself and her career. There’ll be new jokes and new comedy to be had but, you know, we always believed that Pawnee was Leslie’s kid, and she wanted the best for it. That’s why when she’s trying to decide to take the new job or when her real actual physical family may get in the way of her life in Pawnee, it just creates more challenges.”

The sixth season finale of “Parks and Recreation” airs on Thursday on NBC at 8 p.m. The show has been renewed for a seventh season, and it is expected it will be its last.