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Ann Meredith Perkins, portrayed by Rashida Jones, is a character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. She is a nurse and Leslie Knope's best friend.
Ann is originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, moving to Pawnee sometime before the start of the series. Her ethnic background is a mystery and is often speculated about. After meeting Leslie Knope, the two quickly become best friends. Ann often serves as an inspiration to Leslie, whose many unique compliments specific to Ann, such as “beautiful opalescent tree shark” (One Last Ride) are a running gag in the show. Ann is often portrayed as the straight man, grounded and logical, opposed to the eccentric Leslie. Ann spends most of the series trying to discover herself. Ann is often uncertain and anxious, but still pushes herself, even when she is uncomfortable.
Initially, Ann is intimidated by Chris' intensity, calling him "the perfect human man". But after he is incapacitated by a serious flu virus and so drops his appearance of perfection, Ann relaxes. After a few weeks of dating, Ann is infatuated enough with Chris to have no issues with the idea of leaving Pawnee and following him to Indianapolis. When the two discuss the issue of a long-distance relationship or the notion of Ann's moving with him, Ann believes that things are a bit cleared up although she came up with no definite solution on the issue. Ann later tells Leslie Chris became distant after their "talk", which prompts Leslie to search his house for items that could suggest his infidelity, when she and Ron visit his house in Indianapolis. There, she finds a pink razor and pink swim cap, and calls Ann about it. Ann then storms into Chris' house, accusing him of cheating on her, only to find out that he had actually broken up with her in their conversation the week before; Ann did not realize he had dumped her, because Chris was so cheerful about it. (The razor and swim cap both actually belonged to Chris.)
Ann is emotionally affected by the break up, and she begins engaging in impulsive behaviors, such as dyeing part of her hair red and making out with a patient during the Harvest Festival. When Chris returns to Pawnee as the temporary city manager, the two of them discuss their relationship over dinner, where Ann is fooled again by his positive attitude into thinking their relationship is back on. In order to cope, she decides to start dating again, which causes her to be more distant from Leslie. Leslie, in response, recommends her as the new Health Department public relations director. Ann ends up taking the job part-time so she can still be a nurse at the hospital.
Ann decides she wants to have a child and begins the process of in vitro fertilization, asking Chris to father her child. Chris accepts her offer in the episode "Bailout". Ann and April's friendship expands this season, culminating in a hug and an admission on April's part that she considers Ann a friend.
In the episode "New Beginnings", Chris and Ann briefly get engaged but decide that they don't need to be married since they're both happy with their relationship. They also learn they are having a boy.
Chris and Ann decide to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, as Chris is offered a job at the University of Michigan coupled with their desire to be closer to Ann's family, who reside in Michigan. Upon hearing the news, Leslie decides to throw Ann a goodbye party and start groundbreaking on "Pawnee Commons", the lot that was a pit at the start of the series, which Leslie vowed to turn into a park. On Ann and Chris' final day in Pawnee, Ann tells Leslie she will always be her best friend and invites her to come and visit, then she and Chris leave Pawnee until moving back in the final episode of season 7.
On "Galentine's Day", Ann hangs up on Leslie from their scheduled phone call. Leslie later finds out that Ann did this because she was in labor and didn't want Leslie to drop everything to come see her because she could be in labor for hours. Ann is later visited by Leslie at the hospital, and she is seen holding her newborn son Oliver Perkins-Traeger. Chris is not featured in the episode because he was asked to be the birthing coach for another patient, since he did such a great job with Ann.
Ann Perkins appeared in every episode of Parks and Recreation until Season 6, except for "Woman of the Year", which she missed because she was filming scenes for the David Fincher film The Social Network (2010). Her last name was inspired by Nancy Perkins, one of the casting directors who worked on the show. In crafting the Ann Perkins character, the staff were drawn to the idea of building a show around a female relationship, namely Ann and Leslie Knope's.
Many reviewers were critical of the pairing of Mark and Ann, feeling the couple lacked chemistry and were often the least funny parts of the individual episodes. Entertainment Weekly writer Margaret Lyons called Mark and Ann the show's "Achilles' heel", and Sandra Gonzalez, also from Entertainment Weekly, wrote, "No matter what they do with these two, I can’t help but be bored." Alan Sepinwall said the relationship was ineffective because both Mark and Ann are "straight man" characters, and he called the pairing one of the few mistakes of the second season. In his review of "94 Meetings", in which Mark discusses his intentions to marry Ann, Leonard Pierce of The A.V. Club wrote of the couple, "their scenes just seemed to lay there and die: action was set up but never resolved, and the deferral contained no laughs to compensate for the dramatic fizzle". Matt Fowler of IGN called the pairing one of the "lesser elements" of the second season, but said it had more to do with Mark than Ann: "Mark just wound up feeling extraneous, but I can also appreciate the nuanced realism of Ann just realizing that she wasn't ultimately that 'into him' as a way to break them up."
Ann would receive much more positive reviews in the later seasons. Many reviewers claimed Ann's relationship with Chris in the third season was a major improvement, with several writing that Chris' near-perfection took the normally composed Ann out of her comfort zone, giving Rashida Jones more comedic material to work with. Several commentators felt Ann's character in general saw major improvements during the third season, such as in subplots where she started acting eccentrically after her break-up with Chris, or her phase of dating several random men. Steve Heisler of The A.V. Club wrote that by the middle of the third season, "Ann's character defies all the expectations heaped on her from two previous seasons". Eric Sundermann of Hollywood.com wrote: "Rashida Jones hasn't been given too much opportunity to shine within the ensemble, so pushing her off the deep-end seems to be a good decision. Jones is a really funny actress if given the right material, and it's quickly becoming apparent that the 'crazy, almost slutty' approach is one that works in a comedic way for her very, very well." Matt Fowler of IGN wrote, "While Ann still isn't the best of the bunch as far as characters go, she was able to be a part of more great scenes this year by getting paired up with Chris in the first half of the season and getting to have some great moments of drunken anger in 'The Fight'." Several reviews also praised the pairing of Ann and Donna Meagle, who gives her dating advice in the episode "Harvest Festival" and "April and Andy's Fancy Party".
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