 "Harvest Festival" received critical acclaim. New York magazine writer Steve Kandell called it the most pivotal episode of the season in terms of "resolving and resetting narrative stakes", as well as the most complex from a production perspective. Kandell wrote, "There's something that feels particularly satisfying about watching a wholly sympathetic, albeit fictional, character like Leslie Knope do well by her own ambition and by her friends." Entertainment Weekly writer Ken Tucker said the episode placed Parks and Recreation "squarely in the tradition of great gentle-hearted sitcoms" that treated its characters "with equal affection, and has relatively little patience for irony and cool detachment". He praised Amy Poehler's performance, and enjoyed how the characters'excitement over Li'l Sebastian demonstrated how "in some parts of this great land, there are people who aren ’ t jaded, who are open to wonderment, who find vessels in which to pour their joy". HitFix writer Alan Sepinwall said "Harvest Festival" may be his favorite episode of the season thus far, and demonstrates how the series has evolved. While in the first season he said Leslie was too over-the-top in a relatively ordinary setting, Sepinwall said this episode showed Parks and Recreation "has successfully made the rest of Pawnee seem as believably crazy as Leslie, if not moreso". TV Squad television reviewer Maureen Ryan called "Harvest Festival" a "delightful, comedically deft episode, one that depicts the mildly demented world of Pawnee in loving detail".
