S1E5: My #1 favorite food, wrapped around my #3 favorite food

Ron Swanson x Shakespeare

Episode 5: an homage to Ron Swanson.

Well, technically, it’s an homage to Marlene Griggs-Knope, who wins the highly coveted Pawnee Tellenson’s Award, but Ron Swanson deserves this Substack’s real estate way more. In episode 5, we learn three key facts about our until-now stoic Parks Department director:

1. Ron’s #1 and #3 favorite foods (maybe that’s two facts)

2. Ron’s tendency to liken people to furniture adhesives

3. Ron’s giddy little smile when he gets excited

To back up: in episode 5, Leslie learns that her mother’s going to be honored with a local public service award, the Tellenson’s Award. Leslie is asked to give the introductory speech, which of course feeds her vast ambitions of furthering a political dynasty. To prepare for her moment in the spotlight, Leslie goes to the local barber, Salvatore, who has cut all of the local male politicians’ hair. This doesn’t matter to Leslie, who walks into the event like this:

She’s decided to bring Ann to the banquet as her date but has told Ann it’s a black tie event, so Ann walks in like this:

(‘Twas really not black tie, to Ann’s dismay! Everyone else shows up wearing their “work event” best, aka slacks and cardigans). Everyone mistakes Ann and Leslie for a couple the entire night — they attract lots of compliments about how “brave” they are. Love wins!

Leslie spends the event trying to win the support of Janine Restrepo (“the queen of the zoning board”) for her parks project, but takes some reaaaaallly questionable advice from her mother, who tells her to blackmail Restrepo by threatening knowledge of Restrepo’s husband’s recent DUI. Leslie is no suave blackmailer, that’s for sure. She falls apart the minute she tries to corner Janine and gets water thrown all over her face. MEANWHILE, Tom takes Mark out for a very lackluster night at a bar to try and win girls, but classic Mark is the worst, has a horribly bad attitude, and leaves Tom to fend for himself. ALSO MEANWHILE, we’re starting to see some cracks in the Ann and Andy relationship! Ann clearly hasn’t been out on a proper date in a while but Andy “feels weird getting dressed up to go to the couch.” The girl just wants to be wined and dined, c’mon Andy!

But in the midst of all the wheelin’ and dealin’, there’s a true, true gem we see for the very first time in this episode: the real Ron Swanson.

April’s my favorite character in the show, but Ron’s a VERY close second. Until now, he’s been a brown-suit-wearing, mustached, stoic Parks director. Sure, he gets Leslie out of a bind in episode 4 with her trial and he wins some loyalty points when he sticks up for her in the face of authority, but he’s not much more than that. But we’re finally getting Ron! Swanson!

The real Ron Swanson, as we’ll come to learn, is a giddy, meat-loving, rugged outdoorsman who loves the local town mini-horse (can’t wait for the little Sebastian intro,

Katie @ Substack

promised me a cover of “5,000 Candles in the Wind” for the event). And I initially used to think that Ron Swanson actually wasn’t all that different from the real Nick Offerman.

Nick’s lllinois-born and raised (it’s not quite Pawnee, Indiana, but we’ll take it). He’s a master woodworker and big nature buff himself — he actually wrote an entire book about how much he loves to walk outside, and from 2081-2021 hosted a show with Amy Poehler centered around craftsmen and carpentry. He too is entangled with Megan Mullally, although it’s a much more successful entanglement than Ron Swanson and his second ex-wife, Tammy 2: Nick and Megan have been married for over 20 years and cowrote a book about their love story, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told.

There’s one favorite fun fact ever about Nick that I learned: he’s a classically trained Shakespeare actor!! Which probably isn’t a surprise to people who knew him before Parks and Rec and isn’t that shocking seeing some of his dramatic acting in shows like The Last of Us — but for someone who first met him in Parks and Rec as Ron Swanson, this was basically the shock of my life. Mostly because Ron Swanson abhors literally all pop culture (you might think it’s a stretch, me calling Shakespeare pop culture, but tell that to all of the English commonfolk back in his day! He was the absolute shit!) and has asked great clarifying questions when presented with examples from modern literature, like so:

But apparently in recent years, Nick Offerman’s less and less like Ron Swanson, and he jokes that it’s primarily for health reasons. Ron’s a carnivore who lives off of red meat, potatoes, and eggs. Veggies? Never heard of her. But Nick says his very human little heart can’t take it! He actually performed a song a few years back called “I’m not Ron Swanson,” where he finally sets the story straight: he’s just Nick!

Ron Swanson (NOT Nick) has my favorite quote of the episode when asked to share his feelings about attending said banquet:

“I enjoy government functions like I enjoy getting kicked in the nuggets with a steel-toed boot. But this hotel has bacon-wrapped shrimp. That’s my #1 favorite food, wrapped around my #3 favorite food. I’d go to a banquet in honor of those Samoan pirates if they served bacon-wrapped shrimp.”

What I love so much about this moment is how CRUCIAL grilled meat becomes to everything innately Ron as the series goes on. We get so many glimpses later in the show into his eating habits (“Just give me all of bacon and eggs you have,” he says to the local diner. “Wait, wait. I worry what you just heard was give me a lot of bacon and eggs, but what I said was, give me ALL of the bacon and eggs you have. You understand?”), but this is a pretty good first glimpse: Ron Swanson doesn’t care about much, but he does care about his grilled meat.

And he also thinks about people and trivial things like careers, lifetime achievements, and goals in terms of furniture varnish. When introducing Marlene Griggs-Knope, he decides to give a speech of just plain facts: “She has worked in the government for 30 years. Properly applied, that’s how long a good varnish should last.”

As the show goes on, Ron will help characters build their own furniture and solve elaborate puzzles, he’ll reveal more about his past relationships, he’ll grow close to April and Andy, he’ll fight with Leslie, he’ll be paid to spend time in the outdoors. But if there’s anything important to know about Ron Swanson as we start to exit season 1 (only 1 more episode after this one!), it’s this: good meat and a good varnish makes him go:

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More best moments:

• I totally forgot how much of a bit it was at the beginning of the show for Leslie to dictate her speeches to Tom and for Tom to totally twist her words under the guise of helping her

• In case you’re wondering what Leslie told Ann in order to prep for the banquet: “It’s the Oscars times the Grammys plus the Super Bowl.” Hence Ann’s floor length gown.

• The first ever Pawnee Pride Pap Walk:

  

• Ann and Leslie’s first ever fight!!! Ann gets upset at her for threatening to blackmail Janine Restrepo so Leslie calls out (truthful) things about her relationship with Andy. What a tame prelude to The Fight episode in season 3!! You know the once: Snake Juice. Everyone gets drunk. Jerry’s strapped to the top of a car. Best episode of all time.

• Tom peacocking in the bar with his orange fuzzy bucket hat gives me such similar energy to that scene from 17 Again when Ned shows up at Zac Efron’s school wearing cowboy boots with a limo

  

• I NEED to know what Marlene Griggs-Knope’s nickname is!!! Leslie and Ron both call her “The Iron [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] of Pawnee” – but Leslie says it like it’s a glowing compliment and Ron with a little bit of gleeful malice

Thanks for tuning in folks and please share whatever you think Marlene’s real nickname is:

Till next week!