page_title: Ron Swanson
section_title: Season Three
hierarchical_section_title: Ron Swanson / Storyline / Season Three
caption_attribution_description: English: Aziz Ansari at the 2012 Time 100 gala.
context_page_description: Ronald Ulysses Swanson is a fictional character portrayed by Nick Offerman from the situation comedy television series Parks and Recreation on NBC, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. In the series, Ron is the director of the Parks and Recreation department of fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, and the immediate superior of series protagonist Leslie Knope until Knope's election to the Pawnee City Council at the end of Season 4. In demeanor, political philosophy and work ethic, Knope and Swanson are polar opposites: where Knope is sunny and outgoing, decidedly liberal and constantly working, Swanson is distant, and as a staunch libertarian, is a strong advocate for small government—stating his belief that government should be privatized—and therefore believes that the parks department should not even exist.
  Ron, who has an extremely deadpan and stereotypical masculine personality, actively works to make city hall less effective and despises interacting with the public. He loves meat, woodworking, hunting, whisky, breakfast foods, nautical literature, and sex.
context_section_description: The third season opens with Ron seen begrudgingly returning to his city hall job after the Pawnee government has been shut down for three months. Ron starts to become a father figure of sorts to April and Andy (Chris Pratt) during the third season, despite his insistence that "I'm not interested in caring about people." When April is hospitalized with influenza in "Flu Season," she starts to explain her relationship problems with Andy, but Ron insists he does not want to know about her private affairs. However, after Ron hires Andy to be her temporary replacement, the two spend the day bonding and Ron, against his better judgment, tells Andy that April is in the hospital and that he should visit her. Later in the season, in "Media Blitz," Ron gets even further involved by chastising April for leading Andy on, and urges her to either forgive Andy or move on. His advice ultimately helps April decide to forgive Andy.
  Ron finds himself very happy in his relationship with Wendy, although it creates tension between him and Tom. This tension culminates in "Ron & Tammy: Part Two," when Tom brings Tammy to a party as his date simply to aggravate Ron. This occurs, however, the same day that Wendy and Ron break up, after she decides she must move back to Canada to care for her ailing parents. Ron and Tammy end up having a wild night of drinking and sex, in which Ron gets cornrows, he and Tammy get remarried and the two end up in jail. The parks department employees hold an intervention to try to convince Ron to leave Tammy, but their efforts are unsuccessful. After Tom reveals that Tammy only went to the party with him to make Ron miserable, Tammy brutally beats up Tom. This makes Ron remember how horrible Tammy is and he leaves her, thus ending their marriage for a second time, and Ron and Tom later reconcile.
  Shortly after Leslie successfully relaunches the Pawnee harvest festival, she struggles to find any new ideas for future parks project. She becomes so stressed that Ron, in the episode "Camping," locks her in a room and refuses to let her out until she gets some sleep. She awakens the next day refreshed and full of ideas. Ron attends Andy and April's wedding in "Andy and April's Fancy Party," where he has the first dance with April. When Leslie grows concerned they are rushing into their marriage, Ron insists it is not her place to say what works for them, and offers the advice: "Leslie I got married twice, both times I was a lot older than those two and both marriages ended in divorce...and a burning effigy. Who's to say what works? You find somebody you like, and you roll the dice, its all anyone can do."  At which point Leslie Knope replies "Wait, weren't you married 3 times?" To which Ron replies "My God you're right. I get to burn another effigy." In "Eagleton," Leslie discovers Ron's birthday, which he previously kept secret, and he fearfully suspects Leslie is planning an extravagant party for him. However, her surprise party for Ron is instead a quiet, private one more appropriate for Ron's personality: an evening alone with a steak, scotch, and copies of his favorite movies.
  When city manager Chris Traeger tries to remove red meat from the city hall cafeteria as part of a government-wide health initiative in "Soulmates," Ron intervenes by challenging Chris to a cook-off. Chris agrees to abandon his plan if Ron's regular hamburgers are deemed better than his lean meat turkey burgers. Although Ron exerts little effort compared to Chris, his burgers easily win the contest. In "Road Trip," Ron reluctantly agrees to be interviewed by a young girl for her school assignment, during which he explains his libertarian beliefs about small government, and illustrates the concept of taxes by eating 40 percent of her lunch. The two bond, and he ends the day by giving her a claymore landmine as a gift. Ron gets in trouble the next day when the girl's mother explains her daughter's assignment was "Why Government Matters," and that Lauren simply wrote "It doesn't."
  Ron learns in the third-season finale, "Li'l Sebastian," that Leslie
caption: Ron's relationship with the ex-wife of Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari, pictured) causes tension between the two characters.
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