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| "Screw you, Partridge! And a sled is a stupid mascot!" |
| — Leslie Knope |
"Partridge" is the seventeenth episode in the fifth season of the NBC television series Parks and Recreation. It originally aired on April 4, 2013 to 2.93 million viewers.
Synopsis[]
Ben and Leslie travel to Ben's hometown for a ceremony to accept the key to the city; Ron gets sued by Jamm; Chris and Ann take a compatibility quiz.
Storyline[]
Leslie and Ben head to Partridge, Minnesota, Ben's hometown. As a gesture of goodwill, the town is offering Ben the key to the city, a distinction given to all city mayors. Ben is pleased that the city has finally gotten over Ice Town and feels at home again. Before the ceremony, the pair visit Ben's sister, Stephanie Wyatt. At Stephanie's home, Leslie quizzes her on Ben's childhood girlfriends and Ben practices his acceptance speech. However, Ben suddenly falls down in pain and is taken to the hospital, where it is revealed he has kidney stones. The doctor insists that Ben stay at the hospital all day, where he's loopy while being doped up on painkillers. Leslie thus has to go to the ceremony on Ben's behalf.
Meanwhile, Ron receives a subpoena. He is being sued by Councilman Jeremy Jamm for punching him in the face on the night of Leslie and Ben's wedding. He later meets with Jamm and his attorneys where Ron calls upon Andy, April and Tom as witnesses. Both April and Tom provide false statements about Ron, to which Ron does not agree. He subsequently makes both recant their previous claims and both tell of Ron's many times when he outspokenly wished to punch Jamm in the face. When asked to make a statement of his own, Ron is straightforward and declares he regrets nothing.
On the other side of things, Ann and Chris undertake an online compatibility quiz to make sure they'd be a good parenting match. After finding out their score is a mere 58%, they begin to question whether or not this is such a good idea.
At the key-giving ceremony, Leslie discovers the ceremony was one big joke to mock Ben. The "key to the city" was made of ice and melted into water and the people of Partridge have in fact not forgotten about or moved on from the Ice Town debacle. Angered and offended, Leslie calls out the assembled citizens on their petulant cruelty and refusal to move on. Later, Leslie confronts the current Partridge mayor, Mayor Stice, who refuses to apologize for the mocking ceremony.
Feeling that Ron's future punishment is on them due to their damning testimonies, Andy, April and Tom storm into Jamm's office and blackmail him into dropping the lawsuit – the trio found that Jamm's affidavit was not entirely accurate, and then set him up by pretending that he assaulted Tom. Jamm is forced to give in and calls his lawyer to cancel the lawsuit, admitting "we got Jammed".
After spending the day failing to make up for their poor score, Chris decides to create his own compatibility quiz, with the only question being "Will you love our child and work hard to see he or she has a good life?" Both come to realize that all that matters is that they will love their child, with everything else being of a trivial nature.
As they sit at a park reflecting on the day's events, Ben bitterly realizes that the people of Partridge still see him as a failure despite all he's done to fix his mistakes and will never get over what happened. Leslie consoles him by revealing she stole the key to the city from the mayor's office. Ben, however, realizes he doesn't need this anymore and throws the key into a lake, cutting Partridge out of his life for good.
Cast[]
Quotes[]
Mailman: Do I have a Ronald Ulysses Swanson?
Ron: He stepped out. Can I take a message?
Mailman: Sure. Tell him he had just won a free dinner from St. Elmo Steakhouse.
Ron: [joyfully laughs] I'm Ron Swanson! [takes the envelope]
Mailman: You've been served! Have a nice day.
Ron: [upset that he was tricked] I don't like you! But I respect the effort.
Tom: Aw, man! A subpoena? Which ex-wife is it - Tammy 1 or Tammy 2?
Ron: Neither. Apparently Councilman Jeremy Jamm is not pleased that I punched him in the face on the night of Leslie's wedding. He is suing me. $13,000 for orthodontic surgery, $6000 for enamel repair, and $46,000,000 for psychological damages.
Andy: [groans] That seems about accurate.
April: [after hearing of Jamm suing Ron] That guy is the worst. We should sue Jamm's parents for spawning a human-turd burger.
Tom: [after Ron goes into his office] I'm surprised he's taking it this well.
Ron: AAAAAH! [a crash is heard and Tom, April, and Andy go inside Ron's office to see what happened - Ron has just thrown a baseball bat into the wall] April, could you call Maintenance please?
Ann: Stupid Internet.
Leslie: [to Stephanie Wyatt] Who are Ben's high school girlfriends and what base do you think he got to?
Tom: [seeing Jeremy Jamm's plaintiff team] Those are Jean-Ralphio's lawyers. They once got him $60,000 because he got too scared at a haunted house.
Ron: Tom and April were excellent witnesses in my defense. Unfortunately, every single word out of their mouths was a lie. There's only one thing I hate more than lying: skim milk. Which is water that's lying about being milk.
Ben: [after falling down in the bathroom] I think I'm giving birth! Is that possible?? No, right? Oh, God!
Ben: [high on morphine] "Price is Right" is on, I think. Oh, you remember staying home sick from school... [begins to weep] watching the "Price is Right"? Oh, God...!
Ron: [to April about lying in his defense] You even called me a 'vegetarian'! What if that testimony leaks? How will people ever respect me??
Andy: I love telling the truth. Case in point, sometimes when I blow my nose I get a boner. I don't know why. It just happens. Truth bomb.
Leslie: The town mascot is here.
Ben: Fred the Sled? They only bring him out for special occasions.
Ron: [talking to Jamm's attorneys] On the night I punched Councilman Jamm in the face, I warned him several times to back off. And instead, he attacked me twice. Truthfully, I barely registered his attack. He is incredibly frail and his arms are weak. And when I punched him, he dropped so quickly I thought he was diving towards the ground. I regret nothing. The End.
Jeremy Jamm: [smugly at Ron] You got jammed by your own team. Self jam! I'll see you in court, Swanson. And, uh, bring your checkbook.
Ron: I would like to punch you in the face, again. [Jamm nervously leaves]
[April, Andy, and Tom storm in Jamm's office]
April: Game's over, Councilman. Drop the suit.
Jeremy Jamm: And why exactly would I do that?
Tom: We took a look at your affidavit. We crossed referenced it with telephone records and eyewitness accounts and - uh-oh! - we found eleven lies. [Jamm looks uneasy]
Andy: Lying under oath is called 'perjury'. And they should know - they did it yesterday. [Tom and April nod]
[After April, Andy, and Tom leave Jamm's office]
Jeremy Jamm: [calling his attorneys] Yeah, it's me. We got jammed.