When I need background noise while writing, more often than not I turn to The Office. And rewatching a show as often as I have means you have thoughts and opinions.

These are mine.

The Road to Farewell

The one, true, key episode of season seven is Goodbye Michael. A year after announcing that the show’s one main star and central character, Steve Carell, would be moving on, the staff of Dunder Mifflin said an emotional farewell to their insensitive, loving, sometimes awful, sometimes pretty OK boss Michael Scott, as Michael left Dunder Mifflin and Scranton to move to Colorado with his one great love, Holly Flax.

Much like the Michael Scott Paper Company arc two seasons back, it would be easy to think Michael’s departure arc started when Michael announced his intention to move away three episodes earlier. And again, you’d be wrong. There’s a lot of ground to cover before Michael’s ready to jet off to his own blue heaven.

Now we’re not going to get into whether or not Michael deserves a happy ever after. It’s been seven years, at this point you’ve either learned to see past Michael’s faults or you haven’t. And if you haven’t you might not have made it this far. So no, we’re just looking at what needed to happen to get Michael to a point where he was ready to leave the company that was his home and that staff that were his family behind. The path begins in the season premiere, and runs right up until Garage Sale, when Michael makes his choice.

In the season premiere, “Nepotism,” the annual “how was your summer montage” reveals that the new and inept intern everyone hates is Michael’s nephew, who he has hired in an attempt to reconnect with his half-sister and her family.

Notice how this is the first time we’ve ever heard of Michael having a half-sister? Or a nephew? Or relatives other than his mom and step-dad (his father having walked out a long-ass time ago)? Notice how other than two phone calls to his mother and a failed attempt to get his grandmother to invest in his paper company, he seems to have no interaction with his family at all? That’s the key. That is why he is. Michael tries to force Dunder Mifflin into being a family because most of his own flesh-and-blood family rejected him.

Other key steps… in “Sex Ed,” an ingrown hair that an easily swayed Michael gets convinced is herpes causes him to revisit all of his relationships from the past six seasons. Encouraged by Dwight to inform all of his lovers that he may have given them herpes, he calls Holly. But after an actually sweet moment, she claims that they never had the deep, pure love he thought (I mean, you can see where she’s coming from, she and Michael dated for a week whereas she and her new boyfriend AJ have been together for two years), and he tends to over-romantacize. This causes Michael to use the herpes informing quest as an excuse to reexamine his relationships with Jan, Carol, and Helene to see if he really does blow these things out of proportion. And in so doing, he sees his past loves for the dysfunctional messes they were, and realizes he does, in fact, over-romanticize his relationships… but not Holly. Never Holly. The exercise only reinforces his belief that she’s the one great love of his life.

In similar terms, Christening brings Michael face to face with another unpleasant reality: that for all of his attempts to make Jim and Pam part of his family, he still isn’t part of theirs. Much like their wedding last year, Michael ensures that the entire staff turns up for baby Cece’s christening, only to be a) told he can’t sit in the family section, and b) made to say out loud that he understands that he is not, in any way, Cece’s godfather. (Pam tries to be as kind and apologetic about it as she can, but will settle for nothing less than hearing him say the words “I am not the godfather…” also, they met Cece’s actual godparents at a Mommy and Me class? Do Jim and Pam not have friends and siblings?) Being faced with this cuts deep enough that when the people of… whoever’s church this is… Jim? Pam? Is Pam Catholic? Neither of them strike me as Catholic… Anyway, Michael gets caught up in the church community spirit enough that he briefly joins a youth mission heading for Mexico (as does Andy, in an attempt to impress Erin, I’ll come back to that), which goes about as well as you’d expect.

As to more minor stuff. In Counselling, Michael and Toby finally go 12 rounds. Costume Contest allows Darryl to sound off about how poorly Michael’s treated him. Viewing Party challenges his view of himself as the office father figure when everyone starts deferring to Gabe (of all people) over him… only to see that lifetime foster kid Erin legitimately sees him as a surrogate father. In WUPHF.com, Michael comes to terms with his relationship with Ryan being more one-way than he believed.

And then in Classy Christmas, Toby leaving to serve on the Scranton Strangler jury (told you he had a role to play) brings Holly back. Once they get back together, Threat Level Midnight lets him see that Holly is more important than his dreams of making movies (and that the movie he’s been filming with his coworkers and other associates… a wonderful parade of past characters… is actually really, really bad), and Todd Packer provides the final “Michael sees a relationship for what it is” plot, as Holly opens his eyes to the fact that Todd Packer is not the friend or comic genius Michael thinks.

And then there’s nothing left but the farewells. Some are funny, some are incredibly touching, and one is silent, as Pam says her goodbye right after the Documentarians said theirs, reclaiming Michael’s mic pack. (Leading to a silent, goodbye “That’s what she said.”) And when we’re done… well, there’s a bit of a hiccup.

When We Fail to Plan

There isn’t really a concrete succession plan for Michael Scott. Story-wise, there kind of is, as Training Day introduces us to Will Ferrell as Deangelo Vickers, Michael’s impending Sabre-appointed replacement, but one episode after Michael leaves, a head injury sends him packing. Dwight gets appointed acting manager when Jim turns the job down, Creed of all people takes his place when he bungles it. But as for a long-term replacement? Nobody knew.

And I am including the producers in this.

The two-part season finale, Search Committee, ends with the titular committee (Jim, Toby, and Gabe) still not having chosen a new manager. It’s kind of a weak-sauce cliffhanger, because the only reason it’s happening is that the producers hadn’t picked one yet. And really, there is just no excuse for that. Steve Carell announced he was leaving a year earlier, so that the impending return of Holly was teased in the season six finale. So how is it possible that by the end of the season, four episodes after Michael left, nobody knows who the new boss is?

The way it certainly appears, and the way it’s often been reported, is that the producers used Search Committee as a kind of audition. It was filled with big name guest stars, some of which were just there as a lark, some of which were serious candidates to replace Steve Carell. So the producers used this episode, and fan reaction to it, to test-run some potential new managers.

The problem with this is that actors of the caliber they were looking for tend to make other plans if you don’t act fast.

Will Arnett was said to be the first choice, and why wouldn’t he be. His character claims to have a three part plan to rebuild the company, but refuses to share anything more than one small subsection of part two (“Colour code said documents”) until he’s hired. But by the time the producers decided they wanted to hire him, a pilot he’d shot got picked up for that fall (an utterly forgettable show called “Running Wilde,” only occasionally elevated by genuinely funny performances by Arnett, Peter Serafinowicz, Mel Rodriguez, and recurring guest star David Cross), so he was out.

Second pick was British comedian and former Doctor Who companion Catherine Tate as Nelly Bertram, a friend of Jo Bennet whose interview was as filled with confidence as it was devoid of meaningful content. Tate was already booked to do Much Ado About Nothing in London with David Tennant, from before season eight was supposed to start filming until a week before my visit to London that year. God DAMN it. So she was out… for a while. Stick around and she’ll be back.

There were also three internal candidates: Dwight, Andy, and Darryl. Dwight’s desperate attempts to get back in consideration after being removed from the position in the previous episode are mostly played for laughs, but… there was (to me) a confusing amount of support for the idea. Reviewers, some fans, even Mindy Kaling backed Dwight. And I was just… forget how bad he was at this job in season three, we just did an episode proving he is still utterly, laughably unsuited to any amount of legitimate authority. It’s especially weird to hear writer/producer/cast member Mindy Kaling in support. I mean, was she just not on set that week? Did she miss the writers’ room saying “Let’s do an episode proving that Dwight is still bad at management?”

But the one to watch is James Spader as Robert California. His scary, almost cult-like confidence won more discerning minds over pretty quickly.

Relationship Dramas

Everything is hunky-dory for Jim and Pam this season. Pam secures herself a new job basically by inventing it and claiming she’s had it for months now. And Jim… is present? I don’t think they actually have any major arcs this season.

Angela and Dwight, on the other hand. At the end of season six, Dwight decided he wanted a child, and recruited Angela to mother it. With a contract and everything. But having decided that Pam’s friend Isabel, who he’d hooked up with at the wedding, is a superior specimen, he tries to back out of the deal. Leading to the most Dwight and Angela reunion possible… a legal dispute over their contract ends in them agreeing to have sex to completion on five occasions (an agreement the arbitrator desperately tries not to be present for). As the season opens, Angela is trying to leverage their contractually mandated intercourse to rekindle romantic feelings, as any normal person would in this very common scenario. But eventually Dwight’s disinterest takes a toll, just in time for a new player to arrive… Heroes’ Jack Coleman as The Senator, aka State Senator Rob Lipton.

On the one hand, Angela’s new romance with The Senator (as she insists on calling him at all times) makes her more insufferable than ever, as she is absurdly tacky in her eagerness to throw around her new life as a politician’s girlfriend/fiance, despite Oscar’s habit of swiftly pointing out he’s only a state senator, which is far less impressive. For a time (before Oscar gives up on it), “State Senator” is the new “Assistant to the regional manager.” But on the other hand, Angela’s comeuppance is swiftly written into the arc… upon actually meeting him, Oscar notices that The Senator is secretly gay. (Something Ryan is swift to back up, citing “He liked my Facebook photos at 3 AM.”)

So basically, Angela becomes a monster of smugness and condescension unlike ever before, but at least her amazing new life is a sham, and you know it’s going to blow up in her face eventually. The only issue is that the fuse is pretty long.

Meanwhile… Andy and Erin hit a road bump when Erin found out about him and Angela. And I guess she never got over it, because when the season kicks off, she’s with Gabe.

Erin and Gabe. What can a person say about Erin and Gabe, other than you have to wonder if the writers looked at Erin and Andy, asked why they weren’t on the level of, say, Jim and Pam, and decided the answer was “They never had a Roy.” Erin and Gabe don’t make a lot of sense as a couple. Or any sense. They don’t have chemistry, their interests don’t really overlap, they’re never super believable, their first date story is a textbook case of sexual harassment. “Thank god he’s my boss,” says Erin, “Because I wouldn’t have said yes to dating him if I didn’t think I had to.” How little are we supposed to be invested in them as a couple? Look to one of Gabe’s talking heads: “Yes, we are still together. Why do you always ask me that?” Or when Jim and Pam catch Erin eating lunch in her car to avoid spending time with her boyfriend, and Jim taps out, leaving Pam to deal with Erin. “You’ve got this,” he says to Pam, before telling the cameras “I’m sorry, that… just wasn’t interesting to me.” You speak for us all, Jim.

No, Gabe and Erin… while nowhere near as toxic a couple as Angela and Andy, because no couple could be this side of Jessica Jones and Kilgrave (and I had to think about that one, that’s how messed up Angela and Andy were)… are not a couple you root for, sympathise with, or even understand. They exist so that Andy can try to win her back. Only to give Andy his own Karen Filipelli in his new girlfriend (thanks to a party invite from Darryl), so that when Erin decides it’s Andy she loves, they still don’t get together.

Works on paper, right? Worked for Jim and Pam, could work again? Sure, except no. No it doesn’t. Because I’m just going to warn you, this isn’t going anywhere worth reaching. Erin and Andy aren’t a perfect couple, or even a good one. Their relationship is a time-filler, a B-plot the writers will eventually lose interest in.

But that’s a ways away yet.

Key episdoes

I mentioned the key episodes of the Goodbye Michael long game. Andy’s Play is a fun one for musical fans. Skip nothing between Classy Christmas and Goodbye Michael, because you can’t afford to miss a Holly episode.

Michael’s Last Dundies is a great one. There are a lot of annual events at Dunder Mifflin that the Documentarians only bother to capture once. We see all but one Christmas party, and a handful of Halloweens, but we only see one company picnic, one beach day, one birthday party for Michael, one inventory, and until now, only one Dundie Awards. But for Michael’s penultimate episode, we take our second and final trip to the Dundies, as Michael tries to coach Deangelo on how to run the event in his absence. That his approach is lifted from The King’s Speech, one of the decade’s more forgettable best picture winners, does not age super well, but other than that, killer episode with a surprisingly emotional conclusion.

Skippables?

I’m not crazy about China, in which Michael successfully proves Oscar wrong about the Chinese economy, leading to a political knowledge showdown, and Pam (as office administrator) and Dwight (as the new owner of the building) clash over Dwight’s draconian money saving policies. Which… can we add this episode to the list of “episodes that prove Dwight was in no way capable of being the new manager, Mindy Kaling?” Dude goes mad with even a small amount of power, why would anyone… but I repeat myself. Anyway. Not crazy about that one.

Notable guest stars?

In addition to Will Arnett, Catherine Tate, and James Spader, Ray Romano, Jim Carrey, and Warren Buffett turn up as applicants for Michael’s job.

When Ricky Gervais, creator and star of the British original, was in town to host the Golden Globes, the producers saw an opening, and filmed a cold open crossover, in which Michael Scott meets David Brent. David Brent returned in Search Committee, having filmed an application for Michael’s job. They make for two cute homage cameos.

Kathy Bates makes her final appearances as Jo Bennett this year. She was missed. That makes it sound like she died… she didn’t. She didn’t die. She’s just busy and expensive.

In addition to Melora Hardin and Nancy Carell returning as Jan and Carol in Sex Ed, Rashida Jones (Karen), David Denman (Roy), David Koechner (Todd Packer) Melora Hardin, and others all return for Threat Level Midnight, to reflect the fact that Michael’s been filming this on and off for five years.

And Timothy Olyphant makes two appearances as Danny Cordray, a rival salesman who also has a history with Pam.

New characters

Robert California and Nellie Bertram are introduced in season eight, and we’ll be seeing more of them, but more significant to this season is Dwight’s new handyman, Nate. With Michael Schur busy running Parks and Recreation, Dwight’s cousin Mose couldn’t be his inept right hand very often, so a new henchman was required. Nate is somewhat clueless, but endearingly earnest and affectionate, making him a perfect henchman for Dwight without also making him one of Dwight’s equally crazy and aggressive friends. He never makes it into the full ensemble, but he’s reliably funny when he does turn up.

When I need background noise while writing, more often than not I turn to The Office. And rewatching a show as often as I have means you have thoughts and opinions.

These are mine.

The Unbreakable Erin Hannon

The Michael Scott Paper Company arc accomplished a few key things. Not so much for Michael Scott, he ended up right back where he started. Sure there were some ruffled feathers to smooth over in Casual Friday, but by Café Disco all is back to normal. (Leading to one of his more depressing lines as he eats lunch in his office… “I guess they got what they want. I am eating alone. Might as well be dinner.”) No, it was important for other reasons… with his post-Basterds return to the series, BJ Novak properly debuted trend-chasing, phone-addicted, Silicon Valley-wannabe Douche Ryan, and Pam finally escaped the receptionist desk to become a salesperson. And in so doing, she opened the door for the new receptionist, Ellie Kemper as Erin Hannon.

I mentioned this last time, but in season five she’s basically “the new receptionist” and “the girl Andy likes.” Season six is when the writers began to fully realize what a weapon they had in Ellie Kemper. And they found the perfect way to carve her out a new and fresh role in the ensemble… enthusiasm. Sheer, unbridled, enthusiasm. When we meet the bulk of the cast, they’ve already endured up to four years of Michael’s cringe-inducing management style and Dwight as authoritarian second banana. It’s mostly just sighs, eye rolls, and the occasional “Excuse me?” from Stanley when we join in. Erin? She buys into it. Into all of it. In her eyes, Michael is the greatest boss she’s ever had or could have, and all of Dwight’s demands make total sense.

We get the first taste of this in Café Disco, when Dwight gets suspicious about a map to a courthouse he finds, and in the process of leaping to conclusions demands to see Erin’s birth certificate. Whereas Pam or Meredith would have just given him a bemused or irritated look and ignored the demand, Erin says “Sure!” and practically dives for her purse. In season six, she truly believes that spinning Michael in his chair until he’s dizzy is an important and valuable creative exercise. With a frequent beaming smile and an unabashed glee, she greets every scheme and encounter with sheer enthusiasm that the more wearied staff could never manage. (Well, except Creed.)

And she nails it. Ellie Kemper is the poster child and greatest argument for the broader, less grounded show The Office became after season three. Erin wouldn’t have really worked in the gloomier, more cringe-driven Office of season two, with its failed Secret Santas and constant threat of downsizing. In season six, she thrives. Even if she does still have to serve as romantic interest for Andy. But as her character grew and developed, she made that work as well.

That said… if she’s not enough of a breath of fresh air for you, there is another option early in the season.

The First Off-ramp

A lot of shows would end with an episode like the two-part Niagara. (And it is/was designed as a two-parter, not an hour-long.) Jim and a pregnant Pam decide to get married at Niagara Falls, in the hopes that a destination wedding would scare away some of their co-workers. Hopes that Michael dashes by giving the entire office a long weekend to make the trip.

Not every wedding on this show gets the level of reverence that Jim and Pam’s does. Phyllis’ Wedding may have gotten an entire episode devoted to it, but it ultimately wasn’t even about Phyllis, it was about Jim and Pam and Roy and Karen, and Michael’s need to remain central to the attention. Jim and Pam’s wedding, though… yes, there are shenanigans. Michael fails to book a room, assuming he was so vital to the process that would be taken care of; Dwight successfully hooks up with a bridesmaid, triggering a triangle with Angela late in the season; Kevin leaves his shoes out to be polished only to have them destroyed by the hotel (“It became a safety issue,” explains the manager); Andy tears his scrotum trying to dance his way into Erin’s heart (or other regions). Jim and Pam are hell of late for the ceremony (for surprisingly adorable reasons) and Michael shanghais it to recreate a viral video, but…

If the end result doesn’t make you tear up a little you’re a robot. It’s a little cheesy but a lot touching and would have been a perfect “Happy ever after” for Jim and Pam if this is where the show ended.

But it didn’t. Stick around for the rest of the season for the birth of their first child. And to see Pam’s reaction when she finds out Michael hooked up with her mother after the wedding.

See, what’s weird is that his courtship of the recently divorced Helene Beesly is almost Michael’s second healthiest relationship… they actually get along, Helene seems very smitten, and the birthday lunch he plans for her could sway the strongest objections to them as a couple. But the silver medal still goes to Carol in season three, because all that seems to go wrong there is Michael getting way too excited and way too serious way too fast and in all the wrong ways, whereas here… he legit thinks this is his path to officially becoming a part of Pam’s family the way he pictures her as part of his, to the point where he’s stunned that this actually damages their relatrionship. And given the hints we’ve seen over the years, it’s clear Michael has a bit of a crush on Pam, and maybe getting with a relative is his “next best thing.”

So it doesn’t start in the best place and it ends a little ugly, but it’s worth watching to see Pam hit the moment where no power in the ‘verse can conceal her contempt for Michael.

Also you are going to want to stick around for season seven, and our first big farewell. I don’t super advise taking this particular off-ramp.

The Rise of Sabre and of Darryl

Dunder Mifflin as an overall company has been circling the drain since we met them. At least two branches have closed in the last three years, maybe more. Dunder Mifflin Infinity was a full blown boondoggle. Scranton only kept the lights on in the early seasons because Dwight and Michael have “Sales skills” written into the parts of their brains where normal people have “empathy” and “knowledge of appropriate interpersonal behaviour.” This was bound to catch up to the company eventually, and in season six, it does. After a few episodes of mounting tension surrounding Dunder Mifflin’s failing fortunes, the annual Christmas episode ends with the revelation that while the corporate office are all imminently out of work, the regional branches have been saved from the bankruptcy ax by a buyout from Florida printer company Sabre. And thus as David Wallace fades into the background (he takes season seven off, but isn’t gone for good), two new faces come to Scranton.

Kathy Bates is the showy one, arriving in the back half of the year as Sabre founder/CEO Jo Bennett, flanked by her giant dogs. Jo is the perfect antidote to the reluctant laissez-faire attitude David Wallace brought as Michael’s boss, yet without the humourless sternness of Charles Miner or the rage and self-destruction of Jan. What Kathy Bates brings to the role is a fun Florida charm blended with a steely disposition. Jo Bennett is not a boss Michael can charm, fool, or intimidate. And there’s no “over her head” to go to. He tries to resist Sabre’s policies at first, but Jo is unflinching, and after a look at how unemployment is treating David Wallace, rebellion against the new owners exits his mind.

(Side note… I mentioned last time how “Scranton is special” was important to upcoming arcs. This is one of them. Scranton had to be the top branch in the company, or else why would the new CEO visit so often?)

Our second new arrival, and ultimately the more significant one, is Zach Woods as Gabe Lewis, branch liaison to corporate. While Jo is an occasional Special Guest Star, Gabe swiftly becomes a full part of the ensemble. Gabe… Gabe is fun in a few familiar ways. In theory they report to him, as he’s the voice of corporate, but his attempts to wield authority don’t exactly go well. He commands slightly less respect than Dwight and has about as much confidence as Toby. He’s a new form of twitchy awkward, but a fun one.

And at the same time that Gabe joins the ensemble, something clicked in the writers’ room, and they asked themselves… why isn’t Darryl in every episode? Okay, sure, drug problems last year, but he’s doing better, so why isn’t there more Darryl? Let’s have more Darryl. A promotion from Jo brings Darryl out of the warehouse and into the new office that had been built for Jim (I’ll get back to that), and from there, he’s more of a constant… and delightful… presence.

Flipping the Wrong Dynamic

Prior to Sabre’s arrival, The Office tried something out. We’d seen Jim go from not caring about his job at all to taking being second-in-command surprisingly seriously, and at the start of the year, he makes a move second season Jim could never have expected… he lobbies for his own command. Jim seems to have liked being the boss a little, because he suggests to David that Michael be promoted to New York and Jim take over the Scranton branch. Michael, not knowing the plan, manages to compromise it, and to avoid losing Jim entirely, the two of them end up as co-managers. And sure that’s weird and it causes a few clashes as Michael’s management style finds itself at odds with Jim’s deliberate and ongoing attempts to move the office past it, but that’s not what I’m going to discuss here.

I want to talk about what this does to Jim’s dynamic with Dwight.

Back in season three we saw how Jim’s eagerness to prank Dwight goes down the more seriously he takes his job. As fellow salesmen, blowing off work to prank Dwight was Jim’s greatest non-Pam-related joy. As official assistant manager, he felt the urge to prank was something he should rise above. As co-manager, it’s gone completely. Jim’s new responsibilities make him attempt to live in peace with his former nemesis.

Dwight, on the other hand, sees Jim’s promotion as Jim stealing what should rightfully be Dwight’s, and is not prepared to take his enemy’s ascension lying down.

And it’s… it’s not great.

See, Jim’s pranks are certainly mean (all pranks are at least a little mean, save for “guten pranks,” which are years away), but they’re also slightly playful. As worst he’s trying to annoy Dwight a little. When Dwight schemes against Jim, it’s beyond mean. It’s cruel and sometimes uncomfortably violent (not this year but it’s coming). He wants to destroy Jim. And when he comes close to succeeding, sorry, I do not see the comedy.

At first Dwight’s plots are fun and largely inept. Which makes sense. I mean, Dwight didn’t fall for all of Jim’s pranks over the years because he’s actually good at this stuff, so it makes sense that one of his opening gambits is to buy everyone bagels so that they’ll owe him a favour, which he will cash in to get Jim fired. It’s the exact sort of sinister but critically flawed scheme I’d expect from Dwight, one that can be undone by Andy’s stubborn refusal to let a favour go unrepaid. But in one episode, Dwight hatches a scheme that manages to turn most of the staff against Jim and comes within a hair’s breadth of hitting the target. If not for David Wallace’s fondness for Jim and Dunder Mifflin’s bigger problems, he might have pulled it off, ousted Jim, and then no doubt learned that corporate had no interest in giving Dwight the co-manager position instead. But that last part never occurred to him, because of course it didn’t.

That episode, by the way? Oh, it is notorious. But not because of Dwight nearly getting Jim fired. I’ll elaborate.

Scott’s Tots

I would just tackle this under “Skippables” but this one is special.

Damn near everything out there has an internet fandom, but I discovered a special branch for Office fans: the subreddit CannotWatchScottsTots. An online forum for people who habitually rewatch The Office (like myself) but skip Scott’s Tots every time (like myself in most cases). Nearly three and a half thousand people subscribe to it. Over three thousand habitual Office binge-watchers who can’t bring themselves to rewatch this one episode. (There is a counter-group, r/CanWatchScottsTots, but there’s only nine of them.)

It’s not Dwight, though. That’s mostly just me. Hell, maybe some people enjoy his surprisingly spot-on impersonations of certain co-workers in the final stages of his sinister plot.

No, it’s Michael. The title of Scott’s Tots refers to a group of black students he made a promise to ten years ago. When they were in grade two, he visited their class, and said that if they graduated from high school, he would pay their way through college.

It is, without question, the worst thing he’s ever done. And this is only a handful of episodes after he told everyone in the office that Stanley was having an affair just because spreading rumours got him attention.

It’s also a very Michael thing to do, because it was based on the idea that any day now Michael would sell his screenplay for Threat Level Midnight or get noticed by Drew Carey at improv class or something that was going to bring him the fame, fortune, and love that he was sure was right around the corner. But now graduation’s coming, and instead of a millionaire he’s a middle manager with a debilitating spending problem (Probably? We haven’t checked in on that since season four…). So while Dwight’s plot to get Jim fired reaches its climax, Michael is across town slowly, painfully informing a class of inner city youths that they are not getting free rides to college.

So the question is, why is this worse than the level of cringe this show is famous for? One of the cringiest episodes they’ve done, Dinner Party, is also known as one of the best, so why is this one so hated? Again, I feel the answer should be Dwight’s evil plot against Jim suddenly becoming impossibly, uncharacteristically successful, but no, that’s somehow not it. It’s the fact that this cringe is aimed at innocent school kids. They didn’t do anything wrong, and Michael’s need to be adored has actually damaged their lives.

And to make things worse, they couldn’t even just let him stew in this one. Like most “Michael acts poorly” episodes, they had to throw in the last-minute redemptive moment. In this case, Erin (because of course he brought Erin, no other staffer would have his back right now) tells him that thanks to his empty promise, the graduation rate for Scott’s Tots is up from the average. Sure, all those graduates have massively uncertain futures since they now have no idea where their tuition is coming from, but heaven forbid Michael end the episode feeling bad.

Lord. This one is just a slog.

Stray Thoughts

• Yes, Andy is an underperforming salesman crushing on the receptionist. But they are not the new Jim and Pam. Nobody can be Jim and Pam, not even Angela and Dwight. But more to the point, while they do kind of work, their primary obstacle to getting together this season is mutual incompetence at hooking up, and their frequent mishaps are played for comedy as often as pathos. Also, Andy, come on… you got her the 12 Days of Christmas for Secret Santa? As some of us have tried to make clear, those gifts are monster behaviour.
• I really didn’t spend much time on the co-manager plot. It was fun watching Jim be an authority for a while, and his attempts to normalize branch management against Michael’s wishes, but I was fine with Jo resetting the status quo after the Sabre buy-out. Especially since Dwight’s evil plan wore thin after Scott’s Tots.
• The birth of baby Cece Halpert also brought us what I believe to be the first reference to the Scranton Strangler. Don’t worry, the show doesn’t become a crime procedural, but the Scranton Strangler has a key background role to play in the coming season.
• Also getting its first reference? Ryan’s new venture, WUPHF, a mass-messaging system that, depending on your perspective, is either somewhat useful or hugely invasive.

Key Episodes

“The Meeting” kicks off the co-manager arc, and “Manager and Salemen” brings it to a close with a wonderful appearance by Jo.

Obviously don’t skip Niagara. We talked about this.

The Lover, for Jim and Pam’s priceless reactions to Michael’s new girlfriend.

And plotwise, certainly Secret Santa, Sabre, The Delivery, St. Patrick’s Day, Happy Hour, The Cover-up, and Whistleblower.

Skippables

Believe it or not, there is an episode more skippable than Scott’s Tots. I know, I’m surprised to be saying it. But there is, and it’s The Banker. Scott’s Tots is unpleasant, but The Banker is worse in a key way. See, Sabre has sent a banker to look over the company pre-takeover, which the staff uses as an excuse to look back at past shenanigans.

So it’s a clip show.

And there ain’t nothing more skippable than a clip show.

Notable Guest Stars?

We covered Kathy Bates. Todd Packer makes a return appearance after three seasons away in St. Patrick’s Day. Anna Camp is one of Pam’s bridesmaids. Mike Starr is an insurance salesman mistaken for a mobster by the office’s… less rational employees in Mafia. Nelson Franklin is the new IT guy, having previously appeared as a recruiter for a graphic design company, the guy who gets Pam thinking about art school in New York. You might not know who that is, but to me, he’s Comeau, the Guy Who Knows Everyone from Scott Pilgrim Vs the World.

And most significant, Christian Slater hosts Sabre’s confusing orientation video.

Next time… get ready to say a big, tearful goodbye.

When I need background noise while writing, more often than not I turn to The Office. And rewatching a show as often as I have means you have thoughts and opinions.

These are mine.

Outgrowing Your Premise

Not every aspect of a show’s premise is designed to last if the show keeps going. For instance, Jeff Winger was always going to graduate from Greendale after season four of Community. The interns on Scrubs couldn’t stay interns forever. In fact, not even for two seasons. “High school is Hell” is the central premise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they still had to find a way to move past it (we can argue how successfully they managed that another time). In the case of The Office, it’s the threat of downsizing.

From the pilot until Branch Closing, the staff of Dunder Mifflin lived under the constant threat of downsizing. It’s established in the very first episode that the corporate office is planning to merge Scranton and Stamford, and only a last second betrayal from Stamford’s Josh Porter saves the Scranton people. And while Dunder Mifflin’s financial woes are far from over, as we’ll learn down the road, something changes for Scranton in season five. Suddenly, instead of being the second lowest performing branch under Jan’s control (as mentioned in Casino Night), Scranton is the most profitable branch Dunder Mifflin has.

It makes sense… they absorbed Stamford, Dwight is the company’s top salesman (even beating the website), they couldn’t possibly stay the low sellers forever. But it creates a whole new power dynamic. One that is entirely necessary for where they want to push the show. Everything that happens in future seasons hinges on the idea that this branch is special, this is the branch worth following, worth being close to. I mean, one could argue that the writers just occasionally forget that there are other branches, but I think higher of them than that. No, I think it’s that the stories they start telling require this new dynamic. Starting with…

The Big Break-up

No, it’s not Jim and Pam. In fact, by the end of the first episode (hour-long, yet again), they’re engaged. Sure, they open the season by sending Pam to New York for art school, and sure, Mad Men’s Rich Sommer is there and has a bit of a thing for her, but as I said last time… now that they’re together, the producers are unwilling to fully commit to actually threatening their relationship. So Rich Sommer never has a chance. Pam was always going to come home to Scranton, despite a last-second twist of her failing one of her courses. So no, they don’t break up Pam and Jim, not even a little. They go for the other relationship that seems too strong to fail.

Michael and Dunder Mifflin itself.

Late in the season, events conspire to make Michael quit his job and found the Michael Scott Paper Company. To a casual observer, it might seem that it’s all about Michael’s new boss (introduced, fittingly, in New Boss), Charles Miner, played by the great Idris Elba, our second veteran of The Wire. But no, the seeds were planted much, much earlier. Charles plays a role, but it’s mostly about Holly Flax and David Wallace.

We talked about Holly last time. How she was, and remains, Michael’s perfect match. The first woman Michael dates where it actually goes well. How clear is it that Holly is something special? For the first and only time, the Documentarians don’t take the summer off.

Yes, sure, the real reason for the Documentarians almost never filming between June and August is the standard network television hiatus, but nearly every season premiere involves talking head interviews where the characters catch the Documentarians (and through them, us) up on what’s been happening, so in-universe they clearly take the summer off. They wouldn’t need Michael, Pam, Oscar, or Toby to fill them in on what’s been going on the last three months if they had footage. But in Weight Loss, they’re in for the long haul, as the episode takes place over two months.

Are we to believe that they stick around for the summer because they’re really interested in the Dunder Mifflin– you know what, I’m going to start writing DM and y’all are just going to get what I’m saying. Where was I? Right. Are they really that interested in the DM weight loss challenge? More than being present for Jim’s last days in Scranton, Ryan’s ascent to VP, or Jim and Pam starting to date? When those things happened, the crew took their scheduled break. And they weren’t missing something that big again. So they make sure they’re around at least once per week for the whole summer because they don’t want to miss anything between Michael and Holly.

Now let’s talk about David Wallace. Michael’s boss’ boss when we meet him, David Wallace must be everyone’s dream boss. He’s pleasant, friendly, generous, and so, so forgiving. Even before we find out DM Scranton is head of the pack, he seems to ultimately forgive all the ridiculous behaviour he witnesses from Michael and Dwight. Not always easily… there are some angry talks in Stress Relief, but Dwight doesn’t get fired, and man did they have cause. And in The Deposition, when the DM attorneys tried to make him say Michael wasn’t a serious candidate for Jan’s job, he resisted as long as he could before only replying “What do you want me to say, he’s a nice guy.” But he does have a limit.

Michael and Holly hadn’t been together long when David found out about their relationship. They’d known each other for months, Michael was already deeply in love, and Holly was seriously twitterpated, but it they’d only gone on three actual dates. But when David finds out one of his managers is in a relationship with the branch HR rep, he swiftly transfers Holly to Nashua, New Hampshire. And there our troubles begin.

David tries to make things better. He sends Michael on a business trip to exotic Winnipeg (in Ca-NAH-dah, as Michael pronounces it, trying to make everything seem as cool, fancy, and exotic as he can). But when the trip doesn’t go well (the sale works out fine, but Michael has a less-than-great hookup with a concierge, which he mistakes for concubine, since big words are not his strong suit), Michael ends up lashing out about Holly. And from there, David begins to feel the strain of managing Michael directly. A series of ridiculous incidents test David’s patience, and he erects a wall between himself and Michael: a wall named Charles Miner.

It would be easy to assume that it’s Charles’ management style, with his austerity measures and mirthless attitude (Charles is surprisingly similar to Elba’s Wire character, business-minded drug dealer Stringer Bell). One could easily jump to the conclusion that Charles cancelling Michael’s 15th anniversary party was what drove Michael away from the company he loves. But no. Pay attention, and you see that the fuse was lit the second Holly was transferred. David took Michael’s true love away, handed the reigns to a steel executive (“You’re not from paper!?” asks an incredulous Michael), and stopped taking Michael’s calls, all on the eve of Michael’s 15th anniversary serving the company. Fifteen years of service, only to have the company break his heart and treat him like an inconvenience. You need all of that together to make Michael declare war on his family.

When the Illusion of Change Fails

The first third of season five also heavily features the escalation of the Dwight-Angela-Andy love triangle. Angela and Andy’s wedding is looming, but in the fourth season finale, hours after accepting his proposal, she started banging Dwight again. Andy eventually finds out, he and Dwight have a duel in the parking lot, but partway through realise they’re fighting over a woman who betrayed them both, and both leave her.

Here’s my problem with this turn of events. And it’s not Angela and Dwight being broken up again.

Angela defines herself as the hyper-Christian moral center of the office. And I know, self-deception, I know, I’m the one who keeps bringing it up, so if she was simply judging others while secretly failing to live by her own morals, that would be fine. But as soon as the entire office learns that she’s been banging Dwight literally the entire time she’s been engaged to Andy, there should be no going back from that. Her every single attempt to judge people for acting “loose” or “whorish” should be crushed by the reminder that she cheated on Andy with Dwight.

Angela’s main target is Pam (well, also Meredith, but Meredith is basically immune to criticism). How she dresses, being “nosy,” how she’s the “office mattress” for dating both Roy and Jim, and down the road, getting pregnant outside of wedlock. Other than the dress code thing, Angela has done or will do all of those things, only worse. But Pam never once calls her out on it. Not one “You’re right, Angela, I did date Roy before Jim. Was that wrong? Should I have been sleeping with both of them at the same time like you were with Dwight and Andy? Is that the Christian way?” Is Pam just too nice? She’s certainly willing to call Ryan out on his shit this season. Does she consider Angela too close a friend? For the love of Buddha and all his wacky nephews, how could that be true?

No. Angela cheats on one co-worker with another, and it should destroy her reputation forever, and it doesn’t. It just doesn’t. She goes back to same old Angela, and over five years, exactly four people call her out on it… the Documentarians, in an early season talking head; Kevin, the episode after everyone finds out; Dwight’s best friend Rolf in the season finale; and then not again until season nine, almost four years later. I just can’t, for the life of me, understand why anyone (least of all Pam) lets her get away with being judgmental when she can be shut down with one “Try not to secretly screw Dwight on your way back to your desk.”

Ugh. Stupid.

Perpetually Cut

Let’s talk about Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky. They’d been playing recurring characters Gino and Leo, grunt workers for Vance Refrigeration, since season two. They jumped in Michael’s elevator and tried to take over the shot (Leo just yelling “Ass” over and over). They got in a fight in the bullpen while delivering Phyllis’ many, many Valentine’s Day presents from Bob Vance. When Dwight interrogated the entire office about a joint he found in the parking lot, it turned out to be Gino and Leo’s. But if you’re only watching on Netflix, or if you only watched the show when it aired, you’d never know any of that. Because their scenes were habitually cut for time.

So it was a little strange when I realized that these characters, who almost exclusively existed in deleted scenes, were suddenly back in season five, like they’d always been there, in scenes that actually made it to air. Okay, sure, it turns out that Eisenberg and Stupinsky were both producers (like Ryan, Kelly, Toby, and Cousin Mose), so they weren’t hard to track down. But it’s still odd, and slightly miraculous, that they finally got their days in the sun three years later.

Stray thoughts

Ryan vanishes for a while mid-season, as BJ Novak had to go film Inglourious Basterds. He wins Kelly back before he leaves, though, and Craig Robinson proves how under-used he’s been so far in Darryl’s reaction to Kelly breaking up with him (via Ryan writing a text on her phone): a reply of “Cool” followed by a jaunty stroll to his truck with a spring in his step and a silent but obvious song in his heart.

Darryl is also missing for a lot of season five, because Craig Robinson had some drug charges right before the season started filming. Sad. But he’s doing better now.

Steve Carell makes Michael’s reaction to Toby’s return priceless.

Key Episodes

The entire Holly arc, from Weight Loss through to Employee Transfer. Never skip a Holly Flax episode.

The entire Michael Scott Paper Company arc, from Charles’ arrival in New Boss through to its epilogue in Casual Day. First of all, it’s the keynote arc of the whole season, and signals a new stage in Pam’s career. Second, it debuts a new character who becomes not only vitally important to the back half of the series, but a sheer delight: Kimmy Schmidt herself, Ellie Kemper as Erin Hannon. We’ll talk about her more next time, because it takes them a little while to realize what a powerful comic weapon they’ve acquired and how best to use it. Like how it took the Community writers a half dozen episodes to figure out how best to write for Donald Glover.

Stress Relief. In their hour-long (they got better at these after early season four) post-Superbowl episode, Michael decides to throw the Roast of Michael Scott to cheer up the office, and you don’t want to miss that.

Skippables

I’m not crazy about the “Charles doesn’t care for Jim” subplot during the Michael Scott Paper Company arc, but I already named that whole thing as key episodes, so…

Notable Guest Stars?

I mentioned Rich Sommer, Amy Ryan, and Idris Elba already. Two veterans of The Wire: one as Michael’s greatest love, one as his newest nemesis. That’s neat.

For the post-Superbowl episode, Jack Black and Cloris Leachman play themselves playing the lead roles in a movie about a man’s affair with his fiancee’s grandmother. (As Andy explains, it was supposed to be the fiancee’s mother, but when Nicole Kidman dropped out they rewrote the part for Cloris Leachman). Jessica Alba is also there as the jilted fiancee, but don’t blink, you’ll miss her.

David Denman makes his first of three return appearances as Roy, following his exit mid-season three, when Jim goes for a drink with the warehouse staff. Rashida Jones makes her second of three returns as Karen Filippelli when Michael, as head of the newly crowned most profitable branch, goes on the road to share his management secrets. It goes about as well as you’d expect. And Melora Hardin makes an appearance as Jan before quietly shuffling out of the ensemble after Michael realizes he feels no connection to her sperm bank baby.

Dwight’s best friend Rolf is also the voice of Dr. Venture on Venture Brothers, if that’s something you care about.

Next time… Scranton’s success does not mean all is well at Dunder Mifflin, Jim steps up, and the episode hard core fans avoid the most.

When I need background noise while writing, more often than not I turn to The Office. And rewatching a show as often as I have means you have thoughts and opinions.

These are mine.

Supersized, strike-shortened

In season four, The Office gave in to one of the pit traps of success: overindulgence. After two exceptional seasons of comedy and heartache, they came out of the gate with a series of hour-long episodes, each meant to be split into two halves for syndication purposes. The problem was, not all of them had quite enough story to fill two chapters. Some work out okay: Fun Run, in which Michael organizes a charity run to cure rabies so that people will stop mocking him for running over Meredith with his car (it only makes sense to him and justifying it ruins the fun), only drags when Michael spends two minutes trying to invent a god to pray to in order to lift the curse he’s decided to blame for the whole “running over Meredith” thing. “Dunder Mifflin Infinity,” in which Michael acts out against changes to the company, is less successful. “Launch Party” and “Money” feel the most like separate episodes wedged together, but their individual halves work okay.

What makes this wave of double-sized episodes even more awkward, though, is that thanks to the 2007 Writers’ Strike (scourge of drama and comedy alike, killer of the incredible Pushing Daisies), these four episodes make up nearly half of season four’s runtime. That’s a lot of space taken up by four stories that have good bits (including our first visit to Schrute Farms) but sometimes struggle to stretch their A-plots out to 40 minutes.

The strike also means this is the second season with no Christmas episode. Which is a shame, since it was last year’s Christmas episode, Benihana Christmas, that made them think hour long episodes were a good idea.

The Rise and Fall of Ryan Howard

Season three ended with a three-way battle between Michael, Jim, and Karen for what turned out to be Jan’s job. Jim turned it down to return to Scranton for Pam. Karen doesn’t get it, but disappears shortly after (then turns up shortly after the hour-longs as the new branch manager in Utica). Michael was turned down, but upon hearing he wasn’t getting the job, asks to be withdrawn from consideration, because being turned down wouldn’t fit in his personal narrative. So who’s Michael’s new boss? Former temp Ryan Howard.

Ryan started as the rational outsider, the newcomer who, being less acclimated, could be tormented by the peculiarities of his new co-workers. As a temp in seasons one and two, as a salesman in season three, and as Kelly’s boyfriend, his sole bit was being trapped in a weird situation and trying to find an exit. But that bit has an expiration date. So it was time to try something new with Ryan: a complete power flip.

In season four Ryan goes from the lowest rung on the ladder to vice-president, and boss of the man who used him as a lackey for three years. Michael does some mystifying mental gymnastics to convince himself that the best pals/mentor-mentee relationship he’s always imagined still exists (or ever did), but Ryan fights him on it. It begins with simple power plays like making him sit with the other employees during a meeting, but hits its peak in Survivor Man, when Ryan invites every branch manager on a wilderness retreat, but not only doesn’t invite Michael… he invites Toby.

You can’t tell me he didn’t know what he was doing there.

Ryan’s big project, his vice-presidential baby, is Dunder Mifflin Infinity, the new sales website. It’s a good idea to begin with, despite Michael’s initial protests against Ryan changing the way business was done. It does pose some problems for the sales staff, though, as easy on-line ordering threatens their commissions (and usefulness), leading to Dwight having an entertaining man-vs-machine sales duel against the website. But when Ryan tries to turn it into the next Facebook, it becomes infested with child predators (somehow?) and identity thieves, and his desperate measures to save his baby and prove he deserves his Wunderkind label bring his meteoric rise to a shattering thud.

Does that track? Rise and thud? I mean the “fall” is kind of implied by the “thud,” isn’t it?

Along the way Ryan acquires an entourage of people shorter than him, gets hooked on drugs, tries to push Jim out of the company for speaking ill of DM:I to David Wallace, and finds the new Ryan Howard we’ll be spending seasons five to eight with. Ryan becomes determined to recapture his glory months as Dunder Mifflin’s youngest VP. He truly believes that he has the potential to become the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, but his season four failure makes him extremely anxious under any sort of pressure, and the nature of DM:I’s problems (thinking a paper company could be the new, cool social network) show that his ideas are often beyond the reach of his actual talents, whatever those may be. Beyond season four, he’s always searching for a new look, a new hook, a new way to prove to the world and himself that he is the bleeding-edge tech visionary he sees himself as.

Self-delusion, remember? Always comes back to that.

Coming together, falling apart

As I implied earlier, the big-cheer moment of season three’s finale was Jim coming back to Scranton and asking Pam out on their first real date. The first half of Fun Run keeps us in suspense as to how it went, or tries to… they each claim to be single (both to their co-workers and to the Documentarians, fresh off their summer break), but Kevin for one is not buying it, and is determined to prove that they are totally hooking up. Which the Documentarians swiftly do at the halfway point.

Producers from The Office went on to create and write for Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn 99, equally-if-not-more funny comedies that share a few common traits, but the relevant one just now is how they treat their most adorable couples. Leslie and Ben, Peralta and Santiago, Jim and Pam… they never get together easily, there are always obstacles, but when they have a couple that they and we know work, once they’re together, they stay together. See, when you’re good at your sitcom-writing job, you can make a power couple work just as well as a will-they-won’t-they maybe-couple. Even better, because they don’t wear thin as easily. So instead of going Ross-Rachel (a cautionary tale/definition of “diminishing returns”) and trying in vain to recapture the earlier magic by splitting them up and teasing a reunion, they find a new magic in letting us actually enjoy Jim and Pam’s love.

Besides, why split those two up when they have so many other couples to mess with for relationship drama?

Kelly and Ryan: The first thing Ryan did after accepting his promotion was break up with Kelly, moving their relationship from “She’s clingy, he’s awkward about it” to the first stage of the beautiful, horrible, addictive train wreck that could only blossom once Ryan began his journey from everyman to hipster douche. In the wake of being dumped, Kelly pulls out all of her “love is a battlefield” tricks on him, from “coincidentally” wearing something low-cut and lots of make-up for his first post-promotion visit to Scranton, to lying about being pregnant to score a date, to starting a relationship with Darrel and making sure to flaunt it in front of him.

“It’s like she only wants to hook up when Ryan comes around,” he later explains. “It’s gotten to the point where I get excited every time I see that little dude walk through the door.”

There’s not much to say about that couple, save for pointing out that Kelly’s drama queen games and attitude don’t work on Darrel, who’s built up a thick skin for upstairs-worker nonsense in his years of dealing with Michael. Also, while the writers were beginning to understand what a comedy weapon they had in Craig Robinson, Darrel doesn’t become a full member of the main ensemble until season six, so we don’t see him and Kelly together that often. As a couple, they really only exist as a plot point for the ongoing Ryan/Kelly drama.

Michael and Jan: Jan’s meltdown at the end of season three has not made for a happy relationship with Michael, not that either of them will admit it at first. Jan’s self-destructive spiral is far from over, and things come to an explosive end in Dinner Party. But that’s okay, because Michael has better things on the horizon. We’ll come back to that.

But first, let’s look at the worst relationship The Office ever produced.

Beyond toxic

Dwight and Angela work as a couple because they share the same unflinching sternness, the uncompromising commitment to repression as a lifestyle. But where “D” and “Monkey” go wrong is in another trait they share… see, they’re not cold and robotic about everything. They have their interests. But if something falls outside their narrow range of passions, their lack of interest or empathy borders on a psychopathy. Dwight is deeply passionate about beets, Battlestar Galactica, and bear safety, to name examples, and Angela’s lack of interest in any of that doesn’t cause problems, but Angela loves her cats. Her many, many cats. And Dwight, being a farmer and also being Dwight, has no use for any animal that doesn’t provide some form of utility. So when Angela asks Dwight to give the oldest of her cats, Sprinkles, her many, many medications, Dwight does the only thing that makes sense to him. He attempts to humanely put Sprinkles to sleep, but since this has nothing to do with farming or paper sales (his only true talents, whatever he believes), he bungles it and Sprinkles dies a slower, more agonizing death than he planned.

Of course Angela can’t forgive this. She loves her cats more than any human she has ever known, and Dwight murdered one of them. It can’t erase her love for “D” (oh dear lord that’s way too sexual I regret typing that so much), nothing can, but nor can she be with him. So their weirdly adorable, highly secretive love suffers a blow it will take most of the season to recover from. Worse, it opens the door for the least healthy, most toxic relationship the show ever produced.

Sure, Pam and Roy were less of a romance than Pam surrendering to convenience over passion, and sure, Michael and Jan’s relationship is a slow-motion train crash of emotional abuse fueled by delusion and self-destruction, but they’re both fairy tale romances next to Angela and Andy.

In an attempt to make it clear that Dwight’s attempts at reconciliation are unwelcome and futile, Angela publicly lets Pam know that she is both single and prepared to mingle, something Andy takes as an invitation to swoop in. His first attempts fail, but between a kind of adorable acapella rendition of “Take a Chance On Me” with help from his old college buddies on three speaker phones and a gift of a cat (the exact same cat Dwight tried to give her to make up for destroying Sprinkles, which is salt in Dwight’s wounds… also how is “destroy” the word we use for cat euthanasia, that is dark), Andy wins a date with her.

Seriously, that song move was pretty baller. If life hadn’t beaten the notion of using sitcom shenanigans as dating strategies out of me at a young age, I’d have considered using it myself. Andy has some game when he puts his mind to it. But that is the last moment in which there is anything sweet, romantic, or remotely healthy about these two.

But why? Why, though? Why does any of it happen? There is never a moment in their entire relationship when Angela demonstrates any sort of affection for Andy. His every romantic or playful gesture simply revolts her. And she’s suddenly way more repressed and Christian about, shall we say, physical intimacy than she ever was with Dwight. They never really explain why that is, why she was super fine with premarital sex when Dwight was involved but won’t even kiss Andy for the first few months. Because she’s actually dating him publicly, maybe? And so the relationship has to match to the morality standards she pretends to live by and attempts to inflict on everyone around her? Or maybe just because she simply isn’t actually into Andy at all and it takes a few months of dating before being kissed by him becomes tolerable.

Honestly that Andy and Angela become a couple at all is confusing, and the fact that they stay a couple as long as they do is beyond baffling, because the genesis of their relationship comes down to one thing. Andy admits in season seven that he’s bad at meeting people. His passion for yachting, acapella, and casually mentioning he attended Cornell don’t open a lot of dating doors, I guess. He dates three women in his seven years on the show, and two of them are co-workers (the third was a probable fix-up by Darrel). So it seems to me that Andy only went after Angela because she’s the most attractive single woman in his eyeline 40 hours per week. If Kelly didn’t work in the annex, he’d probably have gone after her instead, and he’d have been better off for it.

From there it can only be stubbornness. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what either of them could possibly be getting out of this relationship, but Andy has been somehow conditioned to never give up or admit defeat (“Andy Bernard doesn’t lose contests. He wins them. Or quits them because they’re unfair.”), and breaking up with Angela because they’re an awful, awful match would be conceding that he made a mistake. So when Jim orchestrates a perfectly romantic moment in the season finale in order to propose to Pam, Andy ends up stealing his thunder by publicly proposing to Angela on a complete whim. Which she accepts to avoid awkwardness, I suppose. But then demonstrates her true feelings by immediately starting to bang Dwight again.

It always comes back to self-delusion. In this case, Andy’s delusion that if he keeps acting the part of someone in a blissful, fairy tale romance, it might eventually become one, despite the total lack of spark. Frankly, it’s clear that the writers had no interest in selling this relationship, because it wasn’t supposed to work. You’re not supposed to root for them to succeed or even care about Andy. From a story perspective, this relationship wasn’t even about Andy. Andy was only there to be a roadblock for Dwight and Angela. Hence Andy unknowingly twisting the screws by making Dwight his confidant for how the relationship is going, thinking that they’ve gone from rivals to friends, unaware that the rivarly has entered a whole new level.

We’ll come back to this arc and its failure as character growth next time.

Key Episodes

The Deposition and Dinner Party. Jan’s lawsuit against Dunder Mifflin was supposed to turn hers and Michael’s teetering-on-bankruptcy lives around, but when Michael is deposed, Dunder Mifflin fights back, and Michael and Jan’s every secret gets dragged out into the light. And worse for Michael, Toby’s there. This paves the way for The Office’s very own Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Dinner Party. After months of effort, Michael finally manages to hoodwink Jim and Pam into coming over for dinner, along with Angela and Andy. Which gives all four of them, plus party crashers Dwight and his former babysitter, front row seats to the detonation of Michael and Jan’s relationship.

And “Goodbye Toby,” for reasons I’ll get into below.

Skippables

“Dunder Mifflin Infinity” does kick off Ryan’s plotline for the year, but it’s the weakest hourlong by far. And has one of Michael’s least-earned feelings of triumph.

Notable Guest Stars?

When Toby decides to move to Costa Rica after getting slightly too friendly with Pam (on whom he’s had a crush for, I don’t even know, at least a year and a half), corporate sends a new HR rep… our first veteran of The Wire, Amy Ryan as Holly Flax.

Holly Flax is, in simple terms, Michael’s dream girl. He falls for her the minute he speaks to her, she actually finds him funny, they are a perfect match. The day where Andy and Angela’s hopelessly terrible relationship unaccountably reaches the next level also put the pieces in play for one of the show’s best love stories… But well, that’s next season.

When I need background noise while writing, more often than not I turn to The Office. And rewatching a show as often as I have means you have thoughts and opinions.

These are mine.

Romance is in the air

We’ve covered how Jim and Pam are the central couple of The Office, certainly in its early seasons. But in season two, they’re not the only ones. The ensemble is too big for only two people to have a love story, and besides… Jim and Pam are the swoon-worthy couple from the word go. Their relationship is played for “Awwwws” rather than laughs, and that means that there are places they couldn’t take that relationship. Lines they couldn’t cross and gags they couldn’t do. And that’s where these other couples introduced in season two come in handy. Let’s meet them, while looking at the key episodes that shape their arcs.

Michael & Jan: Michael and Jan’s working relationship changes forever, and not entirely for the better, in season two’s The Client, which is a key episode on three fronts. When Michael and Jan have an off-site meeting trying to sell to the local county government, Pam finds Michael’s screenplay, “Threat Level Midnight,” featuring a superspy version of Michael Scott and his assistant/would-be-lover, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Yup. It’s not subtle. So we have three important things in this episode: 1) Jim and Pam bond during a staff reading of Threat Level Midnight and an impromptu rooftop dinner picnic; 2) despite going against Jan’s wishes at every step (moving the meeting to Chili’s, opening with a joke, playing truth or dare over drinks, an Awesome Blossom, and baby back ribs), Michael makes the sale, demonstrating how exactly he got promoted in the first place and his worth to the company; 3) having learned about Jan’s divorce, and dragged the story out of her during truth or dare, after the sale Michael and Jan share a celebratory kiss in the parking lot, and a night in a hotel room (mostly conversation, mild making out). Michael being Michael, he assumes Jan is now his girlfriend, and when Jan calls the next day with morning-after remorse, he’s completely blindsided. To the point of trying to hide under his desk from the cameras, which provide no escape.

But he does not take this rejection well, easily, or sanely. It’s the self-delusion that propels Michael through most of the series. Despite all the, frankly, overwhelming evidence that this relationship is a non-starter, Michael is unable to let go of the idea that she and he are meant to be. Michael’s pursuit of Jan approaches uncomfortable to the point of scary. He manages one positive act on her behalf on Valentine’s Day, though to be fair it’s just making up for his own nigh-catastrophic mistake.

There are points when being with Jan is supposed to be a victory for Michael. A Pyrrhic victory to a point, because the Jan-related prize usually comes after something bad on his end, but a victory just the same. But even when things between them become good, there is always something… off about them. So if Michael’s pursuit seems uncomfortable, it’s okay, folks… when we reach season three, we find out that the punishment fits the crime. The punishment for his horribly awkward courtship of Jan is, ultimately, successfully wooing Jan.

Kelly & Ryan: In the beginning, The Office doesn’t really know what to do with Kelly Kapoor. They also didn’t 100% know what to do with Ryan but that came later and is another story. She’s mostly there to be one more minority to suffer Michael’s knee-jerk reflex to profile (her Dundie is the Spicy Curry award, a title he is unable to explain, given the obvious answer; at Halloween, he thinks Bend It Like Beckham would be a better costume than Dorothy). But fortunately for the show, Kelly is played by writer/producer Mindy Kaling, who in the back half of the season finds Kelly’s character. Her sometimes vapid, celebrity gossip obsessed, rom-com loving, drama queen character. Which made her an entertaining fit for the more casual, easy-going, one-foot-out-the-door Ryan Howard of the early seasons. Their early relationship is best defined by Valentine’s Day… Kelly excitedly tells Jim that she and Ryan finally got together the previous night (Jim having become Kelly’s confidant during an earlier episode), and is thrilled to have a boyfriend for V-Day. Ryan has a talking head moment in which he runs his hands through his hair, voice calm but a look of terror and sad acceptance in eyes, and says “I hooked up with her on February 13^th.” From there, it’s Ryan’s low-key, non-committal attitude versus Kelly’s rom-com-fueled, high-maintenance quest for a husband and babies.

But that is just the beginning. There are amazing depths of dysfunction these two have yet to plumb. And that is what makes Kelly and Ryan one of the show’s most memorable couplings. Very rarely has a show managed to make a relationship so very wrong and so very right at the same time. In season two, there’s just Ryan’s limp acceptance that “Just having fun” has become “long-term relationship” faster than he was in any way braced for. But they evolve into a truly, weirdly hilarious portrait of mutual abuse as Ryan’s character shifts in the later seasons. They’re the couple who are absolutely wrong for each other but at the exact same time weirdly perfect for each other. We’ll check in with Kelly and Ryan as we go.

Angela & Dwight: There are reviewers out there who feel that Jim and Pam are not the true central couple of The Office. That that title belongs instead to the Frank Burns and Hot Lips Houlihan of Dunder Mifflin, Dwight K. Schrute and Angela Martin.

Dwight and Angela would be impossible to like in real life. Both are abrasive, judgmental, and attempt to hold their co-workers to insane standards of behavior that play out like a Victorian England Taliban. And yet… as time goes on, Dwight wins you over. The sheer absurdity of Dwight, and the passion he devotes to everything he does, gradually becomes endearing. And one of Dwight’s greatest passions is uptight accountant Angela.

Their relationship is largely defined by secrecy, which becomes part of the fun. Angela is devoted to maintaining her (completely inaccurate… remember that self-deception is the key theme of this show) self-image as a perfect Christian, which means keeping her affair with a co-worker as secret as possible. Secret enough that despite a few dropped hints, you’d never guess they were together until Email Surveillance, when Pam enlists the Documentarians to help uncover proof that Dwight and Angela are together… a quest she walks away from after Phyllis assumes the “secret office affair” she’s talking about is actually her and Jim.

But it’s too late. The Documentarians know all, and from there, we’re all in on the spycraft-laced relationship of Angela and Dwight. So why would this relationship between, on paper, the two least likeable characters on the show eclipse Jim and Pam? Well, part of it is the same “These two must be right for each other because they can not be right for anyone else” energy that Ryan and Kelly end up having, but a bigger part is that Angela and Dwight are free from the fear of disruption that surrounded Jim and Pam.

See, Jim and Pam’s budding, inevitable romance was treated with such devotion that once it finally happens, the writers are unwilling to throw any real tension at it. Dwight and Angela do not suffer from that, and thus their story can be more epic. Spanning years, blood lost and lives ruined. They’re together, they’re apart, they see other people but cannot resist each other. Their love is filled with ups and downs, twists and turns, it’s a story that lasts all nine seasons, whereas Jim and Pam peak early and stay there.

Plus, there’s a lot more comedy in a weirdly adorable train wreck than a relationship that’s obviously perfect and why can’t they just see that, which is what Jim and Pam are giving us this year.

Anyway, those are the main plot threads in season two. Jim and Pam inch towards to each other, Ryan finds himself in over his head with Kelly, Michael wins, loses, and almost but not quite wins back Jan before moving on to his realtor, Carol… a rare Normal that ends up dating one of the cast.

New Characters

Season two introduces us to some other key people at Dunder Mifflin. Valentine’s Day introduces the new CFO, David Wallace. Wallace becomes the face of Dunder Mifflin’s corporate HQ for the next five years, the straight man who must deal with Michael’s shenanigans. The same episode introduces Josh Porter, manager of the Stamford Connecticut branch, which will be highly important once season three kicks off.

Also of note… Christmas Party introduces us to Phyllis’ boyfriend, Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration. They become to office park’s weirdly and uncomfortably passionate middle-aged power couple.

And I mentioned Carol, right? Michael’s realtor, introduced in Office Olympics, and played by Steve Carell’s fellow Daily Show alumnus/real-life wife Nancy Carell (née Walls)? She turns up three times, and goes from one-time guest star to person of interest.

Key Episodes

God, so, so many. That’s what makes season two the golden year, every episode feels like a new delight. Office Olympics. Booze Cruise. Take Your Daughter to Work Day. The Injury. The Carpet. And the climax, Casino Night, one of two episodes written by Steve Carrell, in which everything comes to a head.

But if I had to choose one. (Other than The Dundies, which we discussed last time)

Dwight’s Speech, in which, as the company’s top salesman, Dwight has to deliver a speech to a sales conference (something Michael did twice, as he’s swift to remind people), represents a turning point. There have been, for lack of better words, wackiness and hijinks in the show, but they’ve been relatively grounded. Dwight’s Speech, in which Jim pranks Dwight by handing him a speech culled from quotes from famous dictators, is when we begin to cross the line into larger, broader comedy. Dwight’s transition from almost realistically eccentric and power hungry peon to legit supervillain, along with Creed’s breakout lunacy, begin a transition into an Office where the rest of the staff don’t just roll their eyes at Michael or Dwight’s craziness, but contribute their own. Everything gets pushed further and further. Kevin gets dumber. Meredith gets trashier. Creed gets crazier. Kelly’s quest for attention gets bigger. Ryan’s relative normalcy gets chipped away. Even quiet, low-key Stanley and Phyllis get their quirks.

Skippables

None. They’re all great. Have I not made that clear?

Notable Guest Stars?

Amy Adams is back as Jim’s girlfriend, Katy, for two episodes before the whole “He’s only dating her to distract himself from being in love with Pam” thing wears him down. Tim Meadows is the titular client in The Client, and apparently Melora Hardin (Jan) had a terrible time keeping a straight face (let alone a perpetual scowl) playing opposite him and Steve Carell. Our fourth Daily Show veteran (I totes forgot about Larry Wilmore in season one, that’s on me), Rob Riggle, is the captain of the Booze Cruise.

And most notably, David Koechner makes his first appearances as Michael’s ultra-obnoxious best friend, travelling salesman Todd Packer, in Sexual Harassment… perfect timing, because as inappropriate as Michael can be, Todd Packer makes him look like mild-mannered Toby in comparison. Packer made his first appearance over the phone in the pilot, but season two is when Koechner brings him to full, horrifying life. And provides another layer of Michael’s self-delusion: despite what Michael thinks, Packer isn’t as funny, awesome, or nearly as good a friend as Michael (or Kevin) thinks.

Next time… season three gives season two a run for its money, and the last central character arrives.

When I need background noise while writing, more often than not I turn to The Office. And rewatching a show as often as I have means you have thoughts and opinions.

These are mine.

The Best of Times

Seasons two and three are very much The Office at its apex. There is a joy of discovery happening, as the writers shape and explore the ensemble and the larger world of Dunder/Mifflin. The jokes hit so well and so frequently that there’s typically 40 minutes of material for each 22 minute episode, leading to a wealth of hilarious deleted scenes for those with access to the DVDs. Many episodes involve finding the sweet spot between cringe and heart, as they find ways to make us love these paper-selling misfits while still making us glad we don’t work alongside them.

Three important things happened between the first and second seasons of The Office. First, iTunes sales of individual episodes made up for the initial season’s low ratings. (Honestly, when are we going to move past Nielson ratings? As Last Week Tonight would say, how is this still a thing?) Second, The 40 Year Old Virgin transformed Steve Carell from “ex-Daily Show correspondent” to “Legit movie star,” which helped bring more attention to the show. And third, they adjusted the tone of the show a little.

To the credit of both the producers and Steve Carell himself, this did not involve a major shift to Michael Scott. His worst habits are still there. Still casually racist, still filled with self-delusion, still prone to cringe-inducing attempts at humour or flirting. There are just two differences… first, they give him a more flattering haircut, and second, he is granted the occasional moment of redemption. Because US audiences need the grim, gloomy tone of the UK version to be cut with moments with hope and levity. So beginning in season two, we get a lighter atmosphere to contain all of the cringe and dread.

Now… they don’t always nail it. Sometimes the lighter, redemptive moments can come across as unearned. The best example of this comes in Christmas Party.

Some reviewers have said that The Office shines at Christmas. And it does. Out of nine seasons, only two don’t have a Christmas episode (one and four, when the show didn’t air in December), and they’re typically key episodes. And Michael is not always his best self when Christmas rolls around. But Christmas Party is the year when Michael goes from “terrible and selfish” to “forgiven and everything’s great” so fast it gives you whiplash.

When Michael’s gift in the office Secret Santa isn’t to his liking, he hijacks the entire party, turning Secret Santa into Yankee Swap (you know, the game of many names where you either open a new gift or steal something that’s been opened), in a transparent attempt to relieve himself of a homemade oven mitt while reveling in how much the staff covets the iPod he bought Ryan in a flagrant violation of the 20 dollar limit. The problem is, people bought gifts for specific people, making Yankee Swap awkward for many, and especially for Jim… whose gift to Pam is filled with inside jokes and card containing his true feelings. (Which she won’t read for over seven years, but that’s another thing entirely.) Once Michael’s selfishness has thoroughly spoiled the party to a point where even Michael can’t convince himself otherwise, he rushes out and uses his Christmas bonus to buy a lot of vodka to get the party back on track.

Yep. That’s it. He buys vodka. In the end, he even gets invited out for post-party drinks with everyone, something his improv class invented an unlikely excuse to avoid just one episode earlier.

Sometimes Michael’s redemptive moments are touching. Sometimes he makes a gesture that shows his professed love for his employees isn’t all talk. But sometimes they’re just not willing to settle for a downer ending, and perform narrative gymnastics to get around it. What seems like an insufficient gesture makes up for his misdeeds in Christmas Party. When the improv class (rightfully) shuns him in Email Surveillance, an episode that shows his desperate need to be the center of attention doesn’t end when he leaves the building, he finds acceptance from Jim mostly out of pity on Jim’s end. In Performance Review, Jan lists everything about Michael that’s distasteful, but seeing the hurt in his eyes, backs off and, in an attempt to be kind, accidentally gives him a ray of hope. When season six reveals the Worst Thing Michael Ever Did, a sympathetic voice still points out the silver lining, rather than let him stew in his mistakes. They so seldom let him stew in his mistakes.

But not all redemptive moments go down this way. And there is a more positive example right off the bat.

The show in one episode

You know what? The second season premiere has everything you need to know. You just need to watch it closely.

The Dundies. Not unlike a second pilot, albeit only six episodes after the first one. We witness what seems to be Michael’s proudest achievement as regional manager: the Dundie Awards, an annual attempt at recognizing the staff through trophies with award names he finds amusing. In the course of prepping for and attending the awards, we get subtly recapped on everything introduced in season one, plus introduced to our lighter tone for seasons two and beyond.

Michael’s delusions: Michael truly believes that the Dundie Awards are a beloved institution amongst his underlings, whereas everyone else sees it as a yearly obligation that they tolerate for Michael’s sake. Michael thinks giving Pam “Longest engagement” every year just gets funnier and funnier, whereas Pam sees it as a reminder that another year has passed without her engagement being fulfilled.

Michael’s redemption: This is an instance when Michael’s redemptive moment is earned. After getting heckled by outsiders mid-show, Michael almost shuts the whole thing down. Broken and defeated, he hands one last gag award to Kevin and surrenders. But Pam and Jim lead the rest of the staff into a spirit-boosting round of applause. Because he may be a self-deluded obnoxious jerk at times, but damn it, he is their self-deluded obnoxious jerk, and no outsider gets to take the Dundies away from him.

Michael and Jan: Season one only gave us a few glimpses at Michael’s working relationship with his boss, Jan Levinson-Gould. Here we have it laid out for us that Michael’s unorthodox style is not appreciated by corporate, something he didn’t anticipate, as Jan’s refusal to cover the bill for the Dundies takes him by complete surprise (leading to one of the few attempts on Michael’s part to escape the camera crew. We’ll talk more about Michael and Jan in a minute.

Michael and Ryan: Season one offered glimpses of Michael’s odd relationship with temp Ryan Howard. Michael sees Ryan as his super-handsome best friend/protégé/surrogate son, whereas Ryan sees Michael as his weird boss with an uncomfortable crush on him. It’s all summed up in Ryan being awarded “Hottest in the office.” As Ryan says to the cameras… “What am I going to do with it? That’s… the least of my worries right now.”

Jim and Pam and Roy: They don’t need to recap the Jim/Pam/Roy triangle directly. Everything you need to know you get watching the three of them at the Dundies.

The Documentarians: After a fun and eventful night together, Pam has a question for Jim… but spotting the ever-present camera crew changes her mind. The Documentarians might usually avoid getting involved in the story, but sometimes they can’t help but influence it, as intimate moments are not typically enhanced by the presence of a cameraman and boom mic operator. Well, maybe for Meredith.

The rest of the cast

Most of the Dunder Mifflin staff was briefly glimpsed in season one, but this is where they begin to take shape, as the writers cast their eye beyond the five leads. In the sales department with Jim and Dwight are grumpy, crossword obsessed Stanley and quiet, matronly Phyllis; in accounting are bookish Oscar, slow-witted Kevin, and uptight, judgmental, hyper-Christian (in word if not deed) Angela; behind them, sexually adventurous single mom Meredith and Creed Bratton, who… cannot be described simply; in the annex, on the far side of the kitchen and break room, customer service rep Kelly Kapoor and HR representative Toby Flenderson, Michael’s nemesis. In the warehouse, Pam’s fiancé Roy reports to Darrell, whose importance to the show only grows. Each of these characters gets built over the course of the season, and each has their moment to shine, though I’d like to talk about two in particular.

Toby is an ideal nemesis for Michael. Played by writer/producer/eighth season showrunner Paul Lieberstein, Toby is the low-key, low energy barrier to Michael’s more outlandish ideas. This alone might be enough to make Michael resent him, and that’s certainly why he claims to hate Toby, but there’s more under the surface. When Michael wants to insult, belittle, or devalue Toby, one of his go-to moves is to bring up the fact that Toby’s divorced. They never spell out why, but… Michael wants to be married. Michael desperately wants to be part of a family, enough that he tries to make his office a family through sheer force of will. Toby had it all, and gave it away (save for partial custody of his daughter), and it’s not hard to theorize that that actively offends Michael.

And it cannot help that the employees of Dunder Mifflin actually find Toby funny and likeable in a way they never do Michael. That one goes all the way back to Diversity Day, when Michael kicks Toby out of a meeting in theory because of the content of his joke, but more likely because his joke got a laugh.

Now Creed… where to start. At the beginning, he’s in quality assurance, and manages to duck getting fired by arguing with Michael until he changes his mind and fires another little-seen employee instead. By the end of the season, he’s freely admitting to habitually stealing (“I stopped caring a long time ago. I just love stealing”). By the next, his detachment from our shared reality has become his defining trait. Basically, Creed becomes the repository for any action, idea, or thought process that’s too “out there” for Dwight. How you react to Creed will help determine whether second or third season is your favourite, for reasons I’ll get into.

There’s a lot to say about season two. When every second or third episode feels like a series highlight, that’s bound to happen. So we’ll have to pick this up next time, as romance extends beyond Jim and Pam’s will-they-won’t-they.