The Office

I love The Office and anytime they have an hour long episode I’m glad to have that extra time with the cast, even though it’s usually still a half-an-hour story line dragged out thinly to an hour, rather than an actual hours worth of story. So I am going to break this recap up into the two basic story lines and tackle them one at a time, because otherwise I’ll be jumping around way more than usual and nobody will be able to follow.

B Story:

Pam, Jim and Andy are watching an illegally downloaded movie with Andy (apparently in increments during breaks) and it’s had a lot of “buzz” but won’t be released for six more months. It stars Jessica Alba, Jack Black, and Cloris Leachman. I don’t know why they made such a big deal about Alba being in this, she’s barely on the screen more than a few seconds. Meanwhile, Pam’s parents have had a breakup and her dad stayed the night with them. Every time Jim and Pam try to discuss the situation around Andy they try not to be specific. So Andy thinks they are talking about the movie, and therefore have staggering insight into the characters. This makes him frustrated and envious that he’s not so intuitive. In one scene of the movie, Sam (Black) walks in on Lily (Leachman) in the tub. He asks, “Do you want me to go?” and she says “I want you to stay.” Sam helps her up while a romantic song plays. Jim tries to snark on this but Pam is obviously distracted. Jim tries to reassure her about her dad. “He was pretty talkative at breakfast.” Andy, not knowing they are not talking about the movie: “You mean when they ate soup? Does soup symbolize breakfast?” Pam is bothered that her dad won’t talk to his daughter, but will talk to his daughter’s fiancee. Andy: “You guys… they’re making out.” And yes, Jack Black is sucking face with Cloris Leachman. *Gets willies*

When they get alone, Pam pushes Jim to talk to her dad. Sometime after they talk, she gets a call from her mom who tells her Dad has decided to get his own apartment. She charges up to Jim demanding to know what Jim told her dad that would make him do this. He has no idea, he swears. Jim interviews: “50% of marriages end up in divorce. So it was either her parents or my parents.” Pam interviews that she wonders what Jim could have said that would make her dad want to leave her mom. And at what point in their marriage will he say it to her. It is starting to look like Jim has sabotaged things.

Later, Andy watches the end of the movie by himself, eyes tearing up as Lily tells Sam that it just won’t work between them. She gets on her stairlift and slowly climbs the stairs. Then goes back down when she hits the wrong button and then back up again when she figures it out. Sam weeps at the bottom of the stairs. Pam hears from her dad and she arranges to meet him in the parking lot. He tells her what Jim said to him to make him leave his wife. Pam comes back inside and tells Jim: “He said that you told him how much you love me. About how you feel when I walk into a room and how you’ve never doubted for a second that I’m the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. I guess he never felt that with my mom, even at their best.” Then she interviews, “When your a kid you imagine your parents are soul mates. My kids are going to be right about that.” It’s so sweet. Then she adds, “I guess sometimes love affairs look different to the people inside them.” In the background, Andy throws up his hands in exasperation. It’s so sweet. Like, diabetes inducing levels of sugary goodness. You know what? I’m picking up what they’re putting down. Pass the insulin.

Main Story Line:

Dwight is upset because the previous week he gave a fire safety talk and no one paid attention. Dwight: “It’s my own fault for using Power Point. Power Point is boring.” Hee. That’s how my five year old son describes everything not toy related. He and Dwight do have similar levels of maturity. While Dwight’s explaining this we see him going around the office jamming doors shut, heating door handles with a propane torch, and lighting a fire in a trash can with lighter fluid. He has a point about the staff needing to listen to the safety talk, because they do everything wrong once they smell smoke. Well, after they try to call 911 and find the phones not working: that one is probably on Dwight.  But everyone panics, runs frantically from room to room and, rather than grabbing the fire extinguisher, grab the copier right next to it and try to ram down doors with it. Michael: “We’re trapped! Everyone for themselves!” Oscar tries to climb through the hung ceiling to get help. Angela pulls one of her cats from the filing cabinet. She throws the cat into the hole in the ceiling and seconds later that cat crashes through and falls onto a desk. It’s hilarious; I’m sure the cat is fine but I’ll bet they get some kind of complaint about it. Michel throws a chair through a window. Kevin throws a chair through the vending machine and fills his pockets with candy and chips. Dwight sets off firecrackers. WTF? Andy: “The fire is shooting at us!” Finally Dwight pulls the fire alarm and blows an air horn to get their attention. He lets them know it was only a test but no one is listening to him —again— this time because Stanley has collapsed and is having a heart attack. Michael: “Stanley! You will not die! Barack is president! You are black, Stanley!” He wants to give mouth-to-mouth but Jim tells him “not for this,” so Michael instead shoves his wallet into Stanley’s mouth to keep him from swallowing his tongue.

When we come back from the opening theme, David Wallace is reaming out Michael and Dwight. Dwight:”I just want to say for the record, I did not kill anybody. Stanley was attacked by his own heart.” Michael tries to take the reigns by claiming to Dwight that “they”, the company, are not mad, they are disappointed. David: “No, we’re mad.” Michael says they are going to let this slide. David: “No we’re not.” David also points out that this happened because of the way Michael runs his office, and that he needs to take responsibility.

On the drive back Dwight is pretty happy that they “papered” over that little problem, and tells Michael that he shouldn’t worry so much about Stanley because he has a bomb scare planned that will really “get the blood pumping”. Michael tells him he’s taking over as “Safety Man.” When Stanley comes back he is greeted with whispers so he doesn’t get too excited. Stanley interviews that he knows he’s been rather abrupt with people in the office. Cut to a montage of him yelling at people. He says his doctor told him that if he can’t find a way to relate more positively to his surroundings, he is going to die. They show him with Andy and Michael, who have brought him a wheelchair and insist he must use it. Cut back to the interview. Stanley: “I’m going to die.”

Because they were so unprepared, Michael sets up a CPR class.  Michael: “Of course, you can’t get the practice dummy unless the instructor comes with it. [grumbles] Red Cross… racket…” Kevin tries for 20 seconds before getting winded and “calling it”. Michael encourages Stanley to learn CPR so he can save himself if he ever has a heart attack when he’s alone. I think he’s thinking of the Heimlich maneuver. Michael takes a turn, even though he doesn’t think he should save this dummy since he has no arms and no legs. Michael: “What kind of quality of life do we have there?”  Michael can’t get the rhythm right, so the instructor, Rose, tells them to pump to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive” by the BeeGees. He starts pumping while reciting “Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.” Andy immediately starts singing the first verse, and Kelly gets up and starts dancing. Michael joins in and even Phyllis bops in her seat. They all start singing along and Rose is pissed. She interrupts to tell them that the victim is dead because Michael didn’t maintain 100 beats per minute and nobody called 911. Dwight takes over, asking what to do with a dead body. Phyllis: “Bury it.” No, check for a donor card. Michael says it is a donor so Dwight calls for some ice and a styrofoam bucket because they only have seconds to harvest the organs. He lifts his pants leg and whips out a big ass hunting knife and stabs the dummy in the chest. Stanley isn’t feeling well and while everyone is distracted helping Stanley, Dwight carves the face off the dummy and wears it! Let me add here that after the disappointment that was the last episode, this classic Office absurdity was downright heartwarming.

Back at the head office, David is yelling about having to pay for the dummy. Michael tries to explain that that is what training is all about: they learn from their mistakes. For instance, now Dwight knows not to cut the face off of a dead person.

When they get back, Michael announces that Dwight has two strikes against him and he is required to issue a formal apology. Dwight: “I state my regret.” He needs everyone to sign this statement and berates them to get up there and do so. Phyllis thinks this isn’t enough for almost killing Stanley. Dwight: “Yeah, right. I filled him full of butter and salt for 50 years and forced him not to exercise.” He’s right, but it’s not winning anyone over. No one signs it.

Michael makes a Relaxation Center out of the conference room. He has everyone lie down while he describes a sunny meadow with a castle with four men with no shoes who gives them a funny cigarette and ice cream. I love these glimpses into Michael’s psyche. Meanwhile, he’s walking around the room carrying a lit candle. I totally expect him to spill hot wax all over somebody (Meredith, most likely) but he doesn’t. As he walks closer to Stanley we hear a beeping noise. It’s Stanley’s biofeedback monitor, which beeps when he gets stressed. Every time Michael gets close to him it beeps, and it stops beeping when Michael moves away. Even Michael can figure out what this means. Especially when Oscar puts it on and it does the exact same thing. It’s not Dwight who is killing people, it’s Michael.

In his office Michael is pulling on a nip bottle and asking Dwight if he stresses him out. Dwight: “Nothing stresses me out. Except having to seek the approval of my inferiors. Speaking of which…” and he hands Michael his statement to sign. Michael laments in an interview that “boss” used to be something people say to describe something good, which is why he wanted to become a boss. But now “boss” is just slang for “jerk in charge”. He decides that the reason everyone is so stressed around him is because they are too intimidated by him to tell him what they really think, so they need to roast him. He wants them to take him down, to not hold back and make fun of anything about him. Michael: “It could be my race, the fact that I’m so thin, or I’m a womanizer… fair game.” Because so many people over the yearshave been ridiculed for being thin, white men who do well with the ladies. Alrighty, Michael. Kevin is thrilled by this idea. Oscar: “I consider myself a good person. But I’m going to try to make him cry.”

Michael is very proud of himself and says he can feel the tension slipping away in the office. Michael: “I’ve got to make sure that YouTube comes down to tape this.”

At the roast, being held in the warehouse, Michael gets on stage saying “You’re all jerks!” because that is what he thinks qualifies for a clever insult. He starts to ask for a volunteer but can barely get the sentence out before Angela shoots up there. She begins a Foxworthy-esque “You Might be Michael Scott” series of jokes. As in, “You might be Michael Scott if you ever put sun block on a window.” She gets the crowd into it and gets a nice round of applause. His response: “Hey, I don’t go make burgers where you work and tell you how to make burgers.” Kelly reads a list of who she would make out with before Michael such as, “Anyone from the warehouse, a wood chipper, Kevin, and Lord Voldemort.” Meredith bitches about all the horrible things he’s done to her. “Michael, you are why I drink.” Oscar rants in Spanish. Toby gets up but Michael sends him away saying, “Friends only!” Jim makes fun of the words Michael uses, such as “spiderface.” As in, “cut off her nose to spiderface.” MIchael doesn’t see what’s so funny. Dwight is furious that everyone is being so disrespectful. While he yells at the crowd, Michael tries to stop him and calls him an idiot. Dwight: “Are you calling me an idiot? Don’t talk to me like that you pathetic, short little man. You don’t have any friends or any family or any land.” Pam gets up and makes fun of him for falling for internet scams. She says he’s supporting about 20 Nigerian princesses. He doesn’t get that one either. She also mentions that she walked in on him naked and that “his thing is so small. If it were an iPod it would be a shuffle” I felt that was over the line, but then again, she does get the worst of life with Michael, so I’ll give it to her. Michael tries to point out that in most roasts your supposed to say you love them at the end. Darryl gets up and asks Michael to name one of the warehouse employees. He tries to brush it off, but he really doesn’t know, or even recognize the guy. Even though the worker gave him a ride home the week before and they were stuck in traffic for an hour. And his name is Michael. Andy sings “What I hate about you; We’re stuck listening to you all day, Stanley tried to die just to get away.” The whole crowd sings along and applauds.

Now it’s Michael’s turn. He stands up, shuffling some cards. He stammers a bit, trying to read them, but he can’t carry on and runs off stage.

The next day he calls in a personal day and goes to the park to feed the birds. But of course he can’t do that right either; he throws out whole slices of bread and yells “Caw, caw!” He talks about being a child and imagining that there was a spaceman watching him from space with a powerful telescope to see if he was okay. It’s a typical sad moment for Michael where we see that in some ways he has the emotional maturity of a small kid. Now the roast really seems pretty cruel.

Michael returns to the office and he says he wants to share some thoughts with everyone. Then he proceeds to rapid-fire insult everyone. “Dwight you’re a suck-up. Boom, you’re roasted. Pam you failed out of art school. Boom, roasted. Kevin, I can’t decide between a fat joke or a dumb joke. Boom, roasted.” Everyone stands there shellshocked and unresponsive. “Stanley you crush your wife during sex and your heart sucks.” Surprisingly, Stanley starts laughing. Everyone looks around and starts to chuckle and then laugh along with him. The tension is broken. Michael interviews, “They say laughter is the best medicine, so Stanley you can throw away your pills. Actually you better hold onto the pills, just in case.”

Parting shot: Sam runs up to Lily’s house with flowers and a new cane with a bow but sees her making out with another young hunk. She sees him there but she doesn’t stop. He walks away crying. As far as this movie-within-TV-show goes, I guess it was okay. I mean, it had it’s amusing points at the beginning but it was a one joke gag, drawn out way too long. Jack Black and Cloris Leachman kissing: we’re supposed to be squicked out. I get that. And it’s funny, to a degree, that he’d be so in love with her that he’d bring her a cane instead of, say, candy. I give this part of the show a 6 out of 10 just because it was a little played out by the end.

The show itself I give an 8.5/10 because it had a lot of the good old fashioned Office hijinx. Dwight episodes always have that element of the absurd that no one else can do as well. They did well putting this on after the Super Bowl, since it was even more fun to watch when slightly inebriated. Um, I’m guessing.