The episode could have been subtitled "Five Couples." The couples in question: Pam and Jim, Pam and Roy, Dwight and Angela, Ryan and Kelly, and Michael and Jan. The secret storyline was the further development of the relations between these pairs. Poor Karen got a look-in, but only just. I don't know many offices the size of DM where there are so many hook-ups. Maybe such things happen only in Scranton. (After all, we all know: "There ain't no party like a Scranton party.")
There was a subtext of male dog-on-dog action: Roy dominating Jim, Dwight dominating Roy (and by extension, Jim) Darryl dominating Michael (and Michael's struggle to be top dog), Michael dominating Toby, and---finally---the glorious return of my hero Andy. Though asserting that his anger has now been managed, his evolution into a quieter, more peaceable Andy were instantly belied (in a scene so brief you missed it if you blinked) by his attempt to dominate everybody.
Roy makes the promised attempt to "kill Jim Halpert," but is foiled by Dwight's pepper gas. It's not funny violence: it's ugly. Roy, forgetting every single thing he's learned about Pam since the break-up, is in a state of primordial rage; his eyes are clotted with it. He means to inflict severe bodily harm on Jim. What? Why? What? Yes, I know that Pam's revelation in the last (as yet unrecapped; sorry) episode sent him over the edge; why? "I kissed Jim." I suppose we must assume he understood this as a euphemism; presumably, he pictured much, much more than the sweet, brief little snog which we and Pam and millions of balked, frustrated, furious Jammers (no satisfaction in sight yet, ladies!) remember.
Dwight's fast thinking earns him props from the rest of the employees. Angela, still pretending that she isn't Dwight's girlfriend, missed the scene, but she spends the episode going from fellow employee to fellow employee, asking them to rely the details, which arouse her strangely. Angela Kinsey does this really well: the fleeting slackening of the face and glazing of the eyes, then Angela pulling herself together again to snap, "Well good for Dwight."
Jim, on the other hand, is furious and humiliated at having been saved by Dwight. It's unmanning, I suppose; you can't blame him. For the remainder of the episode, he obsesses over how he can somehow even things up between them through some grand gesture. And Dwight is somehow conscious of this, smugly refusing to accept any thanks or gesture. He was a citizen doing a citizen's work. At a certain point, Karen suggests to Jim that he stop obsessing over it and get back to selling paper so they'll have money for their vacation. Sound advice.
A significant bonus was the reemergence of Toby, first to tell the camera about his sufferings now that Ryan has moved back to the annex with Toby and Kelly. In the background we can hear Ryan and Kelly arguing; eventually we actually see them lock lips and sort of stagger into an unabashedly sexual embrace. Toby sighs that if Michael intended to punish him by moving Ryan back there, it's...well, we can see it's a success.
Pam is humiliated over Roy's behavior and naturally she breaks up with him. Perhaps she's a little too eager to share this with Jim when he comes into the break room where she just "happens" to be sitting. Jim, still sore and humiliated, isn't feeling it and probably doesn't care at the moment; he is, he must be, furious with her for sharing this snippet of information when it so clearly wasn't necessary. Which, you know, it was not. I wanted him to say so, but that isn't the way these two roll. He coldly expresses skepticism when she tells him she broke up with Roy. He thinks they'll move back toward each other again; ...."we'll see." Good. I'm so tired of this story line and I like Karen.
Furthermore, in the real world, this is the awkward way in which things develop. Don't hold your breath, Jammers. And don't mistake this show for a romantic comedy, though I admit this season is spending a lot of time on the office romances. I suppose it's the only way to keep things fresh; how many more times, after all, could they have Michael pull everyone into the conference room for an avuncular discussion of Indian culture or prison life?
The Michael part of the story had to do with him studying (on Wikipedia) ways to keep from having to give Darryl a raise. The dis on Wikipedia was both true and unfair: the thing about Wikipedia is that it is very useful if you already know enough about the subject matter to assess the reliability of the information. I mean, it's not any less likely to be true or useful than anything else you read on the internet.
In one sense, you have to take any "expert" opinion with a grain of salt if you can't assess the credentials of the expert; in another, it's a gold mine of information and links to information, and most of the articles I've read provide their sources. And on the other hand, if you're going to be looking up negotiation tactics, you probably deserve whatever master you decide to follow. What Michael learned could work, especially if the person on the other side of the table was nervous (as Darryl isn't and never will be).
The dog-on-dog theme is reinforced quite beautifully by Darryl's sudden realization that Michael is wearing a woman's suit (Michael got it out of a sale bin somewhere) and gleefully sharing this with the rest of the office. They gather round to confirm Michael's accidental cross-dressing: no belt (what about the good ol' Sans-a-belt trousers from the Seventies then, hmmm?), buttons on the wrong side, pocketless trousers.
Michael ineptly tries out various "techniques", none of which make the slightest impression, until he hits upon the one where you ask the person to write what they're asking and to slide it across the table to you. When Michael sees what Darryl is asking, he responds by laughing loud and long because it's almost as much as he (nominal top dog!) makes. This in turn causes Darryl to laugh loud and long, and furthermore to get the whole office grapevine talking about its kingpin's pitiably small salary. (Stanley: "I still think he's overpaid.") And of course this is the push Michael needs to demand a raise from "Corporate." Darryl, assuming---this wouldn't be my assumption, but whatever---that if Michael mans up and demands more, he'll somehow have more of an incentive to give Darryl what he's asking, goes along as cheerleader.
Furthermore, Jan requires Michael to bring Toby (H.R. rep) along because of their (hers and Michael's) special relationship. This allows Michael the opportunity to administer a few undeserved kicks to poor Toby, whose quiet integrity he finds so baffling and infuriating. The situation isn't helped by the hottness of Jan's new young (male) assistant. The negotiation ends up consisting of Jan trying to represent the company, Michael refusing not to make it personal and explosively threatening to deny her any further sex, and Jan finally---after sending Toby and Darryl out----"negotiating" to give him most of what he expected.
Lots of good stuff in this; I look forward to recapping it in full (along with the previous "Cocktail Party") in a couple of weeks when work slows down.
The best part of the episode was, for me, the return of Andy, now a
graduate of the anger management course. And here I thought he was
gone for good. Did I just dream this? Did it really happen? He was
there only for a minute; did it really happen?
LINK TO THE NBC RECAP (PICTURES!)
Comments