First up in our Weekly TV Wrap-up Catch up game is The Office. After the jump you’ll be treated to my lovely recaps of episodes 5.2, “Business Ethics”; 5.3, “Baby Shower”; and 5.4, “Crime Aid.”
Onward, ho!
5.2, “Business Ethics”
How cruel of NBC to give us that lovely and glorious season premiere filled with squeeful Jim/Pam engagements and kisses in the rain and then making us wait two weeks for another episode! Granted, we had the vice presidential debate in the meantime which still brought the funny on a Thursday night (but hey, let’s not get into that!), but it was no The Office, that’s for sure.
So in this episode, the adorable Holly Flax, the new H.R. rep and Michael Scott’s frickin’ soul mate, is all set to give her first seminar in the office. It’s all regarding business ethics (if you couldn’t tell from the title of the episode), which is a direct jab at temp-turned-corporate-asshole-turned-temp-again Ryan Howard, who was sent to jail in the last episode of season four for fraud. Taking cues from Michael (soooo not a good idea, Holly), the conference room seminar begins with Michael and Holly making a jumping, jogging entrance with headbands on their heads to Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical.” Except, them being the clever beasts that they are, they change the word “physical” to “ethical” for this, the ethics seminar. Oh, I see what y’all did there! You can put anything past me! After the brilliant entrance, Holly goes right into the boring seminar, much to Michael’s chagrin. He tries to “save her” and ends up turning the seminar into a unethical behavior confession session. The confessions (Michael not working for 5 days when he discovered YouTube, Kelly downloading pirated music, Angela reporting Oscar to INS, Oscar taking a long lunch) were mostly harmless … That is until Meredith fesses up to sleeping with a Hammermill paper supplier for a discount for the company AND Outback Steakhouse gift certificates … What? Gift certificates for steak? Really? To say everyone in the room’s a little squicked out (and confused by the Outback gift certificates) would be quite the understatement. Holly, being the good HR rep that she is, is horrified and knows that it’s part of her job to do something about Meredith’s icky situation.
Obviously this doesn’t sit well with Michael, who’s always shown that he’s incapable of confronting serious workplace issues, as he sees the office as more of a family. His disdain for keeping his employees in line is one of the reasons Michael hated Toby Flenderson, Holly’s predecessor as the HR rep in Scranton. And if Holly keeps playing bad cop like this, Michael miiiiight grow to hate her, too. Which would be a sad day, ’cause I (and everyone else) so, so want them to get together. In an uncomfortable scene in Michael’s office, we see Michael grow colder and colder to Holly as she begrudgingly asks Meredith questions about her *ahem* situation. Meredith doesn’t seem phased by Holly’s prying and doesn’t really understand why her job would be on the line for behavior like that. All in all, it’s a pretty uncomfortable scene.
Trying to keep things cool with Holly and make sure nothing huge happens in the Meredith department, Michael strolls over to Holly’s part of the office and asks her to lunch. When she points to the caesar salad she just bought, Michael not-so-smoothly dumps it in the trash and asks her to come out to lunch with him. Though they’d have to go dutch. Nice, Michael. It seems to work, and in the next shot, Michael and Holly are seen enjoying a nice lobster lunch (complete with the red wine — nice liquid lunch!). Holly keeps trying to bring the Meredith situation up, and Michael shoots it down. He clearly thinks this is a date, and while Holly wouldn’t necessarily say no to a date with Michael under different circumstances, she wants to talk business in that particular moment. They have a really cute matching Schwarzenegger impression interchange before Holly really does something that pisses Michael off — she says that Dunder Mifflin Scranton is a business, not a family. The guys on the That’s What She Said podcasthave pinned it down perfectly when they said that Michael always views the office as his family, and can’t understand why people wouldn’t want to work at Dunder Mifflin and be a part of his family. So for Holly to say that Dunder Mifflin is, in fact, nota family is one of the biggest insults possible in Michael Scott’s mind. Other than, of course, “You have no sense of humor” or “Ryan Howard is an ugly asshat.” After Holly says that, Michael has an instant change of heart and decides Holly is evil, after all.
Once they return from lunch, Michael (and the rest of the office) are freezing Holly out. No one will talk to her, and Michael goes out of his way to make sure she doesn’t get any coffee (by taking the entire pot with him out of the break room) AND making her wait forever and ever for the copy machine. Holly comes into Michael’s office later for a conference call with the corporate HR rep, Kendall. Kendall essentially hands Holly her own ass on a platter, and says (very unethically, mind you) that the company’s having a hard time, is getting a discount from Meredith’s sexcapades with the Hammermill salesman, and so they should just turn their heads. Kendall essentially threatens to fire Holly if she doesn’t comply and says all she has to do is get everyone’s signatures for the ethics seminar and move on. Seeing Holly in such distress with her boss softens the hard candy shell around Michael’s heart and decides Holly isn’t the enemy anymore after all. He helps her out in the end and gets everyone in the office to attend (again) Holly’s boring ethics seminar. So there’s hope for Michael/Holly after all! Yesss.
After the glory that was the Jim/Pam engagement in the first episode, there is NO Pam Beesly in this episode. What a letdown! To make up for it, though, we did get a nice old school Jim/Dwight pranking session. In the first ethics seminar, Dwight declared that he had never, ever stolen any company time … After the seminar is over, Jim decides to test that out. Any time Dwight does something that isn’t work related, Jim times it with a stopwatch and records it. This includes yawning, sneezing and bathroom breaks. Dwight, who apparently loves being timed, steps up to Jim’s challenge and proceeds to work NONSTOP for the rest of the day. Jim THs that Dwight peed in an empty soda bottle (which they showed — I did not need to see Rainn Wilson with a 2-liter diet soda bottle containing urine, whether it’s real or fake) AND managed to sneeze with his eyes open. In the end, Jim asks Dwight about his twenty-minute absence from his desk. The camera then pans to Angela fixing a button on her blouse, so we can assume that Dwight & Angela have just knocked boots down in the warehouse. Dwight ends up admitting that he’s not the most ethical person before giving a sinister grin to the camera. Ew, Dwight. Jim is victorious, and even more victorious in the fact that he doesn’t know about Dwight and Angela. Let’s hope it stays that way, for Jim’s brain’s sake.
5.3 “Baby Shower”
Phew, this episode is definitely an uncomfortable one. While it’s definitely funny upon re-watching it several times, I was definitely unsettled the first time I watched it. It’s not one of my favorites, but they can’t all be gems, can they? Onward with the recap!
The episode opens with Dwight wearing a pregnant belly with what we can assume is a watermelon inside. He standing by his desk and yelling to Michael in his office about his contractions and the current status of his cervix. Jim fills us all in, both helpfully AND cutely (big hearts for you, Jim Halpert), by saying that Jan, Michael’s ex-girlfriend, is having a baby with a sperm donor, and that baby is only Michael’s by delusion. Zzzzzing! Dwights water then breaks, with Dwight crouching over a trash can and pouring water from a cup out in between his legs, and then the fake birth is on. Pantsless (yes, I said PANTSLESS) Dwight is screaming on Michael’s desk, asking Michael to give him drugs and cradle his head. Dwight then pushes the watermelon out into Michael’s hands, who promptly drops (and breaks) it. As it turns out, Dwight had covered the watermelon in butter because, as he says, “Newborns are slippery.” He also advises Michael to mark the baby with a sharpie to baby snatchers won’t come and switch it. Michael then eats the watermelon as Dwight puts his pants back on in the background … I’m trying to imagine that happening in my office, and … Wow. I really can’t. These two are priceless.
As we can tell from the episode title, Phyllis and her trusty Party Planning Committee are busy planning a baby shower for Jan. Phyllis definitely peaked early in her party planning career with Toby’s going away party, so this baby shower isn’t looking to turn out that well. All they have are balloons and personalized M&Ms with the boy’s name (Chevy, Michael’s choice) and girl’s name (Astird, Michael’s heinous misspelling of Astrid). Michael berates Phyllis’s lame party in the making before going on and on about boy beautiful of a name Ass-turd is … And then he tells Phyllis he wants this baby shower to be a golden one. That’s right, he said it — a GOLDEN shower. It throws me back to Phyllis’s wedding shower in season 3, where Michael wants to plan a shower for Bob Vance. He calls it an “hour long shower with guys.” Ouch, Michael. Michael then warns Holly that since Jan’s coming in and she’ll be fat, pregnant, and probably really mean, he’ll be rather cold toward her. And he says he’ll be the same way toward Ryan. Ahh, so his man-crush on Ryan lives on!
And then … Jan comes in. Man, can I just pause for a minute and talk about how beautiful Melora Hardin is? Sure, her character on this show has gotten more and more psycho as the seasons go on, but I think being psycho works for her. She’s gorgeous! So Jan comes in pushing a stroller, and we find out that she has already had the baby. And it’s a girl named Astrid (NOT Astird. Thank god). So Michael did all that prep-work with Dwight for nothing! Dwight’s instant fear is that since Michael wasn’t there to mark the baby, that baby in Jan’s hands could be anyone’s. Welllllll, since it was made with an anonymous sperm donor, it could still be anyone’s, Dwight, don’t even worry. Michael, understandably so, is hurt that he wasn’t there for the actual birth, and Jan tells him that her birthing coach told her it wasn’t a good idea. He asks to hold Astrid, and Jan says yes, but not to take her out of the car seat. So Michael tries to bond with a baby by holding it in a big, clunky carseat. Ah, I feel bad for Michael here, ’cause he obviously loves kids and babies and Jan’s doing everything she can to make Michael not a part of this kid’s life. Astrid’s going to be one interesting (and not in the good way) kid, I tell you what.
The baby shower itself turns out to be a bust, as playing the “Guess when the baby will be born” game isn’t as fun when the baby’s already been born. Now that you can’t exactly blame Phyllis for! Jan then proceeds to make everyone uncomfortable with her details of Astrid’s “tub birth,” which I’m guessing is giving birth in a tub of water? Ew. She then sings Astrid to sleep with a soulful rendition of ”Son of a Preacher Man.” Yep, that’s Jan for you. Holly attempts to talk to Michael several times, and each time he treats her the exact same way he used to treat Toby, which is a FAR cry from how they usually interact. Jan then goes off to take a nap on the tiny couch in reception, letting Michael actually hold the baby for the first time. Michael THs that he didn’t feel a connection with tiny Astrid and runs off to Darryl in the warehouse for some sage street wisdom. Meanwhile, after Jan wakes up from her name, she and Holly speak for the first time, and Jan is clearly not impressed with Holly. I’m fairly positive it’s because she sees that Holly is basically a female Michael from her cheesy (and awesome) jokes and feels threatened by that. Jan then runs off to find her baby, who is in the break room with Angela, being posed Anne Geddes-style among some vegetables. CLASSIC Angela! Jan then takes the baby and gets ready to peace out. Dwight tells her he put her stroller in the car for her (even though he’d spent the entire afternoon trying to destroy it .. ‘Cause it’s Dwight, after all), and before she gets in the car and leaves, Jan asks Michael not to date Holly. In a move of sheer awesomeness, Michael goes up to see Holly and gives her a hug and ASKS HER OUT FINALLY. YESSSS, GO MICHAEL!! She says yes, too! It’s not quite a Jim/Pam Casino Night moment from Season 2, but it’s sweet, nonetheless. Woooo!
Speaking of Jim & Pam, it was quite the awkward episode for the two of them. Even though they’re engaged now, Pam is still attending art school in New York, so they have the whole long distance relationship dynamic to deal with. This day in particular, Jim and Pam are “out of sync,” as they say and keep having awkward phone conversations where they’re not involved in the goings in the other person’s life and are trying their hardest to understand/be interested in it. And in the end, they end up calling each other at the exact same time and leaving identical cute, slightly angsty “I miss you” voicemails on the other’s machine. If they are building us up for a Jim/Pam break-up, I am SO not on board. We’ve had ENOUGH Jim/Pam angst in the past seasons! I want them together and happy, so can you please keep them that way, writers? That’d be great.
5.4, “Crime Aid”
Alas, this episode is another one containing Michael/Holly cuteness and slight Jim/Pam angst. While I LOVE everything Michael/Holly, the continued hints at possible future problems between Jim and Pam make me super sad. At any rate, on with the recap!
We begin with a shot of Pam (yay!) at an office, in full on corporate garb. Bzuh? She sweetly explains that she’s flat broke and has gotten a part-time job at the Dunder-Mifflin corporate HQ for some money. Michael was nice enough to help her out, which is very cool of him. Believe me, homegirl (meaning myself) knows how hard it is to find a job these days. But that’s neither here nor there! Michael, however, is repaying her by calling her office line repeatedly and leaving awesome messages where he chants her name like the Ricola guy (”PAAAMELAAAAA!”) and says repeatedly that he “misses her, kiddo.” Hmm, sounds like something Jim should be saying. As long as he never calls her kiddo … I’ve dated several guys in the past who have called me that for whatever reason, and I’ve grown to loathe it with ever fiber of my being. Curse you, kiddo! CURSE YOU, I SAY! … And wow, I seem to have really gotten off track, yet again.
So after the theme song (that I dance and sing along to every single time), we get our first taste of Michael/Holly post-date, and it seems to have gone well. So well, in fact, that Michael asks her out again on the spot, and they cutely make the same joke back and forth about pretending to have plans and then not. Seriously, I keep expecting Holly to roll her eyes or do something else disapproving when Michael says Michael-like things, but it never happens! Take the next thing that happens, for example — Michael wonders if he and Holly are going to have sex that night after their date. He THs that one typically does that after the third date, and even goes so far as to ask Holly specifically if they’re going to do it that night. Any other woman (such as myself) would be horrified; Holly, on the other hand, replies, “Hell yeah!” GOD, I love them together! They decide to go out for dinner that night and are shown playing crazy eights in the office after everyone’s gone, killing time before their reservations. As they’re leaving, Holly pushes Michael into the men’s bathroom to make out with him without the cameras watching. Due to the mics they’re wearing for the mockumentary, though, we can still hear all the dirty dirty … And we can hear it even louder as Michael turns the mic volume up, though he thinks he’s turning it down. Doh!
The next morning, however, Michael and Holly arrive to the office (after an evening of freakynaughty, one can assume) only to find the office ransacked — they’ve been robbed! Oscar’s pissed that his laptop’s been stolen, Kevin’s freaked that his surge protectors gone (because now he’ll be prone to surges, as he so eloquently explained to Oscar), and Angela’s afraid for her safety (don’t worry — Andy promised she’s safe with him, as he’s a loud screamer … Hmm). Creed deadpans his one line of the show, and, as per usual, it’s both creepy and hilarious: “Nobody steals from Creed Bratton and gets away with it. The last person to do this disappeared. His name? Creed Bratton.” BRILLIANT, Creed. Naturally, Michael and Holly feel bad that their late-night office shenanigans resulted in one of them forgetting to lock the building before they left, so Michael comes up with one of his brilliant plans in a legendary conference-room meeting — they’re going to have an auction to recoup everyone’s losses. Like Farm Aid! Only not … it’s Crime Aid! Thus the title for this episode.
Since Michael is Michael, he hints at the fact that he might maybe possibly have front row Bruce Springsteen tickets (and backstage passes) to auction off as the big ticket item. Now seriously, anyone that knows Michael (as the employees in the office definitely do) should know better than to believe him when he says this. Well … I’m pretty sure the smarter people in the office (Jim, Stanley, Oscar, etc.) do know that there are no Springsteen tickets, but are intrigued to see how Michael gets himself out of this mess after promising them and advertising that they will be up for auction. Nevertheless, the auction, located down in the warehouse, starts and is (oh so happily) attended by the our favorite office workers, warehouse workers, and other members of the Scranton Business Park (Bob Vance from Vance Refrigeration and so on and so forth). Not surprisingly, it doesn’t go that well. Michael pays $400 for Holly’s yoga lessons, no one wants to bid on tax help from Kevin, and Hank the security guard’s blues playing is truly, truly heinous. The audience is getting impatient for the Springsteen, and, put on the spot, Michael lies that they’ve been stolen are are lost forever. In the end, though, the auction didn’t end up being a complete bust: Bob Vance, Dwight, and Dunder Mifflin CFO David Wallace get into a nice bidding war over a hug from Phyllis. Awww! At the end, though, David Wallace sees Michael and Holly kissing in the warehouse, and forebodingly tells the camera that he did not, in fact, know that they were in dating.
The other plot lines, of course, involve Dwight and then Jim/Pam. Lets go with Dwight first, shall we? The poor guy is upset that Andy and Angela have finally set a date for their wedding, and Phyllis, upon finding him whittling a knife out of wood with a knife (yep, you read it correctly), tries to help him out. Since she caught him & Angela fooling around in the office at the end of season 4, just after Angela had accepted Andy’s proposal, Phyllis tells Dwight that he knows she knows AND he knows that the cameras know, too. Wow, this episode is very camera-aware — much more so than a lot of the other more recent ones. Dwight rebuffs her attempts to ease his troubled mind several times before finally giving in and talking to her. She advises him to give Angela an ultimatum and see what happens. He does that, and, ultimately, Angela .. Well, doesn’t really do anything. When the time comes for her to decide, she just looks Andy’s direction, so one can assume she chose him, But it’ll be interesting to see how D & A act toward each other in the upcoming episodes. After getting the final rebuff from Angela. Dwight takes out his anger on Phyllis before ultimately realizing that she really was trying to help him. Thus the reason in his participating in that bidding war for her hug. Aww, that Dwight really is kind of a softie.
As for Jim & Pam, things still aren’t quite right in their world. Damn it. We don’t really see them interacting at all in this episode, but we do see seeds of doubt planted in Jim’s head. While she was out drinking with her college friends, Pam’s phone accidentally dialed Jim, leaving his a 6+ minute message on his work phone. And then when Darryl, Jim and the warehouse workers leave the auction to go out for drinks (baha, bad asses), none other than Pam’s ex-fiancée Roy shows up. Jim tells Roy that he and Pam are now engaged, that Pam’s in New York now and is loving hanging out with her friends. Which leaves Roy wide open for the dickish line, “Well, you were a friend.” Damn it, Roy! After that, Jim leaves the bar and starts driving to New York to see Pam … He turns around right before he gets on the highway, stating that he’s “not that guy,” and they’re “not that couple.” He trusts her. YOU TRUST HER, JIM! Now okay I’m tired of Jim/Pam angst. Please bring them back together!
