Just a heads-up, The Office is one hour long and starts a half hour early. Let’s hope it’s a good one!
Considering there’s only two more episodes left, they set a whole lot of things in motion. It was sort of the opposite of tying up loose ends.
I assume the next two episodes will also be an hour. Come to think of it, did I hear that the finale is two hours?
The next episode will be an hour. Then the week after there will be a Retrospective and the Finale which will be 2 hrs total… at least. The finale is likely going to be more than an hour… Last I heard NBC will either make the Retrospective shorter, or have The Office run past 10.
Greg Daniels:
“We are trying to get more time and the network (NBC) is being very creative about scraping some more time without us having to start the finale at a weird time that will cause half the audience to miss the first 10 minutes.”
“We are still hopeful of getting slightly more than one hour,” he said.
I would provide a link but it has a big spoiler about the finale.
Best ep in a long, long, long, long time! I don’t know how they could produce such (relative) crap this year and then come up with this one.
Until now I didn’t much care that this was the last season.
I agree this was a great episode. The only thing that bothered me was that Jim was so on-board with Dwight being manager after he wouldn’t even consider him when he was on the search comity looking for a new manager under Jo.
It was interesting to see Angela hitting rock bottom and it was nice of Oscar to offer her a place to stay. But she’s got a steady job in a city with a low cost of living. Even if she’s not getting alimony or child support, how can she be broke for long? Unless all those cats were eating her out of house and home.
I’m under the impression that Jim wants Dwight to be the manager mainly for the entertainment value.
Also, not that long ago there was a potential for a Dwight spin-off. As long as that was in the works, Dwight really couldn’t have been a [long term] manager. With that in mind, for as hard as Dwight was fighting to be the manager, they [the writers] needed someone fighting against him.
Another thing, Jim, I’m sure, knows that he can always call David Wallace back if Dwight gets out of hand and starts doing something truly stupid. But, they all handled Michael just fine for years and years. This should just be a step sideways.
She was drinking too.
That’s a good question. I couldn’t help but think of Michael, and how poor he should have been considering how horrible he was with his money.
No way Angela would be that desprate.
I’m just not sure it was consistent.
I think Jim realized that Dwight cares more about the job than he does.
I like the way they handled the Pam/Athlead plot with her overhearing Jim’s conversation.
Jim handled it with maturity and Pam was (hopefully) finally able to see how she’s stomping on his dream.
Yabutt … it would have been even better if Jim decided to talk it over with Pam. It’s not too late for that to be an issue. Maybe Pam will keep quiet and see how Jim plays it.
It’s possible that three months of sacrifice plus the big buyout could equal some big bucks and Pam might want to chime in on that.
Wasn’t Pam in NY for exactly three months? Sure they didn’t have children back then… but it’s only 3 months, then he’s done, right?
I also wondered about Angela’s living situation. Did she always have that many cats?
I didn’t realize Michael Imperioli (Christaphuh!) was so short.
I liked seeing everyone being so nice to each other, and so genuinely happy for Dwight.
I haven’t watched regularly for a couple seasons. What happened to Kelly? I know she has her own show, but how did she leave the office? And where’s Ryan?
I thought about that. OTOH, I could see him saying “I’ll be gone for three months, then we’ll have enough money that one of us can be a stay at home parent or I can work and you can go head first into art*” or something along those lines. OTOH, I can certainly see his side where he knows that disappearing for three months might mean his marriage ending. I know a lot of their troubles were based on him not talking to her about the other business, but their relationship really didn’t handle not being together well.
One other thing…I didn’t like the way he said “I can’t put Pam through that”. I wish he had said “I can’t put us through that again”. It would have seemed more like he really came back to work on the marriage and really wanted to fix it instead of like he came back because he just felt bad/sorry for her. Does that make sense?
*He’s got to be really careful with that though, it could come off as “What? Don’t you think my art is good? Do you think we need something to fall back on if I pursue that?”
Kelly’s fiance accepted a position at Miami State University, which she thought was in Miami but is actually in Ohio, so she went there with him, and Ryan followed her, ostensibly for his own reasons but actually because he’s kind of obsessed with getting her back now.
From Wikipedia:
In Season 8, wanting to get Kelly away from Ryan, Pam sets her up with Cece’s pediatrician, Ravi. When Ryan forces her to choose between the two, she chooses Ravi.
At the beginning of Season 9, it was revealed that Kelly and Ravi got engaged and moved to Miami University. Kelly quit her job at Dunder-Mifflin, mistakenly believing she was moving to Miami, Florida with Ravi.
…after Kelly got engaged to Dr. Ravi and moved to Miami (Ohio), Ryan suddenly resigned and decided to pursue IT prospects in the “Silicon Prairie” of southwestern Ohio.
That’s recent. She started hoarding cats after the senator left her.
Is that who that was. He looked familiar but I didn’t bother to look it up.
Kelly moved with her fiance who got a job at the University of Miami and since it’s warm there she was all to happy to throw away all her winter clothes and go with him (it’s in Ohio).
Same here. I was going to ask who the sensei was.
I don’t know if I agree with this. They’ve been apart before, and it’s only three months. Sure it would be taxing on Pam alone with the children, which is why I think him saying; “I can’t put Pam through that” sounds spot on to me. Jim was just taking a break from his other job remember.