I thought this was a quite weak episode overall. The 5 families plot seemed silly and contrived. The chair model thing was a bit too silly.
I did love Jim faking Pam out with his shoe. And Creed’s mysterious line about the chair was just brilliant.
Isn’t there talk of a spin off? Wifey says she read it in a Vanity Fair article.
I really liked the exchange between Michael and Dwight at the cemetary
Michael: How did she die?
Dwight: Car accident. Blunt force trauma, blood loss.
M: She was such a responsible person.
D: She was stoned, ran right into the side of the hangar at the airport.
Could someone fill me in about Michael and Jan breaking up? I saw last week’s episode about the dinner party and the police being called and all of that (although I don’t remember a “stinger” scene at the very end of the episode), but do we know that Jan is actually moved out of the condo? Or is Michael still staying elsewhere for awhile? Was there any dialogue indicating they are officially broken up? I feel like I missed about 5 seconds of relevant dialogue.
At the end of the ep, when Jim and Pam were walking down the street, did anyone else notice how leafy the trees were? Here in SE MI, we ain’t got no leaves in mid-April; is Scranton, PA really that far ahead of us in the leaf department?
The show is filmed on a soundstage in LA built to look like a real office. The first season used a real office suite in Culver City. Exterior shots are in generic Los Angeles locations that frankly could be anywhere in the country.
The show has not yet filmed in Scranton.
No, I understand that, but they very obviously framed the shot to have sunlight poking through the foliage very romantically for that scene, so it just kind of surprised me that they wouldn’t have realized that leaves aren’t out at this time of year outside of CA.
Just a minor blip that bugged me when I saw it.
Don’t forget that he was also a jerk to Phyllis, as always, over her “fat friend”. While I think the show would be better with much less Michael time, it is amazing that we alternate between hating him and feeling sorry for him.
I wish they had made the entire show revolve around office chairs. That would have been funny.
Yes, but I don’t think that anything about the episode indicated that it was meant to be set at this time of year. (Aside from the occasional Christmas episode, most shows ignore the calendar.)
I’m in agreement that it is one of the weaker episodes, not just this season either.
The “3 chairs” bit was the funniest for me, by far.
Or around the parking. I could totally relate to that first scene with Kevin and Andy, and Kevin threatening to quit. Same thing happened at the last place I worked when they changed the parking lot closest to the building from “first come first served” to “management”.
Chairs too – actually any nice furniture or equipment – the higher-ups get new stuff and everybody else wrangles for the hand-me-downs.
For those who haven’t seen the BBC version, their version of Michael (David Brent played by Ricky Gervais) signed up for an online dating service. They have him meeting several women and he rejected each one for various reasons. One chubby lady walked in with the telltale sign (e.g. a green scarf) and he had the same reaction that Michael Scott had – disbelief and disgust. And it was hilarious because it showed what an egotistical ogre David Brent was. Here he was, a chubby middle manager in a crappy little office in a crappy town making a crappy wage and he is the only person who doesn’t see the truth. He is VERY impressed with himself and he’s the only one, including the blind dates who are repulsed by his boorish behavior. (He spends one date talking about breasts.)
It didn’t work with the US counterpart for several reasons. One because it was disjointed. Michael, for all his flaws, is very loyal and we haven’t seen any resolution between him and Jan. So him all of a sudden deciding to date was out of character and stupid.
Secondly, Ricky Gervais is chubby. He has crooked teeth. He’s lonely. And he’s much more of a prick than Michael. So when he rejects women who, physically, are the same level of attractiveness as himself, it’s funny and sad. It doesn’t work for Michael Scott. He’s too good looking, for one. And he’s not lonely as he has a very attractive girlfriend at home.
So the joke fell flat. Had they done it during S.1 it might have been funnier.
It was just a’ight.
(Note to OP: in the future, could you put open spoilers in the second post so they don’t pop up on mouseover? Thanks.)
I’m ashamed to admit that the Oscar Mayer wiener lover joke caught me off guard and made me laugh like a howler monkey.
I mean, I’m almost 40 for heaven’s sake. I don’t think I’m ever going to grow up.
I feel the same confusion. Where we ever told that either Michael or Jan moved out? Maybe my DVR cut out a few seconds of dialogue? Although Michael and Jan had a horrible dinner party, this type of drama seems to be typical for them and not a deal breaker. Which of the two wimps had the courage to pull the trigger?
[hijack]
My brothers an I are all long since grown.
We were chopping wood last year and I set a log upright in order to chop it and my brother says, “The log has an [erection]”. It did indeed look like that and the three of us laughed for about 15 minutes.
[/hijack]
So yeah, I laughed at the Oscar Mayer Weiner lover joke as well.
I thought the funniest bit was when Michael was showing his date a picture of Jan on his phone, and accidently called her. That and Dwight’s excitement at tracking down the chair model, even though she turned out to be dead.
I really liked this one.
The American Pie bit at the end hasn’t been mentioned yet, and that was the biggest belly laugh for me.
I hope Jim proposes to Pam, she immediately and enthusiastically says yes, and they get married on top of a mountain and ride off into the sunset. Is it realistic? Not really, no. But, dammit, I want it to happen, anyway! When he got on one knee, I was totally taken in. I thought that was going to be it. I hope fake proposals don’t become a recurring thing.
Ryan’s one of the top billed stars, right? And we haven’t seen or heard him in two episodes. Also, have Toby or Kelly had a line since coming back? I can’t think of any. At least Creed had a line tonight.
I feel terrible for Kevin for getting dumped. That poor guy. 
When Michael asked Dwight how the chair model died, I said “He’s gonna say ‘blunt force trauma.’” It’s always nice to get one right!
Pam looked fantastic in this episode. Even more so than usual. And the usual looks damn good.
Funnies:
Would she fit in a normal size rowboat?
Andy dancing.
Kevin being scared of the big manager.
Michael bragging about Jan’s boob job.
I dunno; I assume things happen off camera sometimes. Just because we didn’t witness the resolution doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Actually, that fits with the rest of the show; although the “office documentary” concept has really been stretched, they wouldn’t fully take us behind closed doors like that. Notice that all the show’s “private” moments (Jim/Pam kiss, Dwight & Angela’s secret flirtation, first Michael/Jan kiss, etc) have been stolen long shots through windows and such.
And he definitely doesn’t like to be alone; when dumped by Carol he immediately invited Jan on a trip to Jamaica (but not before “rebounding” with a Benihana waitress).
Not anymore, apparently.
I thought it was awful.
I think they’re putting way too much focus on Michael at the same time that they’re turning him into basically a parody of the character was in the first three seasons. The whole thing with him ordering his employees to find him a girlfriend felt like it came out of a much, much lesser sitcom than the Office.
Michael is basically getting more and more Homer Simpson-ized, and I don’t like it any more on this show than I did on Homer’s.
Kevin and Andy’s B-Plot fell totally flat for me. I thought the “5 families” thing was cringe-worthy and embarassing, and I thought they put way too much focus on Kevin - who works best when he has one or two lines an episode - to begin with. The one part I did like was Kevin’s moment of triumph at the end of the whole ordeal, where he mentions that he lost his girl but won his parking space. That’s the kind of thing I like to see from this show. It’s subtle, tells us a lot about the character, and relates to something that’s actually going on in the office.
Jim and Pam? Ehh. I haven’t totally given up hope on this yet. The problem is that the show is about Jim and Pam. Without that, there is no show. While I’m fairly confident that since marriage was brought up, it won’t happen (I agree, Pam will say no), I’m worried that they’re going to just fall back to Pam having rejected Jim and Jim being sullen again.
The wedding ring thing made me groan instead of smile.
I’ve just been really disappointed with how cartoony and “normal” the show is getting. It’s more and more like a run-of-the-mill sitcom with each episode. I’m worried that the show is going to quickly turn into Michael Scott and his Wacky Schemes.