They did two full seasons plus one final two hour special as a wrap up.
That was brilliant. Another show would have settled for Michael’s “Hello, milady!” and a maybe putdown from the blonde. This was much better.
I loved this episode. So many great lines and awkward cringeworthy stuff – all the elements I enjoy in The Office were in place.
Michael sure was in extreme asshat form, wasn’t he? It harkened back to his roots as David Brent redux. As a guy escaping a toxic relationship, he’s unfortunately reverted to his worst qualities that were in such evidence before he and Jan first hooked up. Which, really, is kinda understandable – albeit certainly not justified. I’m holding out hope they’ll be a resolution similar to Brent’s second bad blind date from the Christmas special. (Actually the landlord Margaret even reminded me of Brent’s second date.) Despite all this, he was hilarious – ordering that disgusting caramel with mint coffee drink, “shorn’t,” “you can’t 'cause I don’t care,” “we had lots of kids, drinkin’ whiskey and rye…”
I was dreading Jim asking Pam to marry him and then felt soooo relieved he was faking her out! I do NOT want to see that kind of soppy romantic crud, and also it would seem very out of character for them to have such a moment in front of the cameras. Even the casual engagement discussion made me irritated, because it’s such a turnaround from their privacy earlier in the season. In a way I’m not thrilled by them this year … sometimes they seem smug to me, especially early in this ep when Pam snarked on Kevin’s unhappiness with the parking situation (and later, seeing Kevin’s touching confessional makes her crack seem even bitchier in retrospect).
Speaking of Kevin, he rocked. So does Andy – “Andrew Bernard… is the name of me.” Phyllis was awesome too, desperately trying to avoid admitting that her friend is overweight and eventually saying “Well, I’m setting Michael up with my fat friend. He can just deal with it.” And Stanley’s “There’s nobody I hate enough to write 'em down on this card.” Funny funny stuff.
Yipe, I think the writer’s strike has made people forget the entire first half of the season. ‘How little we see Dwight anymore’? Every episode of the fourth season, aside from these two, focused heavily on the Dwight/Angela relationship – his killing her cat, her dumping him, his misery over said dumping, Andy’s sudden interest in Angela (and constant confiding in Dwight), the trip of Jim/Pam to Schrute Farms… Heck, Dwangela have gotten more screen time than Jim/Pam this season! (Which IMO is a good thing, don’t get me wrong!)
Meanwhile, Kelly was featured in two episodes so far – her faux pregnancy and the ping pong rivalry with Pam; Ryan’s corporate assholery got a lot of focus too. I agree Toby, Phyllis, Meredith, Stanley and Creed haven’t been seen much, but they’ve pretty much always been background folks. And both Stanley and Phyllis had great lines in this episode.
I love the tertiary characters like everyone else and hope we see more of them. I just don’t think we can judge whether the show’s jettisoned its interest in everyone but Michael/Jan/Jim/Pam by looking at these two episodes, one of which was written before the strike began and the other which had to encapsulate stuff due to the truncated season.
They got me, too. I was expecting it to be Jan.
I keep the closed captioning turned on, and usually I like it because I don’t miss any of the dialog. But I think I should start turning it off for comedies like this one, because sometimes it throws off the timing. I’m guessing that the “Oscar Mayer wiener lover” joke, which fell flat for me when I saw it in text, would have been funnier if I had heard it and absorbed the meaning only after a few seconds.
It was a hot chocolate. No coffee.
I’m completely drawing a blank on the Oscar Meyer wiener lover joke - can someone give me the setup?
I agree with that. In fact, I think we should give Jenna Fischer more credit for that particular scene. She played Pam as having the restraint to not show too much emotion, as though she were excited but didn’t want to show just how excited she really was.
I could be reading too much into her performance. I was once engaged to a “Roy” type and dodged a bullet by not marrying him. I would have loved to have a “Jim” come into my life to make me realize that I didn’t love “Roy”.
Ha! Me too. 
It was easy to miss. Michael said something to Oscar, and when he said the name “Oscar” he followed it with “Mayer weiner lover” and his voice was trailing off, gradually quieter, like maybe even Michael knew it was inappropriate. It was different from Michael’s usual very loud attempts at humor.