The Office: “Job Fair”

A lot of people have complained about the dark tone the episodes of The Office have taken since the strike. At least tonight, they don’t really have that to complain about…aside from Jim desperately clinging to his job, which is apparently endangered due to the new vindictive Ryan, this was mostly a pretty upbeat episode. With that said, it wasn’t great, but it was decent.

I definitely got a few really big laughs in during the half hour, though…

• Andy to potential client: “Oh no. No, no, no. My grandfather would be spinning in his urn if he knew that I was out here with a Dartmouth boy. You take that shirt off right now, or I will take it off for you. I am totally and completely kidding. Andrew Bernard, Cornell ‘95.”
• Kevin’s gambling problem resurfaced again…I always think that’s a funny subplot.
• Stanley smirking and walking out as Dwight declared his authority over the office was good. That’s the apathetic Stanley I know and love.
• Prospective intern comes up and asks what their company was about. Michael: “It’s really more than a company.” Oscar: “Dunder Mifflin paper.” Prospect thanks them and walks away. Michael: “Dammit Oscar.” Blaming Oscar for doing nothing wrong was priceless to me.
• Michael: “I would never say this to her (Pam’s) face, but she is a wonderful person and a gifted artist.” That line and Oscar’s indignence were great.
• Michael walking up way too close to Jim and Pam kissing: “Yeah. Kiss her. Kiss her good.” Creepy, but funny.

Angela is the head of accounting…why was Oscar the one representing that department at the job fair? And why was Kevin in on the golf match with Jim and Andy when he’s an accountant and not in sales? For that matter, if Jim was going to take the lead and do all of the selling anyway, why would they bring Andy along if he can’t even golf? The answer to all of these questions, of course, was that they were finding convenient ways to write characters out of the office for the episode so that Dwight and Angela could be stuck alone together. Then, all episode long, we were teased with the possibility of something happening between them, but absolutely nothing happened.

Until we see what happens on next week’s season finale, I’ll actually give them the benefit of the doubt on Dwight/Angela seemingly doing nothing in this episode. My gut feeling is that it’ll turn out that they got together after work that night, once they were out of view of the cameras, and that we’ll find out about it next week. The characters know most of the time when the cameras are there, and Dwight and Angela were always secretive even when they were together…so this would actually make plenty of sense. Again, though, that part of this episode can’t be judged until we see how it’s followed up next week.

We got mixed signals on the Jim and Pam front. They’ve been strongly foreshadowing a marriage proposal by the end of the season (coming quickly now), and Jim is flailing desperately to keep his job at Dunder Mifflin even though we know he doesn’t particularly like the place. He wants to maintain stability so that he can pop the question sooner than later. Pam, on the other hand, is fed up with the job and looking to work elsewhere…of course, that’s no reflection on her relationship with Jim, but it does look like they’re setting up for her to want to explore the possibility of finally pursuing the art thing in Philadelphia or New York. Still, though, she was really excited about Jim nabbing the client at the end of the episode, and why would that excite her if not for the very same reasons that Jim deemed so important to keep his job?

They’re setting up some kind of reason that the impending proposal won’t go smoothly, though I’m not entirely sure what that reason is…because there are no glaring problems in the relationship, and last week’s “if you propose to me in a Michael meeting, I’ll say no” was a telling line that she has no plans to say no except in a ridiculous and extreme situation. With the spinoff (which we know nothing about) starting in January, could they possibly be setting it up for Jim and Pam to marry, move to the city and star in that show instead? I hate that idea, honestly I hate almost all spinoff ideas that include taking anyone out of the Scranton branch (especially any of the “big four” (Michael/Dwight/Jim/Pam), but it seems possible.

I’m excited to watch the hour-long season finale next week. Lots of possibilities, and in both season two and season three, I think the finales may have been the best episodes of the whole season.