The Office season finale: “Goodbye, Toby”

Well, it certainly didn’t leave us with that warm and fuzzy feeling that last year’s final episode did, with Pam restraining her jubilation and asking, “could you repeat the question?” The Jim/Pam proposal didn’t go down, Ryan might be heading to prison and has certainly lost his job, Michael seemed to find the perfect woman but ultimately agreed to go back to being under Jan’s thumb, Angela reluctantly accepted Andy’s proposal but then quickly got caught cheating on him with Dwight…aside from Ryan getting his comeuppance, none of it was particularly pleasing. At times, it was pretty sad.

From a pure comedy standpoint, it was a hilarious episode, one of the funniest of the season…but after a cliffhanger to end season two, and a happy Jim/Pam ending to season three, we got some darker elements this time around. Pretty consistent with season four in general, I think.

The funniest stuff…