The real crime, I think, was the beard.

The Office – Goodbye, Toby
In the S4 finale, Toby prepares to bid adieu to Dunder Mifflin (much to Michael’s delight), so the desk jockeys throw a party in his honor. Meanwhile, Toby’s replacement arrives only to become the victim of hazing.

As we open, Michael is thrilled that Toby is leaving. He wants to throw a going away party, but wants it to be fantastic and overdone. So, Phyllis takes over and naturally head party planner Angela is insanely jealous.

Meanwhile, Toby trains his replacement, Holly. Michael wants to haze her, so Dwight tells her that Kevin is mentally challenged. Holly then speaks to Kevin as one might speak to a very stupid child, which Kevin interprets as romantic interest.

Michael decides he’s in love with Holly, who actually seems to return his attraction, and Jim manages to convince him to take it slow. Pam gets accepted to a summer design school program … in New York. Jim decides that he will propose to her that night, and asks Phyllis to have fireworks at the going away party. Courtesy of a video on YouTube, the entire office sees Ryan get arrested for fraud. However, Oscar points out, “the real crime is the beard.”

The party is fantastic and Michael even sings a goodbye song for Toby. He and Holly are getting along famously when suddenly … Kevin calls, asking Michael to meet him at the grocery store. When Michael arrives, he finds Kevin standing with a pregnant Jan. Pretty much everyone saw this coming, so it is not a shock. What is surprising is that the baby is not Michael’s (or Hunter’s). Jan went to a sperm bank. But she does ask for Michael’s help, and he agrees to think about it.

Back at the party, the fireworks start and Jim slips the engagement ring out of his pocket. He’s just about to speak when … Andy grabs the microphone and proposes to Angela. Her reply? A monotone “okay.” There is no way I believe that Angela would accept this proposal. I know the writers needed something to stop the Jim-Pam engagement, and I love them for doing so, but this falls extremely flat.

Jim puts the ring back in his pocket, and in a side interview Pam is disappointed because she “really thought he was going to propose.” Michael is so desperate to have a family that he calls Jan to say he’ll help her with the baby. And … woah! Phyllis walks into the office to find Dwight and Angela having sex on a desk.

We're gonna ditch this bitch. You in?

The Office – Job Fair
With Andy and Kevin in tow, Jim hits the golf course in order to score his biggest client yet. Elsewhere, Michael mans a booth at the local job fair in his quest to find a bright summer intern.

Basically, nothing happened here. Michael attends a high school job fair, taking Darryl, Oscar, and Pam to up the hipness quotient. Unfortunately, he has no presentation ready, so the students are not interested in the Dunder Mifflin booth. Except one, but Michael insults him because he’s not cool enough. Meanwhile Jim, Andy, and Kevin go golfing with a potential client who could become Jim’s biggest account. Jim is a bit lackluster until he realizes how much is on the line, so he steps up and finally signs the account. In the end, Pam returns to the job fair to ask about a graphic design job. She is under qualified, and the employer suggests that she go to school in Philadelphia or New York.

So. I know I’m in the minority of viewers who don’t want Pam and Jim to get engaged, and this bit at the end gave me hope. Perhaps Pam will realize that she’s not quite ready to settle down. There are obviously things she wants to accomplish, but at the same time she’s kind of lazy. Same with Jim. He doesn’t particularly like working at Dunder Mifflin, but he keeps at it. I understood that more when he wasn’t with Pam – working there was the only way to stay close to her. But now? He could easily leave. This is precisely why I have always thought they shouldn’t get together until the very end. And since it’s obvious that neither of them will be leaving the show, their storyline is going nowhere. These are two young, smart, charimstic people who dislike their jobs and are drifting through life aimlessly even though they have grander ambitions. I know that’s kind of the point of The Office as a whole – the mundane nature of everyday life – but for Jim and Pam, it’s just not working for me anymore.

Stanley is a beautiful, sassy, powerful black man.

The Office – Did I Stutter?
Office friction results when Stanley barks at Michael during a meeting, and Michael then works to adjust Stanley’s attitude. Meanwhile, Dwight revs up to buy Andy’s car and Pam encounters an unforeseen problem after spending the night at Jim’s.

Finally, an episode that takes place entirely in the confines of the office, and brings nearly every character into the story arcs. As we open, Michael rushes into the office asking for ideas. There is wet cement outside and he wants to leave his mark. Eventually he decides to cover his face with plastic wrap and press it into the wet cement, leave a deep groove that will surely cause people to trip. Way to go, Michael!

The main story here revolves around Michael and Stanley. During a meeting, Stanley won’t participate (as usual). He keeps saying no, and when Michael pros him Stanley yells, “Did I stutter?” Ouch! Naturally, Michael’s feelings are hurt. Toby wants Michael to take disciplinary action, but Michael has convinced himself that Stanley was just kidding around. He decides to “fake fire” Stanley, who counters by threatening to sue. Michael clears the office so that he and Stanley can have a heart-to-heart. Stanley admits he doesn’t respect Michael, and Michael accepts that but says that Stanley must stop being rude to him. Michael is his boss, and that’s that. Stanley agrees.

I recently read an article that wondered if Michael has become the weakest link in the show. Using last week’s gum-and-peanut-butter event as an example, the writer suggested that Michael’s character has become preposterous. I always like the moments when you realize that Michael can be good at parts of his job, and his resolution with Stanley was a nice example of that.

In other news, strife between Jim and Ryan develops when a visiting Ryan calls Jim into a meeting with Toby and then gives him a verbal warning for hanging out at the reception desk and goofing around too much. In reality Toby is jealous of Jim because he loves Pam, and Ryan is angry because Jim criticized his website.

Jim continues his fake proposals, apparently trying to throw Pam off when the real one comes around. Pam has to wear ugly glasses when she can’t wear her contacts. Dwight fools Andy into selling him his car, and then flips it for a much higher price.

If I'm dead, you've been dead for a week.

The Office – Night Out
Michael & Dwight take a trip to New York to mingle with bigwig Ryan and his colleagues at the nightclubs. Back in Scranton, the staffers work on Ryan’s pet website project – on a Saturday.

As we open, Michael comes into the office with gum in his hair, so Dwight covers his head in peanut butter to get it out. A manic Ryan arrives to make the Scranton branch work on Saturday. Ryan has tried to created the new Dunder Mifflin website to function partly as a social networking site, and it has been invaded by sexual predators. He wants to input their phone sales into the website to cover up his failures.

Still desperate to find a girlfriend, Michael goes to New York with Dwight to visit Ryan. They go to a club, where cokehead Ryan becomes increasingly addled and Michael is shot down time and again. The men go to a second club, but can’t get in without girls. There happens to be a college basketball team in line near them, so Dwight commandeers them, then makes out with one of them. What?!? In the end, they return to Ryan’s apartment where he kind of admits that he has a drug problem. Michael, for his part, is just thrilled to have had a boy’s night out.

Meanwhile, back at the office, Jim decides they should all work late Friday instead of coming in on Saturday. However, he forgets to tell the security guard, who locks the gate to the parking lot, trapping them. And, Pam has locked the office on their way out, so they get can’t back in. Toby, being surprisingly inappropriate, hits on Pam. He realizes his mistake, proclaims that he’s moving to Costa Rica, and runs off. Noooo!

I lost a penny out of my loafers, Oscar.

The Office – Chair Model
Michael becomes obsessed with a model in an office supply catalog. Meanwhile, a territorial war heats up in the office park when some staffers try to reclaim their appropriated parking spots.

The employees of Dunder Mifflin are irritated because another company in the office park is remodeling, and their contractors are taking all the parking spaces. Actually, that’s wrong. Some are irritated; some, like Andy and Kevin, are downright livid. This has a lot of potential as a return to the wonderfully mundane story lines of The Office we all know and love. Andy and Kevin go to Michael about the parking situation, but he refuses to help. So, the boys gather the CEOs of the business park (who are portrayed like mob bosses) to talk about the parking issue. The bosses agree to give the spaces back, and Andy makes an impassioned speech to the camera about defending the average joe—the guy who wonders, “How am I going to pay my kids’ orphanage bills? How am I going to pay the mortgage on my $400 apartment?” Ouch. What happened to the subtle humor? Contrary to expectations, this storyline was not great.

In other news, a newly single Michael becomes obsessed with a cute model in the office supply catalog. Dwight pledges to find the model and he does, but learns that she has died in a car accident. Already tired of being single, Michael puts out a formal request for every employee to set him up on a date or they’re fired. Phyllis offers to set up Michael with her friend, but he’s skeptical. And it turns out Phyllis’s friend is fat. Hysterical. Pam feels bad so she sets Michael up with her landlady. He meets her and she is not cute, so he pretends that he is not Michael. This reminds me of the finale of the British Office when David goes on his blind dates. The fact that I have suddenly started comparing the American Office to the British one is a bad sign.

Jim tells Pam that she’s going to get evicted for setting up such a horrible date, and uses this as an excuse to ask Pam to move in with him. She says no; she won’t move in with anyone again unless she’s engaged. He says, “It’s coming.” Fans across the nation are squealing in glee right now. But why does Jim still look so awful? I like that the shaggy hair is back, but he looks exhausted. Pam & Jim joke around about getting engaged, and then in a side interview we learn that Jim actually does have an engagement ring that he bought a week after they started dating.

Yikes. Well, I know how I want this to go down. Jim proposes, Pam thinks it’s too fast after her recent failed engagement, this is the “strife” that we keep hearing about, and Jim and Pam break up but continue to pine for each other, at least for a while. Bring back the sexual tension! While walking to their cars, Jim suddenly gets down on one knee. Pam looks shocked, but he just makes a joke about needing to tie his shoe.

There were some good lines, particularly when Michael calls Oscar “Oscar Meyer Weiner Lover.” About being single, Michael says, “Desperate situations yield the greatest results.” The hand-me-down chair chain was great; i.e. Pam gets Michael’s old chair, Creed gets Pam’s, and so on. The Phyllis-Michael conversation about her friend’s qualities was also quite good: “So she’s not jolly or sassy? Not like a jolly, sassy opera singer?” And let’s not forget:

Pam: Tell them what we saw today, Jim.
Jim: Oh, today we saw a junkyard dog attacking the bones of a rotisserie chicken.
Pam: Nature.

And even though the singing-and-dancing-in-the-graveyard scene at the end was a little strange, Dwight singing the wrong lyrics made me giggle for several minutes afterwards: “And I know that you’re in love with him; cause I saw you dancing in the gym; you both kicked off your shoes; NO VERDICT WAS RETURNED!”

I don’t know, folks. I’m just not feeling The Office lately. I’ve talked it over with other fans, and most think I’m being too hard on the show. Although apparently I am not the only one who misses the Jim-Pam sexual tension. Now that they’re together they’re just so … boring. And that fact that the show has come to center almost solely on the boring couple and the crazy couple is not going so well. But I know that I’m in the minority…

The bedroom was asylum white, so I painted it eggshell white.

The Office – Dinner Party
Michael and Jan host a dinner party. On the list are Jim and Pam, who have run out of excuses to avoid such a gathering, and Andy and Angela, a pairing that sends Dwight’s jealousy soaring to new heights.

Woah. Jim looks like hell. As we open, we see that Michael has told all of his employees not to make plans because they have to work late. He then calls Corporate and yells that he refuses to make his employees work late. This is all a lie, and he thereby forces Jim, Pam, Andy, and Angela to come to a couple’s dinner party at his condo.

Michael and Jan are superficially functional but start to break down after about one minute. During a tour of their condo, we learn that since Jan's firing, she has begun to make scented candles in order to relax. Also, she makes Michael sleep on a weird little bench at the foot of the bed because she has "space issues." After Andy and Angela arrive, Pam and Jim are horrified to learn that their meal still has to cook for three hours.

As the couples mingle in the living room, Michael says that the wine has an oaky afterbirth. Jan turns on an indie rock CD by her ex-assistant Hunter and tries to make Jim dance with her. The whole scene is terribly awkward and yet rather awesome. Michael and Jan get into a fight in front of everyone. Jim almost escapes the party by pretending his apartment has flooded. When Michael points out that he & Pam don’t both have to go, Jim nearly leaves Pam there. Jan thinks that Michael has a crush on Pam. They get into another fight and Michael “jokingly” says that Jan is the devil. On a girls’ trip to the kitchen, Jan lets slip that she sees the way Pam looks at Michael. Angela agrees. They did an excellent job of hiding her pregnancy, BTW, I totally forgot about it until this morning. Anyway, we learn that Michael has told Jan that he and Pam used to date. Ouch.

Later, an uninvited Dwight shows up with an old lady. Michael gets fed up with Jan’s behavior and storms out of the room, returning with a neon beer sign that Jan has told him he can’t have. In retaliation, Jan turns on Hunter’s CD again. The two get into a screaming match, and Jan throws one of Michael’s Dundies at his TV. This is incredibly painful. The police show up to answer a call about a domestic disturbance, and they send Michael home with Dwight so that he and Jan can cool down. The episode ends with Jim and Pam eating burgers in his car while mimicking Jan & Michael and listening to Hunter’s CD, which Jim has stolen. Meanwhile, Andy kisses Angela and she slams an ice cream cone against the side of his car in retaliation.

Yikes. Like the “Money” episode, this was ep was really, really uncomfortable. Unlike “Money,” I’m not sure it worked. That’s not to say it was a terrible episode. It wasn't. I have always been a huge fan of the British Office, which was one of the most frankly uncomfortable shows I've ever seen. But until recently, the American version has been much lighter, which has worked well for it. These darker episodes don't blend very well, in my opinion.

More tomorrow. XOXO, Michael.

The Office – The Deposition
Corporate and legal complications hound Michael when Jan sues Dunder Mifflin and he’s summoned as a witness. Meanwhile, Darryl and Jim face off in table tennis, with Kelly talking trash. Photo © Byron Cohen/NBC.

The Office goes out with a bang. Sigh.

When Jan sues Dunder Mifflin for firing her, Michael is called to testify at her deposition and finds himself torn between two lovers -- his girlfriend and his company. While Jan and Michael drive to the deposition, we are treated to a lovely little scene in which Michael memorizes what Jan has told him to say during the proceedings ("Disrespect: My friend Disray got new specs. Disrayspect.") He starts off quite well, leading to a talking head interview where Jan admits that Michael is actually good at some things. However, things go downhill from there, turning Jan and Michael against each other.

Or that's what you'd think. Although some terrible things do come out (Jan has stolen Michael's diary to use as evidence, and gave Michael terrible performance reviews during her time as his boss), I really get the impression that truly Jan loves Michael. I was terribly glad that they didn't get into a fight at the end. They were both quiet and a little sullen, but there was no big blow-up. Their relationship may be fucked up, but in many ways they are perfect together. The moment in the cafeteria when Jan says I love you to Michael was very sweet -- and, if I remember correctly, the first time we've heard her say that.

Another sweet cafeteria moment was the interaction between Toby and Michael ... right up to the point that Michael pushed Toby's tray onto the floor. I thought the two would bond, even if later Michael would pretend it never happened. But no! I love the fact that there is absolutely no reason for Michael to hate Toby. He just does, no explanation needed.

Back at the office, Darryl and Jim are embroiled in a hardcore ping-pong match ... hardcore for Kelly and Pam, that is. Kelly continually harasses Pam with "smack talk" -- not "trash talk," which is hypothetical ("Your mama's so fat she could eat the internet"), but "smack talk," which is real ("You’re ugly and I know it for a fact cause I've got the evidence right here").

Pam, sick of being smack talked (“Were Jim’s parents first cousins that were also bad at ping pong?”), turns the meeting room table into a ping-pong table so that Jim can practice, and we learn that Dwight is a ping-pong prodigy. Jim improves, but when he and Darryl face off again Pam gets fed up and challenges Kelly to a game. They are both terrible. The end.

They would call me the Overkill Killer.

The Office - Survivor Man
Ryan organizes a woodsy corporate retreat but excludes Michael, who in turn enters the wilderness for his own survival adventure. Meanwhile, Jim tries to put a new spin on office birthday parties. Photo © NBC.

Yawn. The Office continues it's up-and-down trajectory with a decidedly "down" ep. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't that good. The part that had the most possibility turned into a cute but pointless "that's what she said" yuk-fest.

The time of Michael's 20s is shrouded in mystery. We have seen pathetic moments from his childhood, but last night was the first time (that I can remember) we learned that perhaps Dunder Mifflin has not always been Michael's be-all and end-all. That moment came at the end of the episode, when we clearly saw that Jim has the very real potential to become Michael, and that 10 years ago Michael did not think he would still be at Dunder Mifflin in his own future. I was expecting the show to end with Jim quitting (I know, too dramatic) or at least sitting dumbfounded in stunned horror.

It did not.

After chatting with various other Office viewers in my own office this morning, I have realized the scene that did take place was much more realistic than my fantasy scene. Jim is both horrified at the notion of being at Dunder Mifflin for the rest of his career, and comforted by the realization that it might not be such a terrible thing. Like many of us, he does not love his job, but he doesn't hate it enough to get off his ass and look for a new one. Though Pam might have something to do with that.

Also, Michael knows the word cathartic?!? I doubt that very much.

The good moments:
"Blacks do crack! Not crack the drug."
"At birthday parties, Micheal always does something horrible ... or inappropriate ... or both."

Enjoy next week's episode, as it will be the last one for a while.

WHAT are you microwaving?!?!

The Office - Branch Wars
When recently appointed Utica Regional Manager Karen tries to lure Stanley to work at her branch, Michael and Dwight kidnap Jim to help them strike back with a poorly planned prank. Meanwhile, the exclusive "Finer Things Club" rubs the rest of the office the wrong way. Photo © NBC.

I'm torn. I'm delighted that this episode was so great, but I'm disappointed because The Office's track record as of late makes it clear that it can no longer be depended upon to provide a routine ray of sunshine on an otherwise boring Thursday night.

"Branch Wars" was literally overflowing with choice bits, not the least of which included Jim finding the Molotov cocktails in the trunk -- "These have been back here the whole time we've been driving?!?!" -- as well as "I think I cut my penis on the lid," "Wanted: middle-aged black man with sass," "The eyes are the groin of the head," and my personal favorite, "WHAT are you microwaving?!?!" In fact, I think pretty much every single moment was pure gold.

But the best part was the cringe-worthy awkwardness between Karen and Jim. How much did you wince when Karen told Jim that he should have just called her if he wanted to see her ... because of course, you knew what was coming. You just didn't expect it to be quite as awful as it was. Jim has always had a firm grasp on the rules of social propriety, but he absolutely ate it when he came face-to-face with Karen. And it just kept getting worse and worse, until he wasn't even forming words anymore. A fantastically written scene, and terrific acting from John Krasinski and Rashida Jones.

Finally, in my running tally of "things that will eventually lead to a Jim & Pam breakup," comes the book club scene at the end. It's entirely possible that I'm over-emphasizing certain moments just because I cannot believe that a breakup is not imminent, but what that scene said to me -- buried way beneath the humor -- was that Pam let Jim be a part of something that is important to her, and he scoffed at it. He didn't bother to read the book, and he just didn't get the point of the Finer Things Club. Call me crazy. Tell me I'm over-analyzing. But just watch, and wait...

I don’t hate it, I just don’t like it at all and it’s terrible.

(C) NBC
The Office - Local Ad
When corporate offers the Scranton office a chance to appear in a Dunder Mifflin commercial, Michael sees a prime chance to display his creativity. Meanwhile, Andy turns to Dwight for advice on his relationship with Angela, and Dwight attempts to assuage his heartbreak by immersing himself in an internet-based fantasy world.

Another underwhelming episode of The Office, “Local Ad” was a huge disappointment after last week’s phenomenal “Money.” Since I started this blog, I keep a fresh yellow legal pad on my couch at all times, and last night I found myself with very little to jot down. This is probably the single most uneventful episode I have seen to date, although—since I am one of maybe five people in the US who did not want Pam and Jim to get together until the very end (à la Tim & Dawn)—the little hints that a breakup could be on its way were heartening. Obviously there will be romantic strife between these two at some point. The notion that Jim wants to move to Philadelphia to be a sports writer, combined with Pam’s brushing him off while she’s working on her animation and Jim’s little display of jealousy at the bar, portend that issues are starting to arise.

The moments I did jot down:

“What’s rap?”
Phyllis as a less urban Aunt Jemima
Getting Sue Grafton would be a huge “coop”
Break me off a piece of that ... Snick-ers-bar

In other news…
* Excellent reasons that you should be watching Friday Night Lights.
* Will Grey’s Anatomy introduce a lesbian character?
* Hooray, more Reaper!
* Slap bet countdown.