100 Favorite Shows: #1 — The Office (U.S.)
“Everything I have I owe to this job. This stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing job.”
After the cross-continent success of The Office, a British mockumentary from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, American producer Ben Silverman excitedly phoned the comedians for a chance at bringing the format to audiences in the United States. Following a lengthy development process, it was decided in 2004 that The Office (U.S.) would air on NBC (eventually bowing with a March 24, 2005 pilot) with a condensed writing staff (initially featuring Michael Schur (also Mose Schrute), B.J. Novak (Ryan Howard), Mindy Kaling (Kelly Kapoor), and Paul Lieberstein (Toby Flenderson), a directorial style framed by Ken Kwapis and Randall Einhorn, and a creative heading from Greg Daniels. Gervais and Merchant stayed on as producers, but The Office (U.S.) was always Daniels’ baby. His version focused on the offensive regional manager of Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton, Pennsylvania branch, Michael Scott (Steve Carell), the ambitious assistant regional manager, Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), and the flirtatious, fleeting romance between salesman Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and receptionist Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer). The first season was rocky but beloved in small circles, prompting NBC to grant it a second arc, which steadily grew in popularity before exploding into the ubiquity of the critical and cultural consciousness. Suddenly, The Office was NBC’s must-watch comedy (not the direction they expected to follow after Friends concluded its run in 2004) and it steadily built to become one of television’s most venerated performers, shifting showrunners and series leads (Carell departed in season seven, allowing Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) to take over the manager position) until it came to a fanfare-filled finale on May 16, 2013. Since then, The Office has become a worldwide phenomenon, en route to its status as the crown jewel of the streaming era and perhaps the most popular comedy ever made. Ever since it was NBC’s scrappy underdog with a shrugging blessing from Gervais and Merchant, The Office was incredible, though. It remains my favorite television series ever made.
(There are spoilers for The Office deep within the cavities of this essay. That’s what… you know what? Never mind.)
“Hi. I’m Michael Scott. I’m in charge of Dunder Mifflin Paper Products here in Scranton, Pennsylvania,” Michael begins in a fuzzy recording playing on an office television at the midway point of “Diversity Day,” the series’ second (and first great) episode, penned by Novak. “I’m also the founder of Diversity Tomorrow because today is almost over.” He puts a leg up on the nearby office couch. “Abraham Lincoln once said that, ‘If you’re a racist, I will attack you with the North.’ And those are the principles that I carry with me in the workplace.”
This is his entire seminar on race in the conference room meeting he calls in an effort to reclaim the racial narrative co-opted by diversity speaker Mr. Brown (Larry Wilmore) and to save himself the embarrassment of being the cause of Brown’s attendance in the first place. While the video plays, Michael looks around the room, hoping for specific reactions from his employees, before turning the television off and asking for questions. Questions about a twenty second video that was clearly haphazardly assembled less than an hour prior.
That’s Michael Scott’s brand of management. He’s a man who takes things far too seriously (doubling down on a race seminar, orchestrating a “town hall” meeting about illegal drugs (you know, like hookah)), simply because he feels the need to save face in front of employees whom (according to his own beliefs) think he’s the ideal regional manager. This tendency exists within Michael Scott at all times, but they are exacerbated when a camera crew of documentary filmmakers begin following his every move, enhancing his own sense of self-importance and certainty that he’s destined to be a world-class comedian. (Michael derives his sense of humor from solid sources (Steve Martin, Airplane!, Saturday Night Live), but his own jokes simply parrot funnier ideas from those who succeeded beyond paper.)
When a documentary is slated to be made about Dunder Mifflin, it inherently revolves around the manager of the branch, but Michael is not content to let anyone take the spotlight even for a moment. When he notices the filmmakers’ attention drawn elsewhere in the office, his brain goes a mile an hour (“That fast?”) to come up with some offensive way to put the attention back on him. This results in moments from Carell, as an actor (how he never won an Emmy for the performance, I’ll forever wonder), that are among the greatest ever put to screen. “Too far!” he shouts through tears after mocking himself to the point of uncovering teenage trauma in “Koi Pond.” “You have no idea the physical toll that three vasectomies have on a person,” he seethes in frustration at one of the climaxes of the impeccable “Dinner Party.” Through every hollered question about chocolate turtles and rambling, specifically-enunciated talking heads in his office, Carell’s performance as Michael was vulnerable, authentic, and downright hysterical.
It’s the authenticity that mostly defines The Office, especially in its early emphasis on realism in every frame. Cameras hid behind blinds and dumpsters to capture a moment featuring office workers who forgot to turn their microphones off. Muted tones around Dunder Mifflin depicted the workplace as a bland, dreary place to be on a daily basis — especially in the heart of one of the U.S.’s most industrial states.
The first few seasons of The Office are unlike anything ever brought to American television before. So many interminable moments on The Office stretched longer than even similarly excruciating sequences on Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Larry Sanders Show, which preferred to fill the silence with arguments and profanity-laden proclamations. On The Office, though, comedy gold was mined from silence. Michael’s roundabout exemplification of Oscar Martinez’s (Oscar Nuñez) Mexican heritage (as Oscar slowly realizes Michael’s intentions), Jim’s morbid attempt at explaining to Roy (David Denman) why he was affectionately goofing around with Pam over an office alliance, an agonizing sequence when Michael reveals that his promise of a “surprise” for the office was entirely fruitless. These cringe-worthy moments persisted throughout the series (Toby placed a hand on Pam’s knee, Michael promised college tuition to local elementary school students), but never did they feel so painstakingly lifelike as they did in the early arcs of the series, which was averse to anything NBC had ever developed before.
While these interminable moments came about from Michael’s frustrating behavior (Mr. Brown screams at Michael’s infantile need for attention. Every season three transfer from the Stamford branch slowly finds a way out of Michael’s grasp), they were occasionally placed against the series’ central romance between Jim and Pam. Take “Booze Cruise” for example, when Pam provides Jim a lane to confess his feelings on a chilly dock in “28 seconds of silence,” but he musters no words. I’m hard-pressed to think of any moment like that between a couple like Sam and Diane on Cheers (their silence was replaced with makeout sessions). Sometimes, you just don’t know how to respond in a half-minute moment of opportunity, even if it is with a friend who helps you get through the day — via a game of jinx, a trip to the grocery store, a late night reading of the boss’ spec script.
That’s the beauty of the series’ early, ragtag writing staff that was filled out as sparsely as it would ever be in season one. Yes, their comedy was necessary for the subtle humor of early episodes (“Diversity Day” alone depicts Stanley (Leslie David Baker) with a flashcard entitled “Black” stuck to his forehead and Kelly glancing furtively at Dwight when he states that the only races he’s attracted to are white and Indian), but Daniels’ insistence that they study real world offices was vital for the series’ overwhelming authenticity. From real-world scenarios of what could happen in an everyday office to a supporting cast (that would later expand) made up of real, average-looking people (Phyllis Smith, who played Phyllis Lapin-Vance, was literally plucked to act from her position as a casting assistant).
That was the structure and style of early Office. If only the first season existed and the comedy was cancelled over low ratings and poor reviews, it would be revered as an iconic, niche, gone-too-soon cult classic. It would prompt its fanbase to quote some of the most iconic moments from “Diversity Day” and feel superior to those who had missed the boat on NBC in 2005. (“Aw, man, am I a woman?” Dwight (wearing an “Asian” flashcard) asks Pam, reluctantly expressing a stereotype to help Dwight guess his race after he viewed the “melting pot” conversations as a competition.)
Instead, The Office did receive a renewal, allowing it to grow in popularity over its nine seasons. Through this time, the show did eventually veer more towards escapism — depicting the office as a fun, bright place to be — over realism, matching that American need to believe in the best of people. After this early cruelty and beyond-dry comedy, The Office became kinder (unless it was dealing with Stanley or Angela (Angela Kinsey), which, you know, even then). Both in its sensibility and to its characters. This was exceptionally true for Michael Scott, who, after season one, pivoted to a more redeeming, pathetic figure, constantly fighting for the office as his family.
Shreds of this are evident in season one, of course. (His need for family and parties in the office is not limited solely to season five’s “Cafe Disco.”) When Mr. Brown demands attention over Michael, the latter sees it as a slight against his managerial style. Granted, he does just prefer to lead every meeting in his conference room, but he also bristles against Mr. Brown leading a meeting without knowing the Scranton staff first. That’s ultimately what’s driving him: the fear of an outsider telling him what to do and not thinking of him as a family member to be loved, the way he sees his employees.
He’s missing the larger point of the diversity seminar, but as Michael tends to do, he stumbles upon it inadvertently in one of the show’s myriad, clever turns of phrase. After lunch, his own seminar will have the employees “all in tears,” for example (and he does go way, way too far with Kelly), or he dismisses Toby from the conference room because it’s “an environment of welcoming.” Throughout the episode, Michael isn’t just stereotyping the office workers; he’s acting downright racist. His sense of oppression at his shackling of speech manifests in an early talking head when he complains about his Chris Rock impression offending others. He asks, “Is it because I’m white and Chris is black?” Finding the seminar’s point accidentally, it’s a personal reckoning that could just as easily have been written about a boss with blinders on (he is constantly making assumptions, like the notion that Pam always has a notebook on her) in 2020. While Michael does believe his intentions of heart are pure for “healing” the workplace that he wounded, he had a lengthy journey to traverse before his actions reflected his innate, repressed goodness.
Steadily, through each talking head, Michael grows closer to becoming a more reflective, self-aware figure — if he ever arrives there all the way. The best of his monologues is certainly in season two’s “The Injury,” written by Kaling.
“I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon, sue me. And since I don’t have a butler, I have to do it myself. So most nights, before I go to bed, I will lay six strips of bacon out on my George Foreman Grill. Then, I go to sleep. When I wake up, I plug in the grill; I go back to sleep again. Then, I wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. It is delicious, it’s good for me. It’s the perfect way to start the day. Today I got up, I stepped onto the grill and it clamped down on my foot. That’s it. I don’t see what’s so hard to believe about that.”
At the core of it, this talking head tracks completely and we can follow Michael’s misguided, misinformed logic, as perfect as it is entirely inane. Every stammer, every inflection. It’s all Carell, but it’s also all written because The Office was nothing if not ingeniously precise. “The Injury,” as my favorite episode of the series, toes the balance between the mundane and the absurd perfectly (this monologue is so deeply dumb, but also so perfectly, logically delivered with nary a punchline). Michael falls into the toilet and calls out for Ryan’s (whom Toby claims is “dead”) help, but it comes after a banal discussion on Ryan’s string cheese eating habits. (A personal favorite quote of Ryan’s is the lovingly dull, “Will I be too warm in a long-sleeve tee?”) After all, you need the realistic dialogue The Office was known for to ground an episode that is based around grilling one’s foot on a George Foreman Grill.
While jokes about grills and Michael’s bubble wrap cast fly around the office immediately, Michael grows fussier and fussier, desperate for someone to pay attention to him. From the opening scene of “The Injury” (which sees Michael harnessing his personal vocabulary by proclaiming his elbow to have a “protruberance”), Michael is panicked and playing on his hope that his employees (sans Dwight) will rush to his side and dote on him all day. However, this fanciful notion is as falsified as the girlfriend Michael claims he made up and the idea that Jan (Melora Hardin) would worry if he called her. Deep down, he does know the truth, but he doesn’t have the emotional maturity to grasp that no one cares about his injury, so he acts out like a child.
Ryan crushes pain relief pills into his chocolate pudding, Pam refuses to rub Country Crock butter on his foot, Jim expresses a desire to grill Michael’s face. Everyone is fed up with the sensitivity displayed by Michael, but ultimately they miss why he is acting out in such a way. It’s strongly evidenced when he retorts to Pam, “Your job is being my friend.” This moment leads to a feeling that he genuinely believes that statement is true, as opposed to Pam’s role of answering phones. He ultimately just does not understand why others do not see him as a family member in same way that he sees them. His lack of awareness for social situations manifests in his barrage of insults against Phyllis’s scoliosis, Meredith’s (Kate Flannery) kids, and Dwight’s concussion, but he’s treating them exactly how he hates to be treated. When building manager Billy Merchant (Marcus A. York) makes a joke about his wheelchair and the office laughs, Michael scolds them for it, unaware that Billy is capable of being human and making a joke about his own disability.
Michael doesn’t grasp what it means to be personable and he brings pained emotions on himself when he treats his employees deplorably and is pushed to tears when they claim to love Stevie Wonder more than him. But it’s not like he doesn’t deserve it. When Dwight goes to the hospital (not Chuck E. Cheese) for a CAT scan, Michael insists on sliding his foot into the machine, turning the ailment into something that’s all about him, like when he prioritized his birthday party over Kevin’s (Brian Baumgartner) potential cancer diagnosis. Michael Scott is just obsessed with attention and he hates when others receive it.
That’s simply because Michael exists in a consistent state of arrested development. At his core, Michael is little more than a child still keeping a diary (“Tan almost everywhere. Jan almost everywhere. Heehee. Oh diary, what a week. I had sex with my boss”) and craving snacks (from a sugar-filled pretzel to an “entire, family-sized chicken pot pie”) and seeking trophies, even if they’re Dundies that he purchased, and maintaining an irrational hatred for a responsible peer (to him, Toby is just an “evil snail,” who apparently has Stockholm syndrome for his boss). Because of how socially inept Michael Scott has been his entire life, he’s still at a childish point of mental development, but he also takes every cue and decision in his life from the movies and television series on which he grew up.
When interviewing for Jan’s position at the corporate office in “The Job,” he rushes to her room and destructively suggests that they should run away together to Jamaica. In the next season, his hopping on a train in “Money” suggests that Michael’s belief on how to handle tough goings is to tie a polka dot piece of fabric to a stick and sprint off the grid. There’s no other place he could’ve learned this from than the realm of fictional media and cartoons.
This heavy embedding of culture in the psyche of Michael Scott contributes to many of his peculiar tactics for navigating the world constructed around him. Sometimes, his business platitudes (readily ignored by the career climber from the warehouse, Darryl Philbin (Craig Robinson)) and mnemonic devices (“My friend, Disreé, got new specs” equals “Disrespect”) are derived solely from unconventional strategies that work only for him*. Other times, they are products of what he’s seen on the screen, like using “Bruce Springsteen” (read: Huey Lewis and Tracy Chapman) music at an auction or a photograph of Tom Hanks in Philadelphia (read: Big) to compare both AIDS and fantastical body dysmorphia to his grilled foot.
(* I always hate to steal this tactic from Alan Sepinwall, but Michael’s greatest lack of convention comes when he attempts to explain his managerial success to David Wallace (Andy Buckley), the series’ most comforting recurring character, and he relays the following story.
“So I was in the office. And I look over to our accounting division and there is Kevin Malone. Kevin is wearing a jacket that I’ve never seen before. I call over to Kevin, ‘Kevin! Is that a tweed jacket?’ And he looks at me and he says, ‘Michael, yes. It is a tweed jacket.’ And I look back at him and I say, ‘I feel the need! The need for tweed.’”)
Michael’s most prominent culturally-infused tactic comes when he employs the reality television strategy of Survivor to decide on who his successor should be as regional manager in “Beach Games.” It’s not just a day when the office staff can have fun at the beach (“Sweet mother of God,” Stanley moans), it’s a series of “funtivities” that have management parables (a term coined by Dwight, who is the only one to bring the enthusiasm Michael seeks and yet, it’s still dismissed) because, in Michael’s head, he’s as gifted a leader and host as someone like Jeff Probst (largely because he has no idea who an actual leader would be). They just want to relax, sing songs, eat hot dogs, and have a general good time together, but it’s Michael who ruins it, just as he ruins the Kenny Rogers sing-along with an unnecessary vibrato. Even poor Pam is forced to spend the day continuing to do her regular job by taking notes on her coworkers’ “indefinable qualities,” like Andy’s patriotism.
Michael simply assumes that Pam will want to take notes because he believes everyone is constantly on the same page as him at all times, even when he fails to explain that he’s operating in the glossary (or in a conversion chart at the back of Pam’s notebook) of a textbook while everyone else is still in chapter seven. What makes Michael most insufferable and impossible to be around is that he assumes everyone is like him. Deep down, his most palpable sense of loneliness is the idea that his personality belongs only to him.
This deep-seated fear of loneliness (or women or nothing or snakes, maybe) within Michael Scott is what eventually extends the redeemable nature of his persona. Occasionally, we receive flashes of Michael’s childhood in the form of a tantrum he threw at his mother’s wedding to his stepfather and a children’s television appearance when he stated that his dream was to have one hundred kids so he can have “one hundred friends.” These glimpses suggest a palpable motivation for Michael Scott to find family and friends at all costs, in a way that David Brent’s desire for fame in Slough never allowed for too much empathy. Michael wanted to do more than make his coworkers laugh; he wanted to make them love him. But it was this attribute that prevented him from receiving the love he sought.
Michael’s fear of being left behind is also reflected in the series’ beating undercurrent of an ever-changing world of paper. The threat of downsizing and technological advancements hang over The Office in almost every episode, but because Michael refuses to conform to standard strategies, he’s able to navigate the changing industry better than any other regional manager. By the end of the series, every branch besides Scranton has closed and it’s almost solely because of Michael (and Dwight’s impossibly solid sales streak). Not only does Michael challenge the uniform reaction to a paperless world (illustrated in “Local Ad” when Michael crafts a genuinely creative commercial for the company), but he also shows the ability to be a competent salesman. Whether he’s pitching at a Chili’s (and singing doo-wop with Tim Meadows) or pulling his fraught emotions together because he believes he always needs to be “on” for his Scranton staffers, Michael genuinely is a solid salesman.
It’s just that, when he occasionally reaches higher, he’s shown to not be qualified for much else. In the aforementioned “The Job,” Michael believes he’s a shoe-in for the corporate position (he even departs Scranton to Natalie Merchant’s “Kind and Generous,” another cue from pop culture), but Jim and his fellow salesman/then-girlfriend, Karen (Rashida Jones), immediately recognize the vacancy as an opportunity for them. After all, they know they’re more qualified than Michael (and, secretly, Michael knows it, too, as his ego frequently fails him — just like when he acknowledges one Dunder Mifflin New York employee as “Beardy” in an attempt to impress Jim and Karen). They know that David Wallace is likely only interviewing Michael for the sake of appeasing his superficial desire for a promotion. (When asked how he’d improve the company, Michael thinks only of the stylistic flair of the company’s name, rather than any actual business strategies.)
They just know Michael too well. Wallace keeps Michael’s tendency to ramble on track (through diatribes about “Afghanistinanis” and phrases that get away from him (“Gots to get my freak on” and “My heart soars with the eagle’s nest”)) because he knows Michael frequently utters one word too many. Dwight asks Angela to stand next to him if “Michael organizes some kind of group hug” because he understands Michael’s proclivity for forced affection. Stanley downs a hot dog rapidly when he asks if Michael’s genuine plan for selecting a successor is an eating contest and Michael responds, “Word.” By the point of “Beach Games,” Michael’s behavior is well-established and begrudgingly accepted by all.
Sometimes, this knowledge is used for toxic manipulation on the part of people Michael is so desperate to keep in his life because they’re the friends and lovers he dreamed of having as a young child. The “cool” Ryan manipulates Michael by evoking their “friendship,” whenever he has to. For example, in season four’s “The Deposition,” when Jan (now dating Michael) sues Dunder Mifflin for wrongful termination, Ryan asks to speak to Michael as a friend in an effort to protect the company.
However, Jan is also guilty of manipulation in this episode, as she exudes “obvious” ambivalence (though, it’s not obvious to younger viewers or even Michael at first) and cursory affection towards the man she claims to want to spend the rest of her life with. Throughout the episode, the trial, which is supposed to be about Jan, becomes completely about Michael. Unfortunately, it’s the one time Michael does not want the attention, as he’s only humiliated by people he thought he could trust. His cinematic knowledge of a courtroom is mocked, his affinity for Ryan’s looks is laughed at by Toby. Basically, Michael’s reduced levels of intelligence and maturity are surfaced in the trial and he leaves the corporate office feeling betrayed by both his company and his girlfriend.
On the one hand, Dunder Mifflin acted as any business would when trying to save its own ass, but Jan acted in a manner that is so exceedingly despicable that it was hard to revisit the episode and leave it feeling like anything besides a degenerate. The two of them sit in the car on the way back to Scranton, passive-aggressively arguing over whether or not they should get fast food for dinner and it’s obvious to the viewer that these two need to break off their relationship immediately. But Michael, having never had a girlfriend before Jan, can’t bring himself to do what’s right out of fear that he won’t find anyone else.
He did come close, though, in season three’s “Women’s Appreciation” (the first episode I ever saw), which saw Michael prompted by the women of the office to break up with Jan because he wasn’t happy when he was around her. Yet Jan doesn’t give up. The confusing tension she has with Michael (as baffling to them as it is to us, but played electrifyingly by Carell and Hardin) results in her downward spiral towards a “boob enhancement,” solely to wrestle Michael back into her grasp. (“First got priorities,” he replies to her, near gibberish.)
Immediately relapsing into this degenerate relationship, Michael again manages to conjure some redeeming pathos for his character as we witness another, more selfish figure take complete advantage of Michael, who loses out on independent happiness and the corporate job. His arc in the season three finale sees him resigned to the office as his hospital, house, “old age home,” and graveyard. In that moment, Michael is reckoning with the idea that his life (as he is now in middle age) will consist of working at a job he’s never getting promoted out of to come home to a woman who uses him time and again.
One of the series’ best ever episodes, “Dinner Party,” manages to give us a look into what that toxicity-filled domesticity would consist of. By this point of season four, the show’s creative team was prepared to unleash a claustrophobic installment (directed expertly by Paul Feig) based solely on character interactions with behavior that you need three prior seasons to understand well.
In “Dinner Party,” any character has a claim for being the MVP of one of the best episodes to ever air on television.
Andy Bernard: A veritable “fly on the wall” in “Dinner Party,” who strives to be a cute boyfriend for Angela (by licking her ice cream, for example). He enters the episode hot by remarking that Pam has “tuna” (his nickname for Jim) for dinner every night. His best moment comes when he harmonizes along with “That One Night,” the song by Jan’s former assistant, Hunter (Nicholas D’Agosto).
Angela Martin: A casual observer of the night’s events who chimes in sparingly and calculatingly. When Andy hands her a flower, she only wonders what to do with it for the rest of the night, but her best moment comes when she (completely unprompted) expresses her concern that Pam holds onto faxes.
Pam Beesly: A party-goer who does her best to maintain politeness, but is mostly concerned with how hungry she is. The looks on Fischer’s face when Jan says the meal is “not even close” to being done and when Michael believes that it might be poisoned in the first place are what cement her motivational subplot as one of the episode’s best.
Jim Halpert: The reluctant guest who has long dodged Michael’s attempt to get together after work and eventually seeks a way out when he is uncomfortable and overwhelmed with the smells of Jan’s Serenity by Jan candles. His best moment comes when he attempts to abandon Pam by claiming his apartment is flooded (later “on fire”).
Dwight Schrute: The surprise guest who was not initially invited to the dinner party at Michael’s condo (prompting heaving sobs from him in the cold open), but turns up with massive wine glasses, beets, and his childhood babysitter (Beth Grant). His best moments come in regards to dealing with the babysitter, telling her to “Get out” and cutting her off with an abrasive, “Hey, hey, hey,” when she attempts to make conversation.
Jan Levinson: One of the party’s hosts who is teetering on insanity with every cackle and jab at Pam for believing that she is trying to sleep with Michael. Hardin is incredible for the entire episode, but her best line reading comes when she snaps loudly at Michael’s claim that he’s a screenwriter, “And I’m a candle maker, but you don’t hear me bragging about it!”
Michael Scott: The other party host who is doing his best to portray himself as the member of a happy, healthy, adult relationship. His joking tone when he claims, “I’m in hell!” after Jan uses her fingers as devil horns suggest a man in need of desperate help. His best line delivery comes with a frustrated, top-of-his-lungs “That’s what she said!” when he can think of nothing else to say besides his reliable joke.
Not only is “Dinner Party” batting 1.000 as an episode, but every actor and character in the lineup is delivering an All-Star performance that Ted Williams himself could’ve thrown the first pitch ahead of. Throughout, subtle resentment builds over Michael’s soft teeth, a short bench used as a bed, and the stress of a fledgling candle business. A litany of hilarious moments (Jim refuses to guess Tom Cruise in the celebrity name game, Michael confuses pine and Nordic cherry wood after showing off, wine is described as having an “oaky afterbirth”) underscore the bubbling, passive-aggressive tension of the episode. It eventually explodes in an argument over a neon beer sign that prompts Jan to smash Michael’s “$200 plasma screen TV” with one of his Dundies, but obviously, the argument wasn’t about house decor. It’s about the fact that Michael, after trying for years to spend one night of fun with the people he considers his best friends, is forced to deliver an investment pitch to them in the name of Jan’s business (Andy’s in immediately), rather than just enjoy the time with his friends outside of work.
It’s a tragic moment in an otherwise deliriously funny episode of The Office, but it’s a necessary one to finally pry Michael and Jan apart from one another before they kill each other. It’s an installment I’ve seen more than perhaps any other (sans annual Christmas revisits) and I just can never get sick of it. The beats are embedded into the grooves of my brain, but I could watch it every day. Everyone has that show they just can’t get sick of, like a food or a drink. When I think back to sipping a glass of apple juice while watching “Dinner Party” with my uncle, sandwiches, and a broken leg and I recall taking notes on the installment last week with apple juice at hand, it’s obvious. The Office is my apple juice.
Michael’s redemptive arc continues throughout the series and steadily becomes more and more wholesome after he removes himself from the clutches of Jan. In “Niagara,” Michael’s storyline revolves around attempting to sleep with Pam’s mother, Helene (Linda Purl), and to assuage the traditional concerns of Pam’s Meemaw (Peggy Stewart) (she hates pregnancy out of wedlock and Bruno on a hotel television, but Michael is exceptional at handling old people at weddings, as evidenced by Phyllis’ in season three when he finds her lost uncle). But the best moment from Michael, even beyond Pam pinning her hopes on Michael to not say something stupid after Jim gives away the pregnancy (he fails), is when Michael convinces the entire office to take part in Jim and Pam’s wedding entrance dance. It results in a beautiful moment and, also, a genuine, beaming smile across Michael’s face as he watches Jim and Pam finally tie the knot, a culmination of his unwitting advice in “Booze Cruise.” There is nothing but pride and joy on Michael’s face and he feels no need to recapture the attention of the wedding; he’s just happy for his friends.
That’s the key difference between Michael Scott and David Brent. There’s a prominent need on the part of Americans to root for the characters they watch every week and to believe that they’re capable of growth and redemption. Following Michael’s lovable role in “Niagara,” he’s set up well for an arc in season seven that is devoted solely to handling the closure of his character (willing or unwilling) and developing his character fully from the obnoxious, thin-haired disaster he was in the first season.
The fourth episode of season seven, “Sex Ed,” begins Michael’s path to closing all loose threads remaining with his character, as he seeks out a “herpes”-induced post-mortum with each of them, including Jan, Helene, Carol (Nancy Carell), and Holly Flax (Amy Ryan). While it’s nice to see classic faces from the show against Carell’s one last time, the only one who still emotionally moves Michael is Holly, the HR rep who replaced Toby at the end of season four, but was displaced to Nashua by David Wallace after he saw a relationship spark between Michael and Holly.
A true dork with a bend towards raunchiness, Holly was practically generated in a lab (read: writers’ room) to match up with Michael, but their relationship was genuinely earned over the course of a long story (they’re “soup snakes,” of course) that split them up for seasons at a time before reuniting them in season seven over the matter of mutual impulsiveness. After a brief period of dating, Michael and Holly decided to move to Colorado so she could be with her parents and Michael, proposing to her, dreaded the idea of trying long distance once more. The only thing that could take Michael away from his family, after all, is a shot at a real one. He loves Dunder Mifflin, but the love he has for Holly is different and it’s an adventure out west he decides to pursue.
But season seven wasn’t just about reuniting one of the great romances of The Office. It also had to prove that Michael deserved a happy ending to his character, especially considering how cruel he was at the outset of the show. In “Todd Packer,” Michael lets go of his “best friend,” traveling salesman Todd (David Koechner), after finally recognizing his crude, mean behavior. In “WUPHF.com,” Michael helps the rest of the investors in Ryan’s Internet start-up by recognizing that Ryan takes advantage of the one-sided friendship he and Michael possess. In “Threat Level Midnight,” he lets go of his ineffectual dreams of something greater than Dunder Mifflin by laughing at the D-movie quality of his long-gestating Michael Scarn screenplay and rationalizing his creation through the lens of Antz.
Each of these episodes bring us closer to Michael’s final installment, “Goodbye, Michael,” which is tinged with closure, but also intense melancholy at the loss of a character we’d genuinely grown to love, rather than hate (even if that was counterintuitive to the series’ initial mission statement). Following an impromptu song by the employees in “Michael’s Last Dundies,” thanking him for his time as their boss and urging him to call them again, Michael acknowledges “this is gonna hurt like a motherfucker” and begins to resolve his relationships with each character who needed him most. He provides a recommendation letter to Dwight, who always needed his approval. Advice to Erin (Ellie Kemper) that was removed from his desire to see her date Kevin. A forced grimace when Toby suggests Michael meet up with his brother, Rory (Warren Lieberstein), in Colorado.
However, Michael’s most profound moments in “Goodbye, Michael” come in how he poetically resolves his pettiest, most offensive outbursts of the past in the form of genuine self-awareness (Carell’s flawless fake laugh when Oscar accepts the Scrunch-esque rag doll he provides to the accountant as a goodbye gift) and consideration for others. Rather than hoarding his clients, Michael passes them to Andy (the worst salesman, but he did sell his colleagues on Andy, “a product that nobody wanted”), who immediately loses Porter Hardware’s business. Rather than pawn Phyllis’ hand-knit winter clothes (mittens in this case) for an iPod, as he did in season two’s “Christmas Party,” he treasures the gift and packs them warmly that evening. Rather than insist on mint chocolate chip ice cream for his going away party, as he would have done to the Party Planning Committee seasons ago, he asks Pam what she wants to eat for dessert.
The Office would have been uninteresting if they had pivoted to this redeemed Michael too early in the run, but he acts so sweetly and kindly that it does feel slightly painful to watch him lead one final conference room meeting and muster little more than an “Uhm” and a “Hm,” as he realizes there’s nothing more for him to do as manager. The episode is still plenty silly (Michael throws away the “World’s Best Boss” mug and is unsure what to drink out of instead) and embracing of some of Michael’s faults. It’s just that many of these faults have been lost to time.
He’s no longer insistent on being the star of the documentary. In fact, it’s his choice to turn off the microphone pack and depart from the camera crew, just as it’s his choice to break the goodbye hug from Pam (I can still remember how soaring I felt seeing her sprint through the airport terminal barefoot) and head to his flight. It’s a moment of connection he would have craved even just a season and a half prior, but Michael no longer needs anyone but Holly.
There is a brief moment of doubt when he’s afraid to leave Scranton (both he and The Office made something really special out of what has frequently been described as a “nothing” city), but all it takes is Holly’s voice over the phone to shake him out of his teary realization that he has to leave Dunder Mifflin. She’s his endgame; she’s all he wants. Happiness is Holly, not Dunder Mifflin. Happiness was never Dunder Mifflin; it was just all he had. As Jim says, he’s “absolutely not” doing the wrong thing by leaving Scranton for Holly. It’s just that “goodbyes are a bitch.”
This, too, shows Michael’s growth as he takes Jim at his word, rather than insisting that he actually knows better than the man he watched blossom into a husband and father in the bullpen of the office. Dwight may have shared more scenes with Michael than Jim or Pam, but they were the ones who truly loved him as their boss and, deep within their souls, wanted him to just be happy because they felt that’s what he deserved. That’s why Jim proclaims him to be the “best boss [he] ever had” after realizing Michael was planning to leave early (and why Michael boxes Jim’s name on his list of goodbyes, as opposed to just crossing it out). That’s why Pam’s comes last, for all the love they shared, for all the intertwining narratives their lives maintained (including the Michael Scott Paper Company arc, which was supported only by Pam (Ryan was just chilling)).
On his deathbed, Michael believes he’ll wish he spent more time at the office. After all, he’s a man who said goodbye to no one except his employees when he departed Scranton; Dunder Mifflin was all he had. But in the moment, he’s probably just feeling nostalgic because of his goodbyes with Jim and Pam. Those moments showed me (back when they aired in 2011) how much I truly loved this show and I replayed Jim’s tearful goodbye over and over that summer, hoping that I had people in my life who felt the same way. Like Michael, I felt nostalgic for all things because of the most heartfelt goodbyes from my favorite coworkers, both of which seemed impossible when The Office began. It’s television character development at its finest. You just can’t get the same feeling from Space Force.
Over time, while Jim and Pam grew to appreciate Michael for who he was and Ryan learned how to manipulate him and Oscar learned how to patronize him, Dwight went in a slightly different direction. At the series’ outset, Dwight is unflinchingly loyal (largely, to a fault, especially considering his familial ties to Argentina) and this results in frequent moments when he chooses to obey Michael rather than adhere to his own code of dignity. For odd reasons every time, Dwight prioritizes blind faith in his superiors over faith in his own creed of warped morality.
Most of the time, he’s hysterical around Michael (and whenever those two drive in a car with Jim (“You can’t fire me! I don’t work in this van!”), hysterics are sure to ensue) and game to participate in anything from modeling a bra to choosing a healthcare plan. Occasionally, these latter delineations of power — to keep Dwight occupied and Michael embroiled in free time — prompt Dwight to take his responsibilities too far in the minds of everyone except Angela. As Dwight’s secret girlfriend, Angela is secretly enthused each time Dwight is given unchecked authority in the office because she adores his high standards and strict codes of ethics. She (and Jim) are the ones who find his volunteer deputy outfit “cute” in “Drug Testing,” when Dwight tasks himself with uncovering the culprit behind a joint in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot.
It’s in this episode, though, when we also receive one of the earliest hints that Dwight’s obedience to Michael is not eternal. When Michael forces Dwight to compromise his values and swap urine samples (as Michael was the one who smoked the joint — at an Alicia Keys concert, of course), a forlorn sense of loss falls upon the assistant (to the) regional manager. While Michael does feel guilty for how he used and abused Dwight so thoroughly, the dynamics between the two reset as soon as Michael needs Dwight for some other menial task. Michael’s guilt manifests in the form of providing Dwight with a meaningless security title and rehiring him away from Staples (in “The Return”), but eventually, it’s not enough to assuage Dwight.
Every urine exchange, every load of laundry, every trashed sales lead, every pawned off Willy Wonka idea erodes the loyalty Dwight once felt so deeply for Michael. Compounding these slights against his ego and integrity with the tumultuous break-up between Dwight and Angela at the beginning of season four and Dwight is frequently left unshaven, unkempt, and moaning in any empty stairwell he can find. Dwight’s arc was always transitioning to a place of independence and the ability to stand up for himself, but by the time one of the series’ great arcs, Michael Scott Paper Company, arrived, Dwight was ready to nail the wooden, farm-made coffin of his obedience shut and begin dismissing Michael more and more frequently as a buffoon. A buffoon in the position that was coveted by Dwight more than any other in the world.
You gotta let a man have his dream, after all. So what if Dwight’s grandest ambition is to manage a rinky dink paper supplier in industrial Pennsylvania? It’s an ambition all the same and seeing how much Dwight truly cares about paper and about management (he cries multiple times when the job is offered to him and (finally) permanently in season nine’s “Livin’ the Dream), he deserves the achievement. “If there’s someone who loves paper more than Dwight,” Jim advises David Wallace. “I definitely don’t want to meet that person.”
But it is true! The vulnerable ambition lurking behind Dwight’s every action is more strongly tied to paper than it ever was for his nerdy pop culture interests (Harry Potter, 24, Battlestar Galactica) or his farm boy swill strategies or his obsession with heavy metal music and Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas tunes. He coats Michael’s head in peanut butter because his love of paper and selling paper is so strong that he’ll do whatever it takes to receive the recognition he feels is warranted for his abilities. And it’s a recognition he so rarely receives, as if his passion for the work is meant to discredit him.
Granted, Dwight can be obnoxious and loud and dangerously tenacious (immediate power trips flow through him, as in “Drug Testing,” when Jim acknowledges Dwight finding drugs is more dangerous than most people using them), but it all comes from a genuine place. The place of a man who has been dismissed as a “freak” all his life, but is really just inordinately comfortable with his one in seven billion identity.
Of course, the character of Dwight Schrute might be the most iconic creation from The Office, even if Michael is the most thoroughly written and Jim and Pam are counted among my sweetest favorites. Memorable to everyone local (from his green urine to his phony police siren that prompts familiarized annoyance from Scranton’s police), Dwight is a stellar character with a pseudo-Amish upbringing (including butter and clay dental hygiene, a strategy for owning nine and three-quarters horses, and Belsnickel as a Christmas figure over Santa Claus) with some of the best lines in the series.
- “I can’t use Phyllis [as a counterweight]! Are you kidding me? The moment she steps off this bar, I’ll be launched into space!”
- “I never smile if I can help it. Showing one’s teeth is a submission signal in primates. When someone smiles at me, all I see is a chimpanzee begging for its life.”
- “Anyway, she said, ‘That is the biggest penis I have ever seen.’ And I said, ‘I know! That’s why I brought you to the penis museum where tickets are a thousand dollars!’”
- “I hope the war goes on forever and Ryan gets drafted. I’m sorry! Only part of me meant that.”
While Dwight’s lines also come in the form of his aforementioned submission to Michael (responding “Of course” when he learns that Michael is close to his nephew, Luke (Evan Peters), because he “wiped his butt”), he’s also equally humorous when dismissing Michael’s idiocy out of hands, as in “The Search.” In this season seven installment, Michael ends up lost in the city and Dwight, fearful that Erin (“Space Orphan”) and Holly (“Princess Nincompoop”) are too ditzy to handle finding him themselves, heads up the search party. His brazen confidence with women (whether they’re platonic colleagues, dental hygienists from Carbondale or basketball players) contributes to the reckless abandon with which he hunts for Michael.
Critically in “The Search,” when Pam calls and asks Dwight to pick up supplies for an ice cream party, he pretends to dismiss Pam’s request as a distraction before quickly covering, “Pam, I’m obviously going to get that stuff for you so just shut up.” By this point in the series, Dwight is treating Pam with the loyalty he used to provide for Michael (with a few extra insults) because Pam is one of the only people in the office to lead with kindness while interacting with Dwight (she’s genuinely delighted when he turns up in “Dinner Party”). His innately good nature leads him to give this kindness right back to Pam in the form of chocolate syrup and in the form of giving her a win when she needs one more than he does.
Over the course of one’s time in an office, you just learn how to handle people. Pam’s first exposure to a friendship with Dwight came in ‘The Injury,” when she guides him through his concussion that essentially flips a Buzz Lightyearian switch in his back to turn him from abrasive to sweet. Granted, he refers to Creed (Creed Bratton) as his father and to Pam as “Pan,” but his intentions come from a lovable place of brain damage. Even when Dwight leaves for the hospital (and Pam knows that his benevolent demeanor is departing with him, so she gives him a hug), Pam insists on treating Dwight and the people who care about him with the respect they deserve, even if they don’t always give it to her. She leans over the accounting/reception partition and informs “Oscar” (with an eavesdropping, curious Angela) about the progress of Dwight’s condition.
After all, growth on The Office is not solely limited to Dwight. The series’ best character development comes in the form of Pam. At the outset of The Office, Pam is dorky and meek and always trying to find something to be eager about (as Jim became infatuated with the Office Olympics as a distraction for the day). In “Drug Testing,” this initially comes in the form of Pam’s infatuation with Jim’s impressions of their coworkers, which are making her positively giddy. In a talking head in the kitchen, Pam attempts to produce a Phyllis impression of her own and, in a moment of skiddishness, quickly becomes defensive to the camera and remarks that she can’t do it as good as Jim does.
This immediate defensiveness is a response to the feeling Pam has in the early seasons of The Office that her contributions to the culture of the workplace are not as valuable as others’. Believing (often with solid evidence) that the rest of the office looks down on her as much as her aloof, brash fiancé, Roy, does, Pam often decides against speaking up in the office or pushing back against Michael or trying to make anyone laugh except Jim.
It’s been a bit disheartening in recent years to see how many people on the Internet despise Pam. (I have no evidence beyond anecdotes to back this up, suggesting — potentially — an unhealthy relationship with Internet discourse. Alas, my hobbies are here. Like this television project.) There’s been a bit of revisionist history regarding the character of Pam as some sort of cold manipulator of office romances and a hypocritical actor in her marriage with Jim. (These are easily dismissed with the recognition that Pam did reckon with how she acted around Karen (and how the show, through a list from Kevin and a question about the hair color of a stripper, acknowledged the sexist debate among fans on forums at the time) in “Lecture Circuit” and making a major life decision when one has a wife and two kids is different than when one only has a boyfriend.) I want to do more than refute the claims against Pam, though. I want to ensure that my feeling of Pam as the true heart of the show (even more than her and Jim’s relationship) is made evident.
Pam’s arc is the show’s arc and her growth is always the most important on The Office. Yes, this manifests in the form of her coming to terms with the departure from a cherished routine of contentment and happiness in season nine (as cities like Philadelphia and Austin are bandied about as potential landing spots for the Halperts, rather than Scranton). However, it’s also prominently featured in season three, which is an arc all about Pam. It’s Pam’s season.
With Jim in Stamford and Roy working to “win” Pam back, it feels like a lot of the agency in Pam’s life has been stripped from her and she starts the season as a confused woman who decides to take her life one day at a time. By setting out to conquer little victories each day (like informing a bartender that he got her drink wrong or singing at a funeral for a bird), Pam grows more comfortable with herself and expressing her identity to those around her. The most vulnerable moment of hers, at the time, was in “Business School” when she invited the office to her art show, exposing a different side of herself to her colleagues for the first time. Heartwarmingly, Michael attends and gives Pam the confidence boost and compliment she so richly desired from anyone (especially after Oscar mocked it and Roy stammered through his praise), but he is also one of the only people to attend the show from Dunder Mifflin.
It’s this notion that she brings up to the rest of her coworkers in “Beach Games,” when she asks why no one attended her show and remarks that it feels like they treat her as if she doesn’t exist. This speech comes after Pam was the only one on the staff to successfully complete the fire walk of coals set up by Michael in a beautifully executed moment. It’s a seminal instance of a culminating character arc as Pam, in gasps and an astonished look to the camera, seems to find confidence, honesty, self-advocacy, and courage all in one moment. Crucially, she also finds her voice and expresses her feelings to the office — and to Jim (stating that she misses having fun with him). The fire walk gave her the courage to express these sentiments, but an entire build-up of her arc (“It only too me three years to summon the courage,” she quips in the subsequent installment).
“It’s a good day,” Pam smiles, forgetting all about her note-taking duties, just as Jim forgot about losing his biggest client in “Diversity Day” when Pam dozed off on his shoulder. Each day requires Pam to choose her voice, though, as she must also reflect the same courage in post-”Beach Games” interactions with Karen (who labels her a “bitch”), Creed (who blogged Pam’s monologue on www.CreedThoughts.gov.www/creedthoughts), and Kelly (who labels it “patheticville”). These moments could’ve been humiliating for Pam, but she stayed true to herself, took pride in her work, and trusted herself to know what would make her happiest. It’s a remarkable character arc that feels as earned as Don Draper’s, Walter White’s, or anyone of more traditionally prestige note.
Returning to the conflict Pam felt in season nine as Jim sought to upend their cozy, predictable life, his character arc is also pretty remarkably handled. Yes, he goes about electing to contribute to “Athlead” (a vague sports company that tries to “get” Cole Hamels — whatever that means) in an uncouth manner, but his bubbling ambition has been suppressed within him for so long (dating back to those early days when Jim despised the idea of selling paper as a career and created a virtual “Philly Jim” avatar of his truest dreams) that we can’t help but root for him to finally succeed.
As we’ve learned from the fun Office Ladies podcast, Jim’s talking heads were always positioned against the outward-looking window of the conference room to signal that Jim had a future outside of Dunder Mifflin, whereas most employees were resigned to be stuck there. This ambitious personality is shared by Dwight, but it always feels more tragic than Dwight’s aspirations, which are just slightly out of reach. Jim’s don’t even seem anywhere close to his grasp because every episode almost seems to depict Jim’s talents getting completely wasted at Dunder Mifflin.
In a job interview with David Wallace, Jim is as effortlessly charming and cool as Sam Malone. In an interaction about Dwight’s fantasy of managing a hotel in Hell with an $80,000 salary, Jim is as quick-witted as Scott Aukerman. In a moment when Michael demands Jim “take New Year’s away from Stanley,” he looks to the camera just as, well, just as only Jim Halpert could do. It’s almost like — through each smirk and grimace — he’s asking us, “Can you believe what is happening in this office?” And it’s fun — really fun — for a long time to see Jim find small joys in little moments and find an entire family at a job he thought was a temporary pit stop on a road to loftier dreams. At a certain point, though, it became almost sad to see Jim continuously waste what he was capable of at a company that squashed his spirits the one time it recognized his talents (promoting him to co-manager).
He doesn’t really take much seriously throughout The Office. In the blindfolded egg-on-a-spoon race of “Beach Games,” he spends the activity messing with Karen (while Kelly panics, Ryan quits, and Andy, forcing positivity, claps, “Good job everyone, that was fantastic!”) and later ignoring the fact that a promotion might be at stake. Jim is a hard worker only in the sense that he finds the quickest way to complete a task to save himself the stress and the effort, but it’s clear that he’d be capable of astounding achievements were he only to apply himself. (Yes, I know I sound like a high school guidance counselor.)
We see these achievements manifest whenever Jim decides to pull a prank on Dwight, an early staple of The Office’s comedy. It’s so easy for him to just slide into a role of messing with Dwight and playing into the many faults and Kryptonites within his desk mate’s persona. (Jim is also capable of leaning into Dwight’s perception of him, like when he feigns stupidity after practicing ping pong for an important client, whom Dwight believes to be Darryl, because Jim knows exactly the kind of person he is and what he wants in his life, so he doesn’t mind how Dwight sees him.) Jim is hilarious as an active instigator of practical jokes in the office (from slipping Andy’s cellphone into the ceiling and fearing for his safety after an angry outburst to gift wrapping Dwight’s entire desk and chair), but he also makes for a fantastic observer of the absurd chaos around him (“Jackpot,” he responds to Meredith’s admission that she is extorting herself sexually for discounts on paper supplies).
But we never want to see Jim sacrifice his life goals just so we can have a few extra laughs per episode. He handles Athlead wrong, but his character development to arrive at the point of needing to follow his dream — to the moment of bursting with agony at the thought of selling one more ream — is so well-executed (and we’re so on the side of him and Pam succeeding and being happy) that we can’t help but fist pump along with him after he goes all in on the goal at the outset of season nine.
Part of Jim’s early disbelief at the rut his life has fallen into comes in the form of his sighs at the fact that he is aware of both Dwight’s middle name and mother’s name. In tandem with his development towards choosing ambition, though, Jim also develops to understand that a friendship with Dwight is not pathetic, but rather one of the most valuable things a worker can find in their place of employment. He is consistently advocating for Dwight to not sacrifice himself for Michael’s selfish wishes and, later, goes out of his way to rescue Dwight from being fired off the Tallahassee project by Sabre (the tech company that purchased Dunder Mifflin in season six). Of course, the best moment shared by the two (who begin as enemies and become dear loyalists to and adorers of one another) is when Jim consoles Dwight after his break-up with Angela.
Recalling his affections for Pam, Jim confides, “My solution was to move away. It was awful. It was something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and that includes you.” It’s not a magical speech that is meant to fix Dwight, but it is a moment that shows how far Jim has come from actively rooting for Dwight’s termination to making genuine strides to help him. Once he let the petty rivalry go, Jim saw Dwight as a companion with emotions and heartbreak all the same. It became about being there for a person in his life he saw more often than anyone not named Pam.
The Office still left plenty of room for the antagonistic aesthetic between Jim and Dwight, though. One of my favorite exchanges between the two comes over the phone in season five’s “Lecture Circuit.”
Jim: “How old is Kelly?”
Dwight: “Who is this?”
Jim: “It’s Mose. Who do you think it is?”
Dwight: “Mose doesn’t know how to use a phone, so joke’s on you.”
Jim: “Look, I’m at the supermarket and they only have numbered candles. How old is she?”
Dwight: “Twenty-four. Thirty-seven.”
Jim: “Do you think I’m calling you for your best approximation?”
In “Initiation,” Dwight spends the entire episode trying to convert Ryan to his method of selling paper as a Schrute disciple so he doesn’t form another unfortunate relationship with the salesman sitting next to him. Jim and Dwight did learn to love each other, but it took time. With Ryan, though, Dwight decided to waste no time and he immediately thrust the former “temp” into a situation of anarchy and fear in his barn with Mose.
“I think about that all the time,” Ryan cleverly quips to the camera after Dwight mentions that the temp agency could’ve sent him “anywhere.” (Fortunately, there is one small respite in “Initiation,” when Dwight chants Ryan’s name while he chugs a beer instead of “temp.” It only took over two seasons to arrive at that point.) But what other workplace would have Ryan working in manure at the behest of his coworker? (This moment does result in a stellar Wilson improv as he remarks, “Just as you have planted your seed in the ground, I am going to plant my seed in you.” The Office’s fanbase is annoyingly obsessed with learning whether or not lines of dialogue are improvised, even in spite of the impeccable writing on the series, but this moment was a worthy one to acknowledge.) Not to mention, Ryan is able to recognize when Dwight’s advice is applicable (saying please too much and thinking he knows everything).
Ryan begins his arc as an average business bro with a tick-like tendency to observe those around him and slyly get under their skin in ways they won’t even notice. By the end, he’s a full-on hipster douchebag who is an absolutely horrendous boyfriend to Kelly. Together, they are absolutely hilarious and one of the series’ most dynamite pairings because of how perfect Kaling’s chemistry is with Novak.
Kelly Kapoor has a veneer of wholesomeness about her, but is perpetually stuck in a mean girl phase (from a tragic background) that falls away whenever she’s forced to handle customer complaints. Obsessed more with Tom Cruise’s love life than her own, Kelly’s vocabulary is typically limited to that of an abrasive middle schooler (she calls Dwight a “beefer” and refers to his wardrobe as “disgust-o barf-o”). When Jim presents her with Dwight’s spying tool, a wooden mallard, she names him Damon D. Duck and then shrieks at Dwight, “What the hell’s a mallard?,” perfectly encapsulating the dual personality that resides within her.
In that scene, Ryan negotiates a purchase of the mallard by Dwight and then opts to pocket the money for himself, leaving Kelly with a blank, hurt look on her face. She knows Ryan is a toxic human being, but she cherishes the drama that being with him brings to her daily life.
Around season six, Ryan makes a full pivot into a man of vague, meaningless wisdom (“You got your sheep and you got your black sheep and I’m not even a sheep, I’m on the freaking moon”) that is often sputtered from a technical closet in the kitchen (his new office after usurping Jim’s authority over him). He blames 9/11 for his poor relationship skills and thanks the troops on every side of the world’s conflicts, but ultimately, the life he leads is his own doing. When Ryan departs Dunder Mifflin, he’s little more than a temp (again) with stories of working in a bowling alley and (briefly) working in the corporate offices of Dunder Mifflin.
In “The Job,” when Ryan informs Michael (who calls him a “bimbo”) that he doesn’t get coffee for him anymore, it’s a subtle hint to a major change that was coming to The Office at the time. As the series was hitting its stride (with Entertainment Weekly covers and a forthcoming slot after the Super Bowl for the wall-to-wall hysterical, “Stress Relief”), “The Job” made numerous shake-ups to the show’s structure and dynamic with Ryan taking Jan’s position and becoming Michael’s boss as the second biggest. (More on the first biggest soon.)
Quickly, though, Ryan burns out of the job after committing fraud to succeed at it and falling into the drug side of New York City. It wouldn’t be The Office without him, though, and he quickly returns to the series in season five after Michael recruits him for the Michael Scott Paper Company. Between Ryan’s rehiring and Dunder Mifflin’s buyout of Michael’s start-up, the myth of a meritocracy was alive and well on The Office. (Phyllis describes the “soft-minded” Michael as unqualified “for the job he has now.”) Neither Ryan nor Michael had earned their success and yet, they fell into a best case scenario consequence for their actions both time.
However, no character exemplified how fraudulent the idea of a meritocracy is in the United States more than Andy Bernard did. A legacy graduate of Cornell University, Andy entered The Office as a boyish frat boy from the rich part of Connecticut. Initially serving as a foil for Jim, Andy would later be at his best antagonistic capacity opposite Dwight (their interview for a new assistant regional manager role sees Andy claim that the best way to make a table is to make a chair and refuse to sit on it).
However, when Andy was truly at his best as a character (from around season four to season seven) was when he wasn’t a foil for anyone and was simply the Dunder Mifflin salesman who wore little red anchors on his tie, tight green slacks on his legs, and his heart on his sleeve. Bearing a tendency to romanticize most situations, Andy thrived as a harmless character who was good for a joke (or a reference to “Butt Mud Brooks”) in the corner of the office and who just wanted to do the best he could at his job. Succinctly, Andy is at his best when he wants love, not fame. When he’s sympathy crying and sympathy puking in the same episode or smashing his head on a filing cabinet after getting caught eavesdropping on how Erin’s date with Kevin transpired. “Andy’s Play,” which sees Andy in a local production of Sweeney Todd, is the best use of Andy: doing everything he can to impress his peers and singing in the appropriate setting. It’s positively endearing.
Granted, Andy was involved in some of The Office’s wobblier arcs. In addition to Kevin and Lynn (Lisa K. Wyatt) and Dwight and Isabel (Kelen Coleman), Andy and Erin consistently failed to get their romantic timing correct, but Erin’s eventual parentage reveal was at least satisfying in that regard, as Andy looked on lovingly. His exemplary status as an upholder of privilege in the U.S. was cemented when Andy was chosen as the manager to succeed Michael Scott.
At first, Andy was depicted as a man who didn’t necessarily deserve the job, but was planning on doing whatever it took to prove himself worthy of the role. Looking back, there were probably some better choices. Darryl (amused by everyday things like squirrels and his own spit) was the most qualified choice to become the manager, having steadily climbed the ladder in Scranton. He also would’ve been a stoic antidote to the increased wackiness of the rest of Dunder Mifflin (who were initially straight to Michael’s inane antics). Kelly would have been a fun selection for the position, but Kaling was preparing for the next phase of her career. Dwight was probably the right choice, as the development of the character called for him to take over the manager’s chair. And yet, Andy was the one selected. A safe, if uninspiring choice, but one that nearly worked out before the behind-the-scenes hedging (bringing in Robert California (James Spader) and Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate) resulted in a “Nard Dog” half measure) cannibalized Andy’s own development into a Michael Scott 2.0 figure. He was at his best when he just wanted others to like him. Endearingly, not cloyingly.
The best of Andy is also representative of the best of late-stage Office. Season seven was an improvement over season six and a reprieve ahead of season eight, as it managed to make the best use of Sabre’s good qualities. (Jo Bennett (Kathy Bates) was far less engaging than Gabe Lewis (Zach Woods), the series’ last iconic character addition who owned over two hundred horror films and snapped over others’ knowledge of the sun.) It also addressed the absurdity of a seven-year documentary in a palatable manner that refused to distract from the charming fun had on a consistent basis throughout the arc, even if it wasn’t the same as the series’ early peak.
Over the course of the final two seasons, Lieberstein’s increased influence and Daniels’ eventual return to the helm saw The Office trying things a little differently. There were occasional misfires (an irksome joke about Lewis Black), but there were also admirable swings (dramatic stakes infused into Jim and Pam’s relationship, the eventual release of the documentary). Even if it was an imperfect denouement (with a flawless final four episode arc), I still loved the series and found tons of humor in the eighth and ninth seasons. That’s the biggest testament for The Office coming in at number one on my list. Even when it was at its worst, I cherished it with my entire being.
Not to mention, the silver lining of Michael departing allowed for the ensemble to flourish towards the end, with many characters earning entire subplots and character development for themselves beyond the occasional one-liner. This attention to detail was always present throughout the series. (Characters like Josh Porter (Chip Esten) and Stanley are always in the background of scenes and talking heads, deepening the style of the show by filling it out with people we know. Wallace hates his HR guy as much as Michael does. Bob Vance (Bobby Ray Shafer) attends Jim and Pam’s wedding, even with no lines.) It resulted in an impressive commitment to continuity. Characters like Mr. Brown and Devon (Devon Abner) could return for one line of dialogue solely for the purpose of fleshing out the world and making The Office feel even more real.
After Michael departed, Darryl’s role grew (in conjunction with Robinson’s increased star power) and the accountant trio became a character unto themselves (Angela and Oscar’s duplicitous interactions with State Senator Robert Lipton (Jack Coleman) was always more enriching than Kevin’s inane act of the week). (“The List” is an episode from season eight that stacks against any from the first four seasons.) Creed and Meredith were always reliable for the episode’s biggest laugh, whether referring to a quarry or George Clooney. Phyllis proved that she had streaks of darkness and pettiness beyond her sweet, matronly demeanor (telling Pam to close her mouth because she “looked like a trout”). Even Stanley was delightful whenever he showed that he had energy (high-fiving Michael in line for a pretzel or stating, “I would rather work for an upturned broom with a bucket for a head than work for somebody else in this office besides myself”). The ensemble was a crucial piece of The Office and they allowed it to survive much stronger than it would have been able to if it was solely “The Michael Scott Show.”
Not to mention, the detail extended far beyond the creative staff of the series. The actors treated every day on set with the utmost care to the point where its become commonplace (at least in my life) to hear stories about Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey’s best friendship, Rainn Wilson’s moral support on set, Steve Carell’s leading with kindness, and John Krasinski’s devotion to elevating the show to be the best it could be (even down to recording footage for the series’ opening). It all stemmed from Greg Daniels, of course, who sought to unite all sides of production and develop a series that was based solely on kindness, support, and collaboration. Throughout the dalliances with cancellation and the eventual rise to acclaim through iTunes and the Golden Globes, The Office earned its stay by encouraging everyone on the team to dedicate themselves to producing a show worthy of potentially moving the degrees of comedy in the right direction. Its keep has since cemented it as one of the best ever made.
Above all the comedic quips and meta phenomenons, the most imperative, most dynamic arc in the series was the will-they, won’t-they relationship between Jim and Pam. Certainly at their best when they were pining for one another, the first few seasons of The Office are sprinkled with a few moments of adorable flirtation per episode (and some installments without any attention paid to the growing friendship between Jim and Pam). My personal favorite was in “Drug Testing” when Jim ends up silenced by a jinx with Pam and a vending machine that’s devoid of Coca Cola. The two run delightful bits against one another, resulting in fake tears and an utterly enamored (“en-Pam-ored”?) reaction from Pam, before Pam teasingly tells Jim, “You can tell me anything” and he looks down in resigned longing. In that moment, both of them know what Jim cannot tell Pam, but they’re forced into silence (in Jim’s case, literally) that allows them to put their feelings off for a little longer.
In response, Pam retrieves a can of Coke and forces Jim to purchase it from her, tapping it three times before Jim finally caves and hands her a dollar. “Hi,” Jim replies and Pam can’t help but smile back, “Hey.” These moments were ingeniously romantic and creatively engaging and they remain the best parts of an Office rewatch. It’s not that Jim and Pam became boring after the highly rewatchable climaxes of both “Casino Night” (Jim telling Pam he’s in love with her remains a top-tier moment of comedy audacity) and “The Job.” (They were still realistic as a married couple who got through the work day by smirking and drinking (only on Valentine’s Day), rather than dodging Roy’s attack and Dwight’s pepper spray or sneaking bites of candy or mints from Pam’s desk.) It’s just that a couple who belongs together is always more fun to watch when they don’t realize it yet. Or when they do realize it and can’t do anything about it.
Changes always came to Jim and Pam. These changes could be small, like Jim getting a haircut to appease Karen (prompting Andy to coin his new nickname, “Big Haircut,” and Meredith demanding Jim turn around). Or they could be earth-shattering, like when Jim dips out of Scranton for Stamford after kissing Pam and realizing he can’t stand to hear another word about her wedding with Roy.
Because of this move, season three infused a feeling of genuine distance and increased longing between Jim and Pam. At the end of “Initiation,” when Jim and Pam inadvertently end up on the phone with one another and Pam remarks, “It felt far” after suggesting they’re in different time zones, she’s not wrong. The central pairing of the show had been separated for five episodes by that point, so every anecdote about Sandra Bullock or typing speed felt like something to hold on dearly to because the change was so massive that we didn’t know when Jim or Pam would speak again. It was all the more gutting when Pam said goodbye to Ryan and Jim misconstrued it as a signal for him to get off the phone. Even when they hang up, they were reluctant to leave their respective offices, desperate to savor the feeling of sitting at the same desk where they heard the loves of their lives’ voices, even if only for an hour.
Of course, if you’ve read this far, you know how Jim and Pam end up. Married! With two children! Happily ever after! Even when they do get together, we’re still given plenty of cute moments between the two that remind us why they’re destined for each other in the first place. Jim pretending he’s proposing when he’s just tying his shoe at sunset, a passionate kiss over Italian food after Jim remembers what it was like to crush on Pam with no reciprocation, Pam acknowledging that her children will be correct about their soulmate status. “The Delivery” itself is an underratedly hilarious episode. It’s not just the greatest romance in television history because of the early flirtation. The consistent proving that Jim and Pam are destined for love is what makes them watchable and lovable for all nine seasons.
Their dynamic together over the course of the series (especially with how they manage Michael’s bombastic personality (Jim mutters only “Whoops” when Michael suggests sex between he and Karen, Pam draws him a hot dog saying, “Hiya buddy!” to make it seem like he’s a manager with many calls waiting during meetings)) also proves them capable of furthering their coupling and eventual parenthood. By managing Michael’s behavior, Jim and Pam prove themselves deft at raising a child (her pregnancy is revealed at the end of “Company Picnic” in a cliffhanger that abandoned the volleyball game cliffhanger tragically). It’s a moment of recognition of how their everyday lives prepared them for seismic shifts in the status quo that they never knew they were ready for.
While the series’ entire writing staff contributed to the majesty of Jim and Pam’s relationship, Mindy Kaling (with her keen ability to pen a romance) provided many of my favorite moments between the two. But no Kaling-penned episode was more geared towards their partnership than “Niagara,” which is, of course, the long-awaited wedding episode.
It holds up many of the classic sitcom wedding tropes (everyone has their role to play in the episode, like Andy tearing his scrotum, Kevin wearing a toupée, and Michael taking Jim out to get drunk), but also produces a number of charming moments between Jim and Pam to cement them as an everyday couple beyond the grand gestures that typically punctuated the development of their relationship. Kaling’s script for the episode is hilarious, but still lovely, illustrating The Office’s ability to endlessly excel at the balance. We get a recreation of the JK Wedding Entrance Dance (complete with Dwight kicking Isabel in the face and Oscar voguing), which Jim and Pam eventually relent and find to be endearingly charming. But we also get Jim and Pam’s quick eloping on a ship underneath Niagara Falls, where Pam rests her head on Jim’s shoulder as she did all those years ago. Even for those who wanted to hear the vows exchanged between them, the rehearsal dinner still sees Jim give a speech dedicated “to waiting.” (He was waiting for his wife.) It’s a perfect wedding episode for television’s greatest relationship — and it didn’t even need to come as a season finale.
What makes “Niagara” such a special episode in the annals of The Office is its beloved pay-offs for the central heart of the show. If there’s one thing beyond love and comedy that The Office was deft at, it was pay-offs. The entire ninth season was full of them. It was smart of the creative team to bring the show to an end, rather than just ER it and constantly churn the cast over on a yearly basis, so we could have these moments of emotional resolution to the characters whose lives in which we’d become invested over the course of years.
The promos for the documentary (which left me flabbergasted in real life), an actual fight between Jim and Pam, callbacks (Jim stuck in the annex for a day, a Schrute wedding held in the couple’s graves), cameos (Devon, Mose, Elizabeth the Stripper (Jackie Debatin)), Dwight’s installment as manager and proposal to Angela, Jim’s advice for Dwight as his number two, Jim’s montage of love for Pam, his long-awaited reveal of the Christmas card from the teapot in season two, the return of Michael Scott, a highly rewatchable retrospective that aired before the finale. They were all part of what made the final season so rewarding for all those who had stuck through The Office for all its episodes and winding story arcs.
After all, Michael Scott had already experienced his own finale. The Office was so magical and fulfilled that every character deserved their own character resolution, as well. (Even Clark (Clark Duke), who was nearly funny (especially in “Stairmageddon”), is essential for depicting Erin, Pete (Jake Lacy), and himself as the new Pam, Jim, and Dwight.) Yet, for whatever reason, the ending of Andy Bernard is the one that sticks me with the most. Between his earnest rendition of “I Will Remember You” at the end of “Livin’ the Dream” to his flawless, “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good, old days before you actually left them” in “Finale,” the intensely flawed character of Andy Bernard is the one I still think about daily. He’s the one that still moves me to tears whenever I think about him or see him reunite with his fellow cast members.
I don’t really know why Andy Bernard is the one who gets me teary (don’t even think about saying, “Rit dit dit doo doo” to me, please), but I guess it’s just because, as Jim implores both Dwight and Pam to understand, love is capable of trumping every “rational calculation” and logic that can be applied to a situation. There’s no reason to be moved so deeply by Andy other than that’s just what moves my heart the most. It’s just how it is. Love is a choice, yes, but it’s also felt independent of our rational minds at times.
That’s what we see in “Paper Airplane,” as Jim and Pam potentially teeter on the edge of divorce or, at least, some irreconcilable rift between them over Athlead. At the end of the episode, as Pam chooses to chase after Jim to give him his forgotten umbrella before he leaves for Philly and Jim chooses to abandon the taxi and grab Pam’s arm and hug her tight, the sequence flashes back to Jim and Pam’s wedding in “Niagara.” It’s an instantly iconic location for Office fans with a torn veil and a clipped tie to ground us in a story that had aired four years ago, at the time. It’s a flashback that reminds us love “believes all things” (Corinthians 13:7) and it reminds us why Jim and Pam have to hold onto each other so tightly and whisper, “I love you” to one another. Their love trumps the platitudes they were instructed to voice to one another via couple’s counseling. It was such a journey to arrive at their union of love in the first place that the intensity of their reunion had to match the emotional weight of our most beloved heroes on The Office. I get goosebumps just looking at a paper airplane now.
It’s also reminiscent of another pivotal flashback in Jim and Pam’s relationship, at the turning point of “The Job,” when Wallace begins to zero in on his intentions to hire Jim for the corporate job. After hearing, “Dunder Mifflin, this is Grace” in the waiting room and seeing the “Office Olympics” yogurt lid medal fall out of his sales reports for Wallace, Jim is thinking only of Pam. Throughout the episode, Pam has rationalized her lost love between her and Jim as improper timing, quoting Popeye and wishing Jim happiness throughout, even if she wishes he was there. She’s also indulged Dwight’s secret assistant regional manager coup (coupled with Schrute Bucks) with a Jim-cued “Absolutely I do.” But even as both try to convince themselves that their potential for dating has passed them by, Jim gets out of his own head at the most important inflection point.
No longer is he the ham and cheese sandwich-eating, globe-spinning Scranton prisoner who allows life to just happen to him. In that moment with Wallace, he seizes the agency of his life and puts it back into his actions — all because of another flashback. The scene juts back to just an episode prior, “Beach Games,” as him and Pam wade through the lake water and he confesses he never really “[came] back” to Scranton when Stamford shuttered its doors. “I wish you would,” she says and we see Jim again, hardly even listening to what David Wallace is asking him.
The look he gives David, with knowing eyes and an apologetic smile, flooded me with emotions when I rewatched the episode for this essay. It reminded me of why I love The Office so deeply and always will. It’s as intrinsic to me as apple juice, like I mentioned, or the Boston Red Sox or Disney. It’s not a personality trait (as Twitter users mock); it’s genuinely a part of my identity.
Jim professing his love for Pam and Pam doing the same changed me. The Office truly changed me. It changed what I thought was possible in being alive and in telling stories and in crafting a generational television series. It pulled off a seamless balance of humor and heart and stroked each tone perfectly, perfectly, perfectly. It provided a comfort, as well as a challenge. An inspiration, as well as an awakening. I know every beat of the show; I’ve fallen asleep to it; I hear it in my head during daily conversation. And yet, I never grow sick of it. Every ingredient of The Office was met with upstanding brilliance and it adhered to the pedigree of an impeccable television show with all-time casting, dynamite writing, naturalistic direction, thoughtful wardrobe and set design, thorough prop selections, and any other lauded category of work that applies to a television series; it was all masterfully crafted every single step of the way. I discuss it with friends and family. I’m constantly quoting it and celebrating it and rewatching it to notice new things or fall into the patterns of the familiar.
When The Office arrived at its series finale that spring during my freshman year of high school, I was consumed by the thought of losing my favorite series I’d followed for years. And I was roundly mocked for it! Now, the world has woken up to the beauty of The Office and all I feel is gratitude that it keeps opening up the hearts and minds of the world, years after it was in its prime. Years after a storyline was still unknown to and unmemorized by me.
When I think about what I love and who I am, I think about The Office and all of its carefully plotted character arcs and lovingly developed comedy arcs. Its series of farewell videos on YouTube and compilation clips that welcome me back like it’s home to see those gray carpets and tan desks and olive walls. Like there’s never been anything so comforting in the world. Nothing that ever made me feel so invested at every stage of my life and made me feel so happy years after the series went off the air, years after I watched Andy crutch down the aisle at Jim and Pam’s wedding to the tune of “Forever.” Nothing that made me genuinely want to work in an office before I realized that a real desk job could never be so perfect as time spent at Dunder Mifflin. Nothing that ever transpired in real time as the product of a group of people working to the best of their abilities and creating something they’re really proud of. Something that’ll really make people laugh. For years and years, long after I’ve seen it for the final time. That half-circle reception desk, that clump of salesman work areas, that small cubicle with a mug and a Dundie. It really is home, even if it’s an office.
The Office always managed to find beauty in ordinary moments and everyday objects, but as Pam remarks, that’s “kind of the point.” As footage of her office building watercolor fades into the gray, rectangular, unceremonious prism where all these happy memories stemmed from in the series’ final shot, we’re reminded that this was a series about hope. Not just hope for grand ambitions, but hope that we can get through the day. Sometimes with the help of a half-hour escape on the small screen.
And if we’re lucky, we get to experience even a fraction of the feelings had by Jim and Pam in the final moments of “The Job,” when Jim asks Pam to go out to dinner that night and her face (shoutout to Fischer, in her finest moment) cascades into a beautiful symphony of blushing cheeks, overwhelming joy, and tears of unmatched love. As an unbelievably satisfying conclusion to the first arc of the series’ central romance, it’s impeccably written and performed with Pam’s stunned disbelief and Jim’s intrepid concern and once-in-a-lifetime confidence regarding the risk being taken enveloping the swoon/cheer-worthy moment. It’s the peak of The Office, but that’s perfectly fine because how could it get any better than that? The rest of the series, as stellar as it is, serves the role of a long, winding book that you never want to end — and you’re just okay with that because you just love reading it every night. (Like Harry Potter, as Pam agrees in the finale.) It also stands as the greatest moment in the history of The Office and, for me, in the history of television because it encapsulates the possibility that our greatest wishes can come true — even in a monotonous conference room. That’s the power of an office romance and a workplace built upon hope. That’s the power of The Office: my favorite television series ever made.
