Watching The Office

Tonight’s episode had one of its best cold opens ever. Everyone is in the conference room and…. it looks like their listening intently to what Michael is saying. He’s talking about their boring sales report and he’s making the silliest suggestions of needing to pump it up. Bu no one’s really paying attention to him. They are all actually looking at this screen saver on the TV screen behind Michael.

This video tells it better than I can in so many words:

While I enjoyed that very much, I however could not say the same for the entire episode. Frankly, the show should do very well with a thirty minute presentation. Fortunately, we’ve got one more week of this hour long ones…and then it’s back to regular programming, folks. I don’t actually know where to start with the recaps. So you see, that’s my problem with these 55-minute episodes —- there’s just too many things going on, but half of it serving as filler only.

Anyway, let me try what I can….

Launch Party begins with Michael reminding them that it was the day of the company-wide party, i.e. the launch of Ryan’s Dunder Mifflin Infinity, the “brainchild of Michael’s brainchild� (which is like Michael’s “grand brainchild�). He mentions about a satellite party for all of the branches of the paper company, which will be beamed via webcam (a first for all of them). But VIPs like him will supposedly be at an exclusive party in New York.

The launch also marks the new direction the company is going to. Sales may now be generated through the website. And this idea is rejected by Dwight, Dunder Mifflin’s best salesman, who thinks he can make more sales than a computer. With Andy’s help, they set up a score board to determine who can make more money for the company by the end of the day. Thus, the battle between Dwight vs. the Computer begins.

Now, Dwight’s behavior annoyed Jim a whole lot, he decides to pull a new prank on him and asks Pam’s help to pretend she’s the computer sending Dwight IM’s to confuse him. Dwight is very much convinced the computer is indeed chatting with him.

Meanwhile, Angela is still very mad at Dwight for killing her cat and she could not care less about what he is trying to achieve. She’s been busy preparing for the launch for the last three weeks with Phyllis as her assistant. Phyllis, on the other hand, notices that Angela’s mood of late has been more and more sour. She is trying a new approach to dealing with people who are being difficult (e.g. Angela). And when she couldn’t handle it, she bitches back at Angela, too.

Now, Michael together with Jim (whom he asked to drive the car) heads to New York for the exclusive VIP party that was to be held in a place called “Chat Room�. It was so exclusive that a password is even required to enter. When Jim realizes Michael did not have any clue that it was an online party, he turns the car around and goes back to Scranton. Feeling stupid for thinking that it was a special party his protégée (Ryan) cooked up with him as one of the invited VIPs, Michael again feels a wave of resentment towards Ryan. Now back at his office, he decides to plan a really happening party in Scranton and orders in 8 boxes of pizza.

And this is where Michael loses it again. Last week, he drove the car into a lake, right? This week, he sort of kidnaps the young pizza delivery guy and while the poor guy was there holed up in the conference room, Michael gives him a lecture on being a “snot nosed punk kid who thinks he’s better than everyone else, but don’t really know anything about sales.â€? Of course, in Michael’s mind, this is what he would have wanted to say to Ryan.

Moments later when he realized what he has done to the pizza guy (according to Jim, it’s felony #2) he releases him and gives him a generous tip…or rather orders Dwight to give him a generous tip.

Going back to Dwight vs. The Computer… Dwight actually made 50+more sales than it, so yes, he did win over a machine…..something that Michael actually uses, to one-up Ryan. When Michael didn’t get to say what he was feeling towards Ryan, he still was able to say something to his protégée when it was Scranton’s turn to give their shout-outs to every Dunder Mifflin office, via the webcam at the satellite party.

“Hey, I think you should know that one of my salesmen beat your stupid computer. So take that ass#$%@!�

Anyway, back to Dwight… He later tells Angela that he tried to beat the computer just for her. But Angela still has not forgiven Dwight and did not acknowledge what he just achieved. And this broke his heart. I feel so geniunely for Dwight! Meanwhile, Andy begins to show interest for Angela. (I knew it!) When she makes it clear that she didn’t want to be involved, Andy serenades her with Abba’s “Take A Chance on Meâ€? This made Angela smile a little…

And where was PB&J the whole time? Ah, these lovebirds are in a world of their own. After pulling that prank on Dwight, they retired to the roof while the party was going on downstairs and had a quiet party with just them both.

Oh, and yes…the two other things to note about this episode? 1) Ryan is really becoming a corporate prick (haha!) and 2) it looks like Daryl and Kelly will pair up later.

The Office, The Office episode recap, The Office recap Launch Party, The Office Launch Party