Watching The Office

It is done. The anticipation and the wait is over. But the excitement remains. The hour-long episode last night was pretty solid.

Here’s the recap:

The show opens with Michael in his apartment, having the cereal breakfast Jan prepared for him. Michael updates the camera crew on how he is. And while he didn’t get the job in New York, he couldn’t have been happier with Jan around.

He goes to the office bursting with positive energy, when he accidentally hits Meredith with his car. Michael was looking at the camera crew when this happened:

At the office, we find Jim and Pam huddled with the IT Guy at Pam’s station. Apparently the celebrity porn she downloaded caused her computer to crash. We also learn that Karen left Jim and Scranton. They are so over. Then, Jim tells the camera crew he is very much a single man now. But Kevin doesn’t believe it. He is convinced Jim and Pam have hooked up.

Meanwhile, Michael tells the gang the bad news, first omitting the fact that it was he who ran over Meredith. But eventually everyone saw through him, as usual.

Dwight: Why did you do it? Is it downsizing?

Michael calls New York and tells his new boss, Ryan the former temp, he wants to do something so that his staff would see past his negligence.

Ryan: Did it happen on company property?
Michael: Yes. It was on company property, with company property. So, double jeopardy. We are fine.
Ryan: I don’t think you understand how jeopardy works.
Michael: Oh, right. I’m sorry….What is “we are fine�??

The rest are planning to visit Meredith at lunch time. Angela, however, had a little problem of her own. Her cat, Sprinkles, is very sick and she has initially planned to go back to her apartment to check on her. But Pam convinces her that visiting Meredith was priority, seeing that she’s in the Party Planning committee and we all know party planning is Angela’s thing. So, Angela asks Dwight to instead check on Sprinkles and gives him tons of instructions.

At the hospital, Michael is asking for Meredith’s forgiveness while everyone was present, but Meredith refused. When they got back from the visit, Dwight tells Angela the sad news — Sprinkles is dead.

Dwight: Don’t be sad. She is in a better place. Actually, the place she is in is the freezer. Because of the odor.

When Michael learns of this other bad news, he is convinced that the office is cursed for three reasons:
1. The computer crashes with the porn
2. Meredith’s accident
3. Sprinkles death

Michael: I’m not super-stitious, just a little-stitious

Michael calls for a meeting in the conference room, and while there, Michael led a discussion on religion, God and their beliefs, to which Toby protested and deemed it was not proper. Michael labels him as Satan.

Because he wasn’t able to visit Meredith earlier, Dwight was given permission to pay her respects to her. Dwight: I don’t respect her, but I’ll go visit.

It was then that the doctors told Meredith of the results of the tests done to her. She needs to get rabies shots because apparently, she was bitten by a bat - from last season -, a racoon and a rat (What is she? Drunken Dr. Doolittle?).

Learning this from Dwight, Michael finally had reason to turn the perception around by organizing the…let me see if I got this right: Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run.

But of course, this had catastrophe already written all over it. The Fun Run did push through as planned. But all they raised was a $700 donation that mostly came from Michael’s and Jan’s pockets. Also, there were no celebrities on site, except for the “nurse�? who received the donation on behalf of “SCIENCE�?.

Michael required the whole staff to participate in the Fun Run:

• Phyllis was with Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration.
• Kevin didn’t want to run at all. But because Michael threatened him, he went with his office clothes on.
• Andy’s nipples bled the whole time.
• Stanley, Oscar and Creed ditched the event to go have beer or cocktails, but came back near the finish line a few minutes later.
• Toby was the first to reach the finish line. He apparently is used to this.
• Michael almost quit the race but with Pam’s prodding, he still finished it.

When Meredith learned everything Michael had done, including his attempts to finish the race, she finally forgave him.

And then there is that little matter with the couplings…

Pam Beesley & Jim (as Kevin calls them PB & J) — The camera crew followed PB after work one afternoon, to discover that she was rendezvousing with J a block away from the office. They wanted to keep their relationship a secret but the cat’s out of the bag (or inside the freezer ha-ha!) The camera crew caught them. When confronted by the camera crew, they denied it at first but Pam admitted that yes, they are indeed dating.

We’ve known this for a while now, but they do make a very, very cute couple.

Dwangela: Trouble in Paradise — Angela suspects that Dwight may have actually killed her cat, Sprinkles, leaving her very upset at him. Dwight makes no reason hiding the fact that he could’ve done it and said he was actually doing Angela a favor. He insists he was most human about it, sticking the cat in the freezer. Does this spell the end for Dwangela?Was the hour long episode too much for you? Or did it leave you wanting for more? How would you grade the season opener? And would you like to have one of these:

Get Michael Scott’s Fun Run Stash at the NBC store

Missed any of the episodes? Watch via download stream at NBC.

The Office, The Office Season 4 Episode 1 Recap, The Office Fun Run