The Office: Got the Blues

This week’s episode of The Office started cheerfully enough with the office round-up of Halloween costumes.  Kelly was dressed as Carrie Bradshaw.  Jim was dressed as himself with “Dave” written on a name tag.  Andy was dressed like a “kitten” (can we say whipped?).  And Creed, Dwight, and Kevin all came dressed as the Joker. (Creed won, by far, for the creepiest, with Dwight at an unsettling second, and Kevin rounding out the bottom somewhere near patheticville.) Even Pam dressed up as Charlie Chaplin at work in New York.  Too bad for Pam, nobody else in the NY office dressed up (hehe).  But the rest of the episode took a decidedly depressing turn – in the sadly funny, awkward way only The Office has managed to capture.

Titled “Employee Transfer,” the main plot of this week’s story was Holly’s transfer to the Nashua office.  After David Wallace discovered that Michael and Holly were dating – and was probably still trying to wash away those bad memories of Jan – Holly was transferred back to New Hampshire.  So Michael took a personal day – as well as a Dunder Mifflin van and Darryl – to drive Holly up the seven hours to her new digs.

Their trip up to N.H. started out happy, singing “Life is Highway.”  Even Darryl seemed to be enjoying himself.  And then, after about 3 hours, Holly started crying.  Michael asked her if she was crying, or had allergies, or if Darryl touched her (Nice).  Holly said no, but this isn’t going to work.  Another hour later, they both finally had the conversation they should have had already, and Michael begged her not to break up with him.

He began sobbing and said that he’s not strong enough and he’ll “go back to Jan and [he] hate[s] Jan.”  It was so sad and pathetic that there was nothing left to do but laugh awkwardly at poor Michael.  Darryl, stuck in the van, tried desperately to call someone to talk about how he/she ran into that kid they used to babysit (that had to be Kelly, right?).  It’s too sad to see Holly go.  I know Amy Ryan’s an Oscar-nominated actress and all, but I just loved her.  And unfortunately for Michael, he really loved her, too.

So they finally arrived in Nashua.  Michael barely helped move stuff and then finally realized it wasn’t going to work.  In a surprisingly grown-up move, Michael went inside, told Holly he couldn’t stay and hugged her.  Holly watched from the window as they pulled away.  And in a moment of kindness – one of those great ones that keeps The Office so wonderfully sweet – Darryl cheered Michael up by teaching him to sing the blues.  Except Michael didn’t really understand and they kept sing the guitar riff instead: “Dun da da da dun.”

Other relationships were also having their own ups and downs this week.  Jim and Pam met up in New York to have lunch with Jim’s brothers (finally, we meet the bros!).  Pam, ever-eager to please her new in-laws, tried to get them to join her in a prank.  Pam wanted to say she lost her engagement ring; the bros thought it would be funnier if they ragged on her for being an unpaid artist with a hobby for a career.  Pam was a little troubled by how quickly they came up with that.

Jim finally arrived and the brothers spent the meal picking on Pam, who started to get visibly upset. (Clearly, Jim didn’t inherit his ability to prank from these boys – he’d never be so cruel.) Jim, however, jumped to Pam’s rescue and yelled at his brothers for being rude. (Damn, defensive Jim is hot!) They burst out laughing, claiming it was all a prank and applauding Pam for “acting” so well.  Pam and Jim exchanged a knowing look.  Later on, the bros texted Jim their approval of Pam, and while Pam was happy that they liked her, she suggested that at Thanksgiving they “prank” brother Tom for being bald.  Oh snap!

Speaking of pranks, back at Scranton, Dwight wasn’t quite done with wearing costumes and came into the office wearing a Cornell sweatshirt, which raised Angela’s eyebrow.  It seemed that someone was trying to get under Andy’s skin.  And boy did it work.  The Cornell-obsessed Andy freaked out when Dwight said he was applying to his alma mater, and flipped even more when Dwight whipped out a “Big Red” Bear bobble doll (Hilarious!).  It seemed that Dwight picked up a few lessons from Jim on how to really annoy somebody (remember when Jim dressed as Dwight?).  Dwight played his cards so well that Andy called the university in order to act as Dwight’s interviewer.  The interview went the way you’d expect an interview between Dwight and Andy to go.  They ended by fighting over the conference table and each promised to report the other to admissions.

The next day, to get back at Dwight, Andy dressed up as a rural farmer with a basket of beets.  Too bad he didn’t know you have to cook them.  Dwight looked pleased at Andy’s undoing, and Angela looked on horrified.  Looks like there’s some more blues to come within the Andy/Angela/Dwight triangle.  And I, for one, couldn’t be happier about it.

Dun da da da dun.

Season 5, Episode 5: Employee Transfer (originally aired October 30, 2008)

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Thursdays, 9/8C on NBC

Photographs courtesy of NBC