The Office: Karen’s Preggers!

In this episode of The Office, Michael made a fool of himself, Pam and I continued to be eerily similar, and Jim and Dwight were forced to get along when they were named joint Party Planners and forgot Kelly’s birthday.

Before I begin, kudos to writer Mindy Kaling (a.k.a. Kelly) on the brilliant cold open this week.  Michael found out that his phone had a PA function so he could make announcements to the office.  You can just imagine what Michael did with this. (Remember when he got Ryan’s cell phone number?) After torturing the Dunder Mifflinites with disgusting phone conversations with his doctor and annoying “announcements,” Jim snuck into Michael’s office with scissors in his back pocket and furtively cut the PA wire.  Michael didn’t notice and continued speaking into his phone.  Genius.

The two part episode then took off with Michael, thanks to his good branch performance, being sent by David Wallace to visit the other branches on a lecture circuit.  So he and poor Pam (who’s literally in it for the money) hit the road to Utica where Karen is the branch manager.  Pam was nervous because she doesn’t like to think that there’s someone out there who dislikes her – not even al Qaeda.  To which I say, get out of my head, Pam!  Seriously, first it was the hair, then “second-drink,” then the Banana Republic wardrobe, and now an irrepressible need to be liked by everyone.  Seriously, where’s the camera?  And maybe John Krasinski (wink, wink)?

But back to The Office.  Michael’s lecture went as miserably as you would expect it to, but the big news was Karen, who was married to a tall, lanky guy just like Jim and super pregnant.  Pam and Karen – now happy in their separate relationships – made friends just as they always should have been.  And Michael made inappropriate comments.

Back in Scranton, Dwight and Jim tried to make amends for forgetting Kelly’s birthday.  After the power play between Angela and Phyllis, Dwight and Jim were named co-chairs of the Party Planning Committee – because that’s going to ensure less conflict.  But it did bring us a glorious joint Dwight-Jim talking head.  Let me just say, we should have them all the time, and they should always have to sit so close to each other that they fight over elbow room.  Plus, I loved that they both reacted to the party planning task with the same disgust.

But whatever their dislike of party planning, they had to do something to quell Kelly – who was pissed about people being mean to the popular girl.  Jim tried to make nice and asked what he could do.  Kelly ranted.  Then Dwight cut her off and demanded to know what kind of cake she wanted.

The two then proceeded to throw a truly sad birthday party.  Dwight decorated the room with barely filled brown and grey balloons (they matched the carpet), and Jim couldn’t seem to get anyone to donate money to the party.  Creed, however, did pitch in by giving Jim a $3 bill.  Oh Creed.

Still trying to throw the party, Jim called Dwight from the store to find out how old Kelly is so he could buy the right candles.  Dwight thus went to Kelly’s personnel file and discovered that Kelly was in “Berks County Youth Center.”  Dwight explained that it must be “Juvie.”  But this is the same guy who thought that the leading cause of death in this country was shotgun weddings, so I’m thinking that something else is up with Kelly.  A mental facility maybe?  Is Kelly crazy?  It would explain a lot.

Andy was also trying to move on past Angela and some psychological issues this week.  As he explained in a talking head, “I am single now.  What we have here is a smack-down between the Nard-dog and crippling loneliness, despair, and depression.”  Oh man! (Should I feel bad for laughing?) Andy thus spent the episode hitting on a beautiful, young client of Stanley’s who was unfortunately not interested.  Creed even gave him some advice – based on how he got Squeaky Fromme (a Charles Manson worshipper) – and told Andy to be aggressive and just kiss her.  Even though Creed called him Jim (Creed’s on fire this week), Andy took his advice and went in for the kiss.  But the sexy client did not let him follow through.  So I guess Andy didn’t win the battle, and he also lost the client.  Is anyone else noting that Andy is becoming more and more like sad Michael?

Speaking of sad Michael, Pam explained that she was happy that Karen moved on because it gave her closure.  Michael realized that he never had closure with Holly.  In a moment of impulsive kindness, Pam pulled a u-ey to head to Nashua so Michael could see Holly and get his closure.

But there was no closure for us this week.  It’s to be continued …

Looks like we’re in for a bumpy ride.

That’s what she said.

Nailed it.

See you in Nashua.

Season 5, Episode 14: Lecture Circuit: Part 1 (originally aired February 5, 2009)

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Thursdays, 9/8C on NBC

Photographs courtesy of NBC