The Season Finale of “The Office”

Last night’s season finale, “Goodbye Toby,” was hands-down the best episode of this fractured season. The hour-long episodes always have a slightly different, more deliberately paced feel to them; I don’t know if I prefer them to the half-hour episodes, but I’m beginning to think so.

There were a number of new developments in this episode, the biggest being the departure of Toby Flenderson, the HR guy. He’s being replaced by a brand new HR person, Holly Flax (Amy Ryan, The Wire). From what I saw, Holly looks like a great fit for the Dunder Mifflin crew; she’s eager to learn, very sincere about her position, and also kinda witty. At first I was a little worried about Michael falling in love with her—if everyone in the office is in some sort of love triangle things might get a little tedious—but that idea seems to have been dashed by the show’s ending. She plays off Michael quite well, though, and forced him to show his more realistic, caring side a number of times throughout the episode.

The funniest moments in the entire episode were generated by the idea that Holly thinks Kevin is “slow.” Kevin’s character never changes, and yet when he’s placed in the context of being mentally challenged, suddenly everything he says takes on a different meaning: Kevin keeps the M&M’s on his desk so no one can take them, he can’t decide whether he wants chips or pretzels at the vending machine (while simultaneously thinking that a button is a piece of change), and he insists on crawling in to the moon bounce at the impromptu carnival. I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard watching The Office, but I loved it.

The rest of the story lines moved along nicely. Jim and Pam’s love continues to blossom, and now the question is “When will Jim pop the question?” Sure, it feels like a repeat of “When will Jim ask Pam out?”, but its implications for a broader story (or a spin-off) are more important. The Andy/Angela/Dwight love triangle is very funny, and I’m going to enjoy seeing how that plays out over their projected 28 episodes next season. The “Michael is a ‘kinda father’” scenario should be interesting as well, although I was really warming up to the idea of Jan being out of the picture. And finally, Ryan getting arrested is a nice denouement for him. He started as a wide-eyed intern, became a big-shot corporate guy, and wound up in the slammer because of his own dirty ambition. Nice.

It’s hard for me to judge this season compared to the prior ones, mainly because it was split by the WGA strike. But these last few episodes have been very strong, with this finale being one of the best in recent memory.