TV Verdict

Pull on your sweat pants and unbutton your dress shirts folks because it’s “Casual Friday” at The Office, which is good because with the storm that’s brewing now that the Michael Scott Paper Company people are back, you’re going to want to be dressed in something comfortable. By the way, did I mention I’m not wearing panties?

Last week, our long (three week) national (Thursday night-ional) nightmare came to a close. The Michael Scott Paper Company was bought out by Dunder Mifflin, and per Michael’s request he got his old job back, Charles Minor lost his, and Pam and Ryan got hired on a salespeople. All’s well that ends well, right? Not by a long shot.

Although the family is back together, its members are not happy. On the one side, Michael is still upset that only Pam came with him after he quit, and on the other, the Dunder Mifflin sales staff is furious about the customers they lost during the paper war, and are even more angry that those customers have been given to newbies Pam and Ryan now that it’s over. Dwight—in his own interpretation of casual dress (read: full suit, no tie)—summons the slighted salespeople to a warehouse meeting by way of a secret message written on an otherwise ordinary memo in invisible ink. And by invisible ink I of course mean his own urine. In the warehouse, Dwight riles everyone up and suggests a coup. Jim, afraid of being caught on either side of the showdown, warns Michael then hides out for the rest of the episode in the break room with Creed (by the way, I can’t think of anyone I’d less like to hear ask “Wanna play a game?”).

Not someone to be “truffled” with, Michael confronts the mutineers when they return. When they claim to have gone out to lunch, Michael calls their bluff by marching into the kitchen and eating the lunches they brought from home in front of them—Andy’s salmon salad (incidentally, the exact meal he claimed to have ordered on their fake outing), Stanley’s egg salad, and Dwight’s “meat” sandwich (he claimed it was Pony meat, and though a normal person might just have said that to gross Michael out, I’m pretty sure he was serious).

Tensions finally come to a head when Ryan blows a sales call to one of Dwight’s oldest clients, prompting Dwight and his compatriots to threaten to quit and start their own paper company if Michael doesn’t give them back their accounts. With that, everyone says what they’ve been bottling up: Michael tells them how angry he is that they didn’t go with him, and Phyllis tells him that it wasn’t the company he hurt during the paper war, it was them—the people he claimed were his family.

Humbled (and surprisingly willing to take responsibility for his actions), Michael admits that he was in the wrong and asks Dwight to set up another secret meeting. He apologizes to the sales team and offers them white chocolate bark. But that’s not what they wanted (apparently white chocolate bark isn’t something anyone wants). They want their clients back, no matter what it means for Pam and Ryan. Michael agrees and is left with a tough choice. Without enough clients for both of them, he has to let one of his ex-MSPC employees go. Will it be Pam or Ryan? Michael relates his dilemma to a recent trip to the video store: “Do I rent The Devil Wears Prada, again, or do I finally get around to seeing Sophie’s Choice? It’s what you call a classic… difficult decision.” (Brilliant line, by the way.)

I won’t spoil the ending (I know I’ve spoiled everything else, but a guy has to take a stand somewhere, and besides, I’m getting tired), but I will say that the way they revealed his choice was fun, even if it wasn’t terribly original. Since I can’t remember Michael ever fake firing anyone except Stanley (and that was to teach him a lesson), I figured the scene was an homage to something that happened on the original Office. In fact, I’m pretty sure the same characters were involved in that scene, too (although, true to form, the American version ends on a happier note).

With only two episodes left, it looks like the pieces are in place for… heck, I don’t know what. There’s bound to be some lingering resentment for the remaining MSPC salesperson (Phyllis is many things, but forgiving isn’t one of them), and Michael still has to wrestle the branch out of the financial meltdown his competition exacerbated. One thing’s for certain: casual Fridays are no more, thanks to Angela’s complaining, Meredith’s liberal definition of “casual,” and a fed up Toby. Speaking of Toby, we got a big helping of backstory this week. Apparently, he’d been on the pastoral track before leaving the seminary to follow a woman to Scranton. He even took a job to be close to her. That woman? His ex-wife. That job? Do I really need to tell you? After this week, he probably wishes everyone would just come to work wearing a non-revealing robe.

Good episode this week on both the story and comedy sides. It was an honest and affecting way to reintegrate the employees, and also gave the situation some much-needed levity, mostly in the “casual” garb everyone chose to wear. Top of the list has to be Creed’s white…something. I couldn’t tell if it was an outfit left over from his cult leader days, or long underwear. Funniest line of the evening goes to the criminally underused Darryl: “What’d I say about building forts in the warehouse?” Here’s hoping he comes back in a big way real soon.

Only two more chances to let your voice be heard this season, so sound off in the comments below.