“Lecture Circuit pt.2″ ~ Donna’s Recap

I finally got a chance to catch-up on last week’s episode, “Lecture Circuit pt.2″. And, Wow! What a stinker, huh guys? I was actually surprised how bad it was. Yes, there were a few sort-of funny bits, but overall it was just not up to typical Office-standards.

The episode starts off in the break-room. Kevin is holding both and ice cream and a twin-pop. Seeing everyone giving him the “eww, you’re such a glutton” evil-eye, he feels the need to comment. “What? I didn’t eat my lunch”. Noticing the eye-rolls over that comment, he quickly edits, “I didn’t eat all my lunch.”

In comes a smiling Angela. What you say? A smiling Angela?! Yeppers. She’s not just smiling, she’s positively giddy. Why? Well, it seems Ms. Martin has adopted a new cat. And not just any-old cat. She’s got herself a fancy pedigree kitty whose parents “acted” in “Meet the Parents”. Well la-te-dah! And the best part is…she sold the engagement ring Andy gave her on ebay to buy the cat for $7000.00! Creed pipes up, “I could get you a kid for that!”

She named her new pet, Princess Lady. Disgusted and intrigued, Oscar, Kevin and Meredith want to see a picture of this $7000.00 cat. But Angela can do better than that! She’s got her cats hooked up to “Nanny-cam” so she can check up on her babies over the internet during her workday. Seems Dunder-Mifflin doesn’t recognize cat-paternity leave. Shocking, huh?

Being that this is pt.2 of “Lecture Circuit”, Jim and Dwight are still dealing with Kelly’s birthday party fiasco. While Jim is going over his list of supplies, he hears Dwight screaming at Kelly. What’s up? Well, Dwight is interrogating Kelly about her time in Juvenille Detention.

Remember in pt. 1 while searching for the proper spelling of Kelly’s name for the cake, Dwight stumbled upon her arrest record from when she was fourteen years old in her personnel file? He confronts her about it in the usual Dwight “smooth way”. ha ha Kelly explains that she stole her boyfriend’s parents boat when he broke up with her to win him back. Oh boy! Seems Ms. Kapoor has always been about the boyfriend drama. Even way back at fourteen! Her poor parents….

Any-who, Jim tries to diffuse the tense situation that Dwight has created by showing Kelly the cake he got for her party. She takes one look at it and announces she hates it. Seems Jim did not get her name spelled right after all. He also didn’t get flowers, or toys on the cake either. No theme! Kelly is very upset that there is no theme to her party. She stalks off. Once she leaves we see Phyllis sitting there watching the whole confrontation take place. She just looks at the new party planners and shakes her head patronizingly saying, “there is always a theme”. You can read it in her face, she thinks Jim and Dwight are inept losers. ha ha!

I love that Jim and Dwight are making such a mess of being the party-planners. They always scoffed at what an idiot job it is. Now that they’re in charge they can’t do anything right. It vindicates both Angela and Phyllis, as former heads of the committee. And, it puts Dwight and Jim together for many scenes. Which is always good.

Next scene, we see Pam and Michael as they arrive at the Nashua branch. If you remember from pt.1, Michael feels he needs closure with former Scranton HR Rep. and ex-girlfriend, Holly. Pam talked him into going to see her after her successful closure episode with Karen in Utica.

They head into the Nashua office and ask for Holly. But guess what? Holly isn’t there. She’s off on an HR retreat. No worries though. If they need to reach her the receptionist tells them that her boyfriend AJ can call her for them. Say what? Boyfriend?! D’oh!!

Obviously Michael is devistated. He goes outside and Pam follows him. He sits dejectedly on the curb and confesses that he doesn’t know if he can go through with the presentation now. Pam boosts him up by telling him that if he does the presentation well, that Holly will hear about it when she gets back. This cheers Michael a bit and he heads into the conference room to begin his presentation.

Back in Scranton, the accountants are interupted from their work by “meowing” noises. They all rush to Angela’s computer to see what’s up with the Nanny-cam. Seems Princess Lady is getting humped by another one of Angela’s cats. Oh the horror! Angela immediately gets her coat to run home and take care of her naughty “children”. Oscar, Kevin, Creed and Meredith sit by the computer and watch the kitty-porn.

Jim and Dwight are still struggling with Kelly’s party. While Jim pours over the list and tries to come up with a theme, Dwight works on a sign for the party. They’re both frustrated and snippy with each other. Dwight tells Jim, “Is this how you are with Pam because she must want to shoot herself in the face”. lol Jim mocks Dwight’s sign, calling it effeminate. Dwight retorts, “It’s not effeminate, it’s festive”.

Back in Nashua, Michael begins his presentation to a packed conference room. He starts off strong. Everyone in the room is smiling and eager to hear what he has to say. But we all know Michael. You know he can’t keep this up for long (twss). His presentation quickly disintegrates into quizzing Holly’s new boyfriend AJ about his relationship. Pam just looks on in horror as he says to AJ, “Does she ever talk about me?” Cringe!

Then Michael says to a confused AJ, “Does it feel good?” Poor AJ, who seems clueless as to the turn this conference has taken answers, “Does what feel good?” Michael replies, “Your life”, and then sinks to the floor in despair moaning, “Pam, oh god! I can’t do it, you have to take over”. Then, he hand Pam his notes and crawls out of the conference room on his hands and knees.

I felt this whole bit was too over the top, even for Michael. Yes it was emotional, and painful to watch, but it was not funny. Usually, The Office manages to blend all three perfectly. I felt like it missed the mark a bit this time.

So, poor Pam is left to try to “cover” and finish the conference. Michael’s notes are not much help for her though. She is left trying to deliver his corny lines and it falls completely flat. In her best Forrest Gump voice she tries, “Sales is like a box of chocolates, you never know which vendor you’re going to get.” I swear, you could almost hear the crickets chirping in the room.

Back in Scranton, we see Angela on her computer screen’s Nanny-cam, “dealing with” her cats. Oscar and Kevin watch as Angela hisses at her cats to correct them and them licks Princess Lady clean. Yes, I said licks.

This was another over-the-top moment. I mean, seriously? Yes, we get it that she’s a freaky cat-lady. And yes, we also agree that she is weird and has some mental issues. But, hissing and licking her cats? It’s too cartoonish for the show in my opinion.

Back in Nashua, while Pam is bombing in the conference room, Michael is stalking Holly’s desk. She left her sweater hanging over her chair. Michael strokes the sweater and cuts off a sleeve as a keep-sake. Then he checks out her computer. On her desktop he notices a word document entitiled “Letter to Michael”. Overcome with curiosity about this mysterious letter that he never was supposed to see, he steals it off her computer.

Back in Scranton, Angela is back after taking care of her cats. Sitting at her desk, we see her cough up something. A hairball? Why not, I guess? If we’re being ridiculously cartoonish, why not add a hairball to the mix?

In a talking-head, Oscar explains that he is completely disgusted by Angela’s behavior. He tells the camera that he just can’t wait to put the whole thing out of his head. Us too, Oscar!  And, for those of you who saw the deleted scenes (spoiler alert!), we see that Kevin has also been affected by Angela’s bizarre behavior. He saved the Nanny-cam link of her licking her cats to his cell phone, “for a rainy day”. This was funny because she’s always so mean to him. It’s nice to see him have something to hold over her head as blackmail.

Back in Nashua, Michael and Pam are finished the presentation (such as it became). They leave, while the whole office watches them from the window. They head to a diner. Michael tells Pam about stealing the unread letter off her computer. Pam is upset at first, telling him that it is unethical for him to read a letter that Holly obviously didn’t want him to read. Then, she relents and offers to read it for him and give him the jist of the letter. She reasons that it won’t be as bad if it’s not Michael reading the letter. whatever!

Pam read the letter and deletes the document so Michael can’t peek later on. She tells Michael that in the letter Holly admits to still having feelings for Michael. Pam expresses to him that, “it’s not over”.She won’t tell the specifics other than that. But it’s enough for Michael who is thrilled with the news.

Back in Scranton, it’s party time for Kelly. Dwight and Jim are busy blowing up the gray and brown balloons to the size of oranges. The same bland birthday banner is on the wall. Kelly hates it at first, but then Jim tells her the “theme”. Well, two themes really. Kelly gets to choose which she prefers. What did they come up with? The theme choices are a nap, or one-hour of television, at work! And guess what? Kelly loves it! (huh?)

After much advice from her co-workers, Kelly decides to choose ”nap” as her theme. So, Dwight kicks everyone out of the conference room. Jim gives her a pillow and a sheet and Kelly crawls under the desk to take her nap.

Again, seriously? We’re supposed to believe that prissy Kelly would crawl under the desk, and take a nap on the dirty office floor while everyone else eats her cake at their desks as her party? So stupid! And more importantly, not funny.

Ok, so after this lack-luster scene, I was eagerly anticipating more from Pam about Holly’s letter. I mean, that can’t be the end of it, right?! Wrong!

The last scene is of Michael and Pam driving home. Michael is happy that he has his closure. Holly still cares and he is giddy with the news. So, does Pam mention anything else about the letter? Do we get a talking-head or something? Nope! That’s all folks. Credits roll. The end!

All in all, a disappointing episode. I liked some of it, but thought other parts were over-the-top or just not funny. Very un-Office like! Maybe it’s just that I’m so spoiled with consistantly good episodes that when one doesn’t shine it’s so glaring? Who knows? Maybe I’m completely off and everyone else loved it?

Sound off and let me know what your opinion is on the episode. I’m really curious to see if anyone out there thinks I am off my rocker on this one. And as always, thanks for reading my recap!

~Donna