“Murder” ~ Donna’s Recap

Good evening fellow LITO-ites! As I prepare to write the recap for last night’s episode, “Murder” on this unlucky Friday the 13th my Jersey shore town is being deluged with tidal flooding and blown-away with gale force winds. Things are so bad here that they closed the local schools for the day! Crazy. Lucky for me, we live in a high-ground area of the city. Unlucky for me, my three young children are running around my house like looney-toons driving me up a wall. Oh well. Hopefully this Friday the 13th finds you all in a luckier situation than I am. Or if not, feel free to share your tale of woe in the comments section. Onto last nights episode, “Murder”.

The Cold-Open shows Dwight demonstrating his martial arts skills in the office. Why? Once a year they allow Dwight to hold a seminar to explain the latest changes and techniques in martial arts to the staff. Again…why?! As Jim explains it with his trademark sarcasm, “the one thing that 1000 year old martial arts are known to do is…change“. Dwight proceeds to try to demonstrate his techniques on his colleagues. They all refuse. Jim tells Dwight that the only worthy opponent in the entire office is …Dwight himself. And now we see what the purpose of this Cold-Open is, a little physical comedy ala Three Stooges. Dwight agrees with Jim and then proceeds to demonstrate his martial arts techniques on himself. Jim eggs him on and it escalates into Dwight poking, kicking and punching himself. It ends with Dwight wacking himself in his own groin. Not my humor, but then again I wasn’t a Three Stooges fan either.

Next we pick up with the main plot of “Murder”. An email is sent from Dunder Mifflin Corporate to all their employees regarding a Wall Street Journal article which states the company is bankrupt. Corporate is letting their employees know that for now the article should be treated as a rumor only.

The staff is understandably upset at this news. Of course they fear for their jobs. In the breakroom Kelly wails, “What if this is our last day of work and we never see each other again?!”. The camera then catches Andy gazing wistfully at Erin. In a talking head, Andy explains that this could be his last chance to ask Erin out on a date. “It’s time for the Nard-dog to take matters into his own paws.”

Michael is not acting rationally over this news (big surprise!). We hear retching noises coming from the employee bathroom, but then when Michael emerges he denies throwing-up. He tells Kevin who is standing at the door, “I was just pooping, you know how I be”. Then, instead of being the leader the staff needs right now, he retreats to his office to listen to music.

As co-manager, it’s Jim who steps up to the plate in this time of crisis. He insists, with his trademark grin, that work go on as usual. He explains, ”I only slack off when things are good”. He rallys Michael and the rest of the staff into the conference room to hold their normal monthly meeting. Just as everyone gets settled in to go over office business, Michael burst in the office and announces, “There’s been a murder!”

What gives? Has Michael finally lost it over the news that his beloved Dunder Mifflin may be folding? Nope. It’s just one of Michaels coping mechanisms at work. It’s not a real murder he’s talking about. It’s a board game. A murder-mystery board game. And he wants the office to play right now. He explains in a talking-head how different board games have helped him through his past difficulties. His parents divorce? Battleship. His vasectomy? Operation. “I don’t think I would have been able to endure my break-up with Holly had it not been for Toss Across.”

How does the staff react? Stanley and Angela try to leave, but Michael bribes them with a sandwich tray (Stanley) and baby carrots (Angela). The camera pans to Jim who is rolling his eyes. Why isn’t he stopping this? Jim explains that when it comes to co-managing with Michael, he needs to pick his battles. He flashes back to a recent incident where Michael was constructing plastic tubes all over the office for hamsters to live in. Michael called it “Tube City”. Michael allowed Jim to veto that. Now Jim “owes him” this murder-mystery stunt.

The staff is issued their characters. Erin is Naughty Nelly, a loose Southern woman. Angela is the voodoo doctor, Pam is a debutant, Phyllis is a southern lady, Michael is Caleb Crawdad, dashing young Southern gentleman. Michael insists that everyone remain in character all day to the point that he won’t answer if anyone calls him anything but Caleb. It’s annoying, but overall, Michael’s ploy to distract everyone seems to be working.

In the midst of this is a hilarious bit where Creed arrives late for work. When he gets to the office, Michael announces (in his southern accent) there’s been a murder and that Creed’s a suspect. Creed calmly says, “Ok, just let me get my things settled and I’ll be right with you”. Then, we see him running from the office building, jumping in his car, and squealing tires out of the parking lot. I love Creed’s wacky interludes. It just always seems to “work” with his character. To me, Dwight’s wackiness hasn’t really been “working” lately. It’s too over the top or something. Anywho, let’s continue.

In the breakroom, Andy (using his character’s southern accent) asks Erin out on a date. Erin accepts, also in her character’s accent. Andy is thrilled, until he realizes that Erin may have mistaken his intentions. She may have thought he was playing along with the game since Erin’s character is described as a women of “loose morals”. He worries, “Naughty Nelly says yes to everyone, and she may be a murderer”.

Being vigilant about anyone breaking character, Michael sees Oscar using his cell phone and snatches it from him. Oscar admits to searching for anything about Dunder-Mifflin’s impending doom on his Blackberry. He’s found out that Dunder Mifflin has stopped payments to its vendors. The bad news puts a pall over the office and everyone heads back to their desks to work. The game suspended for everyone but Michael, who’s still portraying his character, Caleb Crawdad.

Andy approaches Erin at her desk trying to ascertain if their date is “real” or not. When he asks he, she replies, “did you think it was real?” Embarrassed, Andy says, “no, it wasn’t supposed to be a real date. Just part of the game”. He walks away from her desk, deflated. Then in a talking-head, Erin admits that she had hoped it was a real date. She was excited when he had asked her out. She looks sad and forlorn that it was just part of the game. Aww! I’m really starting to root for these two to get together!

Next we see Pam and Jim discussing Michael’s mental state. He is still insisting everyone call him Caleb Crawdad, and it’s driving Jim crazy. Has he truly snapped this time? Pam’s also very worried about Dunder Mifflin folding. If the rumors are true, they would both lose their jobs just as their expecting their first child.

Then, David Wallace calls. Michael won’t take the call because as he says in his Caleb-accent, “they’s no Michael here-ah!”. Jim takes the call and David tells him that there is some bad news. Dunder Mifflin will be out of money by the end of the year. What that means, David doesn’t even know. But, it’s certainly not good news. David tells Jim he’ll call him when he knows more information.

All the staff has gathered to hear the news from David Wallace. Jim tells them that David hasn’t heard from his bosses yet about the rumors of the company folding. However, he admits he does have some bad news…

As he looks around at the hopeful faces of his wife, Michael, the rest of his friends and co-workers, he can’t tell them the news. Instead, he embraces Michael’s coping mechanism and says, “I do have some bad news…[pause]…there’s been a murder in Savannah!”. Everyone smiles and rejoins the game. Michael is beaming. The bad news is still there of course, but for today at least everyone is spared it. Kind of heart warming actually!

The ending scene is Michael, Dwight, and Andy pointing “finger guns” at each other and looking desperate. Jim explains that they’ve all revealed that they’re double-agents in the murder-mystery game. And…it’s now 6pm and they’re still at it. Then the camera pans to Pam who is also holding up her “finger guns”. Jim looks surprised, “You too?” he asks in disbelief. Pam doesn’t let down her “weapons”. She just tells Jim to get the keys out of her purse and start their car so she can make a break for it. She does, and the episode ends with the other three knuckle-heads looking wild-eyed and desperate, in a standoff with their “weapons”.

The End.

What did you think of “Murder”? It wasn’t great, but I felt it had a lot of heart. I liked that Michael sees the “writing on the wall” and does what he can to spare his staff, people he thinks of as family. In these tough economic times, it’s easy to see a similar scenario playing out at companies all across America. Well, not exactly like this episode played out, but you get my point!

Sound off in the comments section and as always, thanks for reading! ~Donna