“Manager and Salesman”- Kevin’s Recap

It’s been a funny time in Office-land of late. As the show nears the home stretch of it’s sixth season, there have been a lot of rumblings from the fans. Has The Office lost its zip? Can the wonder of 2nd season Jim and Pam ever be duplicated? “The Banker” clip show episode certainly didn’t help any, love it or hate it. But last weeks “Sabre” gave people hope; maybe this was the corner. Maybe “Manager and Salesman” will mark the definitive turnaround of The Office and be the instant classic it has the potential to be. Well, I don’t know if it was an instant classic… but it was pretty good.

Right from jump it’s funny. Michael calls up a hotel in Vancouver (more NBC shameless plugging) and goes through all kinds of changes to find a 3-year-old reservation. He enlists Dwight who finds something he shouldn’t (”You DID get the evite to my barbecue! Michael!”) before finally locating the confirmation number… only to have Michael cancel the reservation. Good Cold Opening gag.

The first act begins with everyone getting ready for the arrival of Jo Bennett, head of the Sabre Corporation (played really effectively by Kathy Bates). She also brings her two Great Danes, who take a great liking to Andy’s nether regions. “They love a good crotch.” says Jo as the two dogs bury their faces into Andy’s nuptials, as I jokingly refer to them. “You should take that as a compliment!” she says. Erin gets a kick out of it and it’s a nice running gag throughout the episode. After a funny exchange with Dwight, who actually manages to impress her (I love that, right before she speaks to Dwight, Jo dismissively tosses her coat at Gabe, who seems completely afraid of her), Gabe introduces Jim to her as the co-regional manager. “Two guys doing one job?” Jo asks, after Gabe informs her that the position is shared between Jim and Michael. “We gotta do something about that!” Uh oh.

Next we see Andy, who out thinks himself at every turn, giving everyone in the office Valentines Day cards, so as to not appear to eager to Erin, to “dilute it a little bit.” He is seen tossing a card to Meredith, who gets a paper cut on the throat from it. “Yeah, I have this thing about men cutting or threatening to cut my throat.” Meredith says in a Talking Head. “Don’t try to cut my throat!” I watched that a bunch of times to get the dialogue right and I laughed every time.

Jim and Michael then have a meeting with Jo which gets off to a bad start with Michael blabbering away, attempting to explain the Co-Manager deal. Jim tries to smooth but Jo says, “Ok, I understand. Each of you is doing half a job.” According to Jo, this is “knucklehead talk” and decides that one should be the manager and one a salesman. Naturally Michael leaps at being the sole manager again (over Jim’s objections) but Jo decides to let this “marinate”. After she shoos the two out of the conference room, we get an outstanding Talking Head from Jolene (Jo for short) Bennett, where we learn that she is a breast cancer survivor, close friend of Nancy Pelosi and all around straight shooter and hard ass. Shoot, she and Truman Capote slept with three of the same guys. Everybody better get on the beam ’cause this chick is taking no $#%.

Andy finally gets around to giving Erin a Valentines Day card and they have a hilarious exchange:

ERIN: Oh, a bird and a dog!
ANDY: Yeah, well, it’s Snoopy and Woodstock.
ERIN: You named them?

That made me burst out laughing. How in the world can this relationship, if it ever gets off the ground, work????

Next we have a meeting with the whole staff in the conference room with Jo. After she calls Angela a “little onion”, Kevin stupidly remarks “Jo, there’s books in my chair!”. They are Sabre handbooks and her autobiography. Jo explains to them that they will now be selling printers. “I think I can MANAGE that!” says Michael, aggravating Jim. Michael explains that he subtly trying to associate the word manager with him to Jo. Michael then talks about how Camel cigarettes did the same thing with Joe Camel by making him look like a penis. Now, Michael cannot “go anywhere near a cigarette without thinking of a penis and vice versa.” Lol… Oh, Michael.

Then we see Kelly (who has been missing all season it seems like) reading Andy’s card and getting the mistaken impression that Andy is in love with her. Not her fault. The card Andy didn’t even read sure sounds that way. Erin is crushed. Her card says “Friends are worth sharing a doghouse with.” Not the same.

Pam tells Jim in his office that, with the incentives built in for the salespeople, he would do much better money-wise going back to that position. Jim likes that. He says in a Talking Head that he is in this job for the money and “quite honestly, the women.” Cute. Jim then tells Michael that he is surrendering his co-manager title. Michael is elated. He blabs the news to Oscar, who tells him that Sabre has no cap on commissions and Jim will make a lot more money. That leads to this exchange.

MICHAEL: Where did you get that information?
OSCAR: Manual.
MICHAEL: Manuel who?

Lol… good stuff, even if it may have come from Wall-E.

Michael says “I have been hustled.” and actually walks out of his Talking Head to confront Jim, who is having a meeting with Jo. After messing up his hair (which mysteriously fixes itself by scene’s end) Michael sabotages Jim’s plan and becomes a salesman again. “Have fun signing my commission checks, boss” he says to Jim, who looks like he could kill him. Michael has screwed Jim about three times so far this season. I will sort of miss the two of them trying co-manage this nuthouse.

The second act starts with Dwight telling Ryan to meet him downstairs to discuss stepping up their plan to destroy Jim. This is the only part of the episode that I didn’t like, for a number of reasons. First, the two talk about what to do like they have never spoken about it before. I know Dwight laid off the pressure because of the holidays but that was a month and a half ago (don’t forget, this is a Valentine’s Day episode). And he also says that the two have been meeting. What had they been talking about that whole time? The Office has usually done a god job of making you think that these people’s lives actually extend beyond what we see; that the characters don’t stop existing once the show goes off and pick up where we last saw them when it starts again. That’s what this whole thing felt like. Secondly, the ideas that the two have are completely stupid. THIS is what Jim fans were worried about? These two knuckleheads? What a letdown. At least Dwight’s plan with the bonus money was a good one. That actually put Jim in a bad light. So what happened from there? And third.. it wasn’t funny. The only good part was Ryan trying to crush the soda can. Other than that, it just didn’t work for me. The whole subplot just completely petered out with Jim willingly stepping down without even knowing there was a plan and without the two even remotely being responsible for it. I was very disappointed in the handling of this plotline. It felt like a waste of time.

Anyway, Michael is sitting at Jim’s old desk and being his usual annoying self. He has a funny line about “Curves” being a gentleman’s club. He brags about the sale and is disruptive. And he is rude towards Phyllis concerning the… unfortunate side effect of her allergy medicine. Poor Phyllis. Letting off sulphurous odors CAN’T be good for your confidence. Michael peeks at Jim in his office and the first signs of envy start to show.

As the third acts starts we see Andy behind Kelly at the copier. Kelly is totally sweet to Andy and even kisses him, completely puzzling him. After Meredith makes Andy almost dry-heave (”Believe me…If I got that card… we’d be in the bathroom doing it right noooooww.”), Andy realizes his goof.

Michael wanders into Jim’s office and tells him he needs his job back. I thought they would drag this out for a little while but I guess not. The two meet Jo out in the parking lot walking her dogs and she has a funny reaction to their request: “You two are grown-ass men. What do I have to do? Fire you and and get two people in here that don’t need so much management?” Being from a Southern family, I got a kick out of that first line. People on TV generally don’t speak that way.

They convince Jo to let them switch and the scene ends with Jo taking a phone call and telling Jim and Michael to finish walking her dogs. And to not ride them. A lot of people try to ride them.

Back in the office, Andy sends out a mass email explaining away his Valentine card goof by saying that he doesn’t like anybody. An angry Kelly confronts him and says “Um, why did I just receive a mass email from you that says that you don’t like me? Do you realize how hard that makes me like you, Andy?” Lol… a great Kelly line in a season of few Kelly lines. Andy says he likes someone else and when asked who, he mumbles incoherently. Another choke by Andy. But Erin is pleased to find that he doesn’t like Kelly. Not exactly Jim and Pam but… you take what you can get, I guess.

Back in his office, Michael revels in being the manager again, dancing a chintzy keyboard Bossanova with Erin. And back at Jim’s desk, in my favorite part of the episode, Jim removes his suit jacket, loosens his tie and rolls up his sleeves, becoming Good Ol’ Jim again. And to prove it, he ignores a droning Dwight and dips his tie into his coffee mug, much to the amusement of Pam. “Michael!” says Dwight as the final act ends. Status Quo regained. Well, sort of. Pam is pregnant (and sitting next to Jim) and Dunder Mifflin is now owned by Sabre. But right at that moment, if just for a little while, it’s The Office again. The way we like it.