Life In The Office

The long awaited season finale of the office is finally here and I find myself, let’s see what would the correct adjective be……..underwhelmed. I was expecting more out of a season finale filled with such comical geniuses as Ricky Gervais, Will Arnett, Ray Romano and Jim Carrey.   Not to say that the episode didn’t have its moments, it definitely did, I was just expecting less over-the-top comedy and more down home funny.

Let’s get to the recap, shall we? The cold open starts with a snazzy looking Porsche being driven at a high speed into the Dunder Mifflin parking lot. It comes to a screeching halt at an angle in front of the doors to the building. Who is in the driver’s seat of such and expensive sports car you might ask? None other than the new “acting” manager himself; Creed Bratton. The car is sporting vanity plates that say, NEW MGR. As Creed get’s out, he tosses the keys to an imaginary attendant and calls Dunder Mifflin, Great Bratton. Do you think being manager has slightly gone to his head? Maybe just a little. He goes on to spew gibberish to the camera, tries to have Jordan identify a made-up language, give a meeting to a near-empty conference room because he forgot to actually call the meeting and tries to come up with acronyms for a nonsensical word for which the first letter is “B”. When Kevin suggests that “B” stands for business, we find out that not only can’t Creed be a manager, he can’t spell either. Pam succinctly states that they need a new manager. I actually thought the cold opening was a pretty good one and I got a kick out of Creed’s antics. You gotta love the bizarreness that is Creed.

After a very abridged opening credits, where the only shot is of Creed adjusting what appears to be a Summo Wrestler personal fan on his desk, we go straight into Search Committee, where the actual search committee comprised of Gabe, Jim and Toby are interviewing Will Arnett (the NBC website’s episode recap says the name of the candidate is Fred Henry, but this is not mentioned in the episode) in the conference room while Creed appears to be hosting a hippie jam session in his office. The committee is quite impressed with the candidates past paper experience and asks him what he’ll bring to the table if he’s offered the position. He says he has a 3 part plan to double their profits, but he won’t tell them what it is unless they give him the job. When Gabe points out that he might only be saying that he has a plan in order to get the job, he says that he’ll only give them part 3 of part 2, but not a whole part. All he really says is, “Color code sent documents, TM”. The committee is confused. Besides for the fact that what he said means absolutely nothing, he actually tried to verbally trademark it. Things don’t look good for said candidate. Jim isn’t worried though because he says that they have a lot of people to interview and some of the best candidates are right there in-house; so they are bound to come up with someone good. We see Darryl and Kelly coming in to work dressed for success and Andy sporting a button that says, “Andy for Manager?” (Note the question mark). Erin is excited for him and says she hopes he gets the job. Andy just says that he’s not really that interested, but he has to give it the old college try. Darryl is confident that he’ll get the job because he has a good relationship with Jo, the CEO and Jim, the head of the search committee, he has management experience and it doesn’t hurt that he’s BLAAAACK; there’s affirmative action working for you.

Phyllis and Erin have a little secret side discussion which turns into one of the subplots of the episode. They share a TH where Phyllis explains that Erin was born around the same time and in the same region where Phyllis gave away a child, so there’s a possibility that Erin could be her daughter. There’s a very tiny chance, after all, it was a big year for babies; Porkie’s had come out. Erin is sure she’s just another Porkie’s baby; but why not find out? It’s implied that they had some DNA testing done and are dreaming about the possibility that they could be mother and daughter until the actual results come back.

Dwight has let himself go completely. He hasn’t shaved, is wearing sweats, munching on chips and openly reading the want ads with red sharpie in hand. It even looks like he’s playing some kind of video game on his computer; such anti-Dwight behavior. When Pam asks if he has to be so blatant about it, he replies that they’ll never make him manager and he won’t settle for anything less; he’s gone about as far as he can at Dunder Mifflin; it’s time to move on. She wants to know if he’s really going to apply for a job at Scranton Breadworks. He simply replies that Bread is the paper of the food industry; you write your sandwich it.

Back in the conference room, the interviews aren’t really going that well when an elderly (again unnamed) candidate, played by Warren Buffett, inquires about gas mileage and if long distance calls are monitored.

Meanwhile, subplot B is developing when Angela, who is dressed particularly nicely, gets a call from the Senator’s office informing her that the Senator wishes to meet her for lunch at the Botanical Gardens. Bob has already told us in his Scrantonicity column that Scranton doesn’t actually have Botanical Gardens; according to Kevin, its Scranton’s best kept secret.

James Spader is the next candidate to be interviewed (the NBC website says his name is Robert, again, this is never mentioned in the actual episode). Now I like him because he has that eerie villainous trait to his character which makes him perfect for some of the roles he’s played in the past like Sex, Lies and Videotape or Secretary. But I’m not so sure how great a fit he is for The Office. He brought an element to the episode that made you wonder if maybe he was the real Scranton Strangler. I guess they felt he would be a good fit for a comedy because of his role on Boston Legal. His character did seem a bit reminiscent of Alan Shore, but dare I say, even a bit more intimidating. He did that thing where he looks each member of the search committee directly in the eye, calls them by their first name and answers each question with a question. He also came up with this gem of a line, “There is no such thing as a product, don’t ever think there is, there’s only sex.” I guess he was implying that all salesmen are a simply pimps; who knows? he may be right. He also tries to intimidate the audience by glaring directly into the camera, but not in that expressive Jim-like way; I’d say in a more, creepy, stalker-serial killer way. When he leaves, Jim concludes, “He creeps me out, but I think he might be a genius.”

Next up is Darryl. He thinks he has it all wrapped up after one joke, but the search committee is serious. They expect a real interview and they also expect Darryl to submit a resume. It appears that Darryl was too cocky for his own good and came ill prepared to the interview and will have to back track and write his own, and apparently first ever, resume.

James Spader (aka Robert) is still hanging out in the lobby of the building perusing the menu at Dwight’s Caffine Corner when Ray Romano (the website says his character’s name is Merv Bronte.) walks into the building. He asks Robert if he just interviewed and he replies, “Unfortunately, yes”.  Merv proceeds to enter the elevator, but then back tracks and asks Robert what he meant by “unfortunately”.  Robert proceeds to give a whole soliloquy about how the place is depressing, the people seem like they’re waiting out a life sentence in a dying industry. This kind of freaks Merv out but he gets on the elevator and goes up to the interview anyway muttering that he’s not sure he even wants the job anymore. He says that if he goes to the interview, he knows they’ll offer him the job and he’ll take it and 25 yrs will go by and he’ll never leave and he’ll die there. Apparently, Ray Romano is there to play the role of the neurotic, indecisive applicant which is the antithesis of Spader’s confident, intimidating one.

Dwight is watching this exchange between the two from one of the tables near the building directory. After Merv Bronte leaves to go up to his interview he decides to give Robert a taste of his own medicine and do a little intimidating of his own. He questions the self righteous candidate asking how he can propose to know so much about a place after only one interview. Instead of replying, he just gives Dwight one of his killer mind reader death glares and turns back around to the menu.  This aggravates Dwight even more as he begins yelling at the stranger’s back asking if he even knows anything about paper or how it’s made.  Robert turns around and says he once saw an episode of Sesame Street that explained how paper was made. Well that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Dwight thunders at the gentleman to get out of his building. He decides to prevent inferior men from sullying his place of work with their weak passionless leadership and effectively informs the camera that his hat has just been thrown into the ring.

Upstairs, Merv Bronte’s interview is not going well. He asks for relocation costs to be covered even though he lives in Scranton so he can move further away so as not to run into any co-workers outside the office. Then he takes out a sandwich from his briefcase in the middle of the interview and starts to eat it as he explains that the reason he’s leaving his current job was because all his co-workers were either jerk-offs or jerk-wads. This is not making a very good impression on the search committee as it appears the candidate is purposely throwing the interview. When they call him on it, he realizes what’s going on and regrets believing the weirdo in the lobby. Clearly it was a gorilla war tactic against the enemy who was vying for the same position as he was. Again, the evil genius prevails (although he probably won’t be offered the job either).

Angela is escorted out of a limo and goes back up to the office where she proudly displays quite a rock of an engagement ring. It appears the gay senator is looking for a spouse to act as his beard. What Angela doesn’t realize is, the senator is gay and she’s his beard. She’s blinded by all the publicity which is the reason their relationship has so much of it. Oscar, on the other hand, has figured it out some time ago (especially when she mentions that his aid was crying; probably not out of happiness for the couple) and when he brings it up to his co-workers they agree to help him get to the bottom of it all; at least Pam does.

Andy is next to be interviewed, but he’s cut off by the jealous Gabe who still believes that Andy is trying to get back together with Erin. While this is true, it should have no bearing on his candidacy for manager. He accuses Andy of insulting Toby and then starts asking him irrelevant questions like how many windows are in NY City and how far away the earth is from the sun. Andy is naturally upset by this but chooses to wait until he’s in the safety of his car before venting.

Pam notices Creed on the phone with a client. He was telling them that things were falling apart there and that they’re going out of business; but he wants to thank them for their patronage over the years. Pam decides to take it upon herself to cleverly thwart the manager’s mistakes using the tactic of distraction; as she has done with Michael many times over the years. She wonders how this fell on her shoulders, but the answer is simple; she has the most experience. She tells Creed to hang up the phone and he promptly complies. She tells him that corporate needs him to find the difference between two pictures of a building (which Bob has identified as the old Lackawanna Railroad Station which is now Radisson Hotel, see Scrantonicity) and that there are at least 7. He gets right to the task, but Pam tells the camera that they’re the same picture.

Kelly is being interviewed by the search committee. She says that she’s been effectively managing her department for several years. Jim points out that she’s the only person in her department and she acknowledges this, but also points out that she’s very difficult to manage. Gabe doesn’t want to waste anymore time. He points out that they have several qualified and serious candidates as well as a video CD from England. The others decide to continue her interview and give her a fair shot. Gabe asks her what her flaws are and she shoots back that she doesn’t have any a**hole. Oooooooh…..watch out Gabe, you’ve just been added to Kelly’s S**t List and Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Wow, I’m cursing a lot today. If this were a talking head there’d be an awful lot of bleeping going on.

Dwight storms into the room at this point and slams his resume on the table announcing that he wants and interview. Jim decides that it’s time to have a little private chat with Dwight in the parking lot.

They appear to be strolling and making small talk, Dwight inquires after Jim’s daughter, what’s her name again? Pee Pee? Dwight decides to dispense with the chit chat and cut right to the chase offering Jim his dream workplace if he so much as grants Dwight an interview; including unlimited sex breaks for him and Pam. As much as Jim loves taking bribes he points out to Dwight that the point of the search committee process is to prevent hiring someone like him ever again. The reason Jo fired him in the first place was because she didn’t trust his judgment; so how would it look for Jim if he recommended Dwight to Jo? Dwight concedes, but not before warning Jim that he’s making the biggest mistake of his life and then politely holds the door open for him.

Pam and Oscar are sitting in Kelly’s cubicle doing some super gay sleuthing when Ryan comes by to get some money out of Kelly’s purse. He wants to know if they are talking about the Senator the fact that he’s totally gay. Pam and Oscar are stunned, but Ryan simply tells the camera that he knows that Robert is gay because he “liked” Ryan’s Facebook pictures at 3 in the morning. No wonder he needs a publicist and a fake wife to help keep him in the closet.

Back in the conference room the search committee is watching their DVD sent in from England, featuring the legendary David Brent himself. While someone like Michael Scott may have jumped on this outlandish candidate, the more sane members of the committee decided to continue searching for some other leader of men; ipso facto – the answer to the question, “When do I start?” would be, “never”.  Oddly enough, Ricki Gervais is not even credited with a guest appearance at the end of this episode.  I thought this was a very strange ommission.

Erin and Phyllis have quite an uncomfortable mother/daughter chat that results in the sound motherly advice, “If you want someone, go get them.” So Erin decides that she does want Andy and resolves to do something drastic to get what she wants.

Catherine Tate, who we later find out is named Nelly, is in the hot seat (what is it with the British wanting a job at Dunder Mifflin?) Her interview is so bizarre that Jim leaves the conference room not knowing what to think. He goes into the kitchen for some coffee and runs into Stanley, Meredith, Oscar and Ryan who want to know how things are going. Jim makes a meager joke about there not being any stand-out candidates and he’ll probably just end up picking a name out of a hat in the end; when Stanley goes all, well Stanley, and rants about how this will be the last boss he’ll ever have and that Jim better take it seriously before storming out. Meredith and Oscar leave spouting similar misgivings when Ryan, who is leaning out of his office/supply closet from his folding chair gives Jim some sage advice, “Take a day off from the whole “Jim” shtick. Try caring about something. You might like how it feels, James.” Burn! I guess Ryan still has it in for Jim after everything and takes every opportunity to hit below the belt. I think everyone knows by now that Ryan is full of hot air anyway, so they don’t really have anything to worry about, except for maybe Kelly.

This brings us to the second part of our Search Committee finale:
Joe arrives to great fanfare as usual, she dumps all her stuff (dogs included) on Gabe and stops at Jim’s desk to chit chat about Howard Stern and peruse the resumes on his desk. She scrutinizes Darryl’s and proceeds to the conference room but not before being intercepted by Dwight who demands and interview. She says she’ll interview him right then and there. Question 1: Ever shot a gun off in the office? Dwight is defeated and Jo moves on to more serious business.

But he doesn’t give up so easy and decides to text Jo his resume; one line at a time. She calls him a Jackass and because she’s roaming, the texts are costing her ten cents apiece. Dwight promptly shuts his phone.

As Jo is meeting with the search committee, Erin informs them that there is one more candidate, but he’s a burn victim. The candidate enters completely bandaged and wearing sun glasses. Jim immediately realizes what’s going on as the candidate hands out his resume and the committee learns he is French and his name is Jacques Souvigny. He worked for 15 yrs as Assistant “to the” Regional manager and his former company burned to the ground all because they refused to hire a manager who lived and breathed paper. Jo has had just about enough of Dwight’s antics and she tells Gabe to go out and get Dwight Schrute because she wants to ask him a question. As Gabe leaves the room, Dwight pulls off the glasses and bandages and reveals himself to be the candidate; Jaques Souvigny. Jo asks him what would happen if she were to hire this Jack Souvenir. Dwight says he would dress that way every day, learn French sign language and be the best damn branch manager she’d ever had. Jo replies that he’s f***ing crazy and tells him to leave the room. And the bleeps keep flying.

She wants the committee to tell her who really has them excited. The best Jim can come up with is a candidate that kept talking about needing two weeks off to go to the Finger Lakes. Which, as Bob has so eloquently told us, is somewhere in New York State. Being from New York State, you’d think I would already know that, but I didn’t. When Jo picks up Andy’s resume and mentions Cornell; Gabe jumps all over his sales ability and character. Jo is already on to his ulterior motives based on a brief meeting with Kelly (which was clearly revenge for not taking her interview seriously); and she admonishes him for getting too close to the people ther and getting too involved in their lives. She tells him it’s time to get him back to Florida and get his head straight. She decides to fill his position on the committee with Kelly; because she has such great decision making skills. The real reason is because Gabe is tall and weak and Kelly is short and strong and she’s trying an opposite’s thing.

Jim walks Jo out and we find out that Catherine Tate’s character’s name is Nelly (she’s the only candidate granted an actual name during the episode) and that she is Jo’s friend or acquaintance of some sort. So the British thing actually had nothing to do with it. Jim says that he didn’t think she was a good fit. Really Jim? Did it have anything to do with her Zen office idea where everyone sits on the floor and receives deep tissue massages from a Thai lady named Sake? Jo says that whatever he does, he needs to find a good fit. She doesn’t want anymore manager turnover in the office. She also tells him to give Dwight an interview, she likes a little bit of crazy. Looks like all of Dwight’s crazy persistency has finally worn Jo down. Jim just gives the camera a perplexed look.

Back inside, Erin is taking her “mother’s” advice and makes a bold move to get Andy. She puts on a sock puppet show and says that the only thing that will turn her back into a real girl is a date with the best salesman in the office, Andy Bernard. Doesn’t she mean the worst salesman? Kevin is greatly amused by this and gives the best TH of the episode, “I wish the puppet would talk more about the alphabet, not for me but in case there are any kids watching; A, B and so forth. You know, Emenelo, P, F.” Hee hee, sometimes I wonder if Kevin really is mentally challenged. Phyllis looks hopeful that things will work out for Erin and Andy. She says in a talking head that she got the call, they’re not related; but she’ll wait to tell Erin another day.

In a surprising turn of events, Andy tells Erin that he doesn’t think they should go out. He tells the camera he’s gotten over her and likes their friendship the way it is now. So what will the future hold for these two crazy kids now that they are both single and Gabe has left the building? I guess we’ll have to wait until next season to find out.  Somehow, I think I can manage.  I don’t think I’ll feel the need to spend the summer watching YouTube tribute videos to the Andy/Erin relationship.

Dwight finally gets his interview. Jim’s heard enough after he gives them his name and refuses to ask him anymore questions, so he asks himself questions. After giving them a list of his 7 priorities and ensuring that he will be enforcing a strict, no firearms policy in the office that extends to himself, he’s satisfied that the interview went well and excuses himself; assuring himself that he will be hearing from the committee soon.

Kelly seems oddly impressed. After she quotes Dwight’s line, “The hand that comes up from the grave to grab your throat is the hand you want at the wheel.” Jim wants to know what he’s offered Kelly and Toby unabashedly takes her side. Jim can’t figure out what is going on and after Phyllis comes to him to ask if Dwight’s been made manager because he and Kelly pre-fired her; he gives up. He leaves the conference room to assure everyone that Dwight has not been made manager and that he isn’t going to be given the position; which somehow leads to a group discussion about what the employees would like to have in a manager. Oscar wants Darryl, Ryan wants a homeless person and Meredith wants a well-hung male in his 40’s. Andy counters that a small penis might be adequate and then stands up in his pink vest and green pants and announces that he wants the job and proceeds to tick off his qualities: He’s well educated, he likes all of them and, most importantly, he won’t change a thing. Just then, Darryl walks in with his daughter Jada, who promptly throws her arms around Jim and gives a speech about what a great Dad Darryl is. Jim can’t believe Darryl would use his daughter like that. When Angela, who has done nothing but talk about her wedding all afternoon which really made some people feel like telling her that her fiancé is gay even when they all agreed that keeping it from her would be best, pipes up with some political jargon that skirts around any real content, Phyllis suggests they put it to a vote. Jim protests that this isn’t up for a vote and Phyllis wonders what this whole thing was about then. Jim says he doesn’t know; the conversation really got away from him. It did make for a great ensemble scene which was what was missing from the episode due to the parade of guest stars hogging all the screen time. Jim is exasperated by the whole process. He says that the three search committee members are going into the conference room to have a meeting. They are going to make a recommendation to Jo and she will give them her recommendation on Monday. Toby, Kelly and Jim walk into the conference room. Kevin tries to follow them still thinking that he has a say in all this, but the door is promptly slammed in his face.

To close the episode, each of the candidates has a TH explaining why they think they’ll get the job: Andy says he’s failing upwards, Nelly says that she’ll get the job because Jo is an old friend. She thinks she’s Jo’s best friend, but Jo is not her best friend. Darryl is upset because he forgot to eat his daily blueberry muffin that day and he’s very superstitious. Will Arnett (Frank Henry) is sure he’ll be the new boss of, ummm, let’s turn around and look at the company directory again to remember the name of the company who’s manager position I’m going for. That’s right, it was Vance Refrigeration. Neurotic Ray Romano (Merv Bronte) says he thinks he sabotaged himself; case in point, he was supposed to start another job today. Over-confident James Spader (Robert) says he knows they’ll call wanting him to take the job and they’ll hang on his every breath waiting to see if he’ll accept and then he’ll give his response. Does it seem to anyone else that this guy has made a career out of interviewing for jobs? Finally, we get to meet Finger Lakes guy and it’s none other than Jim Carrey. He has a heavy accent (Boston maybe) and says that he wants the job, but he’s supposed to be in the Finger Lakes right now with the rest of his family and he snuck off to go to this interview. He has to get back because they’ll be wondering what happened to him and start to get worried. People disappear in the Finger Lakes you know. Really? I didn’t know that. I’m still not quite sure what the Finger Lakes are. Dwight is last saying, “I will run this branch, or I will destroy this branch. Or, I don’t know, something always works out.”

The show closes with Pam, Office Manager extraordinaire, posing as Dunder Mifflin clients and fielding calls from Creed. Jordan has been putting the calls through to her telling Creed that she is connecting him to their biggest clients. He decides that he wants a conference call between his 4th and 9th biggest clients so Pam puts on a deep voice and a southern belle voice and makes a love connection. Whatever keeps Creed occupied until they get a real manager.

That’s all she wrote folks. The big cliffhanger? Who will be the next manager of the Dunder Mifflin Sabre Scranton branch?  We’re no closer to the answer to that question now than we were before the episode began.  We now have to wait a whole 3 months to find out.   I know it will be driving me crazy all summer long.   Maybe Greg Daniels will snag Alec Baldwin, I hear he’s available; or perhaps Charlie Sheen.   What do you think?  Sound off in the comments or on the LITO Message Boards.

It’s been a memorable season full of laughter and tears. All that’s left to say now is, “See you in September folks.”

This is Suri (aka HDF) signing off (insert saluting smiley here)