Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg

Today is Toby Flenderson’s last day. Obviously Michael has been looking forward to this for a long time — so much so, that he couldn’t sleep last night. The only order of business for the day is the planning of Toby’s going-away party, for which Angela has planned a buttercream cake and a slide show featuring two pictures of Toby. Not quite what Michael had in mind. He wants the kind of party you’d throw “if the devil were to explode and evil were gone forever” — like a beach blowout or toga party. Maybe even a New Orleans funeral. He’d settle for an anti-gravity machine. He’s even willing to spend his own money, which he has saved from the birthday checks his senile grandma has been sending him nine or 10 times a year lately. When Angela refuses to comply with his wishes, Phyllis usurps control of the party-planning committee.

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Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg

The last time The Office visited a high school, Andy recognized one of the students as his girlfriend. With that as a precedent, why wouldn’t they go back? This time, Michael is visiting Valley View High School to recruit some new interns. And he’d better be careful — the way things work at Dunder Mifflin, one of them could be his boss next season. He brings along Oscar to talk about accounting, Darryl to hire some warehouse staff, and Pam — a former Valley View student — as the “eye candy.”

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Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg

Michael needs an idea. No, he’s not looking to come up with the next Dunder Mifflin Infinity. There’s wet cement outside and he decides that it represents his chance to leave his mark on the world — he’s just not sure what that mark should be. Kevin suggests Michael’s initials. No good. Some idiot named Mark Greg Sputnik would only steal the credit. Andy suggests a picture, Phyllis has a great idea that she can’t remember and Kelly thinks he should do his handprints like Will Smith outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Jim says that if Michael were a true star, he’d do Will Smith one better and put his face in the cement. Unsurprisingly, Michael loves the idea. After all, one day he can show it to his children and say, “Look, kids, your daddy left that facehole.” What dad doesn’t dream of doing that?

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You know, The Office isn’t just about laughs. The show provides a public service. Consider the open of last night’s episode. Thanks to Michael, we now know what to do if we ever see a shiny object underneath a car. In the best-case scenario, it’s a quarter. Worst case, it’s tinfoil, and you get gum in your hair and spend the morning getting your head slathered in peanut butter and massaged by Dwight. The lesson learned? Let it go. [Read more →]

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Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg

As someone who arrives at work every morning at 7am to an almost empty parking lot, we can’t quite appreciate the inconvenience the Dunder Mifflin employees are dealing with as this week’s episode begins. They’re being forced to park down the block and walk to work, because one of the other businesses in their building, W.B. Jones, is renovating its offices, and construction vehicles are taking up precious parking spots. And while we can’t exactly empathize, one look at a post-walk Kevin convinces me that the situation is serious.

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Tags: Comedy, Recap, The Office by Mike
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Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg

You know, sometimes we don’t give Michael Scott enough credit. Not many people would go the lengths that he did in last night’s episode to trick someone into having dinner with him. Staging a special assignment from corporate for which the entire Scranton branch would have to work late, he slyly gets Jim to admit that he has no plans for the evening before “convincing” corporate to call the whole thing off — leaving Jim and Pam available to attend the most awkward dinner party ever.

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Thanks to the writers’ strike, this might be the last new episode of The Office we see for a while. Let’s hope it’s a good one …

The episode begins with Pam explaining that Michael prefers to get phone messages via Post-It Notes when he’s in a meeting. Pam did it for him once and he liked it, so now he insists on it every time. The only problem is, he doesn’t get a lot of phone calls, so Pam walks into a lot of meetings with Post-Its that simply say “good morning” or have a smiley face on them. It keeps Michael happy and makes him feel important — at least until she brings him one with a drawing of a hot dog saying “Hi ya, buddy” while he’s in a meeting with Ryan, who makes him take the call from “a very important client.” Michael, once again showing that all of that time he’s spent in improv classes has been wasted, picks up the phone and can only say sheepishly, “Hi ya, buddy.” And we’re off to a nice start.

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Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg

As “Survivorman” begins, the talk around the office centers around the events of the previous weekend. It seems Ryan invited a bunch of the branch managers and Toby to a wilderness retreat, as sort of a get-to-know-you weekend, and Michael was not invited because, as Pam theorizes, “Apparently they already knew everything they needed to know about him.” Everyone seems to be relishing the fact that Michael wasn’t included — except for Michael, of course. Inspired by Les Stroud — “a guy who would go out into the middle of nowhere and just try not to die” — Michael decides to go all Survivorman and brave the Pennsylvania wilderness completely on his own. That is, unless Jim wants to join him. Which he doesn’t.

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Karen Filipelli is back. And she’s the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Utica. And she’s offered Stanley more money to leave Scranton and transfer to her branch. Once Michael finishes fiddling with his Ferris Bueller-inspired dummy of himself long enough to grasp the situation, he decides that he can’t afford to lose Stanley. He wouldn’t mind losing Toby, though, and he calls Karen to suggest she take him instead — despite the fact that Toby’s not a salesman and that Michael admits that he thinks “Toby is the worst.”

At least two people would miss Toby if he were gone: Pam and Oscar, who are his fellow members in Dunder Mifflin Scranton’s Finer Things Club. It’s an exclusive group whose members discuss literature and art, and according to Oscar it’s the second gayest thing about him.

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Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg

At the start of this week’s episode, the office is abuzz — and it’s not just because Sue Grafton is in town for a book signing. An ad agency is coming to the Scranton branch to film a commercial promoting Dunder Mifflin Infinity. Michael is excited because he’s going to get a chance to show off the creativity that allowed him to imagine a unicorn as a 5-year-old, before he even knew what one was or could even speak. Jim is psyched because now when people hear he works at Dunder Mifflin, they might finally stop thinking he sells mufflers or muffins or mittens — all of which he admits are more exciting than paper. The excitement level drops however, when the ad people in charge of shooting the commercial inform Michael that a company-wide version of the commercial has been filmed, and that only the final five seconds of the spot will be customized by the Scranton branch.

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