Grid Effect

Well, that was fucking depressing. I suppose it’s fitting that Amy Ryan, whom everything we’ve seen her in has been utterly tragic, makes her debut (cameo?) on the best comedy series on television, and it turns into one of the more depressing season finale’s we’ve ever seen. Albeit not fourth season of The Wire depressing, but certainly not the quirky exuberance we are used to.

That’s not to say the show isn’t without its darker moments. But in this we had deceptive marriage acceptances, failed marriage proposals, affairs, and probably the nastiest thing anyone has ever done on the show in what Jan did/is doing to Michael. It’s amazing how they’ve managed to turn her from a sympathetic character into some sort of domineering, entitled lunatic. Still, at least they turned it into a legitimate conflict and further illustrated the depths of Michael’s desperation to have children.

It’s all the more egregious with the arrival or Holly, and Amy Ryan really adopted the role well. She just played the part of an exceedingly relatable character. We hope she comes back for the fifth season, but we have our reservations. She’s too marketable for film to get bogged down with a show that would eat up as much of her time as The Office would. The whole Michael conflict with the kid and figuring out how to approach Holly with Jim’s insistence to pace himself was the highlight of the evening.

Now this would be a decent pairing.

But it appears the story of the night was the non-proposal and proposal that took place. It’s certainly not beyond Andy’s cluelessness to propose to someone who is so indifferent to their relationship roughly two to three months into it, so we didn’t think that the action in and of itself was a plot contrivance. But if the writers tend to make this failure to propose an actual storyline and source of conflict with Jim and Pam, as much as we prefer them to not get married, we’d probably prefer it if they found another source of conflict for the two of them. Maybe something just a little less contrived.

There is always the chance they end up putting Jim in New York with Ryan’s job (I checked youtube to see if the video of him being “arrested” was actually posted, couldn’t find it if it was) to put the kaibosh on any of that speculation. Having him and Pam in New York would certainly change the dynamic of the show, but it would be favorable to her sleeping with some guy in New York because Jim didn’t propose to her during a mini-fireworks display.

All things considered it was handled well, but when the dominating storyline in a fucking comedy is whether or not someone is going to propose to his girlfriend, we can’t help but think the show is ignoring its main objective. We thought there was plenty to laugh about in this finale (not as good as “The Job” and not even close to “Casino Night”), it just expects us to be too invested in everyone’s relationship status. And I, for one, don’t want to see anything to catastrophic, but ultimately don’t care. I just want to see decent comedy born out of the situational circumstances.

The twist with Dwight we really didn’t see coming, and to be honest while we buy the fact that despite all her religious predilections, Angela would definitely have an affair, but she would never fuck in the office she works in. Or any office for that matter. It definitely leads us to a motive for Ed Helms to leave with his spinoff.

Choice quotes/moments:

“Hazing is a great way to let a new employee know that they’re not wanted here, and you hate them.” -Dwight

“You cheated on me, when I specifically asked you not too.” -Michael, upon finding out Jan’s pregnancy wasn’t his.

-Loved Dwight setting up Beadie (Holly) with the premise that Kevin was mentally retarded, even though we’ve seen it done a hundred times since the Seinfeld episode with Mel Torme. But Kevin has always spoke in the most simplistic, least abstract way possible so the confusion felt realistic.

“DOES ANYONE HAVE A CAMERA?!!” -Toby

-Loved that Phyllis was able to pull off a successful office party, even if it meant she would never be able to do it again.

“He has been cruising for a bruising for awhile. I am his cruiser, and my name is captain bruisin’.”-Michael on Toby’s interview.

-Speaking of which, Michael struggling to come up with questions on the fly leading to the paraphrasing all of his original questions: “Who do you think you are?”; “What gives you the right?” In addition to his gift for Toby, followed by Dwight’s brutally clueless honesty might have been the best two minute sequence ever on this show.

“What we refer to in the business as misleading the customers. Another good term is, fraud. I think the real crime in the whole thing…was the beard. ” -Oscar, though limited in camera time, especially this year, always gets the choice lines. This one about Ryan getting arrested.

Kevin: Cool, a bouncy house.
Phyllis: Kevin take your shoes off first.

“Mr. Andrew Bernard…It’s got a nice ring to it.” -Andy

“If there’s any details you want to fill me in on, like…what exactly lamaze is, I’d love to hear it” -Michael

“I need to go buckle him in” -Holly

A great episode, but as always, these overly dramatic ones (and we think Paul Lieberstein is a good writer) bring about a lot of trepidation about the direction the series is taking. Not to say there is a chance in hell we won’t watch next season, but we’re always on the verge of thinking it will lose its edge.