The Office proposal

It’s uncommon for a cold open on The Office to be continued in the episode itself. Sometimes I’ve wished for that to happen, but if ever it actually has I can’t recall when offhand. That is, until last night and the garage sale. What was unique about it? Quoting my wife’s idea here, last night’s The Office cold open was a “cold” cold open … Dwight opened the warehouse door and everyone started to feel the chill. You like that?

I foresaw a number of directions the garage sale could have taken; my favorite would have been for each character to explore an item on their table, ala Oscar and his giant stack of Will & Grace DVD box sets. But in a way what we got was even better: Dwight on a mission to secure the best item in the room via bartering. And it all started with a thumbtack.

Unfortunately time constraints didn’t allow us to see every trade that Dwight made. What we did see was that he traded his thumbtack to Meredith for a used candle, and then swapped the used candle for Kelly’s Helen Fielding and Jennifer Weiner book collections — he did an awesome job convincing Kelly that she wanted that candle. From there our clues were mostly visual … the books got Dwight some sort of stuffed lobster from Phyllis, which was worth Oscar’s umbrella, which begat an old photo album of Stanley’s.

The next stop was Ryan’s mom’s pesto. First of all I hope his mother got wind of what he did. But second, did Mr. Business really trade away a box full of product for something other than cash? And yet the show had us believe that years ago he got hired for an executive position? Sure thing.

The pesto went to Creed for an unknown item, which got Dwight Erin’s squid (potentially), which somehow turned into a giant telescope. And here’s where it got really awesome — I loved how Jim was slowly setting Dwight up all episode long about the magical Professor Copperfield’s Miracle Legumes. That was completely classic The Office, and in particular classic Jim and Dwight. It’s too bad it was at best the “B” story, because man was that funny. And the close, with Dwight planting and watering his seeds, and then Jim swapping the pots out for fully-grown plants? Amazing!

Andy, Darryl, and Kevin playing a Dallas board game was fun. I liked how Kevin kept on getting more and more frustrated with Andy and Darryl’s flaunting of the rules, and then how he used that to jack the real money that they were wagering on the game. Maybe Michael really did see something in Kevin when he came in to interview for a warehouse position and Michael made him an accountant … he’s certainly crafty (sometimes). And I loved how Kevin was using the word “on” when he meant “in,” as in (on) “I was on Dallas when I was a kid.” Nice.

I think I would have enjoyed Michael’s proposal story had it a) not been Holly that he was proposing to, and b) not signaled the beginning of his exit story. It was sweet in a Michael sort of way, and while I still don’t understand how those colleagues can get so involved in everyone else’s business, there was something right about Pam arranging the proposal meeting with Jim, Oscar, and Ryan.

The tour of places in the office that held some significance to Michael and Holly was nice — “This is where Toby announced that he was going to Costa Rica” — and as creepy as the gauntlet of proposals was, it also felt right for them. As did the sprinklers going off because of all of the candles; I wonder how many takes of that scene they had to shoot.

For a little while I was actually able to be in the moment with them. That is, of course, until both Holly and Michael started doing their stupid voices during what should have been a sweet, normal, adult moment. I think that succinctly summed up my issue with them as a couple: in concept it’s nice, but as they practice it, it’s kind of nauseating.

So from a character on the show perspective, I’m still left wondering: is Holly really why Michael Scott’s leaving his life behind and moving to Colorado? I don’t get that.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Mar 25, 2011 @ 11:00 EST5EDT