What did we learn from tonight’s episode of The Office? Scranton is the Paris of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Jim and Pam aren’t getting much sleep, Ryan fantasizes about a threesome with Kelly and Erin, and Andy is a cuckold.
Curious, I googled the word “cuckold.” The first hit is the Wikipedia page which lists the history of the term, which does have something to do with infidelity as well as horns and eggs. The rest of the hits (from what I saw) were all to porn sites. Apparently, “cuckolding” is some kind of fetish and while Andy cites Shakespeare when referencing the word, it seems the modern-day use of the term has something to do with men who are turned on by their woman cheating on them. A better term for Andy in his situation with Angela is “chump” and as that also happens to be the title of tonight’s episode, I think we’ll go with that.
Everyone thought Michael was going to be heartbroken when he found out Donna was married but as it turns out, Michael was more or less ok with the situation, as long as he wasn’t the guy being cheated on. Even after Andy takes Michael to the baseball game that Donna’s husband was coaching, Michael’s morally unfazed by the brief, polite (and typically awkward) meeting with Donna’s husband. In fact, he thought shaking the man’s hand while having the knowledge that he was sleeping with the guy’s wife made him like James (freakin’) Bond. It was only after he tired of the disapproving looks and comments from his coworkers that he decided to call it quits with Donna. He broke up with her the way any real man would. He texted her and stood her up at the motel where they were set up to engage in non-condo-appropriate activities.
The B-story involved Dwight and Angela sitting down with a lawyer to review the contract that Dwight was trying to get out of. Just as I was beginning to wonder how any attorney could sit and seriously counsel two people on a contract that included clauses about the baby being born with Benjamin-Button-Syndrome or if it turns out we’re all plugged in like in The Matrix, the lawyer finally shut the situation down and declared the cost of breaking the contract to be thirty-thousand dollars. As Dwight doesn’t have that kind of money lying around (he has it buried under a body somewhere), he opted not to renege on the deal he made with Angela. The two will attempt to make a baby, though it might not be possible after Dwight intentionally inflicted some damage to his nether-regions prior to the first conception attempt. I’m sure beating up your own junk with drumsticks has some kind of fetish word to go with it but I’ve had my fill of “What can the internet teach you that you really didn’t need to know?” lessons for today.
The T.M.I Award of the night goes to Dwight. When Dwight refused to appease Angela with her heavy demands of things like “eye contact” during the conception of their baby, Angela stated that she was not some farm animal. I don’t know if it was just me but there was something icky in the look on Dwight’s face as he glanced from her to the camera when she said this.
T.M.I got taken to a whole new level for Jim and Pam. As the two were struggling to stay awake thanks to Cece keeping them up all night, Darryl kindly offered then a “restful place” in the warehouse where some of the guys catch some extra sleep on the job. The two thought they’d finally found an opportunity to escape reality and get some real sleep. As it turns out, the “restful place” also happens to be the location that Dwight and Angela frequently visited back when Andy was earning his cuckold title. And it’s also apparently the location of the possible conception of baby-Schrute, as Jim and Pam found out when they were cuddled together, high on a shelf and Dwight and Angela snuck in to bicker and get it on.
The episode ended with Michael being accosted by the press outside of the office. After vaguely confessing his remorse for sleeping with a married woman, the reporter informed him that she was there to ask him what he thinks about the Sabre printers catching fire. Yes, it seems the cat is out of the bag on that situation, but who let it out? Gabe (aka “The Heavy”) did make mention of efficiently delivering information when he was boring Jim and Pam earlier in the episode. Was it him? Or did he take advantage of Jim and Pam's exhaustion by finding a way to get them to do it? Or maybe it was Andy and/or Darryl. They do have the printer malfunction on video after all. Guess we’ll have to see how the situation plays out and what it means for Dunder Mifflin’s parent company.
