What a weird episode of The Office! I knew the thing with Michael and Holly was too good to be true and while it looks like things are dones-ville for them right now, I’m not giving up hope that somehow they’ll manage to make their relationship work. Speaking of working relationships, it was nice to see Jim and Pam together on screen for a change!
The episode begins with a hilarious open, showing off what everyone dressed up as for Halloween. Three of the Scranton DM staff show up as the Joker from TDK. I’m guessing that’ll be a popular costume this year. While Kevin spent half the night putting his Joker costume together and Dwight arrives prepared with a poorly performed quote from the movie, it’s Creed and his creepy ways that takes the prize for the most convincing Joker of the trio. Seriously, I’m not even sure that wasn’t Creed’s true colors coming through with his Joker act. Meanwhile, Andy raided the Cats costume closet (or wherever it is they keep old costumes from obsolete Broadway musicals) for his kitten costume and poor Pam is the only person to where a costume to work at the corporate office. Her Chaplin costume is adorable but she’s right when she says she looks like Hitler without the hat.
After finding out that Michael and Holly are dating, Corporate decides to transfer Holly to the New Hampshire branch of Dunder Mifflin. Michael and Holly pretty much avoid any serious conversation about how they’re going to make their new relationship work, while living over eight hours away from one another. Darryl kindly assists in Holly’s move by offering his truck and driving services to the couple and the three set off for New Hampshire.
Between singing along to “Life is a Highway” numerous times, the conversation eventually begins to play out about halfway through their road trip. Realizing that it’s completely impractical for them to try and commute or even meet halfway (since there’s nothing halfway between Scranton and New Hampshire), Holly begins the painful breakup process. Poor Darryl had to sit and listen to Michael beg Holly not to break up with him. Michael knows himself well enough to realize that if it’s over with Holly, he’ll just end up going back with Jan despite the fact that he hates Jan.
By the time they get to Holly’s new house, it’s over and the two exchange a tearful hug before Michael joins Darryl for the long drive back to Scranton. Darryl helps make Michael feel better by attempting to sing the blues.
Michael isn’t the only one on a road trip. Jim, who is left in charge of the office while Michael’s away uses his time to drive to New York to visit Pam and spend some time with his brothers. Before Jim arrives, Pam meets with Jim’s brothers to see if they want to play a prank on Jim. Her idea is to tell Jim that she lost the engagement ring but Jim’s bro’s think it’ll be funnier if they rag on Pam for studying art and hitting a dead-end when she tries to make a career out of it. These guys obviously didn’t consider that this kind of joking might not go over well with Pam. They’re too focused on how annoying it’ll be to Jim to consider Pam’s feelings on the matter.
Pam agrees to go along with it but when the guys start giving her a hard time about being an artist, it’s clear that she’s not happy with the way they’re picking on her. When the guys finally admit that it’s all a joke, she plays along despite looking totally miserable. In the end, Jim’s brothers think Pam’s cool and she seems to swallow whatever insecurities they might have given her (or fueled). All in good fun I guess. Welcome to the family, Pam. Jim’s obviously the sensitive one.
Finally, just to get on Andy’s nerves, Dwight shows up at work wearing a Cornell sweatshirt. He claims he’s applying there and goes out of his way to flaunt it in Andy’s face. We all know Andy worships his alma mater and we all know it doesn’t take much to push Andy over the edge. Dwight pushes the Cornell button repeatedly until Andy finally reveals to Dwight that he’ll be conducting the college interview. I don’t know if Andy’s lying or of Cornell really did assign Andy the responsibility of interviewing Dwight but the interview goes as expected, with both Dwight and Andy pushing each others’ buttons. Dwight turns the interview around on Andy, claiming he’s evaluating Andy’s interviewing abilities and the two duke it out verbally and end up fighting over control of the conference room table.
We don’t get to see much of Angela’s reaction to Dwight’s shenanigans but when Andy turns it around on Dwight at the end and shows up wearing overalls and carting a crate full of beets, Angela looks extremely irritated. Dwight’s plan may just be working. If he can’t wear Angela down or win her over with warehouse sex, then at the very least he can do his best to show Angela how wrong Andy is for her.
