On the surface, tonight’s episode of The Office, titled “Money” was all about money and sleepless nights. Michael’s losing sleep because he’s broke and had to take a second job to keep up with his debt payments. Dwight is losing sleep because he’s up all night moaning like a wookie over losing Angela. And Pam and Jim didn’t sleep much when they spent the night at the Schrute Farm B&B. But the truth is, if you look past all of the usual hyjinx, the episode really focused heavily on the relationships between the characters.
Before we look past that hyjinx, lets address Dwight’s bed and breakfast. He and his weirdo cousin Mose are running a B&B out of their beet farm. The establishment, which according to Dwight, falls under the “agro-tourism” industry, consists of three themed bedrooms; America, Irrigation and Night-time. Pam and Jim found the B&B on Tripadvisor.com and decided to book a room for the night, giving us the opportunity to see the operation in action. Table making, beet-wine tasting and manure chucking are all part of the experience and if Dwight’s feeling up to it, he may even read you a chapter or two from “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” For more information on the Schrute Farm Bed and Breakfast, check out the trip advisor page. The reviews (which includes the one Pam wrote) are pretty amusing.
In Michael-land, his ridiculous spending (magic kits, Muppet Show DVDs and professional bass fishing equipment included) appears to have caught up with him. He took a second job working as a telemarketer, peddling diet pills. While he’s not very good at sticking to the script and making sales, for some reason, his coworkers there love him and his silly stories. Along with not making any sales (and thus, only earning minimum wage), he’s also staying up until one in the morning and Jan thinks he’s at his improv group. When he yawned his way through his botched PowerPoint presentation, Ryan, who was there to get the office through the tutorial, told Michael he needed to quit the second job since its interfering with his work at DM.
Dwight’s B&B and Michael’s money problems were the two big story arcs of the episode but the real driving force this week focused on the connections between the characters. While Dwight and Angela are still on the outs, Andy is trying desperately to take Dwight’s place (despite the fact that he doesn’t realize Angela and Dwight were once an item).
When no amount of moon-walking on his part was enough to catch Angela’s eye, Andy looked to Pam for help. Pam’s on team-Dwight though and couldn’t bring herself to help him, even though she realized that his WASPy background and douchy nature would make him a perfect fit for Angela. Andy finally managed to get Angela’s consent to ask her out when he gave her a cat, which looked extremely similar (though significantly cleaner) to the one Dwight tried to give her to replace Sprinkles.
Dwight witnessed the cat incident and immediately went outside to moan some more in the stairwell. Jim went out to console him by recanting his own sad tale of why he left Scranton and took the job in Connecticut. Anyone who has been rejected or had their heart broken knows what Jim was talking about when he said how crappy it was to see Pam and Roy together. Food losing its flavor, sleepless nights, etc. Even Jim seemed moved by his own story because he promptly got up, walked into the office and kissed Pam. She seemed taken aback by his sudden and seemingly random burst of affection. What Jim said managed to revive Dwight because he too came back into to the office. Upon returning to his desk, he picked up the phone to make a sales call, pushed Jim’s files out of his workspace and seemed to be back to his old self.
When Jan found out about Michael’s money problems, she didn’t run away from him. In fact, she got into her car and practically flew into the DM parking lot to find Michael and talk it out. Michael had run from the office and over to a train yard where Jan found him sitting on a freight train waiting for it to take him away. She quickly shot down his plans to go “off the grid” and hide from his debt. Instead, she reminded him that he was the only person who was there for her when her life pretty much hit the crapper. She’s not going anywhere and is going to help him with the money problems (and not sell her implants as Michael requested, despite the fact that they’re uncomfortable).
And finally, there was Kelly. Kelly, who’s still not over Ryan and trying to use Darryl to get back at her ex. According to Darryl, Kelly only ever wants to hook up when Ryan’s in town. This has caused him to “get excited” whenever Ryan walks into the office. I’d feel sorry for Darryl but the funny thing is, he doesn’t seem phased by it. Out of everyone at Dunder-Mifflin, Darryl’s got the tightest grip on reality. As Kelly needs a good dose of reality, these two could be a match made in heaven. When she tried her psycho act on him after he told her he couldn’t go out because he was watching Charlotte’s Web with his daughter, he stopped her in her tracks and told her she needs to access her un-crazy side. Strangely enough, he wasn’t mean about it. His ability to call it like he sees it, while also being charming, macho and kind pretty much makes him the perfect guy. But of course, Kelly thinks his speaking his mind is some kind of weird guy-game.
The only person who wasn’t getting any support from his coworkers this week was Kevin, who made a point to mention that no one showed up to watch him perform in his new band, Scrantonicity 2.
Funniest moment of the episode: The whomever vs. whoever debate which seemed to bring out everyone’s angry side.
To close this rather lengthy review, lets all grin at Michael’s best foot-in-mouth moment of the night. When he walks in on some of the DM staff gossiping in the break room, he asks if they were talking about whether or not Jim and Pam are doing it – not realizing that Pam was in the room. Hilarious awkwardness aside, did Michael’s question get any of you wondering how far things have gone between PB&J?
Sure it’s kind of juvenile to speculate but hey, it’s TV. Since they’ve been together for months, one would assume they’ve progressed to spending the night but given the fact that Roy was Pam’s only other steady fling (been together since high school, if I recall correctly), its entirely possible that they’re still in just-making-out territory. I won’t be losing any sleep over this but it will be interesting if that issue gets addressed in future episodes.
