The Office
The Office

Episode Report Card
Miss Alli: A- | 1188 USERS: B-
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Pilot

In a TH, Jim despairs at what would become of all his useless paper knowledge if he left Dunder-Mifflin. Among the other useless knowledge he would no longer need? Pam's favorite yogurt flavor, "which is mixed berry." She laughs in a TH of her own that he's right about that. Such a lovely detail, with its implication of giggly break times fueled by delicious yogurt and Dwight stories.

Michael introduces Ryan to Dwight. Dwight tries to sound laid-back when explaining his scary, obscure hobbies, but when he opens his desk drawer, he explodes with rage, because his stapler has been captured in a Jell-O mold. As he goes to extract the stapler from inside the Jell-O, Michael stops him and tells him not to, snorting that it's perfectly good Jell-O, after all, and Dwight should eat the stapler free. One senses that right here, Michael is flirting with something that's actually funny, but he can't quite close the deal, and even more, he can't quit while he's ahead. Dwight wants Jim reprimanded, but Jim insists there's no way to know it's him -- while, of course, he eats a cup of red Jell-O. Michael goes for Fun Boss by "jokingly" telling Jim to stop harassing Dwight. "Dwight, I'm sorry," Jim says. "Because I have always been your biggest flan." This sets off the predictable cavalcade of dessert jokes. Of course, Michael chokes when it's his turn, and he narrates his own disaster, all, "I'm trying to think of...another dessert to do." If you're watching through interlaced fingers, that's a sign that you've been properly socialized.

At reception, Jim prods Pam to go out with everybody for drinks later. Just then, Roy comes obstructing into the room, at which point Pam THs that he's been her fiancé for three years. She says this with the necessary figurative fingers in her ears and the sound of humming. She figures they'll get married in the spring. Well, sure! She tells Roy she wants to go out with the work crowd (meaning with Jim, really, because...does she have other friends in the office?), but Roy squashes the idea, telling her they're going home. She grudgingly tells him she has to do her faxes. Jim and Roy are left standing at reception, both facing the ghost of Pam. Jim weakly tries to convince Roy to come along to the bar, but Roy clearly doesn't do anything that isn't what Roy wants to do, so he shuts Jim down without looking at him. Jim has his Krakow moment, thinking to himself that "if you, like, analyze why certain people end up with certain other people, it'll make you want to kill yourself," which is, incidentally, one of my favorite lines in television history. And it only gets truer as I get older. Finally, in one last attempt to make conversation, Jim asks Roy what's in the bag he's carrying, but Roy disgustedly tells Jim to tell Pam he'll catch up with her later and takes off. In a TH, Jim repeats the question he's apparently just been asked: "Do I think I'll be invited to the wedding?" He pauses. He scratches his head and doesn't answer, because the answer is, "Upon being asked that question, I realize that, in order to keep coming to work every day without removing my spleen with a fork and knife, I have been operating on the assumption that...I will not be invited to the wedding, and neither will anyone else, if you know what I mean."

The Office

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