TV Recap: ‘The Office’ “Koi Pond”

Image courtesy of OfficeTally.com

I don’t want to get too excited, but I think we might be seeing a return to form on The Office. “Koi Pond” wasn’t great, but it was starting to reestablish the kind of structure and stories that the show was great at.

Anyway, it started off with the warehouse being turned into a haunted house for kids. Darryl pushed them around on a cart and there were various scary acts put on by the employees that weren’t very scary. At the end, however, Michael falls out of the ceiling in a mock hanging and the kids all freak out. It’s okay though, really! Because Michael turns it into a really awesome PSA for suicide prevention, then inquires to no one in particular why Christmas is the only holiday that’s allowed to have a message.

After the theme music, Jim finds out that a meeting he had intended to attend alone will now be attended by Michael as well, since they know Michael and “feel more comfortable” with him there. Michael is obviously immensely satisfied and Jim is frustrated. But when the two return to the office, Michael is soaking wet and Jim is dry. They attribute it to freak rain accident, but a phone call telling Michael they found his keys in a koi pond reveals what happened.

Michael is obviously embarrassed and holds a meeting on sensitivity, writing sound subjects that the rest of the office wants to be off-limits for their coworkers to talk about. The first thing Michael writes down is “koi pond,” followed by other things, including Meridith writing down, “having sex with terrorist.” *Insert Jim face*

Jim decides to try to help Michael and offers the advice that he could try making fun of himself. Michael does so, but it quickly gets out of control; he starts revealing painful childhood memories and the fact that he went to go get a cell phone and couldn’t think of five people to put in his calling circle. Michael gets more upset, calls himself a loser, and goes into his office.

Through the security guard at the office, Meredith gets the security footage of Michael falling in the pond. Jim begs them not to watch it and it is soon apparent why: Jim simply leaned out of the way and let Michael fall in. Everyone is appalled and Jim is humiliated, so he pulls Michael into the conference room to explain. He tells him that he really is jealous of him; he was upset that he wasn’t able to do the meeting himself and he simply wanted to be on the same level of authority and respect that Michael was.

This is an epiphany to Michael. He thinks Jim is the coolest guy in the office, and if Jim is jealous of him, then he must be even cooler. He accepts Jim’s apology and they end up becoming closer because of it.

The side-plot during the episode was Pam and Andy. The two had the lowest sales records so they were the ones who had to be sent out on sales calls. The first woman mistakes them for a couple, causing Pam to laugh and, in Andy’s opinion, rather overzealously reassure her this was not the case. So when the next client makes the same mistake, Andy takes it to another level and makes it wildly uncomfortable when talking about dating models and not people like Pam. Once more the mistake is made on another client and they simply decide to go with it. This gives us our most uncomfortable moment of the episode and perhaps of the season. Andy takes his fantasy of having a wife and kids and talks it out right front of Pam and the client, even talking about birth coaches and crying and kissing Pam’s stomach. Although it’s explained later, at the time I felt like I wanted to kill myself than keep watching.

When Pam confronts Andy about it in the car, he simply explains he really wants a family, and asks if Pam would put in a good word with Erin the secretary for him. Pam does so upon returning to the office, telling Erin that Andy is Marlon Brando cool. Erin clarifies that she must be talking about Marlon Wayans, because he is the coolest guy ever. Pam simply decides to agree that yes, Marlon Wayans is the coolest guy ever.

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