Episode three of “The Office’s” fifth season opens with a bang. Well, a scream. Ok, a lot of screaming actually. It seems Dwight Shrute is going above and beyond his duties as Assistant to the Regional Manager in helping Michael Scott prepare for the birth of his unborn non-child (since former girlfriend Jan Levinson was actually artificially inseminated with sperm obtained from a sperm bank). This preparation involves an apron, a watermelon, and a disturbing lack of pants on Dwight’s part.

Dwight and Michael simulate the baby’s delivery on his desk (a sterile environment, to be sure), and Dwight advises Michael to have a sharpie on hand in order to mark the baby secretly with a kind of mark that only he can recognize and no baby snatcher can ever copy. It is becoming more and more clear to me that Dwight Shrute’s calling is not to sell paper, but rather to co-host this show.

Meanwhile, Pam and Jim are having some problems connecting over the phone. Pam insists this would happen even if she were in Scranton and that they’re just a little out of sync.

In honour of the imminent arrival of the baby, Dunder-Mifflin is having a baby shower. When Phyllis informs Michael that she was unable to obtain live storks for the occasion, he freaks and tells her to step it up because in honour of her wedding they gave her a “golden shower”. Clearly, someone does not spend enough time on urbandictionary.com.

Unfortunately, when Jan shows up, the baby is very much outside of her body. It turns out she delivered the baby without informing Michael. He’s not psyched. Nevertheless, Michael presents the baby Simba style to the office, although he is unable to pronounce her name properly (it’s Astir), and the shower begins.

The staff pools some money together and buys the baby a stroller, but unfortunately Jan already owns an “Orbit” stroller worth $1200. Dwight claims that it cost him $1200 to build his entire bomb shelter, therefore the stroller should be indestructible. This leads to a series of tests including throwing the stroller against a barbed wire fence and dragging it behind his car at high speeds.

Jan illustrates her lack of motherly instincts by serenading the baby with a rousing rendition of “Son of a Preacher Man”: a song about losing one’s virginity to a holy man’s son. Definitely an appropriate lullaby. She then successfully breaks up the party by discussing her “tub birth” (Creed: “it must have been like the tide at Omaha Beach”), and when she leaves to take a nap she finally allows Michael to hold the baby. Surprisingly, this doesn’t work out so well as Michael claims that he usually loves babies but when he held Astir he just felt…”short-changed.”

He hands the baby off to Phyllis and heads off to talk to the warehouse guys, which always results in hilarity. He tells Darryl he needs advice “from one babbydaddy to another”, and Darryl’s best piece of advice is for him to stop calling himself a babbydaddy (Michael: “Why, because I’m quote white quote unquote?” Darryl: “No, because you’re not a daddy and that’s not your baby”).

Despite Michael’s coldness towards Holly around Jan (he calls her “HR Weirdo” and tells Jan she smells like old tomatoes and dirt), it seems that Jan has picked up on something between them as she tell Michael he shouldn’t date Holly. Michael says he hates Holly and stutters a lot, but after Jan takes off he finds Holly, pulling her into an awkward embrace. Shockingly (or not so shockingly because she is kind of an HR Weirdo) she enjoys it. He asks her out and she accepts. Michael closes the episode by saying that he didn’t feel much when he held Astir, but he got a good feeling from Holly. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that a lowly Regional Manager could be so profound…






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