andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

So it turns out Toby Flenderson really is going to Costa Rica. Who knew? In the season finale of “The Office”, the crew plans an elaborate farewell party for their beloved (or despised if you’re Michael Scott) Human Resources Representative. Meanwhile, Toby spends the day teaching his replacement the ins and outs (pretty sure the outs outweigh the ins) of Dunder Mifflin Scranton.

Michael kicks off the meeting of the party planning committee by asking, “if the devil were to explode and evil were gone forever, what sort of party would you throw?” He’s thinking beach blowout or toga party. With an anti-gravity machine. The girls aren’t on board. Angela quits, but Phyllis agrees to plan the party on her own with funding from Michael’s secret stash of cash safely stored in his shoe.

Meanwhile, Toby begins showing his replacement, Holly, around the office. Michael and Dwight are quick to despise her, Michael because Toby picked her and Dwight because she “stinks with her ways…and her…head.” Or because he just agrees with everything Michael says. Probably the second option.

The guys decide to mess with her, but Dwight doesn’t get the memo that as soon as Holly speaks 3 words to Michael, he decides he is head-over-heels in love with her. He’s so in love with her in fact that he asks for Jim’s advice in “downloading N3P music for a CD mix tape” for her. Jim advises Michael to take it slow, using his and Pam’s relationship as an example and then decides he’s going to propose to Pam at the party.

Dwight, meanwhile, continues with his “playful hazing” of the new girl. For example, the amazing Mose Schrute makes a cameo when Dwight calls him in from the beet farm to release a raccoon into Holly’s car. Michael does not appreciate this and exclaims that Holly is the best thing to happen to the company since WWII. Mose is traumatized and probably will not return to civilization anytime soon.

Side note: During the day, a YouTube video of Ryan getting arrested surfaces. It turns out he was recording sales on his brainchild of a website and on paper, which Oscar explains “is called fraud.” Although, he personally thinks the real crime was the beard.

Phyllis’s party turns out to be totally awesome and features, among other things, a ferris wheel, fireworks, and Darryl’s band. But unfortunately no anti-gravity machine.

During a hot dog run to the grocery store, Kevin spots Jan and calls Michael to meet him there immediately. It turns out Jan is pregnant. But the baby isn’t Michael’s. She explains that she went to a sperm bank while they were together. She feels bad about this betrayal and offers for Michael to come with her to Lamaze class. He reluctantly agrees, even though he doesn’t actually know what a Lamaze class is.

And what would a Dunder Mifflin party be without Michael Scott approaching the mic? This time he sings a cover of Supertramp’s “Goodbye Stranger” dedicated to Toby. And he gets really into it. Like, really into it. Somehow the new HR girl still kind of likes him, but he’s so thrown from the meeting with Jan that her attempt at asking him out goes right over his head and she ends up going for dessert with Kevin instead.

Finally, Jim psyches himself up to propose to Pam during the fireworks, only to be beaten to the punch by Andy, who gets on the microphone and proposes to Angela. She says “ok” and Dwight looks like he’s going to throw up. More sobbing on Mose’s shoulder tonight for sure. Pam seems kind of upset that Jim didn’t propose and Toby is escorted off the property by a security guard on Michael’s request.

So Toby’s off to Costa Rica, Pam is off to New York’s Pratt School of Design for 3 months (she gets her acceptance via e-mail in this episode), Ryan is off to the big house, and Michael is on his way to becoming “kind of a daddy.” Sounds like a solid take-off point for Season 5.

The Dunder Mifflin team gets split up this week on “The Office” with Jim, Kevin, and Andy headed to the golf course to attempt to make a sale, and Michael, Pam, Oscar, and Darryl off to a job fair at Pam’s old high school. Meanwhile, the rest of the staff are forced to hold down the fort under the watchful, beady eye of Dwight K. Schrute.

Michael explains that the point of the job fair is to obtain some summer interns in an attempt to “youthanize” the workplace. Microsoft Word suggests that it’s not the word I am looking for, but I don’t think Michael Scott realizes that. The gang heads to the job fair armed with only a single sheet of paper since Michael believes that “it only takes one sheet of paper to make a difference”. Which is allegedly what he told Pam before sneezing into her tea.

We learn that the reason for Jim’s golf game is the probation warning temp-turned-corporate-tool Ryan Howard gave him last week. As a result, Jim says he is going to do something he has never done in this job before: try. On the golf course, Jim is focused on getting his client, Dwight Maguire, to switch to Dunder Mifflin paper, while Kevin is focused on betting on just about every aspect of the game. In the meantime, Andy has bigger problems in the form of disgusting and plentiful blisters which he obtained as a result of hitting “approximately 1200 balls” earlier that day in preparation for the game.

Back at the office, there is a mutiny in the works as no one feels they should have to stay while Michael isn’t there. Stanley is the first to peace out, with the rest of the gang (minus Angela) quickly following when Creed announces “we’re gonna ditch this bitch!”. He would. Dwight quickly reports this to Michael via cell phone but Michael is too bummed out about his lack of success at the job fair to care. Plus he says if he’s not there and Jim’s not there, why should they have to be there. Dwight is definitely going to be sobbing on Mose’s shoulder tonight.

At the job fair, Michael rejects the only teen mildly interested in working at Dunder Mifflin, claiming he only wants “the best and the brightest”, and subsequently freaks out because the kid signed his name on their only sheet of paper. He then sends Pam back to the office to get another single sheet of paper (Pam: “are you serious?” Michael: “Yes, and don’t call me Shirley”).

The golf game goes fairly well even though Jim tries and fails several times to make the sale and Andy crashes a golf cart into a sandtrap. In his defense though, he gets some amazing air. After the game, Mr. Maguire suggests playing more often (Andy: “Count me in!” Maguire: “Nope!”) and takes off. Jim finally convinces him to switch back to Dunder Mifflin after blocking his car for fifteen minutes.

Even with their fresh sheet of paper, Dunder Mifflin is getting no attention at the job fair so Michael decides to take drastic measures and approaches the fair’s microphone for a Michael Scott Signature Inspirational Speech. Predictably, the speech falls flat and the crew returns to the office with a visibly dejected Michael unable to even hold up his own head in the backseat of Pam’s car.

When they arrive, the golf boys are already there celebrating the sale with a few beers. Pam and Jim embrace and Michael severely invades their personal space. In the end, Michael is uplifted by Jim’s sale, saying that Jim Halpert could do anything he wants, but chooses to work at Dunder Mifflin, selling paper, like him. So maybe Michael Scott is capable of being inspirational after all.

But probably not.