The Office - "Spooked"

Season 8, Episode 5

I feel like I’ve seen this before…

“What am I up to?”

-Robert California

Apparently The Office is just content to repeat itself. And I don’t just mean in a season-to-season since, like continuously doing holiday episodes (which I rather like, actually) or making Andy the new boss because he’s the closest to Michael Scott (which I don’t). No, I’m talking about the episode-to-episode copying that just won’t seem to go away. If “Garden Party” showed us that Andy’s trying really hard to impress Robert California, and the Erin may or may not still have feeling for Andy, “Spooked” showed us…exactly the same thing.

I already talked last night about the danger of back-to-back episodes that repeat a formula in the guise of Community, but at least in that scenario, even if the format was the same, the stories and characterization were different, and it helped that both episodes were still pretty great. With The Office, neither of the two episodes was all that good, and they’re hurt even more by the fact that the second one fails to build on the first.

Look, I could see a universe where “Spooked” was meant to build on “Garden Party”, where the former furthers the plots introduced in the latter, but that’s not something the show seems interested in doing. Andy’s still afraid of Robert California (a name that I must always spell out in full, apparently), and there relationship hasn’t really changed since the premiere, even thought that episode ended with Andy supposedly showing his boss all that he’s capable of.

As to the Erin and Andy front: I used to like the idea of the two to them getting together, once. I thought it was one of the few bright spots of season six, even if it was more or less just a retread of Jim and Pam’s arc from the earlier seasons. There was something sweet and endearing about watching the two circle around each other, and I must admit I was somewhat invested in their fate. But for whatever reason, the show mostly dropped the arc in season seven – or at least put it behind the narrative wall that is Gabe – and I stopped caring about them as a couple. Now, the show is trying to revive those tensions at a pace that is far too slow, and trying to throw in “drama” by revealing that Andy’s been dating some mysterious woman on the sly (what?) just feels like there reversing the Gabe-maneuver from last year. This is one of those plots that just needs to be resolved already.

And then there’s Robert California, who got more to do this week than in week’s past, but we still don’t know enough about him to justify his presence, or James Spader’s role on the show for that matter. I get that he’s the new scary boss that’s supposed to shake things up, but I don’t feel as if they use him to that effect as well as they could; apart from the employees becoming nervous when he’s around, nothing’s really changed at the Scranton branch of Dunder Miflin, and something tells me that the producers like it that way. So the weird insights we got into him tonight – how he likes to tell scary stories that play on everybody’s greatest fears, and the fact that he’s got a kid who has a weird obsession with the weather – are frustrating in the fact that they don’t tells us more about him or his relationship with his employees. There just there to make him seem weirder and even more distant.

There were of course some nice moments in the episode – the show has always been good at getting good laughs out of people’s costumes, and I enjoyed Angela and Phyllis being bitchy about Erin’s Halloween decorations. (Pam’s belief in ghosts? That was just stupid and undeserving of the character.) But even those few laughs didn’t help to cover up some serious narrative overall flaws in the show’s eighth season.

Quotes, Etc:

“YOU’RE THE REAL PEOPLE’S PRINCESS! DIANNA’S GOT NOTHING ON YOU!”

“Everybody, this is my son Burt. Burt, this is a paper company.”

“Yeah, she also has boobs.” “Yeah, but she’s doesn’t have nipples.”

“Gabe?” “Sweet Erin…”

“That’s rude. I don’t tell you hurricanes suck, even though they totally do.”

“WHY…ON EARTH…WOULD A MUSEUM PUT A MUMMY IN IT?”

“The name of the game is Pecker Poker, the game of cards that gets you ha-.”

“Is she Asian?” “She’s from somewhere, I bet. Maybe she’s from the forest.”

“You don’t live as long as I have without a healthy fear of snakes.”