The Office - "Tallahassee"

Season 8, Episode 15

Much like with last week's post, I'm going to keep this one brief, as I'm really only interested in if and how splitting the denizens of the office into two separate groups helps to inject any sort of creative energy into the show, and whether that makes for a better episode overall. The short answer is yes, but only when the show is truly able to leave old dynamics behind.

As I said last week, I doubted I would have any interest in anything that would occur back in Scranton while Dwight and his team were away in Florida, and for the most part I was right. There was something slightly charming about Andy taking on the role of receptionist, and doing so gladly, but it only got my hoped up that this would lead to yet another formula-breaking revelation in which Andy takes on the role permanently. (In this this little fantasy version, by the way, Jim would be promoted to branch manager, as the show should have done in the first place.) Instead we just got a large run around that was meant to lead us to those finale moment where Andy realizes that actually does miss/care for Erin. Placing my general disinterest with this arc, those last few moments felt so disconnected from the rest of the Scranton story as to feel cheap, like the writers injected this moment here because they couldn't think about a more organic way for it to come about.

The scenes in Tallahassee were much better by comparison, though it's not as if there was a very high bar to clear, and only some of these scenes truly worked. Everything in which Dwight acts over the top crazy in his attempt to impress Ellie Berchtram in order to gain the open VP slot (that is, the main part of this entire story) fell flat, as it only served as a reminder of how out of control and unbelievable the character has gotten in the past few seasons, and how the writers have run out of anything original to do with the character.

But everything else, all of those little scenes that existed around this were pure gold. The cold open featured one of the best Jim pranks in quite a long time, something that was original enough to be funny without being too mean or unbelievable in scope. Likewise, I enjoyed seeing Jim “learn” from Stanley as to the best way to slack off and just enjoy his remaining time at Dunder Mifflin. Seeing Catherine Tate return as Ellie was a real treat for me, as believe her wry comedic delivery compliments the show sense of humor. Even Erin was a delight to watch, as she tried and (mostly) succeeded in proving her worth as an employee beyond being a receptionist.

It should come as no surprise then that the show's best moments come from taking these characters out of their complacent lives and giving them new places and people to interact with, or in some cases (as with Jim and Stanley) new sides of each other to interact with. I realize that this late in any show's run, it can be hard for writers to come up with anything remotely new for their characters to do, but as Cory Barker argues in part of this piece, one of the main problems with the show over the past few years is how aggressively the writers had sought the status quo, have kept their characters in complacency for the sheer fact that it was the easiest thing to do. Hopefully “Tallahassee” will be a wake-up call for them, a reminder of how good the show can be when it allows their characters to try new things.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

So Cathy only got one line in tonight, and considering that last week's episode set up the show trying something between her and Jim, they should probably get on to building that up. I mean, it's not a plotline that I'm happy with in any means, but I would at least appreciate if the show would make it's existence seem a little more logical.

“So stop looking at my breasts, and start looking at my penis.”

“I can't be appendicitis, I eat more than enough bacon.”

“I'm a decent baiter. My cousin Mose, that's a master baiter.”

“You must do one thing – kill Mose before he kills you.”