This is a Recap of The Office Season 6, Episode 7, “Koi Pond”. Spoiler spoiler spoilers. Etc.
Last night’s Office episode was Halloween-themed in cold open only, but it was a welcome sequence nonetheless with Darryl half-assedly narrating a warehouse Halloween adventure to disinterested children, followed by Michael’s way-over-the-line hanging (to compliment his over-the-line costume choice):
The plot started out innocuously, with Michael falling into a koi pond on a sales trip then returning to a gauntlet of insults back at the office, but quickly turned darker; Jim convinces Michael to give in to the humor and make fun of himself, which works great at first (and spawned my favorite line in the episode, Dwight saying “Michael, you’re embarrassing yourself!” when it was clearly working), but quickly turns uncomfortable when Michael reveals humorless, personal details about not having enough friends to form a Fave Five.
The officemates then watch the security tape of Michael’s incident, despite Jim’s urging them not to, and discover that Jim stood by and watched Michael fall into the pond, and quickly turn their pack mentality insults onto Jim. The episode concludes with another of this season’s poignant Jim/Michael moments, where Jim is forced to actually sympathize with Michael, again thrown off in his arrogance that he could easily do Michael’s job by yet another office breakdown.
This sixth Office season continues to add depth to Michael’s character; in the British Office, David Brent was a buffoon and an outright selfish human being for the majority of the series, but in the U.S. version, we’re starting to see the challenges presented by being a boss that would turn a Jim Halpert into a Michael Scott (or at least, allow for Jim to sympathize with Michael a bit, he’ll never actually turn into a full-on Michael Scott). It’ll be interesting to see where this dynamic heads, but it’s already been the most interesting aspect of this Office season, and has continued to keep the show fresh plot-wise, no matter how many gimmicks the show inevitably recycles (the conference room bit last night felt a little forced, but, whatever, it’s Season 6 and there’s only so many rooms in the office…)
The episode’s subplot featued Pam and Andy making cold-call visits to random companies, and after realizing how interested everyone was in them as a ‘couple’ and their baby, eventually gave in and just started accepting peoples’ questions as though they were together. Andy, of course, immediately takes this too far (after another one of my favorite parts, ending his sales pitch with “that is our sales pitch and we’re-a stickin’ to it!”), and kisses Pam’s baby bump with an enthusiasm that goes way beyond pretending.
Pam then questions Andy on their drive back to the office, and Andy admits that he’s tired of being single, asking Pam what she thinks of Erin the receptionist. Pam approaches Erin, drops in a subtle good word for Andy, and admits “He’s a real Marlon Brando,” to which she responds, “You mean Marlon Wayans? TOTALLY.” Soooo…Andy and Erin may be a go? I’d love to see them get together in show world, but in real life, probably wouldn’t care about ever hanging out with either one of them. But really, isn’t that kind of the beauty of The Office?
I couldn’t think of a good way to wrap this post up, so just wrote that super general throwaway end line. And then this line explaining it. Until next week!
Episode thoughts, favorite parts, favorite lines, and Andy/Erin predictions – leave ‘em in the comments!
