We’ve already seen how delightful Craig Robinson is when playing shy, and this episode we learned that he’s just as adroit at playing mortified.
This Val plotline has helped show a new side of the show’s coolest, and most guarded, character and actor. “Getting My Fry On,” “The Moon Is Huge Tonight” and the classic “You’re Such A Great Friend … ” (That Daryl wouldn’t mind doing this in front of his co-workers is just one of those things you learn to accept in this show.) Daryl denies it, and Kelly sensibly argues that the only thing to be done is to read the texts.
#THE OFFICE SEASON 8 EPISODE 16 SERIES#
Val’s boyfriend helps drop the food off, and promptly accused Daryl of sleeping with his girlfriend, pointing to a series of incriminating texts to Val that he “found” as proof. But then Andy brings the Jamaican food (much to Phyllis’s disapproval) and things start to get interesting. At first, Kelly is so bored she wants to scream … and does so. Everyone left behind in Scranton has to pull an all-nighter in order to get caught up. The other two story strands were more thought out, and played off long-term developments and well thought-out character relationships, which is usually the case when The Office is working. Think of all the weird Erin obsessions he could feign interest in? It worked for Gabe, right?) and show Ryan’s exasperation at how long his seduction is taking. So to cut off this courtship as soon as Ryan realizes it’s going to take 60 days to get what he wants seems like a wasted opportunity to both see how naïve Erin is (her slowly realizing what a tool Ryan is would be episodes worth of material.
#THE OFFICE SEASON 8 EPISODE 16 PRO#
Novak is an old pro at squeezing jokes out of pretending not to be a douche. There’s an interesting interplay to be explored between the most innocent and the most jaded characters in The Office, and B.J. The Ryan and Erin storyline generated some heat, despite feeling like it had been shoved into an episode that already had three plots in order to fill some time. This problem is amended somewhat towards the end, after Gabriel Susan Lewis takes out the competition and Dwight shows that there’s some lines he won’t cross to get what he wants.
It’s just too many big performances knocking against each other, drowning everything out. It might work as a c-story meant to deliver laughs and nothing else, but without one of the more normal characters around to ground the action in something a bit more human-scale, you’ve got three actors seeing who can be the most oblivious, and it sucks all the air out of the scene. The problem is that Dwight competing with Todd Packer (whose character is a jerk that … actually that’s all that needs to be said) for the affection of Nellie Bertram (who has not been fleshed out past being another comedic boss figure that doesn’t realize how sad their power trips make them look, though we did learn that she can’t be hypnotized) is too many big characters crashing against each other. He can usually be relied upon for a funny bit about his cluelessness and power lust (though the part about him thinking his ancestors are time travelers stirred up questions about just how naïve we are supposed to believe he is, and felt strained to boot), his unbridled mania is useful for pushing the plot forward, and Rainn Wilson can be counted on to pull it back when need be. What hurt this episode is that the main storyline centered around a flat character dynamic, in which Dwight competes with Todd Packer for the vice president position, and then for Nellie’s affection (“if anyone is going to have sex with Nellie for personal gain, it’s going to be me.”) Dwight is the show’s broadest character, which is not an insult. “There is nothing harder than taking care of a sailboat.” Indeed, Andy, indeed. Also, the circle of two-against-one bitchiness cold open was probably the best of the season. But unlike failed episodes from when the show seemed to be struggling to find itself in the post-Carell era a few months ago, enough of “Hours” worked to suggest that the recent run of strong episodes has not been a fluke. After several strong, character-based installments in a row, The Office delivered their weakest episode since the mini-comeback that started with “Trivia.” As is often the case when The Office isn’t working, “After Hours” was overstuffed and too broad, and showed a frustrating lack of follow through on some intriguing story ideas.
0 kommentar(er)
