Sam's Review: The Office: "Manager and Salesman"

Well it’s a good thing everything’s back to normal on The Office. Of course I can be talking about any of the many episodes when Michael is in danger of losing his post as manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin. Now owned by Sabre, a company that makes printers, Dunder Mifflin is undergoing some changes which aren’t really changes at all. But first let’s backup to see where are character are and what they’re going back to.

Jim and Michael continue to run the branch as a dysfunctional team until the new owner Jo Bennett (Kathy Bates) flies up from Sabre headquarters to see how everything’s going. Well this is The Office so of course things are looking kind of bad at the branch. Bennett with her giant dogs by her side, ask Michael and Jim to decide who will remain manager and who will go back to sales. Michael employs his typical misguided chicanery to try to get the job for himself. But trusty Pam lets Jim know that he can make more money in a sales position. This would be great if Oscar hadn’t let the same info slip to Michael. So after Jim went in to cede the position to Michael pulled rank and got back to the desk.

Seeing Michael man a sales desk while Jim was in his office was weird at first and completely unlikely to stay that way until the end of the episode. When Michael realizes all the perks that come with being the boss he goes to a fed up Bates to get his job back. Jim happily takes more money . There everything’s back to normal. But there was some forward movement in the episode with Andy finally, awkwardly making some headway with Erin. In a sweet and misguided attempt to avoid embarrassment he decides to get everyone a Valentine’s Day card instead of just Erin. Kelly gets a particular romantic card and thinks Andy is into her. Quickly realizing how horrible a future with Kelly would be, Andy sends a mass e-mail saying that the cards were not meant to be for anyone in particular. In this grand speech to the office (they like to have these moments) Andy mumbles that he likes not Kelly but someone else in the office. Erin seems to maybe, possibly get the hint. The two were made for each other.

“Manager and Salesman” may be a necessary episode to position everyone correctly for the rest of the season but it just did not really deliver on the laughs. It’s great that Jim is back to dipping Dwight’s tie in his coffee and Pam can cutely look on, but beyond that the episode seemed like an empty exercise. But hey, maybe this means we can look for some of that old office hilarity in the future.

C

Notes:

-Meredith’s kind request to men: “Don’t cut my throat.”

-“Me and Truman Capote slept with three of the same guys.”

-Kathy Bates, as always, plays kind of a badass

-Smooth move by Andy to spray Erin’s card with a cologne called “Roger Federer for Men”