Michael throws an extravagant going-away party for Toby, and falls in love with the woman who is replacing him. Jim plans to propose to Pam at the party, but gets out-staged. Back at corpora... Read allMichael throws an extravagant going-away party for Toby, and falls in love with the woman who is replacing him. Jim plans to propose to Pam at the party, but gets out-staged. Back at corporate, Ryan is arrested for fraud.Michael throws an extravagant going-away party for Toby, and falls in love with the woman who is replacing him. Jim plans to propose to Pam at the party, but gets out-staged. Back at corporate, Ryan is arrested for fraud.
- Oscar Martinez
- (as Oscar Nunez)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis episode was Steve Carell's submission for Emmy consideration.
- GoofsMichael sets his watch alarm to go off when Toby leaves. He later gives the watch to Toby as a gift. Toby then changes the watch to Costa Rican time (which would be two hours earlier), yet the alarm still goes off at the scheduled time of Toby's departure at the end of the episode.
- Quotes
[during Toby's exit interview]
Michael Scott: I just have some... questions that I was gonna ask.
[long pause]
Michael Scott: Umm, who do you think you are?
Toby Flenderson: [long pause] I'm Toby.
Michael Scott: Yeah. Correct. Umm... What gives... What... What gives you the right?
Holly Flax: ...Umm, I-I brought the binder. Do you wanna... take a little look?
Michael Scott: Sure. Yeah, you know what, that sounds good. Take a little look-see.
Some of the episodes and threads of the show are excellent as they capture the awkward (but not painful like the UK version) comedy of this workplace but it is some of the narrative that don't work as well as they did in seasons 2 and 3. Jim and Pam's relationship is the most obvious one. The writers appear to have gone from being able to perfectly nail the detail of their back and forwards to suddenly deciding to move things rapidly forward while assuming the viewers will just go with it because that is what we want to see. However in doing this they move things way too fast so that not only does it not quite convince but we also don't get to enjoy them being a dating couple the way that we enjoyed them being flirty for so long. Not so much of a big deal is Ryan's new role. Again perhaps the short season is to blame but this seems to move too fast without enough done with it beyond the obvious. Michael and Jan provides good laughs but Andy and Angela didn't convince me as it just seemed written for the sake of having events and it was only Dwight's part in it that made me enjoy it (I find him funny).
The cast continue to be good though and most do well with a bit of added pathos to their roles. Carell wears his character really well and while his terrible judgement is endearing, he avoids making it so painful that we cannot find it funny – which we do. Fischer continues to be one of my favourite parts of the show and it is not her fault that the material rushes her along – she is best when shocked by Michael. Krasinski is still a necessary evil in my opinion. His comedy is mostly responding to other people and this puts him more on the spot in regards the relationship plot – which, not his fault, is not as good this season. Wilson has great lines while Kaling's valley-girl personae makes for wonderful little moments – as do Flannery, Bratton, Baumgartner, Baker and so on. I'm not sure about Novak though – he doesn't seem to fit in that well and is not used that well as a character – perhaps too close to the material as a person? Although I have specified a lot of negative things, I must say that I enjoyed season 4. OK it is not as engaging nor as funny as seasons 2 and 3 but it is still good enough to make The Office stand up as a great sitcom with comedy and situations working well enough. Hopefully this does not represent a "slide" towards diminishing returns and I do look forward to season 5 (as soon as I can work out who is going to get it for me since ITV is about 4 years away from showing it if at all!).
- bob the moo
- Jun 6, 2009