Episode 6 - Mafia
14 February 2010
Review
Synopsis: An insurance salesman Angelo Grotti pops by to give a sales pitch to Michael. Andy and Dwight suspect he maybe mafia and whip Michael into a frenzy of fear. With no Jim and Pam around Oscar stands alone to try and talk Michael out of his madness. Michael, Andy and Dwight go to lunch with Grotti and buy a policy. Andy and Dwight then “lie” and convince Michael that Grotti isn’t mafia. Meanwhile Kevin takes over Jim’s office and accidentally cancels his credit card.
The Good: This is a pretty standard Office storyline. A foolish suggestion takes control of Michael and he completely overreacts before things resolve themselves. But as Oscar points out, with no Jim or Pam around the “Coalition for Reason” is too weak to stand up to the stupidity. In a way this episode highlights how important Jim and Pam are to the show. Without them Andy and Dwight get a lot more to do and a lack of clear definition for their characters rather ruin the plot.
As usual Michael is pretty well written and his attempt to contact Jim was a fun idea (see Comic Highlight). And amusingly the easily influenced Michael adopts Grotti’s method of ordering food, threatening to send anything back which doesn’t meet his exact specifications. Kevin’s phone call with Capital One was well written too. Naturally the cooperative and submissive Kevin just read out Jim’s details without realising that he was cancelling the credit card he was using on Honeymoon.
The Bad: The mafia plot fails because of a lack of definition. Grotti plays his role well, walking a nice line between pushy and reasonable. Michael’s utter confusion and susceptibility work well too. However it is Andy and Dwight who needed to provide a clear direction for the story. Their reactions to the situation vary too much for the humour to really sink in. At first Dwight advises standing up to Grotti while Andy advises backing down. But then Andy goes along with Dwight’s plan. Then as Michael caves in over lunch Dwight seems to give in and starts choosing insurance plans. Then when Michael gives in he and Andy resume their original positions on the situation.
This inconsistency doesn’t allow for a comic narrative to develop. The characters also suffer from this story. Dwight usually has evidence to back up his foolish convictions. Here he states that his only reason for suspecting Grotti is that “he seems like a mobster.” It doesn’t fit his character and it’s not clear how he really feels about the mafia. In the end he sets Michael up for a potentially dangerous confrontation and it’s still not clear if he thinks Michael is in real danger and whether Michael’s welfare is his primary concern.
Meanwhile the writers try to give Andy too many dumb things to do. His suggestion that they “remove the fear centre from Michael’s brain” is pathetic. It’s the type of dumb sit com writing that The Office should be better than. It also didn’t seem to fit Andy’s character to actually go ahead and ruin a woman’s car by pretending to be a mechanic. Surely he could have wussed out of it more convincingly than he did? His appearance in a mechanic’s outfit in an attempt to inconspicuously hit Grotti is a fun idea but not executed well. The outfit made Andy stand out so much that it really needed to appear out of nowhere or with a more obvious setup line about him having an idea to be inconspicuous.
The final irony is that Dwight and Andy decide to lie and tell Michael that Grotti is just an insurance salesman, which of course he is. But by that point the story had spluttered along and the humour in the irony just didn’t land. I think the thing that frustrates me about this story is that the writers don’t know who Andy is yet, they are still giving him things to do and say which make him a very generic “stupid” character. My frustration goes to the fact that characters like Oscar and Toby don’t get utilised in these stories. The smaller characters could very well provide laughs of their own and the writers don’t need to put words into Andy and Dwight’s mouths which they shouldn’t really be saying.
Kevin’s insistence that Oscar would love jail is such a cheap joke. The Office went there recently with Michael getting a colonoscopy (602). I understand that Kevin giggles at such childish thoughts but to build a whole scene around a tired joke was a waste.
Comic Highlight: Michael calls Jim on his honeymoon to ask his advice. Jim is shocked that Michael managed to reach him because he and Pam are on a catamaran. Michael explains “It wasn’t easy. I had to tell the hotel that it was a medical emergency. I chose massive coronary because you told me that your Dad had a bad heart.” Classic Michael, he thought through what he needed without considering the consequences to others.
That’s what I said: The poor writing of Dwight and Andy ruins what was otherwise a fun idea.
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