Episode 9 - Mrs. California
2 December 2011
Synopsis: Robert rushes into the office and tells Andy (in front of Jim) to not hire his wife. He then brings his wife, Susan, into the office and suggests that Andy find a role for her. Andy tries his best not to hire her but under relentless pressure from Robert he finally does. Andy asks the rest of the office to be mean to her which leads her to become suspicious. Meanwhile Dwight opens a gym in the building and pushes Darryl to join.
The Good: I actually liked the basic sketch of both these plots but I don't think either was executed particularly well.
Let's start with Dwight as it's the simpler story. We haven't seen him play on his role as building owner in a while and I liked the idea that he would open a gym to try and make money. The story was nice and simple from then on. Darryl was pleasantly straightforward in his dealings with Dwight. He refused to put up with the makeshift nonsense and even mocked Dwight's flimsy knowledge of pro sports. This felt like a much better use of both characters with Darryl admitting to his interest in Val and Dwight helping to push him toward his goal without meaning to.
I would like to see more stories like this woven throughout the season. It would be nice to think that Dwight's gym could become a new location for various scenes and that Darryl's self improvement would give a focus to his character. I think Dwight can still play a good comic role when he isn't being too insane. I actually enjoyed the teaser gag where he bragged about the benefits of standing all day only to realise his mistake. I really smiled when he acknowledged that Jim 'had' to push him over and expose the stilts he was using. In that moment Dwight was being self aware and realistic. He couldn't go on standing on stilts forever and he recognised the value in Jim putting an end to it. That teaser sequence had potential to have been its own B plot and was wasted as such a short skit.
The Andy-Robert-Susan story was more complicated. In most ways I really didn't like it (see The Bad) but there were glimpses of promise. Susan (Maura Tierney) is a veteran sit com actress having spent seasons on News Radio. On that show a story about the eccentric boss giving crazy instructions would have been perfectly acceptable. If The Office is going to morph into a more traditional sit com at this point in its evolution then I might well support that.
There were small moments here where I nearly began to enjoy this. Andy's flailing in particular has an old sit com appeal. His idea to put Susan off by encouraging Dwight to share more of his personal life with her or his attempts to pass off Robert on the phone as his Grandma. I thought Jim had a great line when discussing why he thought it was not right to be mean to Sally around the office: "we should let this place just crush her spirit by itself. I mean, it knows what its doing." The conclusion of the plot where Jim manages to make the situation better by talking up his relationship with Pam had some merit to it as well.
The Bad: However the problem with this old school sit com approach is that in the context of The Office it looks and feels silly. Robert has transformed from the man with the Jedi mind trick into just another exaggerated sit com boss making unreasonable demands. His foolish decision to force Andy to lie to his wife was deeply unprofessional. He then looked like an idiot for putting so much faith in Andy's ability to lie and continuing to lie even when the truth came out. I could just feel my suspension of disbelief floating away as Robert was reduced to Michael Scott levels of dumbness and Andy was forced to do the same and contort his face in confusion the same way Michael used to.
Then the writers decided to take Jim's cowardice up a notch and have him literally run away from confrontation. Again this was so unprofessional and silly while once more turning Jim into a dislikeable figure. Seriously Jim, man up. Your boss is being unprofessional, don't hide from it just state the truth and get on with your work.
I'm not going to touch the ending where Susan tells Andy that they have a date in the future. I don't know how to take that and speculation will only help me see bad possibilities.
Comic Highlight: Actually a number of lines made me smile. I've mentioned a few above but I also liked Toby saying he always brings his passport to work so he is ready for adventure. "Have you had any?" Susan asks to which the swift and sad reply of "No" comes. Even though it was a dumb joke I also smiled at Dwight guessing that the Val who Darryl was interested in was Val Kilmer.
That's what I said: There was so much about this episode that I could have enjoyed if the writing had been better. I think it's very difficult to turn The Office into an old fashioned sit com though. The presentation of reality remains consistent and so when characters do things which seem ridiculous that is how they come across.
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