Episode 11 - Shareholders Meeting
14 February 2010
Review
Synopsis: Michael is invited to the Dunder Mifflin shareholders meeting as one of the positives amongst the company’s disastrous economic performance. The company send a limo to pick him up and he brings Andy, Dwight and Oscar with him. Oscar is fuming, both as an accountant and as a stock holder. Michael makes promises to the crowd just to get a cheer out of them and Oscar refuses to ask any awkward questions for fear of losing his job. Back at the office Jim finds a novel solution to stop Ryan from slacking off.
The Good: Once more there is some terrific stuff going on which flows very naturally from who the characters are. Jim’s solution to the problem of Ryan was clever and played out as a nice understated B plot.
The main plot continued the story of Dunder Mifflin’s economic woes and combined it with Michael’s ego nicely. The fact that Michael has a company car made the limo seem like a perfect example of the company wasting money. Having built up his moment of celebrity in his mind, Michael was of course going to be upset when he was greeted with indifference. So he grabs the mic and begins making promises to get the crowd to applaud and once they start he milks it for all he could. Just like his employees, all he wants is love and attention. He can’t think about the company’s wider problems all he can see is a crowd that need cheering up.
The scene where he brings in Oscar initially felt like a wasted opportunity. Finally it seemed Oscar might come to life as a character, say something important or significant which could change his life. But instead he refused to say anything and Michael ended up looking even more foolish. In retrospect though the scene made sense. Michael was just grasping at straws, he has no understanding of the economics of the company and it would have been ludicrous if he or Oscar could have saved the company. Oscar is just an accountant and surely Dunder Mifflin have a team of them who haven’t been able to solve the company’s problems. Oscar’s silent was more befitting a man in a rough economy desperate to stay employed.
The final scene was meant I suppose to be a celebration of the little guy. Michael and company swing off into the sunset, able to celebrate a small victory while their bosses get roasted for their mismanagement. It was a fitting end but it didn’t feel very glorious after Michael’s dressing down.
Along the way the usual fun jokes were there to be had. Michael calling the Senator “your eminence.” Then Andy tries to inspire Oscar with talk of his legacy to his grandchildren. And in a brilliant bit of staging, they have just moved next to the queue where Dwight is standing. So he leans over unexpectedly and asks “How is he going to have grandkids?” Dwight’s rant about the queuing system was pretty funny. It suits Dwight’s overly bureaucratic and overly self righteous personality to make a proverbial mountain out of the proverbial molehill.
The Bad: The downside of course is why does David Wallace continually trust Michael? After his behaviour at the company picnic (526) surely he should have known better. Similarly how could the company not have defined Jim’s job description? Not even he knows if he has the power to fire people? He really ought to know that and if he can’t then he isn’t Michael’s equal. The whole Recyclops bit didn’t work for me. Dwight shouldn’t be destroying company property when he would naturally attack others for doing so.
Comic Highlight: It was really fun to see Andy and Oscar hanging out again (see 507). They have such a nice chemistry, Oscar, clever but stoic. Andy, emotional and foolish. Here Andy inspires Oscar to get in line to ask questions of the shareholders, then we cut to an Andy interview outside:
“I’ve always been the guy who rallied other people to rebel. In high school I organised a walk out over standardised testing, got over five hundred students to skip the SATS. At the last second I chickened out, took it anyway, got a twelve twenty. I always regretted it. I feel lachrymose.”
A brilliant snippet of writing, really understanding what makes Andy tick and bringing out the humour.
That’s what I said: There is a downbeat feel to this because Oscar and Michael’s embarrassment isn’t fun to watch. But it was a more realistic resolution than having them save the day. More solid stuff.
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