Episode 19 - St Patrick's Day
23 March 2010
Review
Synopsis: Jo’s last day in Scranton sees Michael foolishly take her up on her offer to come and stay with her in Tallahassee. She works late and everyone else feels honour bound to do so too despite it being St Patrick’s Day. Darryl is given Jim’s old office and Dwight tries to regain “Megadesk” which he assembled during Jim’s paternity leave. Erin is sick on the day she is supposed to go on a date with Andy. So he heads to her house to make the date happen anyway.
The Good: The Andy and Erin story continued to be enjoyable which was nice to see. Andy’s insecurities can be played to make him a lovable character and so it proved here as he tells the camera uncertainly “She’s still gonna like me in a week, right?” His date with Erin was suitably interrupted by her oblivious step brother. But in the end they had an incredibly sweet goodbye kiss which they both played perfectly.
Jim and Dwight are once more feuding over petty desk matters which will doubtless please some long time fans (see Comic Highlight). It was good to see Jim being both completely aware of what Dwight was doing and missing time with his baby. Jim’s little victory in the end felt just and was typically clever of him.
Michael standing up to Jo in the end was nice as he had one of his rare self aware moments. Gabe is still playing his submissive role well to help show us Jo’s inconsistent management style. Darryl working upstairs could add some much needed fresh blood into the office. Seeing Todd Packer back after all this time was a nice bit of continuity.
I liked Dwight hinting darkly about what happened to Mose when he mistook his wet nurse for his mother. I also liked Michael’s undigested thought about 26 year old Gabe’s situation “Do I really want to turn out like Gabe? Twenty six, single, tied to my desk, no life, no family. I want to have been married by the time I would have turned thirty. That’s just...that’s just depressing.”
The Bad: There was something missing from this episode. Part of it was seeing Jo back after two episodes without her and having to reorient yourself to how that affected Michael. It also wasn’t clear why she stayed working late and everyone else followed suit. Was she working late because she was annoyed by Michael and wanted him to back down on his plan to visit her? Or was she just being a workaholic boss and putting subtle pressure on her employees to stay late? Either way it seemed odd that she would think accounting staff and others were going to achieve much by staying late.
Similarly Dwight’s desire for Mega-Desk seemed a bit flimsy. We didn’t get much of a chance to see him becoming addicted to it and how exactly did he expect Jim to work without a desk? Neither plot was bad as such but in each case something was missing to hook viewer interest.
Comic Highlight: Dwight interrupts Jim on a sales call to ask if he can play his music quietly because his headphones are broken. Jim says yes but soon regrets it when Dwight sings along to “Cats in the Cradle.” Jim pauses the music himself but Dwight’s genius calculation kicks in as Andy can’t help but pick up the slack of the song and begin singing again.
That’s what I said: A passable episode but one which didn’t feel overly important. If Jo stays away then the office will have returned to a stable power structure for the first time in a long while. The writers need to work out where they want the story to go from there.
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