The Office: Chair Model

Posted by: Ariana  •  April 19, 2008 @ 12:15am

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

I realize you might not care, but I feel like death warmed over, I'm totally exhausted, and I couldn't recap this on time for you last night because I was busy seeing Metric at the Commodore. So I'll try to be brief, and I'll probably fail.

So Michael and Jan have broken up, and Michael is trying to choose a new chair for his office. These two things would have nothing to do with each other, except Michael becomes enamoured with the chair model in the office supply catalogue. He tells us how desperate he is, and something about how desperate situations yield the best results. It doesn't make sense to me, but then I'm the sleep-deprived one here.

Michael wants everyone in the office to offer him suggestions of women with whom they could set him up. Kevin's got nothing; Stac(e?)y broke up with him and took all her friends with her. Oscar (Mayer Weiner Lover) is too aghast to offer anyone up. Phyllis has a single friend, whom she proclaims to be gorgeous and feisty, but Michael gets Phyllis to admit that her friend, despite being a softball player, wouldn't fit in a rowboat and thusly is Michael displeased with her suggestion.

Michael starts begging, and it's really not pretty. He makes everyone write down the name and number of an eligible woman for him to date within the hour or they're fired. Jim writes down Pam's mom. Phyllis writes down her fat friend (she said it). Kevin writes down Wendy's. Like the restaurant. Michael calls the number, bwahaha. Dwight writes down Chair Model and is totally, irrevocably creepy about it. Creepy, and also effective, as he tracks her down and finds out she was killed in a car accident. Michael is devastated, until Pam takes pity on him and legitimately gives him her legitimate landlady's legitimate phone number.

In the B-plot, another office in the building is renovating, and their construction crew is taking up the parking lot. Our intrepid office heroes all have to park in the satellite lot, which is like, a ten-minute walk away, according to Andy, or thirty if you're Kevin. Michael is no help on the issue, so Andy and Kevin are left to deal with the situation. They call a meeting of the Five Families, the five companies in their office building, whose bosses rarely meet. Andy leads the meeting with these guys, and they're unimpressed with his butt-kissing and quibbling until Kevin steps in and tells them what the problem really is, and none of these guys has time for this, so Cool Guy Paul (he owns the disaster kit company in the building, apparently) is just like, "Give 'em back their spaces. Let's go," and that is that. Kevin is emotional in an interview about his victory, telling us things weren't going so well there for a while post-Stac(e?)y. It's adorable. Oh, Kevin.

Michael, meanwhile, is meeting Pam's landlady at a coffee shop, and he is disappointed by her because she is not 25 and blonde. He shows her a picture of Jan on his phone, and accidentally dials Jan at the same time. He starts describing her as manipulative and then we hear Jan on the other end going, "Michael? Hello?" Good one, Michael. Landlady Lady decides to take off, and Michael tells her talking to her was like talking to the sweet old lady on the bus. She thinks this is pretty rude, as do I. Michael storms back into the office and lets Pam know his true feelings about her attempts to set him up.

Oh, and then. And then! Jim's hair looks really bad. Like, even worse than usual. But that's not the point of this scene. Jim goes over to Pam's desk to let her know she just might have gotten herself evicted, and they go through this whole thing where she's totally joking about moving in with him, and he's totally seriously saying she should, and she's joking about how she's not living with anyone she's not engaged to, and he's all like, "Oh, did I not propose to you? My bad," and she shows him her ringless finger, and he's telling her it's coming, and she thinks he's completely kidding and she's being all sarcastic, and he's totally dead serious, but still grinning at her in his Jim way, and they're just kind of grinning at each other like fools, neither one of them really knowing what to do about this or how to take it, until he walks away after telling her that when he does it, it's going to kick her ass. And then! In an interview! He shows us A RING. THAT HE HAS HAD SINCE A WEEK AFTER THEY STARTED DATING.

Oh, JAMES. I mean, on the one hand: dear, dear Jim. On the other: A WEEK??? No, you know what? I'm okay with that. They have known each other for so long that it makes sense. He knows. He knew. There was no question. As soon as they took that step, it was pretty much it for both of them, and I am SO IN LOVE with the fact that the show knows this, and isn't desperate to break them up. And may they NEVER GO DOWN THAT ROAD, like every other show, ever, does. Sometimes people are just meant to be together, and they are, and it's happy. That's real life. And Lord knows these two have been through enough with each other.

Michael is being a downer in his office, and Dwight suggests to him that he needs closure and to say goodbye to this woman in his life who meant a lot to him. He doesn't mean Jan, you guys. He means the Chair Model. He takes Michael to the cemetery to pay his respects and say his goodbyes. It's, as usual, awkward. They dance and sing some bastardized version of "American Pie" on her grave. Awkward.

Pam & Jim walk down the street discussing where to go to dinner, and all of a sudden, Jim's down on one knee, speaking slowly and tenderly to Pam... asking her to wait a sec while he ties his shoe. She laughs and tells him she hates him as she turns to walk away. He's all like, "What?!? My shoe is untied!" They hold hands and laugh and are adorable and perfect.

I have to sleep now.

Tags: The Office, Jim, Pam

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