Jim begins laying the path for his departure from Dunder-Mifflin.
“The Target” is an episode with some good writing, very funny lines all around and solid plotlines that signal the coda of a show that should have ended a few seasons ago.
Angela has found out that Oscar is having a relationship with her husband, the senator. And she ain’t happy.
She puts on a front so Oscar has no idea that she knows but then finds a hitman through Dwight who promises to break Oscar’s kneecap with a pipe. When Dwight finds out that it’s Oscar who’s having the affair (“he and the senator are gaying together!”), he protects his Dunder-Mifflin man from any harm. Oscar and Angela scream at each other a bit and avoid any physical violence. In a sweet moment at the end of the episode, Angela cries to Dwight about her now-failed marriage.
Jim figures he’ll have to go part-time at Dunder-Mifflin to be in Philly for his sports marketing job with his buddies. He tells David Wallace that Phyllis and Stanley have agreed to cover for him (which they haven’t), and take the pair to lunch to win them over. Stanley orders the expensive lobster, Phyllis drinks a lot of wine and before Jim can hash out an agreement, he’s driving the two – who are in a massive food coma in the back of his car – back to work. Just as he starts walking into the office, they tell him they were always going to cover for him at work.
Pete the new guy is slowly taking the place of old prankster Jim (much to Erin’s delight). He makes a ceiling-high pyramid of customer complaint cards and the tower is a few inches away from reaching the ceiling when they run out of cards. Pam, who is currently in a funk and unable to paint the mural in the warehouse for fear of messing up, offers to make a call to get a customer complaint. She’s never received a complaint before (“You wouldn’t fart on a butterfly,” Meredith says) and tells a Yo-Mama’s-so-fat joke on the phone to a client. She receives the final customer complaint, the pyramid of cards touches the ceiling and she resumes work on the mural, deciding she doesn’t care what people think of her. It’s a good, fresh choice for Pam, a character for whom we haven’t seen major developments this season, since most of the focus has been on Jim’s aspirations.
It’s later revealed that the client’s mother recently passed away and suffered from obesity her entire life, in another moment that just toes the line of sensitivity.
The episode features great anxious performances from actors Oscar Nunez and Angela Kinsey and is the climax the show has been looking for. It seems Dwight and Angela will now end up together and that Jim will happily leave Dunder-Mifflin, calling for a sugary sweet ending to a show that’s had a bit of a rocky and flat season thus far.
Best Jim face: Wasn’t a face so much as him freaking out when drunk Phyllis wanted more wine, leading to him ripping a decorative large bottle from restaurant furnishings.
Best Dwight line (to Oscar): “There are a bunch of construction workers in the warehouse without their trousers drinking diet sodas.”
Throwback: Remember when Jim started the Office Olympics back in the season 2 episode? Pete leading the pyramid construction resembled those scenes too closely to be a coincidence.
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