NEWS FLASH: Dwight is not so great with women.
Some of the best episodes of the final season of The Office are the ones where characters of seasons past make an appearance. First it was ex-warehouse worker and Pam’s ex-fiance Roy, and now it’s Jan Levenson, ex-lover of Michael Scott, making an appearance in this week’s episode, “The Whale”. Although it was delightful to see the psychotic Jan making a comeback, this episode also covered some of boiling issues that have been at play this season.
It’s only a few more months until The Office ends for good. It’s no surprise that the writers are trying to push some of the major plot lines along so they can be wrapped up by the season finale. With some shows, this can be an overambitious move that leave the final season feeling cluttered and lackluster. But with this week’s episode, it was rewarding to see an episode that finally addressed plots that have been dragging throughout the season (Jim’s sports marketing business) and multiple seasons (Oscar’s affair with the senator).
The episode opens up with roughly half of the office Skyping with the Bahamas-bound Andy. After being at sea for only two days, he is delirious and sunburned and his eyes feel like “flaming meatballs in my skull”. Erin is bummed out about Andy’s failure to bring her on his sailing adventure, but she reminds herself of the Bob Marley song “No woman! No cry!” to make herself feel better. After dropping his drinking water and his computer into the ocean, it’s only a matter of time before Andy crawls back to the office.
The main plotline, and the title of the episode, comes from an exciting message that David Wallace delivers: the Scranton White Pages (also known as the white whale because of all the ‘blubber’) are looking for a new paper supplier. Wallace wants Dwight to take the job since he’s the company’s best salesman, but Phyllis interjects when they find out the woman is in charge of the white pages. Dwight is notoriously bad at talking to women, which is something the audience could have picked up over the years but was never addressed.
This leads to the woman of the office holding a session where Dwight practices selling to a female client. Phyllis was right – Dwight is horrible at talking to women, and his trial sale leads Nelly to asking him, “Have you ever killed a women? How many women have you killed? Please sir will you not kill me?”. The women are hopeless, but send Dwight into battle anyway.
After arriving to the White Pages, Dwight and Pam are shocked to find out that the woman in charge is none other than Jan Levenson (who has an amazingly tacky office). Jan is just as terrifying as ever and the two learn that the whole thing was a set up to get back at David Wallace. But Dwight doesn’t give up and has Pam has to distract Jan while he works on a plan. We’re treated to a montage of Jan’s best scenes over the years (including tossing Michael’s Dundy at his plasma TV) and a slideshow of her daughter, Astrid, while Jan wail-sings in the background. The situation is starting to appear dire, until Dwight saves the day.
Dwight might not know how to deal with women, but he knows how to deal with Jan after many years of being Michael Scott’s minion. He offers her Clark, knowing she has an affinity for younger assistants (Hunter!). She accepts the offer, and it appears like Dunder Mifflin just won quite the sale.
There were a handful of other plots strewn throughout the show – the men of the office are participating in Movember per Toby’s request, Jim attempts to hold a conference call with his sports marketing company, and Angela begins to suspect that the Senator is having an affair with a yoga instructor named Blake so her and Oscar decide to snoop on him at yoga class.
Each of these plots adds something essential to the overall arc of this season. We’ve heard a lot about Jim’s business but haven’t seen much, and after the conference call fails due to numerous interruptions, we learn that the partners don’t want Jim involved anymore. What’s going to happen to the business that Halpert invested so heavily in?
Oscar and Angela’s spy mission leads up to one of the biggest cliffhangers of the entire series. We’ve known that Robert is gay for years, but at this point, it almost seemed like Angela was going to be naively married to a gay man until the series ended. But after Oscar starts to get jealous of a male yoga instructor, Angela becomes curious as to why Oscar cares so much. They see Robert calling someone as he exits class, and Oscar’s phone begins to ring. The secret is finally blown open, and Kevin wasn’t even the one to do it.
And for Movemeber, we see some more inklings of a romance between Erin and Pete (even though Erin thinks his moustache looks like an eyebrow in the middle of his face). Also, it was just funny to see the men of the office with facial hair and see Toby getting creepy confident with his newly acquired moustache.
Best Jim Face: None for this episode, it was a pretty somber one for Halpert.
Best Dwight lines: “I have no problem with woman, it’s businesswomen with their power suits and shoulder pads, don’t lie about your shoulders!
Throwback: Remember in the “Baby Shower” episode of Season 5 when we’re first introduced to baby Astrid, and Michael believes her name is the horrible ‘Astird’? Michael Scott, you are dearly missed.
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