“The Negotiation” reaffirmed one of the many, many things I love about “The Office” – you can watch an episode over and over and continually make new discoveries. For me, the brilliance of this show is in the little moments—for example, in this episode, the bit where Michael notices his suit is a little too similar to that of the woman sitting next to him. Or the scene when Roy remembers the camera is on him and quickly qualifies, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” after he mentions that he thought Jim was gay. Or the way Jan snaps, “What did I tell you about ‘yeppers’?” to Michael, unleashing her significant other status in full force.
With that said, this episode had plenty of terrific over-the-top moments as well. How great was Dwight’s talking head immediately post-peppering or Michael’s Wikipedia-proven negotiation tactics? The episode started with the resolution of Roy’s vow to kill Jim Halpert. When Roy furiously stormed into the office and lunged at Jim, Dwight finally found a good use for his pepper spray. Roy was fired, bringing Darryl’s quest for a raise to the foreground. Darryl rationally pointed out that since the merger, Dunder-Mifflin Scranton was shipping out twice as much paper, and with Roy out of the picture, he, as manager of the warehouse, was doing even more work. In Michael’s so-bad-it-was-funny negotiation, it was revealed that Michael’s salary is only slightly higher than Darryl’s.
Pam apologized to Jim for Roy’s behavior, who basically brushed her off. Even worse, when Pam insists that things with her and Roy are really over, Jim says “We’ll see…I’m sure you guys will find your way back to each other someday.” While Pam tries to be honest, Jim ignores her attempts, but I couldn’t decide why. Was it because Pam getting back together with Roy really upset him, and he vowed it was over? Was he being sarcastic when he said, “No, I mean, you guys really seem to have a strong connection”? Or is he just ignoring Pam in order to make his relationship with Karen work?
Elsewhere, Angela got all hot and bothered hearing everyone recount Dwight’s heroism in the face of danger. Dwight shrugs off the ‘hero’ label and refuses to accept Jim’s adorably thoughtful gift (a case for Dwight’s bobblehead!) or offer to buy Dwight a beer. Jim found that trying to thank Dwight for saving him from Roy’s attack was surprisingly harder than pulling a prank on him. Finally, in the last minutes of the episode, we were treated to a brand-new Jim Face when he caught Angela and Dwight in a passionate lip lock. Jim decided that his repayment to Dwight would be keeping mum about his office romance.
Back in New York, Michael’s meeting with Jan (despite typical Michael fumbling) culminates in a 12% raise for himself, meaning a bump up for Darryl as well. All in all, a pretty productive day at “The Office.
