“Speaking of pimples, let’s release the bloggers!” said Dwight as Sabre opened their first retail location to a group of half-eager, half-tired customers.
It’s kind of interesting and also incredibly telling that some of the best parts of The Office are those in which one of the characters makes a complete fool out of his or herself or when someone faces injury or pain. In “Test the Store,” both of these quintessentially appealing gimmicks occurred, and it was truly a breath of fresh air.
The story, sectioned off into two separate plots did not exactly flow, but instead had two separate stories that held their own incredibly well. On one side were the employees in Tallahassee, finally opening up the Sabre retail store where they would begin marketing a new tablet (Wireless to come in 2013!) called the Pyramid. Back in Scranton, Andy was beaten up by a fifth grade girl and so has called on Toby to treat the office to a self-defense seminar.
Tallahassee is the site of some awkward hijinks and craziness as everyone literally sets up shop for opening day. The crowd is modest, but not without the aid of Erin who plays the hipster know-it-all, Tabitha, who has been commissioned to pretend she’s super enthusiastic about the new Sabre products so that she can create a buzz around the store. Meanwhile everyone else is taking on their own weird personas, Kathy as the hot salesgirl, Dwight as the ringleader, Jim as the sign twirler and Ryan as the speaker – but, wait, perhaps not?
The single best moment of the show was when Jim went on stage to deliver a monologue about the Pyramid. The tablet itself looks like a big mass of ridiculousness, more inconvenient than practical. But as he read cue cards, Jim had to go on a wild tangent about how the Pyramid is “the strongest shape ever constructed, a shape that fits all other shapes inside of it.” It was a terrific hark back to old Office Jim, the guy who would give the camera weird looks to remind us that yes, it really is ridiculous.
My favorite part of the monologue though, was undoubtedly when Jim began talking about “his” past that had been written on cue cards for him. He read off, “When I was ten my parents took me to Disney World. I cried the whole time.” Another great Jim face. If The Office is not good in any other way, just seeing Jim emote to the camera is enough to entertain at least the female audience of the show.
While the episode focused slightly less on Scranton, there were still quite a few gems of self-defense knowledge introduced by Toby. We can all say we are now well-equipped to protect ourselves in the face of danger with the “Strike, Scream and Run,” the “Playing Dead,” or the “It’s All About the Groin” tactics.
We also learned that Andy, among nicknames like “Nard Dog” can now also be referred to as the fancy man with a squeaky voice. It was little interjections like these (this one from the mother of the ten year old who gave Andy a black eye), that made this episode stand out from others as having just tipped over into the realm of cleverness. We’ve teetered on that edge a lot with The Office and it’s nice to see things fall back into place comfortably.
I would go so far as to attribute this greatness to Mindy Kaling who I have made it a point to idolize and lionize for the past few weeks as being one of my favorite writers not only on The Office, but in general. She really has a knack for writing a good episode, even if she only gives one or two lines to herself, especially with an emphasis on embarrassing her characters.
In one of the best scenes of Office history, Michael recounts how he stepped on his George Foreman grill prior to arriving at the office. This was Mindy’s doing, her brainchild that become one of the gimmicks synonymous with The Office. It’s these kinds of random, funny topics that really make up for when the show isn’t all that clever. And it proves that when we see the misfortune of our favorite characters, perhaps we just enjoy them more as a result.
It does not make much sense really – that we would prefer to see Dwight turn into a Pavlov experiment or Jim and Pam go to Schrute Farms and Pam sees Mose out in the outhouse than to have our characters happy and healthy. But the truth is, sadism is one of comedy’s best friends. Mindy knows this, The Office has functioned off of this for years and it truly is best when it does. So, difficult as it may be to watch at times, I implore The Office writers to keep this theme going – put your characters into terrible situations that are so terrible that they’re funny. It sounds awful, but it works.