Poor Gabe. It’s weird, but that’s what really comes to mind from “The Search”. He isn’t such a likable character, I realize that, but as my dad used to say when I started watching The Office, there’s always one character who tends to be logical (OK, besides the Lady Gaga costume on Halloween and weird horror movie fixation in Gabe’s case, you have to admit he’s pretty average). Now that Toby’s gone, this run-of-the-mill, ordinary guy is Gabe.
Despite my love for this show, I do find it strange and slightly bothersome that the one normal character is always the one who gets picked on. Toby by Michael and now Gabe by, well, everyone. I mean, he is a little bit of a loser and a prick at times, but he’s trying to keep a branch of totally oddball characters in line. Having a stick shoved up your butt during that experience is part of the task of keeping people in line, or else he might end up like Michael and just not do anything.
Anyway, besides feeling some sort of motherly protectiveness for Gabe, I really felt like this show was a great return to classic Office. I know I’ve said that before about little snippets of various episodes, but this was the first one that was fun in its entirety.
The teaser of Kelly and Ryan’s divorce was really hilarious and gave me a quintessential bug-eyed emoticon-esque face for the first few minutes of the episode. Afterward, the subplot with Pam’s doodle caption contest was pretty funny and a good incorporation of all the main characters left out of the major plot (except Jim again, but I digress).
But I would be failing to do my job if I didn’t just flat out say that what made this episode was Michael walking around town after Jim left him at a gas station.
This was such a good way of introducing a more sympathetic Holly back into the story. “Ultimatum” completely pitted me against her character. The weird voice impersonations and the oddly un-Office-like melodrama just completely ruined her character for me. But what eventually became a subconscious Holly-led Michael scavenger hunt really proved me wrong. The substance that seemed lacking in their relationship does still exist, at least to some extent. The idea of kindred spirits is a little exaggerated, but it’s still a sweet way to respark their romance.
Michael wandering around Scranton felt a lot like “Survivor Man” (The Office, season four, episode seven), one of the more exemplary Michael-centric Office episodes. Steve Carell really becomes Michael Scott, and he is absolutely amazing at it.
It makes me wonder, what will happen after Steve Carell is no longer on The Office?
It’s old news, but the confirmed word around town is that Carell is leaving The Office permanently after this season. And actually, upon further investigation, he’s leaving before the season even ends.
I can’t help but be heartbroken. It’s like Queen without Freddie Mercury. The spark of greatness may continue, but without the genius behind it, it will inevitably fizzle. That’s not to say Queen has necessarily fizzled, but does anyone believe that the Queen that plays music now could have created “Bohemian Rhapsody?” That is Freddie Mercury all the way. And The Office is Steve Carell all the way.
I can only hope that they conduct this loss in a non-Three’s Company method. It should’ve been clear to those producers that Suzanne Somers could not be replaced by a blonde replica with a similar bubbly personality without losing the show’s authenticity. But it wasn’t. And in the same way, a Michael Scott 2.0 would not work for The Office. I can only hope they have better foresight than the Three’s Company casting directors.
I do have to give some props to Three’s Company though. It continued for another three seasons (making a total of eight seasons) without one of its three main characters. But I think that can all be credited to John Ritter who was the glue of the show and could have kept it going even if both lead females had left and it had been renamed One’s Company.
The only way for The Office to continue on and become a show with a new main character that takes over where Michael left off is by introducing someone who doesn’t try to fill his shoes. Michael is an inimitable character and Steve Carell is an inimitable actor.
I can only hope we won’t discover that Steve Carell really was the glue of The Office, because like Ritter in Three’s Company, without the glue there’s no more company at all.