The Office: Niagara

When will I learn to just sit back and trust The Office? After pouring over the "heartbreak" seasons (2 and 3) of Jim and Pam for the previous post, I started to worry about how huge the episode really was. I dove for the remote every time a commercial came on for it, not watching to spoil a single image. NBC's relentless promotion of the wedding episode ruined my attempts to stay unspoiled, and they added to my worry. I'm not a huge fan of "Stress Relief," the post-Super Bowl episode that NBC made a big deal about last year. It just seemed like a completely different show, and I worried that there was pressure to change since the spotlight would be so bright.

Here we were at the wedding that had been in the making since Jim's first lovelorn look at Pam, and I worried that the episode earned by the dedicated fans would be sold out to the larger audience that might be peeking in. Again, I just need to learn to trust The Office.

Play...

0:01 - I'm always amazed when I pause after the cold open and see that it's only been a minute. They're able to pack so much in. Anyway, THANK GOD FOR ANDY BERNARD! The "Pam throwing up making everyone else throw up," cold open would've had me hiding behind the couch in fear if not for his face when Pam threw up. I may be a comedy snob, but it reeked of the same over-the-top, broadened out un-Officeness that permeated "Stress Relief," starting with a ridiculous cold open with Dwight's fire-drill. This was probably just as obnoxious, but Andy's my favorite character, so I got through it. Plus, I've been close enough to it to believe in chain-reaction vomiting like that. Also, Creed happily eating his noodles made complete sense, since his reaction to the stench of feces in "The Carpet" was to cheerfully inquire if someone was making soup.

0:02 - It was very Michael that he decorated his own car with cans and window paint. I'm not going to get on him about saying it was a big day for him though. I named him the #1 person we forget to thank for this wedding, so I'm giving him a pretty long leash for stuff like that.

0:05 - "Search engined" is a very odd phrase, even for Dwight. I had never really thought about it before. Of course, it's still more reasonable than "Binged." It's nice to see that's still Dwight's first instinct when he encounters a new name though.

0:09 - One of the many advantages of having such a strong ensemble was on show in the scenes of people driving up and checking in. Another show would probably need a bunch of wacky events to befall everyone, here the interactions were all that was needed. I don't know why, but Dwight's narration on the seduction CD he wanted Michael to use gets creepier every time I listen to it. Also, Michael not reserving a room was perfect. People seem to think he got confused about the "block of rooms" set-up at weddings. I say he just simply didn't know. How often do people have reservations in the movies? How often do they get turned away? What does Michael Scott seem to think life is like? I rest my case. Dwight's "dungeon wisdom test" was so smart character-wise. You know Dwight would be THRILLED to spend the night with Michael, except the weekend has been turned into the plot of a teen-sex romp by Michael's expectations. Michael calls Dwight's loyalty and friendship into question, so Dwight gives Michael a final chance to prove himself. Michael is undone by his own selfishness, and Dwight adheres to his moral code. See? All totally within character. Is that so hard HEROES?

0:14 - Easily lost in Dwight's parable to the children about why he didn't get promoted instead of Jim is the fact that he's seated at the kid's table. Nice to see that with all the craziness of planning a wedding Jim and Pam remembered to play a prank on Dwight.
0:15 - I loved Kevin's pained, "Oscar, I would be proud to date you," after Oscar's intense reaction to Pam's sister assuming Kevin was his date. Shouldn't have expected too much from a charter member of the Finer Things Club.
0:15 - Also, this one was a HUGE surprise to me. I loved Meredith busting Ryan's chops as he used his past as the company's youngest VP to pick up women. It's not that I've disliked Meredith as a character, she just seemed flat most of the time. Bustin' chops though? That I can get behind.
0:15 - Poor Andy finding out that Kevin switched seats with Erin. Kind of nice that Jim and Pam would seat them next to each other though. Couldn't have been an oversight.
0:16 - Bah, I guess Dwight was seated at an adult table. Can we just pretend that he traded seats? I'd nominate Creed, that would make sense.
0:16 - And Jim's douchebag brothers make a return appearance! I love how when Michael gets mad and jealous he becomes extremely professional all of a sudden. Like how he found the brother's material "inappropriate" when he'd have probably said even worse.

0:17 - My favorite part of Michael's freestyle stand-up? The fact that he closed his eyes to focus on remembering it.
0:18 - I am going to jump in here for a second to comment on Jim's speech. I thought it was nice, and summed up the story arc of their relationship pretty well, and that it was probably the type of straightforward schmoltz that a lot of people were worried the episode would be...
0:20 - ...aaaaand welcome to The Office ladies and gentlemen. I cannot even describe how awkward this felt the first time I watched it. I was literally in the fetal position after Jim's awful attempt to cover up his slip of the tongue about Pam being pregnant, which meant there was nowhere left to go when Michael started talking. Absolute, organ crushing horror.
0:20 - But I loved how he still finished the toast, "to waiting." That would've been such a classically sappy moment, and I think it was wise to stomp all over it.

0:25 - "Can you believe it? He screwed up, not me." - Michael. One of my favorite things about Michael is that he doesn't think he can do no wrong, rather he believes that his mistakes are either fixed by his quick thinking or will be fondly remembered as lovable bloopers. Having Jim screw up wasn't a mere twist in the plot, it freed up Michael to find something else to screw up instead. Uh oh, Meemaw isn't coming to the wedding. UH OH Michael just realized that means a free room!

0:27 - Another thing about Michael is that sometimes, completely on accident, he says exactly what needed to be said. Everyone might have made sure to coddle Meemaw, but when she browbeat Pam who didn't want to say, "it's not 1890 anymore?" Of course, the fact that his inappropriateness can be completely appropriate only encourages him, and that's what is so great about the dilemma he creates. This wedding probably wouldn't be happening if he wasn't the way that he was, but it might end up ruined by the exact same forces of his personality.

0:28 - I hope the GLAAD Media Awards were taking note of Kevin and Oscar's storyline in this episode. How many times have we seen a sitcom where a woman repeatedly encounters a straight man at coincidental moments that make him seem gay? Well here's Oscar having his hair patted by Kevin as Pam's sister walks by, when he's desperately trying to make her understand that he would never date someone like Kevin. Yeah, it makes Oscar seem like kind of a jerk, but it's not even a flip-flop of that old "accidentally seen as gay" cliche. It's the "she's not my girlfriend/he's not my boyfriend" cliche based around a gay character. For a gay character to be normal enough to warrant that cliche on a network sitcom? It might not be overt, but that's what makes it seem so progressive to me.

0:34 - I'm probably alone, but this was one of my favorite jokes of the whole episode: [Michael checks his watch] "It's after midnight! You're married!"

0:35 - I'm just now realizing that, with Andy at the hospital/in Pam's room after his dancing injury, the honeymoon suite was open! Poor Michael, he picked the wrong weasely underling to cast his lot with.

0:38 - Ouch. To shack up with Dwight Schrute only to be called a bumpkin behind your back? By DWIGHT! Who owns a beet farm, uses an outhouse, and...well...does everything Dwight does? Another great thing about Michael Scott? Every weekend around women is supposedly like a National Lampoon movie (the horrible direct to DVD ones, which he probably has a full collection of), but every woman is a path to marriage and children. Hence his balking at Dwight considering his girl to be a one-night-stand.

0:43 - Loved Michael's reasoning that he didn't give them a cash gift (as they requested) because, as their boss, he gives them cash every week. Fits right in with his view of Dunder-Mifflin as a family that he sees paychecks as their allowance.

0:44 - My biggest problem with this episode was that Pam's Mom was played by a different actress than when we saw her first in "Sexual Harassment." Don't know if that speaks more to me being overly involved in this show, or how good this episode was. Probably a little bit of both.
0:44 - Is there a more underrated horrible feeling than accidentally tearing a piece of clothing on a splinter or a nail? I really felt for Pam accidentally tearing her veil while rushing to keep her friend away from Dwight. I tore my Seniors t-shirt from high school on a fence at work one day, still annoys me now as I'm typing it.

0:46 - Earlier I said that Jim's speech was very nice, but that's not what I think of when I think of The Office. This is a show of moments, not speeches. I think that was a tone set by the British version (huge spoilers, in case you ever plan on watching the British one), with characters' actions being so much more important than what they say. This was true of the sequence where Jim cuts half his tie off in solidarity with Pam's torn veil, and she responds by silently, but emotionally, taking one of the "mental pictures" a family member had encouraged she and Jim to take.

0:54 - I still can't get over how perfect the YouTube wedding entrance was. Part of me wonders what they would have done if that video had never existed, but the rest of me knows there was no other way it could've happened. These are the things that keep the universe in order.

0:56 - Again, that was 2 minutes and it was better than entire seasons of other shows that I still enjoy! I'm sitting here shaking my head with how perfect that ceremony was. Secrets are such a huge part of what makes Jim and Pam what they are: inside jokes, private moments, unshared feelings, and silence. Still, it would've been so wrong if they had simply eloped and left everyone else behind, because they're not anti-social. That's what made the flipping between their secret ceremony on the boat and the public one "ruined" by their co-workers' antics so perfect (I'm using that word a lot in this post, but perfect is the perfect word for so much of this episode). Like I said in the last post, they owe too much of their relationship to others in The Office to abandon them, but they were never a relationship built on publicity. They were each other's best friend, and that removed the typical exchanges of the "will they, won't they" TV relationship. There was no third-party best friend to confide in for either of them. They sometimes tried with various people, but they never completely opened up. So, there was no one left out in their "real" ceremony on the boat. It was Jim, Pam, and the camera; the only thing they ever confided in. Still, the "fake" ceremony had to happen, and it had to be as wacky as it turned out to be. Jim and Pam shaking their heads and exchanging knowing looks and smiles as the madness flowed, just as they had from their desks for all those years. As always, they were kept sane by their secret relationship; in this case, the fact that they were already married.

0:57 - I'll let Jim sum this one up: "I bought those boat tickets the day I saw that YouTube video. I knew we needed a back-up plan. The boat was actually plan C. The Church was plan B. And plan A was...marrying her a long, long time ago. Pretty much the day I met her."

So, Jim and Pam are married. I have three final favorite bits from this episode that I'm going to count as personal, even though I'm sure they're personal to lots of other people.

First, Jim and Pam get married by a captain on a boat. You might have been able to tell from my "6 people we forget to thank" post that "Booze Cruise" is my favorite Office episode ever. I can't even remember how many times I've watched it. People have certain movies they watch when they're sad, but for me it's that episode. There's always something so crushing and terrifying about the way Captain Jack suggests, after Roy has finally set a date for the wedding, that he should marry Roy and Pam right then and there as captain of the ship. It takes this terrible moment that could happen some day, and moves it to right this minute. Luckily, Pam says no because she wants her father to give her away. It just creates such a wonderful symmetry, that their most triumphant moment would occur the same way their most dire almost did.

Second, Michael's smile at the end of the symmetry. None of the bombastic "look at me" yelling of Phyllis's wedding, no stone-faced jealousy, no tears (in his eyes certainly, but not steaming down his face). Like I've said, without Michael that wedding doesn't happen. I'm sure he agrees, even though he might have the reasons all wrong. Still, sometimes Michael is accidentally correct, and his reaction to the ceremony was just so privately joyful. Not joy for himself, but joy for them.

Finally, the final shot (I know there's the stinger with Kevin icing his feet and Michael going back to Pam's Mom's room, but still) of Jim and Pam on the back of the boat with Pam's head on Jim's shoulder. I would consider (and I doubt I'm alone) "Diversity Day" to be the first true episode of the American version of The Office, since the pilot was basically a British script with a few words changed (and was really terrible as a result). In that episode, Jim misses out on a commission he counts on annually because Michael keeps interrupting the procedural sales call. As he sits in YET ANOTHER conference room disaster, Pam rests her head on his shoulder and falls asleep. The meeting ends, everyone can go home, and when the room is finally clear Jim, with some trepidation, wakes Pam up, and she takes her head off his shoulder. Finally, in a "talking head," Jim remarks to the camera: "uh...not a bad day," and smiles. He milked that moment for all it was worth, because who knows if he'd ever get anything like it ever again. Now, standing on the back of that boat, he smiles into the camera; content in the fact that he got that moment back, and doesn't have to ever worry about losing it.

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