Review: Dwight Christmas (s.9.e.9)
I love TV. To me it’s like a movie done right. And if you know me, you know very well my high standards for the shows that I watch. My friends have always told me I should write a blog on my thoughts on the shows that I watch and I finally gave in. This is my first review, and of course I dedicate it to my favorite show: The Office. I have been in love with this show since season one, watching every single episode multiples times to the point where I was able to name the title of each show from seasons one to five. To me, the JAM (Jim & Pam) romance is and always will be the greatest romance in TV (including over Chuck’s and Sarah’s in Chuck which to the fans who viewed that show would agree was the hardest earned love of all time). So my review of this starts with them. For one thing, I knew that Jim would return to the party. And that’s not a bad thing. Jim is predictable, but that’s something we love about him. When he first got the opportunity of his new sports startup job, we as fans were happy. We have seen Jim’s potential being wasted as a salesman at this dying paper company and we have seen him give up countless promotions opportunities all for the sake of love. It feels weird at times seeing Jim who is so awesome mixed in with this crowd of misfits from Creed to Dwight to Meredith. He just doesn’t belong there, and yet… he does. So over the last episodes we see the conflict: Does Jim pursue his dream job at this new sports company, or does Jim stay at his current job where Pam wants to stay. To be honest, I don’t even know why Pam wants to stay in Dunder Mifflin. I feel that her only friend is Dwight in the company, and maybe even Nellie. The only real reason we get is that she feels comfortable and we all know that Pam hates changes (or else she would have dumped Roy after season one). It does seem that Pam gives up a lot for Jim, but when you really look back, the one who kind of gives up the things that matter and are real has always been Jim. So here comes my prediction, and I hope to God for the first time that I am wrong. I think Jim is going to stay at Duner Mifflin. Maybe Darryl will get the job that Jim offered him, but I’m going to stick with Jim’s predictability and say that he is going to give up on this opportunity. The facts are there, we see that so far he hasn’t been able to connect so well with the other co-founders of the sports startup, and we see Pam’s unenthusiasm. Jim has never cared about money or in fact himself, and Pam is his life. That’s why he’s so awesome and that’s why he’s going to stay at Dunder Mifflin. Because it was this company where he met the girl of his dreams, and it’s going to be this company that he sticks to until the end. But I want to see Jim move on. I want to think that after this final season there’s another story to be told with Jim and Pam living a happy life in Philly. I don’t want to think when this show ends that Jim and Pam are going to be living the same routine and monotonous life in Dunder Mifflin, so I hope I am wrong. Here’s another evidence though on why Jim’s going to stay: Dwight. We see Dwight come in for a huge hug when Jim decides to come back. There’s no doubt about it, but Dwight actually really cares about Jim. This was an awesome relationship that grew very subtly since season one when they just hated each other.
Enough on Jim though, let me talk about other parts of the episodes. First is the whole Oscar and Angela thing. I hate it. I never felt that Oscar was a very strong character and I feel like this whole thing with the senator was just thrown in to give the whole Angela and Dwight romance some kind of mystery. Since the senator and Angela aren’t going to work out, are we going to see Angela and Dwight together again? In my opinion, I hope not. In fact I thought that Dwight was going to get with Nellie because they had this strange but working chemistry going on in some previous episodes. Nellie and Toby hooking up, however, kind of threw me off. However, I’m going to stick by my prediction of Nellie and Dwight. Why you ask? Because Angela doesn’t deserve Dwight. Dwight has become an extremely likable character on this show, and even thought his character might be happy in getting Angela back, we wouldn’t. It’s not a fit ending for him, and he does deserve a little better. Also, Toby is a character born to fail. There isn’t much sympathy for him, and at the end, I think we’re going to see him end with no change to how he is now. I think in the next episodes he’s going to try and get with Nellie a little more, but she may say something like, “I was drunk at the Christmas party” to try and get out of the situation.
Another thing I hate: Erin and the new guy Pete. The office needs to stop trying to throw in random romances. JAM (Jim and Pam) was awesome, Michael and Holly was also awesome, Dwight and Angela was a little eh and weird, but everything with Erin sucks. Andy was a good boss replacement I admit that (or at least the best The Office could get), but there was no need to throw that whole Erin romance in there and this Pete cheating thing that’s going on, especially because Pete was just fucking (excuse my French) introduced. Stop forcing relationships. No one cares about who Erin ends up with even though it seems kind of obvious that it’s going to be Pete. I’ll probably talk about this more as the season goes on because it’ll probably be the central focus of some episode down the line when Andy comes back.
Closing thoughts: Love the whole Belsnickel thing, Dwight pulled off a pretty sick Christmas party. Ending was hilarious with Darryl just being a mess, but I really liked the fact that Jim remembered his promise to Darryl because that’s just the kind of guy he is. Creeds one liner was terrible. Meredith, Kevin, Stanley had those unfunny yet funny liners that just make the show what it is. Thanks for reading and below is my final grade.
B- weighted compared to other shows of the week (C compared to the show as a whole)
