The Office - "Garage Sale" Review

“Michael. You’ve had two ideas today, and one of them was great. And the other one was terrible.” -Pam

This may have just been my favorite The Office episode ever. Did I laugh the most in this episode? No. Did I care about all the side stories? No. But The Office struck me emotionally a bit tonight. I’m not the guy that applauds a comedy when they go rogue and do something emotional to try and show its range, but I applaud when a show is so true to itself that everything just works. Tonight The Office worked. It worked like it hasn’t before. Tonight was the first real push to the Michael Scott farewell episode. In a brilliant proposal scene Michael asks for Holly’s hand in marriage and then tells the office that he’s leaving for Colorado. What a great final 5 minutes.

Tonight’s episode was so great because it got back to what it does best: make us enjoy the great characters. Every character served their purpose tonight. Yes, the point of the episode was Michael Scott’s proposal, but it wasn’t even half the episode. Every person did something small that added to their character. The only time we saw Creed was when he traded Dwight a knife in a quick cut, but yet what a great 1 second. Michael even added to the characterization of Toby and Meredith by just uttering a sentence about them to Holly as he was taking her around a tour of the office. This is the type of symbiotic relationship that always needs to coexist between characterization and plot development. As Michael was getting to the proposal, the plot element, he added to the characterization of other characters. The fact that we know and love all these people makes it so heartbreaking when Michael announces that he’s leaving and no one in the office is excited about it. For as much grief as he’s given the, they still really like their boss and don’t want to see him go.

We now have the escape plan all mapped out. I was happy to see that the events leading up to the decision for Michael to leave are plausible. It would have been easy to send Michael away on some bizarre journey where he invests in a Sbarro’s in India or something, but they chose something way better. I love that he is moving to follow Holly. Michael has a good job and he’s happy, but he’s happiest with her and we see that he’ll leave everything to be with her. Michael has been defined by his job for so long, but now Holly is his life and the evolution of Michael Scott is almost complete. As he was proposing, I started to well up with tears, but when the sprinklers came on, I busted out laughing. Those 15 seconds are The Office in a nutshell. Again, not to keep up with the love fest, but I really loved this episode! And Steve Carell needs an Emmy!

Other thoughts:

Jim is a ploarizing figure on the show and he often gets on people’s nerves, but tonight he was great. He’s at his best when he has a few light hearted moments with Pam, but mostly spends his time trying to prank Dwight out of boredom.

Kevin is a straight up hustler. He ran that Dallas board game.

Was that a Gabe sighting in the final scene? Feels like we haven’t seen too much of him. I would be happy if I never saw him again. With Michael leaving, I feel like the Andy Bernard and Erin love story may move to the front.

Good job by The Office writers on coming up with the garage sale idea. We can get a lot of information about characters by the trinkets they keep and choose to sell.

Why does it not surprise me Holly has a “neon guy?”