Oh my God, this season has created 3 of the best episodes of anything this fall, and I love it. This might have been the best one yet.

Creed's lightning-quick response of "Right place at the right time" when asked where he got the picture of the breast absolutely killed me.

All these little things that happen between the old and new people are completely awesome.

Your credit score is far too good to post in a place like that.

Great episode but too much Kevin.

*** DANK *** said (in an obnoxious manner):



So tell me since you're so smart and we're all so stupid... what was in that text message that Pam supposed sent Jim and if it was a key point to their story, why has it not been mentioned since? You'd think she would have brought up the fact she sent him a text that never got returned during their first face-to-face meeting.

Oh god, you know this truly is the internet when people are creating their own storylines in their head. So stupid.

As for tonight's show...

*AMAZING*! Tons of new storylines to focus on... way too many to mention. Not even the obvious ones either... stuff like a future Dwight/Angela/Andy love triangle or Creed vs breast-pump lady feud. The possibilites are endless. I'm glad they trimmed the fat(no pun intended) on the first episode. I'm guessing we're supposed to assume Oscar is gone for good as well since his seat was given to Andy?

About the Jim/Pam storyline... I'm thinking he is seeing someone but are we sure it's Karen? We know she likes him so that's why she does nice things like giving him food and rubbing his back but has he done anything to show affection towards her? Maybe he's seeing someone we don't know about yet and the storyline is that Pam will get jealous thinking it's Karen. Jim only said "I'm seeing someone". You would think he would say "I'm seeing Karen" since they all work together and know each other. Anyone with me?

I wanted to see Dwight and Andy team up originally but having them feud is sooooooooooo much better. That argument to close out the show was priceless.

Rob

Robert, to go with the whole thing about who Jim's seeing, I think they'll reveal that somewhere down the line. I know I posted earlier about how I hoped they'd drag this bit out, but if the "seeing someone" is setting up the revelation later on then I'm cool with that. I can imagine somehow Jim and Karen finally kiss and Pam walks in to see it. Bonus points if the two ladies become good friends beforehand.

I loved the part where Karen didn't know who Bob Vance was and Phyllis says with a huge smirk on her face "Honey, you've got a lot to learn about Scranton." I think that's the first time I've ever seen Phyllis be bitchy.

It just doesn't make sense that he would say "I'm seeing someone" b/c if he and Karen were going out... you would think he'd prepare Pam to see them hanging out together a lot. I don't think he said "someone" by accident.

Plus, hasn't Jim shown he has changed? That should lead us to think he wouldn't make the mistake of falling for a co-worker again. Jim seemed happy to have found a friend at the new branch. Karen has admitted she likes Jim but he hasn't shown anything to support that he likes her as anything more than a friend.

Rob

Well, allegedly...

Dwight not only likes movies, but he's seen over 240 of them. The fact that he keeps count makes him better than ever.

Impossible.



And she totally approved later in the ep.......

I don't know if I've ever seen a character on any show who's used as perfectly as Creed. He only gets one, maybe two lines an episode, and they are always unbelievable. He steals the show again and again, and it's a great, great show that he steals.

I was giddy for the inevitable Dwight/Andy conflict, and they laid the groundwork for what should be a nice running feud for a while. Meanwhile the Jim/Pam/Karen triangle is great. On a lesser show they would have screwed up this storyline after the season ending episode last year, but they managed to only kick things up another notch rather than have nowhere to go with it. Great stuff.

Oh, and Stanley's digust/hatred of just about everyone is a lot of fun, along with the Toby/Michael feud that seems to be slowly draining Toby, and a million other things that make this show as awesome as it is.

Lazy Scranton, the Andy-Dwight rivalry, and Michael potentially undoing all of the good he did before by firing the new guy was fantastic. Kevin with the shredder was classic stuff - "they don't give me much responsibilty here, but they do let me shread things...". - AWESOME!

So where is Oscar going to go now that Andy has his desk?

Creed always gets the show-stealing love, but it's always Stanley's one or two moments that I remember.

"Let's get back to work, we don't have to like each other...we just have to work together."

and his eyeroll at Nash...God, I love Stanley. I just hope Roy in no way benefits from sad, new Beasley.

But the biggest moment that this episode set up for me is the possible Michael/Andy improv session.

"Freeze, agent Michael Scarn...I know where the diamonds are."

"The diamonds are...frozen...where is Michael Scarn's...agent?"

I also loved just how easy Angela is. Kitten wallpaper and a little compliment...and it's all you can eat cookie.

but it certainly does seem crowded in there. I fear that future episodes may be weighted down with obligatory single moments for each character as they try to fit everything in...like with Ryan and Kelly, Meredith, etc. in this episode (did Angela een have a line other than "Yes, it is.") ..They'll each do their standard cameo and disappear...

Honestly, I felt this episode was just moving too fast for any of these great moments to become great scenes.

oooh...I forgot how surprised Michael looked, and even Toby seemed, when Michael actually made a decent pun..."This is an orienation not a Boreientation..." I swear, Toby was like disgusted/impressed all at once.

Is Oscar even coming back? I mean, it's not like he'd be any great loss or anything. He's been consistently the dullest character on the show.



Would Jim have even had time to meet anyone in Scranton? I'm not sure how we were supposed to see the timeline for this ep but has he even back in town for a week? I actually think it's more likely he's not seeing anyone, that he just said that to Pam to try and defuse tension. And if it is Karen, I think Jim would actually keep that quiet with Pam. Too awkward.

You have a point that it could be nobody as well. When he told Pam he was seeing someone, she reacted like "I know" and when Jim turned around he was all confused.

Rob

One of my first thoughts was that he was making it up. I think if he and Karen were really seeing each other, they wouldn't be so touchy-feely in front of everyone. However, I think Pam will automatically assume that it is Karen, which means that she probably will run back to Roy.

The fact that his name in real life really is Creed makes him even more awesome for some reason. He just looks like a "Creed".

As for the "seeing someone" thing, I think maybe it was that very call with Karen at the end that made Jim make up his mind that he was just at that moment going to "decide" that "getting a drink with me after work" is now officially more than just friendly.

Maybe it was harder for Krasinski to sell that than the writer's thought it would be...but somehow I got the impression that "I'm seeing someone" was supposed to mean to us the privileged who got to listen in on the call, that we had just witnessed the moment when he decided to date Karen, or rather, to pick the low-lying fruit as a sort of aggressively defensive move in the face of a really awkward day with Pam, a move that he'll probably regret by the time he gets back in his car.

There's no reason for him to specify to Pam that he's "been seeing someone...for about thiry seconds now" Once it's done, it's done and "seeing someone" means the same thing whether they've been involved for days or weeks, or if his intention is for it to happen later that night...

But I do think that we were supposed to know the difference, and also that we were, for once, supposed to accept that all the information we need was presented in the episode, and isn't hinting at bits of off-screen narrative that we're supposed to imagine like, "have they been seeing eachother in the week or so between these episodes?"

yeah, either that or Jim was bullshitting a little because he's sort of scared shitless of what it would mean to pursue a relationship with pam at this point.

Apparently Creed the actor is a hell of a lot like Creed the character (Creed Bratton was in fact the guitar player for the Grassroots, as was mentioned about Creed the character in the deleted scenes for Booze Cruise).

There was the classic moment in Conflict Resolution where she says to Angela in a very quiet voice "I don't like you."

That's how I'm looking at it too.



The big guy's freshly vacated desk?

As for Pam/Jim/Karen I fully expect that it's far from over. If anything, I bet Jim and Karen will try to make it happen but his old torch for Pam will fuck it up for him somehow, thus leading to even MORE cringe-ness in the office. I can't wait.

I do feel bad for Pam, really bad. But I also kind of want to see it work between Jim and Karen, because she's been presented as being so likeable...I like the tease at the beginning that Karen and Pam might get along a little bit too, which will only add to more uncomfortableness. Hilarious uncomfortableness.

1) Pam DID send the text message to Jim. That was pretty clear in the episode.
2) It wasn't a SUPERMEGAHUGE key to their storyline, but it was key in the sense that it showed to further widening in their relationship.
3) Why do you say it was never returned? Jim could have seen it the next day, and replied w/ an explanation.

You know, this just dawned on me, but we haven't seen Todd Packer yet this season. There's still many episodes to go, but I figured we'd see him by now.

Oscar's on 3(?) month paid vacation. He's in Europe with Gil. Remember kids, sometimes it pays to be gay.

The level that some people around here overanalyze this show is AMAZING.

Jesus christ people. The show is smart, but it's not THAT smart.

You know what amused me in this episode that nobody else pointed out? In Conflict Resolution, one of the things that got Jim to take the Stamford job (other than the Pam situation, of course) was that all he did with his days was fuck around with Dwight. So he comes back to Scranton, meets Dwight, and what's the very first thing he does? Fuck with him. I enjoyed that for some reason.

I echo the "best episode yet" sentiments. So many laugh out loud moments that I can't even begin to count them. This has to be the only show on TV that seemingly improves with every episode.

Okay, at least a few other people aren't making up their own storylines like "WHO DID PAM SEND THE TEXT MESSAGE TO!!!!" It doesn't matter if it was returned or not. All it did was show Pam's disappointment when she didn't get what she expected out of Jim. The same way this week's episode showed....Pam's disappointment when she didn't get what she expected out of Jim.

He returns in January, which means he misses the next episode (The Convict) and the Christmas Special.

Jim, on the other hand, realized that all that was getting him through the day was a mediocre job, Pam and fucking with Dwight. Now he returns with [i] a better job than he had (and a better one that Dwight's), [ii] Karen and [iii] more opportunites to fuck with Dwight (and a fresh ally in Andy).

He's trading up.

Not sure if I'd call Andy an ally to Jim. He seems like he'd be pretty content to fuck anybody over if it meant climbing the corporate ladder.

Just to weigh in on the whole Jim situation... because everyone has a theory on it.

Taking it at face value from what we've seen, I don't think Jim putting the distance between him and Pam has anything to do with how he feels about Karen. From everything we've seen, Jim's nowhere near as into Karen as he is/was Pam. It's a lot easier to go for a drink with a girl you're friends with, than go for a coffee with a girl that broke your heart.

I think the Pam stuff is more about his pride than anything else.

"Why are you quitting? Is it something Toby did?" *cue look on Toby's face that says "Please kill me"*

Amen! I wish Packer would become a regular.

Todd Packer becoming a regular would be terrible.

Christmas party coming up.

You all overlooked the best line Michael has dropped in some time. "Was your father a GI?" I'm still hurting today from the laughter. Best episode of the season without a doubt.

This is exactly how I feel about the whole deal. If it happened to me, I sure wouldn't run back to Pam and be all over her because I thought it would be so much easier now. But, it would intrigue me to know if I was the cause behind the wedding being cancelled.
Also, you don't high-five a girl you like.
Also, when Lazy Scranton was going on I almost couldn't believe it. Like it was too good to be true. The anthricite museum, where every person from the Scranton area has been, to the part when Dwight and Michael shuffle their feet towards the camera, I couldn't believe what I was watching.

Just a note, my x-girlfriend and I used to high five all the time. Yes, we were that lame.

Yeah, to further add to that, my ex-fiance and I used to high five quite a bit, it's just something I've always done, and she inevitably ended up doing it with me a lot of the time.

If I'm Jim, I'm going for Pam no matter what. Although, I actually find myself in the same position as Jim at this point, so I'm pretty enthralled with the show right now. Right now, there's the girl that's been in my life that I know is the safe bet, but I'm unsure of and then there's the new girl who may be everything the safe girl is and a bit more, still not exactly completely sure of as well. It's a lose-lose, win-win situation and outside of one of them turning into a psycho, there's no easy way out. I still would pick Pam though. You worked so hard and you take your shot, but things don't pan out the way you want. It hurts and things get awkward, but you shouldn't give up that easily. Things like that cause you to question yourself 6 years down the line while you're in a long term relationship.

Two people responding with how they high-fived their EX's says alot about doing it.

With the whole "high five" thing though, isn't that more of a long-term relationship type of quirk? I could probably think of things that are even more "non-relationship..y" than high fiving that me and ex-girlfriends have had as quirks.

From a show perspective, if you wanna avoid the Pam/Karen comparisons from a Jim perspective for the sake of arguement, his actions around Hat Girl would still beat out his stuff with Karen in terms of interest in her.

Isn't over analysing tv shows fun?

That wasn't even the best moment of the Michael/Karen introduction, in my opinion. The dumbfounded "da..." after Karen went "Wait...are you supposed to be a robot or a Martian?" makes me laugh every time I watch it.

And we've had one person so far that has said that high fiving equals not liking a girl, so the numbers argument really holds no weight. Lots of relationships have quirky and dorky facets to them, high fiving is just that, I don't see why high fiving a girl automatically means you have no interest in her.

No, high-fiving is "cusp of a relationship" flirtation...where you're both pretending you're still just friends, but both really know you're not...and you're getting "touchier." It solidifies you as a separate entity from your other friends. It's like what you do in the week or so before you start... [kevin smirk\] having sex [\Kevin smirk].

I dunno, I'm pretty sure that if it's a relationship high five, you have to of had your end away with her first.

Otherwise, you're the weird guy who likes to high five. It's not cute or funny, until you've dipped your wick s few times.

Also, something that should shoot this whole high fiving argument down is that at various points in season one and two Jim high fived Pam, and I think it's damn obvious that he's liked her since the show started.

Damn what an awesome awesome epsiode.
I loved everything Stanley did in this episode and it was all just so little moments, like the way he looked at the other black guy or when he sucked out that yogurt (or whatever that was).

Probably the best line that hasn't been mentioned yet was Michael's "We'll squeeze you in" to the fat guy, when he quit. That had me rolling on the floor.

Kelly "Ohh, smoked salmon!"

Michael "No, not for you...consider that sacred cow. Off limits."

Kelly "I eat beef."

Michael "Then consider it poison beef."

Kevin "The beef is poisoned?"

God I LOVE everything about this show.