The Dundies

Candidate Interview: "The Dundies"

Objective
To complete a Tubey's Kids Charity Recap for Episode One, Season Two of NBC's The Office, written by total bad-ass Mindy Kaling.

Education/Experience
Serial, obsessive viewing of the show's two seasons -- aided recently by generous above-and-beyond gift from the LittleKidLovers of the first season on DVD. (Thanks! Hope you like it!) Long-term interest in Steve Carell's ongoing project of describing and depicting the failures and fractures of the modern American male. Most of the second season is still on my TiFaux. I have seen the episode "The Office Olympics" approximately 1,290 times. The last five seconds make me cry every time. Also the credits of every episode tend to make me cry, which means merely watching an episode after the credits are complete represents a Herculean labor for which I think I am due some amount of credit. My friends have a game they call "How Long Until Jacob Cries Like A Bitch." It was not invented specifically for The Office -- that dubious distinction goes to Buffy, The Vampire Slayer -- but only came back into vogue with the debut of the American Office. I am so not the guy for this. Please don't throw garbage at me.

Skills
None to speak of, in terms of those which specifically apply to this objective. It's really long, but that's mostly because of formatting, quotes and stuff like that. There's a reason we don't recap sitcoms.

Practice Questions

Q: Is Jim/Pam the love that will last for all time and toward which all other television romances reach like flowers for the sun?
A: No. Jim and Pam are attractive and compelling characters played by gifted and physically beautiful actors; however, their purpose, and the purpose of their relationship, relates mainly to the fact that if you really thought about Michael Scott for too long you would probably kill yourself.

Q: What is the difference between yourself and Dwight K. Schrute?
A: None to speak of, in terms of how I'm feeling at this moment.

Q: Is Michael Scott a good boss? A good man? A good boyfriend? A good person?
A: Yes. No. No. Yes.

Q: How's this going to go?
A: I have no fucking clue.

Sample Interview

We're sitting in Michael Scott's office, which I think has changed color since last season, and he's talking about these "Dundies." Every word out of his mouth is a request for validation: that he's a good boss; that he's a good man. That he's a man. The Dundies, he explains, is the annual employee awards night "here at Dunder-Mifflin." He holds up for our inspection a businessman trophy, the kind you might see in the credits of this very show, right before the bathroom-man logo. It's "everybody's favorite day," he says, for reasons including that a lot of the people in the office don't get trophies very often. He names names: the redheaded drunk, Meredith; the fat guy in Accounting who's only a hair more adorable than he is creepy. Kevin: "I mean, who's gonna give Kevin an award? Dunkin' Donuts?" There's a second where he revisits this statement, wondering if it's okay. Wondering if some chubby cameraman is going to take offense. Michael heads into crazy territory, off on a thing, on a slope heading toward zero, about how there are bonuses to the trophies: the ceremony is, quote, "really, really funny," not to mention the fact that jealousy might lead the untrophied acquaintances and neighbors of those awarded with a Dundie to suicide "due to lack of recognition." It's not the things he means, it's the things he doesn't.

Outside, Jim and Pam, salesman and receptionist, are dreading the Dundies. Pam interviews a comparison to "a car wreck that you want to look away, but you have to stare at it...because your boss is making you." I'd rather be there with them than anywhere else. Well, maybe Kelly would be more fun, because I don't care about her feelings like at all. So of course Michael enters, booming out a Fat Albert voice -- Jim's last name is "Halpert" -- before realizing that nobody is laughing (Jim looks to us for empathy); Michael smoothes it out like it never happened. He takes us on a tour of the office, all the different people that have won awards in years of the Dundies. It is immediately apparent that every year, everybody wins. This fact, alone, lends itself to comparison to the Special Olympics.

"Jim, why don't you show off your Dundies to the camera?" Again sneaking a look at us, Jim tells a quick lie -- that he keeps his Dundies hidden to avoid getting "cocky" -- and Dwight, the Assistant to the Regional Manager, blurts that he keeps his in a display case over his bed. Which is creepy, but not the kind of creepy that Michael is allowed to note. So, of course, he does, making a protolinguistic sound of horror before pronouncing this to be "T.M.I." Which he then explains to us, in aggressively unnecessary detail, as though we are children. "I used to say ‘don't go there,' but that's lame." I would like for Michael to write down the rules of everything. Just so we'd know, once and for all.

Michael approaches the black employee in the Scranton office, Stanley, which is always a dicey proposition. "Here we have Stanley the Manly...why don't you show them some of your bling?" You can be excused for looking away. The most valuable property of Stanley, the irreplaceable thing that he contributes to office culture, beyond a violent kind of honesty, is his total lack of respect for Michael. And the fact that the rules of policy and cultural guilt exchange mean he's the only one who can speak. "I don't know where they are. I think I threw them out." Michael offers a half-hearted "no you di'int," which Stanley takes in stride. "Think I did," Stanley responds. Michael deflates. Utterly. (I always imagine Stanley singing the Wheat Thins song in his head: "Something like a cracker, but frankly? More like a snack.") Stanley distracts him with questions about the "apa-teezers*" for this year, since they ran out last year. I am so glad we weren't there last year. It's painful. Michael rebounds the shot and passes to Kevin, blaming him for devouring an entire "skillet of cheese*"; Kevin responds by looking guilty and only a little creepy, and putting down his soda pop can on the table. Stanley's honesty bestows one kind of power; Michael's appeal to the anti-fattie contingent is another. Neither of them are particularly fair. Neither of them are particularly unfair.

(*I have no idea what they are talking about; perhaps this is part of "Chili's culture"? I have certainly felt God in a Chili's before, and we will again this very night, but I know not these "apa-teezers" and "skillets of cheese." Perhaps this is best. I like those Margaritas where the top of the shaker always falls off in your lap, I know that those shakers cost like $2.99 if you want to take them home to remember your Chili's-slash-religious experience, and that's all I know about Chili's.)

In the conference room, Pam watches last year's Dundies on video: Pam is sitting onscreen with her fiancé, Roy, to one side, and Jim on the other side, talking to somebody. Dwight is holding a plastic recorder flute at the back of Michael's makeshift stage, as Michael announces Oscar's "Show Me the Money" Dundie. God knows. Pam explains to us that Michael, inevitably, has taped every Dundies Awards ceremony -- and that he's forcing her to look through the hours of footage to find "highlights." The vocal airquotes around "highlights" are aggressive, pointed. Things go from bad to worse as Michael begins to sing Lou Bega's "Mambo #5," to Dwight's recorder accompaniment. The words go like this: "A little bit of Pa-am, all night long / A little bit of Ann-gela on the thing / A little bit of Phyl-lis everywhere / A little bit of Ro-oy eating chicken crispers / A little bit of Jim with some ribs..." This is the part, Pam explains, where Kevin sat in front of the camcorder all night. "It's great," she grins.

Things that are sadder than this:

Fergie peeing herself
Bachelorette parties at TGI Friday's
Fights about role-playing games
Gary Busey, still
Coke-can bongs
Bonne Bell makeovers
Furries
Chili's chicken crispers themselves

Pam looks out of the conference room to Jim, mouthing silent OMG and strangling herself. Still funny; Pam watching last year's Dundies is still funny.

Later, my girl Kelly is accusing Pam of something in the breakroom as Phyllis laughs; Pam swears it wasn't her. Already, there's a bit of attitude to Pam. Watch the first season, buy a purse at the end, and then jump to this -- it's fucking intense. Pam's mad. She spends the entire second season furious. I don't exactly think of Roy, or Jim, or even Pam's own artistic deferment; I think of all of these. I think of rage. This is where it starts.

Dwight walks up as these three ladies are laughing, watch: "So what's the joke? You're not perfect either." Pam sweetly (very) assures him they're not laughing at him, and Dwight tries the salchow he perfected long ago and yet never executes: "So who are we laughing at?" It's just something somebody wrote. "Who? Dave Barry?" Kelly laughs like she knows who that is, and says it's written on the wall in the Ladies'. Pam protests that it's "kind of private," and Phyllis -- who rates near the top of the Michael Scott Scale of Not Keeping It Schtum -- admits it's about Michael. Dumb, Phyllis. Dwight, predictably, wigs: "That is defacement of company property! So you better tell me! Kelly, if you tell me you'll be punished less." Okay, you think, and Pam says it for you: "Now, I'm laughing at you." She starts laughing; it's not a joyful laugh. Not what you'd call a Jim Laugh.

And what's more awkward than Pam taking it out on the two most vulnerable people in the office? Why, Michael calling Jan Levinson-Gould on speakerphone. (In the interests of full disclosure, your present recapper has still not quite given up the dream of one day joining Jan Levinson-Gould in holy matrimony.) "Will her highness, Jan Levinson-Gould, be descending from her corporate throne this evening to visit us lowly serfs here at Dunder-Mifflin, Scranton?" Jan wearily -- just impute "wearily" for this recap as her automatic adverb -- reminds him, for the fifty-fifth time this week, that it's a two-and-a-half hour drive down from New York. Which is a two-and-a-half hour drive she'd never take, right? Ever.

Michael suggests Jan take the bus -- a classy proposition akin to throwing, say, a morale-boosting social event at a Chili's, or having a black-tie event catered by Hooters -- but then applies his management expertise to show the rate-production benefit: she can work on the way down, and sleep on the way back. "No." He stumbles and whines and lays it on the line: "...This is validation to my employees here that you and corporate approve of this..." Jan (wearily) points out, as though for the first time, that corporate doesn't. She stutters with the attempt to avoid condescension, even as she battles the crippling cognitive dissonance that Michael's conversational style entails: "You...only had the budget for one office party a year, so...we're not paying for this."

And then the shame, the Michael Scott brand of shame that hurts to look at every time, as he motions for us to leave, begs us not to witness this ADD-adjacent attempt to cross two bridges at once. (Right at this second we're no different from, and no less guilt-inducing, than Toby himself. We might as well be Toby: For someone like Michael, to witness is to accuse.) Equivocating, he even closes the blinds on us, and continues to beg. Pam joins us, in listening, from reception.

"Come on, Jan!" Michael shouts quietly, as we quickly move to the side of Michael's office, where the blinds are still slightly open. "You're dropping an A-Bomb on me here." Wearily: "Really? I'm dropping an atomic bomb on you?" I could kiss her. She lists the pointless parties he's thrown this year: A party on May fifth ("No reason?! It was the 05-05-05 party! It happens once every billion years!"), a luau, the tsunami relief fundraiser "which somehow lost a lot of money..." Michael corrects her -- it was a "FUN Raiser," which was made clear in the fliers -- but there's no stopping her freakish command of simple logic and common sense. "...Okay, well, I don't understand why anyone would have a tsunami FUN Raiser, Michael, I mean, that doesn't even make sense..." He protests that "a lot of people were very affected by the footage," but he's already beaten. It's over.

As Stanley plays with a toy car, Dwight arrives, fresh from the Ladies', full of vinegar. "Excuse me everyone, could I have your attention please? I just wanted to say that the women in this office are terrible. Especially the ones who wrote that stuff about Michael on the bathroom wall. Having a bathroom is a privilege!" Pam emerges from the conference room -- and I'd note that she has no reason to do so, except to push this further. "It is called a Ladies' Room for a reason," Dwight continues. "And if you cannot behave like ladies, well ... then you are not going to have a bathroom." Pam scoffs. "You're taking away our bathroom?" He announces that there will now be two Men's rooms.

Phyllis asks the inevitable, and Dwight (as Michael appears from his office, sick with corporate's withdrawal of interest, still trying to play both sides, as always) tells them they'll have to hold it all day. Pam informs Michael of Dwight's new decree, and that disgust and anger that only comes up when Dwight's involved crosses Michael's face. Dwight is the part of Michael that trips him up; the part he's not allowed to see and go on surviving. Dwight is the part of Michael that he's convinced himself doesn't exist, and that makes Dwight an accusation, and the more embarrassing and awkward Dwight behaves, the more painful it is for Michael to look at him.

(Michael Scott, a long time ago, but not really that long ago: "I want to be married, and have a hundred kids, so I can have a hundred friends, and no one can say no to being my friend.")

Michael stumbles out some variation on how Dwight needs to shut up. "Just...don't. I don't have time for this right now." Dwight whines, about repercussions and the like, talking over him, until Michael loses all control and screams another nonverbal, something like "STAPP IT YAPP IT!" It's intense. It's easy to enjoy Michael's Hooters crush on Jim, or his total gay love crush on Ryan; it's a lot uglier to see the way he puts his social anxieties off on Dwight; his laziness on Kevin; his desperation on Meredith. (Or most especially, in these two episodes: his ambivalence about being middle management -- stuck between employees and higher-ups -- that gets expressed in his pretty scary, constant hatred of Toby.) Same energy, different direction. Same man.

Michael scratches his forehead, addresses the camera as he does in these moments. "Okay look, I know there have been a lot of rumors flying around about the Dundies this year. [There have not been.] How there is no money [Nobody knew that.], and how there is no food [Ditto.], and how the jokes are really bad [...], but what the hell, everybody? I mean...God!"

Dilbert is simultaneously hilarious and boring as shit because we all know it, every single bit of it; it's no more than Ziggy in a cube farm. You've seen every single person in the office have to carry and bear witness to this kind of personal shit. What makes this show art is the beauty and sincerity of what comes after: "The Dundies are about the best, in every one of us." Same energy, different direction. Same man: "Can't you see that? I mean, okay: we can do better." And then Michael's inability to risk dislike: "So tonight, for the first time, we are inviting all of your friends and family to attend the awards with us." The only thing that will make up for the failure that only he knows about -- that he's been steadily ignoring, party after party. Dwight -- who has neither friends nor family -- gives a fist pump; Stanley grins. Michael beams, soaking up this temporary and completely false approval; but if you know Michael, you can see the fear. And if you love him, you share it.

Dundies Night. Dwight welcomes us with Reveille and is brutally ignored, as usual, by everyone. He continues, as usual, undeterred. "Keep your acceptance speeches short, I have wrap-it-up music, and I'm not afraid to use it, Devon." He points accusingly at a random, and then cues up "O.P.P." Oh, hell. Michael enters in a hooded sweatshirt. Check out the hooks while his DJ revolves it: "Dave, drop a load on 'em / The Dundies, how can I explain it? Awards you like to hate it / I'm psyched you all made it / You never had to work so hard and feel that no one notices you / You're just a name and number and no one even says hello..." This last as Ryan the Temp, obviously, is breathless and flipping through cue card after cue card; needless to say Michael's not what you'd call "rapping" in "time" to the music. It's eerily like what would happen if Bob Dylan worked at Taco Bell post-lobotomy, music video by Crispin Glover.

Oscar: "The Dundies are kind of like a kid's birthday party, and you go, and there's really nothing for you to do there. But the kid's having a really good time, so you're kind of...there. That's...that's kind of what it's like."

"You down with The Dundies? / You down with The Dundies?" The music stops, lamely, and Dwight answers Michael's accusing look even more lamely, if that's possible: "The waitress...tripped on the cord." Michael keeps it going; Michael always keeps it going; he removes his sweater to reveal a tux. "I am your host, Michael Scott. And I just want to tell you, please -- please -- do not drink and drive. Because you may hit a bump and spill the drink!" Angela rolls her eyes (please see above re: Jan and "wearily"), Kevin gets his drink from the waitress. He asks her to put it on the party's tab, and Michael overhears, and everything goes to shit.

"Nope, actually this year, ah, no group tab. We're going to be doing separate checks," stammers Michael. Everybody's horrified, but none so much as Roy. And Stanley, who practically hisses, "You said we could bring our families!" Michael asks why he didn't, then. The camera pans back to reveal Stanley sitting with an age-appropriate, and very sweet, cute white lady, and your whole stomach kind of reverses the timespace continuum on itself, because in the space between "oh no you di'nt" and "oh Christ he did" there's a whole galaxy of horrible. And for this galaxy Michael Scott will be your tourguide. "I did," says Stanley, in an even (and ever-so-slightly "I dare a motherfucker" tone), "...My wife's name is Terri." Michael, around the crepe sole of his Cole Haan-clad foot, expresses his excitement about meeting Terri, should she appear. Which provokes the inevitable -- and admit it, bitch, you wanted it as bad or worse than Stanley did -- "It's this person whose hand I'm holding, Michael." Silence, barfy white guilt...and Dwight hitting the Yello/Ferris Bueller "Oohhhh, Yeahhhh" button in the silence.

Chik! Chikachickaaa! Great Scott!

Michael hisses at Dwight to "Shut it," which doesn't exactly make sense but okay, we get it, and anything to keep this shit moving now, and moves into his joke, Dwight as his straight man. "Speaking of relationships, of all ways, shapes and forms..." he says, and I would love to have cut from Stanley to Oscar here, "Um, I was out on a very, very hot date with a girl from HR, Dwight." Dwight protests that there are no girls in HR, and Michael shows his seams a bit -- "No, that...for the sake of the story," he spits, irritatedly -- "...And things were getting hot and heavy...and I was about to take her bra off..." (Dwight, adorably: "Yeah!" As though Angela's undergarments aren't probably weirder than those of the entire cast of Big Love put together) "...When she made me fill out six hours of paperwork." And Dwight -- again, adorably, in one of the best lines of the episode, if not the season: "...Like an AIDS test?" (And no less beautiful is Michael's quiet, mind-blown response: "No. ...God.") Meredith shakes her head, the dear.

Michael smoothes on, clearing his throat: "Alright! So let's get this party staaaarrrrted!" Pam sits between fiancé Roy and warehouse coworker Darryl, as they agree to fuck off and hit Poor Richard's (Is there a single other bar in Scranton? It wouldn't surprise me, it just seems hyper-egalitarian that they all always go there. But of course, I live in Austin, where Jets/Sharks battles occur nightly between identical bars across the street from each other based entirely on two- vs. three-button and flat-front vs. motherfucking pleated and how many Polos at once; such are the issues at play in our vibrantly diverse little town.) Pam is (angry, remember) not so willing to cut and run, and Michael jumps on this. Don't think it's by accident: "Um, guys? Where are you going? Pam! Show's just getting started!" She grabs her jacket and apologizes; the camera pans, inevitably, to Jim. Who's watching Pam. And pretending he's there with Ryan: "...Gotta eat somewhere, right?" Can't leave, doesn't wanna stay. I love you, Jim Halpert, but Jeeeeeeesus. It's hard to believe in the Love That Forever when you both act like such fucking pansies all the time. I've got a hard-ass rep to protect. (Shut up, you in the back.)

Michael presents the first Dundie to "someone who quietly goes about their job, but always seems to land the biggest accounts...the ‘Busiest Beaver' award goes to...Phyllis Lapin!" Phyllis gives Jim a totally cute high five on the way down to the dancefloor and Michael congratulates her warmly ("Nice work, per usual!") before she notices a typo on the trophy: "This says Bushiest Beaver." Why this still makes me laugh I do not know; perhaps it's the look Jim gives the camera. Michael spits a couple of nails and Phyllis sweetly tries to pass it off, but Michael wants us to see the best in ourselves, and "Bushiest Beaver" isn't cutting it: "We'll fix it up. You don't have to display that." Heh.

Parking lot, mid-distance, angry Pam and oblivious Roy, mid-fight. Roy can't understand what the problem is, somehow both with the whole "Longest Engagement" thing and but also with them leaving right now for Poor Richard's. She finally flounces out of Roy's grasp and tells him to leave, with some vaguely trashy sentiment along the lines of "...If you'd asked me that, then you would know!" It's one of those engaged-couple fights where it's about two things on the surface and six things underneath, and like, again: I cannot respect Pam, in this situation, any more than I can respect Jim in his. What the fuck are you so afraid of, as the saying goes, that Roy is the better choice? It's quite romantic and very endearing, but they both kind of...deserve what they get. Which situation admittedly gives me the vapors, but at the same time it's like: Roy? Really? Is your intention to hate yourself with such intensity that I cannot help but go along with it? And more importantly, why are you with Roy at this second, when Jim is inside? Come down from your fences, Desperada. We've all got an expiration date.

Or maybe, and this is interesting, maybe the situation -- between the three of them, which Pam has constructed for herself -- only works out in Pam's favor if all three of them are present. If Michael makes the engagement joke and Jim's gone, who's she going to get the sympathetic glance from? And if Michael makes the joke and Pam's gone, she won't get to see the pain on Jim's face. But if Michael makes the joke and Roy's gone, well, she can't look at Jim, because that's weird, so she's all alone -- and that can't happen. So no matter how much she hates the joke, she can't let Roy leave, even though he loves the joke. So basically, she has to keep both herself and Roy at the Dundies for full Jim/Pam angst to ensue. Which is exactly what she wants.

Q: So if you've got all three of those corners covered, how do you get out alive, without anybody getting hurt?
A: Michael Scott.

Alone, Jim watches Michael's horrendously racist and upsetting "Ping" impression, about which...the internet is strangely silent. To the internet's credit, to be sure. I'm going to the Breakfast At Tiffany's place, which is my wont, but that's Mr. Yunioshi, and the only thing you get by Googling "horrible racist Ping character" is Seinfeld, and I don't remember the character in question, so that's all I got. False teeth, squinty thick glasses, the whole bit. If you recognize it, your grandparents are probably horrible people. And I'm sorry about that.

Pam comes back in and sits to the pleasantly surprised Jim, offering only that she "decided" to stay, and will just get a ride from Angela. While Jim glances over at Angela, Pam snakes his beer. (Chili's didn't wanna be seen overserving, so they wrote this in, which is just adorable, because...what's the point of Chili's, again? Whatever, she's going to be stealing drinks for the remainder of The Dundies, which is also fairly adorable.) Jim catches her (and in this second, Michael's offscreen randomly suggesting to himself, still in stomach-turning racist mode, that he should call Jan), and shrugs sweetly. "Oh good," Pam smiles. "I'm just in time for Ping." Michael goes to the "me so horny" area and we zoom to an Asian customer in a booth behind the makeshift stage, staring in frank and horrified disbelief. Jim's somewhat taken aback as Pam orders another beer; but then so do I, so do you, so does the lady. Beers everywhere, just in time for Ping.

"You Sexy Thing" starts playing; an elaborate prank is played upon John K. in which a note ("Perhaps you'd join me for a night of romance? / A dinner, a movie...maybe a dance?") is passed to him, supposedly from one of the real-life waitstaff. (At presstime, more than eleven hundred parties were claiming responsibility for this dastardly act.) But this is not about John Krasinski, this is about Ryan the Temp, or per Michael, "Somebody who really lights up the office." As Pam continues to slug her beers, Michael continues digging that hole: "Somebody who I think a lot of us cannot keep from checking out. The ‘Hottest in the Office' award goes to...Ryan the Temp!" Pam basically snorts in shock and the camera zooms in on Ryan, who seems to be hoping that his alarm clock will sound, or Freddy Krueger will show up, or something along those lines. Falkor; the trucks from Maximum Overdrive. He finally comes down onto the dance floor; everyone watches through their fingers. Michael sings along with the music: "Where you from? / You sexy thang / You sexy thang, you." As Pam laughs (still not a joyful laugh, not a Jim Laugh), Michael sings and teases Ryan with the trophy, pulling it just out of Ryan's reach. Finally, the kid snatches it and beats a hasty retreat -- but not before Michael fully slaps him on the ass. (He also goes "Wooo!")

Special Skills
I've had both happen; waaaaaay less creepy when the dude is actually gay. Don't know how that works out, but it's the serious truth.

Ryan: "What am I going to do with the award? Nothing. I -- I don't know what I'm going to do. That's the least of my...concerns right now."

Oscar yawns (See? He knows what I'm talking about) as Michael presents the "Tight Ass" award to (the violently horrified) Angela. "Not only because she's everybody's favorite stickler, but because she has a great caboose!" And if nobody claps, is it because they're too tired, too creeped out, or two bored to follow the train of thought? Or all three and many more? It's a clever award, considering Angela's (a) totally cute and (b) admittedly a "stickler," to say the least. I don't know. There's something very "Toby Do Your Job" about all of these awards. If Pam had any ambition, she'd put together a "highlights" tape for Toby of this shit. Tight Ass Angela stares across the restaurant at Michael, arms folded, and doesn't move. "So...come on...down!", he says, hesitantly. And she responds with a firm, awesome "No."

Jim watches Pam giggling, buried in a pile of empty glasses, upon which she's sipping still. "I think those might be empty?" he suggests. Not that she's ever heard him say this before, like in every single episode ever. Not that she knows what "empty" really means. Not that she'd believe him if she heard him say it. She laughs and tries to explain: "No, no! Because the ice melts, and then it's like ... second drink!" (Cute or depressing? I don't know. It's a great line, wonderfully delivered; but in context? Depends on if you're the second drink; depends on if you're just mostly melted ice by now.) Jim's amused: "Second drink?" She laughs adorably, and he joins her. Second drink it is, but swaying isn't dancing.

Michael presents the "Spicy Curry" award to Kelly Kapoor. That's the whole joke. "What's that mean?" she asks. And asks, and asks, to the point where it comes back around to funny. The statue is also in the shape of a bowler, and not a businessman, because they ran out of businessman statuettes, and it goes on and on and finally ends on Michael just shaking his head: "Just sit down, Kelly." Funny, but single-layer funny. "Try my googi-googi" icky-funny; not Wizard Of Oz/Bend It Like Beckham funny. She wrote the episode, she gets a pass.

Michael sweats and chugs bottled water, swearing to us that he now knows "what Bob Hope was going through when he performed in Saudi Arabia." I don't...I plead the Levinson-Gould on that one. Michael tries to give us some kind of effed-up speech about the suckitude of Dwight, who's being kind of awesome this episode, but then Dwight starts the music cue early, so Michael bitches about that and then runs back out "onstage" and...starts singing "Tiny Dancer." Which normally would earn a whole lot of shit-talking from yours truly, but the end of the episode kind of makes that impossible, so never mind. "You have won a tiny Dundie..."

A group of wignecks at the bar are all, "Sing it, Elton!" -- which, not for nothing, but that's ten times gayer than actually singing an Elton John song, girlfriend -- and Michael tries his level, usual, desperate best to be friends with them: "Hey, thanks, guys! Hey, where you guys from?" Predictably, they just came from Michael's mama's house*.

Meanwhile, Pam totally snakes Terri (Mrs. Stanley)'s drink. The guys get not very creative and tell Michael to sing some songs, which he was already doing, and telling him to do it doesn't make it more embarrassing, because there's no such thing as "more embarrassing" right now.

(*I don't think they were actually at his mama's house, but I do know she lives in Dickson City, which is a suburb of Scranton, so I guess it's possible, depending on Mrs. Scott's level of what we used to call "womanly virtue." Or how long you're willing to drive, if you're the kind of person whose regular bar of choice is Chili's.)

Michael begs them to fuck off, because it's an office party, and they totally start throwing shit. Like actual bottles and garbage. Not cool! Please don't throw garbage at Michael! Jim takes offense, as he always does when Michael's truly threatened, but for once he doesn't actually dive in right away. I think he would have, right then, except Michael scoops him and backs down for once, because he doesn't know what else to do. He signals Dwight to cut the music, and smoothes ahead. But too quietly, too unenthusiastically, to be believable: "I had a few more Dundies to give out tonight, but I'm just going to cut it short, and wrap it up, so everybody can enjoy their food. Um, thanks for listening, those who listened." Oh, Michael. "This last Dundie is for Kevin, this is the ‘Don't Go in There After Me' award, it's for the time that I went into the bathroom after him, and it was really, really smelly, so..." he drops the mic, and walks over to Kevin's table to hand him the award. "There you go," he practically whispers. Everybody gets bummed out.

And then there's Pam. Whose anger has a good side, because it's actually more like Jim's disaffected pep than anything else, when it's not her own life getting compressed down to this angry, tiny, one-dimensional point by her awful choices. It's not the things she says: "Yay, Kevin! Whoo hoo for Kevin! For stinking up the bathroom!" They catch on, and begin to clap. Jim shouts for Kevin; more Dunder-Mifflinites clapping, but her revolution knows no bounds. This isn't about Kevin, it's about Michael, and if it's about Michael (and she's seen Jim do this before, and she'll see him do it a hundred times more), then it's worth the sacrifice of shame: "Hey! I haven't gotten one yet!"

Jim, unsure about her particular Dundie, shouts that he hasn't gotten one either. "So keep going!" Pam and Jim clap, in unison, for all the world like it's Tinkerbell: "More Dundies! Dundies! Dundies! Dundies! Dundies!" And the rest of the company -- of the restaurant, perhaps -- joins in. "Dundies! Dundies!" And Tinkerbell revives.

"Okay! All right! We'll keep rolling," smiles Michael, breathing strong again. "Okay, this is the Fine Work award. This goes to Stanley, for all the Fine Work he did this year." Drunk Pam screams for Stanley, and for the Fineness of his Work. Pam screams for a speech, even as Michael tries to explain away how generic the award is ("You know you did [Fine Work]!" he shouts), and Stanley even gets into the spirit: "Well, last year I got Great Work, so I don't know what to think about this award. But at least I didn't get Smelliest Bowel Movement like Kevin." Everyone laughs; Pam and Kevin and Stanley laugh. They're not angry, they're drunk. Michael introduces the award: "...going out to our own little Pam Beesley..." Jim's face, Pam's face, Pam's buzz all hit the floor. Not so funny all of a sudden. "I think we all know what award Pam is going to be getting this year!" Michael screams, and Jim stares...

"It's the ‘Whitest Sneakers' award!"
A: Michael Scott.

Everybody applauds; Pam's shocked but overjoyed and drunk. "Because she always has the whitest tennis shoes on!" Jim claps crazily, louder than everyone else, as she walks onto the dance floor. "Get on down here! Pam Beesley, ladies and gentlemen!" Pam grabs his mic and he kind of giggles -- not very Pam, that -- as she gets her hysterical laughter under control, and tries to give her speech. Jim looks on, amused. In love.

"I have so many people to thank for this award! Okay, first off, my Keds! Because I couldn't have done it without them! Thank you. Let's give Michael a round of applause for emceeing tonight, because this is a lot harder than it looks! And also because of Dwight too!" Which is hilarious, but nobody claps for Dwight, even though that's not what she said. "Um, so finally, I want to thank God. Because God gave me this Dundie." Jim cocks his head, you know the look, but it's not like he's capable of shutting that grin down a decibel or two; not right now. "And I feel God in this Chili's tonight!"

Pam screams, and thrusts her Dundie into the air: "WHOOOOOO!" Michael again gives her a "Pam Beesley, ladies and gentleman," his own mind kind of blown, and she gives him a sweet peck on the cheek*.

Pam giggles and jogs back to her seat, where Jim is waiting by her pulled-out chair. (God, this boy.) They laugh, she cheers herself, he smiles, she throws her arms around him, he hugs her; she puts her lips to his. He kisses back, surprised. She continues to laugh, smiling brightly, and drops into her chair. Like it happens every day. There's a way in which it does. She sighs, giggles; he sits down beside her. He's got Little Orphan Annie eyes, maybe, a little bit.

Jim: "What a great year for The Dundies." And the look on his face -- you can imagine that for yourself.

(*And if this is Pam without anger, maybe we've never even seen this girl before.)

At the bar, Jim runs tonight down, speaking to the camera with Pam to his left, staring at him, drunk. "Got to see Ping," he says, and she nods. In the background, awesomely, Michael is singing "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life." (If you really wanted to impress me, you could make that work at the end of the episode. That's a challenge.)

Jim continues: "And we learned of Michael's true feelings for Ryan. Which was touching." Pam again nods. "And we heard Michael change the lyrics to a number of classic songs. Which, for me, has ruined them for life." He turns to Pam, who's still nodding, and hasn't looked away the entire time. "What?" he asks. "Nothing," she says wildly. He looks at us. "Okay." She giggles: "What?" And he tries. "I don't know, what?" And she laughs, and takes the out, and falls off the stool, onto the floor.

"Oh my God!" Jim shouts. "You are so drunk!" (The unspoken "Therefore neither of us are responsible for your behavior!" is, well, unspoken. And deliberate. And collaborative.) He begs us to confirm that the cameras caught her fall; all you can really hear is her hysterical, whooping laughter. (There's a nice nod to the unspoken conceit that, at some point, this footage will air, somewhere, sometime: "This will all be on?")

Dwight drops everything and rushes over from his turntables: "Quick, quick! This woman is having a seizure! Grab her tongue, grab her tongue!" (Once again: Chili's didn't want her puking, so she's having a seizure. It's funnier and less unsavory this way, anyhow.) Dwight tells the people nearby that he's "a Sheriff's Deputy," Jim automatically corrects him ("volunteer") and Dwight points out that it's actually not relevant.

And Michael sings. Kevin overhears Dwight, getting kind of foamy, begging for "something to cushion her head"; he stands up for a better look. Pam continues to laugh. It's rarely a Jim Laugh when you're this drunk, and you can't stop. If she stops, what happens? She can't find out; she keeps laughing. She's laughed herself into a corner. Jim asks Dwight to chill, but Dwight resolves to use his shirt as a cushion and immediately gets stuck in it. Pam pulls it together enough to yell at Dwight to get the hell off her; a Chili's employee arrives and tells Dwight to put the shirt back on. "People are trying to eat," he says apologetically; Dwight struggles and shouts inside his shirt.

Later, Dwight and Ryan are loading up all of Michael's props as he lectures us: "Was this year's Dundies a success? Well, let's see. I made Pam laugh so hard that she fell out of her chair, and she almost broke her neck. So I killed. Almost."

Outside, Pam goes all serpentine from the door to the camera, screaming "Oh my God!" Jim's like, "Wow." She shouts into the camera: "I just want to say that this was the best! Dundies! Ever! WHOOOOOOOOO!" She brandishes her trophy like a madwoman. Jim catches her. "Careful, careful."

Episode-ending monologue voiceover courtesy a Chili's drone: "We have a strict policy here not to overserve." Pam stumbles up to Oscar and hugs him. "Apparently, this young woman was sneaking drinks off other people's tables." Pam attacks Phyllis, then Stanley. (If you kiss everybody, then you can kiss anybody. Dig?) "I Xeroxed her driver's license, and she is not welcome to this restaurant chain ever again," the employee finishes, giving us his best Schrute.

Ryan and Dwight accompany Michael out of the restaurant with all of his crap. He tells them both that they did great work; Dwight cautions him about the terrain, is ignored, and goes into some kind of EMS talk about pupils and concussions, and Michael's like, "Sure, but I meant the audio." Dwight smirks at like Orange Alert in Ryan's direction. Who cares as much about Michael's opinion of either of them as he does about...anything, really.

"I feel bad about what I wrote on the bathroom wall," Pam slurs to Jim, who smiles and teases: "No you don't." She laughs and Angela pulls up. (And can you imagine for one second what that ride would be like? Hi, Angela. Fuck booze, I'd need hard drugs.) Jim walks Pam to the car, and she stops beside it. "Hey, um. Can I ask you a question?" And he says, "Shoot." And she looks at him, at his face, and then she looks at the camera, and then she remembers the camera, and then she thanks him. For...what I don't know. She kind of gestures toward the trophy; I can believe she'd figure that one out, even right now, I can believe she'd figure out that he talked Michael out of the other award. He smiles at her softly -- "Not really a question" -- and laughs, equally softly. "Okay, let's get you home, you're drunk." She giggles, agreeing, and he opens the door for her, and they say goodbye, and he thanks Angela. And she drives away, and "Tiny Dancer" starts to play again, and even as the taillights are fading, he smiles. Until he remembers the camera, and then he walks away.