“If you gain weight, you will die.”
This episode kicked off like it hasn’t been four months at all since “Goodbye Toby.” I took the liberty of recapping a bit of season four here along with the teleconference with Paul Lieberstein and Amy Ryan.
“Weight Loss” is definitely the most high energy episode of The Office. Several story lines are attacked just within the first five minutes. Corporate’s weight loss initiative takes a hilariously intense psychological toll on the entire staff.
Week 1: “You will not use the bathroom. We need to keep our starting weights high so we can lose more.”
Stanley is shown to be very anxious about regaining his biceps in the process of losing weight, Andy wants washboard abs for he and Angela’s honeymoon, and Pam is kicked off of the scale since she’s leaving the next week for art school. Despite her flagrant comments, no one has caught on that Holly still thinks Kevin is mentally challenged.
Week 2:
In the time that he’s known Holly, Michael has learned that, among other things, her butt refuses to quit. Dwight replaces snacks in the vending machine with fruits and veggies. Holly has an awkward moment when she makes being a lesbian into a “joke” with Oscar. Her personality reeks of Michael’s. Jim acknowledges that she’s totally right for him because they’re both just “such huge dorks.”
At the same time that Angela is becoming frustrated with Andy choosing the wedding location (he proposes the same place that his parents decided not to get divorced), it’s revealed that she and Dwight are having frequent quickies in the back of the warehouse. Jim says he and Pam decided to not spend the first three months of their engagement apart. Something to do with avoiding long-term engagements. This left me a bit nervous. Even though they spent the majority of season four being public about their relationship, I’m not sure how much more “Will they/Won’t they?” tension I can take.
Week 3: “Dunder Mifflin, this is Ronnie.”
Pam and Jim have a cute conversation via webcam to Dwight’s disgust. In a hilarious scene, Michael brings Jim’s laptop/Pam along to show the new receptionist Ronnie where his favorite colored paperclips are. There is a great talking head with Pam while she’s on webcam.
There is a brief scene with Jan. Michael apparently lead the office to believe he was the father by…saying he was the father. Holly and Oscar get friendlier and she agrees to let him set her up with his yoga instructor.
The scene I’ve personally been waiting for finally arrived. Holly defends Kevin while Angela is scolding Kevin and insulting his intelligence.
“Holly, do you think I’m retarded?”
Painfully awkward, brilliantly written (Angela tells Holly how offensive that assumption is), and something one would only expect from Michael.
Week 5: Michael has grown a goatee for an unknown reason, and Kelly has since returned from being on IV fluids for two days. She previously collapsed during a weigh-in because of her intense cleanse diet.
Michael throws Jim a condom on his way to New York, because he doesn’t want him to wind up with a surprise pregnancy “like him.”
There is a great Creed sub-subplot involving him selling Kelly what she thought was a tapeworm to help her lose weight.
Michael tells the camera that Ronnie was “just blecchh” and Ryan returns as a temp! Now dubbed the “Fired guy,” he reveals that he’s going to be keeping a list (which Kevin and Jim make immediately) so that he can exact his revenge when he gets back to the top. I found myself loathing Ryan last season, but I felt some kind of sympathy for the guy when Kelly outright rejects him. He’s severely downtrodden, and his reintroduction in this episode is very similar to his first day on the job in the pilot.
The best part of Ryan’s return is that the reason for Michael’s goatee is revealed when he shows up. Let the man-crush resume.
Overhearing about how well Holly’s date went, Michael accuses Jim of sabotaging him with his advice to take it slow.
Dwight drove Phyllis to an abandoned warehouse fifteen miles away and kicked her out of the car. “And you burned over 15,000 calories on the way back!”
Week 6: “NO WEIGH-IN THIS WEEK.”
Dunder Mifflin has apparently been accused of discrimination against the obese.
Michael enters a meeting in as “Michael Klump” and, of course, he posts screenshots on the wall of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and Jabba the Hutt among other famous obese characters. I found this conference room scene a little too broad and it actually slowed the pacing a bit. Meetings are obligatory at least once every couple of episodes, if not every episode. This one in particular wasn’t too great. Though it was nice to see a throwback to his print-outs and the sumo suits from “Beach Games.”
On the last day of the competition, Holly announces that they could win if they manage to lose eight pounds by the end of the day. Andy tells Angela that he’s hired his old a capella group for their wedding as well as his “collective bestman.” In response, she leaves for another rendezvous with Dwight. Andy remains oblivious. Poor guy.
In a scene I really should have expected, Jim invites Pam to lunch at a rest stop between New York and Scranton. He finally proposes in the rain. It’s really kind of oddly beautiful in the way it’s shot. The dialog is barely audible as the cameras are at least four lanes across the highway from the actors.
In the end, the office fails to lose any weight.
“I don’t care what any scale says. You guys are all gigantic losers.”
In a nice voice over, Stanley reveals that he’s lost seven pounds since the contest began, and he feels great.
Week 8: A hospital room?
On Toby’s third day in Costa Rica, he broke his neck while rapelling. He’s been in the hospital for five weeks. Paul Lieberstein was definitely not kidding when he said that happiness is not in Toby’s future.
It was great to see almost all of the secondary characters (with the exception for Meredith), get decent screentime and some really fun subplots to work with. The entire episode left me out of breath with so many stories to touch on (there were actually not too many taking heads), but it’s good to see the delayed engagement of PB & J come to a close so quickly, and Michael’s and Angela/Dwight/Andy’s stories gain a bit more momentum.
The return of Ryan and Andy’s excitement about the wedding made me feel sympathetic for characters that I otherwise haven’t really cared much for. Both Ryan and Andy were devious and loathsome in the last couple of seasons. This was the case for Dwight for most of the fourth season. We saw a side of him that finally reached its climax with his response to Angela and Andy’s engagement: “I blame myself.”
The writers are always finding some new angle to approach these characters from. That’s what separates The Office from the rest. You can’t just laugh at their plight without being moved by their reactions and how they rebound from the consequences. Considering my anticipation for next week, I can’t help but feel that this season kicked off just right.
Mike Trevino is a rabid fan of House and The Office and blogs out of San Antonio, TX.
