Quitting Time

When Michael Scott returned to the Office series finale to deliver a perfectly timed “That’s what she said,” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I ended up doing a little bit of both. It was an absolutely perfect moment that not only hit the bulls-eye but split down the middle the arrow that was already stuck in the bulls-eye.

I thought the series finale was sublime. The series had been drifting for some time and had a horrific season after Michael left and there was a parade of celebrity guests vying for the manager position of Dunder Mifflin. But I did see an uptick in season 9 of The Office (it helped that Andy was at sea for months because I hated him). I liked the higher stakes drama of Jim and Pam’s marriage and the sweet callback to the note he didn’t give her in the blue teapot. It was hilarious when Dwight proposed to Angela by pulling over her car and yelling at her through a megaphone. I loved when the group gathered to watch the documentary and the camera panned over all their faces.

This was one of the better series finales I’ve ever seen. It was funny and cringeworthy and poignant all at once. It resolved the stories of some characters, showed that some would never change and set others in new directions.

There were so many character resolutions that moved me. I teared up when Erin met her birth parents. It was a perfectly done scene, with her mother telegraphing just enough so I knew what was happening right away but it took a moment for it to sink in with Erin. It was really sweet when Phyllis choked up that Stanley carved a wooden bird that looked just like her and that she missed him so much Phyllis started to fatten up his replacement so he’d look more like Stanley. Michael’s appearance was just enough not to overshadow the present cast. After he got his own perfect farewell episode, this was just a nice coda, finding out that he is happy with his kids and in a Michael Scott way, he bought two smart phones to hold all his kids’ pictures.

It wasn’t all tears, of course. I thought Meredith cheering on her stripper son was a riot, especially since it’s the same actor who played her kid, much younger, years ago. Kelly and Ryan running away together was just stupid funny, showing just how myopic these characters will always be. Creed’s story could not have ended any other way than with an arrest. 

The real stunner, which summed up the arc of her character, was Pam’s talking head at the very end: 

It took me so long to do so many important things. It's just hard to accept that I spent so many years being less happy than I could have been. Jim was five feet from my desk and it took me four years to get to him. It would be great if people saw this documentary and learned from my mistakes. Not that I'm a tragic person, I'm really happy now, but it would just make my heart soar if someone out there saw this and she said to herself 'Be strong, trust yourself, love yourself, conquer your fears, just go after what you want and act fast because life just isn't that long … There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn't that kind of the point?

Now that The Office characters have turned out the lights for the last time, it makes me even sadder and angrier to see the pathetic shadow that NBC has become, particularly on Thursday nights. That used to be the crown jewel of the network, the home of shows like Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, The Cosby Show … it goes on and on. Sure, we have my beloved Parks and Recreation and the diminished Community but NBC used to have a full menu of delicacies on Thursdays and now there’s one hour of comedy and that’s all. They have really destroyed their own network. After 30 years, the almighty Thursday night comedies have just about wheezed and staggered to an end.