A certain level of soap opera drama is so hard-wired into The Office’s DNA that it’s always a little surprising when an episode shoots solely for yucks. Tonight’s Office was just such an episode. Oh sure, it dealt light-heartedly with some relatively serious issues, like Michael contemplating whether to take responsibility for a serious professional fuck-up or ask an employee to fall on their own sword and Dwight wrestling with his loyalty to Michael vs. his personal pride. But tonight was primarily about the guffaws. On that level it was a success.
In “Golden Ticket” Michael decides to spice up sales by inserting into orders five “golden tickets” in the form of gold pieces of paper Dunder-Mifflin clients can turn in for a ten-percent discount on paper products. Being a terribly theatrical, impractical sort Michael dresses up like a mutant version of Roald Dahl’s iconic candy pimp and gallivants about with a curious accent that owes little to Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp’s interpretations of the character and a lot to Michael’s high school sense of drama.
Michael’s seemingly pointless, moot gesture (what good could a rinky-dink ten percent discount do anyone?) backfires when Dunder-Mifflin’s biggest client finds five “golden tickets” they can use simultaneously for a massive discount. Suddenly Michael does an about-face and begins to pretend that the “golden ticket” idea wasn’t his at all and goes looking for a fall guy.
At this point the episode prompts the eternal question, “How stupid can Michael possibly be?” For that matter, how stupid does he think everyone else is? Obviously a documentary crew has captured him frolicking about in road show Willie Wonka garb and gushing about his brilliant Golden Ticket idea. Obviously all that footage wasn’t burned or deleted to make Michael look better.
Then again, questions like, “Why doesn’t Michael get fired?” don’t keep me up at night. They don’t ever really bother me unless the laughs dry up. I found tonight’s episode consistently funny. Michael decides to ask Dwight to take the fall for him by playing the friendship card. Dwight is only too happy to walk and talk with Michael but scoffs at falling on his own sword.