The fifth season of The Office presented a master class in how a venerable sitcom can remain lively and relevant without resorting to wedding after wedding after wedding (though I have it on good authority that Meredith will marry the Great Gazoo and/or Troy McClure at some point this season). Jim and Pam’s relationship deepened as it headed inexorably towards the wedding chapel, mean old Charles Miner presided over some of Dunder-Mifflin’s darkest days, Michael Scott went into business for himself and everything went triumphantly back to normal during the season finale.
Tonight our television buddies over at Dunder-Mifflin returned after a Summer hiatus with a premise that’s powered countless Office episodes. Michael Scott, in his tireless bid to be one of the gang, or the head of the gang, commits an incredibly stupid faux pas, then tries to fix the mess in a way that makes everything worse. He's a genius at discovering cures worse than any disease.
In this case, Michael feels left out when everyone knows that two of the Summer interns are dating except him. Information is power and Michael feels awfully powerless so when he stumbles upon an even juicier bit of gossip—Stanley might be cheating on his wife—he decides to disseminate this information far and wide. Never one to let well enough alone, Michael asks Stanley directly if he’s been cheating on his wife.
When Stanley confesses to adultery Michael decides that the only way to atone for his lie and keep Stanley out of trouble is by lying so extensively and spreading so many untruths that the office will assume that everything he’s said is a lie, including his initial revelation about Stanley’s unfaithfulness.
The twist is that some of Michael’s far-flung fibs are true, or at least contain kernels of truth. Some are transparently, hilariously implausible—like his contention that Kevin is actually a curious puppet-creature with a midget inside him controlling the outer shell through a series of pulleys and levers—but some hit uncomfortably close to home, like telling people that Pam is pregnant and Andy is gay.
Hearing through the office grapevine that he’s gay causes Andy to question his sexuality. Andy honestly doesn’t seem to know whether or not he’s gay, though he drops hints that he has far more reason to doubt his heterosexuality than he previously led on. A shadowy figure known only as “Broccoli Rob” seems to have some clues concerning what Encyclopedia Brown might dub The Case of Andy Bernard’s Possible Homosexuality but he’s not available so Andy asks Oscar if he’s gay.
Oscar scores some of the episode’s biggest laughs through his deadpan under reaction to the absurdity of Andy dreaming up a scenario in which Brad Pitt desperately tries to seduce him—Andy’s fantasy, er, theoretical Pitt is not easily discouraged—and Michael spreading the blasphemous rumor that Oscar is actually the voice of the spokesdog for Taco Bell.
Michael’s fiendish plot to cover up an unwisely spilled truth with an avalanche of ridiculous lies predictably spirals out of control. Michael is climactically confronted by his employees, at which point Jim and Pam fall on their collective sword by claiming that the “one truth” Michael has alluded to is Pam's pregnancy rather than Stanley’s infidelity.
Tonight’s episode felt so airy and inconsequential that it was easy to overlook how it advanced the story arcs of Jim/Pam and Andy.