The Office: The Duel
By fred | January 16, 2009
(S05E11) Last year we left the Scranton branch after absolutely everyone in the office had found out about the affair between Dwight and Angela. Everyone except poor Andy, of course, which was still clueless about the whole thing. For a little while now I’ve been feeling that this whole “love triangle” plot had been dragged on for too long, and that they should find a way to put an end to it.
And as one could have easily guessed, there might not be a more efficient way to cut a secret short than to reveal what it is to Michael Scott. As soon as he knows, one way or another, it will come out – fast. Whether he wants to tell it or not, whether he tries his best to hide it or not, the end result will always be the same. Plus, going home after last episode, one could have assumed already Angela would have taken care of it herself…
Of course, that would have been wrong, because when Andy showed up with an announcement to make, it wasn’t about the wedding being off, but that no one had RSVP’ed yet to their wedding, even though the deadline was yesterday. Still clueless as ever. Now this plot was made out of two parts, I will say. The first one was Andy not aware of the situation, everyone talking about it and Michael deciding that he had to tell him. It went on up to Andy finding out and confronting Angela.
All of that was great, and pretty darn hilarious as well. But as we entered the second phase of this plot, the actual duel, I have to say I became a little unsure of how I felt about it all. Oh sure, some things were still funny (”Oh come one man, believe in something!“) and it offered for some interesting character development, I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was too much or not, whether a line was crossed or not.
There comes a point when Jim runs downstairs, as Andy is running Dwight over with his car, to check if everyone is okay and gets yelled at by both parties. Then he’s seen face camera, not saying a word as we hear Dwight and Andy fighting in the back. Honestly, at that time I was like Jim, baffled, and wondering how far away from Michael taking the pizza delivery boy hostage this was…
But don’t let that fool you, I did enjoy this episode, very much so. It was absolutely hilarious and offered us a lot, a lot to laughs and a lot to think about. The main element probably being Angela. Her character has always been quite “mysterious” in that we don’t really know much about her or her motivations, what drives her to do what she does and act the way she does.
I mean words such as “nice” or “caring” are probably not the first thing that would come to mind to describe her, just ask Phyllis. We all knew she really loved Dwight, as she told him, and there was no doubt he was the one she wanted to get married to (and did so, albeit unknowingly). She only said yes to Andy because he asked her in public and she couldn’t take the pressure and and “humiliation” so the easy way was to simply say yes.
Yet, we found out this week that she had started sleeping with Andy after all. She used to refuse to do so, for a moment there it wasn’t sure if they had ever kissed, but now things changed, Angela was sleeping with both Dwight and Andy at the same time ! Not only that, but when Andy confronted her and there was clearly no appearances to be saved, she kept insisting how she should try and save their marriage (which had yet to take place).
Posted in Reviews
Shows: The Office
