October 12, 2006: Grief Counseling
"There is such a thing as good grief. Just ask Charlie Brown." Oh, Michael, how can you be so dumb and so wise at the same time? I daresay you're a veritable
Forrest Gump for the mockumentary generation. After the untimely death of Michael's ironically named former boss Ed Truck, our favorite Dunder-Mifflin regional manager goes to great lengths to figure out just how sad the office would be if
his capa was detated from his head in a tragic car accident. And while no one's really on board with his various attempts at grief counseling (Ryan's sad tale of his cousin "Mufasa" and the wildebeest stampede in particular had me howling), Pam shows a little compassion and helps to put on a sweetly tender funeral for a bird who flew into the building, complete with a get-it, Michael's-the-bird eulogy and Dwight's recorder rendition of "On the Wings of Love." And here's the really cool thing that I noticed this week: In Jim's absence, Pam has taken over the responsibilities of office ringleader. She's making plenty of mischief (asking for Michael to "go downstairs" for coffee, starting off the movie-death game with her "aunt" from
Million Dollar Baby...), and she's also stepping in to make Michael feel better when his painful awkwardness becomes too much to bear - just like Jim used to do (see: the closing ceremonies in "Office Olympics," the karaoke duet of "Islands in the Stream" in "E-mail Surveillance," and most recently the hotel-room heart-to-heart in "The Convention"). I like that as Pam's making these strides to become her own person post-Roy, her boost in confidence seems to be manifesting itself in equal parts silliness and warmth... like I wasn't already head-over-heels in love with her. And speaking of head-over-heels, I'm sure it wasn't lost on my fellow diehard Jim/Pam fanatics that Jim spent an entire day trying to find Karen's favorite kind of potato chips - echoes of the sour-cream-and-onion ones he bought for Pam in "The Fight," no? That's just hurtful, Halpert.
