MICHAEL SCOTT: UNSUNG HERO of the OFFICE.

MICHAEL SCOTT: UNSUNG HERO of the OFFICE.

Netflix describes the United States version of Sitcom The Office as a “hit comedy [that] chronicles the foibles of disgruntled office workers – led by delusional [sic] boss Michael Scott – at the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.” This classic, which ran for 192 Episodes, has recently caught my eye again since it came up on my sister’s Netflix account. True to form, and trustful of my sister’s judgment, I picked up where she left off, partway through early Season Two. It did not take long for me to take kindly to it, partly out of nostalgia (and surprise that I had seen so many of these episodes hitherto) and partly out of novelty. When I first watched this show in High School, Michael was the laughing stock of not only the fictional Office Staff (with the exception of his sycophantic, psychopathic Assistant [to the] Regional Manager, Dwight K. Schrute, who is second in both command and ridicule) but all so of millions of living rooms and Office Desktops throughout the World. Now, knowing that Michael is customarily typed as an E.N.F.P. (the Champion), and with due cause to HATE his Type, I thought that the show might provide me with some sort of spiteful closure as I berated the protagonist for his Outgoing Antics. Yet the more that leading actor Steve Carrel’s face fell on camera in this ironical, post-modern mockumentary, the more my own Spirits sagged. Not only was I robbed of the throne of spite by my incurable SYMPATHY for Michael Scott. I ALL so found myself defending him, not without some degree of egoic self-defensiveness. I quickly adopted him as a sort of Favourite Character and Role Model that I would root for in every episode against odds that, to the both of us, seemed totally insurmountable. Jim, the friendly Everyman that dates cheerleaders and pines for Pam the Receptionist, became my sworn enemy, seconded only by the wry, cynical Human Resources Manager, Toby. Every cutting remark made against Michael Scott was a dart not only in HIS Heart, but mine. But I put off writing this review of Season Two until I finished watching what is now my favourite episode of this show: “Michael’s Birthday” (Season Two, Episode Nineteen. Yes: 19 happens to be one of my Favourite Numbers. This is neither coincidence nor contrivance; it’s called a SYNCHRONICITY. I’ll explain later.)

It All Made Sense when Michael mentioned that he shared a birthday with Eva Longoria. The subtext was just too perfect. I knew Eva, of course, to be a Pisces, and I would often think back to her whenever I thought to blame my Sign of Birth for any marital difficulties I encountered, especially in competition with the other water signs. (May the record show that I still find Katy Perry gorgeous, my own gripes and her own reputation notwithstanding.) So Michael Scott has my sign. Is that such a bad thing? No. I do not believe so. And neither do the writers for the Show, who make their mark at the end of the episode through the voice of Pam Beasley. Pam demonstrates an unprecedented TOLERANCE for Michael when she admits, against her own inclinations, (as tends to be her hang-up about Dwight as well, because she shares an ongoing, running Inside Joke* about them with her de facto lover Jim) that Michael’s Birthday turned out to be a Good Day.

*Though to be honest there is little hidden in this Office, and least of all is the fact that Michael and Dwight are “laughable”.

My thesis is simple: Michael Scott is the HERO of the program. Every Good Thing that happens in the show is the result of his antics, for which he is usually blamed and only very seldom rewarded. And I maintain that the writers maintain this as the main underlying theme, in the same fashion as the writers of Breaking Bad knew what Walt’s True Motives were, etc. It’s called subtext, people. And I can prove my point using only episodes from the first twenty episodes of Season Two.

PART ONE: JIM AND PAM.

The Scranton, Pennsylvania Office of Dunder Mifflin is far from professional, and so barely devoid of erotic entanglements. Without a doubt, the Fan Favourite of all Couplings on this show are Jim Halpert and Pam Beasley. I even know a barista, who has been married to her elementary school sweetheart for several years now, who insists that her favourite character on the show is “Jim and Pam, but as a couple”. Individually, Jim and Pam are intolerably normal in persona. Jim, the Libra, and without a doubt an E.N.F.J, (if not an E.S.T.J.) seems to pride himself in being what a robot’s conception of a normal person would be. Pam, a slightly and subtly delusional Sagittarian with unresolved ambitions for a Life of Travel and Miracles, is engaged to a Warehouse Worker (at the same company) named Roy. Roy is an “Everyman” in every sense of the word “bro”; his idea of the Ideal Valentine’s Gift for his fiancée is “the best sex of [her] life”, a promise he delivers across her Receptionist’s Counter with a corny grin worthy of Southern Theatre, to which Pam responds with a ravaged frown nearly devoid of restraint and discipline. (To be clear: Pam will NOT be receiving the Best Sex of Her Life from Roy. Just to be clear.) Clearly: Pam’s Sagittarian Optimism could reach Mythic Proportions. She has, after all, endured three years of formal engagement with Roy, an ongoing and unresolved marital promise that is the initial barrier to Jim and Pam’s budding Office Romance. To quote Peter Quill from the Guardians of the Galaxy: they have an “Unspoken Thing”. And this is the primary incentive for girls of high school age and men of Romantic Temperament to return to the otherwise dreary Office week after week, at times even on a television binge. Pam’s Loyalty can all so be traced to her Personality Type, which I have identified as I.S.F.J. She cares for Roy because he is flawed. But she cares for Jim because Jim is relatable. And because they have their Inside Jokes. But they remain “just friends” for the greater part of two entire seasons.

Delusions of Adequacy hold the young paper salesman and his neighbouring Receptionist together; they both seem to have committed the Fallacy of Normalcy about themselves, about each other, and about most of their coworkers. Their vanity is low-key, but not beyond the probing gaze of Dwight, who sits at Jim’s left hand, and the less probing but nonetheless intrusive gaze of Michael Scott, who seldom hesitates to point out Pam’s breasts. Jim and Pam make a sport out of mocking Michael and Dwight, remaining within the boundaries of convention but still demonstrating an insensitivity that at times borders on the pathological. In turn, Dwight ridicules Jim, upsetting Jim’s Rational Sensibilities by running Reason to its Absurd Extremes. All the while Michael hits on Pam, harmlessly, of course (in terms of competition for Jim) but not without threatening the Politically Correct Comfort Zone that the young nerd has come to rely upon (chiefly as the result of repressing her own Wild Nature under the burden of a stultifying relationship that survives off of the Force of Habit Alone). Both Dwight and Michael challenge not only Jim and Pam, nor merely the Office, but the entirety of the Audience to take a side: Normality or Individuality? We wait for Pam or Jim to crack and to show some sign of idiosyncrasy that, theoretically, they took this job in order to escape. And we dread the possibility that the Mad Men of the Office will come to their senses like Don Quixote de la Mancha, at which point the fun is over, and Life in Grey begins again.

Of course: we would not root for Jim and Pam if they were not “a good couple”. Together, they are greater than the sum of their parts. Like Romeo and Juliet, they are stupid when left to their individual devices, but a work of literary genius when in dialogue. OF COURSE: this makes them a much healthier pair than the all most suggestive pairing of Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute. Jim and Pam survive as an unspoken couple off of jokes typically at Dwight and Michael’s expense, and they more than often cope with Michael in particular by strengthening their dependency upon one an other.

But where would they be without Michael??

The Chief Barrier for Jim and Pam is of course not Roy, nor is it their individual idiosyncrasies, which vary, and so function as adjacent walls but not the Main Partition that separates them. (Nor is this Main Partition Pam’s Desk, though the Visual Metaphor does work.) The Barrier is: Secrecy.

Secrecy is not only permitted in a Corporate Office Setting, nor is it merely encouraged. It is ENFORCED. One of the ironical and theatrical things about Michael Scott is that he is INCAPABLE OF SECRECY. With him, there IS no bag for the cat to jump out of. While this works in his short-term disfavor, it works to the benefit of every one else over the Long Term, and insofar as Plato was right and Virtue is Its Own Reward, it serves to empower our conception of Michael as a Character, rather than just a Person (most specifically: The Archetypal Fool), granted we are blessed with moral discernment.

Michael is not only incapable of keeping his mouth shut about things he finds hilarious, terrifying, or otherwise exciting. He is all so THE WORST LIAR in the entire Office. Every one around him lies, usually in the form of white lies towards one an other, but most dramatically towards Michael himself. Jim even manages to throw a House Warming party for the entire Office, only excluding one person: their boss, Michael Scott. Even DWIGHT is invited to the Party, and when the loyal Assistant Regional Manager catches wind of the fact that Michael has been left out, Jim tells Dwight that the Party is a Surprise FOR Michael. Jim, your average Libra, with all due respect, lies compulsively.

Jim’s compulsive lying of course hurts more people than he knows about. In trying to be the Lovable Libra (regardless of whether or not he acknowledges his own Astrological Identity) Jim not only scapegoats Michael, the optimistic Black Sheep of the otherwise cynical and dreary Office. He all so lies to every one by hiding his feelings for Pam. And the damage this does to both of them is aggravated by the fact that Pam repeats the lie, denying that either Jim loves her or that she loves Jim.

Thankfully, Michael is to their Wall of Secrecy what Fate was to the Berlin Wall.

CHRISTMAS:

Christmas comes to the Office of Scranton’s Dunder Mifflin Branch in Episode Number Fourteen. At this time Michael sabotages the Christmas Gift Exchange by turning it suddenly into a White Elephant exchange. His motive is jealousy; he bought an iPod for Oscar, going far outside the allotted budget per gift, and his pride was affronted by a hand-knit mitten gifted to him be Phyllis, the warm and aging “Mother Goose” of the Office who is most probably a closet Wiccan. (What short of witchcraft could have produced that slew of Valentine’s Day Gifts that left Pam envious?)

As per usual, Michael is passively berated by his fellows for his selfishness, at times even overtly, throughout the competition that follows. We forget that he bought the iPod, which every one wants, with some fraction of that Bonus that he got from firing an employee (under orders from his Superior and Lover Jan, with much chagrin, and to his ultimate disadvantage) in an earlier episode. We might suspect Michael’s motives as containing self-interest, and rightfully so, for it is clear that he expected a more rewarding gift in exchange. But we are in no ways justified in REDUCING him to self-interest. A sort of laissez-faire Marxist at Heart, Michael does not hold his recipient in any sort of debt to him; that debt is in turn passed off to his own Secret Santa. Michael does not want to COERCE generosity; he simply EXPECTS others to have his OWN, and that is in part, of course, an extension of his own Generosity of Opinion about his Employees and “Friends”. His only tragic flaw is that he measures Generosity in Money, because he has neither the interpersonal skills nor the practical skills to produce a hand-made product with sentimental value. Part of this owes to the fact that he is, after all, a Salesman. He is all so a Helper in the Enneagram sense, rather than a Provider. He wants something back, but not for a lack of altruism; rather it is out of a desire for Justice, and Injustice towards one’s self is often the easiest to identify in a state of shock and disappointment.

So, what does this mean for Jim and Pam? you might ask.

The effect of Michael’s decision to turn Secret Santa into a White Elephant is that it TESTS PAM’S LOYALTY to JIM. Jim is her Secret Santa, and his gift is a tea pot that Pam wanted but never bought, stuffed with personal trinkets representing Inside Jokes that only Jim and Pam would get, accompanied by what is surely a love letter, as Jim says it’s the time of year to tell someone “how you feel”.

Dwight is astute in making this observation: that White Elephant is like “Machiavelli meets Christmas”. Every one competes for the iPod until Pam winds up with it; only Kevin, the hebephrenic, seems to have past it up, a choice that he regrets. Of all the competitive office workers, Dwight proves the most Machiavellian, as the tide of self-interest raises his buoy and he takes things to his usual Extreme. Jim is hard-pressed to get the tea pot back from Dwight, who in the absence of a personal use for it INVENTS one, almost as though to spite Jim’s clearly communicated sentimental reasons for the bargain.

Of course: Dwight ultimately TRADES the tea pot to Pam, who rationalizes the deal when Roy tells her that he had intended to get her an iPod for Christmas. Pam’s alibi checks out, of course; she wants, with stifled desperation, to believe that her fiancé will deliver, and the alternative is murky, so getting what the I.S.F.J. all ready wants would be nice and practical. Yet as John Guare put it, the Kandinsky is painted on both sides: Pam doubts, deep down, that Roy could EVER satisfy her, and she honours Jim’s informal loyalty to her, made more romantic by its informality, above any generic material gift that Roy could promise her or that she could herself imagine.

Michael’s Bold and Risky Move does wonders in the long run. Not only does Pam prove her loyalty to Jim. ROY proves his DISLOYALTY to PAM, because when the day comes Pam receives NOT an iPod but a cheap and cumbersome, block-shaped knock-off that she can’t figure out how to use. Might Pam’s hopes have been dashed had she not held the iPod in her hands for several hours or so? There is no reasonable doubt that she would have been spared the disappointment, for it’s unlikely that Roy would have even MENTIONED an iPod otherwise.

The fun does not stop there. Michael’s stunt all so buys Jim some more time to make his feelings known*, as Jim steals the love letter back from Pam without her noticing, motivated by what I imagine to be a mixture of Doubt on the Conscious Level that she loves him back, and Conviction on the Unconscious Level that she does, for though she waivered initially she made a big sacrifice in the long run by settling for the tea pot. He probably suspects, deep down, that Roy will disappoint her, and that she knows that as well as he does, though just as far down. Does this keep the wall up? Yes. But it is not long before Michael tears it to shreds.

*Although this is technically PROCRASTINATION rather than an EXTENDED DEADLINE, we might guess that something so premature would have been chaotic and overwhelming to an all ready deeply confused Pam Beasley.

As an addendum, I should note that Michael saves the day at the Christmas Party. He buys about a dozen bottles of Vodka for the Office, using his own Bonus, and throws a barely legal (okay: totally against the rules) bash that everyone enjoys and GETS AWAY WITH, unscathed and unnoticed by their Superiors. He even passes up an opportunity to engage in sex with Meredith the Alcoholic, settling only for a photograph of her breasts.

THE CRUISE:

The following episode is called “Booze Cruise”, and it is just that. The Company Party is set (by Michael Scott) on a party boat in January, and Michael takes on the role of Captain of the Cruise. Unfortunately, Michael does not count on the ship’s Actual Captain all so being an Alpha Douche. Captain Jack is a retired Naval Officer, and he presides over not only the Party Boat but over the Party Itself. As the occupants of the vessel schmooze and booze, Michael fights for their attention over the obnoxious Captain Jack, who manipulatively (and with Nationalistic Integrity) reminds Michael to be “considerate of others” on the Cruise. The preaching implies a Moral Superiority to Michael by avenue of claiming that whilst Michael represents a negligible SECT of the Cruise, perhaps even a potentially oppressive majority, the Captain represents Every One Aboard. The All-Inclusive Ethos I am sympathetic to, but the ends do not justify the means: Humiliating MICHAEL in front of the ENTIRE CROWD, employees et AL. Leaders must honour other Leaders, and not all differences in Leadership are differences in Rank. But good luck telling a hired and glorified Hit Man that, especially when he has “Leadership Experience” leading troops to “victory” in Operation Desert Storm, and his business is not only to protect his underlings but to terrify and even murder any one operating under Equal and Opposing Leadership. Keep that in mind as Captain Jack trivializes Michael’s heroic attempts to be diplomatic in turning the Booze Cruise into a brief seminar, which is, after all, what Michael’s TRUE Supervisor is signing off on. But apparently Limbo is more important. Of course: it’s not like Captain Jack is sympathetic and gender-neutral in how he regards INDIVIDUAL occupants of his boat, as he lets on “subtly” when Dwight volunteers to hold the Limbo Stick. (For Some Unknown Reason, the game of bending over backwards drunk is more RIVETING when a FEMALE is holding the pole.) Our Machiavellian Party Host puts Dwight in charge of “steering the ship”, humouring Dwight’s delusions of power and honour whilst the Actual Navigator continues up above. It is in fact not until Michael tells Dwight, at the end of the episode, that the Steering Wheel is a fake that the Truth comes to Light. Thankfully, this is not the only Revelation made throughout the journey.

Both Jim and Pam invite their dates to the Party. Pam invites Roy, and Jim invites a former aforementioned cheerleader. They share a table, amused and dimly alarmed by their boss’s antics, and brought together in camaraderie by both the comedy and the catharsis. Yet things take a decisive and divisive turn when Captain Jack sits down at the bar to have a drink with Michael and Roy, the latter of whom has ditched Pam to get intoxicated. Michael and Jack compete for the smaller crowd at the bar, and Jack wins by boasting his “leadership skills” in the War. His boast inspires Roy, who is now sufficiently impassioned by his own Patriotism, as well as hammered, to reach a redneck’s degree of impulsiveness. On a whim, Roy gets up to the microphone that has been the coveted love object of both Jack and Michael in their sibling rivalry and announces that he has decided to finally set a date for his wedding with Pam. The promise, three years into an indefinite engagement, is tantamount to a Proposal.

Whilst Captain Jack sneaks off to fuck Meredith, about whom nothing more needs to be said, Michael makes a desperate attempt to save his reputation (and his review) by announcing that the Ship is Sinking. As per usual, the immediate effects are unsettling; one man even jumps overboard, though it is implied that he survives. All so as per usual, Michael’s ruse is short-lived to the point that we might pardon the lie, which is promptly punished when Jack comes back followed by Meredith, who is naked save for her Life Preserving Floatation Jacket. Michael spends some part of the remainder of the Cruise sequestered to some indistinct part of the ship, but thankfully he finds company when Jim, who has been drinking since he heard Roy’s impassioned public ejaculation, does the unthinkable and keeps Michael company. It is at this point that Jim confesses his love for Pam to Michael, about which Michael Scott, a self-professed expert on the Human Heart, was clueless, and about which he is now amused. In a moment of touching and revealing clarity, which Alan Watts ascribes to most Divine Fools, (“Now you see it; now you don’t.”) Michael encourages Jim to never give up, reminding him that Engagement is not Marriage. And besides: we all remember that Michael’s own Light of Love is as of recently divorced. But that I shall cover a little further down the list of Praises.

As one last stab at the proto-Fascist Captain Jack: the man has no doubt that when a boat is sinking women and children should be saved first. Children I understand, but “women” is a little dated in egalitarian society. Keep in mind: Jan, Mike’s boss and paramour, would all most certainly agree with me, at least in Ethos, if not under duress of the fact. (Fortune makes fools of us all.) It is Captain Jack’s advice that prompts Michael to turn the hypothetical example into a metaphor that is then taken literally by the sheepish occupants of the boat, most notably the man who jumps overboard. IT IS ALL so this that prompts Jim to realize and to confess that he himself personally would “save the Receptionist”. And were it not for Michael’s taking the initiative, attempting to discuss leadership in the midst of the controlled chaos of Captain Jack’s Ship, Jim might have neither broken up with his girlfriend on that same night, in the same hour of the Proposal, nor confided in his eccentric boss. Michael Scott gets all the blame and keeps none of the credit, except to the Discerning Viewer and Auditor. I personally bestow upon him all the credit for what good follows between Jim and Pam, and I absolve him of any karmic debt for the Man Overboard. Supposing, of course, that I have that authority. If it comes down to me or Jack Mussolini, I think I will win. As far as I can choose my OWN Leaders, I certainly choose Michael.

THE SECRET:

Michael lasts one episode before spilling the beans about Jim and Pam. He does not mean to, but he cannot help it. After taking Jim out to Hooters for Lunch, joking extensively (of course) about the server’s Breasts, and even pretending that it’s Jim’s birthday, (again: Jim is a Libra, so no.) Michael is stopped by his arch-nemesis: Toby the Human Resources Manager. Toby refuses to sign off on the receipt, for which Michael paid with Company Money. Michael puts up a noble fight, insisting that the expense was a matter of necessity and that he was himself looking out for an employee’s well-being. We know Michael to be a Generous Person, by now, so we don’t doubt, if we are ourselves nearly as Generous, that he WOULD have paid for the Lunch out of his own pocket. But Mike hates Toby, and when the passion of a Leader for his Followers is mixed with the passion to oppose an Adversary, and when Nobility must vanquish Moral Inferiority to save not only a Victim but the Ideal Itself, as well as to save the Leader from Victimhood, Truth comes to the front line. Michael blurts out that Jim is depressed because he is in love with a woman who works in this same Office who is about to get married. And as it turns out, Toby’s neighbour in the cubicle, present at her station at that moment, happens to be the most neurotic Gossip in the entire Office.

Jim enjoyed the Lunch, his initial reservations notwithstanding, and when he shows Pam his new Hooters tee shirt she tells him lovingly that she hates him for mocking her. When news spreads that Jim likes Pam, he is quick to recover, telling everyone, camera crew included, that he had a crush on her when they first started working together, but that it has since run its course and tapered (or expanded) into a friendship. Jim is the quintessential liar because he even fools himself, and if HE’S fooled, Pam is even more so. But the Unspoken Thing does not abate. When Pam visits Michael in Michael’s Office Michael apologizes so profusely that she is embarrassed, even going so far as to “assure” her boss that Jim’s “crush” is no longer relevant. Michael, at that moment, true to form, corrects her. When he sees the look of wonder on her face that follows, he does what only so proficient a liar would do: he tells himself, quite openly and loudly, to shut up and to stop talking to people.

It’s not long after Pam talks to Jim about this, and they exchange lies in denial of their feelings, that Jim realizes he’s not over her at ALL, and he arranges to be out of the Country on the day of her Wedding. Needless to say: I doubt that this will go as planned. And I don’t doubt that Michael will play some role in making sure, by force of nature rather than conscious intent, that such plans go awry.

PART TWO: DWIGHT AND ANGELA.

If any one could truly rival Michael’s sense of loyalty and heroism to a pathological degree, it is his Assistant Dwight Kurt Schrute III. Dwight was a favourite of my High School Graduating Class for a reason. Born on January 20^th, a birthday he shares with David Lynch, Bill Maher, Federico Fellini, and Rainn Wilson, Dwight embodies that precarious ideal balance of Conservatism and Idiosyncrasy that Astrologers call the Cusp of Mystery. My fellows with North Node in Capricorn ate him up mostly.

Dwight all so exemplifies, to me, what most people think an E.N.T.J. is, and what I WISH an E.N.T.J. truly were. His Will to Power is transparent, but he can all ways back it up with a personal anecdote and a bizarre ancient (or even contemporary!) superstition. His talents are endless, and he perseveres in their perfection against all criticism, stopping only to honour his superiors. Jim has a field day sitting next to Dwight, and Pam meanwhile finds reprieve from frazzled ennui and pre-marital depression by sneaking glances at his highly contained affair with Angela the Accountant. Their romance serves as a character foil for Jim and Pam. Not only are these the last two people that we expect to give in to the Power of Love, surrendering the Love of Power. They all so succeed where Jim and Pam fail, and this irony is hard for the young star-crossed lovebirds to ignore.

Angela is an I.N.T.J, and that’s the end of the discussion. The slender, middle-aged blonde comes off at first glance as a schizoaffective outpatient whose every gesture of human kindness leaves us eerily suspicious of her motives. As the series progresses, we grow to understand that she is really just a hyper-introverted neat freak who is revolted by most of her surroundings and suffers daily to not only put up with the idiocy of her neighbours but to hide her own idiosyncrasies from their hypocritical judgments*. When the aforementioned Gossip, Kelly, receives Angela’s Christmas gift from Toby, in whom Angela saw fit to confide at some point given his reserved nature, Kelly condemns Angela’s taste, the only benefit of which is that Angela gets to keep the gift intended for her: a poster of babies dressed up as adults playing musical instruments. More psychoanalytic viewers will understand very quickly why Angela has a thing for art depicting babies masquerading as adults. But I will leave that up for more conventional readers and viewers to un-riddle for themselves.

*Is Angela herself hypocritical for being judgmental? At least she remains close-LIPPED about it! As best as she can.

Needless to say, but needful as a segue: Dwight and Angela are a match made in Valhalla. But their love comes at a cost: no one must ever know. And ironically enough, this secrecy is preserved by the very man who cannot keep it: Michael Scott.

THE PARTY:

One would think that a man like Michael Scott would prize the only other man in the Office who believes in him, but Michael is not so easily bought. The dynamic between Dwight and Michael is not only suggestive but perverse; Dwight honours Michael as a sensei (LITERALLY) and Michael does not even give a fuck about what that word really means. Be that as it may, every good thing that happens to Dwight Michael does, and every good thing that Dwight does he does for Michael.

I have spoken previously of a House Warming Party that Jim throws, whose solitary persona non grata is Michael Scott. Jim rationalizes this with Fascistic dexterity by insisting that Michael’s “authority” might be intimidating to employees. Of course: Jim just really does not want to hang out with Michael. And let’s not presume an Everyman can’t be a Fascist. At some point Jim even writes a speech for Dwight, which is predominantly an adaptation of Benito Mussolini.

As aforementioned, only Dwight cares. Michael, who has been cyber-stalking the entire Office, knows about the Party, but he is embarrassed to admit to this breach of their Privacy. Of course, Michael can’t contain the secret that he has been reading their e-mails, but the breach of privacy is consistent with his whistle-blowing tendencies and attributes. When Michael’s attempts to level with his employees fall flat, he resolves himself to his earlier plans: Friday Night Improvisational Acting Classes. There is no doubt to our eye that he is the Best of his colleagues in this department. The other students ape and ham every gesture, accruing each other’s support only by force of mutual weakness. Michael alone stands out and shines. This owes to one fact: Michael has only one shtick, and it involves a Gun. Every story that he tells is interrupted by the appearance of a firearm in his imaginary possession. Of all the Improv Actors, Michael Scott is the only one whose work is truly Spontaneous. All though the shtick is familiar, all too familiar to him and his audience of collaborators, it is NOVEL and UNEXPECTED in each scene. If he had to give only one performance as an Improvisational Actor, and that Performance were the Performance of a Lifetime, he would nail it to the ceiling with his autotypecast style, and this nail in the ceiling would bring the house down in hysterics. Nothing is as effective at SURPRISING the AUDIENCE as a sudden bodily threat to the characters, and Michael understands that. Sure: it’s simple and redundant. So were ZZ Top. So was Elvis. And Tarantino, who seems to think guns are cool, too. The fact is that by formalizing this as his Thing, he ensures that his work is in NO WAY RELEVANT to the context of the existing narrative. And this is one of the Highest Virtues in Modern Art: that it breaks with the force of karma. Man’s entire folly seems to be that he responds to the Present in terms of the Past. Social Darwinism all ways reminds us that this is permissible by society because society follows basically Animal Behaviour. What sets us apart from beasts if not our ability to Learn New Tricks? Michael does not Learn new tricks, but as a performer, he is not the target*. For an Audience, supposing that that audience is not included in the cast and crew, the Gun is New, and should the show be regular, it would amount to a beloved Running Joke. Michael does not Learn novelty; he TEACHES it by force of his own habit. He sacrifices for the Audience. *Although his fellows berate his self-interest as THOUGH he were attempting to enthrone himself as the target of the project, the Audience (in this case, television fans) LOVES him for not only the fruits but the roots of his genius. And God, does he OWN the Role. It owns HIM. That’s how much he is married to it.

This is why the writer of this essay no longer debates intercollegiately. Every competition confines its audience to other debaters and their few spectators. The judges are all veteran debaters and public speakers. So are the coaches. It’s mortifying. It is like a Cult. And knowing people who major in Communications and who Act in Improv on the side, I do not doubt that Improv is just as Cultish. Hence BoJack Horseman uses it to satirize Scientology. But that’s a story for an other time and place.

If you thought Jim and Co. were bad for leaving Michael out, you should see how BLATANTLY DITCHED he gets by his fellows in the Improv. Class. Apparently, a mutual friend that knows everyone in the group except for Michael invited them to hang out without him, and no one had the power to extend the invitation. If this has ever happened to you, you might have wondered if YOU were the Problem, maybe. Jesus surely had similar doubts when Satan told him to jump off a terrace or something. But we all know that it’s not our fault that the World is cruel, except when we are cruel. Michael can’t change himself; he is too full of himself. And that is where his integrity lies. He is the best actor in the group, and he steals the show because he never deviates. Deep down, he is all ways the same, whatever hare-brained schemes he might devise, and in that sense he is Authentic to a Fault. But it is not HIS Fault, but the Fault of those who Pretend to be what they are not, such as Jim and Pam.

Long story short: Michael shows up. Dwight welcomes him. Michael owns at Karaoke. He sings in pitch, he sings with passion, and he even sings the female voice when no woman present has the courage to do the duet with him. Finally, Jim Himself rises to sing with Michael, singing the female part with some degree of tenderness and to Pam’s expanding amusement. Michael and Jim harmonize, knowing the song MOSTLY by Heart, and as they serenade their coworkers and Jim’s room-mates and other friends, the camera zooms in on two pairs of shoes. Dwight and Angela, unnoticed as the Crowd sits transfixed, are making out, if not even making love.

THE ACCIDENT:

Michael’s Piscean sensitivity is most easily demonstrated in an Episode entitled “The Injury”. The title refers ambiguously to TWO injuries at once: Michael burns his foot on his George Foreman Grille, and Dwight gets a concussion on his way to rush to his Master’s Aid. (Against, mind you, the Master’s Expressed Wishes.)

People often mistake Pisceans for being insensitive, but that is only because there is so much going on at one moment that Total Attention is hard to give to any one part of the problem. An injured Pisces may easily forget the sorrows of the World, because his own pain BECOMES the World. It’s not like we did not warn you: Don’t. Send. Dwight.

It’s fascinating to ponder the fact that the Sign of Pisces rules the Feet. At some point in the episode, Michael Scott asks a physician whether a foot injury is more serious than a brain injury. The doctor does not hesitate to say the latter, though in truth Michael’s question could be summed up as a ZEN koan: why presume the one to rule the other? Is the body not a true democracy? Where would the head be without the foot? So on and so forth. But it’s a pity to say so.

Despite being told repeatedly that his injury is negligible, and in spite of his seeming indifference to the well-being of the man who rubbed oil on his burnt foot, Michael knows what we don’t know: that Dwight is not only FINE, but that he will be Better Off.

Immediately following his injury to the Head, which he incurs after he crashes his car into a pole and then runs into the same, Dwight becomes friendly to all of his coworkers. Pam is even alarmed to discover that Dwight has “kind of” become her friend. Even after treatment, the normally authoritarian Assistant Manager retains a certain unprecedented joie de vie. Most notably, he flirts more openly with Angela, whilst at the same time managing to keep their relationship private and professional. When Jan comes in to coach the women of Scranton’s Branch on being assertive, Angela scoffs inwardly, insisting later in an interview that she is engaged in the “healthiest relationship” she has had for a while.

PART THREE: MICHAEL AND JAN.

Jan is Michael’s boss, though Michael is not Jan’s bitch. Jan Levinson, formerly Jan Levinson-Gould, is not herself any one’s bitch, but that is only because her own Will to Power is so pronounced. The Iron Lady of Dunder Mifflin is in many ways your archetypal Corporate Feminist, and the show takes liberties with her hypocritical feminism that would not fly in today’s forgetful decade.

Jan has only one sentimental weakness: Michael loves her, and she cannot resist being loved BY him. Her ardent attempts to maintain a professional distance from him turn eventually to so searing a rage that one is reminded of a dominatrix addressing her gimp. In the wildly satirical episode “Boys and Girls”, she takes over Michael’s Conference Room in order to coach Pam, Meredith, Kelly, Angela, and Phyllis on how to be Strong Women in the Work Force. Meanwhile, Michael tries to host a Man’s Meeting in the space outside the Conference Room, and the rowdiness of his rallying compels Jan to move the Men’s Meeting to the Warehouse. It is not long thereafter that Michael is pressured by Warehouse workers to represent their interests in forming a Union. Just as Jan is about to lecture her girls (most of whom are of a rather Maternal temperament) about wage disparity, Michael wafts in to tell her that the Warehouse is about to Unionize. In turn, Jan STORMS downstairs to tell the Warehouse Workers exactly why they will NOT be Unionizing, dismissing their intent as some futile attempt to send a pointless message, and she instructs them to direct all their complaints to Michael. She returns upstairs, perhaps to finish lecturing on wage disparity and the importance of bridging it, to avoid personal questions about Michael, and to remind her girls at Dunder Mifflin to be “assertive”, because apparently when women are “assertive” they are not met with the PRAISE that assertive men (like Michael) get. But then: perhaps Michael is just not the Assertive Type. Though can being an American Margaret Thatcher be classified as “assertive” instead of “aggressive”? What does she ASSERT by blaming Michael?

Thankfully, Michael loves her as a dog does. Though he never is her bitch. And with his help, she learns to love again as well. The two of them want the same things. She divorced because she wanted children, and she’d hoped she could “persuade” her now-ex-husband to agree. He just never married, though he’d wanted to have kids since he was ten years old or so.

Herein lies their story so far:

[Okay. So I’ve been sitting on twenty-two pages of gold (NOT Pyrite) here since Thursday morning at what Google Drive tells me was 3:35 A.M. I obviously have a lot more to say on the matter, expounding on Jan and Michael, touching on Oscar (not in That Way) and Kevin (Neither), and just barely scraping the tip of the Iceberg where Kelly and Ryan (whose actors co-wrote the show) are concerned, consolidating my theory that every time Mindy Kaling gets involved in B.J. Novak’s work Michael becomes the Hero and Kelly and Ryan come closer as Ryan’s cynicism is spared by the mercy of his more Affective, if obnoxious, Coworkers. But it’s all ready Tuesday, and I am all ready four story-arcs (sixteen episodes) into Season Three. If I can see it by now, you can, too, without any further aid. But I shall possibly Keep You Posted, with Quixotic Optimism and, of course, the precision of a Schrute.]

Dm.A.A.