The Office - "Couples Discount" - Review

I had pretty much forgotten Andy existed until he returned in tonight’s episode. I’m also entirely indifferent to his return. Andy has become such a broad character that I don’t really care about him anymore. It was sweet when he was courting Erin. But now I’m far more interested in Erin and Pete as a pairing. 

Andy’s return is just strange. He looks like a Rastafarian and apparently smells like he’s homeless. Not to mention the fact he’s been gone for 3 months. The whole thing feels like an afterthought. He doesn’t return until the episode does a whole brief plot about the office workers getting their nails done (a storyline that could have been a full episode's plot if the writers wanted it to be but is probably better off not going any longer). By which point there’s not much to really to do with him. He loses a major account and pisses everyone off, which leads to him getting duped by his co-workers into believing they’ve started doing some crazy things while he’s been away, my favorite being Phyllis’s suggestion that they’ve been selling balloons.  

However, this does lead to the episode’s best scene where Erin breaks up with him while he’s on a conference call with David Wallace. Having been talked out of breaking up earlier, seeing her run up and tell him off was nice to see (and also  hilarious).

Though I’m baffled by the point of Brian being introduced (this doesn’t seem to be going anywhere to justify his introduction), it does lead to a surprisingly sweet moment where Pam tells Jim not to go to Philly, “I want us to have a fight” (a line that sounds very weird out of context, and doesn’t stick as well as I feel the writers intended it to, but it’s still touching).

Grade: B-