Well, damn.
Alan Sepinwall once said something that rings true of this
finale, bad endings don’t ruin a good series, but good ones make a series.
While this last season has been all over the place, this finale is a near
perfect coda to a very good, very influential series.
The Office was
never a series that was always fully formed. The first season is on the whole
not worth mentioning, and while later seasons were not always the most stellar
of efforts they don’t detract from how wonderful the series was in its prime. I’ve
been frustrated immensely by this season and last season but they can’t take
away from how superb the show was for about six seasons.
This is as perfect of a finale as we might have hoped for
and it plays off so many great character details and callbacks. The episode
even manages to take one of the less digestible elements from this season, Andy’s
story arc, and make it something rather amusing and satisfying that pays off
that character far more than his regression this season should have ever
allowed for.
The episode is set a year into the future right when Dwight
and Angela are set to marry, and the panel talk about the recently released
documentary coincidentally simultaneously is taking place. The episode does a
fine job of acting as a standalone effort while also recalling so much of the
show’s history. The bachelor and bachelorette stories are both very amusing individual
efforts and provide some of the funniest moments for the season (Dwight failing
to understand the concept of a stripper, Meredith’s son turning out to be the stripper
for Angela).
What really makes the episode so wonderful is how astutely
it acknowledges its characters and where they’re at by this point in the
series. Kevin’s firing is mean-spirited but it’s something that’s been a long
time going. The show handles these supporting character moments better
elsewhere, and where it does it absolutely knocks it out. Everything related to
Creed is hilarious and the show finally pointing out Creed’s real life
membership in The Grass Roots is wonderful self-aware acknowledgement a show
could only ever get away with in its series finale. The notion of Meredith off-screen
getting a PhD this whole time is one of the best jokes from this entire season.
Stanley retiring to go down to live in Florida is such a spot-on character
observation, and Phyllis later tearfully saying, “People think Stanley is a
mean old grump” while displaying a wood-carved figure of herself is one of
many, many touching moments from the episode.
Most importantly, the series absolutely nails everything related
to Jim, Pam, and Dwight. The questions at the panel directed at Pam are
incredibly uncomfortable and weirdly specific, but they probably get at the
nagging thoughts of some of us real life fans about Pam’s treatment of Jim
being away. Pam’s response in turn to spontaneously sell the house (hey, Jim
did buy it without telling her) is a lovely little moment in a series that was
built on lovely little moments. Jim and Pam’s sit-down with Dwight about them
leaving for Austin also nicely pays tribute to how much that relationship has
grown, and Dwight firing them so they can receive severance pay only makes the
scene that much more emotionally potent.
I appreciated that the finale recalls what the series was at its
core about, people suffering through corporate drudgery and ennui, and how in
spite of this soul crushing-ness there was sometimes something genuinely great
about teaming up with your co-workers to stave off this existential nightmare. Darryl
repeats how he can’t quite figure out why but he’s going to miss the office
even though he’s totally ready to leave it. Perhaps Michael (a massively
welcome, but brief, appearance from Steve Carrel) shows us best though that
when you get a chance to leave for better things that you need to get away no
matter how Stockholm-Syndrome-in-love you are with your white
collar job. Michael has kids and he’s toned down the antics; he’s better than
ever. But none-the-less the show always had the right of it; those small victories fought in the face of cubical ensnarement are hard fought and precious, and that elevates them to a level of near bliss.
This is a surprisingly emotional episode, especially in
those last few moments. The talking heads juxtaposed with the clips of old
episodes is strikingly evocative. It works as well as it does because as sappy
as the sentiments are they feel like they ring true, and they speak to themes
and truths The Office has long been
keen about.
This was an excellent finale. A very funny, very moving
episode that was a reminder of why we stuck with this series for so long.
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