Early in tonight’s episode Michael Scott talks about Valentine’s Day being rough for him since he has a “great capacity for emotion”. Michael feels things, mannnn. That’s a big part of the reason he’s much more likable and relatable than his British counterpart. Michael is a true romantic of the spazziest sort, and the loss of Holly has stung him disproportionately to the amount of time they were together. Incidentally, how long were they an item? It couldn’t have been more than a few months. Yet four months later Michael is still carrying a torch for the HR woman of his dreams. Is there some sort of mathematical ratio for how long a relationship should be mourned in proportion to how long the relationship lasted? If so, what do you think it is? In the immortal words of Whitney Houston, a woman who knows a little something about healthy relationships, I’m asking you cause you know about these things.
Regardless Michael is so filled with heartbreak that he can’t stand to be around Jim and Pam and the sexy, sexy looks they constantly exchange. In Dwight’s delicious reasoning their relationship is so sexy it’s become hostile. I must admit though that I find Jim and Pam’s undying love a lot less oppressively adorable since they got engaged and agreed to permanently exchange the giddy infatuation and lust of new love for the soul-crushing drudgery of marriage. Yes, people with a one-way ticket to a lifetime of monotony are so much easier to take.
Nevertheless Jim and Pam’s l’amour sensible is considered a massive threat to an office full of lonely hearts so they are banished from a Lonely Heart’s mixer thrown by Michael as a way to mend his broken heart and send that curious entity known as Cupid’s Sparrow rocketing in the general direction of Dunder-Mifflin. But first Michael finds potential love not on Flag Day, as various fortune cookies have foretold, but rather at a blood drive, where he strikes up a goofy, promising flirtation with a cute stranger who might just have be loopy and light-headed from blood loss or might genuinely be into him.
Their brief moment of connection takes a fairy tale turn when Michael’s Valentines Day crush leaves behind a glove and with it the hope that she’ll come to the Lonely Hearts mixer to retrieve it so they can resume their nascent flirtation. Kelly finds Michael’s tale of love at the blood truck incredibly romantic, “like a modern day Enchanted.”
Meanwhile, Jim and Pam decide to go out with the only other happy couple in the office: Phyllis and Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration. A pleasurable meal away from the office takes a deeply creepy turn however when Phyllis and Bob leave the table and sneak away to have hot Phyllis-on-Bob, Bob-on-Phyllis bathroom sex. If you’ve ever wondered what Phyllis or Bob would look like with a radiant post-coital glow tonight’s episode provided a definitive answer. Jim understandably lost his appetite, leading to the following exchange:
Bob: You didn’t eat too much there, Jimbo.
Jim: Initially I did.
But not everyone waited around for love to find them. In perhaps my favorite gag of the evening Andy, having pre-paid for several honeymoons decided to make the best of a bad situation by going on those honeymoons by himself. The thought of Andy forlornly embarking on a couple’s massage solo or sharing a romantic hot air balloon ride with himself was funny and sad in the best Office tradition.
Though Michael’s lady of mystery never showed Kevin made solid headway with a woman who looked disconcertingly like a non-bald version of himself while Dwight bullied and terrorized a woman who was like a more pleasant and attractive Angela. Pathos on a distractingly tardy Valentines Day episode of The Office is a given, especially when a Lonely Heart mixer is involved, as are some big laughs. My heart went out to Michael as well as the woman who disappointed everyone by not being the mysterious blood bank woman. To be alive is to be in pain. Michael should know, what with his great capacity for emotion.
Grade: B+
Stray Observations—
—What did you guys think of the Fonzie-centric cold open? He’s no Gorch but I have mad love for Fonzie, yet this struck me as lazy pop-culture-reference-as-punchline comedy. Unlike my love on flag day line. Incidentally, get me drunk some time and I’ll tell you the story of how I once stole cupcakes (or Fonzcakes) and cookies (Fonzookies) from the Fonz’s house.
—“And she was way hotter than Stacey.”
—“I just invited Jim to suck it.”
—I loved how the camera lingered on Dwight and his creepy self-satisfied smile after he uttered the immortal words, “Also, I can retract my penis back into itself.”
—“A hat with no blood in it that is filled with soup.”
—“What did you do, not that I approve of any of it?”
—“Then it’s a happy ending, because he was gay.”
—I never get tired of Dwight’s myopic literal-mindedness. For example his plan to bring together Dunder-Mifflin’s sexy singles via a “giant net.”
—“You’re not letting natural selection do its work, like the guy who invented seat belts.”
—“You mentioned that you’re in tool and die repair. Meredith recently had a full hysterectomy.”
—“Are you on email?”