Having already triumphed over The Wire’s Idris Elba, the forthcoming season of The Office will find Steve Carell facing down another HBO-bred badass: Deadwood/Justified star Timothy Olyphant, who will bring his oddly charismatic misanthropy to the role of a slick salesman who steals clients away from Michael, Jim, and Dwight, forcing them to “set up a fake company to see what his secret is.” Olyphant will appear in at least two episodes this fall, presumably hatless.
Among the other revelations about this season’s upcoming swan song for Carell: Writer-producer Paul Lieberstein says that Michael Scott will hire his “completely incompetent” nephew, after which he’ll have to undergo mandatory counseling with Lieberstein’s Toby over the effects of nepotism in the office. And he’ll also come down with what he thinks is herpes, which leads to him contacting every woman he’s ever been with to warn them they may be at risk—a plotline that could lead to his eventual, already-promised reconnection with Amy Ryan’s Holly. Hey, which brings us back to The Wire! The beginning is the end is the beginning.