At this point, the only thing standing in the way of Pam and Jim giving fans the marriage they’ve been waiting for is if one of the couple gets hit by a truck. (Or a falling piano. Whichever.) Since Jim manned up and asked Pam out, the writers have been carefully planting land mines: Art school. Jim doppelgänger in New York. Jim’s jealousy and general lack of ambition. All easily tiptoed past, and not thought of again. Last night brought (another) potential deal breaker: Jim, a small-town imp socially just stunted enough to think it’s a good idea to buy his parents’ house for him and his fiancée without telling her, unveils the “surprise.â€
Pam is already about to freak out, realizing how little the office respects her — Ryan’s passive-aggressive demands that she clean the microwave were quietly humiliating. And Jim, with the house purchase, dismisses Pam’s thoughts just like everyone else. Quite a pickle! So he shows her the depressingly broken-down home — complete with a hideous, immovable clown in the living room — and … she cries and says she loves it. “You bought me a house!†Another land mine deftly sidestepped. If Jim were diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, Pam would probably smile the tumor away. We’re glad they’re going to be together. Enough with the red herrings.
In other goings-on, Toby returns from Costa Rica, which also means a return of Evil Michael, who for reasons unknown despises Toby. It’s nice to have the blustering impotent Michael back, at least temporarily. Ryan and Kelly break up again, Dwight calls the police as Andy, and … well, that’s about it. Now there are two weeks off before the Andy-Angela wedding plans kick in at Schrute Farms; should we also expect Jim and Pam to face another “threatening†development?