It took nearly 10 days for fans to enjoy another installment of The Office but last night’s post-Super Bowl episode was worth the wait. “Stress Relief” definitely lived up to all its hype and like most fans, I found myself laughing my socks off at every scene. For me, this was one of the greatest episodes I’ve seen in a long time.
If you weren’t able to watch it, you can read a recap of the episode in this article. But in a nutshell, “Stress Relief” showed how the Dunder Mifflin employees reacted (and stayed true to their personalities) during a fire, which paved the way for a much significant plot of how Michael Scott (Steve Carell) causes much of the stress in the office. While The Office diverted viewers’ attention with an unnecessary yet still enjoyable subplot of Mrs. Albert Hannaday, which featured Jack Black, Jessica Alba and Cloris Leachman, it gave the rest of the Dunder Mifflin employees a chance to treat themselves with a little payback.
If I could pick the highlight of last night’s episode, I would choose the roasting of Michael Scott. Although the opening scene was extremely funny, Michael taking it upon himself to get his office in order and relieve their stress at his expense proved to be more noteworthy. I actually think of this as sort of a milestone in the history of The Office. Michael has often found himself in awkward and embarrassing situations whenever his subordinates lash out at him for his impetuous nature and immaturity but never in the show’s entire run have all the employees (including some of their families and the warehouse people) ganged up on him at the same time.
I enjoyed how the employees eagerly took this roasting as a way to relieve some stress and I absolutely loved Kelly’s list of people she would make out with before she would make out with Michael, which included a turtle, a fridge, anybody from the warehouse, a wood chipper, Kevin, a candle, and Lord Voldemort. Most of them never really get the chance to mock their spineless boss face-to-face and hearing them creatively do so was comedic revenge at its finest.
But then again, seeing Michael choke up in tears after hearing all the disdain and mockery from his employees (whom he actually considers his friends) made me feel sorry the guy. After all, he was only trying to use laughter as medicine. In the end, Michael’s poor judge of character came in handy as he gave his employees some good old fashioned roasting. It was one of those rare moments when you can actually applaud Michael for turning his knack for pointing out people’s flaws into something positive and remedial.
-Kris De Leon, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
(Image courtesy of NBC)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
