The cold opening was pretty funny. It's rare that you see one of Dwight's pranks actually land successfully. The prank is exactly what you'd expect out of him, mean spirited and funny to nobody but him. His maniacal laughter in the talking head really brought the joke home, and left me anticipating a great episode ahead.
Unfortunately it didn't just go down hill from there, it fell off of a cliff. Michael's pathological need to be liked is usually good for some laughs, but in this case it just came off as really pathetic. It was so bad that I couldn't even laugh at it. I just felt sorry for him the entire time.
The scenes with Dwight and Phyllis were awful too. The only laugh I can recall was when Bob Vance asked to "steal" Phyllis from Dwight and he responded "you can't steal what you legally own." That was the typical socially awkward and insensitive Dwight, but there just wasn't enough of it.
This episode is very forgettable, which is understandable. The Office has often had some of its more memorable missteps very close to the end of a season. This ends a run of very good episodes from the show, but with The Office's track record I fully expect next week to be a great one.
Rating: 2 out of 5
