Recap of The Office: "Phyllis' Wedding"

I had high hopes for last night's episode...the whole office gang would be looking on as Phyllis married Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration. Toasts would be made...booze would be flowing...people would be dancing...romance in the air...but this episode fell flat. Like, Karen flat, oooooh snap! (Just kidding, Karen, hey, who loves you, baby.)

This is one of those classing warning episodes. In other words, this is what happens to The Office when it doesn't walk that fine line between believability and total insanity in its characters. And last night, Michael was to blame. As a kid, he screwed up his ring-bearer duties in his mother's second wedding, and hasn't been to a wedding since, so he wants to atone. In a play for extra honeymoon leave, Phyllis lets Michael push her wheelchair-bound father up the aisle. But when the father surprises everyone by standing up and gamely walking the last few steps to the altar, Michael gets all upset because he feels he's been upstaged. And in general, he makes a total jackass out of himself with various toasts, giving the bride hair and sex advice before she goes out, etc., that he would have been either punched in the face or immediately kicked out for. I didn't end up laughing - I cringed for Phyllis and that was about it.

Nothing else much noteworthy happened plotwise. The best lines on this episode were from Kelly, a seriously underrated character played by Mindy Kaling. She wears a freaking white dress to the wedding, telling people there was "an emergency," but it was just because "I look amazing in white." Later, during the reception, Kelly asks Pam if the wedding is getting her down after she cancelled her own so recently. Pam says she's fine, but Kelly responds that "there’s no way it’s fine, I’m sorry. If I was you, I would just like freak out, and get really drunk, and then tell someone I was pregnant." See, that's crazy, but it's "real" crazy. We all know that person, that celebrity-obsessed busybody who is too dense to see the nose on her own face. So I posit that Kelly was this episode's hero. Let her shine as a beacon. And here's hoping next week's episode is better.

Hyperlinks:
- The Office [NBC]
- Previous recap of The Office [No One Appreciates Me]

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