You know what they haven't done enough of on this season of The Office? Have parties. Seriously, why don't these guys ever have the chance to party down? Wouldn't that just liven things up? Of course, in actuality it feels like this season has had more parties in it than a season of Party Down. Well, as the title "Pool Party" indicates, once again we the viewing audience are subjected to the gang getting out of the office and having a get together. Doesn't that sound great? If so, what if I were to tell you that once again the focal point would be on Andy and Erin's dead relationship that will obviously some day be rekindled as Jessica, Andy's girlfriend, will be tossed aside? How hard is it for you to contian your excitement?
As we begin, Robert is selling his mansion in the wake of his divorce, lamenting the lack of a wild bachelor's paradise it never became. After his indoor pool is mentioned, Kevin suggests that everybody comes by for a pool party, and Robert says sure why not, and one final get together will be had before the house is put up for sale.
As such, we spend the vast majority of the episode at Robert's mansion, and mostly in his pool room. There is a storyline involving Robert showing Jim, Gabe, Toby, Ryan, and Oscar around his house. Jim had planned on just stopping by the party and getting back home to his wife and children, but his guilted into the tour because he had laughed at something Robert said earlier that wasn't a joke.
This was the best part of all this house party stuff. As they go from room to room, Robert reminisces about all the things he had intended to do. The wild, sexy parties he would have. My favorite joke was about the three movies he had intended to watch repeatedly in his TV room: Caligula, Last Tango in Paris, and Emmanuelle 2. Instead, he was watching things like On Golden Pond with his wife. Also, everybody has a bottle of wine they drink as they go from room to room, with some of them getting drunk. Oscar also mistakes Toby for a wine aficianado, which Toby runs with.
The tour of the house mostly was an excuse for Robert to say weird, sometimes unsettling things while everybody else reacts. It was simple, but it was also joke focused. Plus, Jim getting dragged along made things a bit more humorous. Keep in mind I said the tour was funny. Eventually things get back to the pool room, and then things take a turn. Guess in which direction.
In the pool area, there was a small sort of, kind of storyline involving Darryl and the woman from the warehouse. Her name starts with a V. I'm going to go with Veronica. Maybe it is Vivian. It probably isn't Vance. I could look it up, but I haven't to make the point that she hasn't made that much of an impact. I mean, I even remember Kathy's name, and she never says anything. Anyway, she flirts with Darryl, and then she gets in the pool but Darryl is reluctant because of his being overweight. This did lead to one joke in which she asks Kevin if Darryl doesn't swim, and he replies, "That's racist." Oh, also Kathy did get a couple of lines. When these adults start playing chicken in the pool (seriously) she is looking for Jim but gets Kevin. Why was she looking for Jim? Is she going to seduce him? Will The Office turn into Fatal Attraction? Or Obsessed, starring Stringer Bell? I don't care.
Anyway, the crux of the episode was Andy and Erin and Jessica. Erin is my favorite character, but everything she does with Andy just doesn't interest me anymore, and that seems to be the case with at least the people who like to right about the show. This is partially because Andy is the boss now and his role in the office has changed. Part of it is just that they haven't done it as well as they handled Jim and Pam. I suppose part of it is how weird Erin is, which is good for comedy but not for dramatic moments.
Andy's parents love Jessica, and so Andy has received a family ring to use as a potential engagement ring. Things are being heightened! Will Andy leave Jessica at the altar!? However, after being told by Meredith that Andy followed her home that one time Erin thinks that maybe Andy still has feelings for her, and she decides to act on it. Of course, as we know from previous episodes, Erin learned her flirting moves from the movies, so she isn't very good at it. Also, Andy isn't interested in her.
Unable to get Andy's attention away from Jessica, Erin does what everybody in entertainment does in this situation: Tries to make the other person jealous by hitting on somebody else with disastrous results. Naturally, Erin chooses Dwight, who is confused at first but after Erin tells him her plan, he decides to go along with it. However, they are unable to get Andy's attention because he is looking for the ring, which he has lost. So, Erin and Dwight proceed to kick the eroticism up to almost impossibly high levels with that most sexy of sexy things: chicken fights.
Of course, in reality chicken fights are stupid. Dwight and Erin beat a couple of people, like Kevin and Kathy, and then they take on Andy and Jessica. Dwight and Erin lose, but they continue the fight, and so determined are they to win that Erin ends up choking out Dwight with her thighs. So, if you've ever wanted to see that happen, this was your lucky day. Also, you are a creep.
Dwight eventually wakes up, and then he has a conversation with Andy where he claims he is interested in getting involved with Erin. Andy says it is fine, but he also tells him to take it slow which OBVIOUSLY means something. Also, Erin picks up the ring from the bottom of the pool, because you see Kelly and Phyllis had given it a viking funeral under the assumption it was bad luck. Erin and Andy then have a moment and whatever.
In the end, the tour meets back up with everybody else, Robert realizes he is having the party he always wanted to, and, naturally, he strips naked and jumps in the pool. Ryan and Gabe then join him. This was stupid.
I got maybe a couple slight laughs from the pool stuff, particularly anything involving Andy and Erin. This is alarming because Erin and Dwight are my two favorite characters, but they only were able to elicit minor chuckles on my part. This was in part because what they were doing wasn't interesting, but also because they just didn't get many good lines. They just fake flirted and then chicken fought. Maybe there are people out there hoping for Erin and Andy to get together. If they are, maybe they are loving their storyline. However, I am not against that happening, so the notion isn't the issue. My problem is how bland it has been, and the fact Jessica exists merely to be a roadblock doesn't help.
There was a silver lining to the episode, and it was the cold open. With Pam gone, Jim need somebody new to laugh at his pranks, and that person, he decides, is Stanley. However, Stanley is hard to make laugh. Even dogs dressed as Dwight doesn't work. What does work, on the other hand, is meatballs. Jim just fills Dwights drawers with meatballs, and Stanley loves it. Or does he? In reality, Dwight and Stanley are conning Jim. At the end of the day, they split the meatball haul and eat them. Jim doesn't know what hit him.
This was strange and, in my opinion, hilarious. I thought it was funny when Stanley was laughing at all the meatballs. When I found out Dwight and Stanley's plan it took it to another level. It was bizarre, but plausible, and that helps make it the best part of the episode.
Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. The episode wasn't all that funny, probably the least funny episode of the season. Additionally, the main storyline didn't resonate with me, and the "B" story ended poorly with the whole skinny dipping thing. It was just a step too far, and didn't really do anything but be surprising and wild. The episode didn't do much with Robert other than give him some funny lines and character traits, and Erin and Andy just sort of had another episode of stagnation. In and of itself, "Pool Party" wasn't terribly strong. When you throw in the fact it was yet another party episode and yet another "the gang goes to..." episode, that just makes it that much more tedious. It wasn't bad. In fact, on the strength of the cold open and some of the tour stuff, combines with the fact that most of it was merely mediocre instead of bad, it was still a pretty good episode. However, it was also possibly the weakest episode of the season, and definitely one of the two worst.
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