The Office N00b: Saying Goodbye to Michael Scott

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Written by Colette

Now, you shouldn’t be reading this blog series at all if you want to avoid spoilers, but I feel like this one doesn’t even count as a spoiler because I knew that Steve Carell left The Office before it ended, and as we’ve well established, I’ve never seen the show before.

But anyway, today I’m talking about Season 7, aka “Michael Scott’s Last Season.”

Before I get going, though, if you’re new here, you might want to check out my first few posts:

Now, what I didn’t fully realize is that he left in Season 7, and there were 9 Seasons. I thought this was more of a Season 6 of Community and/or Season 9 of Scrubs scenario, but apparently I still have a couple more Scott-Free Dunder-Mifflin years ahead of me. Unless he comes back? Does he come back? Whatever, don’t tell me yet. As you can tell, I’m bingeing these pretty hard and will know soon enough.

To be honest, I was feeling sort of meh about Season 6, and wasn’t really digging Season 7 at first either. There were moments, of course — Andy’s play, for one, and “the sting” (but mostly just because I love Timothy Olyphant). I did think the Halloween episode was hilarious, though, and I feel like it picked up again after that point.

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Oh! I do have a question about the episode “Threat Level Midnight” if anyone knows the answer… Was any of that actually filmed earlier, or is John Krasinski a vampire like Paul Rudd? Because in the film sections, he looked like Season 2 Jim.

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Anyway, I’ll be honest. I thought I was running out of steam with this show. I knew I would keep going for the blog series’s sake, and just to say I finished, but I wasn’t feeling invested in it at all. Or so I thought. And then Michael proposed to Holly (sweet, but not Jim + Pam amazing). And then Michael said he was leaving.

I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.

This was surprising to me (1) because I already knew this plotline was coming, and (2) because I really didn’t think I cared.

I was wrong.

I can now say that The Office has made me cry real, giant, salty, crocodile tears on three different occasions.

#1 – Jim and Pam’s wedding.

#2 – Dwight reading his recommendation letter out loud.

For the record, Rainn Wilson is one of the actors on this show who I don’t think gets nearly enough credit for how nuanced and subtle, yet powerful, his performances are. The tiniest beat he gave after he says “I define it as Dwight Schrute” and I was just a blubbering mess.

#3 – This:

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SERIOUSLY I JUST GOT TEARS IN MY EYES LOOKING AT THE STUPID .GIF. 😭😭😭

I knew Will Ferrell being the replacement was temporary, so I honestly didn’t pay a ton of attention to his character or the last episode he was in. They were fine, and it was a reasonable bit of stunt casting. No complaints.

The episode that I loved, that gave me hope for Season 8 & 9, was the two-part season finale, “The Search Committee.” In my opinion, this was the episode that cemented for me that while, yes, Steve Carell was awesome and the character of Michael Scott was…lots of things…that the ensemble of this show seems to have the grit and gravitas to carry it forward.

Note – like with all my blogs on The Office, hindsight may be 20-20 with this and I reserve the right to come back after watching Season 8 & 9 and go “boy, was I wrong…” but I’m standing by it for now. 

Also, the cameos were so well done. I mean, yes, laundry list of American comedians which was funny, but hello – CATHERINE FRICKIN’ TATE.

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Any Whovians in the house? Anyone? Anyway… I cheated and looked ahead on IMDB and saw that she’s in more episodes, so I’m stoked about that.

Also, I’m sure I will be in trouble for saying this, but James Spader > Everyone, so hello Robert California, and welcome to Dunder-Mifflin.