The Inner Circle - The Office Field Guide - S7E24

this was it this was NBC's chance to save the office to make a new first impression to seal the deal and solidify everybody's fears about a post-michel office so how did they do all right so let's talk about the Inner Circle today the fan reception a deeper meaning which feels like a reboot of sorts for the show and I'm going to share my thoughts on what I think works here and what doesn't and spoiler if you've watched my last three or four episodes you might be a little surprised so let's go [Music] I understand nothing we open up with a conference room meeting and D'Angelo is setting a very aggressive tone for his occupation and this is a clever bit the office and Parks and Recreation to a much larger degree would often show how doing something good for people from a leadership standpoint often results in unanticipated blowback and think about your cake parties or your raises here we're kind of seeing an interesting balance of aggressive fear-inducing tone but all the news is good and it's leaving everyone a little bit confused D'Angelo's talking head explains the reasoning once they figure me out they start to tell me what I want to hear and I need to quickly figure out who's a good worker and who is a good mind reader this is our first look at what Will Ferrell could bring to the office and just being honest this ain't bad it's a nuanced take on the Michael Scott role but that very sentence is what doomed this episode even Angela can't help but compare the two Michael I'm all the DVD and streaming cuts of this episode have a lot of edited out content it's pretty clear that everyone is calibrating their work personas with D'Angelo and we're gonna see that throughout this episode thinking that Kevin has D'Angelo pinned we then head into the opening credits we do have a few noticeable changes Rayne Wilson is now top build and the Michael Scott Dundee shot is replaced with a similar deangelo-centric moment something that the series would play with for the next several episodes and it's not very clear how much time has passed between this episode and goodbye Michael but some culture has already been established around the office D'Angelo has become chummy with a small group of Staff members which The Outsiders have begun to call the Inner Circle there is no Inner Circle your boy Kevin Malone is in the Inner Circle Kevin's talking head there is executed extremely well in fact there are several Talking Heads in this episode that I think are exceptionally well done for example quirky 10th grader Becky Walters finds a wounded Pegasus in the woods and she becomes the horse flyer it's just a shame that Jenna Fischer seems to have a cold or something during this episode eggs and bowling balls she feels a little bit out of it but the character is feeling the impacts of being on the outside a place she has yet to find herself throughout this entire series Pam was always beloved by Michael sometimes too much but now she's probably reliving those days in her mind in which her boss was so desperate to include her in things he'd do things like this oh I almost dropped you can you put me down this puts the main source of drama in play for the Inner Circle which is the Outer Circle versus D'Angelo and to a much lesser degree the Inner Circle the Inner Circle consists of Daryl Jim Kevin and Gabe a b plot does run the length of this episode in which Vickers is trying to win over Dwight but it's Much Ado About Nothing other than leading to a very fun fact we learn about Dwight okay A little about me oh I respond to strong leadership something that never gets brought up ever again but while the day progresses the inner circle is called on to assist D'Angelo in the hiring of a new admin which sets up the now Infamous scene in which D'Angelo mimes out a juggling routine I'll forever be convinced that all of this was improvised on the Fly by Will Ferrell as it seems just very much in his wheelhouse if you've ever seen a motivational juggler by the way and I think you'll know what he was going for here I'm pretty sure he nailed it I especially love his closing statement thank you so much hope you learned something as in what was the lesson here there really wasn't anything of substance but actually I think there's a reason for this sequence and we're gonna get to that in a deeper meaning everyone's reaction to Vickers during this just seals in how the character feels about him and what's happening there's confusion there's fake enthusiasm and without a single line in this episode we know exactly where Stanley is now and then there's Creed I'm not sure what he's seeing as the day goes on the outers begin to share their sentiments about D'Angelo I like working for him of course you do Jim you're a man D'Angelo is a huge sexist which Harkens back to the conversation we had way back in season three when the office dealt with this back then what you're saying is extremely misogynistic but we're gonna get to that later in this video for now the inners and the outers are all coping with their place in The Unofficial hierarchy of the office after Jim confronts D'Angelo in a cringe-worthy fashion by the way you are a little sexist or damn what is wrong with you I just have to phrase it like that and out of touch D'Angelo attempts to rectify his inner office relations and reinforce his appreciation for women while introducing his new admin during the sequence we see maybe Phyllis took Michael's words to heart which is kind of touching after the sequence though it's clear that for his speaking up Jim has now been ejected out of the Inner Circle Andy who somewhat plays on commentary for the extreme male feminist role immediately throws his values aside once the opportunity arises to advance his position with the new boss and with the boys club getting too rowdy Pam attempts to fulfill her office admin duty to keep the office working thanks Bob however in the process Jim is able to bait D'Angelo in the same way that Charles Miner baited him all of those years ago being a short dude with barely any vertical leap I couldn't even dream of touching the net of a regulation basketball hoop but I have to imagine in this situation aggressive self-rescue is all that would be going through my mind I do love that D'Angelo didn't have his juggling set by the way but he did have a super long basketball shorts with him and at this point I've seen D'Angelo carted out in an ambulance wasn't enough for the audience to know that he wasn't coming back DeAngelo does come back to the office for one more nonsensical bit the more I analyze the sequence the more I noticed things like Angela's saying Michael and then the next cut you can see her breaking character and as they're all walking to Angela out of the office for good Krasinski also breaks it's almost as though the nerves and the walls were gone at this point in the filming and everyone was loosening up having some fun and making a pretty funny scene but that might lend into how this episode turned out overall we're going to get to that in the ratings but I have a solid respect for the writer tasked to write the Inner Circle Charles Grandy it was no easy task to devise the major plot elements for the first corelis episode of The Office getting to play with a new set of rules but not swaying too far from the sidewalk would also have definitely been a Monumental task and tackling the toxic workplace culture was an interesting take that was truly unique to this episode in one major way though the office handled sexism way back in season 2 and season three the thing is they couldn't show Michael Scott really being a dick only kind of a dick I don't know that I believe anyone's 100 a dick man and that's because Michael was a reluctant villain showing truly despicable Behavior would have acted in a way to truly vilify the character and thus lose the audience's affection for him with D'Angelo though this being his last appearance and all they didn't quite have that problem they could make us hate the character and they worked that in in some clever and nuanced ways so let's take a look at that and this episode's commentary on interoffice Politics As We dive into the deeper meaning what does a bean mean someone please explain it to Kevin like I said this is the one time the office could actually make us hate the person residing in the manager's seat we have all sorts of reasons to do so first let's deal with the blatant sexism in this episode which doesn't exist right except it 100 does exist depending on how you define sexism at least because it could also be called misogyny now I can hear the keyboard Warriors typing frivolously already well before you panic too much just I'm not making a political stance here I'm not not yet at least I'm going to take a look at what this episode is saying though in the office very much is as it has done several times throughout its run commenting on a dysfunctional workplace which is basically the reason the series existed in the first place so before the alpha Bros peace out hear me as a fellow fan of the office and let's dig in the lunch calibration session is when this episode specifically calls out D'Angelo's sexism they identify the inner circle is a boys club under the guise of departmental jam sessions while Jim technically is the head of sales Kevin is replacing Angela Pam is not invited and then that's right Jordan later sits in to take notes something typically reserved for the receptionist to do but we're going to get into that in just a moment for now I'm just calling out that Aaron was also not invited to these sessions beyond the males only Inner Circle are the differences in the ways that D'Angelo talks with his employees for example he's desperately trying to went over Dwight with gifts boast and whatever this was actually intended to be tell your horde alone nevertheless Dwight very much is a target for D'Angelo to win over at least in his eyes he's also super chummy with Brian none of this alone is poor Behavior by the way but let's take a quick look at how he treats the women when he's having one-on-one conversations with him right because he doesn't have any direct one-to-one conversations with women in this episode except when Pam the puppy dog interrupts him at the door he has this warmth when he's talking with Daryl that turns cold when dealing with Pam then immediately flips when he addresses you guessed it hey dudes hey admittedly Pam is written very hyper here but it probably has something to do with the fact that Michael loved her so much that he named his dog after her he just named his new puppy after you Pamela beaksley it's a beagle it's really [ __ ] cute but with D'Angelo she can't find an inn meaning that she's feeling her career is out of control and that makes her behave a bit erratic erratic which has more to do with in her office politics but that doesn't seem to help that you can't find that in seemingly because she's a woman looking at the inner circle's resume session I particularly love Gabe's word choice here 300 square feet 320 320. it's just free balling it while that figure of speech can mean improvising without sufficient preparation it also just means not wearing any underwear language that corporate gave would probably choose safer alternatives for in a mixed gendered situation but here with just the dudes he feels free to speak freely it's only a problem when the Inner Circle becomes an exclusive Club because their behavior would have to change meaning that they would never change because this is where it's comfortable as they all joke about unqualified applicants mainly jokes about qualifications and intelligence level of the women who applied a solo man is pulled from the pile spurring the infamous juggling scene but for a moment think through the ramifications here the only dude seeming to have made the short list of resumes was someone that D'Angelo had an inherent bias towards I'm a big juggler further let's talk about this for a second why does he need an admin in the first place on one hand it's probably a joke commenting on the very real workplace thing that happens in which when new management takes over they tend to bring in a bunch of their own ideals their own people spend a ton of money that's unnecessary under the guise of correcting course and once all that dust settles people get let go and it's very much a power play and don't forget that in the cold opening he only directly benefited the guys in the office perhaps even queuing up some loyalty from the HR department over a chair that Michael probably broke for the proposal Toby you're getting a new chair thanks so with Toby paid off it left only Jim to confront D'Angelo and what has to be the highest moment of cringe for me in this episode I mean seriously there's a time and place for everything and I can just I can see the merits and just coming out and saying it but you know you gotta own it then Jim not speaking meekly under the guise of conveying other people's concerns this conflicts with every way that I would handle this situation and it creates a fantastic moment for me and the boys club responds exactly like these clicks do when someone breaks rank damn whoa that's wait with retaliation first we have D'Angelo's defense which comes in two parts and in case someone is misinterpreting the joke here saying I love women is not the same as saying I'm not a sexist we dealt with that again in season three this is backed up by what immediately follows introducing a brand new admin an attractive yet inexperienced young woman signifying that her appearance was probably more of a selling point than what she would really bring to the role work wise so how can someone like D'Angelo say and probably genuinely believe that he loves women and yet his behavior says that he's sexist well fear not that's also in the subtext of this episode and it's an inherent bias that he seems to have against women in general for example the C plot of this one is Ryan pretending to be Kelly's boss well early in the episode Ryan is seen yelling at Kelly D'Angelo's response would indicate that he has an implicit trust for what Ryan's doing at that moment that he's doing the right thing by taking a harsh tone towards a subordinate he laughs it off but then later Kelly finally tells D'Angelo the truth you seem kind of hysterical to me Kelly is kind of hysterical pretty much character trait of hers this was just 10 minutes ago how did you even get that job what you chose but Kelly presented the truth to D'angelo in a relatively calm demeanor while shocking she was very much not hysterical D'Angelo still sides with Brian again showing an implicit trust towards the man and uses language that very much seems to have its roots and historical sexism language is fluid and you know we use words in a plethora of ways I'm convinced this word choice was very specifically chosen here by the writers to make it completely clear that D'Angelo is judging this with an inherent bias towards women and if you still don't believe me then there's this some of the female department heads oh yeah right and look the office isn't just playing the part of the woke social justice Warrior commentary and sometimes it's even commenting on the opposite but it very much is calling out what happens when those in charge are offering opportunities to just a single demographic in this case the men in the office because if you're following along here beyond the sexism there absolutely is a deeper theme play and it's that sweet sweet inner office politics everyone is dealing with how to bridge the gap between their work personas and their career aspirations reflected by their desire to be in the Inner Circle versus wanting to destroy the Inner Circle some people are unintentionally behaving weirdly like pan some people are masking their personal feelings and their personality sacrificing their own values in the process like Daryl damn that respect from a brother and more poignantly Andy later now this strategy while may be related to what he says in the cold opening is probably a result of just being a bad leader which is what I think the whole point of the foe juggling scene was meant to convey from a writing standpoint that all that's glitter Is Not Gold D'Angelo does everything he can to put on a front of a big show but underneath there's nothing by the way he's already told us as much in the sequence that I can't pay enough to stay in my head for some reason walking along out of work again give me that damn dog thief bad leadership is win the inner office politics go from fun to terrible for for me at least I love this stuff I love figuring out how to manage up analyzing the workplace relationships that I see around me how people Advance their careers all of that stuff is so much fun to me but when you have a bad leader The Rules of Engagement are out the door because poor behavior is often rewarded and speaking the truth even if it's done cringefully so is looked down upon damn retaliation sexism inconsistency and the punishment mindset are all marks of bad leadership and speaking of inconsistency Jim is offered a Spam back here on the inner circle it's at this point our boy has to decide if his career should take precedence over his decency which is a concept that I am obsessed with over the last last year or so where does someone's decency meet their world view in this case Jim turns down the offer to rejoin the boys club opting to try to knock D'Angelo down a notch I doubt hospitalization and ruining someone's life was you know in Jim's head here but it was more of an attempt to disillusion the boys club over their leader which again is the office's commentary on ineffective virtual signaling Andy was never going to change anything here because the moment he got behind closed doors he just reverts to frat boy and he really only cared more about advancing himself in his social groups and then later in his career more than actually acting in a way that would result in change snip snip all right girls so when this gym is once again shown to be the hero of the day thing is you know just knowing people and having been in the workplace now for so long had this accident not happened this wouldn't have worked at all the staff would have been stuck with another season one Michael Scott scenario with a dysfunctional immature and sexist boss however that's not what the office is anymore so the fanciful exit of Will Ferrell from the season occurred with spectacular fashion and were left saying Noah and so let's talk about that in the ratings this is the worst [Music] right so out of the gate with no Steve Carell we have an episode that is in my opinion absolutely on par with the rest of the writing tone and approach of the show over the last year especially season six is content before they were having to deal with corel's departure the jokes are written at a similar Cadence the characters inch forward in various ways and the episode ends in a way that you feel satisfied for watching it without much substantially actually happening all of this is comedy episode writing 101 it worked very well in season six and yet now without Steve Carell the rating suffered massively taking a look at the scores for this it's rated quite low but upon looking at those reviews for the most part it seems to be people bemoaning corel's absence almost taking all of their angst out on this episode simply because it's the first or people not quite understanding the point of Will Ferrell's inclusion something that I've already talked about at length what's weird is that I actually think the writing and Pharaoh's performance work quite well for this situation we've all had new bosses and while things always start cordially over time we begin to see the cracks in their character if you've not been in the workplace and had this experience yourself then think about a professor or even just a teacher that you initially loved but over time you began to become slowly defensive towards the person in order to prevent yourself from experiencing any of their anger the retribution or a wrath and that was really a smart play for Grandy in this situation like I talked about the decision to make Will Ferrell an objectively bad manager not just a weird or zany manager just a bad person created a playground that they'd never really be able to play with ever again throughout this series which is why I say this feels like a reboot of the deeper meaning aspect of the office in some ways they'd swung so hard into the dramatic territories that the show is a far cry from being a piece of Comedy commentary on the White Collar versus Blue Collar relationships or the performance reviews or just what it's like to have a bad boss having a reminder like this that a bad manager can in fact ruin the place that we spend a majority of our time at while we are awake that is what the office is and this slow descent and the madness began with the whole cake thing from last episode although In fairness D'Angelo's prior addiction had little to no bearing on anything that happened in the series beyond the riding with no Corral for will to play second fiddle too it gave him a chance to create a neat nuanced fanciful villain he's not pure evil he's just kind of a dick he doesn't think of himself as a sexist but he clearly is he doesn't see a problem with the Inner Circle model yet in practice this would result in disillusioning good workers and thus losing them further it also seems that the actors began to loosen up and really got into a Groove with the new temporary lead seems that the mini breaks that we see in character in the final moments of this episode it's clear that there was some comedic cohesion occurring it's a shame that that happened and what I'm assuming was probably one of the last scenes shot for this episode so I don't actually hate the Inner Circle episode of The Office it's packed with everything I love from this series minus one of my favorite sources of jokes and drama It suffers a bit due to that but not significantly I don't hate this I just hate the decisions that led to the misuse of Will Ferrell but I have to ask myself did they actually capitalize on this one chance to make a new first impression with fans admittedly I think a lot of fans were already checking out at this point during the series and those who stayed were curious on how this transition would be handled so it's kind of hard for me to say but I could see what they were trying to do and while it's not what I would have done I've also never received an offer letter to go right for a major production like the office but hey you know just hit me up on my email you know no I'll ask you this was the Inner Circle truly that bad was it the misstep that broke the office for good for me probably not while I've criticized a lot of the officers writing as of late this is very much on par in my opinion this episode gets the brunt of the fandom's hatred and that's why it's listed so low all up I give the Inner Circle three out of five oh I think it's 1800 but that's just what I think about the Inner Circle episode of The Office what are your thoughts leave them in the comments and let me know next week we're going to be talking about Dwight Schrute acting manager which made my short list of the best corelis episodes of the office so we're in for a real treat thanks for watching and we'll see you next time

Channel: Mulverine

Views: 30,864

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Id: sYH45twAVrk

Length: 24min 5sec (1445 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 29 2023