tvthatdoesntsuck

The Office
Season Five
Episode Eight
“Frame Toby”
Written by Mindy Kaling
Directed by Jason Reitman

While the style of The Officeis so strong that you can’t really tell one director’s work from another’s, it was great to see Jason Reitman’s name on the screen.  Nice little surprise.  This episode is also considerably better than last week’s installment.  Toby gets reintroduced into the mix, much to Michael’s dismay, but those who think the good ol’ Dunder Mifflin boss would take this sitting down are mistaken.  Michael and Dwight spend the length of this episode trying to frame Toby for sexual harassment and drug dealing, which is such a crazy concept that it just has to work.  This time, though, things get a bit too serious and the cops get involved, which leads Michael to almost see Toby as a person when he realizes that he’s really mistreating this man.  The Michael/Toby relationship has always been so interesting, and it was great to see that spin put on it.

There was a somewhat interesting, somewhat dry Jim and Pam plot.  I thought that the last scene with them was well done, with a particularly nice piece of acting from Jenna Fischer.  Overall, it’s definitely one of the better of the season.  I’m a bit let down that none of the subsequent seven episode of this season have been as good as the premiere, but I have faith that we’ll get there.

7/10

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