Quick Take: The Office, “Sex Ed”
“I have a disease, of which there is no known cure. It has been sexually transmitted to me. I can't even say it. H-I-R-P-E-E-S.” – Michael Scott
Review: The Office, “Sex Ed”
(S0704) It was a story A and story B night for The Office crew and while both plots were entertaining, if left me wanting more. In story A, Michael comes to work with a fake mustache on and as it falls off while he is drinking coffee, a huge cold sore is revealed. The staff leads him to believe that he has herpes so Dwight convinces him to contact the women he has had relations with in order to figure out who gave it to him. Of course Michael thinks this is a good idea, instead of going with the logical sense of seeing a doctor in order to have it checked out.
Michael travels down memory lane as he calls Holly and Donna and then visits in person with Pam’s mom Helene (Linda Purl), Carol (Nancy Carell), and Jan (Melora Hardin). Michael’s phone call with Holly made me miss Amy Ryan even more. Their ability to match each other on jokes is what keeps it entertaining because they are both so awkward. Holly tells Michael that he romanticizes relationships and believes them to be more than what they were, especially their relationship. Michael ponders this too much and instead of right out telling each of the women about his problem, he asks each of them what their relationships meant.
Each encounter was entertaining, with Michael mistaking a lady in her 70s for Pam’s mom and crazy Jan telling him she has her own CD of Doris Day hits. It was sad to see Michael realize after his conversation with Holly and Carol that he makes things bigger than he needs to, just like the fact that he didn’t go to a doctor first about his cold sore. It was even sadder watching him leave a voice mail message to Holly telling her that he didn’t make them up. How I long for a Michael/Holly reunion before Carell takes his final bow!
In story B, Andy (Ed Helms) was the front runner again. After Michael’s revelation and Meredith (Kate Flannery) revealing she has herpes (ewww), Andy decides to teach everyone else about safe sex. Although he misleads people into thinking it is geared towards Meredith, his ulterior motives are to figure out if Erin (Ellie Kemper) is sleeping with Gabe (Zach Woods).
The staffers are lured into the conference room with pizza for Andy’s sex education lesson and this is about the only entertaining part of the plot as they talk about the pros and cons of sex. As Andy asks what the consequence of sex is, Kevin (Brian Baumgartner) replies that it “feels unbelievable.” Then the staff lectures Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) on unplanned pregnancy being a con and both the Halperts and Darrell (Craig Robinson) defended the existence of the Halpert baby. This got Andy to move unplanned pregnancy from cons to pros. The conference room meeting was ended as soon as Andy was about to attempt to put a condom on a pencil.
In the end, Gabe knew what Andy was up to and reminded Andy that he gave Gabe his blessing to ask Erin out. Most important, why did Erin and Andy break up in the first place? Must be time to re-watch Season Six to see if there was something I missed.
Video: The Office, “Sex Ed”
Check out the episode in total while available, from Hulu:
Totally agree that the Michael/Holly reunion is what everyone wants to see before Scott takes off, and this episode is a pretty good leading indicator that we'll get it.
Also agree that the scenes with Helms were by far the best. Most of Scott's journey was more awkward/dramatic than awkward/funny, and it really didn't work all that well (except to push the Michael/Holly relationship along a bit I guess).