Quick Take: The Office, “The Sting”
“People can't keep their true natures hidden for long and this guy is smoldering like a tire fire.” – Dwight
Review: The Office, “The Sting”
(S0705) A rival salesman to The Office crew and Andy’s quest to start a band highlighted “The Sting.” As Dwight and Jim go to pitch a sale to a big client, they end up running into Danny Cordray (guest star Timothy Olyphant), a rival salesman from Osprey Paper and someone that Pam had dated years before. They call Michael in to help with the sale since Danny steals clients away from Sabre (formerly Dunder Mifflin). It is fun to watch Michael when he is in a meeting trying to sell because even though he can be a complete fool and socially awkward most of the time, you can’t deny his skills as a salesman.
Danny has everything going for him: he is handsome (Michael first mistakes him for a model) and is a good salesman. When the company decides to stick with Danny, Michael gets frustrated and wants to know how Danny does it. Dwight brings Michael, Jim, Stanley and Phyllis to a surveillance room that has cameras on his office that he has since he is the owner of the building. Dwight pitches them on a plan to stage a “sting” against Danny to learn his techniques. Phyllis and Stanley don’t like the idea so they leave.
They decide to set up Dwight’s office as a fake company and have Meredith pose as the boss. They lure Danny into a meeting to pitch a sale to Meredith. Danny’s good looks have an instant affect on Meredith and as she tries to come onto Danny, Michael pulls the plug on the fake meeting after Ryan and Oscar fail to take over from Meredith. After Danny tries to walk out, Michael convinces him to join the team of Dunder Mifflin as a travelling salesman, which was another showing of Michael’s brilliant salesman skills. The salesmen (Jim, Dwight, Stanley and Phyllis) are not happy with the hiring of Danny.
Meanwhile, Andy learns that a former classmate has recorded a song for an ad in Vermont. Andy is jealous since he and his classmate were in a group together and Andy felt that he was more talented. He sets out to write and record his own song and enlists the help of Darryl on keyboards and Kevin on drums. They end up being a pretty good trio and write a song together. Ed Helms (Andy) has been at the center of the B stories for the past couple of weeks and it makes me wonder if they are grooming him for a bigger role aka taking over for Steve Carell at the end of the season. It seems like the show is trying to get the audience used to seeing him at the center of the stories, but this of course is just a theory.
Timothy Olyphant is a good fit for the show and it would be nice to see him stick around for a while. It seems as though he could be a possibility as Michael’s successor too. It will be interesting to see what happens with the character of Danny and how he impacts Dunder Mifflin Scranton.
Other highlights of the episode:
Video: The Office, “The Sting”
Catch the episode in full from Hulu, while available:
