Michael sets up the office computer network so he can read the employees' email. He finds out he's the only employee not invited to a barbecue at Jim's house, so he goes to crash it after finishing up his improv class. Pam thinks something is up between Dwight and Angela.
Air date: November 22, 2005
Tropes
- Artistic License – Biology: Dwight thinks the high rate of yeast infections is caused by an old bread factory.
- Blatant Lies:
- Everyone makes up a story about their evening plans.
- Michael's improv class goes out for drinks afterwards, but Bill claims it's a birthday party for someone who knows each of them in completely separate ways.
- Butt-Monkey: While he brings it on himself by being obnoxious, by the end of the episode, you feel sorry for Michael for being the social outcast. Finally, Jim takes pity on him, joining him in a karaoke version of "Islands in the Stream".
- Call-Back: We learn that Agent Michael Scarn, the Author Avatar hero of Michael's screenplay Threat Level Midnight from "The Client", is also his favorite character to use in improv class.
- Chandler's Law: Michael annoys everyone when he plays only this trope at his improv class.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Pam gleefully notes that Angela bought two Baby Ruth bars from the vending machine, and later sees Dwight eating a Baby Ruth.
- Dwight wearing Birkenstock sandals to the party, which Jim's roommate comments on. Later, when Angela complains about being covered in tree sap, the camera pans down to her shoes. Both are the basis of the Wham Shot mentioned below.
- Comically Missing the Point: The point of improvisational theater is to play along (ie. improvise) with what the other players are doing. Instead, Michael ignores what everyone else is doing and saying and just points a gun at them (believing it to be "the most exciting thing that can happen").
- Embarrassing Old Photo: Pam is extremely amused to find a dorky-looking photo of Jim in his yearbook.note
- Et Tu, Brute?: When Dwight lies to him, Michael asks "You too?"
- Everyone Can See It: Pam inadvertently learns from Phyllis that everyone at Dunder Mifflin thinks she's in a relationship with Jim, for obvious reasons.
- Exact Words: In one of the improv scenes, Michael plays "Agent Michael Scarn, FBI" and points a gun at someone. In another, he plays "Agent Michael Scoon, FBI" and points a gun at someone. It's implied this is to get around the instructor telling him, off-camera, "no more Michael Scarn".
- Extended Disarming: Played for laughs. When Michael keeps disrupting the improv with a "gun", the instructor makes him hand them all over.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: The other members of Michael's improv class aren't very fond of him due to his refusal to play anything other than "Agent Michael Scarn".
- Hands Go Down: Everyone raises their hand in improv class, but as soon as the instructor chooses Michael for the scene, the others dejectedly put their hands down.
- Highly Visible Password: Michael keeps his password (1-2-3-4) on a sticky note on his computer.
- Hope Spot: For a moment, it looks like Michael is going to get through an improv scene without resorting to having a gun. Then he tells Bill that he has one, to which the instructor decides to call it a night.
- Improv Comedy Is Inane: Michael joins an improv class and annoys his fellow actors by only ever adding to the scene by playing his Author Avatar and pulling out a fake gun.
- Mistaken for Terrorist: When Michael sees the IT guy (a Sikh) arrive, he thinks DM is under attack.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Part of the reason Jim is having the party and invited Dwight was because Jim's roommate is convinced Dwight doesn't exist and is merely a character whose antics Jim made up to mess with him.
- Shout-Out:
- Michael's imitation of a robot morphs into the Tin Woodsman.OIL...CAN...OIL...CAN
- Michael references Welcome Back, Kotter when he raises his hand in improv class. He starts off imitating Arnold Horshack but then seems to mix him up with Freddie Washington.
- Michael's imitation of a robot morphs into the Tin Woodsman.
- Unreliable Voiceover: Michael lamenting that he may not be approachable enough as a boss, played over shots of him annoying various people with a goofy boxing cat Hand Puppet.
- Wham Episode: Dwight and Angela are having a secret relationship (a twist that the cast only learned for the first time in this episode's table read), Pam realizing that everyone's caught on to her and Jim (Angela had already figured it out with her "Pam Pong" game in "Office Olympics"), and the first time the documentary crew gets involved in the story (Pam shares her suspicions about Angela and Dwight with them, and they later alert her to Dwight eating the Baby Ruth bar Angela bought).
- Wham Shot: The episode ends with the camera catching Dwight and Angela making out. We only see their legs, but their footwear (see Chekhov's Gun above) is plainly visible.
