Line #21 Recap/TheOfficeUSS4E1FunRun


1	Michael feels pretty good about his life...and then he runs over Meredith in the D-M parking lot. Pam and Jim claim they're both single. Karen has left the office, after Jim dumped her in New York.
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3	Dwight takes care of Angela's cat, Sprinkles. When Michael finds out Meredith is being treated for rabies, he forces everyone to participate in a [[TitleDrop "fun run"]] to raise money for rabies.
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5	Air date: September 27, 2007
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7	!!Tropes
8	* AmusingInjuries: Andy's chafed nipples.
9	* BaitAndSwitch: InUniverse, When Michael comes in to inform the office of Meredith's injury, he phrases it in a way that sounds as though Meredith had died of her injuries, with the rest of the staff, most pointedly Pam and Jim, expressing horrified reactions, right before Michael reveals that she will be fine. Stanley makes it clear he is NOT amused.
10	-->'''Stanley:''' [[DudeNotFunny What is wrong with you?!]] Why did you have to phrase it like that?
11	* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Dwight euthanized a pet he had been entrusted to care for without the consent of its owner, and is undeniably callous and unempathetic to Angela's love for the cat, dismissing it as an animal with "no utility." On the other hand, Angela was clearly in ''heavy'' denial that it was Sprinkles' time to go, was forcing the poor cat to stay alive long past the point where she had any quality of life, and refused to even consider euthanasia as a humane option due to her religious beliefs.
12	* CaptainObvious: Michael hates hospitals because he associates them with sickness.
13	* ChronicPetKiller: Dwight euthanizes Sprinkles. He also claims that it's unethical to keep Meredith alive, acting like she's a vegetable even though she's fully conscious.
14	** At one point, he boasts about euthanizing over 150 animals in a pet hospital in a single day.
15	* ClingyJealousGirl: Jan threatens Pam after she inadvertently saw Michael with his pants down.
16	* ContinuityNod:
17	** Elizabeth, the dancer from S3's "Ben Franklin" reappears as a sexy nurse.
18	-->'''Michael:''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint I'm glad you went back and got your degree]].
19	** Dwight speaks to an intern regarding Meredith's hysterectomy, referencing "Health Care"
20	** When the staff organizes the Fun Run, Kevin mentions they didn't do anything like this for his cancer scare in S2's "Michael's Birthday".
21	* EarlyBirdCameo: Toby mentions Alfredo's pizza picked his business card. In "Launch Party," Alfredo's is part of the plot.
22	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Post-promotion Ryan is introduced to us sitting in his large office with his feet up on his desk engaging in a paper-thin attempt at false modesty that only serves to make it incredibly clear that he's become very big-headed and DrunkWithPower very quickly:
23	-->'''Ryan:''' People keep calling me a 'wunderkind', I don't even know what it means... I mean, I know what it means. It means very successful for your age. So I guess it makes sense. But... it's a weird word.
24	* EveryoneCanSeeIt: Kevin says that Jim and Pam are hooking up because all they do is smile. PlayedWith as Oscar says there is no evidence of intimacy, though he seems to agree with Kevin, noticing that they've both been in a remarkably good mood lately.
25	--> '''Kevin:''' Are you ''kidding'' me?!
26	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Dwight advocates pulling the plug on Meredith, saying that, as a farmer, you kill wounded animals. This is the first clue that he actually killed Angela's cat.
27	* FridgeHorror: An in-universe example. Jim points out that last year, Michael complained of a "speed bump" on the highway. He then wonders who Michael ran over last time.
28	* GagCensor: Michael's penis is digitally scrambled when Pam accidentally walks in on him.
29	* GiantNoveltyCheck: Michael insists on presenting one of these to a "rabies doctor," which drastically cuts into their donations. It ends up being only $340[[note]]after paying for the giant check and stripper[[/note]] made out "to science."
30	* HollywoodLaw: Michael being charged with assault, careless driving and a number of other things isn't even addressed. Corporate doesn't even follow up on it after Michael confirms to Ryan that it happened on company property.
31	* IndianBurialGround: Michael asks if anyone has done anything to an Indian burial ground.
32	* InsaneTrollLogic:
33	** Michael says that because he hit Meredith on company property (the parking lot) ''with'' company property (his car), that counts as double jeopardy and the company is fine. Ryan points out that that's not how double jeopardy works.[[note]]Double jeopardy means you can't be prosecuted again for the same crime following a valid acquittal.[[/note]]
34	** Toby is Satan.
35	** The office is cursed because Phyllis and Bob are (slightly) different religions.[[note]]She is Lutheran, he is Unitarian. That means both would be considered Protestants.[[/note]]
36	** The entire point of the "Fun Run" is to raise money and awareness for a disease that is very well-known and has a cure.
37	* JerkassHasAPoint: While he went around it in the complete wrong way, Dwight does raise valid points about Sprinkles's quality of life (Angela says that the cat has had 'countless ailments' in her life) and he at least attempted to euthanize her humanely.
38	* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Dwight claims cats have no utility, comparing them to the animals he keeps on his farm. However, cats have long been used as a form of pest control against a wide variety of small animals that would otherwise eat crops, wound/kill livestock, and spread disease.
39	* LackOfEmpathy: Dwight is extremely cold when he tells Angela that her cat is dead. He doesn't even get her name right. He justifies this as having been raised on a farm with no pets, only animals of utility.
40	* TheMaidenNameDebate: Pam notes out that almost marrying Roy is the closest she ever wants to be to "Pamela Anderson."
41	* ManChild: In a deleted scene, Michael sees his pediatrician to treat his dehydration. Even in the aired version, he has a sucker in his mouth.
42	* NeverMyFault:
43	** Michael hits a woman with a car in the office parking lot, and concludes the office is cursed.
44	** Michael blames Pam for seeing him naked, even though you can clearly hear him saying "Come in."
45	* ProductPlacement: This is the first episode to feature Wegmans-brand products. Wegmans is a major grocery chain in the northeastern US.
46	* PutOnABus: Karen. She briefly appears in the cold open as Jim explains that he broke up with her, and then came in the next day to find her desk completely cleaned out. She appears in a later episode having become regional manager of the Utica branch.
47	* RelationshipUpgrade: Jim and Pam are now officially dating.
48	* RuleOfThree: Invoked in Michael's InsaneTrollLogic. Pam crashes her computer downloading porn, Michael runs over Meredith, and then Sprinkles dies.
49	* RunningOverThePlot: Michael ends up accidentally running over Meredith when he pulls in to the parking lot. While she's in the hospital, the doctor discovers a previous case of rabies, so Michael being Michael decides to host an office fun run for rabies treatment.
50	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Oscar, Creed, and Stanley bail out of the race early on and go to a bar.
51	* SuperstitionEpisode: Downplayed. Michael calls a meeting about the possibility of there being a curse, then he asks some [[InnocentlyInsensitive extremely workplace-inappropriate]] questions about religion, and then he gets some good news and concludes there is no curse after all.
52	* TemptingFate: Michael declares that with Jan at home, Jim back, Ryan at corporate, Dwight and Andy rocking at sales, this is gonna be a good year. And then he runs over Meredith.
53	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Pam insisting that Angela visits Meredith at the hospital triggers a chain of events that leads to Angela breaking up with Dwight, setting up a RelationshipRevolvingDoor that will last all the way into Season 9.

Context Recap / TheOfficeUSS4E1FunRun