It's spring-cleaning day (in January) at Dunder Mifflin. After Jim revealed his feelings about Pam to Michael in "Booze Cruise", Michael has started talking openly about it with Jim, who's afraid that Michael will share the secret with the rest of the office. Oscar takes a sick day, and Dwight tails him to see if he's lying.
Air Date: January 19, 2006
Tropes
- Birds of a Feather: Dwight and Angela start flirting over their mutual disapproval of Oscar calling in sick on cleaning day.
- Captain Oblivious: This episode reveals that Oscar is gay, and Dwight completely misses this.
- Captain Morgan Pose: Michael does this at Jim's desk, which is painfully high for the pose.
- Comically Missing the Point: Dwight found out something about Oscar... He's not sick!
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Jim admits that confiding his secret to Michael was not a smart move, though he admits he had a few drinks beforehand.
- Michael thinks that saying "He is in love with a girl he works with who’s engaged" is somehow preserving Jim's secret.
- The Ditz: Creed doesn't know who Pam is. He also thinks his assigned cleaning chore was "on a voluntary basis".
- Double-Meaning Title: "The Secret" ostensibly is Jim being in love with Pam, but can also refer to Dwight and Angela's secret relationship, and Oscar being gay.
- Fanservice with a Smile: Subverted when Michael takes Jim to Hooters for lunch. He orders the "chicken breast without the chicken," and the waitress gives him a well-deserved verbal smackdown.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Dwight's suspicion that Oscar wasn't really sick is eventually proven correct.
- Metaphorgotten: In his closing monologue, Michael tries to explain that he doesn't like keeping secrets by recounting the plot of a (fictional) movie he saw on Cinemax called More Secrets of a Call Girl.Michael: And the lead character, Shyla, is framed for murder. She goes on the run and winds up working at a bordello in Malibu. I don’t...I don’t want to live like that. I like it here. I don’t want to be Shyla, I like being Michael Scott.
- Secret-Keeper: Played with. Michael sees himself as this, since Jim revealed his feelings for Pam in a moment of drunken vulnerability. But he Cannot Keep a Secret, including talking to Jim in front of Stanley, and using patently obvious "code."Michael: Any news on the P situation?Jim: I don't know what you mean.Michael: P-A-M.
- Shout-Out:
- Michael mistakenly thinks "Our Lips Are Sealed" was by The Bangles.
- He also does a bad imitation of Tony the Tiger
.IT'S GR-R-R-APE!... soda
- That Came Out Wrong: Michael's talking head.Michael: A cluttered desk means a cluttered mind. That means an empty desk...Dwight: Means an empty mind.Michael: No, that's not what I meant.
- What's a Henway?: Jim pulls the "smells like updog"/"what's updog?" gag on Michael, who eagerly tries it out on everyone else. But due to his Cannot Tell a Joke tendencies, he screws it up, even when Dwight falls for it perfectly.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Pam lets her hair down to show Kelly how she's planning to wear it at her wedding. When Michael sees it, he says "Mikey likey! Why don’t you wear your hair like that all the time? It’s much sexier." Pam ashamedly puts her hair back up immediately.
