Michael gets angry when he realizes that Darryl went over his head to corporate with an idea he previously shot down. Meanwhile the office throws a Halloween costume contest and Jim and Pam try to find out why Danny never called Pam back after a date four years ago.
Tropes
- All for Nothing: In a deleted scene, Oscar ends up reading all the coupons in the coupon book he won to the office, and, as he had assessed, the coupons are all useless, which meant the office put in their effort into the costume contest over a worthless stack of pages.
- Blatant Lies: Jim confronts Danny for an answer on why he never called Pam after two dates with her, and he states that she talked about Jim the entire time. He then ends up being cornered by both of them after Pam says that she would've remembered talking about Jim.
- Captain Oblivious: After Stanley drinks Jim's orange juice instead of his own coffee and has no reaction, the rest of the office tests to see what he won't notice. Over the course of the day, Kevin dresses as Phyllis, Andy is shirtless, Jim puts a cardboard box with a paper of the computer desktop over Stanley's monitor, everyone sits the other way in the conference room, Michael wears fake teeth and declares the success of their branch on Jupiter, Pam wears a moustache and tells Stanley she loves him, Dwight brings a pony into the office, and Michael again wears the fake teeth and puts a puppet on his hand. In the end, the only thing Stanley notices is that the main clock is slow.note
- Dark Horse Victory: Oscar wins the costume contest despite not having an actual costume. Kelly voted for the one least likely to win, Ryan voted for the underdog, and Creed thought Oscar had an excellent Edward James Olmos costume.
- Irony: Oscar is openly disdainful of the coupon book prize for the costume contest, pointing out how much money one would need to spend just to use the coupons to "save" money. He ends up winning.
- Lampshade Hanging: After Michael throws a tantrum over Darryl's actions during the party, Kelly asks if just once the office can have a holiday party without Michael hijacking it for whatever his latest personal problem is.
- Limited Social Circle: Lampshaded in a talking head with Andy and Kevin:Andy: It also sucks for us because we don't get invited to a ton of Halloween parties.Kevin: Yeah. And, like, everyone's gonna be there. Stanley, Phyllis, Angela... Darryl... Creed's a maybe.Andy: Creed's going?
- Not So Above It All: Michael and Dwight put in a fairly serious effort for Jim's prank on Stanley.
- Angela joins everyone in facing the wrong way during the staff meeting, even if she abstains from the rest of the pranking.
- Later, Angela walks the costume runway as a sexy nurse. She admits in the talking head that it was the only costume they had left at the store, and she's well aware of what sells in this office.
- Jim never likes to dress up for Halloween, as clips from previous episodes highlight, and so refuses to dress up as Popeye for Pam. However, after Danny admits that he found Pam "dorky" on their dates and he gets offended, he shows up in full costume, and even brings Cece in dressed as Swee'Pea.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Michael finds out that Darryl took his idea of delivery drivers recommending products to corporate after Michael had initially rejected it, and accuses Darryl of backstabbing him. When the conflict gets escalated up to Gabe and Michael chastises Darryl for going behind his back after everything he's done for him, Darryl asks him directly what Michael has ever done for him:Darryl: What have you done for me? What have you done for me? Ed Truck hired me. Jo promoted me. Gabe listened to me. All you’ve ever done is say no to me. I have ambition. And you kept me at the same level for years.
