The Office S2Ep9: Email Surveillance
Featuring a very nosy Pam
♩♬ “Islands in the stream. That is what we are…” - Michael and Jim ♩♬
Breaking down Jim & Pam’s love story in The Office, one episode at a time…
All Office episode breakdowns.
Beginning
“There’s no time to think about if this is real.” -Michael
Sadiq the IT guy shows Michael how to read everyone’s emails. But Michael isn’t the only one spying on coworkers this episode…
Dwight tells Angela to erase any sensitive emails immediately. Pam overhears this and realizes they’re probably dating. She’s giddy to tell Jim about it, but judgmental. She doesn’t have respect for Dwight and Angela’s privacy, or self-awareness…that she is also in an office romance. At least Dwight and Angela are aware of their relationship.
Even the camera highlights how similar the two couples are. Dwight and Angela stand and talk by reception. As soon as they walk away, Jim and Pam take their spots in the frame (4 minutes 21 seconds).
Jim and Pam replace Dwight and Angela in the frame (4:21).
Pam pushes down her feelings for Jim, so she’s not always aware of them. This unawareness leads to some pretty cringe things, like asking the camera crew to spy on Dwight and Angela. The camera catches her flirting with Jim all the time! But it doesn’t occur to Pam that others can see what she blinds herself to.
Pam continues snooping. She tries to find out Dwight’s taste in women. She asks Angela if she’s bringing anyone to Jim’s bar-b-que that night. She notices Angela buying two candy bars from the vending machine. Pretty brazen to point that out to the camera with Angela right there. Then she celebrates when the cameramen find Dwight eating that extra candy bar.
“I gotta erase a lot of stuff. A lot……..of stuff.” -Kevin
I’m sorry………..but how many times have Jim and Pam bought snacks for each other???? Pam is throwing stones from a glass house. Except, she doesn’t even realize she’s in a glass house.
We find out Roy can’t make the bar-b-que tonight (cue Jim’s smile), Michael has an “Et tu, Brutus?” moment with Dwight, and then we’re off to the party.
“Probably because we’re down river from that old bread factory…” - Dwight
Middle
“Does he have access to their medical records?” -Dwight
Pam arrives just in time for Jim’s apartment tour. She looks pleased to overhear that Katy can’t make it, and that Jim hasn’t hung out with her recently. Jim and Pam don’t talk about Jim’s dating life—Pam has to eavesdrop to find out.
Sneaky Pam reaches her peak….in Jim’s room! She’s alone in Jim’s room! She breaks off the tour to snoop around. She looks surprised and embarrassed when the camera finds her. Maybe she didn’t realize how bold this was until someone caught her.
Jim: “Chicken, hot dog, burger?
Angela: “I’m a vegetarian.”
Jim: “There is soda inside.”
Then, Jim walks in. Pam eventually sits on his bed, with Jim in his desk chair. I don’t think Pam is aware how intimate this is. But Jim seems aware. They talk for a bit and he looks sweetly at Pam, then stares off into space, probably unsure what to do or say. Pam continues reading his yearbook quietly. Jim seems to appreciate the moment for what it is and doesn’t make a move. It’s like a butterfly just landed on his shoulder and he doesn’t want to scare it away.
"Liar! You are a liar!” -Michael
“No! No I am not!” -Angela
I hate to do this, but I’m going to, because it’s in the show…………….but this “sitting-on-the-bed” scene will be mirrored in season 8 episode 16, when Cathy sits on Jim’s bed in his hotel room in Tallahassee. In season 2, sitting on your crush’s bed is significant and delicate. In season 8….
So wacky and broad. Cathy is desperate and Jim unbelievable. Either Jim is an asshole who wants Cathy in his bed but “pretends” he has “no control” over it, or he’s a moron who doesn’t realize it’s possible to walk out a door. How am I supposed to value Jim’s restraint with Pam now, if he will also do nothing later when a woman lays in his bed, naked under a robe, when he’s married? Don’t love it! Whatever!
“I’m looking in my wallet for money so you can tell me my fortune.” - Michael
End
Back at the party, Dwight and Angela talk. Pam gets suspicious (because wow! this is something she and Jim never do!). She asks Phyllis if she’s heard about any “secret office romances.” Pam is so unaware, she doesn’t know what Phyllis means when she responds, “You tell me.” When Phyllis clarifies, “You do mean you and Jim, right?,” Pam is speechless. She looks like she can’t breathe. Once again, Pam’s bubble of obliviousness is popped by her coworkers’ observations. Except this time, Pam brought it on herself.
Later, Jim asks Pam how her side project is going (the two have been sitting next to each other all night, by the way. Pam doesn’t stop hanging out with Jim after Phyllis’ comment). Pam, finally aware of herself, says she gave it up and that she was “grasping at straws.”
The irony is that Pam wasn’t grasping at straws. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and there is fire in both couples. Dwight and Angela are in love, just like she and Jim are in love.
“Boom! Detective Michael Scott! I’m with the FBI!” - Michael
But if “talking at work” + “buying each other snacks” = “love,” then she and Jim are guilty as charged. So Pam changes the equation. She goes on about how two people can spend time together and just be friends, blah blah blah. That it was unfair of “us” to assume there was anything else going on. It might have been unfair of her to assume, but the assumption was accurate.
Pam has more growing to do. I really like that her character arc isn’t about jumping from Roy to Jim. It’s about developing the inner-strength to go after what she wants. For now, she’s not ready to admit what she wants, let alone go after it.
The episode ends with Jim making it up to Michael for not inviting him to the party. He becomes the karaoke Dolly Parton to Michael’s Kenny Rogers. Meanwhile, Dwight and Angela “sail away” to the backyard…Birkenstocks and all.
“So, if you guys see anything—” - Pam, to the camera crew
