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I was a few years late to watching this episode (actually watched it for the first time about a year ago). Since I had heard about the JAM wedding I knew eventually they were going to get together. I didn’t know when. After I saw this episode I was so proud (if that’s possible – pride for a fictional character?) of Pam. She lost Jim because she couldn’t tell him what was in her heart. I knew that even if it was still another year before they got together that she had done something wonderful. She matched his courage from Casino Night. She finally went for what she wanted. I’ve been in those shoes. For those who ask how he could still love Pam it’s easy. We’ve seen enough movies and shows like this to teach us that if we keep the faith they will come around. It doesn’t always work out. But that’s why we watch something like this. Just to remind ourselves that it could.
@ #583 Vol-de-mort
I quite agree with you totally. Don’t have more to say than this was a great episode. It takes a lot guts to do what Pam to did, wish I could be that courageous.
I couldn’t help but feel sad for pam when she saw Jim and Karen havin fun(wishing that was her). I loved the end when Michael said WILMAAA. That cracked me up. Total 5 star episode
Wondering if anyone else noticed on the commentary for this episode on the DVD that something weird happens, at one point Harold (the director) mentions a deleted scene where Jim tells Karen to walk under a limbo poll during the egg race. Then, later in the commentary when they are talking about the coal walk, the exact same quote from Harold about the limbo poll is said again but doesn’t really make sense. It almost sounds like they cut and pasted the same quote, but it really shouldn’t be there. Anyone? back me up on this?
I’m surprised so many people don’t like this episode – it’s my personal favorite episode of The Office out of all 5 seasons. It’s hilarious and Pam’s speech is amazing.
at 608:
I laughed SOOOO hard when he yelled “WILMAAA”
Ed Helms, Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson rocked this episode. Nothing new.
I just watched this episode again. Does anyone know who the person in the background making the fire is? It doesn’t look like anyone in the office.
well they were best friends before Stamford. and he got a new girlfriend. forgive and forget!
How can any of you expect Jim to be friends with Pam?! He clearly said that being friends is not enough. When a guy puts it on the line, there is no going back to friends. I would never tolerate such a situation, and neither can Jim. The nerve of Pam saying that they were best friends before Stamford!
watching the episode yet again, I think the lighting was terrible. Pam looked so old in her speech with her brow furrowed.
I dont know if people have said this but I am not going to go read 600 comments to find out. Does Pam know that Jim has applied for the same job as Michael??? I dont think so, because when he said it in the circle, Pam was off in the distance walking on fire. I just dont know how that is going to play into the finale. Maybe they’ll just ignore this fact all together.
That was a great episode…..but what got me really mad was how my tivo cut off right after Pam’s little speech. I wondering did this happen to anyone else? I saw a couple other people wrote about. I was also wondering if it was nbc or the tivo?
I hate to say it, but I thought this was the WORST episode this season, if not the entire series. I’m hoping for a much stronger finale.
Did anything happen after Pam’s speech? My tivo cut off as soon as she walked away.
About the whole Karen/look thing during Pam’s speech: I don’t think she was impressed by Pam’s ballsy-ness at all. The camera doesn’t show her until Pam says something like “And you’re with someone else and that’s fine…” To me, that look was a response to “That’s fine…” like, ‘Who made Pam the authority on whether or not it’s fine for Jim to date someone?’ I think she looked peeved.
Just from watching the episode, I think that Jim and Karen called David Wallace, not the other way around. And for some reason I think that Michael is totally gonna land the job. And how much more entertaining would it be if Michael did get it, and suddenly he wasn’t a self-perceived big fish in a little pond anymore, but some kind of guppy in a lake? The Scrantonites endlessly humor him because deep down they care, but in New York his indefinable Michaelness is bound to cause some serious tension. That makes for far better comedy in my opinion.
It might be true that the show isn’t the way it used to be, but if the show never changed that wouldn’t be good storytelling. Without some kind of change, we wouldn’t have the beautiful coal-walking, speech-making Pam we got on Thursday night. And you can go back and pinpoint every moment this season that moved her along to this point.
I know a lot of people are and have been disappointed by the whole Jim/Pam thing not panning out from the beginning of the season, but I think the way the show has been written has been perfect. And, you know, the show is only 20-something minutes long each week, and every single second is carefully deliberating over before the episode is sent to the network; for people to criticize and say that something (like Pam’s speech) was out of character seems a little bit presumptuous. I just think that the creators, producers, and writers know what they’re doing. And God bless ‘em.
Also, I just have to say that the writers really do make this show amazing. Yes, that is a really big understatement, but think of it this way. In television shows, a love confession/kiss is not really a big deal. It happens on every show practically at some point. Even though those things would be a big deal in real life (i mean if they happened in our own lives)at this point in television, it is hard to shock people, especially when it comes to TV romances, because people think they have seen it all before. And yet these writers continue to amaze us with rather ordinary people doing sort-of ordinary stuff and somehow manage to make it so compelling.
I think the best possible evidence I have of this (even more than casino night or booze cruise or christmas party or the secret)is a seemingly rather insignificant episode: the carpet. Honestly, it takes a lot of talent to make pam’s couple of little trivial phone messages at the end of the day into a sort of happy giddy moment for viewers. Those silly phone calls were just little signs that pam cares a lot about jim, and just what a connection they have, enough to make viewers really happy.
Um, it may be a really really small sort of insignificant thing, but just something I wanted to add that might redeem Jim just a little bit more from this episode. Watch the scene when Dwight is on the hot coals and literally has fallen over from burning. Jim, in the background, is getting ready to try to help/save him from the coals. I just thought that seemed nice.
But that being said, I think being with Karen this entire season, paired with him putting up a wall against Pam, has made him a little less lovable, more ambitious in a way that seems sort of cold. Karen seems to have him thinking that the job, making money, moving up the corporate ladder, etc. is the most important thing. We know from how many years he spent working at Dunder Mifflin, despite the fact he was annoyed by his fellow employees and bored with his job, was because he knew what was really important (to him at least). He seems to have forgotten that, with some of Karen’s help.
It also seems, to me at least, that Pam’s speech is sort of a wakeup call. That he really isn’t the same way he used to be and it might be time to assess which version of himself makes him happier.
RE: one of the 500s posts about how this show is supposed to be about the comedy, not Jim and Pam:
I used to watch it for the comedy, but this season I’ve felt there wasn’t as much as there used to be. I don’t necessarily watch it for Jam, but I think that their relationship added to a lot of the comedy in the first season at least. They were having fun, and brought the whole Office along for the ride. This season there isn’t a Jam at all (as Pam mentioned in her monologue) and I think it has cast a pall over the whole Office. I’d like to see at least them back to their old tricks – how about Karen gets the NY job and Jim stays in Scranton, so they have a flip of what was happening in the beginning – Pam has to pine for Jim while he’s in a dysfunctional relationship?
In any case, I’d love to see more of the comedy back, and that involves Jim being the instigator more than he has been.
i have to add to my last post (which was hundreds of posts ago)that i love the smile michael had when pam said maybe she should be his boss. there was something about that smile that touched me.
I know I sound like a dork, but I loved it when Steve Carell sang on the bus. It was so cute. ;)