The Office (US) S4 E5/6 - 'Launch Party' Mini-Review


Class 2 Felony Charge.

The Scranton branch celebrate the launching of Dunder Mifflin Infinity. The first half of this bumper episodes was undoubtedly the better part, filled with much more laughs as Michael prepares in chaotic fashion for the big party. When the pizza boy was being held hostage was when the episode began to lose me however. Jim and Pam's moment was supposed to be all sweet, but I found it tacky and a bit too cheesy to be believable. Meanwhile, seeing Dwight become more and more depressed is saddening, but it is important character development for the couple and hopefully Angela learns to forgive him eventually. All in all this episode was entertaining, but the weakest instalment in this fourth season so far.

BEST MOMENTS
  • Michael misinterpreting the reactions of the team
    • Andy "OH COME ON!"
    • "Some days I am just on fire"
  • Brain Grandchild
  • STANLEY DANCING!!
  • "Buying paper just became fun!"
  • Lunch Party
  • "Easy booster seat" !!!
  • "Oh, and you cat's still dead"
  • "I did so well, that corporate gave me two plaques in lieu of a pay raise"
  • "Do I have your permission to invite Carol?"
  • "IT KNOWS WHAT YOU DID!"
  • "Start selling multiple reams like a man"
  • Darryl - "Mm"
  • "If you are not this tall, you may not ride the rollercoaster"
  • Green Eggs and Ham being launched on the floor
  • "You beat me. You are the superior being" - adorable
  • "I'm not going to cry over it... I did that in the car on the way home"
  • Michael messing up the pizza order
  • "And KEVIN HAD GREEK FOOD FOR LUNCH AGAIN!"
  • "It's about to get ALL STUPID UP IN HERE!"
  • "I think you're under-thinking it"
  • "Is Alfredo there?"
  • "Because some town in Switzerland says so, you have rights"
  • "I think it looks good" "That's why you're not in charge, Meredith"
  • The BEEF over the pizza!
  • "Hey I just think you should know that one of my salesmen beat your stupid computer... so take that "a**hole!!"
  •  "You had to! What other choice did you have?!" "I could've paid for the pizza"
  • Michael getting street cred from the random sales guy for roasting Ryan!
DID YOU KNOW?!*
  • According to producer Jennifer Celotta, the idea for the cold open where the office workers are watching a logo bounce around a television screen came from a real experience. The writers were in a room watching a DVD logo bounce around the television screen and were arguing about whether it would ever hit the corner
  • Kevin McHale, who plays the pizza delivery kid, later starred in Glee (2009) as Artie Abrams. In the The Office: Viewing Party (2010), Michael Scott identifies Artie Abrams as his favorite character in "Glee" and refers to him as "the invalid."
  • A real Scranton pizzeria, Alfredo's Pizza Cafe, was mentioned as a source of superb pizza by the staff; meanwhile, the similarly-named but fictional "Pizza by Alfredo" was also mentioned, as a source of terrible pizza
  • During the cold opening for this episode, Michael is holding a conference room meeting about how they could make their quarterly reports more visually appealing to read with one suggestion of his being to print them out on "collard" paper. His use of the word "collard" instead of the correct word "colored" actually stems from the end of the season 1 episode 2 Diversity Day. At the end of that episode, Michael is sitting around with his employees discussing how their "Diversity Day" festivities could have gone better had they maybe brought in a diverse set of foods, such as spaghetti, burritos, pad thai, and "colored greens". At this point, Stanley corrects Michael and explains that it's pronounced "collard greens" with Michael replying, "That doesn't make any sense. You don't call them collard people. That's offensive." It makes sense that Michael would unintentionally continue to use the wrong word after Stanley corrected him the first time
  • When Meredith asks Jim to sign her cast, instead of signing it "Jim Halpert" he signs it "John Krasinski."
  • After capturing the pizza delivery, Dwight tells the kid that because of some town in Switzerland he has rights. Here Dwight implies Geneva Conventions that extensively define wartime prisoners' basic rights
  • The website that Phyllis printed out is from a book "Coping With Difficult People" written by Robert M. Bramson Ph.D
  • The binary that Dwight types "011 1111 011 011" doesn't translate to anything as read on screen. However there is a fan theory that sending on how "Dwight" wanted the code to be read. That if you add back the zeros left out due to them not being needed and reverse the order. You get "01100110" and "01101111" which stand for the letters "F" and "O". So Dwight would be telling the computer "Why don't you F O"
RATING: 8.2/10











*Trivia from IMDB

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