Today was Ethics Day in the office, and it was Holly's time to shine. Oh, how I adore this Amy Ryan person! Even though her character no longer thinks Kevin is retarded (greatest B story in sitcom history?), she can totally keep up, and tonight's conference room follies proved it. Michael helped her with her presentation (despite the fact that they're not dating, which was very big of him), and his biggest contribution was clearly the opening "Let's Get Physical/Ethical" dance number, complete with choreography and aerobics class headbands. (I knew what was coming, lyrics-wise, from the moment the boombox turned on, but I enjoyed the heck out of it anyway.) Holly struggled to deal with the inevitable chaos resulting from putting all the Office crazy in a tiny room together: Ryan admitted he has regrets about his double-billing scandal (except for the part where he got to bag some chick who looked just like a Survivor cast member). Stanley frowned over his word searches, especially when Holly asked for examples of over-the-line time wasting: "This meeting," he grumbled. ("Can't set 'em up like that," Michael helpfully advised her.) Michael topped them all by admitting that when he discovered YouTube, he didn't work for five days and instead just watched Cookie Monster sing "Chocolate Rain" over and over again. (I wonder if that experience was "cathark-tic," too.) Somewhere in here, Amy Ryan got to try out her first Jim Halpert-esque take of exhausted desperation to the camera, and I'd say she nailed it.
But then came the doozy: After Michael offered everyone "immunity" for confessing their biggest ethical dilemmas, Meredith (who I feel has been woefully underutilized of late) stood up and said that she's been sleeping with Bruce Myers, the Scranton rep for Hammermill, in exchange for discounts on supplies, and also Outback Steakhouse gift certificates. She classified the relationship as, basically, "an exchange of steak." (Though apparently not much steak — she also later noted that poor Bruce doesn't have much "fruit" in his "Looms.") Holly was appalled, but Michael tried to downplay the whole thing, a dynamic that continued even after they pulled Meredith in for a meeting. "Am I in trouble here or somethin'?" she asked, clearly unaware that a normal person (i.e., Holly) would find her actions at best a bit self-destructive and at worst grounds for dismissal. "I'm not quitting," Meredith grunted at the latter suggestion. And so all Holly could do was fume a bit, and write up her report for corporate.
The thing about the way they're writing this Holly character is that, as with every other marginally sane person in The Office, they have to grasp at straws for a reason to keep her around. Because if we're to believe that she is as normal/smart as she initially appeared, she'd be out the door faster than you can say "Mike-raculous." (If that is in fact what she said; I rewound four times, and that's the best I could come up with.) But see, she's got a crush on Michael, and that's the ticket (not a Counting Crows ticket, but still a ticket) to her staying at Dunder Mifflin. I worry that they're going to have a hard time maintaining the balance here — how many times can he throw away her lunch (and half the items on her desk) and drag her to a pirate-themed "business-romantic" seafood restaurant to discuss spiky chastity belts, then redeem his borderline-psychotic actions by getting her to join him in a Terminator impression before she just gets sick of it all? For the time being, she seems more confused by her own feelings than anything else, a little dazed and glossy behind the eyes, like there's a really bright, ambitious gal trying to claw out from inside that vest and do something real with her life, but that bright gal has been temporarily anesthetized by some weird physiological response to Michael's endorphins. And so when they have a fight about office vs. home — she dared voice the opinion that the Scranton branch is not in fact a family, when coworkers-as-family is basically the defining tenet of Michael's entire sad existence — she finds herself conflicted. She knows she's right, from a practical point of view, but then Michael stops speaking to her and starts bogarting the copier, and it breaks her little former hall-monitor heart.
NEXT: Dwight's time management
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