The Hoomers continue

The Office. This week's The Office was in top form. From Rainn Wilson's fantastic portrayal of Dwight as a haggler at the office garage sale, to the wonderfuly tender moments of Michael and Holly's relationship, this episode was great.

As one of TV's all-time best supporting characters who's antics make us laugh, Dwight was great this episode. The goal of trading from a thumbtack to the best thing at the garage sale was noble, and we all knew he would make it...only to be foiled by Jim. The trading of the telescope for the magic legumes was classic Dwight and Jim. There is something so great about the way these two play off each other - especially Wilson's ability to make everything a competition (which he always loses). Of the rest of the garage sale participants, I especially liked Ryan's bottled salsa and pesto, featuring Oscar and Phyllis respectively on the bottles.

But of course, the main part of the episode (and certainly what everyone will talk about) was the proposal.

One of the things The Office does better than almost any other show is it takes every day situations and makes them tender and special. Awkward things happen to all of us every day in real life - and, generally speaking, TV shows try to take these situations and make them either funny or completely ignore them. The Office goes the opposite direction and embraces them. This is what makes such tender moments possible and what makes the show so special. When the sprinkler went on in the middle of Michael's proposal - sure it was funny - but it didn't take away from the moment one bit. If anything, it enhanced it. This was almost as great a moment as Jim proposing to Pam or the wedding episode. The honest feelings that all of us see behind the characters bring us in to the action and make us connect and really care about them as if we knew them. Kudos to the Office for really bringing it this episode.

I hope that Michael and Holly will be back at some point for a wedding episode. It is such a shame for the show to be losing Steve Carell, and I hope that he will return to provide his unique sense of humor to the show again. To be honest, I'm not sure how the show will survive without Michael, but I guess we'll see how things will go. All I have to say is that this last episode made me both laugh out loud and well up a bit...and really, what more could you ask from 20 minutes of TV?

Until the next episode...
Chris