“Frame Toby”
November 20th, 2008
Michael Scott is not a heartless man – he may hate Toby with every fibre of his being, and he may act as if his return is in fact a 911 emergency, but this does not mean that Michael is a terrible person. Under the circumstances, it makes perfect sense that Toby (Paul Lieberstein) returning would make Michael upset: he didn’t know he was there for a week because he refuses to go into the annex because “that’s where Holly worked,” and his most hated person replacing the person he loved would be highly problematic for anyone, yet alone someone as devoid of stability as Michael.
What works about “Frame Toby” (Michael’s initial reaction to his return, Dwight’s contribution to the eponymous effort, the conclusion of that particular story arc) works fine, but it felt like there was a bigger story here. The last time Michael was this adversarial with a co-worked was in “Goodbye, Stanley,” an episode where Michael finally came to his senses at episode’s end and he and Stanley actually talked out their differences. One of those scenes here could have gone a long way to formalizing Michael’s Holly issues, but the episode never goes there; instead, it spends a bit too much time on Pam’s non-triumphant return to the office, and never quite feels like a cohesive episode or something that adds to the existing mythology of this epic feud.
Cultural Learnings 