Oh how the mighty have fallen—right off the deep end, that is.

Jan Levenson, nee Gould, has gone from putting her foot down with Michael’s workplace antics to putting a Dundie right through the 15-inch screen of his prized, $200 plasm TV. She’s gone from Godzillary to Queen Kong. And all the glue in the world isn’t going to put that metaphorical Dundie back together, dear Jan.

Your flawed, dysfunctional, lopsided relationship with Michael is as shattered as your sanity. And yet, if you asked him, he’d probably still like to have a %#@#$# kid with you.

The Office didn’t exactly return with a bang. It was more like an uncomfortable explosion, served with braised osso bucco and a triple vasectomy. The cringe—that quality bred into this show’s DNA even as its recessive broad humor genes sometimes assert themselves—was on full display.

This episode was on the dark side, and many of the laughs were of the uncomfortable variety. That’s just how I like it.
Edward Albee made audiences cringe with his 1962 play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe”, the tale of a dinner party gone horribly awry as guests witness bickering hosts and stay even after the venom is turned on them. The comparison to “Dinner Party” is an apt one.Who’s afraid of Jan? I am. Pam too. And on that note, let’s get into it.

The cold open was average. Michael’s clumsily scheming to get Jim and Pam to agree to dinner at the condo. So he uses a ruse that corporate wants everyone to work late. Then he lamely pretends to call New York, and in his by now trademark faux-tirade style tells them where to stick their overtime. Only Kevin buys it.

Michael: Well I think we dodged a bullet there.
Jim: I think you did.
Michael: I think we should celebrate. How about you pam, mi casa. A little dinner, dancing, drinks.
Jim: Oh, I – Michael: You said you didn’t have plans. That’s what you said.

Nine invites Jim and Pam have gotten out of. The tenth time’s a charm. Too bad Dwight can’t come, but it’s couples only, and there’s only six wine glasses. Angela, behind the copier with Andy, will be there.

So Jim and Pam, who has got the Fancy New Beesly look going on in full force, arrive with wine and we get our first cue of the evening’s theme as Jan notes that it’ll be great for cooking. Ouch. That’s why I always bring Entenmann’s.

Already it’s clear Michael and Jan call each other babe way too much. They give the condo tour, which I’ve already seen compared in bizarro fashion to Jim’s apartment tour from Season 2’s “E-Mail Surveillance”.

Jan’s got an office, even though she doesn’t work, and she’s got a workspace where she makes scented candles. I don’t know why, but that’s perfect for her. Fire, by the way, is not a nice scent. It’s apparently quite stinky in her workspace, as Jim’s gasping expression indicates.

Was that a Michael Scarn shout-out that followed Michael’s Sean Connery impression?

Onto the bedroom, where a tripod stands by the bed. Gross. Here’s where I would say the humor in the show gets a little too 30 Rock-ish, i.e. too unsubtle. That Jan kicks Michael out of his own bed because she has space issues is plausible. That she makes him sleep on the tiny bench at the foot of the bed is funny but a little ridiculous.

Downstairs Michael shows off his tiny TV like it’s a 52” projection model. He could stand there for hours watching it, implying he doesn’t get to sit. And the table he built is appropriately a woodworker’s nightmare. “What is that, chestnut?” Jim asks, covering up the jab by admitting he’s not so handy.

And that’s the entry for Jan’s unexplained, but already established and cringingly funny, jealousy of Pam.

Jim: Michael, I’m just terrible at all this stuff so it’s really cool.
Pam: Yeah, he tried to set up my Tivo for me, but then I didn’t have audio for a week.
Michael: If you ever need any help, I am just a phone call away.
Jan: I bet you are.

If than the night ahead of Jim and Pam wasn’t bleak enough, Andy and Angela arrive.

Andy starts in with the tuna comments, which are getting old, but that is the joke after all. Angela had few lines all night, but she had the most laughs-per-minute of screentime, if you ask me. Like when Andy hands her a rose and she says, “What am I supposed to do with this?” or when she glances with disgust at Jan’s chest or she refuses to let Michael hug her. Her delivery on these lines and gags were actually the kind of subtlety I’m talking about. You could blink and miss them, but if you catch them they’re painfully funny.

Pam plays her part so perfectly. She’s already pained at the prospect of this dinner party, and when Jan mentions that the dinner is about three hours off, she looks downright distressed.

In the living room sipping wine, Michael adds to The Office lexicon by declaring it has an “oaky afterbirth.” Jim gives him a “That’s not the expression” look, a la “Tit for tit.” I, personally, may never drink red wine again now.

Here’s where The Office follows 30 Rock’s lead nicely in going to great lengths for a joke as Jan puts on the CD her former assistant Hunter recorded, aptly titled “The Hunter”. Greg Daniels revealed episode writers Gene Stupnitzky and Lee Eisenberg wrote the lyrics and the music was by Todd Fancy of The New Pornographers.

The lyrics suggest, and Jan’s dancing confirmed beyond all doubt, that she and Hunter shared more than a manager-assistant relationship. Why she thought Jim would want to dance with her I’m not sure.
Michael, clearly sensitive, takes a poke at Hunter’s job performance, to which Jan responds with a jab at Pam. Angela nicely piles on, saying she thinks Pam holds onto faxes. If I’d been drinking at that moment, I would have spit it out at that line.

Cut to Pam’s talking head in the most awesome setting of Michael’s bathroom.

Pam: I don’t care what they say about me. I just want to eat, which I realize is a lot to ask for at a dinner party.

So they’re playing Taboo, and I’m thinking this looks like a normal party. Andy takes the roundabout way to “Joe Montana” as Pam hilariously points out. And when it’s Michael’s turn, his “My my my my my my my turn!” annoys Jan—but not me—and she starts undercutting him, condescendingly telling him how to play. She sounded drunk to me at this point.

Jim’s turn in the bathroom…

Jim: Michael and Jan seem to be playing their own separate game, and it’s called ‘Let’s see how uncomfortable we can make our guests.’ And they’re both winning. So I am going to make a run for it.

His ploy: announding that his apartment is flooded. He and Pam should check out the damage. When that fails, he decides to save himself. The way she foils that, by saying that you can buy new things but you can’t buy a new party, all the while gesturing to herself, was beautifully played. I cannot believe he was going to leave without her. The funny thing is no one questions him staying despite the “emergency” at home.

I probably laughed the hardest as Jim messed with Michael during the game. Michael had already said Tom and Cruise, and Jim’s guessing Katie Holmes and Dawson’s Creek. But when Michael notices Pam shivering and gives him his coat, things turned dark. I was sure Jan was going to kick her ass.

Jan isn’t one to let things slide. She’s got to embarrass Michael. So she brings up the story of how he ran through the sliding glass door because he thought he heard the ice cream truck. So he takes a shot at her litigious nature. It melts down to Jan declaring she’s the devil and she’s going to hell.

Of course, joking about hell makes Angela uncomfortable.

In the kitchen, Jan’s even more evil and Angela just caps the scene.

Angela: You keep a very tidy house.
Jan: You should see our bathroom after Michael takes a bath, but I don’t have to tell you Pam.
Pam: Yeah. Wh-What?
Jan: Oh well don’t tell me that he’s really changed since you guys dating.
Pam: Oh, are you joking?
Jan: Michael told me a little bit about it, but I see the way you look at him.
Pam: I have never, ever dated or wanted to do anything resembling dating Michael. Ever. Not ever. Not now. Not ever, ever.
Angela: I’ve noticed how you look at him around the office.

It gets even worse: Michael pitches Jan’s company as an investment opporutnity. It’s only $10,000 to be a co-owner of Serenity by Jan. (Yup, you can buy it already.) And the nicest part is that Michael apologizes as soon as Jim calls him on it.

And then it gets better. Dwight shows up with his…mom? Pam’s “awesome!” was audibly awesome. Dwight has overcome the wine glasses and couple issues, as Michael champions him staying.

The writers left cringing in their rearview mirror as Michael and Jan start fighting right there inthe entry way, with Dwight and his lady friend waiting on the doorstep. By the time they got to the part about his three vasectomies—“Snip snip snip!” I was doubled over in embarrassment and laughter.

Seriously, three? Even Angela looked pained.

Jan makes it sound altruistic to not want kids, but it’s obviously she’s really just selfish. And what happened to her splitting with Gould because she wanted kids and he didn’t? She’s so nasty about it now. How could Michael still want to have #$%#$ kids with her?

And where’d Dwight get a turkey leg? (Rainn looked weird, by the way. I think it was his hair.) I don’t see Angela and Dwight getting back together soon jugding by this exchange.

Dwight: Angela would you like some of my beet salad.
Angela: I hate beet salad.
Dwight’s Date: It’s actually really good.
Dwight: Hey, I know you love beet salad. I’ve seen you eat it many times.
Angela: The thought of popping one of your beets into my mouth makes me want to vomit.

Nice.

As for the food, I think Jan would poison Pam. After all, she is Michael’s former lover.

Things escalate again when Michael dips his meat in his wine (yeechhh), prompting a snotty comment from Jan about his “soft teeth” (huh?). So he pulls down her modern art and puts up his neon beer sign, which nicely illuminates everyone in a buzzing pinkish glow.

Somehow we learn quickly here that the old lady is Dwight’s old babysitter, and they’re relationship is purely carnal. Just—wow. Jim has so many questions for her. If only she knew what e-mail is.

Anyway, Jan needs her a little Hunter serenade to calm down.

Michael: Jan thinks Hunter’s very talented. You know what. I don’t think he’s that good.
Jan: At least he’s an artist.
Michael: BFD. I’m a screenwriter.
Jan: And I’m a candlemaker but you don’t hear me bragging about it.
Michael: No, what you do is you get me to work on my rich friends.
Jan: For an investment opportunity.
Michael: Man, I would love to burn your candles.
Jan: You burn it, you buy it.
Michael: Oh good, I’ll be your first customer.
Jan: You’re hardly my first.
Michael: That’s what she said.

That’s the first angry TWSS I’ve ever heard, and it prompts Jan to put the Dundie through the plasma. Best dig ever: “Have fun repaying me with your $0 annual salary and no benefits!”

At this point everyone wisely bails. They never even made it to coffee. Outside the cops have showed up. They recognize and dismiss Dwight without missing a beat. Michael doesn’t get it that he doesn’t have to press charges against Jan. Yet it’s telling that he’s still willing to take the fall for her, even if that makes no sense.

Asked if he can stay somewhere else for the night, Dwight is not his first choice. But Jim’s not too eager for a houseguest not named Pam.

Jim: My apartments on fire.
Pam: Flooded.
Jim: Flooded.

No, Michael’s going to sleep with Dwight tonight. Wait, what?

Back in the Season 2 premiere there was some controversy over the use of background music as contradicting the show’s documentary conceit. I didn’t mind it then, and I didn’t mind it last night when Hunter’s music, courtesy of the CD Jim stole, accompanied a montage of Jim and Pam grabbing some takeout. And it continues as we see Michael’s riding with his head out Dwight’s car window like a dog and Andy’s making an lame pass that prompts Angela to icily smear his car with her ice cream cone.

Back at the condo, Jan tries unsuccessfully to fix Michael’s Dundie. And the babysitter’s is waiting for a bus with no offer of a ride from Dwight.

I predict we’ll soon see the last of Jan and the return of Dwangela.

By the way, the first deleted scene is up!