When The Office engages all its awesome characters in one wide, all-encompassing arc, it almost always works, and that's exactly what we saw on "New Leads."
Sabre is all about sales, as it turns out, and the policy has the sales people lording over the rest of the Dunder Mifflin employees. Dwight (Rainn Wilson) was literally lording over them; "Sales is king. I am the best salesman, so I am the king of kings. Oh - you say Jesus was king of kings? Well, that tells you what I think of myself." Did we mention Dwight is always irreverent?
Always the one with the most vulnerable ego, Michael (Steve Carell) decides to teach the sales people a lesson. Instead of giving them the prized leads from corporate, he decides to make things more interesting and hand them out to the non-sales guys instead, who are themselves getting pissed at the sales people.
And so the stage was set for one of the funniest
Office stand-off's in recent memory: the sales people - Dwight, Jim (John Krasinski), Phyllis (Phyllis Smith), Andy (Ed Helms) and Stanley (Leslie David Baker) in one corner and the non-sales people in the other - Angela (Angela Kinsey), Kevin, (Brian Baumgartner), Oscar (Oscar Nunez), Meredith (Kate Flannery), Kelly (Mindy Kaling), Creed (Creed Bratton), Erin (Ellie Kemper) and Ryan (B. J. Novak).
Let the games begin!
It's always fun to see an Angela versus Phyllis showdown. These two have simple, unadulterated hatred toward each other, and when Angela instructs Phyllis to fill out forms then shred them afterward, you know she isn't kidding. Kelly, meanwhile, feeling so strongly about the
Kardashians ("They're a real family!") may be predictable, but Stanley taking advantage of her constant bickering with Ryan is awesome.
Dwight gets back from a sales call and gets the clue, "If you want to find your leads, go to the man who never breathes." He jumps up and rushes to strangle Kevin, who yells, "Turn the trash!" prompting Dwight to seek Meredith and tell her to take off her shirt. But alas, no Meredith flashing this time since Kevin meant trash-trash. "It's coming off either way," she adds.
Somehow the search for these leads take Michael and Dwight to the dump, where they proceeded to rummage through the field and hurl insults and things at each other. The fake backdrop aside, these two are just meant for each other. Not in that way. Mind off dump.
Questions:
1. How does Creed, looking guilty on the lost "Lost and Found" subject, manage to become funny sans lines?
2. Is it in Kevin's personality to watch Ghost Whisperer?
3. Can anyone explain the the-man-who-never-breathes reference to Kevin?
4. Does Dwight really say, 'Purple much?'
(Image courtesy of NBC)