“Anything can happen at the Dundies. They’re like the Golden Globes only less mean.” – Michael
Michael is in his last days in Scranton, but is needed to host one more Dundies awards ceremony before riding off into the sunset.
The episode opens with Michael and Deangelo making visits to everybody’s homes to distribute Dundie award nominations, just like when the Oscars are announced early in the morning. I loved the home visits with Stanley telling them he was going to call the police, Michael egging Toby’s house, and Meredith’s walk of shame. Also loved Deangelo’s reaction to Meredith’s home, saying it reminded him of Katrina.
At the office, Michael decides he needs a Dundies co-host and chooses Deangelo, leaving Dwight to feel like “always the padawan, never the jedi.” Deangelo tells Michael that he isn’t good at being a host because he can’t perform in front of people. Michael has everybody help him with practicing banter but in the conference room it isn’t so successful with Deangelo trying to banter with Jim by asking him where he was on 9/11. Michael does his best to help prepare Deangelo, including doing some breathing exercises.
At the awards, Deangelo doesn’t want to go on, but Michael literally slaps some sense into him. Deangelo tries his best, but even when reading off the cue cards (including the instruction to ad-lib a masturbation joke) he is still a poor presenter. The video in the beginning of the Dundies was great, with Michael dressed as Jim, Phyllis and Angela and adding his impressions of them. Awards were passed out to Jim for being best office dad, Meredith for best mom (“tell ya one thing, I’m not going to be a good mom tonight”), Stanley for the diabetes award, and Danny Cordray for hottest in the office (too funny how Ryan was irked by not winning this), but it kind of make me sad that Timothy Olyphant couldn’t show up to accept his award.
Dwight wins the promising assistant manager award, but throws it in the trash out of anger. He also tells Michael the Dundies are stupid and Michael kind of has a sense that something is off. Dwight has had his moments of frustration in recent episodes, and it feels like there a point is going to be made from it. His anger is not misplaced as Michael did not recommend him to be manager – even after everything that Dwight has done for him.
After being too loud, everyone gets kicked out of the restaurant and Michael is upset. He “was hoping it would be like Godfather III and wrap up the whole franchise in an extremely satisfying way.” Pam wants to go back to the office and gather in the conference room to finish the awards and Michael agrees to the suggestion. After giving an award to Andy, he tells Michael they want to thank him. Darryl breaks out his keyboard and they sing him a song set to the tune of “Seasons of Love” from Rent (“9,986,000 minutes. That’s how many minutes that you’ve worked here”). It was so heartfelt and sweet and after watching that scene I felt just like Michael’s last line of the episode: “Yeah, okay, well this is gonna hurt like a motherf—er.”
The side story belonged to Erin not wanting to be with Gabe anywhere, which for me kind of came out of nowhere. Jim and Pam see Erin eating in her car and she tells them she doesn’t want to be around Gabe. After Pam tells Erin she needs to be honest — with Erin telling her she couldn’t be mean like Pam — Erin ends up breaking up with Gabe while accepting her “cutest office red head” Dundie award. What an awkward moment! A little harsh doing it in front of everybody, but then again Erin sometimes isn’t sure what to do in certain situations. I think the last time I remember them front and center was their scrabble game, which there didn’t seem to be problem. I wonder if the writers just wanted to come up with any reason to break them up so her and Andy could get back together by the end of the season.
This Dundies awards were just as good and funny as the first time The Office unveiled them. Having a last Dundies is a good tribute to Michael and it shows how much he cares about his employees. I am still not ready to say goodbye though, and it’s probably a given that the final send-off and series finale is going to be a tearjerker.
Some stats and info about The Office, “Michael’s Last Dundies”
TV SHOW – The Office
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 7, Episode 20
AIRED ON – April 21st, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – NBC
GENRE – Comedy, Office Culture
CREATED BY – Greg Daniels, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant
CAST – Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Angela Kinsey, Kate Flannery, Phyllis Smith, Creed Bratton, Oscar Nunez, B.J. Novak, Mindy Kaling, Ed Helms, Paul Lieberstein, Craig Robinson, Ellie Kemper