“People can’t keep their true natures hidden for long and this guy is smoldering like a tire fire.” – Dwight
The arrival of a rival salesman to The Office crew and Andy’s quest to start a band are the highlights of “The Sting.”
As Dwight and Jim go to pitch a sale to a big client, they end up running into Danny Cordray (guest star Timothy Olyphant), a rival salesman from Osprey Paper and someone that Pam had dated years before. They call Michael in to help with the sale since Danny steals clients away from Sabre (formerly Dunder Mifflin). It is fun to watch Michael when he is in a meeting trying to sell because even though he can be a complete fool and socially awkward most of the time, you can’t deny his skills as a salesman.
Danny has everything going for him: he is handsome (Michael first mistakes him for a model) and is a good salesman. When the company decides to stick with Danny, Michael gets frustrated and wants to know how Danny does it. Dwight brings Michael, Jim, Stanley and Phyllis to a surveillance room that has cameras on in his office that he has since he is the owner of the building. Dwight pitches them on a plan to stage a “sting” against Danny to learn his techniques. Phyllis and Stanley don’t like the idea so they leave.
They decide to set up Dwight’s office as a fake company and have Meredith pose as the boss. They lure Danny into a meeting to pitch a sale to Meredith. Danny’s good looks have an instant effect on Meredith and as she tries to come onto Danny, Michael pulls the plug on the fake meeting after Ryan and Oscar fail to take over from Meredith. After Danny tries to walk out, Michael convinces him to join the team of Dunder Mifflin as a travelling salesman, which was another showing of Michael’s brilliant salesman skills. The salesmen (Jim, Dwight, Stanley and Phyllis) are not happy with the hiring of Danny.
Meanwhile, Andy learns that a former classmate has recorded a song for an ad in Vermont. Andy is jealous since he and his classmate were in a group together and Andy felt that he was more talented. He sets out to write and record his own song and enlists the help of Darryl on keyboards and Kevin on drums.
They end up being a pretty good trio and write a song together. Ed Helms (Andy) has been at the center of the B stories for the past couple of weeks and it makes me wonder if they are grooming him for a bigger role aka taking over for Steve Carell at the end of the season. It seems like the show is trying to get the audience used to seeing him at the center of the stories, but this of course is just a theory.
Timothy Olyphant is a good fit for the show. It seems as though he could be a possibility as Michael’s successor too. It will be interesting to see what happens with the character of Danny and how he impacts Dunder Mifflin Scranton.
Other highlights of “The Sting” include:
- “F— me.” – Kelly’s reaction after Michael introduces Josh Duhamel look-alike Danny
- Andy, Darryl and Kevin’s bullfrog song after the credits.
- Jim and Dwight back as sales partners. They need to include more of a partnership. John Krasinski and Rainn Wilson have great chemistry.
- “Drop the act, Cordray. Okay, we all know that you probably thought that Pam was too mehh. Or thin without being toned, but I want to tell you something. She is one of the plain, hearty women of Scranton that make this city great. And so what if she doesn’t wear makeup. We like her better that way.” – Dwight’s angry rant to Danny, who then welcomes him to Dunder Mifflin and shakes his hand
- Pam mouthing “I wear makeup.”
Some stats and info about The Office, “The Sting”
TV SHOW – The Office
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 7, Episode 5
AIRED ON – October 21st, 2010
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