Dinner Party

"Dinner Party" is the thirteenth episode of the fourth season of The Office and the 66th overall. It was written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky. It was directed by Paul Feig. It first aired April 10, 2008. It was viewed by 9.22 million people. The premise bears a striking similarity to the play , by Edward Albee.

Cold open
Michael pretends that corporate has ordered the staff to work late on a Friday night, then pretends to call corporate to reverse their decision. Their Friday evening now free, Jim and Pam have no excuse for declining Michael's latest invitation to socialize - in this case, a dinner party at his condo. Although Dwight wants to attend, Michael explains that the party is only for couples, that he also invited Andy and Angela, and that he only has six wine glasses.

Synopsis
Jim and Pam are welcomed by Michael and Jan, who give them a tour of the condo. One bedroom has been converted into Jan's office (which appears unused); another is her workspace where she makes candles for her home business: "Serenity by Jan." The aroma from the candles is overpowering. Jan then leads the guests into the master bedroom and playfully scolds Michael for not putting away the video camera tripod which was most likely from Jan filming them having sex which was mentioned in "Women's Appreciation."

Michael demonstrates how he sleeps on a small bench at the foot of the bed because Jan has "some space issues." Jan has gotten her way with the home decor, although Michael takes comfort in his small plasma television mounted on the wall. Michael is also proud of a crude wooden table he built. To be polite, Jim confesses that he has no talent for crafts, and Pam joins in by mentioning that Jim couldn't set up her.

Michael tells Pam that if she needs help, "I'm just a phone call away." Jan angrily remarks to Michael, "I bet you are."

When Andy and Angela arrive, Jan offers to take them on a short tour before starting dinner. All that's left to do is braise the ossobuco, which will take three hours, she says. Pam looks horrified.

When she returns, Jan plays a music CD ("The Hunted") recorded by her former assistant, Hunter. The lyrics of the song and Jan's provocative dancing suggest that he lost his virginity to her.

During a disastrous game of, Jim excuses himself and pretends to have received a telephone call informing him that his apartment has flooded. His attempt to escape the party with Pam is thwarted when Michael notes that only one person needs to check on the damage. Jim concedes the point and tries to escape alone, but Pam forces a smiling Jim to stay.

Jim returns to the game of Celebrity and undermines Michael's turn by intentionally guessing the wrong names to obvious clues.

After the game, Michael tries to make a sales pitch to Jim and Andy to buy shares in Jan's candle company for $10,000, which Andy immediately accepts. Pam and Angela join Jan in the kitchen, where Jan says that Michael told her that he used to date Pam. Pam is disgusted and tells Jan she never has and never wants to date Michael, but Angela quickly comments that she has noticed the way Pam stares at Michael.

As dinner begins, Dwight arrives, uninvited, with his own food, two wine glasses and (apparently) his former babysitter, with whom he claims to be having a "purely carnal" relationship. Michael and Jan argue openly about very personal matters: while Jan debated whether or not to have children, she forced Michael to undergo a vasectomy, have it reversed, then undergo another vasectomy.

The tension between Michael and Jan only grows during dinner. Michael confides in Pam that he thinks Jan has poisoned his food; Jan is upset with Michael for dipping his food in wine before eating it. Michael then plugs in a garish neon St. Pauli Girl beer sign, and the tension erupts in a shouting match. The conflict escalates until Jan throws one of Michael's Dundie awards and breaks his $200 "plasma" television.

When the police arrive to investigate a disturbance call, Michael says that he will not press charges against Jan and will "take the fall" for what happened. On the advice of the responding officers, Michael agrees to go home with a friend. Jim and Pam are unavailable because Jim's apartment is "on fire"--Pam corrects him: "flooded." Dwight happily takes Michael in his car.

In Michael's condo, Jan tries to repair his Dundie. Jim and Pam stop at a coney island for dinner, eating in Jim's car while listening to Hunter's CD (which Jim stole). Angela and Andy make their own stopover for ice cream cones; Andy playfully takes a lick of Angela's cone, who gives him a look of unbridled disgust and smears the rest of her ice cream on the side of his car.

Deleted scenes

 * In a talking head interview, Michael lists his dream dinner guest list: "Jim, Pam, Ryan, the mayor, Barack Obama, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt (because at the end of the night, Brad and/or Angelina would have to pick him up, and I would get to meet them), Shia LaBeouf (because of Disturbia), all the children of the world, Val Kilmer (but he probably wouldn't come, too famous), obviously George Clooney, and Jan, definitely (if there was room)."
 * In a talking head interview, Dwight lists his dream dinner guest list: "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Osama bin Laden, John Wayne Gacey, and Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer. Oh, hey guys, welcome to my home. Oh, here comes the waiter with the soup. Hope you guys are hungry! Meanwhile, the waiter subtly nods at me. But I don't acknowledge him. But I know he's an assassin because I trained him. Boom, two minutes later, five dead psychopaths on my dining room table. All that's left to do is dispose of the bodies and collect the reward. It's almost too easy."
 * Toby complains about having to work late, since he had Tom Petty tickets that night (implying that Michael deliberately chose this night to fake the after-hours assignment), and becomes quite frustrated when no one listens.
 * Jan serves appetizers. Andy brags about having studied in France and Angela brags about him having studied at Cornell. Michael emerges from the restroom. Michael confirms to Jan that he washed his hands, but he whispers to Jim, "I didn't really wash my hands." He then rearranges all the appetizers and offers them to the guests. Only Andy takes one.
 * In the hallway, a starving Pam shares her snack bar with Jim. Jan suddenly appears and angrily asks, "Are you eating?" Jim denies having eaten anything. Jan scolds Pam. After Jan leaves, Jim confesses to Pam, "She scares me." Pam resumes eating.
 * In the kitchen, Jan tells a rambling story, beginning with a childhood friend becoming Miss West Virginia and leading to her bragging about how beautiful she is. Jan pauses and asks Pam, "What was your question?" Pam repeats the question: "Where did you grow up?"
 * Dwight explains to the documentary camera that he recently entered into a serious, monogamous relationship. "If that idiot ever gets here."
 * Michael tries to comfort a crying Jan and makes it worse by talking about her breasts, how her calls to her therapist put a strain on his phone plan, and how everyone in the condo complex hates her.
 * Dwight and Angela talk at the door about her open-toed shoes. Dwight asked her when she "became a whore."
 * Andy asks Angela if she wants to "get creamed" and "stone it up" at Cold Stone Creamery. Angela apologizes saying "I hated you for so long, it's hard to find you tolerable...which I do."
 * A subplot involving the neighbor's dog: Watch it.
 * Michael tells a story of how Jan fell asleep during her Neighborhood Watch shift, and while she was passed out on wine, some local kids spray-painted a swear word on the neighbor's dog, and Jan was blamed.
 * During dinner, Jan gleefully confesses that it was she who spray-painted the dog because it was so smug. "I held it down with my knee and I just spray-painted it until I was good and done! It bit me on the arm, and I didn't even feel it." The other guests are horrified.
 * When the police arrive, Jan rushes outside. The neighbors watch the situation from their front door, with their dog on a leash. The word spray-painted on the dog is blurred out.

Trivia

 * Since most of the action occurs in Michael's condo, this episode can be considered a bottle episode.
 * B.J. Novak (Ryan Howard) is credited but does not appear in this episode.
 * This episode is widely considered to be one of the series' best, mostly due to the cringe-inducing but hilarious Michael-Jan moments.
 * This episode had been foreshadowed for several episodes. The writers inserted a reference into nearly every episode, but most of them ended up cut.
 * In "Launch Party," Michael invites Jim and Pam to dinner, but Jim says that they "can't" and both of them feign disappointment.
 * In "Money," Jim and Pam accept Michael's earlier offer to have them over for dinner, knowing that he won't be able to make it.
 * In "Women's Appreciation," Michael tells the women how Jan videotapes them having sex and plays it immediately afterwards to "correct his form."
 * In "Fun Run," Jan gets mad at Pam for walking in on Michael changing. In this episode she continues to be jealous of the relationship between Pam and Michael.
 * This was the last episode written before the . Although the strike did not affect filming of already-written episodes, the cast refused to cross picket lines, and the episode was not filmed until the strike was over, four months later.
 * B.J. Novak had an opportunity to talk with Presidential candidate who had professed his appreciation for The Office during an appearance on  (in which he jokingly announced that Dwight Schrute would be his running mate). To determine whether McCain's appreciation for the show was authentic or merely a media image, he asked the candidate what his favorite scene was. McCain said that his favorite joke was the video camera in Michael and Jan's bedroom. Novak was impressed because this was a very quick joke.
 * The script for this episode was included in the Season 4 DVD in limited quantities. It differed from the episode in a few places.
 * The episode begins with the "peanut butter in hair" gag which would be used two episodes later in "Night Out". The fake corporate assignment occurs after the opening credits.
 * Instead of bursting into tears because he wasn't invited, Dwight compares it to getting his testicles pulverized by a horse.
 * Michael calls Toby, insults him, and hangs up. Toby implies that this is a very regular occurrence.
 * Rather than painting the dog, Jan had run over and killed it, traumatizing a child who saw the incident, and later confesses that she intentionally ran it down.
 * After Michael says, "I'll be your first customer!", Jan threatens to shove a candle up his ass. (In the filmed episode, she says "You're hardly my first.") Nevertheless, Michael still says "That's what she said!"
 * During the drive home, Dwight speaks of how "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", as if he believes this literally.

Goofs

 * As Michael explains to Dwight why he can't come to the party, people are beginning to leave for the day. After that, Dwight has a talking head interview talking about not being invited, and, in the background, Stanley and Creed are hard at work even though Creed left and Stanley was packing up earlier in the scene.
 * After Angela accuses Pam of holding faxes, the camera pans to Pam's face, and next to her you can see John Krasinski laughing.
 * When Jan throws the Dundie at Michael's TV, it appears to be smashed. However, when she later is shown gluing the Dundie back together, the TV is shown on and operating fine, albeit with fracture lines on the screen. This is impossible; when an LCD TV is broken, at least some part of the image will become black and various colored lines will generally appear all over the screen.

Amusing details

 * When Jim and Pam enter the house, both Jan and Michael hug Jim at the same time, but only Michael hugs Pam.
 * Michael's pride in showing off his house contrasts with Jan's disparaging remarks about the condo.
 * The "Serenity by Jan" logo is in the Papyrus font, a commonly used ornamental font that comes with Microsoft Word.
 * In this episode, Jan has the entire bed to herself. In the previous episode, "The Deposition", Jan said that Michael keeps his diary "under my side of the mattress," suggesting that Michael's relegation to the bench is relatively recent.
 * When Jan explains that the ossobuco will take three hours, Angela stares at her cleavage disapprovingly. (This was an acting choice by Angela Kinsey.)
 * Set decorating details in Michael's condo:
 * There is an Andy Warhol style painting of Jan on the wall along the stairwell.
 * In the foyer is a framed picture of a kimono. Another picture hangs in the living room, and next to it hangs a real kimono on the wall. (Most noticeable when Andy arrives.) Director Paul Feig felt strongly about this detail, because he had seen it before and thought it was attractive but also not particularly warm.
 * The arms on the chair in Jan's unused office still have the plastic covers. (This detail was the idea of director Paul Feig.)
 * In Michael and Jan's bedroom is a George Foreman grill, first mentioned in "The Injury."
 * Pam recoils at the sight of the video camera tripod in Michael and Jan's bedroom. Jan playfully scolds Michael for not putting it away when they are showing Jim and Pam around the house. This was first mentioned in "Women's Appreciation" where he tells the office ladies that Jan likes to film them during sex, and then play it back afterwards to help him improve. It is also briefly mentioned that Jan watches the tapes with her therapist.
 * The bed is completely covered in pillows. Fourteen of them. No wonder there's no room for Michael.
 * Michael's garage contains Bowflex and Soloflex machines back-to-back. "Many of the writers love the idea that Michael is completely taken by late-night infomercials."
 * Behind the Bowflex machine in Michael's garage is a painting of dogs playing poker. But not the famous one; a knock-off.
 * Michael also has a meat dehydrator.
 * Nearly all of the boxes in the garage are of Michael's things; Jan completely took over when she moved in (a deleted scene from "The Job" had shown Michael watching in horror as she did so). The one exception is boxes of cookware, a high-end brand of kitchenware. Jan prepares the dinner with Le Creuset cookware.
 * Michael has a set of bongo drums in his garage.
 * Michael has a tiny desk and computer monitor in his garage.
 * Michael's "plasma" television is actually a flat-screen LCD.
 * The monitor that appears in Jan's office is larger than Michael's TV.
 * On the small table in front of the fireplace is a red pot-like ornament. This is the same decoration that fell out of Jan's box of personal belongings in "The Job". (It is most noticeable when Pam gets up to accept Michael's jacket.)
 * Every photo in the condo was of Jan with other men or Jan by herself. There were no pictures of Michael.
 * Michael tells Dwight he only has six wine glasses, but there are eleven at the dinner table. (Jan didn't want Dwight to come.)
 * Jan's color is clearly red. Her shirt, her lipstick, her cookware, her teapot, the kitchen chairs, the Andy Warhol-style painting, and the abstract painting in the dining room (before Michael replaces it with the beer sign) are all bright red.
 * Andy wore a turtleneck sweater, covered by a shirt, with another sweater tied around his neck, with a coat and scarf on top. This was writer Gene Stupnitsky's idea. "He just thought it would be really, really funny to have a person who has tied a sweater around their neck take their coat off."
 * When Jan turns on Hunter's song, the camera pans to show Angela, Pam, and Jim sitting on the couch. Angela has stood a pillow upright between herself and Pam to keep them from touching.
 * Angela does not drink any wine. During the toast in the living room, Angela doesn't touch her wine glass (with wine), which sits on the end table next to her. At the dinner table, her glass is filled with a transparent liquid, presumably water.
 * During the toast in the living room, there are appetizers on the coffee table, but no one has touched them. The reason is explained in a deleted scene.
 * The lyrics to "That One Night" heavily imply that Jan took Hunter's virginity. It is already suggested that they had an affair while Jan worked at Dunder Mifflin. The extended lyrics make it much more obvious that this is in fact what happened.
 * During Andy's attempt to get everyone to guess Joe Montana, Jim surreptitiously checks his watch.
 * Andy likely didn't use the clue "49ers quarterback" because American football is not the type of sport he pays any attention to.
 * During the game of Celebrity, there are three wine bottles on the coffee table. They've been drinking a lot.
 * When Pam shivers, Jan has fallen asleep in her chair.
 * When Michael talks about Jan suing people, we can see her take a whiff of her candle like she said she does earlier in the episode when she is upset. She similarly did so during Michael's impression of "James Bondfire", as well as in a deleted scene when Michael brings up Jan falling asleep during her neighborhood watch.
 * Michael asks Jim and Andy to invest $10,000. That would be about $12,000 in today's dollars.
 * Jan's divorce was over her wanting children and her husband not wanting kids. With Michael this is the opposite.
 * Dwight and his date poured themselves full glasses of wine. (This detail was the idea of director Paul Feig.)
 * Angela covered her plate of food with her napkin, eating none of it. She is a vegetarian. (This was an acting choice by Angela Kinsey.)
 * It is Dwight's babysitter who decides that the evening is over. She is the only guest who doesn't have Michael Scott as their boss.
 * Dwight drove Michael around in his car until he fell asleep, a common trick used to get babies to fall asleep.
 * One of the officers that shows up to respond to the yelling complaints addresses Dwight by name. It is likely that he knows him from when Dwight was a volunteer deputy.
 * Dwight and his date not only brought their own wine glasses and food, they even brought their own chairs. They are sitting in fold up lawn chairs.
 * Dwight and his date not only brought their own wine glasses and food, they even brought their own chairs. They are sitting in fold up lawn chairs.
 * Dwight and his date not only brought their own wine glasses and food, they even brought their own chairs. They are sitting in fold up lawn chairs.

Behind the scenes

 * The working title of the episode was "Who's Afraid of Jan Levinson Gould?", inspired by the Edward Albee play  in which a middle-aged couple invite a younger couple to dinner and drag them into an increasingly bizarre evening.
 * Writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky were assigned the episode before the summer hiatus in June 2007. Writers typically spend one week on an episode, but Eisenberg and Stupnitsky spent the entire three weeks working on the script and were so consumed by it that they "couldn't put it down." This episode is unusual in that it did not go through a rewrite.
 * At the conclusion of the table read, the episode was met with prolonged applause. Greg Daniels said, "This script was perfect."
 * NBC was apprehensive about the episode because the story was so dark, but Greg Daniels told them he was doing it, and they backed down.
 * Writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky begged NBC to make this a supersized episode, but they were unsuccessful. A 29-minute "Producer's Cut" was released on iTunes.
 * When production resumed, the original director (who had never done single-camera comedy before) was unavailable, and the episode was reassigned to Paul Feig, who was thrilled. Feig won the 2008 DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy Series for this episode.
 * Several details were chosen to disguise the pregnancy of actor Angela Kinsey. For example, Angela Martin wears an oversized coat, the flower bouquet is enormous, Angela does not get up from the table at the end of the evening, and in a deleted scene, she stands behind a small wall.
 * The intent of the set design was that Jan's aesthetic left the condo somewhat cold and unwelcome.
 * Director Paul Feig credits John Krasinski's performance for bringing across how stinky Jan's candle room was.
 * The idea of Michael sleeping on a bench came from a former work colleague of director Paul Feig who slept on a cot next to the bed. She explained that her boyfriend couldn't handle having anyone else in the bed with him.
 * The words to the song "That One Night" were written by episode writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky. They worked on it "far too long" but were having so much fun writing a cheesy love song.
 * The music was written and performed by of the group.
 * The song was made available for download by NBC the day after the episode aired. Download it here.
 * Todd Fancey uploaded a longer version of the song.
 * Writer Gene Stupnitsky privately told Melora Hardin (Jan) to take Jim's hand and try to dance with him. None of the other actors knew this was going to happen, and their surprise is genuine. Melora Hardin is a dancer but she intentionally danced off the beat to make Jan appear somewhat drunk.
 * Ed Helms improvised Andy harmonizing with Hunter's song.
 * The line "oaky afterbirth" was an improvisation by Steve Carell.
 * Every "babe" in the episode was scripted.
 * For the line "I'm the devil!", the scene was composed so that Jan is sitting in front of a roaring fire, and Michael is sitting among lit candles. Melora Hardin (Jan) improvised the devil horns gesture. :04:20 The laugh from Steve Carell (Michael) was a genuine one. He covered it by turning it into a sarcastic laugh, adding "She is the devil! I'm in hell!"
 * There was some fan outrage over Jim's willingness to abandon Pam. Writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky intended it to be playful: Jim and Pam are playing their own game, and Pam wins this round.
 * The "snip/snap" and remainder of the scene was improvised by Steve Carell. The scene was fairly dramatic with no jokes. Director Paul Feig suggested that Steve Carell look for something funny, and he came through.
 * The role of Dwight's babysitter was offered to casting director Allison Jones, who declined. Greg Daniels wanted to get Beth Grant, with whom he had worked before on King of the Hill.
 * Beth Grant struggled not to break during filming. During the dinner scene, she sucked on a beet to try to keep from laughing.
 * Reports vary as to how many TVs were broken when Jan throws a Dundie. Melora Hardin recalls that they had enough for three takes. :02:00 Producer Kent Zbornak's production notes say that they had five TVs and broke four of them. Hardin is proud that she hit the target on every take.
 * At the Writer's Block segment of the 2007 Office Convention, the writers talked at length about how they would often go grab a Coney Island Hot Dog. The scene was filmed at the Home Plate Burgers restaurant at 7615 Reseda Boulevard in nearby Reseda. Here's a review and pictures for comparison. The restaurant has since closed.
 * The ice cream parlor was filmed at the Quality Car Wash at 7601 Reseda Boulevard, right next to the Home Plate Burgers, redressed to look like a Cold Stone Creamery.

Cultural references

 * Casa is Spanish for house.
 *  is a famous fictional British spy. Michael is making a pun on the scent "bonfire".
 * A plasma television is a television that uses a . At the time this episode aired, plasma displays had already been largely displaced by . One of the selling points of plasma displays was their size, which makes Michael's comically small screen even funnier.
 *  is a brand of digital video recorder.
 *  is an Italian dish notable for the marrow in the bone of the veal shank. It typically requires two to three hours to cook.
 * Michael says, "When in Rome" after Jan notes that in Spain, late dinners are normal. The full proverb is "," meaning that you should follow the customs of the place you are visiting. However, Rome is in Italy, not Spain.
 * Michael confuses "aftertaste" with "afterbirth".
 * Angela accuses Pam of "holding faxes", meaning to hold onto them instead of delivering them to their intended recipient.
 *  is a party game. Players try to guess a celebrity from clues.
 * ' was a professional American football player, widely regarded as one of the best. He spent most of his career playing quarterback for the San Francisco '. Andy's clues are ' (the advertising mascot for ) and the, the capital of the U.S. state of '.
 * ' is a famous actor. Michael's clues are "Tom" and "Cruise". Jim jokingly guesses ', an actor whose 2006 marriage to Cruise was the subject of much attention. Jim then guesses , a teen drama television series on which Katie Holmes played the love interest to the main character.
 * ' is an actor and politician. He played the title role in the movie ' and later was elected governor of the state of . Michael's clue is that it rhymes with the made-up words "Parnold Schporzenegger."
 * An  drives through neighborhoods selling ice cream, primarily to children. It plays music to attract customers.
 * Some of the boxes in the garage are labelled "Cadden Moving". Cadden Brothers Moving and Storage is a real Scranton moving company.
 * ' and ' are both long-running shows in New York City. Stomp is a percussion group, whereas Wicked is a musical that tells the story of  from the point of view of the witches.
 * A is a medical birth control procedure for a man.
 * Jim and Pam eat burgers outside a Detroit Coney Island Chili Dogs restaurant. The ' style restaurant originated in Detroit. Its signature dish is the '.
 * is a national ice cream parlor chain. Angela and Andy get their post-dinner ice cream from a Cold Stone Creamery. (The sign is reflected in Andy's windshield.)
 * In a deleted scene, Jan fell asleep on her shift. Some neighborhoods organize a plan to watch for and report suspicious behavior to authorities.
 *  is a bestselling book by relationship counselor.

Main cast

 * Steve Carell as Michael Scott
 * Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute
 * John Krasinski as Jim Halpert
 * Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly

Supporting cast

 * Ed Helms as Andy Bernard
 * Leslie David Baker as Stanley Hudson
 * Brian Baumgartner as Kevin Malone
 * Creed Bratton as Creed Bratton
 * Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer
 * Melora Hardin as Jan Levinson
 * Mindy Kaling as Kelly Kapoor
 * Angela Kinsey as Angela Martin
 * Paul Lieberstein as Toby Flenderson
 * Oscar Nunez as Oscar Martinez
 * Phyllis Smith as Phyllis Vance

Guest cast

 * Beth Grant as Dwight's Babysitter
 * Frederik Pohliv as Neighbor
 * Gary Weeks as Cop #1
 * Steve Seagren as Cop #2