Initiation

"Initiation" is the fifth episode of the third season of The Office and the 33rd overall. It was written by B.J. Novak and directed by Randall Einhorn. It first aired on October 19, 2006.

Cold open[]

Dwight abruptly begins to quiz Ryan with brain teasers, but becomes frustrated and screams "Dammit!" when Ryan recites answers to the puzzles, many before the full question is asked.

Synopsis[]

Jan questions Michael's productivity and presses him on his accomplishments during the previous workday. Michael tries to make the question about their personal relationship and won't give a straight answer. Jan instructs Pam to log Michael's hourly activity "so we can analyze it at Corporate". Jan walks out of the office as Pam protests.

Dwight pesters Ryan about his excitement level for his first-ever sales call and informs the camera why he is so excited: Ryan has yet to make an ally within the office, and Dwight hopes to steer him clear of being a "slacker-loser-wiseass like Jim" and draft him in the "Dwight army of champions." That afternoon, Dwight drives Ryan to a beet field for sales training.

At Dunder Mifflin Stamford, Karen is disturbed to find her chair squeaks and accuses Jim of a chair swap. He protests that he simply switched them back after she made the original switch. Karen promises to switch chairs while he's away from his desk, so he vows not to stand and proves such by rolling to the copy machine.

On a phone call, Michael imitates Bill Cosby: "I love Jell-O puddin' pops. My son Theo loves Jell-O puddin' pops, too." Pam shows the camera "Cosby Impression" for the 10:00 hour in the log.

Dwight asks Ryan to take the beet seed from his palm. Ryan misses and Dwight asks him to try again. However, Ryan is faster and takes the seed. Dwight asks Ryan to plant the beet seed. Dwight says "Just as you have planted your seed in the ground, I am going to plant my seed in you" to which Ryan says "I don't think you know what you're saying." Dwight says the bad odor in the area is "bull crap, and a client can smell it from a mile away". Dwight announces he forgot something in his car and runs toward the car, gets in and speeds away.

A loudspeaker announces free soft pretzels being given away in the lobby. Stanley, Kelly, Michael, and over a dozen other building tenants immediately head there. In interviews, Stanley proclaims that pretzel day is his favorite day of the year, and Michael says he cannot be productive when he has soft pretzels on his mind.

A long pretzel line peeves Michael and he and Stanley rebuff Phyllis' attempt to greet Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration, who is ahead of them in line. Stanley sees past his disdain for Michael and high-fives him. Pam asks Michael to use his time in line to authorize some checks, but he instead has her hold his place in line while he uses the restroom. She offers to brings him a pretzel if Michael returns to the office, but he fears she will order his pretzel incorrectly. Shown to the camera, the productivity log now reads "Stood in Pretzel line" for the noon hour.

Angry Ryan walks up a dirt road, muttering to himself. He knocks on a barn door, and Dwight walks out: "Congratulations, resourceful salesman! You have passed the second challenge. Welcome to Schrute Farm!" Ryan sits in a Victorian-era wheelchair and Dwight tells him to "Pay no attention to the spirits that haunt this hallowed ground!" Dwight quizzes Ryan about Dunder Mifflin, co-founder Robert Mifflin, the DHARMA Initiative, and Michael's greatest fear. Dwight states that one cannot sell, if one has fear. Mose appears with the word "Fear" on his shirt in tape, and Dwight tells Ryan as his final test he must wrestle Mose to the ground. Ryan calls Dwight a freak and storms out. Dwight says he doesn't have to wrestle Mose, but his instruction to get inside a coffin goes unheeded.

At Stamford, Karen continually squeaks her chair. Jim repeatedly sings the first two lines of the chorus of The Cardigans' "Lovefool", despite Karen's objections that it is an unfair retaliation and the song will be in her head all day. Andy conducts and sings along, while pondering the fate of the band. Eventually the squeaky chair gets passed to Andy when he isn't in the room.

Michael arrives at the front of the line and orders a sweet pretzel with all 18 sweet toppings. Back upstairs, he plays energetic music, then emerges from his office and launches into a hyperactive, sugar-fueled speech filled with suggestions on improving office efficiency.

Using his Trans Am, Dwight catches up with the walking Ryan, apologizes and displays gifts Mose sent, including fresh eggs, fatback bacon, and "something he whittled," which appears to be a Venus of Willendorf figurine. Ryan gets in the car where Dwight explains that a desire for friendship with Ryan was the main impetus for the initiation ceremony. Dwight then gives Ryan sales pointers which Ryan tries to takes notes on.

Michael sleeps face-down on his desk. Jan phones for him, but Pam says he's on a sales call.

A dejected Ryan walks out of the sales call as Dwight tries to cheer him up. Ryan gripes that the potential client told him to his face that they didn't like him. In retaliation, Ryan throws Mose's eggs at the building and the parking sign. Surprised at Ryan's initiative, Dwight joins him, shouting "Oh no, no, no," until two security guards come out, at which point the pair peel out of the parking lot in Dwight's Firebird. They go to a bar and drink boilermakers. As a result of the day's events, Dwight no longer calls Ryan "Temp" but instead uses his given name.

At the end of the work day, Pam realizes that Michael's Cosby impersonation helped him make a large sale. Having forgotten Kevin's phone extension, Jim calls Dunder Mifflin's main number, hoping to leave him a voicemail regarding a fantasy football issue. Pam answers and says she's staying late because of her new assignment to chronicle Michael's work day, a copy of which she promises to send to Jim. The pair enjoy a long chat about her tiny apartment and her scary solo movie night in which she rented 28 Days Later rather than 28 Days. They reconnect, but Ryan and Dwight, both exhausted, return to the office for a few seconds and she loudly says goodbye to the pair as they exit. Jim misconstrues the exclamation, and the pair hang up.

A satiated Stanley remarks in an interview that in 364 days, it will once again be Pretzel Day.

Deleted scenes[]

The Season Three DVD contains a number of deleted scenes.

Michael tells Jan that he can't keep an hourly log because sometimes he's in "the zone" and sometimes he's "zoning out." Jan, quietly angry, tells Michael that his job is on the line. In a talking head interview, Pam explains: "It's like Mommy and Daddy are fighting. Except Mommy outranks Daddy. And Mommy is way scarier."
Dwight brings Ryan into Michael's office, telling Michael to "Take a good look at this boy, because you are never going to see him again." Michael starts to warn Dwight what he will do to him if he harms Ryan, but Dwight clarifies, "I am bringing this boy home a full-grown man." Michael gives Ryan an uncomfortable hug, and Dwight tries to join in.
In a talking head interview, Pam insinuates that the sales call gives her an excuse to see Jim again, explaining that due to an old bet, if they find Ryan's body in a heavily wooded area, she owes Jim $30.
Dwight takes Ryan to his locked car and tells Ryan that "the key is inside you." In a talking head interview, Ryan repeatedly reminds himself that Dwight is the top salesman at the company. Dwight produces the car key from Ryan's ear and further explains to Ryan that 90% of a good sales call is listening.
At the farm, Dwight tries to impart sales advice and produces a beet seed from Ryan's ear.
In a talking head interview, Ryan admits he learned a lot about beets.
Michael reads his daily log to the documentary crew. Pam tries to help Michael focus on work.
Ryan, abandoned in the beet field, tells the camera that just when he thinks he's hit rock bottom, "the floor opens up like at a carnival ride," and he mimes falling down another level.
Dwight takes Ryan through a wooded area to the graves of his ancestors and discovers an empty can. While Dwight shouts at two naked teenagers fleeing in the distance, Ryan mimes to the camera falling down another level.
Stanley steals Kevin's pretzel.
In a talking head interview, Stanley lists the four things he loves in his life.
Stanley and Michael eat their pretzels. Michael doesn't understand the secret to the pretzels. "They taste so good in my mouth." Stanley adds, "That's what she said," and both of them crack up.

Additional deleted scenes were available on the NBC Web site:

Karen is dumbfounded that Jim didn't realize that the line "Bueller?" comes from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Andy adds, "Ask me how bad I wanted to bone Jennifer Grey," and won't drop the subject. Watch the scene online
In a talking head interview, Dwight explains that Ryan is like Ethan Hawke and he is "the African-American" from the movie Training Day. Watch the scene online

Connections to other episodes[]

In "Office Olympics", Dwight mentions that teenagers sometimes use the beet farm for sex.
Jan responds to Pam's "Hi" with "I'm great." Spoiler: Jan makes a similar non-sequitur reply to Karen in "Cocktails".
After talking with Kelly, Angela angrily storms off, taking her water bottle but leaving her snacks behind. In "The Convention", Angela storms off after talking with Meredith, leaving her cereal behind.

Trivia[]

One of the riddles Dwight poses to Ryan in the cold open is about a boy involved in a car accident who is the son of the doctor on call in the emergency room, and therefore cannot operate - even though his father was in the car and was also injured (the doctor is his mother). At the very end of the finale of the original BBC series, Tim (the character Jim is based on), along with Gareth ("Dwight"), is being asked this riddle by David Brent ("Michael") when Dawn ("Pam") returns to the party and kisses him for the first time.
Dwight's knowledge of initiations is a superficial one, based on watching movies and observing the initiation of others, whereas Ryan's understanding comes from having participated in one.
When Jim rolls his chair to the copy machine, there is a Stamford employee in the background dressed just like Jim who is chatting with the receptionist and playing with the candy bowl. This was intended to remind the viewers of the ongoing Jim/Pam relationship.^[1]^:20:39
The eighteen sweet pretzel toppings: sweet glaze, cinnamon sugar, chocolate, white chocolate, fudge, M&Ms, caramel dip, mint chip, chocolate chip, marshmallow, nuts, toffee nuts, coconuts, peanut butter drizzle, Oreos, sprinkles, cotton candy bits, and powdered sugar.
The passage of time in the phone call between Jim and Pam is conveyed subtly in various ways. At first, Pam talks standing up. Then she's sitting down. Jim is sitting up in his seat, then later leans back with his feet on the desk, then sits up again. The sun is shining when the call begins, but it is dark when the call ends.
During the phone call, Jim's nameplate can be found on Andy's desk instead. (Maybe as payback for the squeaky chair?)
Jim calls Pam at 5:20pm, and the window next to Jim's desk shows that it is still light out. By the time the conversation ends, it is dark. Sunset in Stamford at that time of year is around 6pm, and twilight lasts about a half hour, so it was at least 6:30pm, possibly later, when they finally stopped chatting.
Pam offers to wait in line for Michael, but he says he has to order a very specific pretzel. Later, when he is at the front of the line, he orders a pretzel with everything on it.
This episode is the first appearance of Mose Schrute.
This is the first time Stanley respects Michael as opposed to being passively hostile towards him when he high fives Michael after sending Phyllis to the back of the line.
Andy mouths along when Jim is singing and continues to sing in a talking head. Andy's passion for music is seen consistently with his appearances in both previous and future episodes.

Amusing details[]

The man third behind Michael in line widens his eyes and bites his lip as the pretzel vendor lists the pretzel toppings.
Dwight forgets that he and Ryan were supposed to be on a sales call until Ryan reminds him.
Ryan is consistently unable to make a sale.
Dwight tells Ryan that they are losing business to the "online paper jerks", possibly giving Ryan the idea for Dunder Mifflin Infinity.
Michael asks Pam if it is AM or PM. It would be impossible for the office staff to enter the office any earlier than 9am as seen in "Happy Hour", but in "Performance Review" it is revealed that management have keys to the building and so can come and go at any time.
There is a red mark on Michael's left cheek from falling asleep.

Behind the scenes[]

B.J. Novak (Ryan) was assigned this episode to write because it was a Ryan-focused episode.^[1]^:51:23
The scenes in the beet fields were filmed at real beet fields in the Underwood family farm in Moorpark.^[1]^:08:17
The other scenes at Dwight's beet farm were was shot at the Golden Oak Ranch, also known as the Disney Ranch, a large outdoor filming location.^[1]^:03:58 It is conveniently located within the 30-mile zone.
The scene at the bar after the failed sale was also shot at the Disney Ranch. The house was originally built for the Peewee Herman show, but was converted to a bar.^[1]^:07:08
The Axelrod sign was hung on a building next to the parking lot for the production trailers for the scenes at Underwood family farm. The owners and property manager enthusiastically agreed to be the victim of the egg-throwing prank. The production crew cleaned the building afterward.^[1]^:01:20:01
Every production that films at the Disney Ranch must hire a snake wrangler due to the history of rattlesnakes on the property.^[1]^:06:29 B.J. Novak says that the snake wrangler found a rattlesnake in the graveyard (deleted scene) right away. Novak suspects that the wrangler planted the snake.^[2]
The squeaky chair subplot was not in the original script. It may have been inspired by a broken chair that Oscar Nunez and Angela Kinsey would secretly saddle each other with.^[1]^:18:23
During the first season, show creator Greg Daniels took the writers to visit various real offices (including a paper company) to get inspiration for stories. Writer B.J. Novak remembers that one office had a morale-boosting popcorn day, which the employees were excited about, and that's what inspired Pretzel Day.^[1]^:26:07
The show ordered 100 pretzels from Wetzel's Pretzels. Only a few of them were used for the shoot, and the remainders were fed to the cast and crew.^[1]^:28:46
John Krasinski had difficulty keeping a straight face in the scene where Andy starts singing "Lovefool".^[2]
When Kelly shares her concerns about Ryan with Angela, Angela is eating popcorn, not a pretzel. This popcorn was likely left over from the filming of the opening scene of "The Coup".^[1]^:35:03
The script called for Michael to fall asleep on a koosh ball,^[2] and for him to wake up with marks on his face.^[1]^:40:48
The conversation between Jim and Pam was filmed over a live phone line, with two sets of cameras running simultaneously. This was Randall Einhorn's first time as a director, and he didn't realize when he made that request what an enormous logistical nightmare it would be. The two sets are in different buildings, so cabling had to be constructed to connect them, and a director's station with video monitors constructed in the parking lot.^[1]^:44:32
Rainn Wilson improvised the "plant my seed in you" line,^[2] and B.J. Novak improvised the reply.^[1]^:55:25 The line "Where are all the animals?" was also improvised.^[1]^:01:13:12
The script called for Dwight to make a strange salute. Rainn Wilson came up with something he felt was reminiscent of how German soldiers would salute the Kaiser in World War I.^[1]^:01:11:21 Spoiler: Dwight uses the same salute to bid farewell to the office in "Traveling Salesmen".
There was a card in the writers room with the idea "Jim and Pam's phone call". B.J. Novak wanted Jim and Pam's phone call to last the entire day.^[1]^:01:08:18
Writer Michael Schur spent three months growing Mose's neck beard. He asked if he could just wear a fake beard, but Greg Daniels insisted that people would notice the difference. Mose was added at the last minute to a scene in a later episode, and nobody noticed the fake beard.^[1]^:1:22:04
In the Office Ladies podcast B.J. Novak could not remember what liquid was used for the beers he chugged for the scene in the bar or how many of them he had to chug,^[1]^:01:21:16 but back when he did the DVD commentary for the episode (roughly 13 years earlier), Novak said it was five or six non-alcoholic beers.^[2]

Cultural references[]

Getting to second base is adolescent slang based on the rules of baseball. The details vary, but second base is generally considered to be fondling.
Michael's conversation with Mr. Coselli begins by playing with his name and calling him The Cos, the nickname for comedian Bill Cosby. He the proceeds to mimic the voice of one of Cosby's characters, Fat Albert, adding "I love Jell-O Pudding Pops" (Cosby recorded advertisements for the frozen treat). He then talked about "my son Theo", referring to the son of Cliff Huxtable, a character portrayed by Bill Cosby on the television sitcom The Cosby Show. At the end of the day, Michael briefly does a Bill Cosby impression when he says "with the Jell-O."
Dwight tries to have Ryan snatch a beet seed from his hand in reference to Kung Fu.
To plant one's seed in someone is old-fashioned slang for insemination.
Bull crap is a less vulgar term for bullsh*t, meaning "nonsense", typically nonsense that is made-up or intentionally misleading.
Kelly chatters with Michael in line about the plot to Lazy Sunday, a rap song performed on the sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live. Watch it here.
Mary is a traditional girl's name and is also used pejoratively to indicate that a man is behaving like a girl. (The name Nancy is used in Britain for this same purpose.)
Michael says I'll be back! in the style of Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in The Terminator.
Ryan tells Dwight that he was in a frat (short for fraternity) in college. College fraternities are known for elaborate initiation rituals in which new members are humiliated.
Dwight asks Ryan about the purpose of the DHARMA Initiative. This is a reference to an organization in the popular ABC Network series Lost.
The item Mose whittled is a replica of the Venus of Willendorf.
Michael listens to Rock And Roll Part 2 by Gary Glitter in his office after eating the pretzel.
Deal or No Deal and Let's Make a Deal are game shows. What is the deal? is slang for "What is the explanation?" and is often used as an expression of frustration.
The drink Ryan and Dwight have after the failed sales call is a Boilermaker. They employ the "depth charge" technique of dropping the shot into the beer glass and consuming the combined drink at one go.
Fantasy Football is a game in which participants build a team by selecting professional football players and earn points based on the performance of those players.
Mavis Beacon is the fictional typing instructor in the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing series of computer programs.
In the movie 28 Days, Sandra Bullock plays a woman struggling against alcoholism. The movie 28 Days Later is a post-apocalyptic horror movie. Blockbuster is a chain of movie rental stores which was closed down just a few months after The Office was cancelled. Like Pam says, Blockbuster displayed their rental products in generic boxes with only the Blockbuster brand and the title of the movie (or video game) in plain black lettering, whereas other rental outlets used either the products' retail boxes or photocopies of the retail boxes inserted into the slipcover of generic boxes, in either case presenting an immediately identifiable visual of the movie.
Michael says that sometimes he is in the zone, an idiom for what is known as a flow state, meaning that he is totally focused, but sometimes he is zoning out, meaning that he is disengaged from the situation and not paying attention. He offers to order Jan a slang dictionary from Amazon's online marketplace to help her understand these terms.
When Michael reads his log in a deleted scene, he says, "Light salad, three points." The Weight Watchers diet plan assigns points to various foods.
Mose Schrute wrestling Ryan references the movie Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne masters fear and Batman battling the Scarecrow.
When Ryan catches up to Dwight, Dwight salutes him with a flourish like Rimmer from Red Dwarf.

Quotes[]

See: Initiation Quotes

Cast[]

Main cast[]

Supporting cast[]

Recurring cast[]

Guest cast[]

Thomas F. Evans as Pretzel Vendor
Marcus A. York as Billy Merchant (voice) (uncredited)

References[]

↑ ^1.00 ^1.01 ^1.02 ^1.03 ^1.04 ^1.05 ^1.06 ^1.07 ^1.08 ^1.09 ^1.10 ^1.11 ^1.12 ^1.13 ^1.14 ^1.15 ^1.16 ^1.17 ^1.18 Kinsey, Angela and Jenna Fischer. Episode 33: Initiation with B.J. Novak and Rainn Wilson. "Office Ladies" podcast, June 24, 2020.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 ^2.3 ^2.4 DVD commentary

[officeladies-33-1] 1.00 ^1.01 ^1.02 ^1.03 ^1.04 ^1.05 ^1.06 ^1.07 ^1.08 ^1.09 ^1.10 ^1.11 ^1.12 ^1.13 ^1.14 ^1.15 ^1.16 ^1.17 ^1.18 Kinsey, Angela and Jenna Fischer. Episode 33: Initiation with B.J. Novak and Rainn Wilson. "Office Ladies" podcast, June 24, 2020.

[dvd-2] 2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 ^2.3 ^2.4 DVD commentary

[1]

[2]