Changes: Nepotism

Revision as of 03:10, 19 October 2015

"Nepotism" is the first episode of Season 7 and the 127th episode of The Office overall. It was written by Daniel Chun and directed by Jeffrey Blitz. The episode originally aired on September 23, 2010. It was viewed by 8.40 million people.

Synopsis

The opening begins with various members of the office participating in a lip dub, with the exception of Toby, who is recording it.

Michael Scott reminisces over his summer, one in which he contracted West Nile virus and lost some weight. Gabe Louis reveals that he started dating Erin Hannon over the summer, and both parties agree that they are enjoying the experience. Andy Bernard tries to remain calm at the prospect, but it is obvious he is mad at Gabe for stealing his girlfriend. He tries to calm himself by picturing himself at a calm beach, in which he sees a whale in the ocean...eating Gabe.

Dwight Schrute discloses that he became the owner of the building over the summer, and carries around the keys everywhere. Kelly Kapoor participated in an executive training program at Yale, which she claims has made her smart.

The new assistant, Luke Cooper, arrives late with the employees' coffee, and accidentally mixed up Darryl Philbin's order. Darryl begins to talk about his summer, but expresses his dislike of Luke instead. In the break room, Oscar Martinez and other employees complain that they gave Luke packages to deliver to clients, but that they never reached their destination. Micheal defends Luke, however, much to the displeasure to the rest of the office.

Jim Halpert tries to play a prank on Dwight by adding more keys to the chain but Pam laughs and exposes Jim's plan. Pam says she is sorry, but Jim is upset that he was unable to prank Dwight.

In an interview, Michael states "One more thing I did over the summer...I hired my nephew," revealing Luke is Michael's nephew.

As everyone in the office becomes increasingly annoyed with Luke, Micheal continues to defend him. He holds a meeting to tell people "don't not annoy Luke" and gets frustrated when the double negative gets pointed out. Toby Flenderson suggests that Luke is related to Michael, and Michael eventually admits the relationship. Michael reveals that he hired Luke because he hoped that it will end the hostilities between him and his half sister, Luke's mother. (Michael stated that he lost Luke in a forest one time.)

The rest of the office still persists with their demands for Michael to fire Luke, but he once again refuses.

Pam, trying to make it up to Jim, decides to come up with a plan to prank Dwight. She seeks the help of Kevin Malone to rewire the elevator, so the buttons do other things than what they really should. After text messaging Dwight, she boards the elevator to show him "something in the lobby," but the plan backfires when they become trapped in the elevator due to the rewiring. Dwight starts to urinate in the elevator, which he states is due to all the water he has been drinking.

In the parking lot, members of the office discovers the packages that were never delivered all sitting in Luke's car. Meredith Palmer is able to break into the car so they retrieve the packages. With Luke now costing the office clients, Gabe and Michael confer with Sabre CEO Jo Bennett about the problem, and she sternly tells Michael to do deal with the issue. When Luke continues to irritate the office, Michael gets fed up and repeatedly spanks him in front of the entire office.

Luke runs away crying and quits his job, with the rest of the office satisfied that Luke will no longer be a problem to them.

People from building maintenance are required to get Dwight and Pam out of the elevator. As it lowers to ground level, Jim is impressed with the prank Pam pulled on Dwight, despite the fact it had the opposite effect that Pam intended.

In the final scene, Gabe informs Michael that because he spanked Luke (which was "physical assault" of an employee) he must either have a counseling session or be fired immediately. Michael takes the former option, but finds out that the session will be with Toby, greatly upsetting Michael.

Goofs

Jim is able to put 3 keys on Dwights key ring before Pam laughs and blows the prank. However, when Dwight grabs it back and throws the keys at Jim, he throws too many (one for every word; Ha. Ha. Not. funny. Jim). He would have actually thrown 2 of his own keys off the ring. It's possible this isn't the first time Jim put blank keys on, but the scene seems to make it pretty clear that this is the first time.

Cultural References

The episode opens with a lip dub to The Human Beinz's version of Nobody But Me. A lip dub is a type of video which became wildly popular starting in late 2009. Performers lip-sync to an existing song shot in a single take.
During the lip dub Creed is shown "playing the guitar". It may be a reference to that the real Creed Branton played lead guitar for the band The Grass Roots.
Luke watches his computer monitor and says "Yay, strawberries are ripe." He is most likely playing Farmville, a game on Facebook.
Meredith tells Luke to stop listening to Chumbawamba, a British band mainly known for their 1997 song Tubthumping.
Michael talks about open auditions for the band Hanson ("What if no one named Hanson showed up?"), not realizing that it is a family band consisting of three brothers.
Creed says he follows Luke on Twitter because he doesn't talk about Betty White, the beloved American actress who made a comeback in 2009. White is famous for her raunchy sense of humor and old age (she turned 90 in 2012), so it's surprising that Creed isn't a fan of hers.
Pam says "They don't call me the Bart Simpson of Scranton for nothing!" Bart is the ten-year-old troublemaker on the long running TV show The Simpsons.
Michael wonders how The Ringling Brothers manage to "still work with their family" every night all over America. The Ringling Brothers Circus was a circus founded in the United States in 1884. The company is still active, but the last founding brother died back in 1936.
Michael saw the movie Inception, a 2010 film about a man who can infiltrate other people's dreams.
Orville Redenbacher was a businessman best known for his brand of unpopped popcorn. Erin confuses him with "the guy who invented the peanut", presumably thinking of George Washington Carver who developed peanut agricultural research.
Gabe tells Erin he's going to Siberia, a part of Russia known for its inhospitable climate and its use as a place of exile.
Andy imagines himself on Cape Cod, the easternmost portion of Massachusetts and known as the home to many upper-class families.
Erin finds the pants that Michael wanted to return to Talbot's a chain of high-end women's clothing stores. The nearest Talbot's is at Montage Mountain. This scene refers to a previous episode The Negotiation, when Michael wears a womens suit.
Luke causes Phyllis to lose a potential sale to Lehigh Motors. Lehigh is the name of a town and a county not too far from Scranton, although there is no such company.
On the break room refrigerator is a magnet for Sheetz, a chain of gas station convenience stores.

Behind the Scenes

Writer Daniel Chun answered some questions about the making of the lip dub.

Connections to previous episodes

In "Body Language", Darryl drops out of the running for the Sabre Minority Executive Training Program because it would interfere with his softball schedule saying that he "only has about a year left in these knees". Turns out he had even less than that.

@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 |Director = [[Jeffery Blitz]]
 |Prev = [[Whistleblower]]
-|Next = [[Counseling]]}}'''"Nepotism"''' is the first episode of [[Season 7]] and the 127th episode of ''[[The Office]]'' overall. It was written by Daniel Chun and directed by [[Jeffrey Blitz]]. The episode originally aired on September 23, 2010. It was viewed by 8.40 million people..
+|Next = [[Counseling]]}}'''"Nepotism"''' is the first episode of [[Season 7]] and the 127th episode of ''[[The Office]]'' overall. It was written by Daniel Chun and directed by [[Jeffrey Blitz]]. The episode originally aired on September 23, 2010. It was viewed by 8.40 million people.
 == Synopsis ==

Changes: Nepotism

Revision as of 03:10, 19 October 2015

Contents

Synopsis

Goofs

Cultural References

Behind the Scenes

Connections to previous episodes

Cast

Main Cast

Supporting Cast

Recurring Cast

Guest Cast