"Sexual Harassment" is the second episode of the second season of The Office. It was written by B.J Novak and directed by Ken Kwapis. It first aired on September 27, 2005.
Synopsis
Michael declares himself "King of Forwards" because he is a master of forwarding what he considers to be funny email to the rest of the office. Michael's "best friend forever" Todd Packer arrives and shares crude and sexist gossip about an upper management scandal, which continues to offend the staff. Ryan is called upon to drive Packer around town because of Packer's "DUI situation". Meanwhile, Pam waits with anticipation for her mother to arrive from out of town.
Toby privately informs Michael that their CFO resigned because of sexual harassment. Consequently, he has been asked by Corporate to hold a five-minute review of the company's sexual harassment policies. Michael interprets this as Corporate cracking down on his inappropriate jokes and is upset that this will put a damper on his easy-going office environment by forcing everybody to "scrutinize every little thing we say and do all day." His indignation rises to outrage when he learns that Corporate is sending down a lawyer to talk to Michael.
Michael goes down to the warehouse to find some dirty jokes that he can use to remind the staff how great jokes can be, but he ends up being sexually harassed himself and runs away in embarrassment. Upstairs, Toby's presentation goes well, and Pam asks everyone to keep it clean when her mother arrives. Just as Toby is wrapping up, Michael arrives with a blow-up sex doll. He makes a speech on not losing the sexual humor around the office, but fails to get the support of the employees.
For laughs, Michael and the warehouse staff watch the sexual harassment video in the conference room. Meanwhile, Dwight asks Toby questions about the female anatomy. Just as Michael shares a crude remark about the video with the rest of the staff, Jan and the lawyer arrive from Corporate.
Todd Packer returns to the office as Michael meets with Jan and the lawyer, upset that their crackdown on his inappropriate e-mail forwarding means that he basically can't say anything in the office at all. In a talking head interview, Michael defensively explains that as the King of Forwards, he's just forwarding the jokes; he didn't write them and therefore cannot be held responsible for their content. Michael emerges from the meeting to announce that he can no longer be friends with his staff and that he will talk only about work. As a result, he will never tell another joke again. Jim goads Michael into breaking his vow immediately.
Jan calls Michael back into his office for another meeting as Michael's "free speech" lawyer arrives. Jan explains that as the corporate lawyer, Mr. O'Malley's job is protect the company and upper-level management, including Michael. Michael is instantly relieved that he's not in trouble.
Just as Michael throws away the sex doll, Pam's mother arrives and after Roy leaves, she asks in whispers (and is shushed by an embarrassed Pam) which one is Jim. Todd Packer shares some more inappropriate jokes with the employees and Michael tries to draw the line, but points the blame at Kevin. He gets teased by Packer and ends up saying how beautiful Phyllis is and saying the only thing he's worried about "is gettin' a boner."
Deleted scenes
The Season Two DVD contains a number of deleted scenes from this episode.
- Michael is baffled by a casual compliment from Pam.
- Dwight warns Jim not to drink directly from his soda can due to the risk of cross-contamination.
- Kevin receives a doctored celebrity photo via e-mail.
- Dwight carefully washes a soda can.
- Extension of Michael taking over Toby's sexual harassment training.
- In a talking head interview, Michael bad-mouths Toby.
- Pam teases Jim by apologizing for sending instant messages with the winking-face emoticon, concerned that it might be sexual harassment. Jim responds that he has retained the angry-face icon as his attorney.
Interesting details
- Jan plays with her cell phone a lot in this episode. In the DVD commentary, Melora Hardin explains that the prop team gave her a RAZR phone (a novel gadget at the time), and she couldn't stop playing with it.
Cultural references
- Michael says Forward it like it's hot in the style of the Snoop Dogg song Drop It Like It's Hot, but he mis-identifies the source as Old School.
- Friends is a television comedy that ran from 1994 to 2004. Chandler, Joey, and Rachel are characters from that show. Kramer, on the other hand, is a character from the show Seinfeld.
- DUI stands for Driving while Under the Influence, known as drink-driving in British English.
- Queers R Us and Boys R Us are puns on toy store chain Toys "R" Us.
- MILF is crude slang for for Mother I'd like to F—.
Cast
Main Cast
- Steve Carell as Michael Scott
- John Krasinski as Jim Halpert
- Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly
- Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute
- B.J. Novak as Ryan Howard
Recurring Cast
- Leslie David Baker as Stanley Hudson
- Brian Baumgartner as Kevin Malone
- Creed Bratton (actor) as Creed Bratton (uncredited)
- Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer
- Melora Hardin as Jan Levinson-Gould
- Mindy Kaling as Kelly Kapoor
- Angela Kinsey as Angela Martin
- David Koechner as Todd Packer
- Paul Lieberstein as Toby
- Oscar Nunez as Oscar Martinez
- Craig Robinson as Darryl Philbin
- Karly Rothenberg as Madge
- Phyllis Smith as Phyllis Lapin
- ??? as Lester (uncredited)
Guest Cast
- Melinda Chilton as The Natural Redhead
- Shannon Cochran as Mrs. Beesly
- R.F. Daley as Mr. O'Malley
- Andrew Donnelly as Mike
- Dennis Garber as James P. Albini
- Keith Valcourt as Ted
- ??? as Joe