Changes: Weight Loss

Revision as of 08:36, 22 July 2011

"Weight Loss" (also known as "Summer") is the first episode of the fifth season of The Office. It was written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky and directed by Paul Feig. It first aired September 25, 2008.

Synopsis

The Scranton branch participates in a weight loss competition to see which branch can lose the most cumulative weight, with a prize of three extra vacation days (which later changes to five) for every employee in the winning branch. Although the branch is enthusiastic at first, the competition begins to take a huge toll on many of the employees, particularly Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling), who stops eating and tries various kinds of diets. As a result, corporate sends a memo insisting that the staff need not resort to drastic measures to lose weight. :)

Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) begins her three-month stay in New York to attend classes in graphic design at the Pratt Institute, leaving Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) to adjust to her being away. Pam is temporarily replaced by Ronni (Dale Raoul), an older woman, but is quickly replaced by Ryan Howard (B. J. Novak) who was recently fired by Dunder Mifflin for fraud. Ryan, who is shown to be planning to rise again in the company, tries to make-up with several workers he had treated badly. He apologizes to his former girlfriend Kelly, and asks her out, only to be rejected because she's dating Darryl, and is mocked by Jim when Ryan apologizes to him.

Michael Scott (Steve Carell) successfully continues his casual bonding with Holly Flax (Amy Ryan), with Jim noting that his success is due to Holly being "kind of a major dork". However, when Holly notices Michael talking in his office with a pregnant Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin), she asks Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) to set her up with his yoga instructor. Michael learns of this and gets frustrated with Jim because he did not ask Holly out months earlier, which he wanted to but Jim told him not to. At point, Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey) chastises Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) for improperly accounting for sales numbers. Holly, who thinks Kevin is mentally retarded, yells at Angela for treating Kevin so rudely, but when she refers to him as "mentally challenged", Kevin awkwardly reveals that he is not. Embarrassed, Holly apologizes and walks away.

Phyllis Vance (Phyllis Smith) takes over the Party Planning Committee after catching Angela cheating. Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) makes plans for his wedding with Angela, who irritatedly vetoes all of his ideas. Meanwhile she is revealed to be secretly having an affair with Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson). After Andy gives a heartfelt speech about not caring where they marry because he wants to be with her forever, Angela warms up to him a little. However, later in the episode Angela's disinterest resumes after Andy's persists in bringing his old a cappella group to be his best man, causing her and Dwight to resume their intimate affair.

Jim, having an unsatisfactory summer due to not being able to see Pam, asks her on a last minute lunch date at an interstate rest stop in between Scranton and New York City. At the rest stop, Jim finally proposes to Pam, and she happily accepts. Holly buys Counting Crows tickets as a surprise for the yoga instructor, but he never calls. Michael berates the yoga instructor in front of her for not calling her back, much to her apparent pleasure. He then offers to buy the tickets from her, only to tear them up in front of her.

The Scranton branch loses the competition to the Utica branch, much to the disappointment of the employees. Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker), however, is pleased with the fact that he personally lost seven pounds and decides to take an extra five days off anyway. In the last scene, Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein) is seen in a hospital in Costa Rica, having broken his neck due to a malfunctioning zip-line harness on the third day of his new life and been subsequently hospitalized for five weeks.

Deleted Scenes

Dwight describes his perfect last meal - including how he would use the razorblade inside the souffle to escape from prison.
Oscar speaks with Toby about his time in Costa Rica.
Oscar complains to Andy after turning the heat up.
Kevin dumps the contents of his M&M's jar in the trash, which impresses Oscar - until he replaces them with Raisinettes.
Oscar says in a talking head that, while he is in very good shape, within the gay community, his physique is nowhere near as impressive.
Jan criticizes Michael's foot-massaging.
An alternate version of Jim's revelation that that Michael claimed to have fathered Jan's baby, followed by Jim pulling out and reading aloud a letter from Jan, given to everyone in the office, in which she emphatically insists that Michael is not the baby's father, who is not anyone she or the office had ever met (though a deleted scene from "Baby Shower" would suggest that this might not be true).
Ryan's mom drops him off at work.
Ryan takes a call from David Wallace, who becomes surprised and outraged that Ryan is working for the company again. Over the phone, Wallace proceeds to tear into Ryan with such invective that he begins to cry, as the rest of the office looks on in shock (not unlike their reaction to Dwight's bended-knee mea culpa in "The Coup"). In a talking head interview, a still-tearful Ryan says that Wallace is now on his revenge list.
Michael takes the call from Wallace; in addition to

his anger over Ryan's presence, the CFO mentions Phyllis's complaint about being abandoned by Dwight.

Trivia

The scenes at the Pratt Institute were filmed at the University of Southern California.^[1]
Pam's enthusiastic "What up, 2-1-2", is a reference to the 212 area code used in the Manhattan area of New York City. However, the Pratt Institute uses the 718 area code.
According to Darryl's scale, Pam weighs 126 pounds, not 226 as Kevin calculates.
As of this episode, Amy Ryan is credited as a Special Guest Star.
Pam claims that this is the first time she uses the word "perfect" in the office, although she uses it in the episode The Fight, although only as part of the phrase "the perfect storm".
Aspiring actor Stefan Kumor appeared as an extra in two scenes from this episode. His local newspaper covered the story. Hudson native makes first splash into Hollywood.

Amusing details

As Darryl weighs the office staff and finds that they have lost no weight, he eats an ice cream sandwich.
When Holly informs Michael that they lost the contest, she knocks on the door with the opening phrase of shave and a haircut. After Michael invites her in, she knocks the final two notes.

Connections to previous episodes

Michael is wearing a sumo suit from Beach Games under his business suit. "I'm so glad I bought instead of rented."
In the hospital Toby watches the "hug it out, bitch" scene from Entourage, a scene which Michael re-creates in the episode The Coup.

After Michael asks how the staff can live forever, Jim replies, "Cryogenics. Beer me five." This refers to Andy's use of 'beer me' in Product Recall ("Beer me that disc," and Jim's "Lord beer me strength.")
We can see the name plate that was given to Kelly the episode "Christmas Party".

Cast

Main Cast

Supporting Cast

Special Guest Star

Amy Ryan as Holly Flax

Guest Cast

Jim Petersmith as Bearded professor
Dale Raoul as Ronni
Rich Sommer as Alex
Sandra Tsing Loh as Professor Monahan

References

weight loss help

↑ Hey, Look! Pam's Making Some Drawrings, Kristin Dos Santos, Watch with Kristin blog, August 7, 2008.

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[eonline_22467-1] Hey, Look! Pam's Making Some Drawrings, Kristin Dos Santos, Watch with Kristin blog, August 7, 2008.

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@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 *Ryan's mom drops him off at work.
 *Ryan takes a call from David Wallace, who becomes surprised and outraged that Ryan is working for the company again. Over the phone, Wallace proceeds to tear into Ryan with such invective that he begins to cry, as the rest of the office looks on in shock (not unlike their reaction to Dwight's bended-knee mea culpa in "[[The Coup]]"). In a talking head interview, a still-tearful Ryan says that Wallace is now on his revenge list.
 *Michael takes the call from Wallace; in addition to
 his anger over Ryan's presence, the CFO mentions Phyllis's complaint about being abandoned by Dwight.
@@ Line 90: / Line 90: @@
 ==References==
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