Well, the cat’s out of the bag. Just when we thought that Angela may have regained the upper hand in the mostly silent feud with Phyllis, Phyllis turned around and did what I don’t think any of us thought she was actually going to do. Meanwhile, we got a random side-plot involving Meredith’s drinking that wasn’t nearly as funny as the rest of the episode.
Is alcoholism funny? Eh, even for someone like me who isn’t easily offended by things, I just couldn’t get into the whole ridiculous intervention business in tonight’s ep. To make a long story short, Michael serves Meredith a bunch of drinks, the ingredients of which include absinthe. I didn’t even know you could buy that stuff in the U.S.. Meredith gets hammered and sets her hair on fire during a fit of dancing. Dwight saves the day by extinguishing the fire and Michael uses the almost-catastrophe as an opportunity to point out that Meredith has a drinking problem. This is something any loyal Office fan should know already and it wasn’t news to the staff at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton either.
Michael stages an intervention during the party and no one else appears to be interested in joining in on the non-holiday-themed portion of what had been a pretty fun party prior to the fire. Michael gets frustrated at the rest of the staff’s lack of enthusiasm towards the intervention and he proceeds to try to admit Meredith into a rehab center. She leaves and it’s only then that Michael learns that you can’t force someone to go to rehab. Michael’s still an idiot. Meredith’s still an alcoholic.
Everything else about the episode was glorious. From the laugh-out-loud cold open in which Jim tricked Dwight (and us) into thinking he’d wrapped up Dwight’s desk, chair and everything on the desk with Christmas wrapping paper only for Dwight (and us) to realize he’d actually switched out the entire set up with a cardboard version of Dwight’s things. Dwight tried to sit down in the wrapped chair and fell to the ground, the desk crumbling under the weight of his briefcase. Glorious. This was even better than the time Jim popped Dwight’s yoga ball with a pair of scissors.
Speaking of Dwight, he figures out a way to profit off Christmas by buying out all of the local stores of the “Princess Unicorn” doll. It’s a ridiculous looking doll that looks like a Barbie except it has a unicorn horn on its head. Dwight speculates that a King would have to have sex with a unicorn in order for such a creature to be spawned.
While we’re all laughing at Dwight’s seemingly obvious idiocy for purchasing a doll that no kid in their right mind should want, parents all over Scranton are scrambling to get their hands on them and they’re showing up one at a time at the office to trade $200 cash for one of the dolls. Point to Dwight.
In the end, Toby finds out that his adorable daughter wants a Princess Unicorn doll. He’s giddy at the thought of how much it’ll piss his ex-wife off when he shows up on Christmas to give his little girl the toy she’s been begging to have. He approaches Dwight to get one just as Darryl’s walking away with the last doll. Toby begs Darryl to let him buy the doll and Darryl agrees to sell it to him for $400. It’s a mark of just how desperate Toby is to out-do his ex that he agrees, hugging Darryl afterwards. And after he looks at the doll and sees that it’s the black version of Princess Unicorn, he doesn’t have it in him to complain.
Meanwhile, Phyllis has arranged a Moroccan themed Christmas party, much to Angela’s chagrin. As Phyllis has been blackmailing Angela (though she doesn’t think its technically blackmailing since she hasn’t written a formal letter) over knowing about Angela’s affair with Dwight, she takes advantage of Angela by bossing her around during the whole party. It’s hard enough for Angela to stomach the Moroccan style decorations and music, but she also has to put up with Phyllis shoving most of her nativity scene into a drawer in addition to preparing hummus for the staff.
Finally, Angela’s had enough and tells Phyllis off, calling her out by saying they both know Phyllis has no intention of telling anyone about the affair. At this point we think Phyllis has given in. For just a moment, she reverts back to the passive version of herself but power has gone to Phyllis’ head and she’s not ready to let it go. She turns around and announces to everyone in the office (Michael and Meredith weren’t there and Andy was in the other room) that Dwight and Angela are sleeping together. The announcement manages to suck whatever life there was left in the party. Angela looks mortified and ashamed. Andy makes it worse by coming into the room and serenading Angela with a rendition of Deck the Halls (complete with Rih-dit-dit-tadoos) on this big Moroccan guitar thing (I’m sure it has a name but google was no help to me here.)
Everyone is quiet as Andy finishes the song and Angela looks like she’s on the verge of tears. She says she wants to go home and a typically clueless Andy comments on people’s lack of manners in not applauding him before the two leave. Awkward.
So now almost everyone knows about Dwight and Angela. Dwight is pretty pleased with this. It seems like it would be impossible for the office to keep this a secret from Andy but something tells me he’s still not going to find out about it until after the wedding falls apart.
A couple of other hilarious moments included Meredith’s drunken belly-dancing and Angela spitting out a mouthful of food after learning that the dish is traditionally eaten during Ramadan.
NBC is selling Princess Unicorn merchandise at their website.
