Creator Mike White plays Amy’s co-worker and friend Tyler. Tyler is the opposite of Amy. While Amy suffers from a deluded self-image and a complete lack of self-awareness, Tyler is cripplingly self-conscious. Amy is offended that she is being forced to work in the basement despite having years of experience in sales, and makes it her mission to get back upstairs. Tyler used to do technical support, but is content where he is. He is the type of character, the type of person who has had the ambition beaten out of him by life and circumstance.
In a lot of instances, this results in Tyler being easily manipulated by Amy, because he’s attracted to her and that’s usually the way these types of relationships go. The second season propels their friendship to new levels when they plot (well, when Amy does) to expose the company for wrongdoings and they form a kind of conspiratorial alliance. The character really comes to fruition in an episode told from Tyler’s perspective. We usually hear Amy’s voiceover, but in Tyler’s episode, we hear him in his own words, which are more direct and less poetic and flighty than Amy’s, but equally, possibly even more emotionally resonant.
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