What I really liked about the Dwight moment was the build up to it, as David Wallace asked Jim’s opinion first. It looked like Wallace was going to appoint Jim as manager. Old Dwight would’ve been mad and tried to find a way to get the job for himself. But now, he’s happy and moved on from it. He has matured as a person, and his relationship with Jim has evolved to the point where he doesn’t mind seeing Jim as manager, in fact, he’d be happy with it. And when Dwight actually gets the job, Jim congratulates and hugs him. They used to be enemies, and in some ways they still are. I can’t imagine Jim would ever stop harassing Dwight (and he better have some brilliant prank ready for the finale).
But now, their relationship has become that of friendship. It was just beautiful to see how far they’ve come and it was clearly established once Dwight gave Jim his old chair back. Their relationship has always been the lifeblood of the show, and it was missing for the last few episodes. Getting to see it again was definitely one of the reasons why this episode worked so well. The moment that really made me smile though was seeing Jim accept Dwight’s offer to become Assistant to the Regional Manager. Nice touch.
Another nice touch was seeing Dwight’s relationship to Pam. Whatever the antics he’d pull on Jim, he’s always cared for Pam, and in some ways, they’ve always been friends. It was nice to come back to that relationship. This is why a spinoff with Dwight would never have worked. As awesome a character he is, what makes him so awesome is the characters around him. He needs Jim and Pam and Angela to bounce off of. Putting him with different characters in a different place would lessen the appeal.
Anyway, back to Andy as he changes his mind again and ultimately decides that he must pursue his dream of being famous. In order to do that he has to burn his bridges so he has nothing to fall back on. In order to do this, he tries to get himself fired. This involves trying to grope Toby and pooping on David Wallace’s car. None of it works though so eventually. he just leaves. But not before singing a song to his officemates. And that’s where the brilliance of Andy’s arc comes in.
Throughout the episode Andy is constantly reminded that he’s making a huge mistake and that he’ll never make it in showbiz. And we believe it. But at the end, Andy sings that song and it reminds you that he is indeed a talented person, he is human who has big dreams and ambitions like anyone else. He reminded us that despite all the crazy things he’s done this season, he’s still that lovable Nard Dog on the inside, and he proved that he just might have a chance at stardom after all. And like Angela said, it was a good song, that might as well have been sung straight at us, the fans, as we get ready to part with the show. I genuinely hope we see him back for the finale and that this wasn’t the end for his character.
One thing that I appreciated as he sang the song was a shot of all the characters in the office. The story has mainly been focused on characters like Dwight, Andy, Jim, Pam, Oscar and Angela. But then there’s these other characters we love just as much like Meredith and Creed and Toby and Phyllis, and that’s when I realized we still have two more weeks to give them all a proper goodbye.
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