This episode was a little dark and demented for me. I don’t like how far they’ve taken the Michael/Jan thing. Following up the deposition with this one was a little too much pathos for my taste.

Obviously, the episode centers on a dinner party. We start out with a 15 second recap of all the relationships (presumably for the 5 people who haven’t ever seen the show).

The opening is fantastic–Michael sets up an elaborate trap to get Jim and Pam into finally having dinner with him and Jan. He adds in Andy and Angela for good measure. Poor Dwight is crushed he can’t come because he’s a single, and they only have 6 wine glasses! Dwight sobs–I liked his alternate reaction in the commercial a lot better.

Pam and Jim arrive with a bottle of wine. Jan snidely remarks she can use it for cooking as she hauls off the bottle! Jan gives a tour of the condo–you’ll note as they go upstairs there is a Warhol painting of Jan above the steps. Jan has an office (never used) and a workshop (where she’s engaged in a candle-making business). Apparently she has mastered the art of making a candle that smells like fire. They move to the bedroom, where Michael has forgotten to hide the video camera. The best moment of the episode comes when they describe where Michael sleeps! They move to the den, where Michael brags up his 12″ plasma tv.

Angela and Andy arrive–boy, Angela looks dreadful. She constantly stares at Jan’s chest. Jan listen’s to some awful CD entitled “The Hunter” put out by her former assistant. LOL–Jim tries to bail on the party, and is so desperate to escape that he (unsuccessfully) even tries to leave Pam behind!The party gets nastier and nastier as Jan and Michael take passive agressiveness to psychotic levels. This is kind of where the episode kind of falls apart–half as much venom would have been twice as effective.

Cut to the kitchen, where Jan accuses Pam of having dated Michael in the past, while Michael tries to sell Jim and Andy on buying a share of the candle making business. Michael has hand chairs, just like Buster in Arrested Development.

Dwight shows up with an old bag, with two wine glasses, and a big cooler (which, it turns out, is full of beet salad). Jan flips out, and Michael reveals he has had 3 vasectomies (and reversals) on the whims of Jan’s ticking reproductive clock.

Dwight has a very suave part (hopefully, it doesn’t become a regular feature). At dinner, Dwight is devouring a turkey leg like you would find at the Rennaissance Faire. The group is starving, but Angela refuses to eat Dwight’s salad. It turns out that Dwight has brought his babysitter as a date.

Michael confides in Pam that he fears Jan is trying to poison him–another wrong note that goes way beyond believability. Things get really nasty when Jan reveals Michael has soft teeth. That prompts him to bring out the ugly beer sign that bathes the group in neon blue. Back comes Hunter, things get nasty, and Jan uses a Dundee to smash his “$200.00 plasma television screen.”

The group bails, and runs into the cops, who are investigating complaints of screaming. Dwight agrees to take Michael home, and no charges are filed.

Jim and Pam head to a hot dog place, where they eat and listen to The Hunter CD that Jim has stolen. Angela and Andy are getting ice cream, which she smashes into the side of the car when he tries to kiss her. Jan is supergluing the Dundee back together. Finally, they show the poor babysitter stuck at a dark bus stop with some nasty looking homeless guys. Dwight drives by, totally unconcerned.

Overall, it had the makings of a great episode, but everything was taken too far–maybe that was just a product of the strike hiatus.

I love Dwight’s “ideal dinner party”–it’s on the deleted scenes, number 1: http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/ I think Dwight probably matches up perfectly with Frank on that one.