There were many tears during “Goodbye, Michael,” most of them coming from the man of the hour himself: Michael cries when he realizes that “all the (TV) channels are going to be different” in Boulder, Co.
He cries in a quiet, somewhat beautiful moment in the office kitchen when his co-workers discuss plans to buy a new office shredder and he realizes he is no longer involved in making these mundane day-to-day decisions.
The tears are very real, and they make for very emotional television. But there is something that I’ve been struggling with about “Goodbye, Michael.” Sure, the tears are real, but are they Michael Scott’s or actor Steve Carell’s?
It’s kind of hard to remember now, but The Office used to be much more similar to its British ancestor. That is to say: It was dark; there was a real sense of hopelessness to it.
Jim was a compelling young man wasting away his youth and talent in lifeless office space. Pam was trapped in a loveless relationship with a falsely macho man-child. Everyone hated everyone else and what they were selling. And Michael? Michael was a true jackass.
As time went on in the world of The Office, however, Michael became more of a loveable man-child instead of an ignorant tyrant ruining the lives of everyone around him. And the employees of Dunder-Mifflin really did seem to enjoy one another’s company.
At first this rang very false. Nobody changes that drastically and for seemingly no reason. But in reality, there really is a reason for such drastic changes in their relationships: the cameras.
Lest you forget, The Office is presented as a documentary that someone (we still have no idea who, by the way) is filming. “Goodbye, Michael” even makes reference to the cameras twice, after ignoring them for most of the season. It’s as if The Office wants to remind viewers that these people were being filmed. Why? To explain their inexplicable changes during the past seven years.
The workers were stuck in dead-end jobs with a boss they hated until the cameras turned up. Once they did, they immediately understood that they were part of a story. And the main character in such a story (Michael Scott) deserves a grand send-off regardless of how much of a jerk he’s been. I’m not saying the characters’ responses to Michael were insincere. I’m saying the camera was the catalyst for the characters to see Michael’s performative and needy personality in a new, bemused light.
It might be too meta of an explanation, but is also means that those tears didn’t just belong to The Office’s actors, but their characters as well. The show is undoubtedly on the decline, but it’s nice to know they can still give a fine comic creation the send-off he deserves. Goodbye, Michael, indeed.
— Alec Bojalad is a junior studying journalism. If you want to mourn The Office as well, shoot him an email at ab239807@ohiou.edu.
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