Five Alternate Endings to The Office

As many of you know, The Office, NBC's hit comedy about the fictional paper company Dunder-Mifflin in Scranton, PA has its finale in three days. The Office was, for its first three seasons, the best show on television. It tapered off a little bit in seasons four and five and then completely sucked since then, now limping out after nine seasons. But this still gives a chance for the formerly-great show to leave a mark on network television finales.

Now let me be very clear about two things. One, I haven't regularly watched the show for a couple of years because of its aforementioned terribleness, though I do still care about the show because of what it once was, which was great. Two, these are not predictions--anybody who has ever watched television knows basically what's going to happen in the finale. Characters we haven't seen for a while will re-appear, and then they'll leave, and then at the very end of the episode, somebody who has been on the show since at least Season 3 will leave the office alone, turning out the lights and then the screen will fade to black. It's literally the exact same ending as Cheers and it worked for them so they'll do it. But there's how it SHOULD end.

1. Katy's Revenge: One of the more notable people to play a recurring character was a slightly pre-fame Amy Adams, who played the character of Katy. The character was slightly outside of Amy Adams's comfort zone in that she wasn't especially likable--she was pretty dumb and was relatively sexed up and basically existed so that she could date Jim Halpert and serve as a counterpoint to the much more charming, roughly-as-attractive, but very much engaged Pam Beesly character. It was a Ginger-Mary Ann battle in the sense that nobody actually PICKS Ginger (or, in the case of Amy Adams, merely "the ginger") but it's a nice hypothetical regardless. But anyway, while Katy kind of sucked, Jim had the ultimate dick move in breaking up with her. You think Phil Collins dumping his wife via fax was bad? How about dumping your girlfriend while you're both on a boat which is at sea. Not only did she have to deal with being dumped but she was unable to leave without literally going overboard. But anyway, she hasn't been back since being dumped, which sucks, because she deserves vengeance. Swift, brutal vengeance on that total bag of dicks Jim Halpert. The episode becomes sort of a cross-between Misery and Fatal Attraction, in that Katy breaks Jim's legs and then for some reason boils a bunny. Does Jim survive? Shit, I don't care. This is good enough.

2. Creed gets a spinoff: The best character on The Office, make no mistake about it, is Creed Bratton, the completely amoral QA employee. For some reason, producers pushed for a spinoff for Dwight Schrute, a good but inferior character. But this last episode can create the best show probably ever--one in which Creed Bratton takes over an office. Dunder-Mifflin closes in this episode and as a result, several people are going to lose their jobs, but Creed, being the amateur little pot dealer he is, decides to bring on several top-quality sales people. Maybe around three of them. And starts a new business. Creed starts a drug dealing business with Meredith, Kevin, and, um, let's go with Toby. Yeah, why not, Toby. You telling me you wouldn't at least give this show a reasonable chance? Of course you would!

3. Pam breaks up with Jim: As I mentioned before, Jim Halpert is a dick of a character and for some reason he gets away with being a dick of a character. Anyway, he's married and has two kids with Pam, who is likable though is probably dumb because she voluntarily mated with Jim. Anyway, I can think of at least one other time that a somewhat hot actress broke up with her husband/father of her two children. Basically this scene but with Pam and Jim. I could see Jim basically reacting like this. Fuck him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g9RI0GgRIQ

THIS MUST ALL END!

4. David Brent's Newhart ending: You know how in the finale of Newhart it turns out that the entire series was the dream of a character in a completely different yet inherently related series? Ricky Gervais wakes up and it turns out that this whole damn show was a dream of his character from the original UK version of the show. Well, seasons 1-4.5 are a dream and seasons 4.5-9 are a nightmare.

5. Pam Goes to Truman State!: Hey, did you know that Jenna Fischer, who plays Pam, went to Truman State University? Well, I knew that! Because I went to Truman State University and Jenna Fischer was always the notable alumnae cited to entice people to go there. Yep, Mizzou has Brad Pitt, but Truman has the girl that plays the frumpy receptionist on TV so screw you guys! Well anyway, I always wondered why people cared so much, especially when she doesn't appear to particularly care about her college years, but in the finale my entire college experience starts to make sense. But Pam (preferably without Jim but I'm not going to get too nitpicky here) goes up to Truman and goes through all of the various academic halls and dorms. I don't really care which ones. And then she goes to the dorms and eats the terrible Sodexho food and then walks over to where the Kum and Go in Kirksville right across campus used to be. She looks and sees that it is no longer there. A single tear rolls down her eye. Pure fucking emotion. End series.

The Facebook Status That Defined America in the 2010s

I am writing this on May 1, 2013. It is the second anniversary of the greatest status in the history of Facebook.

On May 1, 2011, my good friend Nick (@FWBluesFan on Twitter) wrote a Facebook status. Now, Nick's a fairly quiet guy and by extension he doesn't really write very many Facebook statuses, so when he does, he makes them count. And at 11:27 p.m. CST, Nick wrote, "one more reason why America is the best country in the world." For those unfamiliar with their contemporary American history, this was the date that the FBI's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden, was killed. And, because America is the best, we killed him dead. Because America. Well anyway, the status got a few likes and a few comments. And then a few more comments. And then some more. And then everybody went to bed. And then it got more comments. So on it went. 

The status, at the time I wrote this sentence, had 952 comments.

Needless to say, Nick's simple status took on a life of its own. Since the day it was written, it has averaged about 1.3 comments per day. Keep in mind that this status was written TWO YEARS AGO. The status has become an integral part of the lives of all involved, particularly those of us who have commented regularly on the status over the last two years. But most importantly, the status serves an important purpose as summarizing what life is like in this era.

First of all, the very act of a Facebook status is still unique to a relatively short period of time. When my parents learned that Reagan was shot or learned that the Berlin Wall was coming down, there were no Facebook statuses. In the 21st century, we are able to celebrate on the internet. Some might say this shows a lack of community, with people living their lives and expressing their emotions on the internet--I'd say the exact opposite. Nick and I (and the other people who commented on the status) didn't all live in the same space but we were still able to discuss the day's events. Not only that, but we're able to effectively create a living, breathing document of how we felt, of what we thought, of the occasionally bizarre emotions that poured out of our brains.

Around when I first commented on the status, I considered that maybe we should anthologize the status in a Word document or print the comments out or something to that effect, but now I realize that it serves a greater purpose in its current state. The status has never died. Whenever one of us gets bored, we just go back and comment. It says a lot about what twisted, fucked up individuals (and I do it as much as anybody, so this is far from condemnation) we are that we continue it. I don't care enough to look up the full count of how many people have commented on this status but...it's a lot.

It's amazing to think about, how long this status has continued. A majority of the time I've known Nick has been since this status started. When it started, I was in college--three jobs later, the status has survived. I like to think that I've grown, and I'm sure many of the other contributors feel the same. But thankfully, I haven't matured so much that I can't fully recognize the significance of "The Bin Laden Status".