The enjoyable thing about an episode like the Valentine’s Day installment (?? — someone monkeyed with the schedule) of The Office is how it allows a moment for nearly everyone from the broad cast. Young, old, single or paired, gay or straight, everyone has relationship issues. And while Michael’s two-ships-that-passed-in-the-blood-drive experience continued the story of his recovery from Holly, the moments I most enjoyed involved the rest of the cast, to wit:
* Andy (not present) getting over his heartbreak by taking all the honeymoons he had put down deposits on: “Today I think he’s hot-air ballooning, and later he’s got a couple’s massage.”
* Angela being surprised to discover her empathy with Oscar—”Not that I approve of any of this!”—and revealing that yet another pair of men had duelled over her.
* Kevin’s sweet, nervous courtship of the woman at the Valentine’s mixer: “I get very nervous talking to pretty girls. Seriously, feel how sweaty my hand is.” Awwwww!
* Kelly’s making things worse for Michael by saying how romantic his blood-drive encounter was: “This is like a modern-day Enchanted!”
* Phyllis’ loooooong drink of water after her tryst with Bob in the handicapped bathroom.
* Meredith’s de-winging of Cupid, which pretty much spoke for everyone who ever hated Valentine’s Day: “Now it’s just a stupid baby.”
* Stanley trying to con a cookie out of the blood-drive nurse—does your cardiologist know about this?—followed by Creed jauntily smuggling out a bag of blood. (His own?)
* Pam’s anxiousness about the new phone system— “I’d like to see a machine that puts out candy for everyone”—followed by that beautiful dawning-of-awareness pause: “Vending machine.”