Koi Pond (The Office)

"Koi Pond" is the 8th episode of the sixth season of the U.S. comedy series The Office and the show's 108th episode overall. It was written by Warren Lieberstein and Halsted Sullivan and directed by Reggie Hudlin. It originally aired on NBC on October 29, 2009.

The series—presented as if it were a real documentary—depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. In this episode, Michael and Jim head off to a meeting and Michael comes back soaked after having fallen in a koi pond. Meanwhile, Pam and Andy, as the two worst salespeople in the branch, have to go cold calling for sales.

Synopsis

Jim sets up a meeting with a client, who requests that Michael come with him. Jim is upset since he wants to be able to do meetings by himself. When they come back from the meeting, Michael is soaked because he fell into a koi pond. The rest of the office makes fun of him. Michael responds by holding a sensitivity meeting where he asks everyone to say things they wish were not said about them. When the meeting doesn't seem to be going anywhere, Jim ends it and tells Michael that if he mocks himself about what happened, the rest of the office will be less inclined to mock him. Michael does this in front of the office staff, but he gets carried away and rambles into a self-pitying confessional about his loneliness (the employees look very embarrassed when Michael notes he doesn't even have 5 people to share a cell phone plan with, since even Jan won't give him her cell number "and I hate her!"). Meredith receives a copy of the security tape showcasing Michael's fall, which shows that Jim could have stopped Michael from falling into the koi pond, but deliberately stepped out of the way. Jim admits to Michael that he wished he had gone by himself because he wants to be able to do things by himself as a co-manager; Michael's mood is lifted when he realizes that Jim is jealous of his sales skills. Jim then becomes the victim of office mocking, but he and Michael laugh it off later.

Meanwhile, Pam and Andy go cold calling to drum up more sales as they have the lowest quarterly sales numbers in the branch. At the first place they go to, the receptionist notices Pam's pregnancy and assumes Andy is the father. Pam offends Andy by making it clear that the notion she would have a child with someone like Andy is laughable. During the next meeting, the client also assumes that Andy is the father, and in an act of revenge Andy harshly mocks the idea, leaving Pam pissed off and costing them any chance at a sale. At the next place they go to, that client also assumes Andy is the father, and this time they play along with it in order to avoid further antagonizing each other. However, Andy takes it too far by touching her belly, even kissing it, and indulging in extensive baby talk, but the client says "maybe" to signing with them. In the car back to the office, Andy admits that he enjoyed pretending to be a father and is unhappy that he is still single. He then admits his attraction to Erin, who Pam expresses indifference about. Sympathizing with Andy, Pam approaches Erin and tries to play matchmaker. However, when Erin responds by praising Andy in even stronger terms, Pam becomes disgusted and awkwardly drops the subject.

Reception

This episode was watched by 8.2 million viewers, with a 4.2 rating and a 10 share in the 18-49 demographic.^[2]

Trivia

Creed offering to sell blood to the children is a callback to him stealing blood bags from the episode "Blood Drive".

In the syndication and DVD versions of the episode, the cold open – in which the Dunder Mifflin staff put on a Halloween haunted house in the warehouse for local children – is omitted due to viewer complaints about Michael "hanging himself" in the scene.

References

External links

• "Koi Pond" at NBC.com
• "Koi Pond" at the Internet Movie Database
• "the deleted cold open" at NBC.com