A few episodes back I wished out loud that we would get a deeper dive into Michael Scott's backstory, into what's led him to be the delightfully neurotic, childishly narcissistic captain of Scranton's Dunder Mifflin branch. He met us halfway with Thursday's "Sex Ed" episode, in which Steve Carell's soon-to-depart lead character reconnects with various women in his romantic history - at first to share the news that he has herpes, but shifting the objective into considerably more egocentric territory as the conversations with his exes plants seeds of self-examination. And we all know how delusionally ridiculous Michael's sense of self-awareness is...
Despite the fact that he hasn't even been to a doctor to confirm the office diagnosis (though can you really find a better STF expert than Meredith?), Dwight decides that Michael has to tell every woman that he’s ever slept with. Responsibly, he begins contacting all of his exes with the news, starting off strong with the most recent conquest – Donna. It's difficult for him to convey, so he spells it out for her: H-I-R-P-E-E-S.
Andy, meanwhile, has something up his sleeve. Taking an unusually eager initiative in the wake of Michael's revelation, he runs out and buys half a dozen pizzas for the office - on the condition that they sit in on a discussion about STDs, led by him. Because what's more appetizing than looking at example pictures of disease-ridden genitalia while eating pizza? Match made in puketastic heaven, right there.
Next on Michael's list is Holly, the quirky goofball girl we were so convinced he'd end up with, the one we were sure was his perfect counterpart. In reminiscence, Michael tells Holly that he thinks they'd be married with kids by now, had they stayed together. Instead of playing into this, she calls their love a fling, tells him that he made a bigger deal of their relationship than it actually was, and that she's been in a committed relationship for a year and a half. She goes even further, explaining that he's romanticized their history and it's not as rose as he remembers.
This, of course, is no easy news on Michael - or the audience, for that matter. It plays against the entire concept of the heart we'd see Michael hang on to as he winds up his time at Dunder Mifflin, but those in the longview can likely see that this is just a drama-enhancer for Holly's inevitable return in the coming episodes. Nevertheless, her dismissals become the catalyst for Michael's complete unraveling shift in focus, moving from sharing the news of his cold sore to cross-examining his exes to see if he truly does romanticize his relationships.
The scene in the park where he started talking to the elderly woman thinking it was Pam’s mom was an absolute classic. His next trip is to visit the scarily intense Jan, who is doing quite well with her new job as director of office purchasing at a hospital.... and a self-released album of Doris Day cover songs. But rather than discussing the STD evident on his face, Michael asks her if he romanticizes his relationships. It becomes, in Jan's words, a post-mortem of their relationship, in which she confirms his paranoia.
Refusing to let the immensely inappropriate STD meeting die, Andy loops the office crowd into a little sexual pros and cons list. He gets the burn from the fire he's playing with during a little game of "raise your hand if you're abstinent," and we see his entire plan laid bare as he frantically scans Erin and Gabe for any sign of hand-raising. He desperately doesn't want to believe that they're sleeping together, and loses control entirely when the truth is inescapable, throwing a pizza at the wall and storming out. So much for those anger management classes, eh?
Michael may be a master at misreading a situation, but it doesn't mean he's hopeless. At the very end of the episode, he calls Holly again to tell her she was wrong about their relationship. There's an emotional conviction in his voice when he leaves the message that tells us all we need to know about Holly's return. He's not going to give up on her without a fight.
A huge difference in Michael this season is that he isn’t just buffooning his way through life without learning from his most current disasters - he’s actually starting to fully examine his flaws and what he truly wants. It's created some of the most compelling viewing "The Office" has offered in the past season - maybe two - and with this latest development it's clear that the drama buildup to Steve Carell's departure has officially begun.
