The Office – Recap & Review – The Cover Up

photo: nbc

The Office
The Cover Up

Original Air Date: May 6, 2010

Shannon – Associate Editor
shannon@thetwocentscorp.com

Michael suspects his new girlfriend, Donna, of cheating on him and sets Dwight on recon duty while Daryl sets Andy up for a nervous breakdown. You and I both know this is not going to end well.

Cold open: Jim and Pam click their mouses and pens and Dwight accuses them of speaking in Morse code. Which they totally are since Dwight made a crack to Pam about her baby weight. When Dwight puts on headphones, Pam and Jim blink in Morse code. Wow that’s a lot of effort to put in to mess with someone.

Michael and Donna are hot and heavy. Michael calls a meeting for people to give ideas on what Michael and Donna can do over the weekend. Meredith suggests that they go to the Poconos and Michael said they went there last weekend because Donna wanted to go. Kelly says maybe she’s cheating. Michael gets worried and everyone but Pam agrees. Michael is distraught and asks Dwight for the name of a private investigator and Dwight recommends himself. Dwight’s plan is to sleep with Donna himself and tell Michael the bad news. He “runs into” Donna at the gym and basically harasses her. Dwight says she’s not cheating oh and by the way, she’s coming by the the office and she’s furious because Dwight told her that he was investing her for Michael.

One of Andy’s client’s printers caught on fire and no one seems to care so he takes it to Gabe. Daryl sits in on the conversation and suggests that maybe Gabe is covering up a secret and gets Andy all paranoid. Daryl is getting back at Andy for getting him in trouble one time in the warehouse. Daryl continues to mess with Andy by suggesting that Gabe was talking to someone about firing Andy. Daryl continues to work on Andy and gets him big time paranoid about losing his job. Gabe comes by and thanks Andy for bringing the faulty printers to corporate’s attention and rewards him with a $5 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card. Daryl tries to film Andy and to make fun him when the printer actually catches fire. Daryl says he’s quitting the pranking game.

Kelly quizzes Donna on some heart shaped earrings in the breakroom while everyone’s lunching. Kelly asks if Michael gave them to her and Donna says she bought them herself. Kelly continues to press and Donna falters. Pam and Jim talk in a talking head and Pam says that 1. no woman buys herself heart shaped jewelry and 2. they were given to her recently by someone other than Michael. Jim interjects and asks Pam if she likes heart shaped jewelry and without thinking Pam says no, but uh…you know, except that thing you gave me before. I love that. This conversation is so, so accurate.

Pam has a mutual Facebook friend with Donna and there are some incriminating photos of Donna with another guy on there. Donna is still in Michael’s office and Pam manages to slip him copies of the photos while Donna’s sitting right there. Michael excuses himself and Pam follows. Michael gets upset and Pam tries to get him to calm down and ask Donna what’s up. Michael confronts her and Donna asks how he knew and Michael says Pam told him. The thing is, Donna is cheating but she’s cheating on her husband with Michael.

So Michael is the mistress. Will he break up with her or not? I had a feeling from the top of the episode that this was the case. Poor Michael. If it weren’t for the office staff he could have blissfully kept on with Donna in ignorance.

I kind of like the idea of Daryl as the office prankster. Too bad he’s getting out of the game.

What’d you think? I thought it was pretty good. A little predictable, maybe, but not bad. Leave me a comment but just know that there have been some malfunctions with the comments and they could catch fire.