Coming in at number 4 on the list of my favorite Office episodes is “Beach Games.” Michael is up for a position at corporate so he plans a trip for his employees to the Lake Scranton to compete in beach games. He models the games after the television show Survivor and divides his employees into 4 “tribes” led by Dwight, Jim, Andy, and Stanley. Michael is considering each of the tribe leaders to take over his branch manager position once he gets the corporate job, which Michael sees as a definite thing. Michael first tasks the tribe leaders with picking their teams and then naming them. Dwight names his team “Team Gryffindor” to which Jim names his team “Team Voldemort” just to spite and rile up Dwight. Stanley is once again is sassy self and names his team the “Blue team” after Michael suggests he be the red team, and Andy chooses “Team USA.” All the employees are apart of a tribe except for Michael who is the judge, Pam who is the designated note taker, and Toby who Michael refused to let come on the trip.
Michael announcing the “Survivor” contest and the four tribe leaders
The first contest was a spoon and egg race with an added twist of having the person carrying the egg being blind folded and the leader directing their team with their voice. No one takes the contest seriously with Ryan getting mad at Dwight and dropping his egg on purpose, Stanley going to the bus after Phyllis immediately drops his team’s egg, Kelly ripping off her blindfold because she is scared of a large rock, and Jim leading Karen into the lake. Michael becomes exacerbated at the sorry attempt his employees make. The next contest is a hotdog eating contest. No one wants to participate until Michael reveals his hidden agenda of trying to find his replacement which excites everyone, especially Stanley. Andy is the winner of the hotdog eating contest having eaten 12 hot dogs in an hour. The next contest is sumo wrestling contest where the tribe leaders try to knock each other out of the ring while wearing inflatable sumo suits. Andy later falls into the water while wearing his suit and drifts away unnoticed.
Stanley and Jim face off in sumo wrestling contest
Once it gets dark, Michael’s next challenge is off a coal walk. He compares walking on burning hot coals to when he burnt his foot on a George Foreman grill. Dwight, being the loyal person he is, volunteers to walk on the coals and lays in them, refusing to get off without being named manager results in Dwight getting severe burns all over his body. Pam completes the coal walk and in a rush of confidence and pride confronts her coworkers about not coming to her art show. She also confesses to Jim that he was the reason she called off her wedding with Roy.
A lot goes on in this episode that make is great. I really enjoy seeing the characters outside of work, but the best thing about the episode are the small jokes here and there. Like the fact that Michael hard-boiled the eggs which contradicts the point of a spoon-egg race, Kevin eating one of the eggs, the names of the tribes, Andy drifting away, Dwight asking Angela to be next to him if there is a group hug, Creed eating a raw fish that he caught with his bare hands, and a bunch of others.
I love the Office too. Although some people dislike it for its crude and sometimes dirty humor, I love catching the little jokes that go over most people’s heads. I’ve probably watched the Office completely at least 5 or 6 times and seen individual episodes even more. Each time I watch it, I catch a new joke that makes the show even better. This post was awesome because you totally caught all of the little jokes along with the more obvious ones. Your Stanley and Jim gif is hilarious too!
I love this episode of the Office, too, but for different reasons than the last paragraph illustrates. I’ll always laugh at Jim egging on Dwight or Michael’s ridiculous fanatics, but the moment I enjoyed the most was definitely Pam’s ending. Seeing her walk on the coals, gain confidence, and then talking to her co-workers about things that were weighing on her was really nice to see from her character. I loved her growth throughout the whole series, and seeing her finally express her built up feelings was really wonderful to watch.
I have just started my journey with the office by watching the random reruns on cable! I am very disappointed in myself that I never felt like watching the series until it was tragically removed from Netflix. I want to binge watch the series and now I can’t. I loved reading your blog about the adventures of Dwight and Michael and I look forward to reading more posts!
I absolutely love The Office too. I was really upset that they took it off Netflix so I just decided to buy the whole series. I never remember this episode much but I do remember when Pam walked across the coals. I only remember that part because of the confidence Pam got that she usually didn’t have. I also do get kind of sad whenever I watch the art show episode because no one expect Micheal showed up but that only showed how good of a person Micheal was. Plus, I never noticed how chaotic this episode was until I just read your summary of it lol. I love the theme of your blog and I’m most likely going to be commenting on your posts more. Great work!
I absolutely love this episode! To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of Andy up until way later in the show, so I always found the part where he floats away to be funny. Also, Pam confessing to Jim the reason she called off her engagement always made me happy because I, like every other person in their right mind, was rooting for Pam and Jim the entire show. Episodes like this always make it so difficult for me to choose a favorite character- of course I love Kevin’s goofiness and Stanley’s sassy behavior, but something about Creed has always made me laugh.