Nepotism (The Office)

Synopsis

The office returns from summer with a new office assistant, Luke (Evan Peters). However, it soon becomes clear that he only goofs off, deliberately messes up food and coffee runs, and has a poor attitude that leads everyone to openly despise him. When Michael (Steve Carell) steps up to defend him, it is revealed that Luke is Michael's nephew, whom Michael hired in hope that it will end the estrangement between him and his half sister, Luke's mother. The office demands Michael get rid of Luke, but he refuses. Later on in the day, the office employees discover the trunk of Luke's car is filled with packages from the office that he neglected to send (along with Michael's rejected pants from Talbot's). Since Luke is now costing the office customers, Gabe (Zach Woods) sends a heads-up on the situation to CEO Jo Bennett (Kathy Bates), who sternly tells Michael to deal with the situation. During a meeting Luke continues to rebel and act out, so Michael spanks him in front of the entire office, leaving Luke to quit and run away crying and the rest of them satisfied. Gabe assigns Michael six hours of counseling with Toby (Paul Lieberstein) after his 'physical assault' of a fellow employee; Michael is aghast at having to sit down with his archenemy, but under company policies the only alternative is termination.

Meanwhile, the rest of the office tells the camera crew what they've been doing over the summer. Erin (Ellie Kemper) started dating Gabe, and Andy (Ed Helms) tries to play it cool by using his anger management techniques. Kelly attended a corporate training class as part of the "Print in All Colors" initiative for Sabre, and is trying to impress everyone by dressing up and 'sounding smarter'. Dwight (Rainn Wilson) bought the industrial park building, and Jim (John Krasinski) begins a lengthy prank to overload Dwight's key ring with fake keys. Seeing Jim adding on keys, Pam (Jenna Fischer) involuntarily laughs, alerting Dwight to Jim's prank. Though Jim tries to take it gracefully, Pam senses that he is mad at her for spoiling the prank, so she tries to make it up to him by devising a prank of her own. She enlists Kevin to rewire the elevator so the buttons all do different things. To her dismay, Kevin's alterations to the elevator's 'circus board' result in Pam and Dwight getting trapped in the elevator together. In the end the backfired prank does impress Jim.

Production

"Nepotism" was written by Daniel Chun and directed by Jeffrey Blitz, both of whom had worked on several previous episodes of The Office as writer and director, respectively. It was the seventh season premiere, and the first new episode to be broadcast since Steve Carell publicly announced he would depart from The Office by the end of the seventh season. At the time that "Nepotism" was filmed, the writers and producers had not yet determined who would replace Michael Scott as the office's manager, nor whether that character would be the primary protagonist of the show. "Nepotism" features Kathy Bates, Hugh Dane and Evan Peters in guest appearances as Jo Bennet, Hank Tate and Luke Cooper, respectively. It was also the first episode to feature Zach Woods as a regular cast member, although he had previously guest starred as Gabe Lewis in several sixth season episodes. "Nepotism" featured an updated opening credits sequence which more strongly highlighted the entire supporting cast, rather than just the main characters.

The official website for The Office included three cut scenes from "Nepotism" within a week of its original release. In the first clip, Toby reveals that he self-published his murder mystery novel and sold four copies, but is now being sued for plagiarism, while Kevin interviews that he's decided to deliberately lie all the time about everything. In the second clip, which is one minute and 17 seconds, Michael attempts to instruct Luke on how to use the photocopier. In the final clip, Dwight inquires about buying a robot.

Reception

"Nepotism" first aired on September 23, 2010. In its original American broadcast, it was viewed by an estimated 8.40 million viewers with a 4.4 rating/11% share in the 18–49 demographic coming second in its time slot and improving its rating by 1.80 million viewers from last season's finale.

The Atlantic writer Suzanne Merkelson praised the episode, and felt the opening lip-syncing scene highlighted the talents of the entire cast. However, she said the subplots were not as strong as the main story involving Michael, which underscored the challenge writers would have in maintaining The Office after Steve Carell's departure. The A.V. Club writer Myles McNutt, who said he was critical of the sixth season, said "Nepotism" was effective both in its main storyline involving Michael and Luke, and its B story involving Pam pulling a prank on Dwight. Although slightly disappointed that the episode did not allude to Michael's eventual replacement, McNutt said "Nepotism" demonstrated The Office would continue to be the same show even without Carell. Aishini Thiyagarajan of The Cornell Daily Sun highly praised the episode, claiming it highlighted the best traits of all the characters. She especially praised the cold open and the ending scene with Michael spanking Luke. Phoebe Reilly of New York magazine said the episode lacked any poor points, and said it established the season as one of "a mix of high jinks and heart". Rick Porter of Zap2it described "Nepotism" as "an old-school episode" with a strong main story and subplot, and praised Kelly's new attitude following her executive training. His only criticism was that Dwight seemed too over-the-top, particularly while wielding a knife during the cold open lip dub.

Kevin Fitzpatrick of UGO Networks said that this was a good episode, but not an especially important one which failed to advance any ongoing story lines. Although he called scenes like Michael spanking Luke and his defense of Luke during the meeting as "classic Scott", Fitzpatrick also said the episode does little to start establishing a proper send-off for the character's final season. Time magazine television critic James Poniewozik called it "a fine but unremarkable, meat-and-potatoes Office about a Michael screw-up", which made him question whether the show could continue after Carell left. Although he complimented individual moments, Poniewozik called the cold open a "self-congratulatory, awkward [and] unearned curtain call". Joel Keller of TV Squad praised the cold open, but felt the rest of the episode was extremely disappointing. Keller said few of the characters' stories about how they spent their summers stood out, and said Michael's spanking of Luke was awkward and unfunny. Brooklynne Kelly Peters of Blast magazine said the episode started strong with the lip synching cold open, but that the rest of the episode was not as funny as the series often is, describing it as "mundane hilarity".