"Sexual Harassment" is the second episode from the second season of the American version of "The Office" and like all the others it runs for slightly over 20 minutes. It was directed by two-time Emmy nominee Ken Kwapis. From what I have seen so far (and I am obviously not deep into it), I still prefer the British and also the German take on the subject and I am just a really big Ricky Gervais fan and he is credited here as well, even if this series ran for infinitely longer than the UK take on the subject. But today we wanna talk about this episode here. I must say I am a fan of political incorrectness, so I enjoy many scenes because of that because Carell's protagonist really takes it to a level where in the now (i.e. The 2020s) there is just no way he would be allowed to stay in the company. I mean this came out in autumn 2005, so almost 20 years ago now, maybe more than 20 if you get here a little later to read this review of mine. Just take the fact that he runs around with a sex doll for whatever reason was hilarious because it resulted in at least two entertainingly awkward situations. One of them involves one of the office workers' mother who just pays a visit for the first time and this is what she sees there. But maybe the funniest moment for me was the one that involved another character's daughter or the photo she is on in her uniform as she goes to a Christian school and what Carell's character makes of this photo is something entirely different.
The last scene was fun too, well the very last I should say, because the boner reference in the meeting with all the employees would not have been equally great closure, but the very last shot is then about one character saying he would like to have a bath with another and this other character, a female of course, is being told about that while the camera is on her and of course she is flabbergasted. A good word to use here. But yeah, maybe this already would have been enough to have the main character fired these days. Good thing he did not get fire and there will be many, many more episodes to come. After the start to the second season was alright, but not superb, this episode was clearly a step up in quality. Good to see and now I am more curious about what comes next. From a more personal and subjective perspective I liked seeing Craig Robinson here, even if he did not have too much screen time and also not the best material. The talk about the size of the protagonist's genital in his tight jeans was among the weaker content the episode had to offer. But Robin has been in some German projects too over the years pretty surprisingly, so yeah, I always appreciate him. In general, the supporting players did not have the greatest material this time. This also includes Carell and his reference to meeting his office crush's mother or the scene with the doll then later on.
For Wilson's Schrute, it is a completely forgettable episode, one where he has no material to shine and I was also not too big on Koechner's Packer here who I mistook initially for another actor. I guess the moment with the car scene was still alright, but how he opened the episode with a pretty obnoxious fashion was not my cup of tea and I don't mean by that that the reason is how obnoxious the character was, but at that point I probably would not have thought that I could give this episode an actually really high rating. It is all about Carell here and what he does with the pretty good script. Definitely one of the best episodes from season 2 and maybe even from the entire series. It gets better and better the longer it goes and even if it gets a bit mediocre for a second in-between again, it does not stay like that too long. This is why I give the hilarious outcome here a big thumbs-up and I genuinely hope the quality stays like that in the coming episodes, even if my hope is not super high. There were also some interesting small moments, like how the main character says his team will riot against the one giving a little talk on sexism at work, but truth is they applauded him at the end of his speech. So yeah, this is all. I highly recommend watching this episode. The best from the series so far I would say or at least a definite contender, but season 1 was very short anyway. Season 2 is probably longer than the entire British version of The Office.
