‘The Office’ season season 9, episode 12 review: Things between Jim and Pam get tense

On tonight’s episode of “The Office” Angela’s husband gives Pam a chance to show off her artistic skills for the opportunity to paint a mural for the municipal office and she couldn’t be more excited.

Jim tries to wrap things up at work in Philadelphia so that he can get back to Scranton to see CC’s ballet recital, but when things go awry at work, Jim can’t make it and the tension between Pam and Jim just gets worse. He asks Pam to videotape the recital so that he can see it and she says that she will.

At the recital Pam tries to tape CC dance recital for Jim, but the phone goes off while she’s filming and she finds out that she got the job working on the mural.  When she goes back to taping the recital, she doesn’t realize that she doesn’t have the camera on and ends up taping nothing.

Pam calls Jim to tell him about the mural, but he ignores her call, because he’s waiting on a call for work.  Finally Jim calls her back and he’s upset because he lost an account and when she tells him that she wasn’t able to tape the recital he cuts her down for not doing it leaving her heart broken that he’s dumping on her.  After they fight, they hang up and Jim goes back to work while Pam cries, never telling him the good news about her mural.  Through streaming tears, Pam asks Brian, the sound guy from the documentary crew, what she’s doing wrong and as he consoles her he tells the team to shut down the cameras. Watching Jim treat Pam like this is a real bummer after everything they went through to be together and we pray that the show isn’t going to let these two go out like this.

Nellie has Pete and Erin are working together on Dunder Mifflin social media to try and help increase their presence on the internet, but Nellie realizes that pushing these two together while Andy is out of town is a recipe for disaster.  Nellie accidentally calls Erin and Pete’s flirting out during a meeting and the whole office starts weighing in on the idea of Erin hooking up with Pete or staying faithful to Andy.  Erin tells everyone off and says that she’s happy with Andy, but after a talk with Toby, Nellie learns that Andy wasn’t exactly the nicest to her before taking off on the boat for six weeks.

Dwight is upset that Jim has poached Darryl and tries to rally the office to be loyal to Dunder Mufflin.  Darryl tries to tell Dwight that no matter what he says, he’s leaving to go to Jim’s company, because it’s going to be fun to work there.  Dwight kidnaps Darryl in a Dunder Mifflin truck for a “day of fun, which includes delivering paper, getting fast food and throwing a shake at a drive through employee.  Nothing changes Darryl’s mind – the kid is gone.

Do you think that “The Office” is making a mistake tearing Jim and Pam apart in the way that they have?  Can viewers ever really forgive Jim for lying to Pam and treating her the way that he does?  Leave us a comment and tell us what you think.

Photo: NBC