Customer Loyalty (The Office)
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Episode 12
- Jonathan Green
- Gabe Miller
| "Customer Loyalty" | |
|---|---|
| The Office episode | |
 "Customer Loyalty" was the first episode of The Office to reveal a member of the show's fictional documentary crew, in this case a man named Brian, shown here comforting a tearful Pam after her fight with Jim. | |
| Episode no. | Season 9 Episode 12 |
| Directed by | Kelly Cantley |
| Written by |
|
| Featured music | "We Are Young" by Fun featuring Janelle Monáe |
| Cinematography by | Matt Sohn |
| Editing by | Rob Burnett |
| Production code | 9013[1] |
| Original air date | January 24, 2013 |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Guest appearances | |
"Customer Loyalty" is the twelfth episode of the ninth season of the American comedy television series The Office and the 188th episode overall. The episode was written by Jonathan Green and Gabe Miller, and directed by Kelly Cantley. It originally aired on NBC on January 24, 2013. The episode guest stars Chris Diamantopoulos as Brian the boom mike operator, and Ben Silverman as Isaac, a coworker of Jim's.
The series—presented as if it were a real documentary—depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. In this episode, Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) is forced to miss his daughter's first recital after a major investor exits his company, leading to a fight with his wife Pam (Jenna Fischer). Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) tries to prevent Darryl Philbin (Craig Robinson) from leaving the office. Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate) tries to put an end to Pete Miller (Jake Lacy) and Erin Hannon's (Ellie Kemper) flirting with each other. This episode also begins to finally reveal who is behind the documentary.
The episode received largely positive reviews from television critics; many praised Krasinski and Fischer for the dramatic fight at the end. Furthermore, the reveal of the camera crew was commented upon by many critics. The episode was viewed by 4.19 million viewers and received a 2.0/5 percent rating among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, ranking third in its timeslot. The episode ultimately ranked as the highest-rated NBC series of the night.
Dwight Schrute is upset that Darryl Philbin will be leaving Dunder-Mifflin to join Athlead, Jim Halpert's startup. He tries to browbeat Darryl into staying with Dunder-Mifflin by tallying up his perceived job failures since taking the Athlead job and holding a meeting on customer loyalty with a customer he describes as "enraged", but who demurs at the characterization. When this is ineffective, Dwight joins Darryl's delivery run to make the job more "fun", including ordering a milkshake at a fast food drive-through and throwing it at the server, shouting "Fire in the hole!" Morally outraged, Darryl forces Dwight to stay behind and clean up the mess, whereupon another customer pulls the same prank on Dwight himself. Darryl later laughs at footage of the event that has been uploaded onto the internet, saying that this is what he will miss when he moves to Philadelphia.
Nellie Bertram assigns Erin Hannon and Pete Miller to a social media project that meets with some success. She notices the two flirting with each other for the first time and assumes that she brought it on with the project, citing several unintentional double entendres in her project e-mails. She feels guilty because Erin is Andy Bernard's girlfriend and Andy recommended Nellie to the adoption agency, and is afraid that Andy will fire her when he finds out. She hijacks Dwight's customer loyalty meeting to talk about fidelity in relationships, which soon zeroes in on Erin and Pete. Nellie also ends the social media project so they will not be able to flirt. Shamed by Nellie's fidelity speech, Erin assumes a coldly professional attitude towards Pete. However, a talk with Toby Flenderson reminds Nellie that Andy was not the best boyfriend to Erin and Nellie has second thoughts. She soon restarts the project, "forcing" Erin and Pete to work together again, much to their delight.
Jim's plan to drive home from Philadelphia to see his daughter Cece's ballet recital hits a snag when a major investor says he is backing out. Jim asks his wife Pam Halpert to record the recital with her phone, which she agrees to do. During the opening of the recital, she stops recording to take a phone call informing her that she has been chosen to paint an important public mural. In her excitement, she messes up the recording and fails to record any of Cece's appearance. Jim calls her that evening to tell her the investor backed out, and his group will have to work long hours to make up the lost funds. He asks her to send him her recording of the recital as a way to cheer him up, and Pam confesses that she did not tape it. She tries to make light of the mishap by making self-deprecating remarks and pointing out that they can get recordings of the recital from other attendees, but he becomes frustrated at her, scolding her and starting a fight over his new job, the time he spends away from the family, and the sacrifices they are making to get their new life to work. After he hangs up, Pam breaks down in tears. A previously unseen boom operator named Brian enters into the shot and comforts her, and tells the crew to stop filming.
Production
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"Customer Loyalty" was written by co-executive producers Jonathan Green and Gabe Miller, their second writing credit for the series after "Andy's Ancestry".[2][3] It was directed by Kelly Cantley, making her television directorial debut; Cantley previously served as a first assistant director on the series and directed The Office webisode series The Mentor.[3][4]
The episode is the first of the series to actively feature a member of the documentary crew interacting with the characters on screen; before the episode was aired, showrunner Greg Daniels stated that this episode would begin to reveal who was behind the documentary.[5] Originally, the idea to have a sound man named Brian comfort Pam when she was crying was proposed by former series actress and writer Mindy Kaling. According to an interview with B. J. Novak, she had proposed it during the show's third season.[6] The episode guest stars Chris Diamantopoulos as Brian the boom operator. Brian's character is named after the series' actual boom mic operator, Brian Wittle. Wittle played the part of one of the annoyed parents at Cece's recital.[7] Ben Silverman also appears as Issac, one of Jim's coworkers at Athlead. This marks Silverman's third appearance, after cameoing in the episodes "Here Comes Treble" and "Suit Warehouse".[8][9]
The cold open features a montage of Jim setting up a prank—which involves sending Dwight on a quest for the Holy Grail. Through Jim's voice-over, it is heavily suggested that Jim set up the prank sometime circa 2006, which would have taken place during the show's second season.[10] Appropriately, the montage was filmed to look as if the documentarians were using archival footage of Jim; his hair matches the style that Jim had during the first few seasons of the show.[10][11] This is not the first time this technique has been used on the show. During the cold open for the sixth season episode "Shareholder Meeting", a montage of Dwight harassing past receptionists was shown.[12] Furthermore, during the seventh season episode "Threat Level Midnight" was filmed to give the impression that Threat Level Midnight, an amateur feature directed by Michael Scott, had been filmed and edited during the first seven or so seasons of the show.[13]
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