Before starting season 9 of The Office, I kept reading a lot of bad things about Pam. Things like how she didn’t support Jim, or how she blamed Meredith for the lice, which literally didn’t happen, since the one who blamed her was the office.
But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about the many times I read “Pam almost cheated on Jim.” I admit I was terrified of getting to season 9 and finding out it really was everything people were saying, but it isn’t.
At the end of episode 12, we’re introduced to Brian, the guy who records the sound. Pam is crying because she has just fought with Jim on the phone, and unable to watch that scene, Brian asks everyone to turn off the cameras. We then find out he can’t do that because he’s interfering with the natural flow of the documentary, and he gets a warning.
In the following episode, Pam apologizes for this and everything goes back to normal. We also find out that Brian is married. Either way, in that same episode, it’s implied that Brian feels something for Pam, because he smiles while recording her joking around with Clark and Dwight. It suggests that he fell in love with her, even though he has a wife, after observing her for nine years of the documentary, which I honestly think is brilliant.
I love the humanization of the cameras, and I can perfectly understand why Brian fell in love with her, almost as if he were a viewer.
Continuing on, in the next episode Pam is attacked, and Brian is the one who defends her, which ends up getting him fired. Which is bizarre. Was he supposed to just let a woman be physically assaulted? Anyway, Pam feels extremely guilty about this. After all, he lost his nine-year job and could have been hurt. There is nothing here besides guilt. That’s why Pam invites Brian and his wife to a Valentine’s Day lunch, a double date, to thank him for saving Pam’s life. At this lunch, Brian reveals that he separated from his wife because they fought a lot, and when they stopped fighting, they realized they no longer cared.
That stuck in Pam’s head.
So much so that at the end of the episode Jim is about to leave because he doesn’t want to fight, but she insists that he stays and that they fight. This shows how much Pam fights for their relationship and doesn’t want to let anything bad happen.
Going back to the restaurant, Brian says that both of them need to stop crying in front of each other, and here I swear many people get confused, thinking that “both” means they were meeting in secret. That makes no sense at all. Everyone saw Pam crying in the office, and Brian’s crying is happening now. He is crying in front of Pam and Jim because he separated from his wife. There is no secret meeting here.
Either way, with this, Jim finds out that she cried because of him, and he gets upset because he didn’t know that. I understand Pam. She didn’t want to put the blame on Jim by saying “you made me cry,” but this also shows how they don’t talk about their feelings and important things.
Episodes go by, and the documentary trailer is finally released. I didn’t know about this, and I thought it was genius! I thought it was just the format of the show, but it’s actually a documentary!
Everyone realizes they filmed more things than they should have, and a whole revolution happens. They have to deal with privacy and how much was filmed.
That’s when Pete has the idea of having Pam talk to Brian about it. It was not Pam’s idea. Pete suggested it, and she agreed.
Then comes the controversy. Why didn’t she call or send an email? Because it was urgent and needed to be discussed right away so they could resolve the situation. There was a senator involved, a gay storyline, cheating, and more. And why at his house? Simply for privacy. That’s why Pam looks back to see if the cameras are following her.
People treat this scene as if Pam were going to Brian’s house to cheat on Jim or to vent about Jim, when she is actually going there to find out about the documentary.
Another controversy is why Pam asks Brian if Jim has changed. The answer is simple. Brian literally saw everything from the beginning, like an external judge who has all the answers. He was the only person who truly knew. Pam is feeling this way after watching the old footage, feeling nostalgic about Jim, and realizing how distant and changed he is.
She doesn’t ask if she should stay with Jim, like she almost did with Jim after the Dundies night when she was drunk and still with Roy. She just wants to know if he really changed. Brian is the only person who truly knows the answer, since he recorded the sound of everything.
Pam then changes the subject, because that’s all she wanted to know, and finally asks about the documentary. Brian reveals that they basically had no privacy for ten years. This makes Pam angry, and she leaves the house.
There was a deleted scene where Brian would finally confess his feelings to her there. He wouldn’t be respectful. He would touch her hair and say she deserves someone better than Jim, and that would make her leave the house irritated, just like in the canon scene. But I prefer it this way. I prefer that Brian’s feelings are never revealed.
I’ll make a post about this later, but that’s it. The idea of cheating never crossed my mind, and I think people don’t understand it or exaggerate it.
In the end, Pam never knew about Brian’s feelings, and I prefer it that way.
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