Rewatching episode 23 of season three of The Office, titled "Beach Games," after two years without watching it, and sharing my own thoughts
Well, guys, I don’t know if this will turn out well, but it’s an important episode for my favorite character, so I wanted to share it with you!
Every good anime has a beach episode!
And even though most of them are filler, this is actually an extremely important episode of The Office. It matters to the overall story, to the love story between Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly, and, just as importantly, to Pam’s own story.
It all starts because a position opens up at the New York corporate office, and Michael is one of the candidates. He doesn’t even realize that if a position opened, it’s because someone left. And he just broke up with Jan. It’s easy to assume she quit her job, right? At least that’s what I thought the first time I watched it.
Since Michael believes he’s going to leave the Scranton branch, he wants to figure out who would be the best person to replace him. What’s the best way to do that? Beach games, pretending they’re just for fun. Michael is a genius. It’s also really funny how sure he is that he’ll be chosen, when he doesn’t even know he’s still just a candidate. To be fair, David didn’t make that very clear.
Michael chooses Pam to take notes because he doesn’t believe she’s a good choice to replace him. In other words, he doesn’t think she’d be a good boss. She doesn’t even get the chance to compete with the others. Pam is always underestimated by everyone around her, including herself. And this episode makes her rethink all of that. It’s the final straw.
And poor Toby also gets banned, for obvious reasons. Michael Scott’s completely unfounded hatred. Poor guy, he’s going to miss Pam in a bikini, which she won’t even wear.
Can I say this beach is weird? It looks more like a lake than an actual beach.
Michael divides everyone into four teams, but no one knows what the final prize will be, becoming the manager of Scranton. I think if Dwight knew, he would do everything he could to eliminate his rivals for real. Even so, I’m sure he’s taking it all very seriously. And if he knew he wasn’t Michael’s first choice, I think he would completely lose it.
Jim’s group is having fun, not taking anything seriously, and he’s kind of flirting and messing with his girlfriend Karen. That’s Jim’s way of showing love, by being annoying. He does the same thing to Dwight all the time. And poor Pam is just watching the person she loves fool around with someone else, while she takes boring notes she doesn’t even know the purpose of. I’m sorry, but she looks absolutely beautiful with her hair tied back, jeans, and that pink top with the bikini underneath.
Stanley doesn’t care at all.
Dwight takes everything very seriously and yells at the intern, sorry, junior salesman. Does he really think he’s going to win Ryan’s friendship like that? No one takes Ryan’s new position seriously.
Andy is doing everything he can not to lose his temper again. After everything that happened, why did Michael choose Andy to be a team leader? Seriously, Andy? And not Pam? Pam, who has always been there for him? Or even Ryan, even though he’s a new salesman. Although, honestly, I think Michael is still mad at him because of what happened.
The whole joke is that the games have absolutely nothing to do with managing a company. They’re completely random. Everyone is treating it like a joke, obviously, because no one knows how serious this is in Michael’s mind.
The next game is eating hot dogs. Michael asks Pam to cook all the sausages, only to later say that he was the one who did it. That’s literally dismissing Pam’s work. And she notices it. She’s getting fed up with all the disrespect.
Finally, Michael reveals the big prize, manager of Dunder Mifflin Scranton. Of course, with that information, people start taking it seriously. Even Stanley.
We find out that Gil and Oscar broke up, and apparently it wasn’t amicable. Oscar even says he’s trying to get rid of the relationship. Things clearly weren’t good, and we’ve already seen that Gil is a jerk in Pam’s art show episode. Was that the reason? Or was he acting that way because things were already bad? Either way, it opened Pam’s eyes, so some bad things do lead to good outcomes.
Dwight and Angela plot against Andy, trying to get him out of the way. And it actually works, because the poor guy ends up floating in the water with his inflatable sumo suit. The only person who sees him fall, and he fell on his own, is Angela. Of course she does nothing and leaves him there in the lake. Seriously, poor guy, although he kind of deserves it after what he did to Dwight. Angela and Dwight are really evil together. The camera knows where Andy is, but there’s a silent rule that they can’t intervene. Everything has to happen naturally. Are they really going to leave him there without saying anything? I find that a bit absurd. There’s even a scene where they find him, but no one rescues him. I’d really like to know how he was eventually found.
With a phone call, we find out that, obviously, Michael is not the only candidate. Quite the opposite. Karen and Jim are also competing. And they are “just” salespeople. Probably very good salespeople. Dwight would rip all his hair out if he knew that.
Michael’s final challenge is literally a trial by fire. Who has the courage to replace him? They have to walk across hot coals. It’s all about courage. And worse, Pam wants to try. She knows it’s absurd, everyone knows it, but still, she wants to try. After being dismissed all day long, she finally has courage. But Michael quickly stops her, saying that you need courage to be a manager, clearly implying right to her face that she doesn’t have it. Right to her face. He doesn’t even let her try, because he doesn’t believe in her. All of this is making Pam explode inside. I know Michael was very kind in the art show episode, but here he’s being an idiot, constantly showing how much he underestimates his employee.
Obviously, no one wants to do it, because it’s clearly insane and would land anyone in the hospital. Not even Michael wants to go. After all, he already burned his foot in that other episode. But wait. Of course the guy obsessed with getting a higher position would do something like this, right? And he actually does. He falls to the ground, begging for the job while getting burned. It’s a pretty pathetic scene, in my opinion. Michael hates seeing it. Poor Dwight never wins anything.
Later, in a circle, Michael wants to do the final test and gives Jim and Dwight the chance. Jim admits that he won’t be able to replace him because he has an interview in New York for a corporate position. Michael is clueless and doesn’t believe him, thinking Jim is mocking him. Michael is so sure the job is already his, he doesn’t even imagine there are other candidates. Now it’s Dwight’s turn to try his luck again.
While Dwight is talking, Pam is isolated, and no one seems to miss her. She’s standing in the back, watching the hot coals. She’s gathering the courage to walk across them, even though no one is watching. She’s doing this for herself. After Michael threw it in her face that she doesn’t have courage. After giving a little smile to the camera, she walks across the coals and feels incredibly proud of herself for managing to do it.
With adrenaline at its peak, she goes over to the circle and says she needs to talk because she has been trying to be more honest lately. Points for Oscar’s ex. Pam reveals that she walked across the hot coals and tells Michael to his face that she could be his boss, because not even he was able to do it. He is clearly embarrassed.
Pam is feeling really good, so she starts to vent. She says that many times she feels invisible at the office, as if everyone treats her like she does not exist. She mentions the art show, but I can give more examples. Even when Pam tries to get closer to them, like in that deleted scene I mentioned where she wanted to show that she had won an art contest, no one really cares. Most of the time, Pam is underestimated and dismissed, and this episode was her breaking point, with Michael dismissing her every single moment.
A lot of people say she is only talking about Jim not going to her art show, but that is not true. In the very next moment, she turns and looks at Jim. That means she truly feels invisible to her coworkers, and she is tired of being underestimated like this.
When Pam finally turns to Jim, she confesses what she has been keeping inside for a long time. She says she called off the wedding with Roy because of him. And it is true. She did it because of his confession and his kiss, and the very next day he had already moved to another city. Later, when he finally came back, Pam tried to ask him out for coffee, but he was already with someone else. Pam never really had the chance to be honest about her true feelings. First she was engaged, then he left, then he came back with someone else. She finally exploded after holding all of that in.
When Pam says she should not have been with Roy and that there were many reasons to call off the wedding, but she did not care about them until she met Jim, she is saying that meeting Jim pulled her out of her natural apathy. It is like something woke up inside her, something she had stopped questioning after normalizing her relationship with Roy.
Pam is really saying one thing: She misses Jim. Things are strange between them, and she wishes they could go back to how they were before, because above all, they were best friends before he moved away. She knows he is with someone else, but she makes it clear that this is not what she is talking about. She is talking about missing him.
This is not exactly a romantic confession. Pam never explicitly says that she loves Jim or that she should have been with him instead of Roy. It is a confession of deeper feelings than that. It is about her mistakes and her most vulnerable emotions. It is about being honest for the first time and saying these feelings out loud.
I like that, unlike Jim, who says he would not want to be just friends and wants more than that, Pam gives the impression that she would accept being just Jim’s friend, even if he is with someone else, because she misses how things used to be. I understand that feeling so deeply, and the fear that things will never be the same again. Of course she loves him, everyone knows that. But I love that this moment is so much more than that.
I honestly get upset when people do not understand the meaning of this scene or its impact. This is not about Jim. This is about her finally letting out everything she has felt over the years, with everyone underestimating her and not caring about her. This is not a confession moment. It is a moment where she finally has the courage to be honest. A moment where everything she kept inside explodes for the first time.
And what an honor. The episode was written by Greg Daniels, and it was Pam’s first long monologue. Jenna Fischer had to memorize all of it.
I do not understand people who get angry at this scene. Pam did not plan this. It just happened. She did not do it to humiliate Karen or anything like that. This is about her and her feelings. And honestly, it was much braver than Jim. She said all of this in front of everyone.
It had been two years since I last watched this scene in full. I was really afraid my impression would change after so much hate, but no. My impression actually improved, because I realized it was never as bad as people made it sound.
If she had planned it, or if she had said something like leave Karen and be with me, or if she had insulted Karen in any way, I would understand the criticism. But that is not what happens. It is all about her and how she feels. She does not even say she is in love.
I find it funny when people say Pam should have waited and confessed privately to Jim because Karen would not like it. First, that completely removes the impact and meaning of the scene. Second, would you rather be disrespected behind your back? That makes no sense.
If I were Karen, I would have broken up with Jim a long time ago, even if I liked him. If he likes someone else, what can I do? Change his feelings? I do not control him. And if Jim truly liked Karen, Pam’s monologue would not mean anything to him, and there would be no reason for jealousy or anger.
As Jenna Fischer says about this scene "This scene marked the beginning of a major change for Pam. It was the moment she took control of her own life. And for me, it was a personal milestone as an actress. Pam, and I, gained confidence that night. We both found our voices together."
In the end, this is my favorite Pam scene and a huge milestone for the character. Anyone who does not understand this does not understand Pam and never really tried to.
Jim is in shock and says nothing. But Pam is genuinely happy and proud of herself. She says it was a good day and goes into the water to soothe her burning feet. Even Michael is proud of her and says it was incredible. And it really was.
By some miracle, Andy is on the bus back, and it is daytime. So they camped there. Amazing.
I remember that in the previous episode Michael wished courage for Pam. His wish truly came true.
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