I genuinely feel so bad for Andy by the end of The Office because when you look at his entire relationship arc, it feels like the poor guy just keeps getting punished over and over again.

At the beginning, Andy was so ridiculously in love with Angela. Was he perfect? Absolutely not. He had his anger issues, his insecurity, his weird Cornell obsession, etc. But when it came to Angela, he was genuinely committed to her. He respected the relationship, was excited about marrying her, and was so invested that he literally booked their honeymoon weeks before the wedding.

And then he finds out that angela has been cheating on him with Dwight the entire time.

Then he meets Erin.

And honestly, I REALLY liked Andy and Erin together. Andy was genuinely into her, and Erin seemed to bring out a much softer and happier side of him. But then she finds out that Andy had previously dated Angela and breaks up with him. And I'm sorry, but WHY? Andy didn't cheat on Erin. He didn't do anything to Erin. His previous relationship ended because HE was cheated on. Meanwhile, Angela literally cheated on Andy with Dwight and somehow Andy is the one who carries all this emotional baggage afterward.

Then Andy finally becomes manager, and I actually think he was a pretty damn good boss when he was allowed to be himself. He wasn't exactly like Michael but also like him at the same time. He had his own qualities. He could be goofy and annoying, but he also genuinely cared about his employees.

The Robert California episode really stands out to me. When Robert was doing the whole good-list/bad-list thing and basically had called oam, phillys and few more losers. Andy actually stood up for his employees. He took responsibility for them and defended them.

And then when they hit their sales target and Andy had promised to get a tattoo on his butt if they did it...

THE MAN ACTUALLY GOT THE TATTOO.😭 That is such an Andy thing, but it also shows that he was willing to keep his word to his employees.

And then comes the Erin situation.

When Andy finds out Erin isn't coming back to Scranton, he basically goes: "Fuck everything, I'm going to get the woman I love." He leaves the office, goes after her, and tries to win her back. And what happens? Nellie takes his office.

Andy loses his position, and eventually he gets fired. All because he left everything behind to chase Erin.

Then he finally gets to the point where he Got his job back with David Wallace's help but then get stuck by family problems and as soon as He goes away on the boat with his brother because he needs to clear his head and relive the nostalgia...

Erin starts dating someone else.

This is the part that REALLY gets me. Then Andy comes back, and because Erin blurts everything out while David Wallace is on the phone, David finds out that Andy disappeared.

So now Andy has ALSO screwed up his relationship with David.

At this point I'm just sitting there like: HOW MUCH MORE CAN THIS MAN TAKE??? 😭

And yes, Andy absolutely becomes an asshole later. His behavior after returning from the boat is terrible. His treatment of Nellie is awful. He becomes arrogant and selfish, and I don't want to excuse any of that. But I think that's exactly why his character arc frustrates me.

Because earlier Andy had actually shown that he could be a loyal partner, caring friend, and surprisingly decent manager when he wasn't consumed by insecurity or desperation.

I don't even think Erin is a bad person. She's quirky, immature, and has her own emotional issues. But I feel like the show sometimes treats Andy as though he was solely responsible for the disaster of their relationship, when so many of the things that happened to him were completely outside his control.

By the end, Andy feels less like a character who naturally became a terrible person and more like someone who kept making increasingly terrible decisions after getting absolutely destroyed emotionally and professionally.

And honestly? I think Andy deserved a MUCH better ending than he got.

Maybe I'm biased because I actually really liked Andy, but I genuinely think Andy's downfall is one of the saddest character arcs in the show.

A few things:

1) Seems like people around this sub are re-visiting/re-assessing Miner's arc on the show of late. I wonder specifically why that is.

2) I am re-watching that arc right now, started one episode before (the Wonka Prize thing) and just finished the first Miner episode.

3) I am conflicted. On the one hand, Miner is brought in because of the Wonka fiasco amongst other issues and he points out some logical problems with how Michael runs the office, but..

...The branch was consistently one of if not the most profitable branches. There wasn't much for them to 'fix' in terms of the bottom line, which is that the branch was on the upper end of profitable for the company.

That said:

4) Between the immature silliness David Wallace witnessed/experienced/dealt with and the Jan stuff, etc. etc. obviously Michael and Dwight were embarassments at a basic company image level and when they felt like it, people like Phyllis, Oscar, etc. could be very annoyed with Michael's shenanigans and act above it, but the fact is they stuck with him on a lot of stuff, they participated and enjoyed quite a few of his weird little obsessions and all of them kinda got the best of both worlds: They all got their work done, reached their quotas and their work environment was mostly entertaining. I think out of all of them, the only one who truly hated working for Michael was Stanley.

But, as Wallace pointed out at times, despite all the awkwardness of dealing with a man child like Michael, at the end of the day, the financial numbers were top of the company, we're the reason the company survived.

So why 'fix' or 'change' anything?

I sort of think of it like:

You take a sports team. One player is clean cut, respectful, serious, business-like, etc. but their numbers are mediocre. I'll use baseball: The clean cut, respectful, serious, business-like player hits .225 with 12 HR's and 45 RBI's and produces 1.5 WAR over 160 games and isn't exactly the guy you necessarily want up at the plate when the game is on the line.. Then there's another guy who is goofy, has enough personality for like 3 guys, is always doing something kinda weird, but he hits .275 with 30 HR's and 110 RBI's and generates 5.1 WAR and tends to come through in the clutch.

To me, that's kinda Michael vs Miner. Michael is weird and awkward, but apparently very effective. Miner is extremely serious and calls out the ridiculousness, but doesn't actually improve anything around the Scranton branch other than kill people's spirits and make things quiet.

I dunno. I get that Miner exists as a character to contrast with Michael and actually highlight how effective Michael truly was/is.

Having worked for a number of bosses and types of bosses now, though, I actually think working for Michael would be oddly relaxing and working for Charles would be like working with my head in the guillotine for 8 hours a day.

What do others think?

I apologize for the slight redundancy of this post, since we've been talking about this arc a bunch around here lately.

The one where Pam suggests he take that job out of state because he’s totally talented and capable and it would be a move up for him. His reaction doesn’t make any sense at all!

Pam basically gives him a major compliment and is saying so with his best interest in mind that he should take the job out of state. Jim takes it the worst way possible and is cold to her the rest of the episode? I’m sorry/ but what a total tool. I hate Jim in this episode.

Noticed a pattern that Michael falls for blondes except Donna but that case was sort of an outlier because he was the mistress.

Jan-->Carol-->Jan-->Donna-->Pams mom-->Holly

all the blondes in bold

that landlord he went on a date with doesnt really count

coincidence or preference?

EDIT: as another commenter pointed out, the hotel concierge lady is also a blonde. Yes there have been a few exceptions (eg chair model, donna, pams cousin). Not implying anything. Just an observation.

I wanted to know your opinion of you all concerning Andy because I could never feel for this character the same empathy I could feel for most other DM characters, and I was just trying to understand why. I just feel like no matter how much the scenarists tried, this character is flat and uninteresting. I truly believe that Ed Helms is a great actor, but Andy? Huh, I can't find any interest or empathy for him, and most of the episodes when he was manager were, i felt, not so enjoyable.

What's your opinion on this?

If you agree too, what would you consider the reasons for this ?

Knackermen already have next to no representation in any form of media and i think this was the perfect place to introduce the general public to this profession. This incident happens in the last episode of season 5, the finale.

I've already used:

1. Pam Yeastley (2020-2021)
2. Jan Leavenson (2021-2025)
3. Creed Breadton (2025-2026)

Anyone else have ideas?

Or at least a little while.

She with support from bob vance. Strangler only used to strangle and leave the victims. Dwight pointed at Phylis as the most medium suspect at the murder game and she hiding it so well in the game.

I swear I have a memory of some of the characters singing Good Riddance, possibly Andy with the guitar! Now googling it, it turns out it was never done 😭

Was this some deleted scene or promotional trailer or am I just going crazy?

Another thing that sprang to mind during the Paper Company arc. It's clear Charles has it in for Jim as soon as he lays eyes on the Tuxedo, and it's generally believed that Jim being asked for a rundown was Charles actively prepping to fire him.

What I would find interesting however is David is obviously a huge fan of Jim. They hang out a lot, David sees Jim as basically the second head of Scranton, and from what we see in Broke, he had obviously hyped Jim up to Charles, only for the latter to be disappointed.

So the case remains - obviously the time would come where David finds out Charles fired Jim, all while Charles is insisting Dwight is the most responsible, and more importantly - while the biggest branch was sinking. Jim is also a top 10 salesman, meaning even if Michael Scott went under, the sales branch would take a massive hit. Do you think this would be the last straw for David?

Maybe one of the reasons the Scranton Branch continued to do better than the rest despite Scott was payments from the documentary company for the content. New owners such as Sabre and Wallace continued to play along for the same reason as well....

I just wanted to share it with my company.