The Office (USA)/Gay Witch Hunt

Gay Witch Hunt
Season 3, Episode 1
Airdate	September 21, 2006
Written by	Greg Daniels
Directed by	Ken Kwapis
Stream
← 2x22 Casino Night	3x02 → The Convention
The Office — Season Three

Gay Witch Hunt is the first episode of the third season of The Office, and the twenty-ninth episode overall.

Starring: Steve Carell (Michael Scott), Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute), John Krasinski (Jim Halpert), Jenna Fischer (Pam Beesly), B.J. Novak (Ryan Howard)

Starring: Melora Hardin (Jan Levinson), David Denman (Roy Anderson), Leslie David Baker (Stanley Hudson), Brian Baumgartner (Kevin Malone), Kate Flannery (Meredith Palmer), Mindy Kaling (Kelly Kapoor), Angela Kinsey (Angela Martin), Paul Lieberstein (Toby Flenderson), Oscar Nunez (Oscar Martinez), Phyllis Smith (Phyllis Lapin)

Guest Starring: Creed Bratton (Creed Bratton), Charles Esten (Josh Porter), Ed Helms (Andy Bernard), Rashida Jones (Karen Filipelli)

Co-Starring: Ursula Burton (Hannah Smotridge-Barr), Tom W. Chick (Gil), Larry Wilmore (Mr. Brown)

Plot Overview

Michael is visited by Toby in HR after calling Oscar, a closeted homosexual, "faggy." Upon hearing the news that Oscar really is gay (and not lame as Michael would insist), he apologizes to him in front of the entire office, unaware that Oscar would like to keep his sexuality a private matter.

To make things worse, Michael's realization that anyone in the office could be gay has caused him to focus his efforts on figuring out if there is a way to tell if someone is gay just by looking at them. He sets Dwight on this task, who suggests that they buy Gaydar online as per Jim's (joking) advise.

Meanwhile, at the Stamford branch, Jim attempts to fit in with his new surroundings and co-workers. There, he is forced to attend a diversity seminar as a result of Michael's behavior at the Scranton branch over Oscar's homosexuality. Jim tries to win some people over by pulling the office supplies in Jello prank on a co-worker, but doesn't succeed at all.

In order to prevent problems from escalating further, Jan confronts Michael about accidentally outing Oscar to his co-workers and demands that he solve the problem before the possibility of a lawsuit comes up. Michael is left with no choice but to hold a conference when Pam alerts him to Dwight looking at gay pornography on his computer.

In the conference, Michael continues to make things worse by making Oscar personally come out to everyone in the office. Dwight threatens to out all of the other gay people in the office (even though there are none) and accuses Phyllis of being a lesbian. Although she tells everyone that she's engaged to Bob Vance, Michael continues to press the matter until Phyllis says that in high school everyone thought he was gay. The conference continues to degenerate until Oscar gets up to leave. Michael stops him and the two reluctantly embrace but, just when the problem seemed to be worked out, Michael kisses Oscar and any effectively destroys any progress made in the meeting. Before he can quit, Oscar is given 3 months of paid vacation and a company car in order to agree not to sue the company for discrimination.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Pam's Marriage: Pam and Roy wound up not getting married afterall. They successfully called off the wedding but were still forced to pay for all of the food. Roy appears in this episode to deliver some of the catered food to Pam for lunch.

Characters

• Jim: Jim has accepted a job at the Stamford branch of Dunder-Mifflin, where he received a promotion.

• Ryan: After Jim left the Scranton branch, Ryan was promoted and given Jim's desk. He is now a junior sales associate at the office, as opposed to his position as a temp in the previous two seasons.

• Roy: When the wedding was called off and Pam dissolved their relationship, Roy went off the deep end and "stopped taking care of [myself]." This culminated in him being arrested for DUI. After this, he decided to attempt to win her back.

Referbacks

• 2x22 - Casino Night: There are several flashbacks to when Jim and Pam kissed on casino night, including an extended final scene where it shows what happened after the kiss.

• 1x01 - Pilot: The scene in which Jim puts his co-worker's calculator in Jello is a callback to when he pulled the same prank on Dwight. This scene also appeared in the original UK series.

• 1x02 - Diversity Day: The man who is speaking to the Stamford office towards the end of the episode is Mr. Brown, the same diversity councilor from the time when the Scranton office was required to attend the same conference.

Trivia

The Show

• First Appearance: This episode marks the first appearance of several of the Stamford office workers, particularly Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) and Karen Filippelli (Rashida Jones).

Allusions and References

• Shakespeare in Love
• Die Hard
• Sharper Image
• Brookstone
• Sir Ian McKellan
• Will & Grace
• The L Word
• Queer as Folk

Memorable Moments

• Dwight receives a package from Jim, which turns out to be a metal detector made up to look like the "gaydar" that Michael called Jim about earlier in the episode. Dwight uses the wand on Oscar to make sure it works, but also finds that it beeps when he uses the wand on himself. Pam, in the distance, smiles at Jim's long-distance prank but slowly changes expressions to a frown when she realizes that she misses him.

Quotes

• Dwight: Jim told me you could buy gaydar online.

Michael: That's ridiculous.

Dwight: Yeah, probably. He didn't tell the truth a lot.

Michael: ...Let's call him, get the website.

Dwight: Definitely.

Jim: (on the phone) What's gaydar? (beat) Oh, oh! Gaydar! Yes. No, I think they have it at Sharper Image. If you want, I can check for you. No problem.

(Jim hits random keys on his keyboard.)

Jim: (on the phone) It's sold out. Yeah, sorry about that. That's a bummer.

Michael: Well, they're sold out.

Dwight: Damn. I'll try Brookstone.