I'm tired and grumpy this morning from staying up late last night to catch the post-Super Bowl "Office." (It happens every year, but it needs to be said: thanks, NFL and sportscasters, for dragging out a supposedly hour-long game for roughly four hours. That's really special.) But I'm glad I got through it. I thought it was one of the strongest episodes of the season, and if you try to forget about one particularly useless subplot, one of the best episodes of the series.

Before I start: Is everyone now officially a part of the cast? The credits used to only ID Michael, Dwight, Jim, Pam, and Ryan (who is barely ever on the show anymore), but last night EVERYBODY was listed - Stanley, Phyllis, Andy, Kelly, Angela, Oscar, Kevin, Creed, Meredith, and Toby. I wonder if it was a special one-off because of the Super Bowl, but I hope not. The supporting actors are just as important to this show as its "stars," and I honestly look forward to Kelly, Angela, and Phyllis arcs more than I look forward to stuff with, say, Ryan or even Michael. (Sorry for the digression; I have some weird fetish for opening credits.)

Anyway. The episode focused on three main stories. The "A" plot started with branch safety officer Dwight teaching the office a lesson for ignoring his fire safety program the day before. Dwight jammed several of the exits, used a blowtorch to heat up several other doorknobs, and then SET A FIRE in the office, prompting mass chaos. I think the resulting 10-minute sequence has to go down in all-time great "Office" moments. Kevin reacted by smashing and looting the vending machines; Michael screamed at people not to panic while completely and totally losing his mind; Oscar escaped into the ceiling to save himself; and best of all, Angela opened her bottom file cabinet drawer to reveal a live cat named Bandit, who she then threw into the ceiling so that Oscar could take it with him. The sight of a projectile cat was funny enough, but the resulting image of said cat immediately breaking back down through another ceiling tile, screaming, and bolting was even better. God, I love Angela. Oh, and then Stanley had a heart attack. He's fine, but his ticker can't take much more stress.

The arc proceeded to take twists that involved, but were not limited to, Dwight getting demoted from safety officer and Michael taking over; a CPR instruction seminar going totally awry; a sing-along dance party to the Bee Gees' "Staying Alive"; Dwight disemboweling and then face-skinning a dummy a la Hannibal Lecter; Michael leading a meditation session; and Michael discovering that it's not Dwight who freaks everybody out, it's Michael himself.

Because Michael has the emotional maturity of a 10-year-old, this led him to believe that he intimidates people. And because he has learned everything he needs to know from low-brow cable television, his solution is to host a roast of himself a la Comedy Central. He charged his employees to take their best shots at him, and they didn't hold back. The roast was pretty good, but ultimately ended with Michael realizing that nobody respects him (a-doy). After a brief existential crisis involving over-burdened playground swings and incompetent pigeon feeding, he returned to the office and took fifth-grade-level potshots at his roasters, which made everybody laugh (Stanley most of all). By episode's end, everything was back to normal.

The B plot involved Jim, Pam, and Pam's parents, who were going through a rough patch. Pam's father was staying at Casa Halpert-Beasley, and it became apparent that there were some major communication problems going on in his marriage. When Pam asked Jim to talk to her dad about what's happening (oh, Pam...), things got worse. Her father announced that he's physically separating from her mom, and it all built to a really tense moment in which Pam talked to her father (we only saw the back of Senor Beasley's head; have we ever met him?) about what Jim said, and then returned to the office to confront Jim about it.

I'll admit: I got nervous. There are very few things that could believably break up Jim and Pam at this point, but Jim's involvement in the end of Pam's parents' marriage could totally be one of them. Thankfully, the show is much smarter than I am, and Pam told Jim that what he said DID make her dad move out. And that thing was about how much he loves Pam, and never doubted for a second that she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Pam's dad apparently never felt that way about her mom, and so he needed to move on. It was a very sweet moment, and totally true to the Jim/Pam storyline.

I think all season long we've been waiting for the inevitable Jim/Pam break-up - it's just what TV shows do once the star-crossed lovers finally get together. And we've had some close calls (Pam going away to art school; Pam meeting a new male friend at said school; Jim's brothers being horrible to Pam; Jim buying the house without checking with Pam; etc.). But at this point, I think it would be groundbreaking for the show to NOT break them up. To do something radical and actually let the fan-favorite couple live happily ever after. At least, I hope that's what's going on.

The third plotline was terrible, and the one I'm trying to flush from my memory. Andy has taken to illegally downloading movies, which he watches with Jim and Pam at lunch on his laptop. His new movie stars Jack Black as a man dating Jessica Alba (who appears on screen for roughly 30 seconds), but who dumps her to date her grandmother, played by Cloris Leachman. The movie is intentionally overwrought (the corresponding soundtrack was hilarious), and when Jim and Pam talk about Pam's parents' problems while watching it, Andy (who knows nothing of the Beasley parent drama) thinks they're movie geniuses or something. It really is as dumb as it sounds. Obviously the producers wanted to goose the ratings by doing stunt casting here, but it's so poorly done and awkwardly worked into the show that it ends up feeling forced. The episode would have been better without any of the "stars." I would have preferred that they used the time to follow Angela trying to find that cat...