After the titular workplace in The Office held a table read of Michael’s screenplay in season 2’s “The Client” and Michael mentioned his movie again in season 4’s “Money” and “Dinner Party,” fans finally got to see the explosive, action-packed directorial debut of Michael Scott in season 7’s “Threat Level Midnight.”
The episode is split between clips of the movie itself, featuring everyone in the office (as well as a handful of forgotten faces who shot their scenes years earlier), and the audience reactions to its first screening. Some of the dialogue was even sampled by Billie Eilish. Unsurprisingly, the episode has a ton of classic moments.
“Clean Up On Aisle Five.”
Every great action movie opens with an explosive set piece to get the audience on the edge of their seats nice and early. At the beginning of Threat Level Midnight, Michael Scarn thwarts an attempt on his own life.
After dodging all of his assailants’ bullets, he pulls out two guns in a glorious slow-motion shot and shoots the guy dead. Then, he comes out with a badass one-liner that doesn’t quite make sense: “Clean up on aisle five.”
Black President
When Darryl makes his first appearance as the President of the United States in Threat Level Midnight, he explains in a talking head that he took the role so that his daughter could see a black man as President.
However, in the time between giving up many weekends to shoot his scenes and the movie being completed, a black man was elected to be the actual president.
Toby’s Head Explodes
To show the feds that he means business, Goldenface decides to kill one of the hostages that he’s keeping in the basement of the hockey stadium. Of course, since this is Michael’s movie, the hostage who gets killed is played by Toby. Goldenface pulls the trigger and Toby’s head is shown exploding from several different angles, in true action movie fashion.
Michael then says it was by far the most expensive shot in the movie, but felt that it was integral to the plot — although he struggles to pronounce the word “integral”.
Goldenface's Villain Monologue
Jim’s hammy performance as the villainous Goldenface is a hysterical touch, but there’s one line in particular that Jim wasn’t a fan of, but Michael forced him to say it.
During the typical villain monologue in which he explains his whole evil plan, Goldenface takes things a little too far and says, “I’m gonna dig up Scarn’s dead wife and I’m gonna hump her real good!”
Stanley’s Voiceover Narration
Although it’s been done really well in movies like Sunset Boulevard and Goodfellas, voiceover narration is generally considered to be a lazy way to tell a story.
That didn’t stop Michael from recruiting Stanley to narrate Threat Level Midnight. But at the end of the movie, it’s revealed that the narrator has been Michael Scarn the whole time.
Samuel’s Malfunction
Michael Scarn’s butler, Samuel L. Chang, was not written to be a robot, but Dwight played him as one and later in the movie, Michael gives him oil, suggesting that he actually was a robot after all.
There’s a scene in which Michael accidentally spills tea on Samuel and Dwight dramatically performs a malfunction, but Michael quickly cuts away.
Michael "Defends" Woody Allen
When the quality of Michael’s movie is called into question, he tells the camera in a talking head that he’s a huge Woody Allen fan, even though he’s only seen Antz.
Michael says that when Allen went through “all of that stuff that came out in the press” — referring to the accusation that Antz ripped off A Bug’s Life (far from the worst allegation against the controversial director) — he stayed true to his films.
Karen’s Unfortunate Line
When Michael Scarn is in a bar and the bartender, played by Andy, tells him that a bachelorette party on a nearby table has bought him a drink, the bachelorette played by Karen says, “Ever banged an entire bachelorette party, baby?”
The shot cuts to a talking head of the camera crew accosting Karen outside a restaurant as she says, “Why are you singling my line out, like a million years later?”
Best Out Of Seven
When the President first offers Michael Scarn his mission, he says that he’ll flip a coin to determine whether or not he’ll take the job, but decides to do “best out of seven.”
Tense music plays as he does seven consecutive coin tosses: heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, and eventually, heads wins.
“...And That’s How You Do The Scarn!”
One night, Michael Scarn goes into a bar and the bartender encourages him to “do the Scarn,” a dance routine he hasn’t done since his wife died. He eventually does the dance and everyone else in the bar gets involved as he teaches them the moves.
Jim can’t control his laughter during the scene, which causes Michael to turn off the movie in anger before realizing it works better as a comedy than a serious work.