page_title: Counseling (The Office)
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Counseling (The Office) / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: B.J. Novak at the Emmys in September 2009.
context_page_description: "Counseling" is the second episode of the seventh season of the American comedy television series The Office and the shows 128th episode overall. It originally aired on NBC on September 30, 2010. The episode was written by B. J. Novak and directed by Jeffrey Blitz. "Counseling" guest stars Eric Zuckerman as a store clerk, Vincent Angelo as a vendor, and Michael Schur as Mose Schrute. Evan Peters also appears as Luke Cooper in archival footage from the previous episode.
  The series depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. In the episode, Michael Scott is forced to have six hours of counseling with Toby Flenderson after he physically reprimanded his nephew Luke, but Michael refuses to make Toby's job easy. Meanwhile, Pam Halpert attempts to finagle a promotion to office administrator and Dwight Schrute boycotts the Steamtown Mall after a shop owner refuses to serve him.
  "Counseling" received mostly positive reviews from television critics.
context_section_description: "Counseling" was written by B. J. Novak, a producer and screenwriter for the series who also portrays the character of Ryan Howard on the show. The entry was directed by Jeffrey Blitz, who had also directed the previous episode "Nepotism". "Counseling" features Eric Zuckerman, Vincent Angelo and Michael Schur in guest appearances as a store teller, a vendor, and Mose Schrute, respectively. Evan Peters also appears as Luke Cooper in archival footage from the previous episode. With the seventh season of The Office being Carell's last, the writers decided to divide the season into two distinct halves; the first half would "celebrate Carell's finale year and highlight different actors on the show", whereas the second half would focus on his departure and the search for a new manager. As such, "Counseling" was one of the first episodes of the season to specifically highlight other characters, in this case Lieberstein's character, Toby.
  The Season Seven DVD contains a number of deleted scenes from this episode. Notable cut scenes include Stanley discussing boycotting Kellogg's, Dwight putting on his fancy clothing, Dwight getting his pipe from Creed, Kevin giving Dwight a tissue, extended footage of Michael's counseling session, Michael discussing dogs, and extended footage of Dwight in the mall.
caption: "Counseling" was written by B. J. Novak, who also plays Ryan on the show.
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