Drug Testing

"Drug Testing" is the twentieth episode of the second season of The Office and the 26th overall. It was written by Jennifer Celotta and directed by Greg Daniels. It first aired on April 27, 2006. It was viewed by 7.8 million people.
==Synopsis==
Dwight finds half of a joint in the parking lot of Dunder Mifflin and takes advantage of his volunteer sheriff deputy status by interviewing the staff to get to the bottom of it. Meanwhile, Jim does an impression of Stanley and gets caught. When he and Pam speak at the same time (impersonating Stanley's response), Pam calls "jinx" so Jim can't talk until he buys her a Coke, which isn't an issue until he discovers the vending machine is sold out. When Dwight sets up urine testing, Michael worries that a "clove cigarette" he smoked at an Alicia Keys concert will show up.
Michael holds an anti-drug meeting for the entire office, where he over-expresses his hatred of drugs. He tries to get out of the testing, but Dwight continues to insist that he must take part. Michael pressures Dwight for a cup of his "clean" urine, but Angela is against the idea. Jim continues to hold up his end of the jinx. Pam continues to tease him, until she gets to the point where she says, "you can tell me anything", which creates an awkward silence. Michael passes his drug test (with Dwight's urine); Dwight turns in his volunteer badge over his actions. Pam buys Jim his Coke, which he buys off of her so she can find out what's been happening with Dwight the whole day. Michael feels guilty, so he makes Dwight an "Honorary Security Advisor" for Dunder Mifflin Scranton. Jim wonders aloud what Dwight gets out of his relationship with Michael, while the camera focuses on him and Pam, suggesting that the two have a similarly confusing relationship.
==Deleted scenes==
*Jim does impressions of Kevin and Angela for Pam.
*In a talking head interview, Dwight is so determined to find the culprit that he is prepared to pray "to Thor himself."
*In a talking head interview, Toby doesn't think Michael is taking drugs, but maybe he should.
*Jim secretly does an impression of Dwight right in front of him.
*In a talking head interview, Dwight talks about Jim and concludes, "If that were my life, I'd do drugs."
*Phyllis tells Stanley that she told Dwight he wasn't acting withdrawn. Stanley barely acknowledges her.
*Stanley ignores Dwight's call to be interviewed.
*Pam toys with Dwight by admitting that she "was a teensy bit high... in the parking lot at the Quick and Easy."
*Meredith comes to Jim because Pam told her he had something to tell her. Jim is under the jinx and says nothing. Meredith assumes the worst.
*Kelly puts a customer on hold when she is called by Dwight.
*Dwight takes notes during the conference: "Creed - Shifty eyes. Ryan - Dilated pupils. Kelly - Hyperactive." Michael makes up more absurd drug "facts". Jan (via speakerphone) excuses herself from the meeting, which is the first time the others were aware she was even listening.
*Pam shows the camera the flyer that Michael made up for the conference. "Drugs: Let's not and say we did."; she suspects Michael was himself on drugs when he made them.
*Kelly returns to her desk after the conference and realizes that her customer has been on hold the whole time.
*In talking head interviews, Angela and Meredith talk about how they aren't worried about drug testing.
*Pam forwards a call from Brenda to Jim's phone. Jim is under the jinx and doesn't answer. Jim holds up a sign for the camera: "It's ok... She'll call back!"
*Dwight turns in his volunteer sheriff's uniform and badge, neither of which he was authorized to have in the first place. The sheriff discovers other things Dwight was doing without authorization.
*Leo and Gino, the workers at Vance Refrigeration, discard a joint in the parking lot.
==Trivia and goofs==
*Dwight's sheriff uniform is a copy of the Scranton sheriff's uniform, but with the hat and boots from the Pennsylvania State Police.
*Dwight claims that drugs were found on company property, but in "Double Date," Toby clarifies that the parking lot is considered to be off company property.
*Greg Daniels had to keep reminding the hair and makeup people to stop fixing Rainn Wilson's hair. He wanted Dwight to have hat hair.
*Michael's list of drugs reads "crack, cocaine, pot, blow, acid, hookah, heroin, speed". There are a number of errors on this list. Firstly, "blow" is a common street name for cocaine, which is already listed. "Crack" is also a form of cocaine. Hookah is not a drug, but rather a method of smoking tobacco called "shisha" that is often mixed with fruit mixtures, as Toby explains in the episode. Additionally, the list features many slang terms from drugs, not the actual term. In addition to "blow", "speed" is slang for amphetamines, "acid" is slang for LSD, and "pot" is slang for marijuana. Michael also writes the word "heroine" instead of "heroin".
*Jenna Fischer improvised the empty-hands gesture when Michael asked Pam to take a note.
*Angela's eye-roll at Michael's Cheech and Chong remark is somewhat out of character: She probably wouldn't know who Cheech and Chong are. The reaction shot was taken from another part of the scene and spliced in.
*The cast and crew joke that this episode must have been the most times any television show has said the word "urine". The word urine is used 16 times.
*The kind of marijuana Creed identifies during his interrogation is an actual variety of cannabis.
*Steve Carell jammed his finger playing hockey the night before shooting, and it swelled up so much that he couldn't get his wedding ring off. The finger was bandaged to disguise the ring.Supersize Office Finale, Supersize Blog!, Jenna Fischer's blog for TV Guide, May 11, 2006. The best view of the bandage is in Michael's talking head interview where he talks about how he is above suspicion.
*Despite Dwight's hardline aversion to the illegal substance, Season 9's "The Farm" would reveal that Dwight's brother, Jeb, actually grows marijuana for a living, though the fact that he lives in California, where the drug can, under license, be grown and sold for medicinal purposes, along with (as stated in a talking head) being in the "pain management" business, implies that he does so legally.
*The Van Nuys Courthouse was used to represent the Scranton sheriff's office building.
*A deleted scene shows that Dwight got his badge from the gift shop, which means that he was likely attempting to use Police powers when not officially on duty, which is illegal.
*In this episode the office park security guard's name tag reads “Tate” but he is known as Hank later in the series. This can be explained by the fact that security guards/police have their last names on their badges, which means that Hank's full name is Hank Tate.
**Additionally, the name "Tate" could be a reference to the county sheriff "Heck Tate" from To Kill a Mockingbird.
*Dwight decides to bring in his Bo staff after learning that office security does not carry guns. This establishes the trend of Dwight hiding weapons in the office.
==Interesting notes==
*It is not clear how Creed was able to pass drug testing, as he evidently still uses cannabis. On the other hand, he appears to be completely unconcerned. Perhaps he has developed a way of beating the test.
* Dwight states that he “likes the people he works with, generally, with four exceptions.” It is possible those four exceptions are the first four people he questions about the joint: Kevin, Ryan, Kelly, and Oscar.
* The use of marijuana is illegal in Pennsylvania so whoever was responsible should have been fired as a result.
* Kevin asks for a magazine, foreshadowing the episode "Baby Shower" in which he reveals that he is a sperm donor.
*As Jim lists what Dwight has done for Michael, he wonders "what does he get out of that relationship" as the camera briefly shows Jim and Pam chatting in the break room, suggesting that there is a parallel in their relationship.
==Amusing details==
*When Michael asks Dwight for his urine, the camera reveals a picture of everyone in the office that was taken and Photoshopped (by Michael) in "Conflict Resolution", the episode which aired after this one. The episodes were shot out of order, and the set decorators forgot to remove the "prop from the future".
*Dwight assumes that Kevin is taking Rogaine because he is bald.
*Dwight pesters Angela about the prescription drugs she may be on, presumably to try and figure out whether she is on birth control or not. Angela's glare was intended to mean "Yes, I'm obviously on birth control, but I'm not going to say it in front of Oscar and Kevin."Kinsey, Angela and Jenna Fischer, Episode 26: Drug Testing, Office Ladies podcast, April 29, 2020.
*Kelly doesn't seem to notice that Jim isn't responding to her while she talks. This contributes to her trait of mindless babbling.
*Michael's statistics are incredibly flawed, as usual.
*Michael tells everyone to look at the person to their left, then their right. To Dwight's left is Creed, and to his right is Oscar. Michael then says that one of those people will die of a drug overdose. Dwight makes a note in his notebook, presumably writing "Creed".
*Dwight's urine being green implies that he had an infection of some sort.
*Dwight goes into the stairwell to moan/cry, as he does in other episodes.
*When Dwight tells the drug testing lady he had "green urine" tested back in the day, Louanne works at her desk in the background.
*It is revealed by Toby that when the Dunder Mifflin employees filled out their job applications they agreed to random drug testing.
*Ryan asks if the urine analysis lab is hiring, when asked if he wants a job there he looks around the office exasperated and says he might.
* Dwight's talking head about his family history was an improvisation from "Pilot" that was cut. Greg Daniels mentally filed it away looking for an opportunity to use it, and he found it in this episode.
==Cultural references==
* Dude, where's my office? is a play on the title of the 2000 movie Dude, Where's My Car? about two dimwits who have lost their car.
* A doobie is a slang for a marijuana cigarette. The Doobie Brothers is an American rock group from the 1970s and early 1980s. Michael combines them in a strange way.
* Seacrest out is a catchphrase sign-off of television personality Ryan Seacrest. Peace out is a hippie good-bye. Michael combines the two in a somewhat nonsensical way.
* Jinx is a children's "game". When two people say the same thing at the same time, the person who doesn't say "jinx" first must remain silent until the jinx is released. Traditional conditions including buying the winner a Coke (as occurs in this episode) or having one's name said three times.
* Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong form the comedy team Cheech & Chong which relied heavily on drug humor.
* Eeny, meeny, miny, moe is a children's counting rhyme. It has a disputed racist history and is considered offensive by some.
* To bring out the big guns is a common expression meaning to bring a more powerful technique to some type of conflict or competition.
* Alicia Keys is an R&B singer.
* Let's not and say we did is an idiom used to decline a suggestion. It literally means that one should claim to have done something without having done it.
* Kevin asks for a magazine, which are usually provided when semen is being collected. This goes with other references of Kevin being extremely inappropriate, and storing inappropriate material on his computer.
==Quotes==
*see Drug Testing Quotes
==Cast==
===Main cast===
*Steve Carell as Michael Scott
*Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute
*John Krasinski as Jim Halpert
*Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly
*B.J. Novak as Ryan Howard
===Supporting cast===
*Leslie David Baker as Stanley Hudson
*Brian Baumgartner as Kevin Malone
*Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer
*Angela Kinsey as Angela Martin
*Oscar Nunez as Oscar Martinez
*Phyllis Smith as Phyllis Vance
===Recurring cast===
*Mindy Kaling as Kelly Kapoor
*Paul Lieberstein as Toby Flenderson
*Creed Bratton as Creed Bratton
*Hugh Dane as Hank Tate
*Lee Eisenberg as Gino (Deleted Scenes)
*Gene Stupnitsky as Leo (Deleted Scenes)
===Guest cast===
*Marilyn Brett as Linda the Urinalysis Technician
==References==
Category:Season 2 episodes