This is one of the absolute BEST episodes of The Office. It certainly has the best cold open in the entire series, and it features Stanley Hudson’s character in a very prominent way. In this post, I’m gonna discuss the inspirations drawn from this episode. I’ll get into plot details, so if you haven’t watched it yet, better skip to next post.

***SPOILER ALERT*** The Office S05E13 - Stress Relief

Dwight, you ignorant slut! A fake fire is an unbelievably horrible idea, even for Dwight’s standards. I could spend hours discussing this cold open frame by frame. Also, Michael Scott is the worst boss you could have in a situation like that. His reaction screaming, calling names and shouting “EVERYONE FOR HIMSELF!” fits his character perfectly.

I also love Phillys and Stanley’s exchange about her purse (“LEAVE IT, WOMAN!”). Some other favorite bits are Angela throwing her cat, Bandit, and Creed’s face when Oscar falls from the ceiling.

Episode vs game parallels

That all leads to Stanley having a heart attack. Fortunately, he’s back to work a few days later, and that triggers another amazing scene. Dunder-Mifflin provides a first aid training for the employees, and it goes delightfully bad.

First aid responder (game’s “continue”)

This draws the first inspiration from the episode: when Stanley dies in the game, a first aid responder comes and reanimates him.

Stress level meter (game’s health points)

Later, we learn that Stanley has a device to measure his stress level, and whenever the boss, Michael Scott, gets too close to him, the device starts to beep. There’s a parallel to this in the game.

Traditionally, games have a health bar, which starts with 100 health points that decrase as the player faces damage.

To fit my storytelling, I chose a different approach: the health bar is actually a stress meter. It starts at 0 and increases if the player collides with the obstacles (co-workers), mirroring Stanley’s stress level (which increases as Michael gets close to him). When the stress level gets to 100, the character dies.

Plot resolution

After Michael learns that he is the main cause of stress of his employees, he proposes a stress relief exercise: the roast of Michael Scott. He expects people to tell funny-yet-respectable jokes about him, but (of course) everybody takes the chance to finally get back at him for his inappropriate behavior throughout the years, and the jokes get really offensive.

In the end, Michael responds to them with more inappropriate jokes (mostly about their physical appearance), and the issue seems to be settled.