That's the way it is around here.
Just kind of goes round and round.
You should have put him in custard-y.
Oh, hey!
Yes!
New guy!
This is how we were introduced to Ryan Howard.
And this is how Ryan ended up.
I let him suck on a strawberry.
He's allergic, but he'll get over it fast.
I had to talk to you.
You gave your baby an allergic reaction just to talk to me?
The Office's Ryan Howard has perhaps one
of the most tragic character arcs in the history of sitcoms.
He was a man who began his career
at the quaint Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company
as an overqualified temp, ultimately
ending the series as a funhouse mirror
reflection of his former self.
The aimlessness of Ryan is indicative of the uncertainty
of what to do with the character,
morphing Ryan from an audience POV everyman
to a bizarre series of changes that encapsulate
all the ways the series went off the rails in its final years.
You got this kosher certified?
No, I meant like, it's cool.
It's kosher.
It's all good.
The issues with Ryan Howard as a character
begins with the character's very existence in the first place.
The NBC sitcom The Office is a remake
of the BBC sitcom of the same name.
In the show's initial season, the US and UK versions
of The Office align very closely, right
down to the pilot episode of the US version
being ostensibly an Americanized remake
of the UK show's first episode.
Both shows have a primary cast of four key archetypal
characters-- the boss, Michael Scott in the US version
and David Brent in the UK--
the office sycophant, Dwight in the US and Gareth in the UK--
and finally, the will they won't they
romantic pairing, Jim and Pam in the US and Tim
and Dawn in the UK.
This core quartet theory provided the UK Office
with all the characters it needed
to carry the primary plot of two seasons of television
and a Christmas special with the occasional pop
in from scene stealing side characters.
Bring your boyfriend down tonight if you want.
I don't have a boyfriend.
Whatever.
Oh, sorry!
Sorry!
That is a man's game.
After seeing this successful formula for the UK series,
it's suddenly disorienting to throw
on the US version of The Office and find a fifth character
thrown into the central cast--
BJ Novak as Ryan Howard.
Now this is no slight to BJ Novak, who
is a fine performer and comedian,
but seeing his name among the other four leads
in the show's opening credits suggests he'll
be a crucial part to the story.
In the world of The Office, Ryan exists
in this weird middle ground between the primary four
characters and the background office workers.
He has a lot of screen time, but that attention
is due to his relationship with funnier,
more compelling characters.
This can be seen in the one-sided friendship
with Michael where the comedy comes
from Michael's embarrassingly desperate bids
to win Ryan's admiration, which are
met with comedic non-reactions.
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
[LAUGHTER] Right here.
Be serious.
High five.
Additionally, there's his toxic relationship
with Kelly, where the comedy comes from her obsession
with him, and once again, he is overshadowed
by the sheer comedic force of Kelly's unhealthy obsessions.
Now I have a boyfriend.
All right.
I hooked up with her on February 13th.
He is simply reactive to the antics around him.
He has no real defined personality or even
a comedic gimmick like many of the supporting characters
of the show.
All evidence suggests Ryan should be a vital character,
but he doesn't have any major growth as a character
until season four.
Who was that?
Nobody.
You and I are done.
What?
The punch line of Ryan being the one
to take the coveted corporate job in the season three finale
works so well because Ryan has flown so far under the radar
over the course of the show.
Not only does it finally give the character
a goal and objective, it launches him
into the heart of darkness of corporate life
that will warp the character forever.
There are essentially three major acts
in the desolation of Ryan Howard.
The first being the corporate sellout phase.
With his newfound status as the self
described wunderkind of Dunder-Mifflin,
Ryan begins to throw his weight around
at his former stomping grounds.
He dresses flashy-- or at least a version of what he imagines
is flashy-- and tries to modernize Dunder-Mifflin
in multiple ways, with his flagship idea
being a new website Dunder-Mifflin Infinity.
Ryan basically morphs into a Bret Easton Ellis character
that's dropped into a sitcom.
And if they knew how much I was paying for my haircut now,
they wouldn't be giving me a noogie.
It was $200.
Now it's important to note that this sudden change, while
comedic, is built on a shaky ground of being a cardboard
cutout of a character for three whole seasons.
While there are certainly suggestions of Ryan's ambition
to climb the corporate ladder with references to his business
school background, this extreme of a change
feels out of nowhere.
And while it's a humorous bit of satire
to watch this bland, regular, middle management guy suddenly
become a Jordan Belfort-esque avatar of greed because
of a corporate job at a paper company of all places,
the jokes aren't exactly breaking any new ground
about white collar jobs that we haven't already
heard a million times before.
Problems like that will not happen
when we launch Dunder-Mifflin Infinity 2.0.
When will that be?
TBD.
Ryan's erratic behavior and the failure
of Dunder-Mifflin Infinity leads to his massive fall
from grace, going as far as to defraud the company
before getting arrested.
This leads into what we can call the chaos goblin Ryan era.
I'm keeping a list of everyone who wrongs me,
so when I'm back on top, they'll be sorry.
Kevin just made the list.
Here we have another major personality shift in Ryan-- one
where his inhibitions have been completely removed,
and he functions almost entirely as a creature of pure id.
For most of season five, he is rude and obnoxious
to everyone around him.
Michael takes pity on Ryan and allows him to return
to Dunder-Mifflin, making him determined to climb the ladder
again--
until he breaks up with Kelly and supposedly runs away
to Thailand.
This constant back and forth of growth and setback
is another example of how the writers seem
to have no concrete ideas for the character.
I never went to Thailand.
Really?
I went to Fort Lauderdale.
Was it nice?
Yeah, it was amazing.
Ryan returns again and becomes one of the chosen few employees
to join the Michael Scott Paper Company because Michael
is the only one still willing to give him
a chance after all he has done.
Although the character now finally
has the personality he was lacking all this time,
this comedic persona is indicative of a larger problem
facing The Office as a series in these later seasons.
The show has drifted away from the dry, deadpan humor that
gave the mockumentary aspect of the office
a sense of verisimilitude.
Five years in, the show's sense of humor
has become so broad that Ryan's transformation feels cartoonish
rather than a representation of how a human being would behave.
They shake the baby, and you've got to--
you can't do that.
Don't shake our baby.
Yeah.
OK.
I'd never heard that before.
This brings us to the final form of Ryan Howard in season six
through nine-- hipster doofus creep.
Now that Ryan has returned to the world of office worker
after the merger of Dunder-Mifflin and the Michael
Scott Paper Company, he has become somewhat more
professional again.
But now he dresses as a stereotypical hipster,
and while he is still trying to scheme his way back
to the top of the corporate ladder,
he seems to have completely lost most of his business acumen
and just seems like a fool.
The Office is a series that thrived
on uncomfortable, awkward moments of humor.
But the audience always felt like they
were part of the joke.
Ryan, however, is truly irredeemable at this point.
Well, I think he can be corrupted like Gollum.
Smeagol was corrupted and became Gollum.
And in the finale, as every other character
reaches their own satisfying ending,
he ultimately backslides once again and hooks up with Kelly.
His presence when the show ends in the final seasons
is the final condemnation of how The Office has
lost its way in the final seasons with humor that
relies way too much on outlandish situations
rather than truth and character.
These many seasons of aimless wandering for the character
are an illustration of the strange ways long form
television can grow and evolve.
In comedy shows especially, it can
take many episodes for the writers
to find the voice or the comedic game of a character.
With Ryan, his journey can be read one of two ways--
the writers weren't really clear on what direction to ever take
the character, or Ryan is a metaphor
for the way the corporate world can break a person's
spirit, which can certainly be darkly funny in its own way,
but it feels strange when contrasted
with the humorous day to day activities of The Office's
found family.
By trying to shoehorn in these supposedly comedic,
outlandish scenarios for Ryan to be in,
the show lost sight of its greatest comedic weapon--
the strength of its characters.
Without it, we see a character arc
that holistically feels more like tragedy than comedy.
What do you think?
Was there more to Ryan than meets the eye?
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