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 (Steve Carell) finds himself lonely and wanting a relationship after breaking up with Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin).
Meanwhile, Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) and Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) fight to reclaim lost parking spaces, and Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) tells Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) that he is going to propose.
While browsing an office-chair catalog, Michael Scott, who has broken up with Jan Levinson, becomes enamored of one of the female chair models.
Kevin feels happy to have won his space back, as his fiancée Stacy broke off their engagement and it's been a hard time for him.
While flirting, Jim Halpert drops a hint about proposing to Pam, even going as far as telling her that he is not going to do it at work ("because that would be rather lame") and when he does it, it will "kick her ass".
[1][2] The episode was written by B. J. Novak, who plays temporary worker turned corporate manager Ryan Howard.
[4] Originally, Novak wrote Jim putting Dwight through a "phony management training", but NBC pointed out that it felt like the writers had done it before even though they had not.
[5] There was an auditioning process for both the chair model (Deborah Shoshlefski played by April Eden) and the young blond woman whom Michael sees in the coffee shop.
The day before they were scheduled to shoot, the show still had not cast anyone for the role, so they called Paul in New York City and had him read the lines into a camera and e-mail to them.
[9] He noted that the episode "fell on the wrong side of the funny/creepy divide for a lot of Office fans", but that he enjoyed the entry, calling the grave scene "unexpectedly sweet".
[6] BuddyTV senior writer Oscar Dahl wrote that "The Office is sharp as ever" and Jim's saying that he was going to propose was "a big time moment in the Jim/Pam story".
"[10] IGN's Travis Fickett said that Michael falling in love with the chair model was "a hysterical turn and highlights just how deluded Michael—and Dwight—can be".
[11] Aubry D'Arminio of Entertainment Weekly stated that, in relation to the previous episode "Dinner Party", "Last night's show took another approach.