The Office · Season 7 · Episode 22 · 28 April 2011
S7E22 Goodbye, Michael
THE MOMENT The airport goodbye - the most unexpectedly moving sequence in the show's run, played without a single joke to cushion it.
Michael Scott's last day at Dunder Mifflin. The episode dispenses with irony almost entirely - this is the show acknowledging what it has actually built over seven years, and doing it with a grace that surprised even the critics who had grown skeptical of its longevity.
Full episode analysis below. Spoiler-light verdict above.
Updated
The Office Season 7 Episode 22 'Goodbye, Michael' aired April 28, 2011 on NBC. Rotten Tomatoes holds Season 7 at 100 percent. The episode is the show's most discussed single hour: a farewell that operates almost entirely without irony, trusting seven years of accumulated character work to make the comedy unnecessary for once. Steve Carell's final day is written and performed as if the mockumentary conceit has been suspended for the occasion - the camera is still there, but the show stops pretending Michael is performing for it. The airport sequence, played without a single joke to cushion it, drew comparisons to prestige drama finales rather than broadcast comedy goodbyes. Critics who had grown sceptical of the show's post-peak seasons treated the episode as a reminder of what Michael Scott had meant to the series' emotional architecture.