After months of it being glaringly omitted from press releases and denied through carefully worded statements, TV Line reports that we can all stop pretending as though Steve Carell won’t return for next week’s The Office finale, because obviously, he totally will. This semi-confirmation—which comes after Carell's "surprise" appearance at the recent wrap party, and is backed by another official refutation from Carell’s publicist (which only makes it more real)—is said to be “more of a cameo than a full-fledged guest appearance.” So, following the pattern of disavowing the truth we’ve seen established so far—although we’ve been told the episode will concern a wedding, as well as “a reunion show, in the fashion of the post-competition cast rehashes familiar from reality shows like Survivor"—we can surmise that, actually, the entire finale will just be one long Carell monologue, like Brando in Apocalypse Now. (“These were not monsters, these were men—trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love, but they had the strength to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly… That’s what she said.”)

Advertisement