Pretty or not, Michael Scott’s (Steve Carell) departure from “The Workplace” in Season 7 marks the dividing line between what many followers deem “Good Workplace” and “Unhealthy Workplace.” However there was one other massive departure after that: Ryan (B. J. Novak) left the sequence on the very starting of Season 9, alongside along with his on-and-off girlfriend Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling).
In contrast to Michael, nevertheless, Ryan and Kelly leaving was not handled with quite a lot of fanfare. One minute they had been part of the present and the following minute they weren’t, and all their coworkers merely went about life as typical. When interviewed on the “Armchair Professional” podcast in 2021, Novak defined his causes for leaving the present as each an actor and a workers author. The essential gist was that after eight seasons, he was form of exhausted:
“I used to be burnt out, Mindy [Kaling] had left. Carell had left. And so they needed a brand new showrunner they usually requested if I’d need to do this and I could not think about it. And I additionally could not think about simply hanging round with out it. And I simply could not do it anymore. I did not have the love.”
As for why Kaling left the sequence? That departure was extra simple: the actor-writer was creating her personal sitcom, “The Mindy Mission,” and she or he not had the time to recurrently work for “The Workplace” due to it. When she left, she additionally introduced some “Workplace” veterans together with her, together with Novak himself as an govt producer for the “Mindy Mission” pilot.
It is easy to overlook, however Ryan was a serious character on The Workplace
So, how did “The Workplace” write Ryan and Kelly out? Properly, Kelly left together with her fiancé Ravi (Sendhil Ramamurthy), who’s beginning a brand new job at Miami College in Ohio. (Kelly’s underneath the mistaken impression that Miami College is situated in Miami, Florida.) Ryan, who hates Kelly but additionally loves her, decides to comply with her to Ohio to win her again, though he is in denial about this being the true cause he is following her. Principally, Ryan’s departure is designed to emphasise his most egocentric, self-destructive, and delusional qualities, so it is simple to not miss him when he is gone. He does return once more within the sequence finale, during which he reunites with Kelly and abandons his new child child to run away together with her. It is an epilogue that reminds viewers as soon as once more that Ryan and Kelly are deeply unserious folks.
The informal remedy of Kelly’s departure is comprehensible: she’d by no means been that main a presence within the sequence. Nonetheless, in hindsight, it is somewhat bizarre that Ryan’s departure was written so flippantly. In spite of everything, the pilot episode for “The Workplace” establishes Ryan as a serious character. Likewise, he Pam (Jenna Fischer), and Jim (John Krasinski) act because the three principal “regular” characters in a solid stuffed with weirdos all through the primary season.
As The Workplace went on, Ryan turned a a lot darker character
Though Ryan was initially handled sympathetically, the sequence regularly peeled again his darker layers. After spending Season 1 because the trodden-upon sufferer of Michael’s clown antics, the early Season 2 episode “The Fireplace” quietly reveals that Ryan has his personal conceited, egocentric qualities when he expresses an curiosity in beginning his personal enterprise. This darkish facet will get much more pronounced by means of his poisonous relationship with Kelly, which begins within the second half of Season 2. At first Ryan is portrayed because the straight man reacting to Kelly’s clingy conduct, however fairly quickly we begin to see that he is a horrible boyfriend who’s stringing her alongside.
By Season 3, Ryan’s been downgraded in significance, with Andy (Ed Helms in a job that turned aspirational for the actor) changing him because the present’s fifth most vital character after Michael, Pam, Jim, and Dwight (Rainn Wilson). Nonetheless, the present always checks in on Ryan to see how he is doing, and each time we see him he will get somewhat bit worse. By the top of Season 3 it is clear that Ryan’s a shallow, self-serving jerk, however he is imply in a quiet, real looking method. It is solely in Season 4 when he turns into the Vice President of Northeast Gross sales — making him the superior of everybody on the Dunder Mifflin Scranton department — that he feels free to let his true colours present. Certainly, Season 4 Ryan is straight-up evil; when he will get arrested, fired and humiliated within the season’s finale, no viewer is anticipated to really feel unhealthy for him in any respect.
Did Ryan deserve his destiny on The Workplace?
In quite a lot of methods, Ryan jogs my memory of Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin) — one other character who began off regular and sympathetic earlier than comedically spiraling into bizarreness over the course of a number of seasons of “The Workplace.” (Paradoxically, Jan’s downward spiral additionally led on to the perfect episode of “The Workplace,” aka “Dinner Social gathering.”) Like Ryan, I believe Jan’s arc was neatly written for the primary 4 seasons earlier than diving into disappointing cartoon territory. The distinction is that the cartoon model of Jan we acquired within the later seasons solely confirmed up annually, whereas Ryan post-villain arc recurrently frolicked at Dunder Mifflin for 4 extra seasons.
What’s irritating about Ryan within the later seasons is that every part about him feels mean-spirited; we’re watching a man whose life fell aside in a devastating (if completely self-inflicted) trend, however the present would not trouble to supply him any sort of redemption arc. As a substitute, it retains kicking him when he is down, all of the whereas characterizing him in a method that makes it clear he deserves it. “The Workplace” was a present that acquired kinder and extra optimistic because the sequence went on, however whereas the remainder of the present’s characters got extra humanity, Ryan was given much less.
From Season 5 by means of to Season 8, Ryan was handled as an afterthought at greatest and the present’s punching bag at worst, to the purpose the place by the point he left for good, quite a lot of the viewers was pleased to see him go. It is a disgrace as a result of I believe permitting Ryan to significantly grapple with how his life’s fallen aside might’ve been fascinating. Somewhat than the aimless, miserable path the sequence’ writers took in Ryan’s ultimate few seasons, I want they might’ve given him a shot at significant character development. Ryan might’ve nonetheless left at first of Season 9, however he did not have to go away as a complete joke.
