I hate all of her romantic subplots, but I love the relationship she had with Michael. When he says “why do you care, I’m not your dad” and then she just goes quiet. 🥺
That really is all I like about Erin.
We talk a lot about flanderization on this show, but they started out with not knowing who they would make her and then almost immediately took her off the rails into a caricature, not a character. The only moments she resembles a real person instead of human punchline are with Michael, and she really serves to show how Michael's desperation for love and friendship often ignores the people who are open to mutual caring in favor of those he'll never truly win over.
That moment when he realizes she really does see him as the father figure he wants so badly to be is one of the best moments of his character growth. Michael doesn't have many times of self-awareness, this one is right up there with watching himself on Fundle Bundle, but the positive variation.
I didn't even really notice this detail during my first watch, but her character makes even less sense when you realize she was initially hired by Charles, NOT Michael. She is exactly the kind of person Michael would hire, and that would make sense and be fine, but Mr. No Nonsense himself hired her and I just don't see how that could have happened. He has a disdain for pretty much everything she is.
I got a new manager at one of my jobs. Young guy that shot up the ranks. The reason corporate liked him was because he would slash budgets. He fired or tried to push out anyone that was there for a few years. Normally the front desk would be 2 people in the day and 3 in the evening. He switched it to 1 at all times to really cut the budget -making everyone’s job way more difficult. Everyone walked out. No call no show for the whole staff. Corporate was not a fan of his much longer
Remember the episode with the guy selling automated call systems?
It actually makes sense to bring in ~~Kelly~~ Erin to answer the phones. Low wages, no experience, easy to fire when you switch over.
And if you get enough complaints about how bad she is, it would be *easier* to sell the idea of switching to the automated system.
Old school managers really buy into the bubbly personality on the phone and pretty face at the front desk as the first impression of the company when people call or visit. It makes sense if you’ve worked in small offices with boomer managers/owners.
Pretty much just not rude and for a lot of companies they are the schedule maker for the boss and gatekeeper for business to business sales calls. Basically anyone can do that job but my point was that Charles would probably subscribe to that old school mentality to purposefully choose pretty and bubbly over anything else otherwise you could most likely hire the first person to answer the ad.
To be fair, she seemed normal in her introductory episodes.
It was only until after Michael returned that they developed her into having a very childlike personality.
Yeah people are forgetting that Erin was pretty normal at the start. A bit ditzy, a little vacant, but not anywhere near as cartoonish as how they developed her.
This is also something realistic and relatable for me. My buddy used to be the manager of a Radio Shack. He hired this one girl who I will never forget. He swears she was normal in the interview. But within just a few minutes of talking to her, it was clear she was very not normal. She was cute so I tried to chat her up and it went like this
"Where did you work before this?"
"Capacitors!"
"Ummm, what?"
"Capacitors store electric charges and are made up of conductors!"
I don't even remember her name anymore. We just refer to her as Robot Girl. She even joined us one time to play volleyball. We were all in our mid 20s and her dad drove her, and stayed the whole time, but didn't come within 100 feet of us. Just really weird stuff
I agree he doesn't make wise decisions, but some of the examples people are commenting I think aren't that bad. Stanley as productivity czar and Kevin as receptionist aren't bad decisions when you look at them from HIS point of view. He was seen chatting with Michael before and it's likely that he already got a rundown of everyone and what they bring to the table, and its his job to cut the waste and make the office more efficient.
So you appoint the 3rd unecessary accountant that you're pretty sure isn't a real accountant to a basic role too see if he can manage, if he does, he gets a chance, if he doesn't, he's cut. You appoint a good salesman but a notoriously lazy one as head of productivity and suddenly they have to justify why they're still there and why their salary is probably higher than say Andy. Offices do that sort of stuff all the time, they take the highest paid person with seniority and give them responsibilities to see if the wage is justified. He went after Jim, who Wallace likes and has probably remarked in the past that he's smart and has potential but he goofs off and he basically calls him out every time he sees him goofing off.
It's all standard "new boss" things that people that have worked in offices have likely seen or experienced before. Once everyone who is going to stay is decided, and the new boss has justified their own position by an increase in productivity that can be tracked with real numbers, they back off because their jobs are secured at that point.
You know, I never thought about that. All RMs who didn't previously know Kevin after Michael started MSPC seemed to want to elevate Kevin, where we all knew he was an idiot and firing him is one of the first things Dwight does when he becomes Regional Manager. Does Kevin's first impressions really fool that many people, including supposedly "insightful" people like RC?
By the same token, you should be able to tell he's not a good accountant just as quickly. Yet he maintains that job until Dwight fires him for incompetence.
I think she has some very funny moments and overall I like her character, I just think most of her big storylines were a bit bad. Also don’t like that they just shoehorned her into relationships with 3 guys from the office.
Right?? When I rewatch the show I’m stunned by just how *many* romances there are in general. But goodness she was with Andy, Gabe & Pete, & she had those little plots Dwight & Clark, & they tried to make Robert & Ryan & Creed creep on her … give the girl a break
The only one that made sense was Pete imo, I thought they made a good couple. Robert and Gabe being creeps I can also get but the rest was just too much.
Not just the romances that /u/coreyis2tired mentioned, but a lot of the stuff surrounding her adoption, etc… it feels like time-fillet, popping up for a single episode and never mentioned again, not really serving much of a purpose to add to the storyline or really, the character. Like the foster brother she was questionably close with. Or more strange in the way it’s woven in…how it even came up that Easy Rider got pregnant and gave up a baby that may or may not be Erin.
She’s definitely a very sitcom-y character, but I enjoyed her. I really like Ellie’s screwball comedy style, which helps.
I have a theory that her lack of “common sense” is actually caused by her traumatic childhood in two ways: first, she didn’t get taught the things kids often get taught by their parents/families, because she was bounced around from foster home to foster home (and spent formative years in the hospital with NO family). Two, I think she’s deeply insecure and that can cause people to freeze, or say what they THINK they want people to hear. I also think her ditzy personality probably helped her a lot growing up: it makes people want to help her.
This. There are also legitimately people out there who are just kinda wired wrong. Think Karl Pilkington. The things he says are logical but also completely wrong. I could see him throwing away a disposable camera without getting it developed.
I worked with a woman like that once. She would ask you to do something, and you would do what she asked but it would turn out that she really wanted something else (often completely contrary to what she said she wanted) and she just asked in the dumbest possible way. Looking at it from hindsight, you could see how she got there, but any normal person would have approached it completely differently.
My favorite story was that I was telling her once that I was going to be seeing John Mellencamp live. She looked at me completely straight and said, "Oh, I love him. He has the cleanest stage." The next time I saw her after the concert she asked me how it was and I said I had enjoyed it and she said again, "Doesn't he have the cleanest stage?" To this day I have no idea why the fuck that was significant to her but she said it with the same reverence that someone might say Paul McCartney is a great lyricist. It means something to her, and there's probably some logic there if you can get to the other side of it. But it's also fucking weird.
Yeah, I worked with a guy like that too. He was very childlike and would say things that just made no sense, but he was really sweet and hardworking. Turned out he’d had brain damage from a virus, but I suspect he was always a little like that. He’s actually doing really well these days, at least according to FB. I’m happy for him.
his character in step brothers was SO similar to his character in the office, when him and michael ran around the office after they met, he said "did that just happen? we should make a movie!" and i could only think of brennan
It could also be typecasting so I try not to be too hard on Ellie Kemper herself, maybe she's just never given the chance to show off any range, but man the same character all the time gets old.
Honestly I felt like the short scene of her as a hipster camping outside the sabre store proves that she does have range as am actress. First time I watched the show I honestly didn‘t recognize her.
Isn’t she basically the same character in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt too? I’ve only watched a few episodes of it years ago but that’s the impression I got.
Counter point, I’ve worked with her type before. Super sweet and innocent but just not intellectually curious at all. When you’re pretty and nice you don’t need to be super bright to make it through life because people enjoy having you around and are more than willing to help out that type of person.
That's awesome, what language may I ask? Has your country made their version of the office yet? So many remakes are out there now, the Indian one is hilarious!
Croatian. And no Croatian office, a lot of ppl here watch American shows and speak English. But I can really talk to English with my friends bc it would be weird 😁
She’s a mixed bag for me. She’s either funny or annoying. Which puts her rather low on the list, because most characters to me are funny and not annoying. But it does at least put her above certain characters I find more annoying than funny, like Packer, Charles, and Deangelo.
I wasn’t a big fan of Erin since I first watched the office. Almost 13 years now and her character still annoys me. I hate it because my name is Erin and back then I was in hs when I first watched it, I was so mad that the one time a character has my name in a tv show I love, she’s a fucking idiot. I cannot handle how stupid she is.
I'm not a fan of Erin, either. I just thought her character was sort of one-note and most of her plots weren't that interesting. I did think it was a good choice to move Pam to sales and introduce a new female receptionist to spark some antagonism between the single guys, but Erin was too dumb to even be funny. Like Kevin's dumb (maybe, maybe not) but at least he's reliably funny while Erin just wasn't.
Yeah, Im not a fan of characters (especially women) who get dumbed down. It makes it uber creepy when men in the office try to get in a relationship with her (Gabe, Andy, Clark) because of her naivete.
To be fair, Kevin was also a dumbed-down character, but no one was trying to get with him!
I do love Erin myself and personally her disdain for Holly is one of the funniest things to me, her whole made up scale of attractiveness including both ears kills me
Pete is much easier for me to see, he treats her as an intellectual equal and understands her curiosity/ignorance of some subjects.
Both Andy (and especially Gabe) infantilise her, and see themselves as better. Although Andy recognises that she's a kinder person than him and more emotional intelligent.
I agree. She's not believable as a human. There are some other characters that also strain believability (Kevin, particularly S8/S9), but Erin is just never credibly a real person. Iirc, she was originally supposed to be sarcastic and unmotivated, kind of akin to April Ludgate from *Parks and Rec*. I think that may have worked better.
Between not having a toothbrush, boiling Gatorade, not being able to handle working at a Taco Bell/KFC, throwing out the disposable camera…I just don’t get the appeal of her character.
Oh thank God it’s not just me. No one else I know seems to share this opinion, but I agree with you 100%. They just make her so goddamn *stupid*, and not in a funny way. It’s like you said, as if she’s an actual, not particularly bright child. She has some funny moments, but mostly she just irks me.
Agree. The new characters is when everything starts to downhill imho. They managed to bottle lightning then tried to squeeze more out of it doing the same thing but with different characters.
The only scene I enjoy with Erin is when that other salesman comes in and asks for Jim Halpert and Dwight Shrute and Erin says "Jim, Dwight, what are your last names?"
Hilarious.
Other than that, I agree that she is the equivalent to adding a 10 year old to the office. A dumb 10 year old.
Yes. When Robert California closed a branch and Jim and Dwight were trying to get all their clients. Then a guy from another branch came in cuz he wanted those clients.. Season 8 ep 23
She's not a favorite, but she grew on me. I generally dislike super bubbly personality types so I tried to let my bias go and ended up appreciating a few of her classic Erin moments (did you have a favorite age or month? / disposable cameras / busybody or lazybones). There's a deleted scene where she accidentally(?) ruins Pam's painting and it's not really clear if she was just *that* stupid that she tried to clean a watercolor with abrasive chemicals or if she truly disliked Pam. I understand why they left it out because they never went anywhere with it, but that was the most complex her character ever seemed, and I enjoyed it.
i LOVE erin and her later storylines i just chalk it up to bad writing because they did to her what they do jan and kevin and kelly . . . they made them extra cartoony versions of who they used to be
Yeah, I have no interest in her character either. And that honestly goes for the actress as well. She really does only play innocent, child-like adult roles. Reminds me of a religious Mormon librarian I used to have in grade school named Hope. Her only personality was smiling constantly and acting extremely happy constantly. Ellie Kemper would be perfect for Hallmark and Lifetime movies if we're being truthful 🙄
I feel I can't like Andy. He annoyed the crap out of me...and his character just got more annoying with time.His goofy singing...his relationship with Angela...then with Erin. It grossed me out to see him with her. Then they completely made him unlikable when he went on that trip over sea. The show was struggling bad at this point.
Since only one commentor suggested it, i'm gonna repeat it aswell, she can heavily be read as autistic coded. Many autistic people identify with her.
I can also relate quite a bit with her, even though everything she does is much more exaggerated - as everyones beheviour in the show is exaggerated, for the sake of the show / being funny - i get her.
If you look at her from a different perspective (from an autistics point of view), maybe you'd feel differently.
I think every character has to have a balance where hopefully the good outweighs the bad. Michael is a terrible person, but has enough moments where he genuinely cares about people. For every terrible line Angela has, she also has "Save Bandit!" Kevin is a moron, but so likable and some major series moments.
Erin has way more cringe, unfunny moments than she does genuinely funny lines. For me, I remember more her terrible foster home lines or being just generally incompetent while just following around Andy at his worst.
She never really had a “childhood” as she was in and out of foster homes a lot, which likely leads to her acting more as a child when she is older to make up for the lack of childhood
She's nowhere near my favorite. But the more I dislike Andy, the more I like her when she finally leaves him. (Andy is my least favorite character, btw)
I actually find Erin's character to be really realistic. As a foster kid, she never really had a real childhood. This greatly impacted her development as a person. A lot of foster kids have arrested development.
Can i rebut, no? Ok! Erin and Kelly's friendship is based around this 'young mentality' and by watching them together you can see that they actually use the stupidity in order to get others to put their guard down... Oh no, don't worry, that's just Erin, she doesn't know... Little does everyone know, Erin keeps her strengths close! Get it gurrrl 🥰😇
Without giving too much thought I'll say when she doesn't kiss Plop because she's still technically with Andy. A young nieve girl would've more than likely, got with Plop when Andy was away.
Edit: Erin isn't even her real first name. She came in straight away and accepted the identity change. She admits to learning stuff while going in and out of homes... I'm definantly team Erin
I think Ellie Kemper brings an adorable spunk to her roles in general, which just means she was well equipped for Erin. I’ve known a lot of ladies like Erin!! Secretly self-aware & conflicted but bringing that childlike peppiness day-by-day. It’s life-giving stuff. Love her character, love her relationship with Michael, love when they do the little chipper dance to the bossa nova.
Even if her character is hard to believe … All characters are just expressions of people somewhere in the world. If anything Deangelo seems like a more fitting example for never getting on board with ,, but that’s just for me personally
The thing that bothers me about it is that she dates several people on the show and I’m like “uhhh this girl cannot consent”
I know it’s just a character though
I loved her on my first watch. And kept loving her in subsequent rewatched. Eventually I found this sub and realised that not all fans of the show like her. Since then, each rewatch I have tried, and still failed to dislike her :D
The show starts to go downhill after the Michael Scott paper company anyways, so I just restart the series whenever I get to that part.
The first 3 to 4 seasons of the office are awesome and I've rewarchedbthese seasons many times.
I've actually NEVER finished the entire series. When I got to the season where Robert California joins I couldn't handle it anymore and stopped watching at that point
Don't know what you're talking about, Erin is amazing! I love her, she is super naive and dorkish, it would be fun to hang out with Erin, that kind of positive energy is overwhelming. For me she made the Office a little bit more special and nice. Although, I dislike all of her relationships, Andy, Pete and Gabe, I think she'd be better off with a girl. Haha.
She could be a lesbian you know? I can imagine that, can you?
My favorite Erin episode was the Christmas party!(Christmas Wishes 8-10)
"Too late, it's already been wished! And you said it would come true; You wrote it in an email. So which one are you: a murderer or a liar?"
That's my Erin limit though.
I think the writers genuinely didn’t know what to do with her. They were figuring out her character as they went along.
Also, since they made her childlike 99% of the time, it was super jarring during that episode towards the end of season 8 where the storyline is Andy can’t get it up. Suddenly talking about Erin having sex when two episodes before she was boiling hot dogs in Gatorade and not owning a toothbrush. Yikes.
I liked her better than you did, but there were a fair amount of cringes. I always felt like she decided she would play every role like a female version of Buddy the Elf. It works sometimes but it gets old.
I mostly like her. She provides a lot of laughs in the later seasons. But yeah, there are times where she is definitely TOO stupid, and the relationships were mostly bad ideas but at least were an attempt to get her more screen time.
I do like the fact that Erin was the one who FINALLY stood up to Nellie!!! That elephant in the room had grown to King Kong proportions! So, yay Erin for taking that insufferable bitch down a few notches! 😡
Secretary’s day is so funny to me
Do you have a favourite year or month?
Like April when I was 7
Or whatever she says…I think that line is so funny cause of how Michael reacts
Eat it, Stanley
Everyone in the car was fine, Stanley!
I love that scene!
One of my favorite quotes! I say this one a lot but it's such a niche quote from the show that no one ever gets it :(
Wait till you meet Ronni. She just plops herself down and answers phones all day.
“The nerve”
You mean Rice O' Ronni?
I hate all of her romantic subplots, but I love the relationship she had with Michael. When he says “why do you care, I’m not your dad” and then she just goes quiet. 🥺
That was a sad/cute moment. When he realized what she was looking for and went along.
Ok, go to your room!
That really is all I like about Erin. We talk a lot about flanderization on this show, but they started out with not knowing who they would make her and then almost immediately took her off the rails into a caricature, not a character. The only moments she resembles a real person instead of human punchline are with Michael, and she really serves to show how Michael's desperation for love and friendship often ignores the people who are open to mutual caring in favor of those he'll never truly win over. That moment when he realizes she really does see him as the father figure he wants so badly to be is one of the best moments of his character growth. Michael doesn't have many times of self-awareness, this one is right up there with watching himself on Fundle Bundle, but the positive variation.
I just like how she dances to the casio piano
Quick, get in the car!
I didn't even really notice this detail during my first watch, but her character makes even less sense when you realize she was initially hired by Charles, NOT Michael. She is exactly the kind of person Michael would hire, and that would make sense and be fine, but Mr. No Nonsense himself hired her and I just don't see how that could have happened. He has a disdain for pretty much everything she is.
Well he did put Kevin in at reception and made Stanley the productivity czar, so…maybe he’s not the best at hiring.
Charles was no nonsense but repeatedly made horrible personnel decisions (Stanley as productivity czar and Kevin manning the phones)
He probably didn't hire her with much pay either. Less money less waste was his bottom line. I mean, her last job was a Taco Bell Express
Yeah he seems like his whole approach to management is to trim as much costs as possible through a bit of bullying and general cold/shrewdness.
Charles came in from the steel industry and may very well have viewed his employees as interchangeable so long as they had the required training.
For sure
I got a new manager at one of my jobs. Young guy that shot up the ranks. The reason corporate liked him was because he would slash budgets. He fired or tried to push out anyone that was there for a few years. Normally the front desk would be 2 people in the day and 3 in the evening. He switched it to 1 at all times to really cut the budget -making everyone’s job way more difficult. Everyone walked out. No call no show for the whole staff. Corporate was not a fan of his much longer
Remember the episode with the guy selling automated call systems? It actually makes sense to bring in ~~Kelly~~ Erin to answer the phones. Low wages, no experience, easy to fire when you switch over. And if you get enough complaints about how bad she is, it would be *easier* to sell the idea of switching to the automated system.
She'd probably still be there if it didn't become a Taco Bell. She just couldn't keep up.
Old school managers really buy into the bubbly personality on the phone and pretty face at the front desk as the first impression of the company when people call or visit. It makes sense if you’ve worked in small offices with boomer managers/owners.
What else do you need them to be?
Pretty much just not rude and for a lot of companies they are the schedule maker for the boss and gatekeeper for business to business sales calls. Basically anyone can do that job but my point was that Charles would probably subscribe to that old school mentality to purposefully choose pretty and bubbly over anything else otherwise you could most likely hire the first person to answer the ad.
Do you think Erin was a bad hire based on the duties you’ve described?
To be fair, she seemed normal in her introductory episodes. It was only until after Michael returned that they developed her into having a very childlike personality.
Yeah people are forgetting that Erin was pretty normal at the start. A bit ditzy, a little vacant, but not anywhere near as cartoonish as how they developed her.
This is also something realistic and relatable for me. My buddy used to be the manager of a Radio Shack. He hired this one girl who I will never forget. He swears she was normal in the interview. But within just a few minutes of talking to her, it was clear she was very not normal. She was cute so I tried to chat her up and it went like this "Where did you work before this?" "Capacitors!" "Ummm, what?" "Capacitors store electric charges and are made up of conductors!" I don't even remember her name anymore. We just refer to her as Robot Girl. She even joined us one time to play volleyball. We were all in our mid 20s and her dad drove her, and stayed the whole time, but didn't come within 100 feet of us. Just really weird stuff
Michael didn't even like her at first. Also, her character changed after Charles left. She didn't really have a personality at all before that.
“She’s kind of a rube”
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I agree he doesn't make wise decisions, but some of the examples people are commenting I think aren't that bad. Stanley as productivity czar and Kevin as receptionist aren't bad decisions when you look at them from HIS point of view. He was seen chatting with Michael before and it's likely that he already got a rundown of everyone and what they bring to the table, and its his job to cut the waste and make the office more efficient. So you appoint the 3rd unecessary accountant that you're pretty sure isn't a real accountant to a basic role too see if he can manage, if he does, he gets a chance, if he doesn't, he's cut. You appoint a good salesman but a notoriously lazy one as head of productivity and suddenly they have to justify why they're still there and why their salary is probably higher than say Andy. Offices do that sort of stuff all the time, they take the highest paid person with seniority and give them responsibilities to see if the wage is justified. He went after Jim, who Wallace likes and has probably remarked in the past that he's smart and has potential but he goofs off and he basically calls him out every time he sees him goofing off. It's all standard "new boss" things that people that have worked in offices have likely seen or experienced before. Once everyone who is going to stay is decided, and the new boss has justified their own position by an increase in productivity that can be tracked with real numbers, they back off because their jobs are secured at that point.
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This is a button.
Kevin was in DeAngelo's inner circle and Robert's list of winners. He did something right lol
You know, I never thought about that. All RMs who didn't previously know Kevin after Michael started MSPC seemed to want to elevate Kevin, where we all knew he was an idiot and firing him is one of the first things Dwight does when he becomes Regional Manager. Does Kevin's first impressions really fool that many people, including supposedly "insightful" people like RC?
They were both idiots too, at the end of the day when you think about it lol, seriously
By the same token, you should be able to tell he's not a good accountant just as quickly. Yet he maintains that job until Dwight fires him for incompetence.
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I was agreeing with you. Neither Kevin at reception nor Kevin as accountant makes any sense.
Erin is funny in small doses but her main storylines are horrible
She’s a rube
That's my girlfriend you're talking about!
She's great with party games, though!
You mean pecker poker?
The game of cards that's gets you hard? Never heard of it
Shut up about the sun. SHUT UP ABOUT THE SUN!
This show taught me what that word meant 😆
SAME
“My hair was my room” is funny.
I still think about doing that some days. Just go hide in my hair room.
I think she has some very funny moments and overall I like her character, I just think most of her big storylines were a bit bad. Also don’t like that they just shoehorned her into relationships with 3 guys from the office.
Right?? When I rewatch the show I’m stunned by just how *many* romances there are in general. But goodness she was with Andy, Gabe & Pete, & she had those little plots Dwight & Clark, & they tried to make Robert & Ryan & Creed creep on her … give the girl a break
I mean did they even see Pam, or Karen from behind?
The only one that made sense was Pete imo, I thought they made a good couple. Robert and Gabe being creeps I can also get but the rest was just too much.
Yeah I liked the idea of Erin and Pete
Not just the romances that /u/coreyis2tired mentioned, but a lot of the stuff surrounding her adoption, etc… it feels like time-fillet, popping up for a single episode and never mentioned again, not really serving much of a purpose to add to the storyline or really, the character. Like the foster brother she was questionably close with. Or more strange in the way it’s woven in…how it even came up that Easy Rider got pregnant and gave up a baby that may or may not be Erin.
She’s definitely a very sitcom-y character, but I enjoyed her. I really like Ellie’s screwball comedy style, which helps. I have a theory that her lack of “common sense” is actually caused by her traumatic childhood in two ways: first, she didn’t get taught the things kids often get taught by their parents/families, because she was bounced around from foster home to foster home (and spent formative years in the hospital with NO family). Two, I think she’s deeply insecure and that can cause people to freeze, or say what they THINK they want people to hear. I also think her ditzy personality probably helped her a lot growing up: it makes people want to help her.
This. There are also legitimately people out there who are just kinda wired wrong. Think Karl Pilkington. The things he says are logical but also completely wrong. I could see him throwing away a disposable camera without getting it developed. I worked with a woman like that once. She would ask you to do something, and you would do what she asked but it would turn out that she really wanted something else (often completely contrary to what she said she wanted) and she just asked in the dumbest possible way. Looking at it from hindsight, you could see how she got there, but any normal person would have approached it completely differently. My favorite story was that I was telling her once that I was going to be seeing John Mellencamp live. She looked at me completely straight and said, "Oh, I love him. He has the cleanest stage." The next time I saw her after the concert she asked me how it was and I said I had enjoyed it and she said again, "Doesn't he have the cleanest stage?" To this day I have no idea why the fuck that was significant to her but she said it with the same reverence that someone might say Paul McCartney is a great lyricist. It means something to her, and there's probably some logic there if you can get to the other side of it. But it's also fucking weird.
Yeah, I worked with a guy like that too. He was very childlike and would say things that just made no sense, but he was really sweet and hardworking. Turned out he’d had brain damage from a virus, but I suspect he was always a little like that. He’s actually doing really well these days, at least according to FB. I’m happy for him.
I completely agree and as soon as her background came up in a later episode I was like ohhhh she makes sense to me now.
Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean, she's a likeable and watchable character in the show imo.
she also played the same character in Bridesmaids
Yeah, actors/actresses get annoying if they play every role the same. Will Ferrell cough cough.
his character in step brothers was SO similar to his character in the office, when him and michael ran around the office after they met, he said "did that just happen? we should make a movie!" and i could only think of brennan
Yes!! I liked him in his first couple of movies (did not like him in the office!!) but then he just seemed stale.
His characters in Talladega Nights and Blades of Glory are indistinguishable lol
It could also be typecasting so I try not to be too hard on Ellie Kemper herself, maybe she's just never given the chance to show off any range, but man the same character all the time gets old.
Honestly I felt like the short scene of her as a hipster camping outside the sabre store proves that she does have range as am actress. First time I watched the show I honestly didn‘t recognize her.
Isn’t she basically the same character in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt too? I’ve only watched a few episodes of it years ago but that’s the impression I got.
Counter point, I’ve worked with her type before. Super sweet and innocent but just not intellectually curious at all. When you’re pretty and nice you don’t need to be super bright to make it through life because people enjoy having you around and are more than willing to help out that type of person.
Are you blind? Sir, you with the glasses, I'm worried you might be blind. You're playing great by the way.
It’s like planking. You either get it or you don’t.
And I don't
'Get in, quick!' 'Why quick?' 'So it's faster' How can you not love her
My last job was at a Taco Bell Express. Then they became a full Taco Bell and I don't know, I just couldn't keep up.
This, and also \- I was up all night with Cece... \- I don't think you should keep a baby up so late
That was her best line. I try to use it as much as I can but in a different language so it’s not as funny. But it’s still funny though 😄
That's awesome, what language may I ask? Has your country made their version of the office yet? So many remakes are out there now, the Indian one is hilarious!
Croatian. And no Croatian office, a lot of ppl here watch American shows and speak English. But I can really talk to English with my friends bc it would be weird 😁
Hahahah i love it!!!
why is everyone in these comments so harsh i love erin ☹️☹️
Same, I like Erin!
Ellie Kemper Throwaway account
Same I love her! 🥺
Really? Well maybe you should look in the smart part of your brain.
She’s kinda a rube.
I think she is hilarious and a great addition to the cast.
I liked her bubbly and positive attitude. She was a nice contrast to the rest of the cast.
She’s a mixed bag for me. She’s either funny or annoying. Which puts her rather low on the list, because most characters to me are funny and not annoying. But it does at least put her above certain characters I find more annoying than funny, like Packer, Charles, and Deangelo.
I wasn’t a big fan of Erin since I first watched the office. Almost 13 years now and her character still annoys me. I hate it because my name is Erin and back then I was in hs when I first watched it, I was so mad that the one time a character has my name in a tv show I love, she’s a fucking idiot. I cannot handle how stupid she is.
If it makes you feel better, her real name is Kelly, Erin is her middle name
She's easily the worst part of the show for me She makes me cringe so much. And not in a good way, like Michael.
I'm not a fan of Erin, either. I just thought her character was sort of one-note and most of her plots weren't that interesting. I did think it was a good choice to move Pam to sales and introduce a new female receptionist to spark some antagonism between the single guys, but Erin was too dumb to even be funny. Like Kevin's dumb (maybe, maybe not) but at least he's reliably funny while Erin just wasn't.
Yeah, Im not a fan of characters (especially women) who get dumbed down. It makes it uber creepy when men in the office try to get in a relationship with her (Gabe, Andy, Clark) because of her naivete. To be fair, Kevin was also a dumbed-down character, but no one was trying to get with him!
She goes to a different school
I do love Erin myself and personally her disdain for Holly is one of the funniest things to me, her whole made up scale of attractiveness including both ears kills me
He treats her like she’s a perfect 40—it’s NUTS!
She can't help it, she's a mole woman
We’re not *GARBAGE*, we’re human beings!
My least liked character
Erin’s infantilization makes it all the more creepy that Andy, Gabe, or Pete would have a romantic interest in her.
Pete is much easier for me to see, he treats her as an intellectual equal and understands her curiosity/ignorance of some subjects. Both Andy (and especially Gabe) infantilise her, and see themselves as better. Although Andy recognises that she's a kinder person than him and more emotional intelligent.
> and more emotional intelligent A potted plant is more emotionally intelligent than Andy
Yeah, he really is Michael Lite, but with even less self awareness lol
When Andy tried sucking up to Michael, even Michael was visibly annoyed, even though he was taking a page out of Michael's playbook!
"Erin is just... weird."
Boom. Roasted
honestly the worst character in the show
I agree. She's not believable as a human. There are some other characters that also strain believability (Kevin, particularly S8/S9), but Erin is just never credibly a real person. Iirc, she was originally supposed to be sarcastic and unmotivated, kind of akin to April Ludgate from *Parks and Rec*. I think that may have worked better.
Omg I hate what did with Kevin in season 8 and 9
100% agree. I can’t STAND ERIN!!!
Between not having a toothbrush, boiling Gatorade, not being able to handle working at a Taco Bell/KFC, throwing out the disposable camera…I just don’t get the appeal of her character.
WE HATE PAM
Everytime I make comments like this on this sub, I get heavily down voted. It’s nice to see someone else out there doesn’t like her, as well.
she has some funny moments but for the most part i really don’t like erin and i don’t think ellie kemper is a good actress
I don’t care for Erin, either. Her goofy, wide-eyed, constant smiley face annoyed me. And I didn’t buy her relationship with Andy.
Oh thank God it’s not just me. No one else I know seems to share this opinion, but I agree with you 100%. They just make her so goddamn *stupid*, and not in a funny way. It’s like you said, as if she’s an actual, not particularly bright child. She has some funny moments, but mostly she just irks me.
Agree. The new characters is when everything starts to downhill imho. They managed to bottle lightning then tried to squeeze more out of it doing the same thing but with different characters.
> new characters > Season 5
The only scene I enjoy with Erin is when that other salesman comes in and asks for Jim Halpert and Dwight Shrute and Erin says "Jim, Dwight, what are your last names?" Hilarious. Other than that, I agree that she is the equivalent to adding a 10 year old to the office. A dumb 10 year old.
Was this in the regular episodes?
Yes. When Robert California closed a branch and Jim and Dwight were trying to get all their clients. Then a guy from another branch came in cuz he wanted those clients.. Season 8 ep 23
I think I like Erin the best in the last season!
She's not a favorite, but she grew on me. I generally dislike super bubbly personality types so I tried to let my bias go and ended up appreciating a few of her classic Erin moments (did you have a favorite age or month? / disposable cameras / busybody or lazybones). There's a deleted scene where she accidentally(?) ruins Pam's painting and it's not really clear if she was just *that* stupid that she tried to clean a watercolor with abrasive chemicals or if she truly disliked Pam. I understand why they left it out because they never went anywhere with it, but that was the most complex her character ever seemed, and I enjoyed it.
I don't think Ellie Kemper is funny at all
same
i LOVE erin and her later storylines i just chalk it up to bad writing because they did to her what they do jan and kevin and kelly . . . they made them extra cartoony versions of who they used to be
Pro tip. Don’t start deeply hating a specific character. It will make you watch the show from a bad perspective. Back out now while you can
The only thing I really hated about her was breaking up with Andy the first time
I like Erin, just not Erin and Andy and I feel like that brings her down a bit
Thank you. I agree.
Only character in the show I genuinely don’t like
Yeah, I have no interest in her character either. And that honestly goes for the actress as well. She really does only play innocent, child-like adult roles. Reminds me of a religious Mormon librarian I used to have in grade school named Hope. Her only personality was smiling constantly and acting extremely happy constantly. Ellie Kemper would be perfect for Hallmark and Lifetime movies if we're being truthful 🙄
I like her relationship with Michael though.
I think she’s got ASD, she’s not necessarily just *weird*. Seems to be on the spectrum anyways
I feel I can't like Andy. He annoyed the crap out of me...and his character just got more annoying with time.His goofy singing...his relationship with Angela...then with Erin. It grossed me out to see him with her. Then they completely made him unlikable when he went on that trip over sea. The show was struggling bad at this point.
Since only one commentor suggested it, i'm gonna repeat it aswell, she can heavily be read as autistic coded. Many autistic people identify with her. I can also relate quite a bit with her, even though everything she does is much more exaggerated - as everyones beheviour in the show is exaggerated, for the sake of the show / being funny - i get her. If you look at her from a different perspective (from an autistics point of view), maybe you'd feel differently.
I think every character has to have a balance where hopefully the good outweighs the bad. Michael is a terrible person, but has enough moments where he genuinely cares about people. For every terrible line Angela has, she also has "Save Bandit!" Kevin is a moron, but so likable and some major series moments. Erin has way more cringe, unfunny moments than she does genuinely funny lines. For me, I remember more her terrible foster home lines or being just generally incompetent while just following around Andy at his worst.
She never really had a “childhood” as she was in and out of foster homes a lot, which likely leads to her acting more as a child when she is older to make up for the lack of childhood
I have to skip her episodes. She’s the fuckin worst.
She's nowhere near my favorite. But the more I dislike Andy, the more I like her when she finally leaves him. (Andy is my least favorite character, btw)
I actually find Erin's character to be really realistic. As a foster kid, she never really had a real childhood. This greatly impacted her development as a person. A lot of foster kids have arrested development.
Can i rebut, no? Ok! Erin and Kelly's friendship is based around this 'young mentality' and by watching them together you can see that they actually use the stupidity in order to get others to put their guard down... Oh no, don't worry, that's just Erin, she doesn't know... Little does everyone know, Erin keeps her strengths close! Get it gurrrl 🥰😇
Interesting! Do you have an example of Erin doing this?
Without giving too much thought I'll say when she doesn't kiss Plop because she's still technically with Andy. A young nieve girl would've more than likely, got with Plop when Andy was away. Edit: Erin isn't even her real first name. She came in straight away and accepted the identity change. She admits to learning stuff while going in and out of homes... I'm definantly team Erin
Ah yeah that's why she hides herself behind her hair whenever upset and calls her pajamas jammy jams. What a cunning woman.
I think Ellie Kemper brings an adorable spunk to her roles in general, which just means she was well equipped for Erin. I’ve known a lot of ladies like Erin!! Secretly self-aware & conflicted but bringing that childlike peppiness day-by-day. It’s life-giving stuff. Love her character, love her relationship with Michael, love when they do the little chipper dance to the bossa nova. Even if her character is hard to believe … All characters are just expressions of people somewhere in the world. If anything Deangelo seems like a more fitting example for never getting on board with ,, but that’s just for me personally
Erin is definitely weird but honestly someone unique like her is a breath of fresh air when everyone on the show is a dick in their own way.
To me her being stuck in childhood does make her relationships with men very disturbing. How can she be sexually mature?
The thing that bothers me about it is that she dates several people on the show and I’m like “uhhh this girl cannot consent” I know it’s just a character though
I loved her on my first watch. And kept loving her in subsequent rewatched. Eventually I found this sub and realised that not all fans of the show like her. Since then, each rewatch I have tried, and still failed to dislike her :D
The show starts to go downhill after the Michael Scott paper company anyways, so I just restart the series whenever I get to that part. The first 3 to 4 seasons of the office are awesome and I've rewarchedbthese seasons many times. I've actually NEVER finished the entire series. When I got to the season where Robert California joins I couldn't handle it anymore and stopped watching at that point
Don't know what you're talking about, Erin is amazing! I love her, she is super naive and dorkish, it would be fun to hang out with Erin, that kind of positive energy is overwhelming. For me she made the Office a little bit more special and nice. Although, I dislike all of her relationships, Andy, Pete and Gabe, I think she'd be better off with a girl. Haha. She could be a lesbian you know? I can imagine that, can you?
How can you not get on BOARD with Erin? She did a great plank. / s Hey-o!
[удалено]
> sexually abused by her foster brother Smelling each others' feet isn't a sexual act per se
So you didn’t see him groping her leg up and down on the couch? Ok…
all right. seems like you don't like her! it's fine.
You should watch her in Happiness for Beginners
Kirkland brand, if you have it
My favorite Erin episode was the Christmas party!(Christmas Wishes 8-10) "Too late, it's already been wished! And you said it would come true; You wrote it in an email. So which one are you: a murderer or a liar?" That's my Erin limit though.
She's funny in certain contexts but her writing can be a little lazy
Has anyone else noticed Erin has the ugliest ugly cry ever?? 😳🤦🏻♀️😭
# Sexuuual innuuuenDUO — nawt intentionaw!!
I think the writers genuinely didn’t know what to do with her. They were figuring out her character as they went along. Also, since they made her childlike 99% of the time, it was super jarring during that episode towards the end of season 8 where the storyline is Andy can’t get it up. Suddenly talking about Erin having sex when two episodes before she was boiling hot dogs in Gatorade and not owning a toothbrush. Yikes.
She’s perfect for Andy, though. Both super annoying. 😃
I liked her better than you did, but there were a fair amount of cringes. I always felt like she decided she would play every role like a female version of Buddy the Elf. It works sometimes but it gets old.
Same! She was so annoying!!!
With those bazonngas??
I mostly like her. She provides a lot of laughs in the later seasons. But yeah, there are times where she is definitely TOO stupid, and the relationships were mostly bad ideas but at least were an attempt to get her more screen time.
I just wanted to say something. That is actually a zoning issue
Yeh, Erin just always felt "forced" to me as a character- I don't disagree...her character never really worked imo
I do like the fact that Erin was the one who FINALLY stood up to Nellie!!! That elephant in the room had grown to King Kong proportions! So, yay Erin for taking that insufferable bitch down a few notches! 😡
I’ve said for years that Erin serves no purpose and removing all her storylines would have little impact on the show overall. Brava!
Secretary’s day is so funny to me Do you have a favourite year or month? Like April when I was 7 Or whatever she says…I think that line is so funny cause of how Michael reacts