Season 2, Episode 1, Part 2: "I'm David's Boss"

Enter Neil. Ah, this is going to be great. The camera follows David walking down the hallway - just like in "The Verdict" - and David turns around grinning: "Oo! It's all go!" He's obviously nervous and embarrassed to meet the man who took the job he so nearly got. Neil is standing there with his briefcase and a brown leather coat. He's younger, taller, thinner, more handsome and much more professional than David. Dawn introduces the guys. David takes his hand way too chipperly and says his name: "Neil Godwyn!" He turns to the camera so that he doesn't have to face Neil, and tells the viewers: "Neil is Jennifer's replacement, he's sort of overseeing..." "David's boss," interjects Neil with a smile that suggests he's trying to lighten up the situation. Sadly, he hit a nerve there. "Just a tiny, little bit above me," says David. "UK manager," says Neil, and David smiles at the camera in a forced way. Neil explains that he had the same job David has, but now his branch was closed and the employees are coming to Slough - David keeps making gestures while he talks, moving his arms back and forth, as if he's pulling the employees to him. "So I'm essentially David's boss," Neil says and adds a little joke: "Looking after him." He looks at David with a little smile, but it fades when David, who is still not facing Neil, says: "Looking after is the wrong term... to use, cos we're both very... good to meet you though." As if he's remembering his manners - if he ever had them - David turns to shake Neil's hand again. Dawn stares at him like she doesn't fully understand his behaviour.

Neil says they have met before, "Ipswich conference?" "Oh God," says David and covers his face. Then he turns to the camera for more comedy stylings: "I was liiiittle bit drunk!" I'm not sure who he's imitating, but I am sure it's not a good imitation. "Most of the week as well," says Neil. He smiles a bit and David sees that as a sign that his joke was brilliant, so he starts giggling more. "Doesn't sound like me, does it, Dawn?" he says and points at Dawn as if she was laughing. Dawn gives a cute little smirk, which turns into a mouth-twist and eyeroll when David looks away. He looks back just in time to see it though. "Come into my boudoir," he says to Neil. "Oh," he says in a 'gay' tone and makes a 'gay' hand gesture. "No..." Dawn looks after Neil with some pity as they walk away and David asks if Jennifer is there yet. Dawn is wearing a cute dragonfly necklace.

Neil says Jennifer is coming later, as they walk up to the coat rack. David stops him and points at a grey stuffed monkey wearing a shirt that says "SIDEKICK". He grins and stares at the camera, still pointing at the toy. Neil looks at the camera and back at David all, "Eh?" It's cute how he clearly doesn't get the 'joke' and isn't sure what David is expecting of him. "MONKEY!!" says David in a really inane tone. Yeah, that clears it all up! Neil doesn't even pretend to laugh, giving David another reason to hate him. "Just an example of the laughs we have here," says David. Yeah, a good example at that, because it was not funny and you were the only one who laughed. David leads Neil into his office.

We cut to a David interview, where he tells us these are "potentially traumatic times, but they are exciting times." Tim already described it as exciting, but 'traumatic'? I think the trauma already happened to those who got fired. He's looking pretty bad - I don't know what they do with Gervais' skin to make it look so saggy and his eyes so tired, but it really works. He looks like he's got the flu, but I suspect it was just a few drinks at Chasers the night before to get him ready for these traumatic times. David mentions it's only two weeks ago that he told everyone he "decided to stay after all", which had absolutely nothing to do with his bad results in the medical; "and you saw how relieved they all were at that". Yeah, because they got to keep their jobs, not because they got to keep you. David admits, however, that there has been "a personnel change of 25 per cent." So one fourth of the employees got the boot? That's harsh. "People coming and going," David adds, and I guess he means the Swindon lot, because he wouldn't be hiring any new secretaries in this situation, right?

"Redundancies. Some voluntary, some involuntary, which is always hard." Were any of them really voluntary? The only ones that wanted to leave were Dawn and Tim, and they're both still there. "I had to let my PA go. Last in, first out, which, you know, was really sad. That was upsetting." He's talking in a sad voice, probably thinking of all the sex he lost with her. And you know, if you hire someone to do an unnecessary job when you're supposed to be firing existing employees, you shouldn't be too upset about having to let her go once you finally get the balls to tell your boss about it. I wonder how Jennifer took it. "Um... I'm coping. I rolled with the punch! And it turns out that Dawn can do a lot of it anyway, so..." Right, but not everything, because she's engaged. I'm glad he's so good at coping with this tragedy, which is his and not Karen's, who was fired only a few weeks after getting the job. I hope she got really good references, at least.

David's office. Neil and David sit down. David now has a laptop on his desk, as well as his regular computer. The laptop is open, probably Tetris or Solitaire running there. I really can't imagine David doing anything work-related, other than showing up or giving meetings to "entertain" the employees. Neil takes some papers out of his briefcase. The Inside Paper magazine is still lying on the table. "Oh, is that in your way?" asks David in a very obvious attempt to direct the attention to it. Then he takes the paper and puts on the same show as before: "Ah, God, look at that. Stupid. Get UK Manager of the Month, Inside Paper, and pull a daft face. Typical." Neil remarks that David looks younger in the picture. "Photogenic, sort of natural," says David. "It's 18 months old," Neil says after a more careful inspection. So David was trying to impress him with the fact that he was UK Manager of the Month in this trade magazine one and a half years ago? And he's aged so much in that time that you can tell from a photo? Well, that kind of backfired.

David claims that he took it out just to throw it out. Even that doesn't cut it, because 18 months of keeping it in the office? At least take it home and put it in your scrapbook or something. "Definitely," he says to emphasize how much he wants to throw it out, and as usual, it makes the lie sound even less convincing. "Theere," he says and rolls over to the waste paper basket on his chair. He carefully places the magazine on top of the basket, so that it's easy to pick up again after Neil has left. He sits down and starts to look at the papers Neil brought, but he's still not thru with the idea of the magazine: "Inside Paper. Inside the paper bin now. Recycle that. It's... it's a shame cos..." Cos it's the only magazine that ever printed your picture? The camera moves to Neil, who is waiting for them to get down to business. David's voice trails off, and that's when we cut off. And that is awesome, because I doubt he continued that sentence.

Tim and Gareth. Gareth looks at Tim, then opens the policeman-shaped cookie jar and takes out a biscuit. The jar gives a stilted-sounding automatic message: "Stop! Move away from the cookie jar!" Gareth looks at Tim expecting for him to laugh, but Tim just stops and looks at him like "You've got to be kidding me." Will Gareth ever learn that Tim doesn't find him funny or interesting or anything? David walks in and Gareth offers him a biscuit to show off the talking jar. As the policeman repeats the tired line, Tim rubs his temples as if he has a headache. "Good," says David and chuckles. He glances at Tim. Whenever he laughs at someone else's joke, it seems like he's faking it. But it even seems that way when he's laughing at his own jokes, so maybe his basic laughter just sounds like a fake one.

David shows them some notes he's carrying and mentions they will have a little welcome party for the Swindon people at lunch time and he will give a speech, "so no heckling!" He's already talking about it like it's a standup comedy act. Well, at least if there is heckling, he can go to the hecklers' workplace and heckle them. David leans on the wall, which makes his gut sag more, and I notice he's put on some weight since last season. I wonder if it's a conscious choice, because he gained weight for the Christmas special again and then Gervais looked smaller as Andy Milman. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it somehow seems fitting for Brent. He's wearing a purple shirt for a change - business-like, but more interesting than his usual white ones.

Gareth has a joke for David. "I don't usually do jokes, but go on," David says. Right, he doesn't do jokes. Just poor imitations and puns. Gareth's sad joke is as follows: "It's Christmas dinner, royal family having a Christmas dinner. Camilla Parker Bowles goes, 'OK we'll play 20 questions. I'll think of something, you have to ask me questions, guess what it is'. So what she's thinking of is a black man's cock." I'm sure you're not supposed to give away the punchline at this point, and that's only one of the problems with Gareth's joke telling technique. If you have a longish joke with an introduction, you need to know how to structure it to keep it interesting. He starts with the least important tidbit, "it's Christmas dinner". He talks a bit too slowly and the 20 questions explanation sounds a bit redundant. And now he gave away the punchline, and I'm not laughing. David, of course, is laughing. Hey, it's a dirty joke! Hilarious! No matter what the content is! David says: "Oo! Just Camilla! -Not racist, is it?" "No, it's not," says Gareth. "No," says David. Tim looks at the camera briefly. If you have to ask if it's racist, it usually is racist. Jennifer will explain later why exactly, so I won't bother.

"So Prince Philip goes, 'Is it bigger than the bread bin?' She goes, 'Yeah.' Prince Charles goes, 'Is it something I can put in my mouth?'" At this point, David gives a very juvenile little giggle. Hee, a reference to oral sex! Brilliant! "She goes, 'Yeah.' The Queen goes, 'Is it a black man's cock?' " I can't think of a more offensive joke offhand. David doesn't even get it right away, he looks at Gareth waiting for something more, and then he bursts out laughing and says, "She's guessed it from those clues!" "Straight away," says Gareth. Right. But it would have been funnier if you had saved the punchline till the end. Actually, it still wouldn't have been funny, it was lame and juvenile. Tim just looks really tired. Gareth probably told him the joke before, and then told it to Oggy over the phone, with pig impersonations. David, of course, acts like the joke is the most brilliant thing he's ever heard. "Oh god.. That's the sort of thing I write! Well, I mean, you didn't write it, you just told it, but you know, well done..." Yeah, a great rendition there. He should buy the rights. "So do it again," he says and points at the jar. Gareth lifts the lid of the jar and the tape speaks the same tired line. David laughs some more. "Ahh. Look forward to this," he says and shows his notes again. We sure do, David. He's still giggling as he goes. Is he really just so nervous about the speech and the Swindon people? I remember this girl in my study group who couldn't stop laughing when she was nervous. It was like, "Um, Mr Morton, could you, hee hee, tell me why you marked an error here, hee hee? I don't see the problem...haha!" It was really disturbing.

The new people come in. Men shaking other men's hands and women shaking other women's hands, already forming suitable social circles: the girls and the boys. David voice-overs: "Big day today. The Swindon mob are arriving." Wheelchair-bound Brenda comes in, and while the women seem to give her a warm welcome, Gareth looks really disturbed. His facial expression is confused, then embarrassed. He looks down. "I've laid down a little do for them, part of the job," David voice-overs. People are talking and greeting each other, and David seems to be trying to talk to someone but getting a bit left out on the side, while Neil gets more attention. "If you're asking me what type of vibe I'm gonna lay down, it's gonna be very much just a chill out - let's get to know each other - type of vibe". We see David talking briefly, and he twists his mouth at "type", as if he's going to say or do something funny, but you never know with David. Maybe that was a joke? Back in the meet and greet, Jennifer comes in and kisses Neil on both cheeks. "Oh, kiss everyone," says David. "Means less." As if he's jealous that Jennifer kissed Neil's cheeks too! What did he expect? David voice overs that Jennifer's "coming back just to oversee the transition... very much holding Neil's hand. Daunting for him, sure." They briefly show him again, and he's shaking his head as he says "holding Neil's hand". Yeah, he seems really intimidated by the momentous task of having a meet and greet. David is trying to show from the start that Neil isn't half the man he is and can't handle the job as well as he could have. I really can't imagine David in Neil's role. He'd probably come by only to entertain. And everyone would hate him because he sold them out.

Neil is talking to a small selection of David's employees and his own, and David is standing on the outskirts of that group. The group laughs just when Dawn pours wine into David's glass and he decides to get some attention with it: "Oh no, Dawn! You know I don't drink!" He gets no attention whatsoever, so he tells them the joke again. It's gone, David, let it go. The anonymous female employee, who knows her, chuckles politely, but one of the Swindon guys asks: "Do you not drink?" David bursts into laughter and taps the shoulder of the dark-haired male employee from before, who's talking to someone else. So rude! "He says do I not drink!" David says and laughs. "Yeah, he drinks," the guy says calmly and just turns back to his conversation. He seems to be used to David's interruptions and "jokes". David is still giggling, but Neil's group has already started talking about something else. A little tip for you, David: Try to talk about something other than yourself for a change. It might feel a bit more welcoming to the new people if you showed interest in them. "Just a little bit," David adds even if no one is listening. I feel sorry for him in this scene, even if he's acting like an idiot. He seems like one of those shy guys who mask their feeling of insecurity under idiotic jokes, and when no one laughs, they get even more self-conscious, tell more bad jokes, laugh more... It's just a vicious cycle. It's even more embarrassing for David because the cameras are there.

Meeting room. Brenda, Keith, Gareth, Sheila and some others are already sitting there, and people are starting to come in. Get ready for the humiliation scene of a lifetime. It's not the most humiliating scene on the show for David, but it's pretty bad. I feel bad for him in advance. The camera moves to the door of the meeting room, where David is patting the employees on the shoulder as they walk in. "Hi! Take a chair, not literally..." he says and chuckles. Not literally? How can you even do that literally? Steal a chair? Ehh. Rachel walks in and David says, "Ladies first!" and laughs. That's not even a pun, just a cliché. It shows he would laugh at anything he says at this point. It's just a reflex. Neil stays at the door to talk to David: "Put the chairs out yourself?" "Yes, it's worth the effort," he says. I have a feeling Dawn put them up, as usual. "You're gonna say a few words, right?" David says, and his voice is still full of laughter. David, now would be a good time to stop grinning and laughing, lest the new people start thinking you're a lunatic. Neil says he'll just speak briefly. "Don't be nervous, just keep it short, bring me on, enjoy the show," says David, still laughing. That's so condescending, as if Neil has terrible stage fright. I also think it shows he's nervous. Neil looks a bit taken aback, but then just smiles a bit amused and says, "OK." They walk into the room and David tries to walk funnily as he walks behind Neil. He is so nervous about the speech.

David interview. He talks weirdly, emphasizing words too much: "Some people ARE intimidated WHEN talking to large numbers of people IN an entertaining way. Not me. You know, I've had experience." Sure, not nervous at all. I wonder why he's over-emphasizing - to keep track of his own sentence? To remember everything he was going to say? It's just one of those overly formal David sentences. And this isn't exactly large numbers of people. There are like 20 employees in that meeting room. David starts telling a "you had to be there" kind of story about a Coventry conference where they "put on a little revue - I was the main thing and I did impressions of the conference coordinator, Eric Hitchmough." He was the main thing, and all he did was impressions? Wow, some revue. Why is he even telling us this story? It's bound to be unfunny to everyone who doesn't know Eric Hitchmough. And yeah, I get it, it's so we'll get his horrid speech, but the speech is really only a variation of the same thing - he doesn't know that some jokes basically only funny if you were there. Maybe it's just the only success he ever had at entertaining people, so he holds it up like a trophy whenever there's talk of public speaking.

Anyhoo, David tells us what Eric Hitchmough is like. "He talks like this... and he always says one thing: 'I don't agree with that in the workplace!' That's exactly... ask them." He almost bursts out laughing. Yeah, well, it's not a funny thing to say out of context, and his imitation voice is just the same one he always uses, a general "goofy voice". But it gets worse as he explains that he did Eric as different characters: "They'd say ladies and gentlemen, lieutenant Columbo, and I'd come out in a mac, and I'd say: 'One final thing, my wife loves you, but I don't agree with that in the workplace!'" Or he would do Basil Fawlty: "'I think I mentioned it once, but I got away with it, and I don't agree with that in a workplace!'" That is just bad, especially how his voice changes midway through the sentence from the "Basil Fawlty" voice to the "Eric Hitchmough" voice. And his Basil Fawlty voice sounds just like his David Brent voice, only more agitated.

I can see, however, how it would have been funny in the conference. There are two main reasons. 1: They were all drunk. 2: Eric Hitchmough was there, and everyone knew him, so the joke worked in that context and that context only. But even so, it's pretty repetitive. Probably wasn't funny the day after. Of course, there's always the possibility that David himself was so drunk that he thought everyone was laughing even if they weren't. I think David just took that experience to mean that he's universally funny every time he tells a similar joke, or even just a joke in general. He says everyone laughed, "and he loved it, because it was nothing vicious." He takes a moment so we can take that in. "Some 'comedians' would have picked on other stuff, you know, been more nasty." Sadly, I think he makes quotation marks to mock the other comedians, not to show that he knows he's not a real comedian. "Like he's got a little withered hand, like Jeremy Beadle? I didn't mention it. No need." David adjusts his tie smugly, obviously feeling like a great person for not mentioning the hand. I find it suspicious that he feels the need to mention that he didn't mention it, because that means he was thinking about it and wanted to joke about it, but controlled himself. To me, that doesn't speak of great tolerance and open-mindedness.