If you’ve been using The Office to lull yourself to sleep, or to relax during a stressful day, or are just on your 12th series rewatch of the quarantine, you already know the beloved NBC sitcom left Netflix as of midnight last night and made its home at NBC’s Peacock. To get you amped for the move, as opposed to rueful you have to invest in a new streaming service, the network posted a never-before-seen cold open from the show’s ninth and final season on Friday.
In the opener, a classic prank, Jim and Pam convince Dwight that he isn’t just Dunder Mifflin’s regional manager (finally), but has also been chosen to become a Neo-like savior to rescue the world from, you guessed it, the Matrix. Not that Dwight’s immediately onboard. “But The Matrix isn’t real,” he muses about the Wachowski sisters’ sci-fi action franchise. “It’s a trilogy of flawless, life-changing films, and an online game.”
Luckily, Hank the Security Guard, played by the show’s late co-star Hugh Dane, is ready to don a leather coat and offer Dwight his choice of pills as Morpheus’s heretofore unmentioned brother … Dorpheus. Which pill will Dwight pick? And what, exactly, are they made of? Shouts Hank, “If the blue pill’s not safe to swallow, someone should tell us now!”
