3 Solid Reasons ‘The Office’ Fans Are Throwing Major Shade at Pam and Jim’s Relationship
NBC’s The Office has become a mainstay of syndicated TV for years. One reason for the show’s continued success is the relationship between Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Pam Beesley (Jenna Fischer). But, some fans aren’t too keen on the beloved couple and they have a few solid reasons why.
‘The Office’ Casino Night kiss probably shouldn’t have happened for this reason
Many fans of The Office look to Jim and Pam as the pinnacle of a solid relationship. The will-they-won’t-they tension lasted for seasons but eventually paid off.
The debate over Jim and Pam‘s first kiss rages on. Some claim it technically happened during The Dundies at Chili’s when Pam drunkenly kissed Jim. Others say the first real kiss happened on Casino Night. That kiss, however, comes with a caveat.
In case you aren’t sure where the problem lies, The Bachelor contestant Demi Burnett opened the conversation about Jim.
“Has anyone ever actually met someone as equally perfect and wonderful as Jim from The Office???” she tweeted to her followers on July 29.
Some viewers agreed with Burnett. Others have a major issue with the character. A few said Jim pursued an engaged woman then “punished” her when she first rebuffed his advances on Casino Night.
The biggest wrinkle in the whole Jim-Pam dynamic stems from Jim telling Pam he loved her on Casino Night. Pam first told him “no” and that she was an engaged woman. Jim followed her to the office to kiss her again, which some say could be viewed as sexual harassment. Yikes.
Pam cheated on Roy with Jim twice
Another reason some fans of The Office aren’t rooting for Jim and Pam have to do with Pam’s choices.
As an engaged woman to Roy Anderson, Pam kissed Jim twice. Some have pointed this out in multiple Reddit threads where it’s discussed ad nauseum.
“Cheating isn’t just sex. She had been flirting with Jim for years. When Roy would walk in they would stop talking and act like they weren’t flirting. She was playing Roy,” one Redditor commented.
“Cheating doesn’t always happen just randomly or spontaneously. There’s often a build-up to it. In this case, it’s all the flirting Jim and Pam partake in. It’s not wrong if you’re in a relationship to have friends of the opposite sex, but it is suspect to be overly close with them to the point where you’re more comfortable around that friend than your fiancé. At that point you need to break up with your fiancé to be fair to them,” another added.
One fan theory suggests if Pam “cheated” on Roy, she could’ve cheated on Jim with the documentary boom mic operator, Brian (Chris Diamantopoulos).
This theory stems from when Brian comforted Pam after an argument with Jim in season 9. Some felt the connection between Pam and Brian felt a little too heavy, hinting that, while Jim worked in Philadelphia, Pam and Brian had an affair.
Executive producer Greg Daniels hinted that this theory might hold some truth.
“Pam and Jim have this incredible, intense bond that has developed over years and years of little workplace jokes and conversation, [and] the thing I think is so, like, disturbing, maybe, is the realization that there may have been another guy who was there in an invisible setting this entire time also participating in little jokes with them and killing enormous amounts of hours at work,” Daniels told Entertainment Weekly.
“Once you start opening the box of who’s working on [the documentary], you have to picture that when Pam does an interview, Brian is right there, right off-camera, holding a boom mic.”
Some fans theorize Jim cheated on Pam with Cathy
In other wild fan theories, some think Jim cheated on Pam and may have even confessed. On The Office finale during the Q&A, a “viewer” asked Pam why she no longer trusted Jim. He cut off Pam as she answered to explain editors may have shown him in a better light [than he deserved].
Fans think his response alluded to his bad behavior edited out of the final cut to preserve the Jim and Pam storyline. A few stated that footage of Jim’s time in Philadelphia is limited. This could be due to a secret affair — perhaps with season 8 temp Cathy Simms, who threw herself at Jim once before — that filmmakers chose not to film.
“Jim’s also a guy who was spent years pursuing an engaged woman while he was dating other people. He does seem a bit inconsiderate with women; when he dated Katy he was pretty dismissive of her and then dumped her unceremoniously,” one fan stated.
“He was the same with Karen, too: He led her on when he knew she was only rebound material to him, even getting her to move to another state.”
We’ll never know what might’ve gone on off-camera. However, these theories suggest that even a “perfect” couple like Jim and Pam have problems behind closed doors.
