The Big Picture
Jim Halpert isn’t always the innocent sweetheart – he can be a selfish jerk.
Jim relentlessly teases Dwight & Andy, crossing the line and being a bully.
Jim’s pursuit of Pam while she was with Roy is one example of Jim’s selfish behavior.
Let’s get this out of the way now: The Office is one of the best sitcoms (if not the best) of the early 2000s. John Krasinski’s Jim Halpert is also one of The Office’s most likable characters, and you can’t help but root for Jim and Pam (Jenna Fischer) to make it. That being said, Jim isn’t always the innocent sweetheart we like to say that he is. If you think about it, he can be a bit of a selfish jerk.
Heck, even saying thinking that is an invitation for The Office fans to rip you apart, not unlike what Dwight (Rainn Wilson) did to that CPR dummy. Sure, compared to all the others he works with, like Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Dwight, Angela (Angela Kinsey), and pretty much everyone else, Jim is the “normal” one that the audience can relate to. When he looks into the camera and gives us wide eyes or shrugs his shoulders, he is often expressing what we at home were, too. But because of all this, Jim looks even worse whenever he does wrong, and sadly, he does a lot of wrong in the nine seasons of The Office.
The Office
A mockumentary on a group of typical office workers, where the workday consists of ego clashes, inappropriate behavior, and tedium.
Release Date March 24, 2005
Cast Steve Carell , Rainn Wilson , John Krasinski , Jenna Fischer , Mindy Kaling , Craig Robinson , B.J. Novak , Creed Bratton , Angela Kinsey , Oscar Nunez , Ellie Kemper , Ed Helms
Main Genre Sitcom
Seasons 9
Jim Halpert Teases Dwight and Andy Too Much on ‘The Office’
If Jim and Pam were the couple everyone was rooting for on The Office, then Jim and Dwight were the enemies we loved to laugh at. While Dwight is just redeemable enough for fans to like him, he is also a pretty awful person. He lives in his own world of self-importance, thinking he is smarter and better than everyone else. He is a suck-up to Michael, making him explode at times, but whenever Dwight does have a chance to shine, he usually fails. Regardless, Jim pranks him relentlessly, from that first prank of putting Dwight’s stapler in Jello, to dressing up and acting exactly like him. Jim even went so far as to use Morse code to trick Dwight into thinking there was a bomb in the office, or slamming his brakes to make Dwight hit his head in the backseat.
Jim gets away with it because he is portrayed as the “nice guy” harmlessly fighting back against the mean bully, but in actuality, it was Jim who was the bully. Dwight would do something to annoy him, and in response, Jim would prank him, often to an extreme level. For a sitcom, it’s hilarious, but in real life it would be seen as needlessly cruel. It’s obvious Dwight has issues and insecurities, but Jim keeps exposing them and pushing Dwight further away from the path of sanity. The best way to handle Dwight would have been to simply ignore him. That doesn’t work for a sitcom, but Jim’s response as a result is what makes him the real jerk. And if that’s not bad enough, he often gets Pam to help him. He enjoys belittling Dwight so much that he wants to share it, despite the fact that Dwight respects Pam.
When Jim begins working with Andy (Ed Helms), Jim seems all too happy to begin pranking him as well. This started after Jim transferred out of Dunder Mifflin Scranton. Dwight’s not there anymore, but with Andy (someone more gregarious, but just as frustrating as Dwight), Jim is far too eager to terrorize him too, and to get his new friend Karen (Rashida Jones) to join him. When Dunder Mifflin’s Stamford branch closes, Jim returns to his old stomping grounds and Andy is forced to get acclimated to his new office environment. In what had to have been a scary transition, Jim takes his pranks too far by hiding Andy’s phone in the ceiling and refusing to give it back, no matter how much Andy begins to fall apart and beg. It leads to Andy snapping and punching a hole in the wall, resulting in him being forced away for a while for anger management. This is all Jim’s fault.
Jim Pursues Pam on ‘The Office’ When She’s Still With Roy
Image via NBC
The will-they-won’t-they of Jim and Pam is charming and one of the main reasons why they are one of TV’s best, most timeless couples. The two have great chemistry and thankfully get together in the end, but how they got there isn’t exactly ideal. In the early episodes of The Office, Jim pines for Pam. He’s madly in love and she doesn’t even know it. There’s nothing Jim can do about it though, as she’s engaged to another man named Roy (David Denman). Yes, Roy is absolutely awful, a self-centered jerk who treats Pam horribly, but who she puts up with because she has no self-confidence. We want Pam and Roy to break up, and we want Pam to be with Jim, who respects her and is fascinated by everything about her.
When Jim confesses his love for Pam in Season 2, there’s nothing wrong with that. He does it in private, and he’s not mean and pushy about it. It’s something he has to get off his chest because he can’t go the rest of his life not saying it. It’s a beautiful moment, but also a heartbreaking one when Pam rejects him. So what does Jim do? He waits a few minutes, then finds Pam, walks right up to her, and kisses her passionately on the lips. She’s an engaged woman who just shot him down, and he ignores it, kissing her without consent. Yes, Pam kissed him back, but to kiss a woman who just rejected him is further proof of how Jim only cares about his own feelings.
When Roy finds out about it and tries to attack Jim at the office, we’re supposed to feel sorry for Jim and hate Roy, but in a way, it should be the other way around. We feel no sympathy for Roy because he’s not a good person, but how many normal men would respond with anger if they found out another man just kissed their partner? It’s an understandable response many would have. When Pam breaks up with Roy, we’re happy for her, but it’s a decision she should have come to on her own, and not because she’s confused by someone. She breaks up with Roy over another man, and not the blooming of her own self-confidence.
Karen Filippelli Doesn’t Deserve Jim’s Bad Behavior
Pam does acquire some self-confidence soon after. She doesn’t leave Roy for Jim, but instead decides to be on her own. It’s a smart move, but instead of Jim accepting that and being understanding, he instead transfers out of Scranton. He’s unable to face his pain and work to earn Pam’s trust, so he bails on her, leaving his heartbroken and lonely best friend behind. When Jim transfers to the Stamford branch of Dunder Mifflin, he meets Karen Filippelli. Karen is no “Karen,” a mean woman who will only make us pine for Jim and Pam to be together even more, but a kind and good soul. She’s happy and funny, and quickly falls for Jim. She’s good to him, but Jim never fully gives his all to her because he’s still in love with Pam. (Let’s also not forget the way he treated Amy Adams’ character on the show, either.)
We know Karen is his way to get over Pam. In that way, he is using her while she’s genuinely falling in love. She loves Jim so much that when Stamford closes, she moves to Scranton to be with Jim. For that bold act of selfless love, she only gets treated disrespectfully. Jim becomes more awkward, begins pulling away, and Karen has to find out from someone else that he still loves Pam. If that’s not bad enough, now Karen has to work with Pam. Like Andy, she moved away to start a new life, and this guy is making it horrible. When Jim and Karen go to a job interview in New York, only for Jim to bail out and drive back home to ask Pam out hours after he broke up with Karen, it’s unforgivable. It’s a heartless move that takes away from the big moment on The Office we waited so long to see come true.
The list of Jim Halpert awfulness is a long one. He buys a house without even including Pam in the decision, and in Season 9 of The Office begins working in Philadelphia, meaning he’s gone a lot, out living his dreams, while Pam is stuck at home with their two young children. He’s not even great to his own boss. When he finds Michael’s screenplay, Threat Level Midnight, in Season 2, he prints it up, so everyone can read it and make fun of it. When Michael gets bullied during the Dundee Awards at the local Chili’s, he does nothing to stop it. If it doesn’t affect him, his interest is minimal. All those traits, though, are also what makes him such a great character. He’s not just the boring, romantic, “nice guy” trope. That would wear thin quickly. Jim Halpert is a three-dimensional person, one who aims to be good, and one who also thinks about himself first and makes mistakes because of it. That sucks, but we wouldn’t want him any other way.
The Office is available to watch on Peacock in the U.S.
Watch on Peacock