Guess Who's Coming To Thursday Night?

This evening "The Office" will air its hourloung season finale on NBC. Quite frankly, my interest in this formerly sound sitcom has been waning at an alarming rate. It's been a pretty brutal hit-and-miss affair this past season. I still watch it since it leads into the masterful "30 Rock". So why I am so darn excited for tonight's show?

This evening's episode will feature guest star Amy Ryan. For those keeping score at home, yes, it's the Amy Ryan. I've mentioned her once or twice. But since Cinema Romantico is a blog that enjoys overhyping and ceaslessly blathering about the things we love most I'll go ahead and reiterate that Ms. Ryan gave hands-down the best cinematic performance of 2007 in "Gone Baby Gone". (Note: My OCD hasn't kicked in like this for a single performance since Johnny Depp's first go-around as Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl".)

I'm excited for her guest turn because perhaps an appearance on NBC in primetime can provide her a bit more of the attention she so richly deserves and did not receive in the wake of her Oscar nomination (did I mention she should have won?). Tune in. I encourage you. Steve Carrell's good and so is Rainn Wilson, and John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer can hold their own and so can that dude who plays Stanley but they'll all be playing for second place tonight.

Of course, I hope & pray the writers gave her something to do.