The Office: Dwight Schrute's Best Episodes

Of the many memorable and funny characters in "The Office," perhaps none are as singularly eccentric as Dwight K. Schrute. Played by Rainn Wilson, Dwight is the assistant manager of the Dunder Mifflin paper company's Scranton branch. A top-notch salesman, Dwight is arrogant and rude to most of his colleagues, except for his secret romantic partner, Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey). Yet he's also extremely naive about the modern world, living on the Schrute family beet farm with his cousin Mose (Michael Schur). This makes him easily susceptible to the pranks carried out by his coworkers Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer). Although fiercely loyal to his boss, Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Dwight craves the manager's chair, and he is constantly training his mind and body in preparation for it. 

Developed for American television by Greg Daniels — who adapted it from the BBC series created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant — "The Office" ran for nine seasons on NBC and has become a streaming staple, first on Netflix, and now on Peacock. Let's take a look back at Dwight Schrute's best episodes of "The Office."

"The Office" fans got their first taste of Dwight's hilarious Napoleonic complexes in the episode "Health Care." When Jan (Melora Hardin) tasks Michael with finding a new health care plan for the office, he delegates the job to Dwight, hoping to spare himself the ire of the employees. Dwight leaps at the opportunity, temporarily taking over the conference room and branding it his "office." He emerges with a draconian health care plan with no benefits and a high deductible. The workers revolt and Michael flees the office, promising a big surprise to calm the waters.

Meanwhile, Dwight asks his colleagues to detail their medical ailments so he can ensure they're covered in the plan, and Jim and Pam delight in making up fake diseases which only irritates him more. Jim eventually locks Dwight in the conference room, and Dwight calls Jan to complain just as Michael returns with boxes of ice cream sandwiches as his "surprise." Jan chastises Michael for leaving Dwight in charge, but this wouldn't be the last time the Assistant Regional Manager would try to seize power.

Dwight is obsessed with survival skills, and in "The Fight" we see him taking karate classes, albeit ones intended for children. When Michael learns of this, he challenges him to a fight and they square off in front of Dwight's pint-sized classmates. Neither of them is particularly skilled at physical combat, but Michael eventually emerges victorious and an embarrassed Dwight removes his boss as his emergency contact — replacing him with "the hospital." To try and reconcile, Michael promotes Dwight from Assistant to the Regional Manager, to Assistant Regional Manager — a semantic promotion more than anything else but it reassures Dwight.

This simple setup serves as a greater illustration of the unique bond between Dwight and Michael. Fiercely loyal in the extreme and with a great deal of admiration for his boss, Dwight is nevertheless constantly searching for ways to usurp him. Michael, meanwhile, will often keep his eccentric protégé at bay before begrudgingly acknowledging affection for him.

Dwight's peculiar personality gets an unexpected shakeup in "The Injury." When Michael burns his foot on a George Foreman Grill that's cooking bacon by his bed (don't ask), he frantically calls the office to request someone come to his home to pick him up. Dwight springs into action, but he gets into a car crash along the way and suffers a concussion. When he returns to the office with a hobbling Michael, Dwight's entire disposition has changed: where he was once rude and finicky, he is now kind and warmhearted. This of course can't last forever, and Jim takes both Dwight and Michael to the hospital, but not before Pam can say goodbye to nice Dwight, knowing she'll never see him again.

At the hospital, Dwight manages to upstage his boss with a perfectly timed "that's what she said" joke, while Michael tries to imply that his burned foot is worse than Dwight's concussion. Jim reports from the hospital that both are expected to make full recoveries, which is good news for Angela, who's secretly been dating Dwight. 

Dwight's rivalry with Jim leaves him open to many of his coworker's pranks. This gets taken to the next level in "Dwight's Speech," in which Dwight learns he's won the Northeastern Pennsylvania Salesman of the Year award. He'll have to give a speech at the association's annual meeting at the Radisson hotel, and Michael — who won the honor two years in a row — agrees to go with him. Jim offers to help write Dwight's acceptance speech, and unbeknownst to Dwight, Jim provides him with lots of quotes taken directly from speeches by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. 

At the Radisson, Dwight is too nervous to take the stage, and Michael stalls for time by reminiscing about his own consecutive victories to the perplexed audience. When Dwight finally emerges, he delivers an impassioned oration that wins over the crowd — just as it won over Italian fascists in the lead-up to World War II. He even manages to unconsciously mimic some of Mussolini's mannerisms, leading us to wonder if Dwight really is that ignorant of world history.

Dwight's status as the office's self-appointed morality police officer gets taken to new extremes in "Drug Testing." In this episode, the discovery of half a joint in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot leads Dwight to don his volunteer sheriff's uniform and conduct an investigation, forcing the employees to submit to drug testing. This causes a problem for Michael, who's worried that he'll fail due to smoking a clove cigarette at an Alicia Keys concert. Michael makes every possible excuse to not submit a urine sample, trying to cast suspicion away from himself by conducting a haphazard anti-drug seminar. But Dwight won't budge, and Michael finally asks him to provide him with some clean urine. At first, Dwight resists, but he eventually gives in to his boss's demands, turning in his sheriff's badge in shame.

Although Michael gets his way, he realizes it's at the cost of Dwight's dignity, and he makes it up to him by appointing him to the position of Honorary Security Advisor. It's one of many ways Michael repays his assistant manager's undying loyalty.

Rainn Wilson earned his first Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a comedy series for "The Office's" third season, and he chose "The Coup" as his episode submission — a Dwight Schrute classic if ever there was one. In this episode, Jan is infuriated to learn that Michael gathers the employees in the conference room every Monday for a movie day, and Angela convinces Dwight to try and steal his job. Dwight pleads his case to Jan over a pancake breakfast, and she immediately calls Michael and tells him to get his employee in line.

When Dwight returns, Michael makes a big show of pretending he's been replaced by Dwight. When Michael reveals the ruse, Dwight publicly begs to keep his job, going so far as to offer to do Michael's laundry for a year. Michael drags it out for as long as possible before offering to hug it out. But Michael still insists on humiliating Dwight further by forcing him to stand on a box in the middle of the office with a sign that says "LIAR" hanging from his neck ... and, of course, he accepts his laundry offer.

Dwight's sales techniques are unorthodox, to say the least, and the same can also be said for his training methods. In "Initiation," he's supposed to take Ryan the temp (B.J. Novak) on his first sales call, but he instead takes him to the Schrute family beet farm to teach him some sales lessons through bizarre rituals and quizzes. Former frat boy Ryan instantly pegs Dwight's unconventional tactics as hazing, which infuriates his tutor. Dwight dresses Ryan down, telling him he needs to open his mind and stop acting like a know-it-all if he wants to be a great salesman. Of course, for Dwight, that means forcing Ryan to wrestle his cousin Mose, which finally causes Ryan to storm off.

Dwight eventually chases after Ryan and gives him some genuinely good sales advice, proving that despite his eccentric behavior, he's been promoted to Assistant Regional Manager for a reason. They go on Ryan's sales call, which doesn't go well. Ryan retaliates by egging the building, and Dwight joins in, showing a bond has grown between them. 

Viewed back-to-back, this two-parter deepens the relationships Dwight has with Michael, Jim, and Angela in different ways. In "Traveling Salesman," Dwight is on thin ice when he shows up several hours late to work, having driven to New York to help Angela with her quarterly taxes. New guy Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) sees an opportunity to sabotage Dwight, and he picks Michael as his partner for some off-site sales calls. Dwight gets paired with Jim, his frequent sparring partner, and yet Jim's charm and Dwight's aggression prove successful with their client. Andy, meanwhile, spends his time with Michael trying to turn him against Dwight. When Andy finds a New York toll ticket in Dwight's car, he presents it as evidence that he was once again going behind Michael's back to Jan. When Michael confronts Dwight, he resigns instead of revealing his relationship with Angela.

In "The Return," Angela confesses her relationship with Dwight to Michael, and he realizes he made a mistake letting him go, especially when Andy flies into a rage over one of Jim and Pam's pranks. He finds Dwight working at Staples and convinces him to come back to Dunder Mifflin, where he's greeted with a "Welcome Back" party that's actually intended for Oscar (Oscar Martinez) but the sentiment is still there.

Dwight's professional and personal lives intersect in hilarious and poignant ways in the two-parter "Launch Party." As Dunder Mifflin is preparing a launch party for its new website, Dwight is trying to win Angela back after mercy killing her cat. To do this, he decides to prove he's a better salesman than the website. While Andy cheers Dwight on by blowing an airhorn every time he makes a sale, Jim and Pam use this as an opportunity to prank him, sending him instant messages in the guise of a sentient evolution of the computer system. Dwight ultimately wins the competition, but it does nothing to change Angela's mind, and Andy uses it as an opportunity to make his move.

Yet Dwight regains some of his dignity at the launch party in New York, where Michael gloats to Ryan — now working in the corporate office and spearheading the website launch — about how Dwight managed to beat the machine in his sales competition. Michael and Dwight later engage in hijinks when a mix-up over pizza coupons leads to them kidnapping the delivery boy (Kevin McHale) before letting him go.

Rainn Wilson earned his second Emmy nomination for the fourth season of "The Office," and he presented the two-parter "Money" as his episode submission. It's an emotional rollercoaster for Dwight, who experiences many ups and downs in his relationships with Angela and Jim. It begins with Jim and Pam staying overnight at Dwight's beet farm, which has been turned into a bed and breakfast. After a busy day of beet winemaking, they overhear Dwight crying over Angela, who still won't take him back. They try to cheer him up by leaving him a good review on Trip Advisor, but it's no use, as Angela has decided to go out on a date with Andy after he gifts her the cat — aptly named Garbage — Dwight had tried to give her as a replacement.

Dwight races to the office stairwell to cry, and Jim comes to comfort him, recounting his own past woes over loving Pam from afar. It's a surprisingly tender moment between the two, who are so often at each other's throats, and it's what finally brings Dwight back to his old obnoxious self.

There's nothing Dwight wouldn't do for Michael, as witnessed in "Survivor Man." When Ryan doesn't invite him on a Dunder Mifflin nature retreat, Michael decides to prove he can survive in the wild by asking Dwight — the office's wilderness expert — to drop him in the middle of the forest with nothing but a knife and a roll of duct tape. With Jim left in charge of the office, Michael spends the day trying to make camp by cutting his pants into a tent, later taping them back together again. 

Despite telling him otherwise, Dwight stays behind to monitor Michael's progress, removing various hazards and acting like a careful parent with survival skills. Although he tries to stay out of sight, Dwight finally has to jump in when Michael, desperate for food, tries to eat some poisonous mushrooms. Michael and Dwight return to the office in time to celebrate Creed's (Creed Bratton) birthday, which was almost derailed by Jim's plan to celebrate multiple birthdays on the same day.

Dwight's rivalry with Andy comes to a head in ways that are both poignant and comical in "The Duel." As Andy and Angela's wedding day approaches, everyone in the office is gossiping about the bride-to-be's ongoing affair with Dwight. Andy is the only one still in the dark, and Jim worries his past anger management issues could flair up again if he finds out. Michael spills the beans, and Andy challenges Dwight to a duel for Angela's heart. Angela, unwilling to choose between the two, agrees to these terms.

Left in charge of the office while Michael is away, Jim tries to stop the fight from happening, removing all of Dwight's hidden weapons as a precautionary measure. When Dwight goes looking for Andy in the parking lot, Andy sneaks up in his electric Toyota Prius, pinning his enemy between the hood and the bushes. Dwight fights back, whipping Andy's car with his belt. The two continue scrapping until Andy reveals he's slept with Angela, a seismic betrayal for Dwight since she told him she'd only been with him. Dwight and Andy call a truce, leaving Angela without either man.

Rainn Wilson's third and final Emmy nomination for "The Office" came for the Season 5 episode "Heavy Competition." Michael, having formed his own paper company with Pam and Ryan, is conducting secret meetings in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot with Dwight in order to undermine his former company. But when new vice president Charles Miner (Idris Elba) starts showing Dwight a level of interest that Michael never did, he switches allegiances to his new boss. Michael strikes back by stealing Dwight's best customers, setting off a rivalry between them. Dwight tricks Michael, Pam, and Ryan out of their new office in order to break in and steal Michael's client Rolodex — leaving a dead fish in the air vent for good measure.

Michael retaliates by going after Dwight's number one client: Daniel Schofield (Bob Gerbert) of HarperCollins. The two end up in the parking lot at the same time, and Dwight tries to gain the upper hand by bringing up Schofield's gay son, which he learns about after reading the personal information section from Michael's Rolodex card. Turns out Michael put that on the card to remind him not to bring it up, something that Dwight failed to realize.

Even a very special episode of "The Office" manages to be absurdly funny thanks to Dwight's antics, as evidenced by "The Delivery." This two-parter finds Jim and Pam welcoming their first child into the world, and Dwight decides the time has come for him to become a father as well. He asks Angela to be the mother, presenting her with an insanely detailed parenting contract which she refuses to sign, despite being intrigued by the proposal.

When Pam goes into labor, she realizes she's left her iPod with her special birthing playlist at home, and asks Dwight to go get it, making him promise not to touch anything. He initially agrees, but when he discovers mold under the sink, he can't help but tear the entire kitchen apart to make repairs. Dwight makes the final edits to his parenting contract with Angela, but he begins to have second thoughts when he runs into his old flame, Isabel (Kelen Coleman), who he met at Jim and Pam's wedding. 

Dwight finally achieves his dreams of running Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch in "Dwight K. Schrute: (Acting) Manager," albeit only temporarily. After Michael moves to Colorado with his fiancee, Holly (Amy Ryan), the office's new manager, Deangelo Vickers (Will Ferrell), falls into a coma, necessitating an interim replacement. CEO Jo Bennett (Kathy Bates) chooses Dwight for the job, much to the chagrin of everyone else.

As expected, Dwight implements a stringent managerial style, creating elaborate new passwords for the office equipment and obstructive software firewalls. He also decks out his new office with his antique weapons and memorabilia. When he accidentally fires a gun next to Andy's ear, he tries to bribe his disgruntled employees into keeping quiet about the incident. Jim uses this as an opportunity to force Dwight into performing embarrassing acts, but Jo eventually finds out and removes him from his position. With Creed now in charge, Jim nevertheless cheers Dwight up by telling him the office met every order deadline under his management, proving he is at least capable of the job he's always wanted.