Every character in The Office brings their own special flavour to the mix, and the show wouldn’t be the perfect dish it inarguably is without each of them. Except maybe Will Ferrell’s Deangelo Jeremitrius Vickers, who briefly tried to replace the whole left behind by Michael Scott. But I digress.
We are here to talk about Kelly Kapoor, customer service representative, business bitch, hopeless romantic, and one of my personal favourite characters from The Office.
For eight glorious seasons, Mindy Kaling brought Kelly Kapoor into our lives, and for eight glorious seasons we rode the tumultuous ride that was Kelly Kapoor and Ryan Howard’s dysfunctional relationship.
Alongside her on-screen lover B.J. Novak, Mindy Kaling was a writer on The Office, so essentially she has the authority to judge and create character arcs that fit with the canon.
In an interview with Variety, she shared her projection of where she believes Kelly Kapoor would be now, and it is equal parts dark and believable.
“There’s not an insignificant part of me that thinks that Kelly might be in jail; a crime of passion,” she said. “The character just kept getting a little bit more and more unhinged. I don’t want to say that she murdered Ryan but like I’m also not convinced that he’s still alive in the world of The Office.”
Where is Kelly Kapoor now? Mindy Kaling weighs in: "I don't want to say that she murdered Ryan, but I'm also not convinced that he's still alive in the world of #TheOffice" https://t.co/8wYmaZ9l9T pic.twitter.com/2wWPoICFWt
— Variety (@Variety) January 23, 2019
It’s a bold statement, but knowing Kelly Kapoor, it could absolutely happen. She was definitely not one for rational thought and it’s conceivable that she could have unravelled completely since The Office series finale.
Alternatively, Kelly could be running Dunder Mifflin, or even her own company alongside ideas-man Ryan. She knew how to turn on business bitch mode and we wouldn’t put it past her to become a super successful CEO of some kind.
If original showrunner Greg Daniels ever reboots The Office, Kaling did say that anything he decided to do, “I would watch and love and want to help him with.” So maybe we will find out if Kelly became a murderer after all!