The Sting (The Office)

"The Sting" is the fifth episode of the seventh season of the American comedy television series The Office and the shows 131st episode overall. It originally aired on NBC on October 21, 2010. The episode was written by co-executive producer Mindy Kaling and directed by Randall Einhorn. "The Sting" guest stars Timothy Olyphant as Danny Cordray.

The series depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. In the episode, a Dunder Mifflin client is stolen by a rival salesman named Danny Cordray (Olyphant), and Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), and Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) decide to set up a sting in order to uncover his sales secret. Meanwhile, Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) starts a band when he learns that one of his old college friends has a successful music career.

"The Sting" is the first episode of the series to feature Olyphant, who appears in a recurring capacity during the seventh season. The episode received largely positive reviews from television critics, many of whom felt that while the main plot was not realistic, it was very humorous. "The Sting" was viewed by 6.87 million viewers and received a 3.4 rating among adults between the age of 18 and 49, marking a slight drop in the ratings when compared to the previous week. Despite this, the episode ranked second in its timeslot and was the highest-rated NBC series of the night that it aired.