Jan Levenson

Jan Levenson
The Office character
First appearance	"Pilot"
Portrayed by	Melora Hardin
Information
Nickname(s)	Hillary Rodham Clinton, Godzillary, Ice Queen
Gender	Female
Occupation	Former Vice President of Sales, Dunder Mifflin
Family	a Sister
Spouse(s)	Art Gould (ex-husband)
Significant other(s)	Michael Scott (ex-boyfriend)
Children	Astrid (daughter)
Based on	Jennifer Taylor-Clarke

Janet "Jan" Levenson (formerly Levenson-Gould) is a fictional character from the US television series The Office. Though her last name is commonly misspelled as "Levinson", NBC spells it as "Levenson". Her counterpart in the UK version is Jennifer Taylor-Clarke. She is played by Melora Hardin.

Overview

When the series begins, Jan Levenson-Gould is Michael Scott's superior at the New York City corporate headquarters of fictitious paper distributor Dunder-Mifflin. Jan's no-nonsense style is at odds with Michael's much more casual approach. Since her office is in New York, Jan's contact with the Scranton branch is largely by telephone, although she will make the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Scranton if necessary. She usually asks if she's on camera when talking to Michael on the speaker phone, and Michael often lies and tells her she is not, before admitting that they are—at which point she hangs up on him. While initially based on Jennifer Taylor-Clarke from the UK version, her character develops in a wildly different direction. Eventually, she has a long-term but troubled romantic relationship with Michael, which escalates after Dunder Mifflin fires her for increasingly erratic behavior. Her relationship with Michael only worsens when she moves into his condo and takes over, redecorating the condo and damaging his finances by running him into debt.

Biography

Introduced as a very driven, successful woman, Jan has a managerial style that clashes with Michael's laid-back business style. Jan is usually reprimanding Michael for some combination of failing to fulfill his work duties, violating company policy, or trying to flirt with her. Jan generally gets more respect from the office than Michael does. Her marriage ended in divorce due partially to Jan's desire for children, a dream not shared by her ex-husband ("The Client"). Prior to that, she went by the name Jan Levenson-Gould, but dropped "Gould" following the divorce. In her personal life, Jan faced a rough year not only with her divorce but as a victim of identity theft. She is also seeing a psychiatrist. In a deleted scene from "Dinner Party," it is implied that Jan grew up in West Virginia. The "Serenity by Jan" website indicates that she had an unhappy childhood and ran away from home.

Behavior

Jan's mental breakdown occurs over the course of season 3, coincidentally or not, over the same timeline that her relationship with Michael progresses. In the third season episode "Women's Appreciation" she is still projecting a professional demeanour, hosting a seminar for the women of the office in order to encourage them to seek Management opportunities. However, in the season finale she is fired in a huge fight with David Wallace because she basically "smokes in her office all day", takes "days off without explanation", and took "too many trips to Scranton".

Jan has a strong and often fetishist sexuality which sometimes intimidates Michael, such as when he revealed in "Women's Appreciation" that Jan did not always abide by their safety word "foliage". Michael also revealed that Jan enjoyed making him dress up as a school girl during role-playing sessions, and that she would videotape their sexual encounters and then show it to her therapist for critique. Other fetishes of hers include leather, licking coffee off her lover, Cuban musicians, and frat boys.

Jan initially drives a Volvo S80 and a Volvo S60. At the beginning of season four both her Volvo and Michael's Chrysler Sebring are traded in for a Porsche Boxster that they share, unsuccessfully. Jan seemed to have appropriated the Porsche, as Michael drove a PT Cruiser Convertible after their break-up. Jan, as a mother, now drives a Toyota Highlander. The Highlander is uniquely bare-boned, contrasting Jan's Rolls-Royce-esque stroller and her image.

Jan's surname is almost universely spelled "Levinson", NBC confirms the spelling "Levenson." Though contradicting the usage is the Season 4 DVD interior casing showing Dwight's "Power flow chart" where her name is, once again, spelled with an 'i'.

Although not a regular smoker, Jan tends to light up when put in stressful situations ("Performance Review", "Casino Night", "Cocktails"), and exhibits poor judgment due to what her psychiatrist deems "self-destructive tendencies".

Relationship with Michael

Jan and Michael first get together in "The Client" when they work together on a sales pitch to a particularly lucrative client and she is impressed by his sales ability. They have a one-night stand which Jan initially refuses to acknowledge or allow Michael to talk about. Over the course of season two, Jan generally tries to deny feelings for Michael until finally on the season finale "Casino Night" she drives to Scranton to attend the office Casino Party, only to learn that Michael is dating Carol.

In season three, after she secretly holidays with Michael to the Sandals Jamaica resort, they become a couple, signing an official relationship disclosure document with HR that Michael calls their "love contract". Although Michael appears wary and even afraid of Jan and tries at times to end things with her, in the third season finale "The Job" she gets a breast enhancement and he takes her back. In that same episode, Michael stands by her when she is fired after a huge fight with David Wallace.

In season four, Jan and Michael remain together and she starts a scented candle business out of their house. Her behavior however, breaks down rapidly and it is revealed that she spends all of his money and sleeps at home all day. Their relationship is strained in "The Deposition" when Michael sides with Dunder Mifflin in Jan's wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the company. Then, in "Dinner Party", Jan and Michael's destructive relationship is further revealed to the horror of their guests, when they repeatedly fight, she throws a Dundie Award at his television, cries uncontrollably and is almost arrested. They eventually break up and in the fourth season finale, Michael discovers Jan is pregnant via artificial insemination.

In season five, Jan returns in "Baby Shower" with her new baby Astrid (which Michael pronounces as "Asturd"). Her eccentricity remains evident when she spontaneously starts singing "Son of a Preacher Man" to her baby in front of the entire office. Michael feels no connection to the child and is glad that he and Jan are no longer together.

Jan doesn't return again until a brief appearance in the season 7 episode "Sex Ed", where she is revealed to be working in hospital administration. When Michael has a false herpes scare, he goes to warn her of this, but he also wants to know if he overvalued their relationships. Jan proceeds to tell him at great length that things were never good between them, and that she was both subject and queen who went slumming by dating him. Michael's herpes admission is very blunt, and he later says that he can't believe how wrong he was about Jan maybe being "the one" for him. In "Threat Level Midnight", Jan appears in Michael's film as Jasmine Windsong, a jazz singer who gives Agent Michael Scarn data on rescuing hostages before being killed by a poison dart. Jan is approached by the documentary crew for a comment and is very uncomfortable, briefly praising Michael's film completion and visibly making haste in her efforts to get away from the crew and the subject of Michael Scott.