It's the one time where Dwight "wins" over Jim, but was so weirdly violent. Jim gets a nose bleed with visible blood stains on his shirt and nobody around the office seems to notice or care.
shareI know!! I find it icky too.
And it really seems as though he’s really angered at Rainn.
This might be a secret nod to the fact that no one REALLY likes Jim, but because it's 'expected', they all pretend to.
I agree that it's a weird and completely unique eventuality in the show - Dwight usually doesn't win against Jim, and even when he does, it's way more bland and 'normal'.
Maybe they just wanted to try something new or different, and it really didn't work, so they went back to 'normal'.
It's definitely one of the most uncomfortable moments on the show - Jim feels like a pathetic victim and prey to this overpowered, stalking supervillain that can toy with him as much as he wants, and all Jim can do is suffer.
"This might be a secret nod to the fact that no one REALLY likes Jim, but because it's 'expected', they all pretend to."
This is what I believe is the case. After several viewings of the show through S7 I came to the conclusion Jim was meant to be the office prankster that annoyed everyone but was soon developed into the "everyman" style character. Dwight was an irritant to Jim and to the others but Jim's response to Dwight always seemed over-the-top to me at times which is why I love this episode so much. Dwight OWNS Jim this time and even manages to emasculate him in front of Pam. Other examples are when Jim is made a fool in front of Charles Minor repeatedly. Whenever Jim performed one of his patented douchey pranks against Dwight they always backfired in front of Charles. In this context, Charles represents the adult in the room to Jim's little boy pulling on pigtails. Just my thoughts though.
The show's gone a bit cartoony / later day Seinfeld by this stage.
e.g. There are about a dozen perfectly built giant snowmen in the car park by the time Jim and Pam leave. And let's not forget Dwight jumped out of a perfectly built snowman earlier in the show.
Obviously it's gone beyond realism at this stage so it's weird enough without worrying about actual character traits being off...