PUBLISHED MARCH 10, 2007; PLACED ON THIS DATE (O1.26) TO ENSURE THAT THE EPISODES FALL IN THE RIGHT ORDER.
Finally I have finished the recap of this stellar episode. If you missed it, consider paying $3 for the download at I-Tunes. You won't regret it.
HARVEY. Michael, sitting at his desk, bawls out for Jim. When Jim comes to the office, he stops in his tracks with a look of weariness and resignation. Michael has turned his monitor around to face the door and has taped some of those mechanical teeth to the back, along with two little drawings of eyes. It looks pretty cute, actually.
Michael does some fast keyboard work and a mechanical voice says, "Hi, Jim." Jim says hello quite affably.
More typing. "I am Harvey, a computer. Jim sucks." Michael starts to sputter with laughter. The sputtering turns into a splutter.
Jim makes one of his faces at the camera. This one involves a touch of wry amusement, with more than the usual amount of "Get a load of this buffoon" worked into it.
Michael's still chortling away. "Oh wow! That's so rude!" he cries. But he just can't control Harvey.
He tells Jim to go get Pam. When Jim doesn't leap into action, Michael bawls out for her himself and starts typing. As a wary Pam comes through the door, the mechanical keyboard voice says, "Pam, you look very hot today." Pam gives Jim a "WTF?" look with Jim while Michael does some more chortling.
This scene truly gets across the rapport between them, because without a word being exchanged, Pam immediately follows Jim's lead when he introduces her to Harvey, "Michael's new friend."
Michael types some more. The mechanical voice says, "Me so horny. Me love you long tim." Michael fake-gasps and gleefully rebukes "Harvey" for being gross.
Ignoring this, Pam wants to know who "Long Tim" is. Looking annoyed, Michael types in---this time we can see the screen---"Long time. Me lobe yoy a long time."
In a friendly, interested tone, Jim says that Harvey should bring Long Tim in someday. While Michael, now looking distinctly pissed off talks, Pam and Jim agree that they would really like to meet Long Tim. The mechanical voice tells them that they ruined a funny joke and orders them, "Get out of my offive (sic)." Warmly telling Harvey goodbye, they leave.
Michael stares darkly after them. But then he types another message. "Boobs," says the mechanical voice. Again feigning surprise, and looking more than ever like an eight year old who needs his dose of Ritalin, he looks at the camera and laughs. Remember this as the rest of the episode progresses. During the rest of this episode and during almost the whole of the next, Steve Carrell plays straight man to Ed Helms' "Andy Barnard."
The theme song plays!
A BIG DEAL. In the office, Angela is tensely staring across her desk at the door. Behind her, Kevin hangs up the phone and tells her that he just picked up a voice mail from corporate. In a hushed tone, he informs her that corporate did not get the tax forms for the Scranton Branch the night before. Did Angela send them?
Angela looks uncharacteristically shifty. She tells him that the forms arrived that morning. Kevin asks her if she's sure. "It is a big deal," he tells her solemnly, or starts to. Angela overrides him. "Is it a big deal?" she says with what would be wounding sarcasm----- if Kevin were susceptible to sarcasm--- but also with a perceptible note of hysteria. "Is it, Kevin?"
Yes, Kevin, I think she knows. Kevin blinks at her. She glares at him angrily, defensively, but says nothing. "Because.... it.... is..... a.... big deal," he drones, nodding the whole time and squinting in his most Kevinish fashion.
ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE OOMPA LOOMPAS DANCE. In the break room, Andy is sitting at one of the little tables. In a voice over he tells us what we all know: that of the Stamford transfers to Scranton, only he and Karen are left. He compares the situation to the tour of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, with the Stamford people "dropping off one by one." "I am not falling in a chocolate river," he tells the camera. He raises his pugnacious chin, um, pugnaciously.
Oh, Andy. You are. I fear you are. Your time at the chocolate factory grows short. The Oompa Loompas draw nigh.
IN THE CLEAR. Dwight comes through the door, breathing hard. Angela scuttles over to him. Very quietly, she asks him if everything is okay and hands him a note. "You are in the clear," he says. Angela lets out the breath she's presumably been holding since the night before. "Thank you," she breathes. Without looking at one another they simultaneously turn away. Dwight stalks off; Angela turns and fiddles with something on the desk.
Pam, who couldn't possibly have failed to hear all of this, looks curiously at Angela. Catching her eye, Angela puts down the pencil or whatever she is pretending to be interested in and walks off.
In the conference room, the sales team are seated round the conference table. Dwight apprehensively enters, and is called out for being late . In his continuing plot to become Michael's sidekick, Andy tosses one of his incredibly lame "zingers" Dwight's way, asking him to pass the "tardy sauce." Dwight says nothing.
TEAM SPORTS. But enough of that, Michael has an announcement! In his best public relations voice, Michael tells the camera that the assembled personnel constitute his "sales dream team." Yes, I can see that, Michael. As the camera pulls back, Phyllis dabs at her nose with a kleenex and then discreetly blows into it; Ryan looks into the camera with his usual deer-in-the-headlights stare; and Stanley, as usual, isn't listening at all---instead, he's writing. Shall I go out on a limb and guess that he's doing a crossword puzzle.
The big announcement is that they are going to team up for their sales calls. As we know from "The Initiation," the DM-Scranton people do sometimes go out on sales calls, in between parties and long sessions in the conference room so that Michael can work through his issues.
Jim and Karen exchange a smiling, anticipatory glance; this could be fun!
Evidently it was Andy's idea. Michael therefore lets Andy have first pick for a teammate. Do I have to tell you that---after maximum fake hesitation and chin rubbing and "ironic" Hmmm--oh-I-don't-know-let-me-think---that Andy chooses "Michael Scott, Ph.D. Doctor of Sales"?
Michael is very flattered. He sounds sincerely pleased. I suppose that this is the first time that anyone other than Dwight----and we know the value he sets on the devotion of Dwight---has ever picked him on purpose to be on a team. Dwight, on the other side of the table, looks disgruntled/disappointed.
THE ANDY FACTOR: A SHORT DIGRESSION. Sounding like a fully functional adult human being---and there's more where that came from this episode--- Michael tells Andy that it was very gracious of him (to ask Michael). Sounding like a man who doesn't even need to pretend that he can hardly believe his luck, and with a very cute little tucked-in coquettish smile, Andy tells Michael that it is very gracious for him to accept. He even bats his eyes a bit.
In recapping the next episode ("The Return"), I noted that Ed Helms plays Andy more as an authentically needy person pretending to be all hand-rubbingly Machiavellian/sycophantic. We never get to hear what he actually thinks about Michael qua Michael, so my theory is that he disguises his neediness and desperation under a thin veneer of Sun Tzu. Ed Helms does it really well.
So this is the first of a number of scenes in which I'm not sure what we're supposed to make of Andy. We know that he was planning from the first to co-opt Michael in order to enhance his own position, but the way Ed Helms plays it, there is that additional layer or element of doggy neediness and yearning for approval that seems to be going on simultaneously. Which is, of course, the genius of the show. Does Andy genuinely feel something of what he feigns? We'll never know.
Moreover, in the world of the show, Andy himself will never know. He's so accustomed to being fakely sycophantic that he doesn't know himself what his feelings are. So in next week's episode, "The Return," I dare to question Jim's assessment of Andy as a mere suck up. I mean, he's that all right, but he's so much more. <<Sniff.>> We all knew he wasn't going to last, but it makes me sad anyway.
"PASS." Anyway, back to the conference room. Karen giggles a bit at Andy's blatant sucking up; Jim smiles dryly. Dwight rolls his eyes then closes them briefly in sadness and, I suppose, disgust. After all, who better to critique a suck-up's technique than another suck-up?
Michael chooses Phyllis---"our resident senior"---to be the next to select a teammate. Phyllis, as always: "We're the same age." Michael looks at her then, in a "humor her" vein, murmurs, "All right," and exchanges with the camera a brief pitying look. Phyllis chooses Karen.
Karen looks surprised, crestfallen, and politely gratified, all at the same time. Switching on [Rashida's Jones's] lovely, lovely smile, Karen chokes off a cry of dismay and thanks Phyllis for choosing her. The smile switches off again without achieving its usual scope. Jim looks at her ruefully. Foiled!
Back to Michael. Next up to pick a sidekick: Stanley. Without looking up from his crossword puzzle, Stanley grunts, "Pass." But Michael tells him he has to pick somebody. Stanley looks across the table at Dwight, then at Jim, and finally at poor Ryan sitting next to him. "The kid," then.
As Ryan smiles docilely the real Ryan says in voiceover with that forced manic brightness that B.J. Novak does so well, "I'm very flattered! I was his second choice...after "pass!""
Now everyone is paired up except Dwight and Jim. So, as Michael observes, that leaves...Dwight and Jim. Dwight's not happy. Does anyone want to trade? Jim raises his hand. Dwight looks at him for a moment then lets out a small, resigned sigh.
To the camera, Jim says that he and Dwight used to go on sales calls all the time. He holds up a picture to the camera of a short-haired Jim---a shorn lamb--- and a mop-haired bespectacled Dwight, both in dark jackets and white shirts. It's cute.
Still holding the photo up to the camera, Jim looks at it reflectively. "Oh young Jim," he says to it. "There's just so much I need to warn you about! And yet---tragically---I cannot." Wow, that was amazingly funny.
SHIRTS ON HANGERS. Andy and Michael are out in the parking lot. Michael is lifting the hood of his beloved car. Andy remarks that it's a Sebring. Yes, it certainly is. Rather to my surprise, Michael isn't really attending---he's fumbling about in the trunk---so Andy sort of trails lamely off. "Heck of...a motor carriage." Which is the first sign that Andy hasn't acquired the power over Michael I was rather anticipating.
Michael vibrantly calls out to Dwight and tosses him a very large bag of laundry, or what we are supposed to believe is a bag of laundry. It' s something much lighter, capable of being tossed in a high arch and caught by Dwight as it descends. Dwight calls out over his shoulder to Michael to ask if he want his shirts on hangers? Yes. Yes, he does.
Andy stares at Michael. "Dwight does your laundry?" As we all know, Dwight's attempted coup happened before the merger of the two branches. Michael just tells him it's a long story.
THE AMAZING RACE. He calls to the other sales teams to circle around. They're going to pretend they're on The Amazing Race, he says. Stanley and Ryan can be the retired marines; Phyllis and Karen, the mother and daughter team (which Phyllis hears without pleasure); Dwight and Jim---wait for it---are "the gay couple"; and he and Andy are, naturally, the "firefighting heroes."
Otherwise, it's not much like The Amazing Race, as Phyllis points out. Nobody wins. They're just going to rush out, do their selling, and come back. Also there's no prize---just bragging rights.
But of course, when Michael yells, "Go!" Dwight has to scream "COME ON!" and take off running. And Michael has to make a quick dash over to Phyllis's care and wrest her keys from her. Having grabbed them---"OhohoHO!"---he tosses them under the car. He and Andy yell at each other in a language that I'm just going to call "Frat Boy," though it's hard to conceive of any normal fraternity that would pledge either Andy or Michael. Which probably explains a lot about both of them. Andy looks so cute here, by the way. He does a little run forward that makes him look like a toddler. A toddler with mittens.
I'm sorry; I'll stop now.
The camera focuses on Phyllis's skirted behind. Nope, I'm not saying a word about it, that, or her. She and Karen disgustedly scrabble around on the pavement, trying to reach her keys. Karen says they'll need to get a broom.
"THE DRIVER ALWAYS PROTECTS HIS SIDE FIRST." Jim looks into his car, asks Dwight if he's "seriously" planning to sit in the back, and receives the reply that he, and we, expect. As Jim is backing out, Dwight lectures dwightishly that the back seat behind the driver the safest part of the car because in an accident, "the driver always protects his side first." He is strapping himself in as he says this, but oops, before he is quite done, Jim slams on the brakes. Dwight lurches forward and bangs his head on Jim's seat. He sits up, rubbing his head and glowering. In the front seat, Jim smiles to himself.
We see Michael and Andy get into Michael's care. As they drive off, Andy explains in voice over that "in order to take Dwight down" he has to "chip away at his ally," i.e., Michael. He smugly remarks that all his successes have come from his ability to "slowly and painfully" wear people down. Hey, do you think we'll get to see him at it in this episode?
Back in the car, he asks Michael what the story is on Dwight doing his laundry. Michael explains that "a couple of months ago" (really?), Dwight tried to get Jan to give him Michael's job; the laundry-doing is Dwight's punishment. Andy, having taken this in, takes the opportunity to rub it in a little about Dwight going behind Michael's back. Michael doesn't say anything to this, but his brow contracts and a shadow comes over face.
With the camera back on him, Andy "hints" that he would be happy to do Michael's laundry.
In the meantime, Phyllis is pulling her car into the parking lot of a beauty salon. When Karen comments, she just smiles.
In Stanley's car, Ryan asks if it would be okay for him to make the pitch, with Stanley critiquing him after. The viewer can plainly Stanley grin ever so slightly to himself before agreeing. Nothing would delight him more! He chuckles to himself. Ruh-roh!
Ryan, not being an idiot, knows that this isn't a good sign, but says nothing because there isn't much he can say.
Back to Phyllis's car, though it took me a minute to take this in, because Karen has had her hair done and when I say done, I mean done. She's sitting there with a big hairdo, blue eye-shadow, and a disgruntled expression. She doesn't look like the same woman. Phyllis, whose hair is also altogether pouffier, gives her a smile that comes within an ace of being as bright as her make up. It's funnier than hell and clear evidence why women everywhere should resist any return to the fashions of the Eighties. When I saw this scene the first time, all I could think was "The hell?", but don't worry; all will become clear in due course.
One thing that makes it even funnier is the reference back to Michael's designation of them as "the mother/daughter team." It really does sort of remind me of a friend of mine whose mother used to insist when she was visiting that she get "a pretty hairdo" at the local "beauty parlor." She too used to go around in a variation of her mom's hairstyle and a pissed off expression.
"I THOUGHT YOU COULD USE SOME FRESH AIR." Back at DM, a smiling, flushed Angela---one blond lock come loose from her chignon and hanging attractively over her forehead---invites Pam for coffee. She's positively burbling with good cheer. Pam looks thunderstruck but says yes. Wow, the prettiness of actress Angela Kinsey when she smiles really points up how infrequently we see the character Angela Martin doing this.
Pam follows her out, after sharing a hilarious, "WTF?" look with the viewer.
THE SUPERFRIENDS. These next bits are choice. Jim is getting out of his car in front of one of those faceless commercial buildings you see in every city, large or small. Dwight tells him to leave the keys. Jim asks if he still does "that thing," but instead of answering, Dwight says impatiently, "Leave the keys." Jim sighs, shakes, his head, and stands resignedly waiting beside the car while Dwight cranks up the music and does the backseat version of his air guitar/fist pumping "I deserve this raise!" motivational war dance. The backseat version involves Dwight twiddling his fingers as if he were playing guitar and banging his head against the driver's head-rest.
Jim waits, leaning against the car and squinting off into the distance.
Back in Michael's car, Andy's pouring on the (poisoned) bear oil. He compliments Michael on the amazing team he's built at Scranton. Everyone on the team has a special skill "just like the superfriends," whoever they may be. Michael likes this; he nods and smiles.
Yes, they're all superfriends...well, except for Dwight, whom Andy characterizes as a "superdud" whose only skill is being late. He laughs and looks at Michael, who doesn't respond and who doesn't in fact appear to be listening. Andy sits back, satisfied with his work, but then Michael suddenly says, "Hawk Man!" Andy turns to him, startled and also clearly exasperated; Michael hasn't been listening. Through the whole Dwight segment of the conversation, he has been considering which of the superfriends he (Michael) should be. That whole scene---particularly the moment when Michael breaks into a grin and says "Hawk Man!"---was hilarious.
Outside a rest stop, Andy interviews that his master plan is taking longer than expected. He's not giving up, though. In the background, a toilet flushes and Michael comes out. "Let's go!" he says in a truculent tone. I'm not sure why. Are we to infer that he doesn't like for Andy to talk the cameras when he's not around. "The men's room was disgusting!" he announces as they walk away. Hee hee.
"I CAN ALWAYS COUNTER-ACT THE BLOW." Jim opens the door for Dwight and courteously says, "After you." But no: Dwight doesn't ever walk in front of anyone, because, it seems, seven out of ten attacks are from the rear. It makes me a little sad to think what the British Jim (Martin Freeman as Tim Canterbury) would have made of that if the British Dwight (McKenzie Crook as Gareth Keenan) had said it. Our Jim just points out that if the statistic is correct, there's a 30% chance that he'll attack Dwight from the front.
But Dwight isn't worried about that because he'll see the attack coming and block it. At which point---and wow, this happened so fast and was so funny----Jim gives Dwight a sharp slap across one cheek and closes the door in his face, leaving him standing there looking, almost literally, gobsmacked. Ha! Wait a minute, I'm playing that back again. The best part, next to the slap itself, is the way Rainn Wilson sort of falls backward at its force. Or maybe the best part is the look of dismay that he gives the camera, which has caught all this.
THE MAN WHO COULD SELL PAPER TO A TREE. This part was amazing. For one thing, you get to see Michael at work selling and working his magic. Whoever wrote this knows something about how it's done, according to a friend of mine who wrote a sales manual for his company.
For another thing, you get to see Steve Carrell act the straight man all the way through.
For another thing, it's one of the scenes that causes the viewer to cringe with embarrassment. The moments when you can't watch the screen are one of the aspects of this show that set it apart.
Michael and Andy are seated in an office with a prospective client, an affable-looking man with a cluttered desk on which is prominently featured, facing any visitor, a photograph of him holding up a large dead fish.
Michael opens the proceedings by asking the man if he caught the shark at the local lake. Michael says he used to go there all the time with his dad without ever catching anything. The flattered client laughs and starts to respond, but Andy butts in with a story about a fishing trip during which he caught an "80 pound shark." Michael's smile fades, though not completely. He bites his lip. As my friend explained, you do not do that: you do not ever interrupt a sales pitch, and Michael's fish comment was the opening salvo.
Despite the client's uninterested "Uh-hm," Andy goes on talking. Michael, throughout all of this, smiles pleasantly at the camera, but with that faint contraction of the brows that Steve Carrell uses so wondrously well to telegraph Michael's emotions. He really is phenomenal, Carrell.
As Andy is launching into a hunting story, Michael overrides him---still smiling---and proposes that they get down to business. He points out---and we must infer that this is because he has taken the trouble to study the client at some point---that DM is a small company, but that they offer the client "hard work and decency."
At which point Andy chimes in again, and oh God, this is so hard to watch because he's doing it again, to point out to the prospective client that Michael is giving "the classic undersell." This time Michael's look of pain and frustration is unmistakable, though he turns it into a warm smile for the client. But at Andy continues explaining that DM is traded on the New York stock exchange ("Ever heard of it? It's in New York"), Michael turns to him with a look of unconcealed exasperation.
In the meantime, the client's face reflects increasing discomfort. When Andy is done, he says he's wary of doing business with a big company due to past problems. Michael smoothly intervenes---and Andy's whole expression here more or less says, "Oh, shit!"---that what Andy meant is that they have the resources of a large company but can provide the sort of attention a client would expect from a small company. And even here a relieved Andy can't shut up---when Michael pauses, he breaks in AGAIN to say that what Michael said was "poetry."
Michael asks him nicely to leave off. "This guy could sell paper to a tree," he tells the now no longer prospective client. While he is talking, Michael is saying, "Stop. Stop," with increasing emphasis until finally---reaching up for what looks like a friendly pat on the shoulder---he grabs Andy's neck instead, and squeezes it. Andy: "Ow!"
Nope; I don't think they're going to get that sale, do you?
Back in the car, Andy starts dissing the lost client to a pissed off looking Michael. "Do we even want that guy buying our paper?" he asks, glancing hopefully at Michael. Michael nods into the camera (which I just noticed, would have to be placed over his sunvisor, unless the camera guy was sitting on the dashboard or outside on the hood). "Yes," he says flatly.
A GALLANT GENTLEMAN. At the coffee shop, Pam comments to Angela---who can't stop beaming---that she seems really happy. "I bet you wish you were like this all the time!" Pam adds, smiling brightly herself. But Angela is too happy to take any notice. She tells Pam about a friend of hers---"Noel"---- whose gallant gentleman friend rescued her from a tight spot when she missed the deadline for turning something in to corporate in New York. Smiling, smiling, smiling, Angela says that the aforesaid gallant gentleman, "Kurt," must really like "Noel" a lot.
Then, just to clear up any doubt that her body hasn't been taken over by a pod person, she walks up to the counter and yells, "Hello!" in that take-no-prisoner Angela voice we all know and love. She doesn't actually bang on the counter, but it looks as if she might be about to.
Michael and Andy. Andy, who has worked out that he's messed up, is either in the throes of remorse or affecting to be. Sounding as if he might cry, he apologizes to Michael. Michael's set expression seems to soften slightly. When Andy blubbers that he really screwed up the sales call, Michael holds up his hand and tells him, pretty nicely I thought, not to worry about it.
"I SHRUTED IT." At this, Andy glances covertly at Michael and says, "...I really shruted it." This gets Michael's attention. Andy explains that "people" around his office use the phrase to "shrute something up" to describe a situation in which someone's messed up "in a really irreversible way."
Instead of picking up what Andy's putting down, Michael's expression downshifts into "vacant" or perhaps just "bored." That's perhaps the inner truth of Michael's relationship to Dwight: Michael's so fundamentally weird and fucked-up his own self that he doesn't really see (unlike Jim) just how entertainingly off-center and strange Dwight is. Dwight bores and depresses him and makes him secretly fear that the reason Dwight adores him is because Michael's somehow like Dwight (which is of course exactly the case). He's only just on the threshold of learning the secret of his rapport with Andy, which is the same secret, only without the familiarity that breeds a measure of tolerance.
Andy glances quickly at him again and muses aloud about the origins of the phrase "I shruted it," which he just invented. "....Do you think it comes from "Dwight Shrute"?"
Michael appears to ponder this for a second, then shrugs and says he doesn't know. It's hard to know "how words are formed," he adds vaguely. Once more, Andy's poisoned arrows have missed the mark! But give Andy this much credit: at least he knows that they did.
BOUFFANTS FOR BUSINESS. Phyllis and Karen are seated in an office decorated with American flags and photographs of soldiers, facing a smiling man. He reaches across the table to hand Phyllis an order. Phyllis takes it, smiling, and thanks Kenny for the big order. Phyllis asks how "Annie" is. He turns around a photograph to face them, showing him with his arm around a woman with big eighties-style hair.
Karen takes this in, and acknowledges it by giving Phyllis an admiring look. Phyllis, controlling the smile that's trying to break through, shares a cute little glance of complicity with the camera. Obviously, Andy could learn a few lessons about "mirroring" from Phyllis.
I thought this was funny and all, and I hate to nitpick, but I can't help wondering what Phyllis said to Karen to get her to agree to the hairstyle in the first place. It's sort of hard to envision: "Let's both have our hair teased and sprayed for a fresh new look?" The scene makes it clear that Karen doesn't know till this moment why Phyllis wanted her to (voluntarily?)have her lovely shiny hair back-combed and teased and frizzed-up Eighties style, not to mention the eye-shadow spread over her eyelids so they look like garage doors and the bright blusher spread across her freckles up to her cheekbones.
The problem with this scene is that there is just no way it could have come about. Well, that and the fact that the technique of wife-mirroring (an Andy kind of technique) wouldn't work on that many men. You'd have to know a hell of a lot about the client to work out that it would. Seriously, this was an amazingly improbable vignette, and for some reason, that troubles me. On the real Office (sorry; I mean the authentic Gervais-based one), things sometimes got kind of exaggerated, but there was never anything that made me say to myself flat out, "This...could not have happened."
A LITTLE PITCH. The next scene is the team of Ryan and Stanley making their pitch, which is all about (I guess) how Ryan is afraid of black people and doesn't know how to pitch to them. The business owners, four African-American descent greet Stanley with affection and maximum cordiality. Stanley introduces them to the comparatively tiny, very white Ryan. Stanley tells the two businessmen that he is going to let Ryan do a little pitching to them while he (Stanley) does his cross-word puzzle, and there is definitely an element of "I'll be bringing the kid over with those candy bars you said you'd buy, so how about pretending to let him believe he's the one who clenched the deal?"
Ryan gives Stanley a reproachful but also flustered look, which Stanley doesn't see because he's already started his crossword puzzle. The business owners look inquiringly at Ryan. Ryan looks back at Stanley (standing there filling in his crossword puzzle), then quirks his lips into a smile underneath his panicky eyes. He shakes each one by the hand. "Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi." he says to each one. Behind him, Stanley stops writing and starts grinning. Better even than he dared to hope, he is clearly saying to himself. The four businessmen don't exactly grin, but suddenly all four are wearing very broad, pleasant smiles. "Hi, Ryan!" says one of them reassuringly. "What have you got for us?"
Ryan takes a breath and yes, you just know from his quaking expression that his voice is going to come out in a squeak.
"CAN I USE YOUR PHONE?" The next scene makes up for the fundamental improbability of the Phyllis/Karen scene. Dwight and Jim are wrapping up their pitch to a large, and evidently interested potential client. We see Dwight glance at his watch as Jim leads the way. Wait: is Dwight---the top salesman for Dunder Mifflin---about to ruin Jim's pitch, Andy-style? "Can I use your phone?" he asks the man. The man, looking that little bit taken aback, says yes, before turning back to Jim and his pitch.
Apparently unperturbed, Jim goes on talking paper while Dwight yells numbers into the phone, then sets the receiver down on the desk, as the client and I look on uncomprehendingly.
In the Stanley/Ryan car, Stanley is chortling to himself as Ryan stares angrily out the window. Stanley is recapping Ryan’s sales pitch, but for his own amusement rather than Ryan’s edification. “Hi…! Hi…! Hi…! Hi…!” Stanley yelps, wiping tears from his face.
“You sounded like my niece,” he says, once he can stop giggling long enough to speak at all, “and she’s six months old!” Still staring out the window, Ryan closes his eyes.
Back with the Jim/Dwight team, Jim has just finished up his pitch. The client nicely says that he appreciates what they are saying, but that it just makes more fiscal sense for him to use “one of the big guys.” Jim readily agrees that DM can’t compete with the prices offered by “the big guys,” while
Dwight, head hanging, nods repeatedly and regretfully because he’s afraid it is all too true. But! Jim asks the client how important customer service is to him? “Very,” says the client, as---a bit fortuitously---the telephone suddenly pipes up to thank Dwight for waiting. This gets the client’s attention.
In a sorrowful tone, Dwight remarks that it’s “one of the “big guys”” on the other end of the line. They’ve been on hold the whole time Jim’s been making his pitch.
Now compare Dunder Mifflin! Jim punches a button on his cell phone. “Dunder Mifflin customer service, this is Kelly speaking!” the phone instantly chirps. As a thoughtful-looking about-to-be-customer ponders the tragic implications of a life spent on hold waiting to order/complain about paper products, Dwight reaches across the desk to give him a card: a card with his work number, his cell number, his pager number, and his other pager number. “I don’t take vacations, I never get sick, and I don’t celebrate any major holidays,” Dwight tells the now thoroughly thawed customer. He gets it, the customer says. “We got a deal.” He stands up and they shake on it.
That scene? Magic.
YOU CAN PAY ME BACK LATER. Back in the Phyllis/Karen car, Karen flaps her mascara beaded eyelashes and thanks Phyllis for choosing her. Through (actually rather flattering) rose-colored lipstick Phyllis sweetly tells Karen that she enjoys spending time with her and both ladies smile happily. Phyllis says she’s really glad Karen’s with Jim because “he was hung up on Pam for such a long time.”
The golden smile vanishes from Karen’s face and her mouth falls open in dismay. Phyllis is looking at the road, not at her, so she fails to notice the icy wind that’s suddenly blowing around Karen. “I didn’t think he’d ever get over her,” Phyllis continues. “That’s nice,” says Karen mechanically. “You can pay me back later for the makeover,” Phyllis concludes in a business-like tone. Karen just looks out the window, her mouth tightening painfully over whatever she is really thinking and can’t ask or say. Man, she looks furious.
Back in Stanley’s car: Stanley’s still laughing, so no change there. Ryan, like Karen, is staring tight-lipped out the window. As if to add point to Stanley’s laughter, Ryan’s face looks even whiter than usual. It looks as white as paper! Still looking resolutely away from Stanley, he rolls his eyes in disgust, impotent rage, and shame, actually revealing the edge of one eyeball beneath one lid, so that he looks momentarily dead. Stanley: “HA! HA! HA! Whew!”
“FOOL ME TWICE: STRIKE THREE!” The next scene took me a minute to understand. We see Andy standing in an empty office, looking round furtively. He opens a desk drawer, looks sneakily around again, and takes them out. Next we see him open the door of a massive SUV and take out a slip of paper which is resting on the dashboard. While this is happening, we hear Andy is ask in voiceover if he can speak to Michael for a moment.
Michael says---his tone a touch impatient---that he can. Andy then asks Michael where Dwight said he was earlier. Michael says that Dwight didn’t say.
Andy thinks this is very “weird,” because when he was walking past Dwight’s desk just then, he found a tollbooth receipt from New York City dated that very morning. We see Michael looking up at Andy, a cloud gathering on his brow as he slowly takes the receipt from Andy’s hand. “Why would Dwight go to New York without telling anyone?” Andy prompts, as Michael silently studies the receipt. Could he have gone to see….Jan? No, of course not; that’s not like Dwight. Or is it? Someone, Andy adds softly, recently told him a story of laundry! And betrayal!
Now thoroughly hooked by Andy’s evil bait, Michael looks up. His mouth twists in bitterness and outrage. “Did you…try to betray Dwight and try to steal his job or something?” Andy asks. He’s trying to remember….
Michael is too preoccupied with the conclusions he’s already jumped onto to notice the disingenuousness. “No,” he tells Andy, he’s remembering it wrong.
Cut to Michael glaring into the camera. Dwight betrayed him once before, he says, so this is his “strike two.” “You know what they say,” Michael says. “Fool me once, strike one; fool me twice…strike…THREE.” Oh dear.
DOUBLE DATE. From the back of Jim’s car, Dwight says, “I like Karen. She’s pretty. Appears intelligent.” With only a small grimace at this endorsement, Jim allows that he likes pretty women “who…have the appearance of intelligence.”
Dwight says that his girlfriend is also beautiful and smart. “She could be a model,” he says. Yes, she could: the world’s shortest model. Well, true fans of the show know that Angela used to be “on the pageant circle.” She could also be a college professor, Dwight says. She’s intimidating to a lot of guys.
While Dwight is saying this Jim’s face is doing that dynamic Krasinski reacting thing, but I’m not really sure what it’s expressing. Mild surprise, perhaps, though of course Jim and Pam were aware before Jim left that there was something going on between Dwight and Angela. Anyway, Jim’s always for winding up Dwight no matter what, so after nodding to himself, he says, “We should go on a double date.” Well, I suppose he’s winding him up. Maybe he is serious; you can imagine how curious Jim must be to watch Dwight a-wooing (to borrow a term used by Tim Canterbury in the original Office).
Dwight phssshes at this and rolls his eyes even more scarily than Ryan. The opalescent halo of a sale well-excuted and an exchange of tender confidences vanishes in a flash with his weighty, “No..THANK you..”
So nobody really went home happy and united. Yes, just another Dunderish day.
“BEESWAX: NOT YOURS, INCORPORATED.” Michael’s seated at his desk, talking on the phone to Jan. She confirms that Dwight’s name is listed with security. She doesn’t know who Dwight met with: in the space where he was asked to state his business he wrote: “Beeswax: Not Yours, Incorporated.”
But though the evidence appears to suggest otherwise, Michael is convinced that Dwight was at “corporate” on some evil errand. “I knew it,” he whispers, his face twisting with suspicion. He looks up to see Jim and Dwight just returning.
The camera pulls back and we see that Andy has been sitting on the corner of Michael’s desk throughout the entire conversation. “Oooh, dogie,” he Jeb Clampetts, waggling his eyeballs back and forth in mock apprehensiveness. Somebody’s due for a beatdown and he’s got front-row tickets!
"A CUP OF COFFEE." Turning around from hanging up his things, Jim finds the newly coiffed and brightly tinted Karen standing right behind him. And if you have the I-Tunes version of the show, run it back a couple of times to note the comical bugging-out of the eyes that John Krasinski manages to fit between one beat and the next, exactly the way a double take works in the real world, where people typically try not to have their eyes wave around on stalks like a cartoon character's when they're surprised. Big, big props to John Krasinski for portraying a man just barely not managing to conceal a look of visceral shock and fear at the sight of his fresh-faced girlfriend bouffanted and painted up like a corpse or a pageant contestant.
A serious-looking Karen asks if he wants to grab a coffee. He doesn't see the red flags go up because he's too bemused by the make-up and the hair and blusher. He "Look at you!" he remarks, grinning. Karen smiles back ruefully. "Yah," she says.
"THE DAMN ROOSTER DIDN'T CROW." Dwight, flipping happily through his paperwork, looks up to see Michael and Andy approach him. "Heeeey!" he cries, "We nailed the sale!" He reaches up for a high-five, but Michael ignores it. He folds his arms and glares. Behind him, Andy folds his arms and glares.
Michael asks Dwight where he was this morning. Dwight, still smiling, says he overslept. His damn rooster didn't crow!
Instead of stopping to ponder the symbolism, Michael asks, "Why...do you lie?" His voice trembles with barely contained rage. "LIAR," he says to Dwight.
"I am not a liar," says Dwight, which isn't actually true, because he totally is and he's busted. What he means is: he's not a liar about anything that Michael should mind.
Behind Michael, Andy says, "Sure seems like he's lying."
Now it's Rainn Wilson's turn to bug out his eyes. "Stay out of this, YOU," Dwight snarls at Andy through clenched teeth. From behind her partition, Angela looks on despairingly.
Michael tells Dwight he knows he went to Corporate earlier that morning. He also knows that Dwight lied about it. Dwight looks up at him helplessly, trapped. He gulps visibly as Michael demands to be told "right now" what he was doing at corporate.
Dwight says forcefully but also quietly that he can't tell Michael why he went to corporate. Michael must trust him; he would never do anything to hurt him or the company. Michael tells Dwight to think about his future at DM "long and hard." "That's what she said," Dwight essays---unwisely, as it turned out; Michael is not in the mood for innuendo. "Don't you dare," he whispers. He tells Dwight he'll want to know what he was doing at corporate "by the end of the day," and walks off. Andy, however; remains behind to gaze censoriously at Dwight over his folded arms, all "J'accuse!"
"EVERYONE IN THE OFFICE WILL KNOW OUR BUSINESS." Angela and Dwight are conferring in the break room. They're both standing facing the camera (and so, presumably, with their backs to the outer door). Dwight says it will be okay; he'll just explain what actually happened. But that's not okay with Angela---she doesn't want everyone in the office to know their business.
"That's not the worst thing in the world," Dwight protests. He'll just stand up and reveal their true love! Awwww. But Angela is still not down with that. When he points out that everyone knows about Kelly and Ryan, she says she hates those two people more than anything in the entire world? Huh? What? When? Why?
Oh, whatever; fine. In an office where romantic liaisons abound (Ryan/Kelly; Jim/Karen; Michael/Jan), this is the best reason they could contrive to explain why Angela is prepared to see Dwight fired rather than to have him reveal that the two of them are in a relationship. I'm not sure it much matters what reasons she gives. For them to get on to the next thing (Michel firing Dwight), we pretty much have to swallow this.
Dwight whispers plangently to the back of Angela's head that he doesn't have a lot of choices. Though Dwight can't see, the face on the front of the head bites its lip and crimps its brow, clearly trying to hold back tears. Why? Why? I'm going to decide in my head that Angela really is just that neurotic: so sensitive about her virtue and her apparent nun-like sanctity that she literally cannot bear the idea of anyone else knowing she's capable of the softer emotions.
STARBUCK'S. Jim and Karen sit at a little table in a coffee shop. Karen---and one of the things that makes this scene funny in that cringe-inducing Office way is the contrast between the poignancy of Karen's absolutely legitimate apprehensions about the state of Jim's affections and the ludicrousness of her hairdo, which she can't see but he and we can---asks him straightaway if he ever had "a thing for Pam."
And Jim reacts to being busted exactly like every male in the history of romantic triangles has reacted: with the look of a man receiving a particularly unwelcome surprise, quickly superseded (though not quickly enough) by a grin consisting of about equal parts embarrassment and gratification (because they all, trust me, secretly like being caught out; it somehow gives validity to their unsuccessful love).
Again, John Krasinski does this perfectly, right down to the stalling-for-time repetition of the question---"Pam? Did I ever have "a thing for her"?"---and the too-long-delayed-by-a--nanosecond firm, ingenuous meeting of the questioner's eyes. "Why?" Jim asks casually, taking a sip of (Starbuck's) coffee. Over the cup, he mumbles, "Did she say something?" because he so wishes that she would.
Karen, smiling tightly, says, "I moved here...from Connecticut." Yes, they've had that conversation before, as we all know. Jim quickly drops his nonchalant air to explain that he had a crush on Pam before he left for Stamford, but that she didn't feel the same way. He tells Karen that he's really glad she's there. Karen smiles. Because she is a prince of a gal, she doesn't probe him further the way you would or I would, but just says "Okay" and gives him the full Rashida Jones smile, a smile of such radiance that the silliest hairdo on earth wouldn't have the power to dim it.
IN OTHER WORDS, HE'S QUITTING. An unhappy Dwight is sitting at his desk, staring into space. Suddenly he stands up, clears his throat loudly, and demands everyone's attention. At her desk, little Angela draws in her breath sharply and her head drops down to her breast. Reading from a slip of paper, Dwight announces that though he loves DM "more than almost anything in the world" he's decided "to step down" from his "post." As he reads, we see that Michael is standing at the door of his office, staring implacably at Dwight.
A shocked Pam turns to stare sympathetically at Angela who looks back at her with the luminous, hopeless eyes of an abandoned kitten. Dwight says that he does not fear the unknown and is prepared to meet new challenges. He WILL succeed!
He falteringly concludes by saying that it's been a pleasure working with some of them. At this, Michael's expression changes and his arms drop to his side; is it an intimation of loss he feels? Dwight concludes, hilariously, by reminding everyone "We all shall fall," causing a tremor of alarm and despondency to shake poor Kevin's mighty frame.
After a moment of silence, Dwight says in his normal voice, "In other words, I'm quitting."
In the conference room, Andy sings the Oompa Loompa song to the camera. Just when you think he is done, he turns to one side and sings, "Why...is he gone?....he was such a nice guy" then turns to the other side and sings in a deeper voice, "No! he was not...he was a total...douche!" For Dwight it's comic books and Star Wars; for Andy, it's the muppets and Willy Wonka. Compared to Andy, Dwight's an adolescent. This tells you all you need to know about them and their rivalry.
DWIGHT WILL BE MISSED. Dwight, carrying a briefcase, and loaded down as well with a box full of assorted stuff, says that he wishes to give the rest of his belongings to Michael (who again turns out to be standing in the doorway to his office). He whispers that Michael should just take "it," shoving the box in his arms, then reclaiming a couple of items (the Dwight bobblehead Angela gave him for his birthday and the one with the blue cap). Michael gives the camera a swift, unhappy look and draws in air that seems to cut him a bit as it goes down.
In the conference room, a serious-looking Ryan delivers his elegy. "Dwight will be missed." Just not so much by Ryan.
Elsewhere, a weepy Angela says that "Dwight? From sales?" was one of the most honorable and efficient employees the company has ever had.
Standing near the door, a crying Dwight gives the office a final salute. In voiceover, he explains that he'd always hoped to die in his desk chair. But now the dream is shattered, he says fiercely, once again through clenched teeth---an effect sadly vitiated by the fact that he is clutching the Dwight bobblehead in his hand as he says it.
Jim and Karen, glowing in the afternoon sunlight, and on their way back to work, run into Dwight on his way out. Jim greets him casually and receives in response a ferocious, silent, uncomfortably prolonged hug. Dwight walks away, still pathetically holding his Dwight bobblehead, his face twisted with grief. Karen and Jim stare after him. "What happened on your sales call?" Karen asks.
In the conference room, Andy is still gloating. He's not exactly "happy" about the way things turned out, he says, grinning and squirming like the eight year old he is. But he saw what needed to be done and he did it.... Here, the camera cuts to Angela, who is standing on the other side of the window, staring in at Andy in the manner of a woman attempting to reduce a man to a puddle of grease by her laser-intensity glare, Yes, I think we can take it that we shall see Andy laid low in the fullness of time by a combination of Angela and his own hubris. Ask not for whom the Oompa Loompas dance, Andy. They dance for thee.
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Posted by: red bottom | November 13, 2011 at 11:29 PM