Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Truth May Set You Free, But It's a Little Late For Others.
By M. Giant | Season 9 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.04.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Among Andy's latest humiliating projects for Nellie is requiring her to research his family tree, which more than pays off when Nellie reveals to Andy that he is related to Michelle Obama. Andy's on cloud nine, until Oscar spreads the theory that this must mean that there's a history of slavery in the Bernard family. After crashing to earth, Andy takes the mature, reasonable step of tasking Nellie with digging up dirt from the family history of everyone else in the office.
Nellie gets this latest assignment while she and Pam are out for some driving practice in Pam's car, and she reveals to Pam that the Michelle Obama thing was something she totally made up. As if we hadn't guessed. Pam gets into helping Nellie invent some more family connections, including an obscure relationship between Jim and former president Richard Nixon. In part because Pam knows Jim's been lying to her.
Already intimidated by Andy's family, Erin agrees to let Dwight tutor her in a foreign language. Alas, it's Dothraki, which she doesn't know is a made-up language from Game of Thrones until she's already fluent in it. For a moron, she's turned out to be something of a linguistic savant. By the end of the day, Pete (a.k.a. Plop, a.k.a. New Jim) is talking to her in Dothraki, as yet another sign that he gets her more than the increasingly unlikeable Andy does.
Andy holds a meeting to expose everyone else's genealogical dirty laundry, which backfires when he learns from his mom that back in the day, Bernards never owned slaves -- they only transported them. Andy's attempts to enlist Darryl in putting out this ridiculous PR fire so disgust Darryl (who's been trying to get some traction for his productivity ideas, which are actually useful) that he storms out of the office. Jim catches up to him and both offers him a job with his secret new enterprise and rehearses for breaking the news of same to Pam. Who, when the opportunity comes minutes later, appears to take the news pretty well, even if she's privately still not cool with Jim keeping it from her in the first place. She's far from the only one who wonders why he would do that.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!A stranger settles in at Jim's desk for the morning pretending to be him, but Dwight's not fooled: "You're not Jim! Jim's not Asian!" The newcomer congratulates Dwight for not noticing race. Dwight tries to trip the new guy up, but he knows all about Jim's current sales pipeline, not to mention his voice mail password. Dwight's freaking out about this security breach when Pam comes up and joins in the charade, even kissing fake Jim on the lips. She THs that Jim is at the dentist, and "Steve is an actor friend of ours." As an attempted coup de grace, Dwight picks up the family portrait of the Halperts (which he was present at the taking of) and sticks it in Steve's face, shouting, "This is Jim!" But of course Steve's been Photoshopped in Jim's place. Dwight sputters comedically.
Erin sees Darryl in the break room reading Getting Things Done. That and her French book makes them study buddies, she figures. Darryl spends the ninety seconds he saved brushing his teeth in the shower explaining it to Erin, then concludes, "Dammit!" In a talking-head shot, Darryl explains that as the new Assistant Regional Manager, he's trying to get more efficient. Which he demonstrates by trying to record another TH as long as they're at it: "Whoa, that person has really gotten him or herself into quite a predicament." Back in the break room, Erin is practicing her French, explaining to Dwight that everyone in Andy's family speaks more than one language. "Usually when I'm there." Dwight suggests she take up Dothraki instead. "Win over any man in my guild." Dwight THs an explanation of the episode-long Game of Thrones reference this is going to comprise, and startles Erin with a boisterous cry of "Excellent!" in the aforementioned language. I'm a GoT virgin, I'm just confessing right now.
Nellie is hovering at Pam's desk, explaining how she needs someone to practice with for her upcoming driving test, but "Dem-Andy" has made it impossible for her to find the time. On cue, Andy hollers at her from his office, "Get your wrinkly old balls in here." At that, Pam is sympathetic enough to agree to practice with Nellie at lunch. As a thrilled Nellie heads into Andy's office, Pam apologizes to Jim for ditching him for lunch today. "I have a thing," Jim breezes. "A thing of soup. That I've been wanting to try." And a thing of secrets, as Pam has clearly not forgotten.
Nellie gives Andy the results of her two assignments: research into how they can produce childproof, paper-cut-preventing paper ("We can't") and a printout of his genealogy from a website. The lede of which is that Andy turns out to be a distant blood relative of Michelle Obama's. Andy's so excited about that he forgets to hate Nellie. "This is a big day for both of us," Andy THs, meaning himself and the FLOTUS. Andy goes out and makes the big announcement. Erin, in a TH: "I was intimidated by Andy's family before, and now I have to see the First Lady at holidays?"