Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Long Goodbye
By M. Giant | Season 9 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.20.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Things have changed over the summer. Ryan and Kelly have moved to Ohio (though not together and we all know they've just gone off to The Mindy Project), there are two new young guys in the office and Andy's returned from a month-long Outward Bound retreat having turned into a dick. We learn that Jim got an offer from an old college buddy to help launch some kind of sports-marketing startup that was originally Jim's idea, but it's in Philadelphia so he passed it up for the good of the family. Angela's trying to adopt out one of her cats, Comstock, because he's the only one her baby's allergic to. Oscar ends up taking the cat, which leads to us finding out that he's having an affair with Angela's husband, although nobody else does as of yet.
But it's mostly about the two new guys, Pete (Jake Lacy) and Clark (Clark Duke), who are dubbed the new Jim and Dwight. After having found out that Angela's baby isn't his, Dwight spends about ten seconds trying to latch onto "Dwight, Jr." as a father figure before ending up feeling threatened by him, both for Clark's sales ambitions and his ability to walk the slack line during Andy's Outward Bound demonstration in the parking lot. Dwight attempts to prove his superior manhood by riding a bicycle across a tightrope from the building's roof to a telephone pole and ends up dangling three stories over the heads of his horrified coworkers instead.
Jim's reaction to the New Jim is more nuanced, though hardly less suicidal. He dismisses the idea of any resemblance between the two of them, until he overhears Pete talking about his grand ambitions that he's taken no steps toward realizing. Sound familiar? Suddenly terrified of living out the rest of his purposeless years here at Dunder Mifflin, Jim decides to jump on board the startup after all, which is probably great. But he does it behind Pam's back, which is definitely not.
And then there's Andy, who has decided to make a career out of exacting his revenge on Nellie after all and crapping on anyone who gets in his way (primarily Toby). Listen show, I know we all missed Steve Carell last season, but abruptly turning Andy into Season 2 Michael is not the solution.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Erin is very excited that Andy's returning from a month-long Outward Bound retreat today. It was David Wallace's idea to help make Andy more decisive, and Erin proudly says that both Andy and Wallace's son "grew up big time."
Dwight updates us on his own summer; he invented a blue "power drink" made of beet runoff, but "got some disappointing medical news." We flash back to a short time after last season's finale ended, when the doctor at the DNA lab told Dwight and Angela that he wasn't the father of Angela's baby, whereupon Dwight immediately vomited neon blue all over Angela. Yes, this is what it's come to: puke jokes
Kevin apparently spent his summer trying to patch up the shell of a turtle he ran over in the parking lot, unaware that he'd killed it outright on impact. Jim brags about the mural Pam painted in the kids' room, and Pam raises that by talking about a sports marketing startup Jim's friend is launching, using an idea Jim came up with in college. Except they couldn't move to Philly for whatever reason, so Jim's basically reduced to hoping for a new car out of the deal. Toby reports that Kelly's fiancé got a job at Miami University. We see Kelly happily throwing her no-longer-wanted wanted winter coats and blankets at everyone in flashback, while Toby explains that this is Miami University in Ohio, about three seconds of latitude south of Scranton. Toby adds that Ryan moved to Ohio shortly thereafter. Ryan inflicts on is a spiel about the next Silicon Valley, even though he's apparently living at a bus shelter. Have fun on The Mindy Project, you two. Or at least more fun than you'd have here.
Jim and Pam wrap up their talking-head shot, and we hear them talking to someone behind the camera, who explains to them that this isn't so much about the paper company any more, but "following you guys to see how you turn out." Pretty much the only thing left to look forward to is finding out what is up with these goddamn documentarians already, but for now we just hear a voice. Not one I recognize, either, and I'm usually pretty good at that. Pam scoffs that it doesn't look like anything else interesting is going to happen to her and Jim for some time. Jim follows her out, looking like he's just now getting that memo, and it came wrapped around a brick that hit him in the head.
Erin's still staring out the window like a faithful dog, looking forward to Andy's return. Are they seriously not going to see each other until he comes into work? Aren't they still dating?