Episode Report Card Angel Cohn: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Pain in the Abs
By Angel Cohn | Season 8 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.16.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Dwight, Stanley, Jim, Ryan, Erin and Kathy are all down in a hotel in Tallahassee, where Dwight takes it upon himself to do individual wake-up calls. Everyone's decidedly grouchy at the crack of dawn, aside from Ryan who wakes up horny and hits on Erin, and Jim, who woke up on his kids' schedule and took the extra time to stage a murder scene. God, I pity the cleaning lady who has to suffer these fools.
Once they get down to business, we see Nellie Bertram (A.K.A, Catherine Tate. A.K.A, my beloved Donna Noble) and she's out to prove to the likes of all the Dunder Mifflin Sabreites assembled from around the country (including Todd Packer) that she isn't just boobs, but has a giant penis for a brain... or something. She's holding a grudge against Jim since he didn't hire her, and we're behind that, but the rest of the time is just spent with her talking about her business plan (snooze) and the time she had sex with Hugh Grant's older, uglier brother. Love her, but so far, this is more disappointing than when she arrived shrieking in the TARDIS in a wedding gown.
Dwight has appendicitis and refuses to deal with it, in order to impress Nellie. Eventually he has surgery and then comes back in order to deliver a useless presentation and nearly pass out from pain. It's as insufferable as it sounds. While Dwight's dealing with the fact that he has a real ailment and Jim didn't just poison him, Jim is marveling at Vacation Stanley and the effort that it takes to really be that lazy and not dedicated to your job. Great. So Jim can be even more of a slacker. Why hasn't he gotten fired yet?
Back in Scranton, things are stupid. Erin forwarded the calls and no one realizes it for like half a day, and then when the phone does ring, they don't know what to do without a receptionist. Andy tries to get Pam to resume her old post, but she staunchly refuses and they all sit around letting potential sales fly out the window instead of getting up and answering the phone. These people are idiots. Is there not a group home they could safely live in so that they don't endanger themselves? Finally, Andy caves and the office manager becomes the best receptionist they've ever had. Multi-tasking and making delicious office snacks. It seems that this Cornell grad has missed his true calling. Oh, and he misses Erin. If anyone still cares.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open on Dwight, who is super psyched to meet and impress his new boss Nellie Bertram (she's the wonderful Catherine Tate) and he's got a game plan to get everyone to Sabre HQ on time. It takes 30 minutes to get there, he allows 20 minutes for showers, 50 for Jim to style his hair, 20 for breakfast, 40 for Erin to get lost between her room and the lobby. 90 for Ryan to do his "morning ecstasy. " At 5:10, they are already 20 minutes late. Guess it would be weird to expect any less than this particularly over-thought plan from Dwight.
He uses a keycard to go into everyone's hotel rooms to wake them up. Door locks, people. Erin sleeps backwards, with her feet at her pillow, because she fell asleep reading the mattress tag. Maybe there should have been an hour allotted for her to get lost. She happily joins in the morning wake up call, and even flirts with Ryan to rouse him. He's psyched, and sleepily admits to going to her door twice the night before, until he sees the camera. Jim is up at 4:15 out of habit because of his kids. He used the extra time to stage a murder scene, with money and a sign that says "It was Dwight" on the wall and clues, and he dramatically falls out of the closet like a corpse. Even Dwight looks momentarily freaked out that Jim fell in with a bad crowd. Pretty good gag, but housekeeping is going to be pissed. And I'm sure he could have found better uses of his time, oh, say, preparing for this meeting with the new boss.
In the lobby Kathy asks Jim if he's buying puppets for his kids. That's her big move? After last week's end tag where she said she was going to use this time to get with Jim, I expected a lot more. Dwight loudly rounds everyone up, so that they don't make a bad first impression by being late. We learn that Dwight has hated Pam since the moment that they met because she said something that rubbed him the wrong way at their first meeting. Even though she's been delightful since, that first impression made all the difference. We're just finding this out now? After all of these years?
Dwight buys a ton of antacid from the gift shop, and looks to buy something for his "son." Everyone seems concerned about Dwight's physical health, as he's holding his stomach and obviously in a great deal of pain, but he shrugs it off as stress because he cares about this project. You see where this is going, right? Jim has other ideas -- he says he's poisoned Dwight. Dwight offers to set Jim's face on fire in retaliation. That seems like even stevens. Actually the behavior on Even Stevens was more mature than that on this show this week. Before this inane discussion can go any further, Stanley pulls up in a red convertible and says he's on vacation from the wife and kids and is living it up. He lets Jim ride with him, to run the iPod, so long as it is Kenny Loggins. Not Loggins and Messina. Poor Messina, always getting written off.