Episode Report Card M. Giant: N/A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Twelve Angry Coworkers (Give or Take)
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 13 | Aired on 02.02.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Jim has returned from a week of jury duty... except what nobody in the office knows is that he was dismissed after only half a day, and spent the rest of the week at home with Pam and the kids. But Dwight quickly spots the holes in Jim's story, and makes it his mission to get Jim busted and then fired. Jim, wisely or unwisely, decides to take Andy into his confidence. Andy's response, after his initial indignation, is to decide to cover for Jim. The two of them can't quite pull it off, however, and when Jim publicly confesses, Dwight thinks he's finally won for good. Except that as mad as the other employees are at Jim for making them cover for him last week, Andy refuses to fire him. Looks like Dwight's going to have to go to Gabe.
Only Gabe's not in the office. Instead, he's part of the delegation (along with Oscar, Kevin and Erin) who have gone to visit Angela and her new month-early baby at the hospital. Oscar expects to meet a tiny preemie, but when the kid turns out to be full-sized, he soon realizes the baby wasn't conceived when Angela says it was. As though it's any of Oscar's business, he gets Angela to confess that the baby was conceived before she and the state senator were married. Then, when Dwight shows up at the hospital looking for Gabe, Oscar immediately blabs the truth to him about the conception of Angela's baby. Dwight is galvanized by the news, because it seems he and Angela had a little one-night stand a month before her wedding. Although she denies everything, Dwight is beyond thrilled to have brought a Schruteling into the world, and isn't exactly going out of his way to be discreet about it.
Jim decides to have Pam bring the kids into the office to try to charm his way out of trouble, but it doesn't go as planned. Which is actually good for him, because when his coworkers see how ill-behaved the Half-perts can be, all is forgiven. Even by Dwight, whose new status as a secret baby-daddy has given him a new, fatherly perspective on life. At least until next week.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Apparently Andy occasionally deals with stress by going down into the warehouse and dancing to "Footloose," making a big mess of the place, which we get to see at some length. "Sex also works," he matter-of-factly talking-heads. Fortunately, we don't see that.
Jim enters the office, apparently having just returned from jury duty. Most people seem more excited about the experience than he does, explaining that it was just a hit-and-run case where they didn't even convict the guy. Jim THs that although he was indeed called in to jury duty, they cut him loose at noon and he didn't bother coming in for a half day. And then the next day he stayed home to help Pam with the kids. "And then...three other days happened." Totally out of his hands.
Word comes in that Angela had her baby. Kevin offends Darryl by wondering if it was born black, then learns that he didn't win the birth pool. "Right month, wrong year," Erin tells him. Some of the employees talk about going to visit, but it's not going to be an overwhelming turnout, mainly just Angela's fellow accountants Kevin and Oscar. Oh, and Gabe, who has creepy reasons of his own for wanting to visit the maternity ward.
In the break room, some of the employees are asking Jim for details on his case. He tries to blow it off, but when he hears their sob stories of how they had to cover for him during his absence, he starts feeling guilty and making shit up. Unfortunately, Toby's also been on "j-duty," with the whole Scranton Strangler case as you recall, and he makes a reference to Ernesto's, which Jim agrees was their favorite restaurant. Actually, as Toby corrects, it's a food truck. Off to the side, Dwight quietly observes the discrepancy.
Before entering Angela's room, Oscar reminds Kevin, Erin, and Gabe to be sensitive about what will certainly be the tiny size of Angela's premature baby, who wasn't due to be born for another month. They enter the room, where Angela, her husband the state senator, and a rather large baby with the suitably impressive moniker of Phillip Halstead Lipton are hanging out. Of course Kevin blurts out how fat the kid is, because Oscar didn't prepare him for that.
Back at their desks, Dwight easily catches an inattentive Jim in an inconsistency in his story about the case, and stands up to loudly bust him and challenge him to single combat. Andy comes out to ask what's up, and even though Dwight tells him Jim was lying about jury duty the whole time and thus needs to be fired him immediately, Andy insists Dwight take a chill pill. Which he mimes giving it to Dwight complete with a glass of water and then makes Dwight mime swallowing. Now fully chilled, Dwight quietly asks Andy if Jim would be fired if he were lying about jury duty. "Yeah, of course -- fire him to Timbuktu," Andy chirps, patting a suddenly nervous-looking Jim on the shoulder on his way back into his office. "Good enough for me," Dwight says, chill-ly.