Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Life of Pie
By M. Giant | Season 9 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.18.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Jim's eager to find a way to make it up to Pam for how cool she was about his new second job, and when it develops that the office may have dangerous EMF hotspots, he might have just found a way. Repairing the wiring will not only be costly but require shutting down the office for a week, neither of which landlord Dwight is willing to do. At least not until Jim uses some masking tape and a barely-popped bag of microwave popcorn to convince Dwight that his testicles are getting nuked. Jim's plan was to take Pam and the kids for a family getaway with a stop at a rural pie stand during the enforced week off, but it backfires when Dwight rents a work bus instead. That way everyone can still do their jobs, but in the parking lot, under close quarters and extreme general discomfort. Jim realizes the only way to save the situation is to make Dwight drive them all to the pie stand. Which he does, unhappily. So unhappily, in fact, that Pam starts to worry about Dwight.
Nellie is filling out paperwork so she can adopt, but a major obstacle is that her employer has to provide a reference, and Andy hates her. Erin, however, is willing to help Nellie out by bringing to bear her own experience in the foster care system. And when Andy shoots Nellie down again, Erin takes it rather personally.
Just miles from the pie stand and minutes before it closes, Dwight snaps and goes to sulk on the bus's roof. Pam dispatches Jim to talk him down, which is when Dwight reveals to Jim what's really bothering him: he's sterile. Or at least he thinks he is, thanks to Angela's baby not being his and Jim's prank. Whether he actually is or not will have to be determined at a later date, after he gives in and completes the breakneck drive to the pie stand. Where Andy signs Nellie's letter after all, Kevin happily gets Oscar to pie him, and Jim and Pam appear to be all better. Even though there's still the question of when they're all going to get home now that it's already five o'clock.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Andy shows the employees the "Fail" reel he put together of the office's softball season, consisting of nothing but just normal footage with some mocking editing courtesy of Andy. Which makes it a meta-fail, I guess. But it's Jim to the rescue, showing an actual fail in which Andy attempted to pick up the Gatorade cooler and dumped it all over himself. Now that's a fail.
After truncated credits, Dwight, Erin, and Toby are busy in the bullpen with a scanner and red masking tape, which they're using to mark X's on the walls. Toby explains that there's an EMF hotspot, which Oscar elaborates is from a concentration of poorly insulated wires. Andy comes in, thinks the mark on the wall indicates a concealed beehive, and is mean to Toby old-school Michael-style. Stanley says he's not working in a microwave oven, and Dwight, who still owns the building and is theoretically responsible for its maintenance, mocking-heads the very idea of insulation. "It's a wire, I'm not buying it a fur coat."
Jim THs that Pam was so cool about his new job that he wants to do something great for her, like beat down some bikers in a bar. How about you just stop being an idiot?
Nellie reluctantly goes into Andy's office. He is as rude to her as expected, giving her a minute and purposely talking through most of it, but she still manages to communicate that as her employer, she needs him to sign a reference letter -- which she offers to write herself -- so she can adopt a baby. Andy's a dick about it and then sends her away, but in a TH he reasonably promises to read the letter. "And if she tells the truth about how evil and unfit to be a mother she is, then yeah, I'll sign that." Oh my God, Andy, you won. Get over it.
Dwight's been Googling the health risks supposedly associated with EMF radiation, and assuring everyone that the "mainstream studies are inconclusive." Plus in order to fix it, he'd have to tear out the walls and shut the place down for a week. "Week off, that'd be great," Pam mumbles to Jim. That's all he needs to hear. We see him with some microwave popcorn in the kitchen, futzing with it in the microwave but not actually popping it as Darryl and Clark come in bickering about whether Clark will teach Darryl PowerPoint. He explains to them that he's getting his wife a week off of work, and hurries out with the still-flat popcorn pouch.
Out in the bullpen, Jim loudly starts a new round of complaints about the potential health problems. Dwight remains unmoved. "Sorry, Lucky Jimbo," he THs. "I can live very happily in a magnetic field. Most of my childhood heroes got their powers that way." Jim pretends that he's finding info online that EMF can cause infertility. Dwight scoffs, but surreptitiously covers his groin with his mouse pad (and I briefly consider whether it's worth going back to the '90s to make a joke about the balls that used to be inside computer mice. Conclusion: no). Then Jim asks Dwight to pass him his popcorn, which he supposedly "forgot" under Dwight's desk. Dwight picks it up, going from annoyed to curious when he realizes that a few of the kernels are already popped -- and he's directly under a red X on the ceiling. "Andy!" Dwight cries, rushing into his office. Jim triumphantly mimes a basketball three-pointer, and then we cut to him promising Pam a week on the lake and a dozen pies on the way, stopping at "Laverne's Pies Tires Fixed Also." So now we can picture what the pie stand's sign looks like. Andy and Dwight come out and announce that the office will indeed be closed for a week. Dwight adds that this contract stipulates he provide a temporary workspace. "It will arrive in one hour." Wait, what?