By M. Giant
Andy's coming back tomorrow and nobody's really looking forward to his return. Kevin will miss the three-month-old milk he left in the fridge, Dwight will miss having an imaginary boss who does his bidding and Erin's planning to dump him… as she should. Pam and Jim are looking forward to a low-key but romantic Valentine's Day together, while everyone else decides to hit the mini-mall to score the couples discount for one last boss-free hurrah. So, of course, Andy shows up a day early, one hacky sack short of looking like a full-on island hippie.
Andy racks up a number of impressive achievements in his first hours back: losing the Scranton White Pages account, collecting a bonus for the fantastic numbers the branch posted in his absence, pissing everyone off and revealing that he never technically informed David Wallace he was leaving. When Wallace comes into the office for a meeting, Andy tries to cram by getting the employees to catch him up on everything he missed (read the weecaps, dude), so they fill his head with lies to trip him up rather than outright squealing on him. Andy figures it out and rescues himself with some fast talking (and a shave and a change of clothes), but his relationship with the employees is probably not the best right now. He also manages to talk Erin out of breaking up with him, but doesn't exactly cover himself in glory there either.
Meanwhile, Jim and Pam go to meet Brian the sound guy and his wife for lunch, only to discover that he came stag. In fact, he and his wife will be splitting up. During an emotional moment, Brian alludes to Pam's breakdown from a couple of weeks ago, which is the first Jim's heard of it. He gets pissy with Pam and tries to run away to Philly rather than dealing with it, but she puts her foot down and decrees they're going to spend their Valentine's Day having the fight they've been needing to have since… oh, October or so. Good call, that.
At the end of the day, Erin breaks the news to Pete that she couldn't pull the trigger, but when Pete understandingly says he just wants her to be happy, she changes her mind and goes and dumps Andy for being gone for three months. While, unbeknownst to her, he's on speaker with David Wallace. So, you know, that's kind of awesome.
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No teaser this week; just mini-credits and we're on, with Jim and Pam talking at their desks about how lucky it is that Jim's in town for Valentine's Day. Of course, it's going to cost him an extra day in Philly week, but whatever. Up at Reception (which is decorated with a Happy Valentine's Day banner), Erin flirtatiously invites Pete to play hooky with her today. "I really want to have fun today, because tomorrow is going to be a nightmare," she THs. She adds that when Andy returns from his "stupid dumb boat trip" (no argument about that) tomorrow, she plans to dump him. Cut to Pete's TH, voicing his doubts about Erin's plan. After all, she's offered to do anything he wants, just like his family did with his childhood dog on his last day before going to "the farm." And then Erin waves a Frisbee at Pete, which doesn't seem to calm his fears.
Dwight enters Andy's vacant office and plays out a scene between the two of them, taking both parts, complete with annoying humming as Andy. Dwight THs about how well he gets along with Andy lately. "He's pretend, and he does exactly as I tell him to." He's also not looking forward to Andy's return tomorrow, "unless he comes back as Pretend Dwight, in which case we're in for an epic, confusing showdown." Couldn't be worse than last season.
Kevin has been sneaking a bit out of Andy's milk carton in the fridge in his absence, but the boss's return will mean "goodbye chunky lemon milk." He comes out of the kitchen and announces to the bullpen that he wishes Andy would stay away. Nellie suggests "one last fun bossless day." Meredith's idea of booze and cocaine doesn't get much traction, so Phyllis suggests hitting the mini-mall to cash in on the couples' discount instead. Stanley offers to pretend to be Phyllis's husband, having already been sick of her for years, and Kevin volunteers to be Angela's "foot-buddy" at the nail salon where she gets her feet detailed. Nellie drafts Clark ("It's what I do," he says gamely, at least when Jim's in the office and he has nowhere to sit), and Oscar asks Darryl to go with him. Darryl sneers, "No," then quickly corrects himself by going into "not that there's anything wrong with that" mode in record time.