Dwight is panting. Specifically, he is bouncing and panting. More specifically, he is bouncing in a circular pattern and panting rhythmically. After tolerating this for a short labor's worth of cleansing breaths, Jim looks over in silent exasperation. "You should get one of these," Dwight explains, going on to point out that the big exercise ball on which he's sitting (Dwight calls it a "fitness orb") is great for the body. "Forget everything you thought you knew about ab workouts," he commands. "Done," Jim says. Dwight tells him that it strengthens the core -- stronger back, help with sports, and "more enjoyable sex." Jim points out that Dwight isn't having any sex. It also improves your reflexes, not that this helps keep Dwight from knocking over a pencil cup. Finally, Jim has a question: how much does the orb cost? Dwight says that it's only twenty-five dollars. Armed with this knowledge, Jim stands and picks up a pair of scissors. He walks over and drives the scissors into the orb, which immediately splits down the side and hurls Dwight to the floor.
Credits.
Oscar leaves Michael's office, and Michael calls for Pam. As she heads in, she THs that today is the day for performance reviews. Her review last year began with a rundown of her hopes and dreams, and it ended with Michael informing her that he could bench-press 190 pounds. This time around, Michael has a different agenda: he wants Pam to listen to a voicemail from Jan, in which she uses the phrase, "I guess I missed you." To Michael, as you can imagine, this means that she...you know, misses him. She also clarifies in the message that they will be discussing business only, and not...you know. Anything else. When Michael asks her for a response, Pam tells him that she figures it means...Jan will be there later. In a TH, Michael discusses the fact that this will be his first time seeing Jan since...you know. "Caught up in the moment," as he says, and we watch in flashback as they make out. He does say that she didn't want to keep up with that...although, of course, he adds that he didn't either. Nobody did! Totally mutual! He was not at all rejected, and was not at all left to ponder life as an empty shell! Nooooo way!
He plays "I guess I missed you" for Pam quite a few times, and she attempts to gently point out that this is "I didn't catch you" rather than "I am pining for you." Michael doesn't take this well, and after announcing that he's "in a terrible mood," he proposes they move on to Pam's performance review. Behind panicked eyes, Pam gets the scent in the wind, changes her mind, and tells Michael that Jan is clearly "conflicted" about their relationship. This, Michael likes. And this gets Pam off the hook.
Out at the desks, Dwight tells Jim that during his performance review, he should propose to Michael that they carry more "double-tabbed manila file folders." Jim says there's no such thing; Dwight insists it's "a new product." Craftily, Dwight turns to the camera and smiles evilly, telling Jim this will help him get a raise. But Dwight is foiled when Jim says he's not asking for a raise anyway -- he's asking for a cut. Dwight doesn't understand, but he loses patience and says he's not going to sit here and deal with Jim, because he's just looking forward to not having to see Jim "tomorrow or Sunday." This freezes Jim mid-bite of yogurt. Way happier than is healthy, Jim looks at Dwight and says, "By 'tomorrow,' you mean...Saturday, right?" Dwight agrees, dummy. In a TH, Jim points out that it's currently Thursday, but Dwight thinks it's Friday. "And that's what I'll be working on this afternoon," he adds with a smile.
Michael is out by reception, desperately trying to prepare for his review with Jan. He tells Pam that he knows he has ideas regularly, and he wants to know whether she keeps a folder of his ideas. Pam does not, in fact, have a folder of Michael's great ideas. "That's unfortunate," he says. He asks about the suggestion box, which Pam doesn't even remember until he reminds her that he indeed had a suggestion box out a few years ago, and now, he'd like her to find it. Michael turns to everyone else and tells them to turn in any suggestions to the box so they can use them at the "weekly suggestion box meeting" he just made up. He welcomes all of their "constructive compliments." Ryan and Kelly question whether he means "constructive criticism," but when they do, Michael chides them for delivering feedback that is "neither constructive nor a compliment." Really, Ryan and Kelly.
Jim is allegedly on the phone, leaving someone a message about what he's up to "tomorrow." Jim hems and haws, saying tomorrow is "the fifteenth, and that is a..." He gets his payoff when Dwight helpfully but impatiently mutters, "Saturday." Jim actually pumps his fist as he repeats "Saturday," and then he stares directly into the camera as he finishes and hangs up the phone. It's a genius discovery, this tiny, petty, insignificant thing that Jim can do to Dwight that will bring him complete satisfaction.
Kevin is in the foreground as Jan enters the office with her cell phone. He gives the camera a knowing look. Michael steps out to greet Jan, and his efforts to hug her and/or kiss her hand are rejected with awkward revulsion. He takes Jan into his office. Kevin whispers an "ooooooh" to the camera. In Michael's office, he takes Jan's coat, and she immediately lays down the law that they're not going to talk about anything other than business. He THs that he's finding her entire approach so confusing, because on the one hand, she kissed him, but on the other hand, every single thing she's done since then has suggested that she has no interest in kissing him ever again. Whatever could that mean? No, really, what? Ladies are so complicated! Back in his office, Michael can't stop surreptitiously sex-talking to her as she tries to ask him about his progress with everyone's reviews. She stares daggers of hate into his cheekbones. Suffice it to say that Michael's string of smooth responses concludes with: "Not that there's anything wrong with 'wham bam,' if it's consensual." He asks if he can ask her something, and she immediately says no, but he swears it's a business question. He wants to ask. It's a business question. Honest. She relents: what's the question? "Are you wearing a new perfume today?" He considers this a business question, since she's wearing it at the office. He leans in and sniffs heavily, telling her "it's really sexy." Jan is still horrified: "Please don't smell me, Michael," she says icily. I love that line so much, because they knew not to overwrite it, which I'm sure was very tempting. "Please don't smell me, Michael" is the most straightforward and un-"written" way she could possibly have spoken to him there, and it's just perfect.
People walk by reception and drop papers into the suggestion box, and Pam walks over to Jim's desk to talk about what happened last night on The Apprentice. You have no way of knowing this unless you used to actually watch Donald Trump voluntarily, but this is another cue to Dwight that it's Friday. Dwight looks up unhappily, saying he forgot to watch it, because he was out drinking with his laser-tag team. Yeah, drinking Yoo-Hoo, maybe. Jim and Pam look happily and disbelievingly at the camera. It's going so well.
Stanley's performance review is going much like Pam's, in that he's patiently talking Michael through his relationship problems, suggesting Michael listen to the message again and pay attention to "the pauses." Michael is impressed: "How do you know that?" he asks. "Did you learn that on the streets?" Stanley agrees: "I did learn it on the streets. On the ghetto, in fact." "No kidding," says an impressed Michael, and then we cut to Stanley's TH, in which he says, "It's all about my bonus."
In the break room, Jim is making some tea when Pam passes through on her way to the bathroom. She mentions that Michael and Jan made out. Jim is all, "Echhhh," and he adds that it's Thursday, but Dwight thinks it's Friday. "So keep that going," he says. On her way into the bathroom, Pam is almost as unreasonably excited about this prospect as he is.
Michael happily sends Stanley out of his performance review, literally patting him on the back for his great performance. Angela is , and in an interview, she says she likes performance reviews: "I really enjoy being judged," she says. But just as she's about to head into Michael's office, Pam tells Michael that Jan is on the phone. This leads to Angela's performance review being truncated, in the sense that she never even makes it into the office, but is just told that she did great. In Michael's office, he puts Jan on the speakerphone and grandly promises us that perhaps this is not so "mutual," since she's calling him. She! Is calling Michael! But when he takes her call, she confusedly says she's just returning his "many calls." He tells her he was calling to "get some closure" on "what transpired between [them]" at Chili's. "No," she says flatly, saying they will not be discussing that at all. They will only be discussing his "concrete ideas" for the Scranton branch. Michael looks distraught, but says that "surely, this review is a formality" because of the transpiring, and the Chili's. Jan tells him he's quite mistaken, and he'd better "forget anything" that went down in the parking lot. And, presumably, thereafter. She instructs him to be "completely professional," which...first time for everything, I guess. He pauses. "Been thinking about you," he says, to which Jan replies that this would be "an example of completely unprofessional behavior." Michael doesn't understand, and once Jan susses out that the cameras are listening, she hangs up. To the dial tone, Michael says, "That's my girlfriend." It really isn't.
We go to Accounting, where Kevin is telling Oscar, "I hear they made out, and had sex." Oscar just heard they made out. "Well, I heard they made out" -- here, Kevin turns to the camera, grins, and nods -- "and had sex." Brian Baumgartner, you are a magnificent man. Angela tells them to be quiet, because "office romances are nobody's business but the people involved." Kevin turns to the camera again, still smirking. "'Romances'?" he asks. Indeed! What is this?
Michael is out by reception, desperately trying to prepare for his review with Jan. He tells Pam that he knows he has ideas regularly, and he wants to know whether she keeps a folder of his ideas. Pam does not, in fact, have a folder of Michael's great ideas. "That's unfortunate," he says. He asks about the suggestion box, which Pam doesn't even remember until he reminds her that he indeed had a suggestion box out a few years ago, and now, he'd like her to find it. Michael turns to everyone else and tells them to turn in any suggestions to the box so they can use them at the "weekly suggestion box meeting" he just made up. He welcomes all of their "constructive compliments." Ryan and Kelly question whether he means "constructive criticism," but when they do, Michael chides them for delivering feedback that is "neither constructive nor a compliment." Really, Ryan and Kelly.
Jim is allegedly on the phone, leaving someone a message about what he's up to "tomorrow." Jim hems and haws, saying tomorrow is "the fifteenth, and that is a..." He gets his payoff when Dwight helpfully but impatiently mutters, "Saturday." Jim actually pumps his fist as he repeats "Saturday," and then he stares directly into the camera as he finishes and hangs up the phone. It's a genius discovery, this tiny, petty, insignificant thing that Jim can do to Dwight that will bring him complete satisfaction.
Kevin is in the foreground as Jan enters the office with her cell phone. He gives the camera a knowing look. Michael steps out to greet Jan, and his efforts to hug her and/or kiss her hand are rejected with awkward revulsion. He takes Jan into his office. Kevin whispers an "ooooooh" to the camera. In Michael's office, he takes Jan's coat, and she immediately lays down the law that they're not going to talk about anything other than business. He THs that he's finding her entire approach so confusing, because on the one hand, she kissed him, but on the other hand, every single thing she's done since then has suggested that she has no interest in kissing him ever again. Whatever could that mean? No, really, what? Ladies are so complicated! Back in his office, Michael can't stop surreptitiously sex-talking to her as she tries to ask him about his progress with everyone's reviews. She stares daggers of hate into his cheekbones. Suffice it to say that Michael's string of smooth responses concludes with: "Not that there's anything wrong with 'wham bam,' if it's consensual." He asks if he can ask her something, and she immediately says no, but he swears it's a business question. He wants to ask. It's a business question. Honest. She relents: what's the question? "Are you wearing a new perfume today?" He considers this a business question, since she's wearing it at the office. He leans in and sniffs heavily, telling her "it's really sexy." Jan is still horrified: "Please don't smell me, Michael," she says icily. I love that line so much, because they knew not to overwrite it, which I'm sure was very tempting. "Please don't smell me, Michael" is the most straightforward and un-"written" way she could possibly have spoken to him there, and it's just perfect.
People walk by reception and drop papers into the suggestion box, and Pam walks over to Jim's desk to talk about what happened last night on The Apprentice. You have no way of knowing this unless you used to actually watch Donald Trump voluntarily, but this is another cue to Dwight that it's Friday. Dwight looks up unhappily, saying he forgot to watch it, because he was out drinking with his laser-tag team. Yeah, drinking Yoo-Hoo, maybe. Jim and Pam look happily and disbelievingly at the camera. It's going so well.
Michael's office. He takes a call from Pam about "the suggestion box meeting." He pretends to be busy, but she reminds him that he specifically asked to be interrupted about the meeting while he was talking to Jan. Jan indeed wants to sit in, but suddenly, Michael doesn't seem to want Jan there. Nothing doing -- it's meeting time.
Suggestion box meeting. Conference room. Michael tells the team that he always reads their suggestions every week, and that he is careful to "scrutinize" every one to see what's going on. Unfortunately for Michael, the first suggestion he pulls is about Y2K preparations. Kelly calls him on this untimely suggestion, which Michael suggests got "stuck in the box." The question is about outreach to depressed employees, and Michael is sure it's a joke, since no one is depressed, but Phyllis reminds Michael about the guy who used to work there, who [Phyllis pantomimes shooting herself in the head]. Michael just dismissively says "that guy was weird" and moves on to the question. Jan looks at him with increasing concern.
The suggestion says, "You need to do something about your B.O." Michael gently says this suggestion, whomever it may be for, is "more of a personal suggestion." Toby, showing the streak of malice toward Michael that peeks out just now and then, can't help himself: "Aren't the...suggestions meant...for you?" he asks. Michael says that if Toby is "inferring" that Michael has B.O., Michael finds that a "poor choice of words." I would tend to believe that Michael has B.O. myself. After Creed gives Michael a lesson in infer/imply, Michael accuses Creed of having a certain "stank" himself. Creed looks appalled, and then he laughs. Michael pulls out another suggestion, which is about Michael's (presumably) coffee breath. This is going nowhere! Not helpful! Angela protests, "Sometimes you talk to us real close," and Michael tightly asks if that's too "hard" for her. Angrily, he pulls out another suggestion, which turns out to be not a suggestion at all, but a piece of gum. But things haven't even gotten as bad as they're going to get, since the suggestion as read by Dwight is, "Don't sleep with your boss." I'm thinking Kevin, on that one. Dwight looks over at Michael and says, "Do you think this is referring to you boning Jan?"
Rather than hang around for the fallout from that moment, let's move to Michael's office, where he's pleading innocent and Jan is pacing. She wants him to sit down so they can talk, but all he wants to know is where she got her outfit. If there's anything I regret about where they took this story later, it's how much I adore this dynamic in which this smart, capable, accomplished woman is absolutely unable to cope with having drunkenly dallied with maybe the biggest schmuck she's ever met other than Todd Packer.
Stairwell. Dwight Schrute Preparation Ritual. The camera is spying on an obviously unwitting Dwight. Air guitar. Kicking. "You're going to give me this raise! I deserve this raise! HYAAAH! The least you can do is keep my salary consistent with inflation!" Wow. Shoot for the moon, there, Dwight. "KAAA-YAH!" After a few hollers declaring himself "awesome," Dwight hugs the wall, exhausted.
In Michael's office, he doesn't understand why Jan keeps acting like "nothing happened," and she repeats that "nothing did." Dwight busts in, apologizing in the event that he caught them making out. Dwight, arms full of visual aids, declares himself ready for his review, but Michael says that Dwight's performance is "adequate" and dismisses him. Jan wants to know if all the reviews have been that thorough. Taking this as a cue that she finally is ready for the touchy-feely talk he's been dying for all day, Michael again orders Dwight to leave. Dwight wants to talk about a raise first. Michael doesn't see any reason for a raise. Dwight is ready for this question, and he shows charts of his non-lateness and non-sick-day usage. He comes in on holidays! Using...a copy of a key he's not supposed to have! Oops. Michael calls this "a very serious offense...as is toying with a man's heart." Jan cannot believe she made out with him. It's like Jan's entire job is now one endless Walk Of Shame. Dwight's references to the time he brought in deer jerky for everyone (Michael: "That was deer? Gross!") do not help his case, but he does suggest that since deer is an aphrodisiac, Michael and Jan could head to The Antler Lodge to discuss Dwight's raise. A thoroughly horrified Jan excuses herself (briefly making Michael think he's getting that Antler Lodge trip) so she can put her head through a plate-glass window or something.
In the hallway, Jan THs that she will not be discussing anything on camera about this, but she'd really like a light.
Dwight's performance review includes a trophy prop, a Smallville reference, and little else. Michael is entirely distracted thinking about his lovely Jan, out in the hallway.
Jim and Pam discuss whether Jan and Michael did it. Jim doesn't want to think about it, but Pam can't imagine how you "come back from that." Jim thinks you can't, "especially working together," but Pam's just talking about how you can possibly recover from "doing that with Michael." Like, "as a human being." Jim agrees that it's obviously impossible.
Jan blusters back into Michael's office to collect her stuff, telling him she'll do his review over the phone. She can't stand to share his zip code for now, I think. Michael follows her out, demanding to know "why," and this back and forth and forth and back and OH MY GOD it hurts to look at it keeps up as he follows her all the way out to the elevator. Finally, he asks her if he's too short. She assures him that his looks are not the issue. "It's your personality," he says. "You're obnoxious and rude, and and and and stupid..." She also confirms the coffee breath. She doesn't think he has B.O., but she does think he's inconsiderate. She closes with "you're a great guy" and "you were very sweet" and that she appreciates how he stayed up with her, but she's not looking for anything, so they're just working together and being friends. She gets on the elevator as he confirms that it's not his looks.
Michael THs that what he took away from all this is that her revulsion has nothing to do with how great he is; she's just not in a relationshippy place. This is all he needed to know.
Tag: a caption reading "Friday, 12:20 PM." Dwight's phone rings at his empty desk, and Pam walks by with a smile, dropping off messages. Jim is smiling also. Michael emerges, wanting to know where Dwight is. Jim says he's not sure! "Never missed a day, my ass," Michael says angrily, and Jim and Pam exchange grins. And then we peek out at the parking lot, where Dwight is leaping half-dressed from his car, hollering, "I'm here! I'm here!" Oh, Dwight. The Apprentice was on last night.