Michael welcomes us to a beautiful Friday morning in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but when he swivels in his office chair to glance out the window, he is greeted by a sight that strikes terror into his tiny little mind: the Dunder Mifflin traveling IT guy, getting out of his car and heading towards the building. But Michael doesn't know it's an IT guy yet; all he sees is the Sikh turban on the IT guy's head, which causes one of his thirty or so synapses to fire -- specifically, the one labeled TERRORIST. So he immediately goes into panic mode, shutting off the lights in the bullpen and hoping the IT guy goes away. Kevin offers to call the police, and Michael just tries to shush him with panicked gestures as the IT guy knocks on the door to the DM office. Later, Michael admits to us, "The IT tech guy and me? Did not get off to a great start." Oh, sorry, we weren't supposed to know that was the IT tech guy either. Pretend I'm not watching this on DVD.
So after the credits (which run at 4x speed at my house), Michael is hovering nervously over his office chair, which now contains the rather grumpy IT guy. He asks Michael for his password. Michael nods at the Post-It on the side of his monitor, which reads "1234." That's everything you can do wrong password-wise in, like, three seconds.
Michael still hasn't come down from his xeno-panic, because when he comes out of his office, he nearly wets himself when Dwight pops out at him from the door of the adjoining conference room. Dwight grills Michael about what's going on in there, and uses the excuse that if Michael dies, Dwight will need to know what's going on so that he can take over. Michael scoffs that he's in great shape, but Dwight starts rattling off any number of grisly fates that Michael could meet at any moment. Michael only has an answer to one of them: "If I step on a mine in Scranton, Pennsylvania, you can have my job." And on any other sitcom, he would have specific cause to regret that promise before the closing credits.
From his office, Michael THs that there some things a boss doesn't share with his employees: "His salary; that would depress them. His bed; it --" For once, Michael stops talking in time (no doubt thinking, as all of us are, about his own boss's bed) and skips right to number three: "I'm not going to tell them that I'll be reading their emails."
So then we see Michael making the poor IT guy search the email database for the phrases michael + boss + funny. He's all excited about an email that comes up from Stanley, until he reads that Stanley couldn't go to a game because Michael is "an ass," making him stay late that night. "Stanley's an ass," Michael grumbles. The IT guy gives the camera the smallest little smile, probably also enjoying the fact that the search engine couldn't even find a note with "funny" in it and thought this would be a good bone to toss instead. He sure got the hang of dealing with Michael in a hurry.
When Michael goes out to the bullpen, Oscar comes right out and asks why Michael is now spying on their emails. Everyone else is wondering the same thing, because apparently this episode is set in 1995. Is there anyone who expects privacy on their work emails any more? Besides those of you now reading this site at home instead of at work like you used to? Michael denies it, of course, attempting to distract everyone with an interminable impression of an evil robot who then turns into the Tin Man. I don't know, I'm sure it makes sense to Michael. Oscar says that they got a notification memo from IT, about which Michael grumbles, "Defeats the whole purpose." As if he wouldn't have blown his own cover in a matter of minutes anyway. So then he tries a riff about the unfairly negative connotations of the term "Big Brother." And Kevin THs, "I gotta erase a lot of stuff. A lot. Of stuff." How does Kevin always manage to TMI like that without actually telling us anything?
And Dwight is saying pretty much the same thing to Angela, within earshot of Pam, in an impressively casual yet businesslike tone. Still, it's enough to ping Pam's radar, and she calls Jim over to tell him what just happened. "Do you think that they're like--?" "No," Jim says firmly, a study in floppy-haired denial. But it's too late; they thought about it, and now they can't unthink it, no matter how horrified they might be. In a TH, Pam compares it to squishing a spider under a book, where you know it's going to be gross, but you have to look to make sure. So now she wants the camera guys to keep an eye out for clues on her behalf. Don't do it, camera guys! Maintain your documentarian detachment!
Pam goes over to Dwight's desk to tell him about a "friend" who likes two girls he works with. "One is tall and brunette, and the other one is short and blonde and perky and kinda judgmental. Who do you think he should choose?" Oblivious to the annoyed "what are you doing?" look that Jim's giving Pam's back, Dwight asks about the candidates' medical histories, which segues into a TH about how, as a volunteer sheriff, he can look up medical records. "There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county," he marvels. The only thing surprising about that observation is that he has stats to back it up, and not just a lot of excuses from women who turned him down. Although I'm sure he has plenty of those as well.
Michael, snooping around in Meredith's email, has found an Evite from Jim, to his barbecue, tonight. Michael idly wonders how his "Evitation" fell through the cracks, and clicks over to find the guest list. Looks like the whole Scranton branch is invited. Except for one guy. One very confused, sad, rejected, email-snooping guy.
Pam "runs into" Angela, buying a Baby Ruth from the vending machine in the break room, and asks whether she's bringing anyone to Jim's party, date-wise. Angela coolly says that she isn't, and Pam lets it go. She's about to get something from the machine herself, but Angela's not done shopping; she gets another Baby Ruth with a cold "excuse me" at Pam's temerity in trying to cut ahead of her. Pam gives us a conspiratorial grin, and Angela gives Pam a dirty look. Dirtier than usual, that is.
This has given Michael enough time to spin himself a self-serving reason for his exclusion from Jim's party. He THs about the natural distance between a boss and his employees, over B-roll footage of him annoying everyone in the office with a boxing kitten puppet. But this doesn't mean he's going to let it go, especially if there's a party invitation in it for him. He decides he needs to be "approachabler."
So Michael takes his cup o'noodles and joins a rather surprised Jim, Pam, Kevin, and Oscar at the break room table. Michael talks about how noodles reminds him of college, and how he misses the parties. Jim cuts an "oh, shit" look at the camera as Michael anvils about how the professors would come too. "They were the most fun," he claims. Michael doesn't have agendas this clear for his actual staff meetings.
Jim THs that he has imported beer, and a karaoke machine, and didn't invite Michael. "Three ingredients for a great party," he says. He explains that he wants everyone to be able to relax, and that he invited everyone from the office because his roommate wants to meet everyone. Everyone? Really? Even...? "He thinks I'm making Dwight up," Jim says of his roommate, and shudders, "He is very real."
The camera dashes naughtily up to Reception and ducks down, focused on Pam's face. "What?" she says. The camera swings around to Dwight, making out with his Baby Ruth, and then swings back to Pam. "Yes! Thank you!" she says. It's like she's thanking me. Which almost makes up for having to watch Dwight eat his candy bar inside the wrapper like he's performing cunnilingus on it.
Later, Dwight starts to ask Jim about which of the internet's "several options" to get to his place would be best, and Jim hurriedly shushes Dwight because Michael's up at Reception right now, and that much proximity will stretch even the TV cone of silence to the limit. Trying to stay discreet, Jim whispers to Dwight that Michael doesn't know about it. And he realizes that the only way to keep it that way is to tell Dwight it's a surprise party for Michael. Which is what he does.
And then Jim is telling Pam about what he told Dwight, which she thinks is a great idea, suggesting, "Maybe we can get him to hide and wait somewhere." Under the guise of wanting a head count, Jim asks whether Roy's coming, and doesn't seem too disappointed to hear that he isn't. Or surprised. It's probably why he went with imported beer.
On his way back to his desk, Jim runs into Michael, who, with only an hour left in the day, is getting desperate about finagling an invitation for himself. He asks whether Jim has plans that night, or if they could hang out tonight. Jim awkwardly begs off, and Michael suddenly remembers that he himself has improv class: "Wouldn't miss it for the world. But if something else came up I would definitely not go." Jim looks trapped, until he finally comes up with "Improv sounds great." Michael reluctantly returns to his office empty-handed. So that's three impossible things we're believing this episode: expectation of email privacy, Jim inviting everyone he works with except Michael, and Jim not caving when he realizes that Michael's on to him. Jim is usually all about the caving.
It's 5:10, and people are starting to leave for the day. But first they have to get past the one-man gauntlet of Michael, who has positioned himself by the door and is grilling everyone about their plans as they leave. Kevin's lie is highly rehearsed, wordy, and specific, but all Angela can come up with is "Charity...bake drive." "Liar!" Michael snaps at her retreating back. Michael is finally down to Dwight, and even offers to watch "that stupid...Battleship...Galaxy" with him, because it was still on Fridays then. By the way, The Office and Battlestar Galactica are both NBC Universal properties, which would cause me to snark about cross-promotion if I weren't currently realizing that this technically makes me, Jenna Fischer, and Edward James Olmos co-workers. Hi, guys! Dwight makes a couple of transparent -- nay, incandescent -- excuses, and then tells Michael with a naughty grin, "Have fun whatever it is you're doing tonight, and I will see you Monday." Which he think is just mischievous, but comes off to Michael as just cruel. "He has no idea," Dwight whispers excitedly into the camera. He leaves Michael standing alone in the background, giving us a nice view of the conference-room window through the spot where his heart used to be.
Jim's party. It looks like Jim and his roommate share a suburban-looking house, which makes me a little sad, for reasons unknown even to me, that Oscar didn't bring Gil along. Jim's telling everyone where all the wine and beer are, and that it's not all for Meredith and Kelly. Dwight rushes in all stressed out about Jim's hide-a-key, waving the fake rock around and complaining about what a security risk it constitutes. "Hey, you must be Dwight!" Jim's roommate Mark says happily, and compliments Dwight's Birkenstocks. Dwight hikes one up onto a chair arm so we can admire it along with the red-and-green sock. Get a good look, everyone, because this show doesn't do sandal humor without a good reason. Dwight pulls Jim aside to ask when the "guest of honor" is coming. "Laterish," Jim dodges, and gets ready to lead a tour of the house. The group includes Phyllis, Kevin (wearing a porkpie hat, because Kevin is a rock star on weekends), Ryan, a blonde woman we don't know, and -- here's Pam! As they head upstairs, Ryan asks if Katy's coming. Jim admits that he hasn't talked to her for a while. "Mind if I call her?" Ryan asks, because he was That Guy even then -- we just didn't know it yet. "Uh, we can talk about that later," says Jim. Pam listens to this exchange with great interest. Uh, where's Roy, again?
Michael's improv class, which of course is being held in some high school or community college classroom in which people probably actually learn things during the day. The instructor asks for two volunteers. Everyone's hand goes up, but Michael's the only one doing a "Mr. Kot-ter" bit along with it. He gets picked first, and, funny thing, suddenly nobody wants to be the second volunteer any more. Think that's all you need to know about Michael's improv class? Too bad. As Michael's scene partner, the instructor drafts a woman named Mary Beth, who starts off the scene by doing a silly little-girl singing and dancing bit. Michael interrupts this by kicking open an imaginary door and barking, "Detective Michael Scarn! I'm with the FBI!"
In the hallway outside of class, Michael THs that the most exciting thing that can happen in a scene is for someone to have a gun: "That's why I always start with a gun, because you can't top it." Of course Michael insists on turning his improv class into The Michael Scott Show. Why should improv be any different? And how do I get my auto-correct to quit changing "improv" to "improve" every fucking time I type it? I get the irony already, creepy paper-clip guy. We see part of another scene that Michael disrupts and turns into an imaginary bloodbath, and the instructor forbids him from using any more guns. He holds out his hands, and Michael hands over an entire mime arsenal. Michael's instructor sucks; he didn't even check for an ankle holster.
Pam's in Jim's bedroom. Can you stand it? CAN YOU EVEN STAND IT OMFG PB&J 4EVAA!!!1!! Wow, sorry about that. She's the only one in there, for some reason. Jim ducks back in, saying, "I knew we lost somebody on the tour." He doesn't ask why she's hanging out in there by herself. She makes Jim sit down at his desk so that she can get "the full effect." It's very collegiate, what with the sweater he's wearing and the corkboard on the wall above his desk and a big framed intelligent life equation above that, the latter of which can't possibly be an accident. Pam goes and sits in the corner of the room that would represent Reception if Jim's home desk were his work desk, because they don't get enough of that during the day. Wait, what am I saying? There isn't a bed between then during the day like there is now. Makes it totally different. Jim calls a halt to the little game when Pam starts trying to imagine Dwight's relative position, even though that would be the hallway. Pam spots Jim's high-school yearbook -- serves him right, for leaving it out like that -- and flips right to his picture, flopping herself onto his bed as she does so. "You were so dorky!" she giggles. But not anymore, sitting at his desk in his bedroom in his house with a pretty girl on his bed whom he's afraid to touch. Not dorky at all, no sir.
Last scene of Michael's improv class. Michael tags in and pretends he's doing a fortune-telling scene -- the Asian man with the imaginary crystal ball grinning in relief before obligingly busting out an accent that would make Ping blush -- but then Michael has to whisper to him that he has a gun. End of improv class!
Jim's party. He's manning the grill outside, and politely asks Angela what variety of grilled dead thing she wants to eat. Angela bitches about getting sap on her hideous plaid lavender moccasins (thanks for the close-up on those snazzy kicks, camera guy) and says that she's a vegetarian. Jim directs her to the soda inside. What, no chips? ["Or veggie burgers/dogs?" -- Wing Chun] Bad host. Bad!
In the kitchen, Stanley and Oscar are talking about paper. Kelly interrupts and asks them to talk about something else, which totally stumps them. See, that awkward silence wouldn't have happened with the current Kelly. In fact, the Stanley and Oscar conversation wouldn't have happened with the current Kelly.
In the living room, Pam notices that Dwight and Angela are talking outside. She grins at us, and calls Phyllis over to ask about "secret office romances." Phyllis is like, "You tell me." Pam's confused. "You do mean you and Jim, right?" Phyllis asks, but already realizing she's just pulled another one of her patented phuck-ups. Seeing Pam's frozen expression, she backpedals frantically. Pam plays it off, but her expression tells us she's more upset about this than she would have been about getting sap on her lavender moccasins. Or even about owning lavender moccasins.
Outside, Ryan reaches for the grill. "Not so fast, fire guy," Kevin smirks at him. Watching scenes like this now, with the knowledge of Season 4 Douchebag Ryan Yet To Come, takes away some of the squirm factor. But that's more than made up for by seeing these moments as punishment for his many future sins. Which is what I choose to do. Join me, won't you?
And here's Michael not getting invited to another group outing with the improv class. He claims he'd love to join them, but that he's got an office party he can't get out of. Oh, Michael.
Phyllis is warbling "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake on Jim's karaoke machine when Jim comes to sit by Pam and ask how her "side project" is going. Pam says that she gave it up, and then THs that "people can just be friends," adding, "I think it was really unfair of us to assume that there was anything else going on." Oh, was it unfair? Of us? Sorry, Pam. Jeez. Go loll around on Jim's bed some more.
Rock Star Kevin is belting out the Cake version of "I Will Survive," and everyone's having a great time. Until Dwight jumps up yelling "Surprise!" Yes, Michael's here. To the suddenly quiet room, Michael starts his passive-aggressive routine about how he was just driving by. He throws his jacket at Ryan, and involuntarily drops the act when he sees the IT guy and says, "Come on, that guy?" Suddenly remembering: "He's a good guy, not a terrorist." He calls dibs on the karaoke machine, disregarding anyone who may have been waiting their turn properly, because they put their name in when they were supposed to, and have politely listened to everyone else sing, and were fucking invited.
And then Michael's got "Islands In The Stream" going, which is a duet, but no one's joining him. It's like going for a high-five and getting left hanging for three minutes. He's even reduced to singing the Dolly Parton part in falsetto. Finally, Jim shakes his head, takes pity on Michael, and joins him for the chorus. As we enjoy this small, dissonant moment of redemption, the camera zooms in on Jim's kitchen window. Outside, a pair of hideous lavender moccasins are rubbing up against a pair of Birkenstocks with red-and-green socks. And the owners of both pairs of shoes are horizontal. Yep, they just had to look under the book.
In the tag, Michael torments his improv class some more and tells us how he got into improv. He claims that he was walking down the street and a race car pulled up and the driver said, "You're the funniest guy I've ever seen, or my name's not Dale Earnhardt!" Michael giggles at his own improv genius, and then admits, "Actually, I found a flyer." Note to instructor: no flyers term.