Dude, where's my teaser? Seriously, the bit with Michael trying to be funny with text-to-speech software isn't on the DVD. Off to dig out the tape...
Okay, here we are. Michael calls Jim into his office. Jim dutifully enters and sees that Michael has decorated the back of his computer monitor with Post-It eyes, his chattering teeth, and a fez, in a crude approximation of a human face. "HI JIM," the computer says. Jim plays along and says hello. As Michael types on the keyboard he has hidden in his lap under his desk, the computer says, "I AM HARVEY A COMPUTER JIM SUCKS." Michael laughs like he's sitting to Triumph or something. Then he calls in Pam. "PAM YOU LOOK VERY HOT TODAY," Harvey says, and then "ME SO HORNY ME LOVE YOU LONG TIM." Michael acts all offended, but Pam just innocently asks, "Who's Long Tim?" She and Jim riff on that for a bit, taking all the fun out of this for Michael. Without dropping the pretense, Michael makes Harvey say, "YOU RUINED A FUNNY JOKE. GET OUT OF MY OFFICE." Jim and Pam cheerfully oblige. "Bye, Harvey," Pam says. And to cheer himself up, Michael makes Harvey say, "BOOBS." Which works splendidly.
Back to the DVD. Angela is interrupted in the middle of watching the front door by Kevin, who reports that according to a voice mail he just picked up, Corporate didn't get their tax forms. He worriedly asks if Angela sent them. "They arrived this morning," Angela dissembles. Apparently these forms are a big deal, as even Kevin recognizes.
Andy tells us that of the five people who transferred to Scranton from Stamford (including Tony, Martin, and Hannah), only he and Karen are left. He compares the situation to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory and assures us that he is not falling in any chocolate river. No, a more Veruca-Salty fate awaits Andy. But what does that make Jim? Grandpa Joe?
Dwight arrives at the office. Angela uses a jelly-bean run to Reception as her cover to meet Dwight there, and he whispers to her that she's covered. Angela's too relieved to even bother schlepping the two jelly beans she picked up back to her desk, preferring to leave them on Pam's counter. Poor Pam's jelly beans.
Dwight enters the conference room, where a meeting of the sales staff (Andy, Phyllis, Ryan, Jim, Karen, Stanley, and Dwight) is already in progress. "Pass the tardy sauce," Andy snarks at Dwight for Michael's benefit. Michael announces that they're all teaming up on sales visits today, and since Andy came up with the idea, he gets to pick his partner. Naturally he picks Michael, because what Andy really wants to sell today is Andy. Phyllis picks Karen. Stanley tries to pass, then looks back and forth between Jim and Dwight and sighs, "I'll take the kid." Ryan THs about how flattered he is to be the second choice after "pass." Oh, you'll live. That leaves Dwight and Jim as partners, which pleases neither of them. "Does anyone want to trade?" Dwight asks. "Yeah, I'll trade," Jim agrees, which doesn't help. And then in a TH, Jim shows us a picture from the days when he and Dwight used to go on sales calls all the time. It's also a relic of the time before Dwight started cutting his own hair and looked a lot more like the Trans-Am-driving heavy-metal fan he remains today, and when Jim was apparently known as "The Dorky Beatle."
In the parking lot, Michael tosses Dwight a big bag of laundry. "Long story," he explains to a curious Andy. He gathers up his sales force and does the poorest of poor-man's Phil Keoghans, referring to Ryan and Stanley as the retired Marines, Phyllis and Karen as the mother/daughter, Jim and Dwight as the gay couple, and himself and Andy as, what else, the firefighter heroes. And when there's a perfectly good historical precedent for a team of clowns, too. Since Michael made the mistake of bringing up The Amazing Race, everyone gets hung up on the what the prize is (there isn't one) and the race element (there isn't one of those either), so Michael just tells them to get going. But first he grabs Phyllis's keys and throws them under her car. Which, since he just debunked his own TAR comparison, serves no purpose other than to make him look like an asshole.
Speaking of, which, let's see how Dwight is doing. He insists on sitting in the seat directly behind Jim while Jim drives, on the grounds that it's the safest place in the car. So Jim manages to jerk the car in such a way as to bang Dwight's melon on the headrest. Team building!
In a TH, Andy proudly lets us in on the secret to all of his past successes, both in business and romance: "Slowly and painfully wear someone down." Sure, you can laugh, but that's how I became a recapper. So we see him in Michael's shotgun seat, asking him about the Schrute laundry service. With no emotion whatsoever, Michael tells Andy about Dwight's coup attempt. Which is, like, pay-dirt for Andy. He picks up that old wedge and blows a layer of dust off of it in his ongoing bid to bring Dwight down and take his place. For which he's totally qualified, because as an ex-Abercrombie employee he is an excellent folder. Just saying.
Angela is in such a good mood that she actually asks Pam to go with her to get some coffee. Pam is so surprised that she actually accepts.
Karen wonders why Phyllis is driving them to a beauty salon. Phyllis just smiles at Karen knowingly, but since Phyllis's knowing smile looks just like her clueless smile, Karen is not reassured.
How many visor-cams does this documentary team have, anyway? In the Stanley-mobile, Ryan asks Stanley if he could take the lead on the call they're about to make, and then Stanley can critique him afterward. "Nothing would delight me more," Stanley chuckles. Why Ryan fails to open the door and roll out onto the pavement upon hearing that is beyond me.
Karen and Phyllis are back in the car, painted up like a couple of Jersey mob wives with their hair blown up into vertiginous pompadours that brush the ceiling of Phyllis's car. Looks like Phyllis might have taken that mother-daughter thing a bit too much to heart.
After arriving in their client's parking lot, Jim waits patiently while Dwight sits in his car and psyches himself up with a little "Kickstart My Heart" in the backseat.
Andy continues picking away at Michael, comparing the Scranton team to the Superfriends. Except Dwight, whose superpower would be "being late all the time." Michael is either deliberately not paying attention or finds the task of driving all-consuming. "Hawkman," he murmurs absently, while Andy looks like he's about ready to climb the inside of Michael's car door.
"After you," Jim says to Dwight at the door of their client's building; Dwight refuses on the grounds that 70 percent of attacks are from behind. Jim says that still leaves a 30 percent chance that he'll attack Dwight from the front. Dwight is standing there giving a lengthy explanation about how a frontal attack is easier to block when Jim just reaches out and effortlessly bitch-slaps him. 130 percent chance, more like.
At the coffee shop, Pam notices how happy Angela is and adds, "I bet you wish you were like this all the time." Seriously, Angela is smiling all the way. She tells Pam about her "friend," Noelle, who missed a deadline, but was rescued by a "gallant gentleman" named "Kurt" who saved her ass by driving to New York for her. "I guess he just really likes her a lot," Angela says happily. Do you suppose "Noelle" is really unaware that her coworker...let's call her "amBees"...knows all about her and "Kurt?"
Michael's doing well on his and Andy's sales call, self-deprecatingly comparing his miserable angling luck to the trophy fishing photo on the client's desk. Predictably, Andy goes the opposite direction, claiming to have once shot a shark from the crow's nest of his dad's Bayliner off Montauk. Michael is doing much better at selling Dunder-Mifflin to the client than Andy is at selling himself to Michael. Not that that's hard.
In the Sebring afterwards, Andy is beating himself up for doing poorly, but even that has an agenda. "I really Schruted it," he says, claiming everyone says it around the office, and acting like he wonders where the term came from. Michael's lack of interest is epic. "Who knows how words are formed?" he says. This from the guy who normally isn't happy unless he's making up a fact of some form or another.
Pam gets a call at Reception, notifying her that she won an art contest for her watercolor of a school. She is rightfully excited, even when she tries to show us her winning entry on the internet (that "Image" search engine typeface sure looks familiar), and gets, like, a 200 x 300 pixel jpg. She thanks everyone in a little TH, including "the sixth-grade class that picked me."
Phyllis and Karen get a big order from their client. Phyllis asks the client about his wife, and he shows off a picture of them in Bermuda. The photo shows the client's wife painted up like a Jersey mob wife, with a vertiginous pompadour that brushes the top of the picture frame. Suddenly it all makes sense to Karen. Alas, things are not done falling into place for her today.
Stanley and Ryan's sales call is to a company that appears to be run by four middle-aged black men, who totally intimidate Ryan. "Hi," is just about all he can say to them as Stanley devotes his attention to his crosswords.
Jim is fast-talking his and Dwight's client, and it looks like Dwight is just being weird as he asks to use the guy's desk phone and starts yelling numbers into the mouthpiece. Then he puts the call on speaker so they can all enjoy the hold music. Why are we not seeing Jim's annoyed face? All will become clear.
Back at the office, Pam tells Kevin about the art contest she just won, with the $100 prize. Kevin's glad for her, but he's much more glad that he won $400 on the Celtics game last night. Just Pam's luck to get exciting news when half the office is gone. She should go try Toby. Feel free to interpret that last sentence any way you wish.
Back in the car post-sales call, Stanley cackles away at Ryan. "Hi! Hi! Hi!" he mocks. "You sounded like my niece and she's six months old!" Ryan just stares blankly out the passenger window like he's waiting for a chance to open the door and roll out onto the pavement.
Jim and Dwight's client is talking about how he can save money with the big guys. So they bring up customer service, because the on-hold call Dwight's making is to one of those aforementioned "big guys." Meanwhile, Jim dials Dunder-Mifflin and gets straight through to Kelly, on whom he hangs up immediately. Heh. I'd pay extra for the privilege of hanging up on Kelly every once in a while. That, plus Dwight's promise that he never gets sick, takes vacation, or celebrates holidays, sells it.
Pam pops her head up over the divider to tell Angela about her art contest victory. Angela's reaction to the news is much more satisfactory than Kevin's was. "I like having these little moments with you," she adds, and offers Pam the dominant male from Sprinkles' recent litter. Pam has to decline, and that's the end of their short-lived friendship. Maybe Pam wouldn't be so cavalier if she knew that Sprinkles has less than ten months to live. And yet she's still in her kitten-bearing years. Sprinkles, I mean.
Karen and Phyllis are also in the car post-sales call. Still aglow from their victory (and of course the toxic levels of cosmetics), Phyllis tells Karen she's glad Karen and Jim are together. Which makes two, counting Karen. And then Phyllis adds that she never thought Jim would get over Pam. Oops. "That's nice," Karen says, her face falling so quickly that I'm surprised it doesn't crack. Phyllis adds that Karen can pay her back later for the makeover. Oh, there will be payback.
Andy and Michael appear to be the first to return to the nearly-abandoned bullpen, and Andy takes advantage of the time to toss Dwight's desk, steal his car keys, and get an NYC tollbooth receipt from his Trans Am. Which he hands over to Michael, reminding him of Dwight's lateness that morning and wondering why Dwight would go to New York without telling anyone. And Andy has Michael's attention for the first time that day. As the gears turn inside Michael's head, Andy babbles mock-obliviously about laundry and betrayal. And then Michael THs about Dwight's second strike: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...strike three."
Michael calls up Jan, and can I just say how weird it is to hear Jan's voice on Michael's speaker phone sounding quiet and helpful and not vibrating with suppressed rage? Anyway, Jan didn't see Dwight, but she looked up his name on the security log at Corporate. Where it was to the words, "Beeswax, Not Yours, Incorporated." That's enough for Michael, who looks up to see Jim and Dwight reentering the office. "Oooh, doggy," Andy says from behind Michael's chair.
Karen arrives right behind Team Gay Couple, and she asks Jim to join her for some coffee. "Look at you," he grins. Poor effort, but under the circumstances, that's probably for the best. Of course, if he really loved Karen, he would be mocking her into oblivion right now. He asks Pam to join them, and since she's already been out for coffee today, she declines. But she does tell him about the art contest. Jim is very excited for her and wants to hear all about it, but Karen is waiting. Yikes. If I want to see romantic timing that awkward, I'll rent The Lake House.
Michael and Andy come and loom over Dwight, and Michael asks Dwight why he was late. Dwight claims to have overslept. "Damn rooster didn't crow," he says. Anybody else, that would be just an expression. Michael calls Dwight a liar, saying he knows that Dwight went to Corporate that morning. He demands to know why. Dwight says he can't tell Michael, but he asks him to trust him. Which is the one thing he can't do. Michael threateningly warns Dwight to think about his future with the company. "Think about it long and hard." "That's what she said," Dwight whispers fearfully, which doesn't help at all. Michael storms off, leaving Andy to glare at Dwight like the self-righteous tattletale he is.
Afterwards, in the break room, Dwight and Angela desperately have a whispered conversation from separate tables. Angela is worried about everyone knowing about their business. Dwight doesn't think that would be so bad. "Look at Kelly and Ryan," he points out. "I hate those two people more than anything in the entire world," Angela says.
At the coffee shop, Karen asks Jim about Pam. He denies it at first, then tells Karen about his crush that he told Pam about, and she didn't return his feelings, and he left. "I'm really glad you're here, okay?" he reassures her. Well, that wasn't nearly as ugly as it could have been. Aside from Karen's makeup, that is.
Dwight stands up from his desk and reads from a long prepared statement to the effect that he's resigning. Pam looks over at Angela, wondering if she's really going to let this happen. Looks like Angela is.
In a Willy Wonka callback, Andy sings a version of the Oompa Loompa song about Dwight's departure.
Dwight gives a clearly ambivalent Michael a box of his belongings, remembering to hold onto some. Ryan THs that Dwight will be missed. "Not by me, so much, but he will be missed."
"Dwight? From sales?" Angela tearfully THs. "Was one of the most honorable and efficient employees this company has ever had." And over Dwight's departure salute, he says that one of his goals was to die in his desk chair. "That dream died today," he says, for the sake of sparing embarrassment to a woman who's ashamed to let anybody know she's dating him. I never thought I'd say this, but you can do better, Dwight.
In the parking lot, he encounters a returning Jim and Karen. Please don't say anything mean right now, Jim. "Hey, man," he chirps amiably. Thank you. Without a word, Dwight hugs Jim and shambles onward toward his car. "What happened on your sales call?" a confused Karen asks an equally confused Jim.
Andy gloating-heads about Dwight's departure, unaware that through the window behind him, Angela is glaring at him in the far background. Fortunately the camera catches it and zooms in close. And you know, Angela is usually not my type, but between that rare smile earlier and the death-ray vision now? Onward Christian soldiers, is what I'm saying.