By M. Giant
Andy returns to the office, telling Pam that he prefers to be called "Drew" now. We get a little flashback of "the Andy Bernard incident" as Andy (I'm not calling him "Drew") tells us that he's a new man with a new attitude -- hence the new name. Jim also declines to call Andy "Drew," which Andy pretends not to get pissed off about. He just smiles like you do when your shoes are on fire. Dwight is dodging the name issue entirely by having simply decided to ignore Andy for three years (much as Dwight was himself for an extended period of his childhood for not saving the oil from a can of tuna, which, as is always the case with Dwight, explains a great deal), and Dwight tells Jim to tell Andy that he's being shunned. Jim tells Andy the opposite, and adds that Dwight says he doesn't know anything about bear attacks. Dwight worriedly tells Jim some important facts to relay to Andy, but when Jim refuses and Andy leaves, Dwight is left to hiss at Jim, "Damn you." So there's a clear difference between simply shunning someone and wanting to watch him get mauled by a bear because they don't know you shouldn't try to escape by climbing a tree.
Michael says that it's safety training day. And instead of just listening to Toby's boring presentation, they're also checking out the one down at the warehouse. "And if I know Darryl," Michael promises, "it's going to be zoppity."
Darryl is on crutches, for some reason, as he leads the office staff on a tour of the warehouse, particularly the section of the tour that focuses on how Michael is NOT ALLOWED TO DRIVE THE FORKLIFT. Darryl THs that they have safety training once a year, or after every accident. In a rare continuity blunder, he says they've never made it a year, even though the lost-time accident board clearly had 936 the last time we saw it. Or maybe it just read 9:36, as in AM. On this most recent occasion, Darryl tells us, "someone" kicked a ladder out from under him and said:
TH of Michael in his office, guffawing, "Hey Darryl, how's it hangin'?" Hence Darryl's broken ankle.
Back to the tour, where Michael has just mistakenly called Madge the warehouse employee "Pudge," because he seriously thought that was her name. Darryl shows everyone the baler, a big red machine that looks like it could crush a car engine. Darryl says that it can indeed crush a car engine. As he's talking about how dangerous it is, and why nobody from the office should ever go near it, Kevin bets Jim that over fifty people have lost their arms in one per year. It turns out to be only ten, but Jim offers to go double or nothing, as Oscar overhears them and wants in on the action. Meanwhile, Darryl yells at Michael about never, ever, ever going near it.
Back to the office, where Michael has reciprocated the warehouse crew's invitation to attend their safety training. Michael gives Toby -- who will be doing the office safety training -- a rather rude introduction: "He's going to try not to screw it up like he has everything else in his life." Realizing that maybe that remark wasn't exactly ready for prime time, he takes it back, gives a more professional intro, and perches on the reception desk to listen. Toby starts droning on about carpal tunnel and other ergonomic concerns, which bores Michael. He wants to skip ahead to the exploding computers. When Toby advises having warm clothing items on hand in case it gets drafty (prompting a whole discussion from the staff about what kind of garments might work), Michael takes over with some fearmongering about Seasonal Affective Disorder. "Thank God we only have the baler to deal with," Darryl deadpans. Michael moves on to heart disease, which the warehouse guy who looks like Biz Markie refers to as "fat butt disease." It must be expensive, in Scranton winters, to heat the glass house he lives in. Kelly even calls Biz a "sea monster" to his face. When he takes umbrage, Kelly turns to Ryan for backup, and he tells her to apologize. That appears to be good enough for Biz, so the warehouse guys are out, with Darryl hanging back to contemptuously tell Michael that while what they do in the warehouse is serious and dangerous, the office staff has a "Nerf® life." "So Nerf® isn't cool anymore?" Michael grumps after he leaves. Nerf® probably got that product placement for free.
In a TH, Michael reminisces about his own warehouse experience: working at "Men's Wearhouse" as a greeter. He's got a point: I'd rather stand to the baler for an hour than that George Zimmer guy. I guarantee it.
At Reception, Kevin, Oscar, Karen, and Jim are trying to guess the number of jelly beans in the jar. Jim wins, which Kevin protests at length on the grounds of Jim having spent hours and hours for years and years at Reception. He looks ready to go on in this vein for hours and hours and years and years himself, while Jim looks increasingly uncomfortable. Karen looks unhappy at...losing the bet.
Michael has called Pam into his office to show her a website he found that shows that office workers are prone to depression, which can lead to suicide, which is way scarier than a baler. Instead of pointing out that having Michael as your boss makes depression even more likely, Pam enables him by saying that the warehouse safety training had visuals. Oh, Pam, don't give him ideas. Too late. Michael is already talking about the metal ball at the science museum that makes your hair stick up, "and you know science." So he's in a much better mood. So is Pam, but only because she thinks this means it's over. She should really know better.
Out in the hallway, Michael is discussing with Dwight how they're going to come up with a way to make depression seem scarier. And then Michael has it.
Cut to Michael, gently bouncing on a trampoline in the parking lot. He plans to do another safety demonstration about depression and suicide -- one that will include the visual aid of himself jumping off the roof. It's a shame that Michael is being so competitive about this. Can you imagine how much more compelling it could be if he joined forces with Darryl, and jumped off the roof into the baler?
In the bullpen, Kelly is expounding to Ryan at length about the wonders of Netflix, while one person after another drops bills on Ryan's desk behind her. After she leaves, Kevin runs down the results. Ryan wins because Kelly filibustered for 2:41 (that's minutes and seconds, which seems a little short to me), Pam wins $10 because Kelly said "awesome" twelve times, and Jim wins $5 because Kelly mentioned six romantic comedies. The Vegas culture of Dunder Mifflin is certainly evolving quickly.
Michael and Dwight are up on the roof looking down at the trampoline, but now that Michael's contemplating the reality of the drop before him, it seems a lot more dangerous. And I mean, it's a two-story office park, meaning that the roof can't be more than thirty feet high. Probably not fatal, even without a trampoline, but enough to seriously inconvenience a guy who couldn't figure out how to get through the day with grill lines on his foot. Wisely enough, Michael wants to do a little more testing, Letterman-style, before the live run. "Go buy some watermelons," he instructs Dwight.
Toby's in on the latest bet, which is whether it's possible to swap the apple Creed's eating for a potato without his noticing, even after he bites into it. Creed doesn't notice. Karen THs that she's getting cleaned out.
Dwight drops a watermelon from the roof onto the trampoline below. He and Michael are still celebrating its safe landing when it bounces clear and smashes on a nearby car, triggering the alarm. Michael barks orders at Dwight: shut off the alarm, find out whose car it is (if it's Stanley's, check to see if James P. Albini handles hate crimes), and stick the trampoline in the baler. Dwight reminds Michael that they're not allowed to go near the baler. Michael efficiently heads off a predictable plot twist in which Dwight gets busted breaking the baler simply by saying, "Have Pudge or the sea monster do it."
Dwight lifts the "shun" on Andy just long enough to task him with getting a large inflatable house or castle. M. Small refers to those things as "jumpy castles," and Andy realizes that Dwight wants a moonbounce. He asks for petty cash, and that's when the shun goes back into effect.
Back on the roof, Dwight and Michael are looking down at the large, purple, fully-inflated castle below them. I know the days at Dunder Mifflin probably drag by, but there sure is a lot going on during this one. Dwight advises Michael to try to land like an eight-year-old. Michael's having second thoughts, but when Dwight offers to do another test, Michael declines. He just wants to do it. So Dwight helps him psych up for it, heavy-metal style.
Dwight rushes into the bullpen and dramatically announces that Michael's on the roof: "I think he wants us all to come out to the parking lot and watch him die!" "Is it nice outside?" Stanley asks. After a quick reprise of the importance of dressing warmly enough ("Will I be okay in a long-sleeved tee?" Ryan tweaks), everyone follows Dwight out.
Out in the parking lot, Dwight and Michael basically stage a whole PSA via megaphone about the seriousness of depression ,until Michael notices that the warehouse guys aren't there to witness this. Dwight realizes his mistake, and rushes inside.
In the parking lot, Pam wonders to Jim about the odds of any of this being real. Jim guesses 10,000 to one. Naturally, Kevin wants in. "If someone gives you 10,000 to one on anything," he THs, "you take it. If John Mellencamp ever wins an Oscar, I am going to be a very rich dude."
With the warehouse crew out in the parking lot, Dwight and Michael repeat the whole thing word for word. Jim THs that they hit their stride for the second show. "Might even bring my parents tomorrow for the matinee." Suddenly, Creed comes around the fence, zipping up and saying that there's a castle behind there. Everyone finds it, and gathers around. Pam realizes that Michael's going to jump. "He's going to kill himself pretending to kill himself," Jim says, and runs back out to the parking lot to tell Michael not to do it: "You're going to get horribly, horribly injured." Pam comes out with the megaphone and pretends to have a present for Michael, but says he has to come down and get it. Somehow, with Michael insistently staying in character, this scene has turned into people talking to him like they're actually trying to prevent Michael's suicide instead of just the implementation of his latest dumb idea. When Michael asks what Pam's present is, even Dwight gets on board and claims that it's a highly specific model of female robot. I see where he's going with that, but the particular model he's referring to is prone to erratic behavior, crashing and rebooting and emitting smoke, so Michael might as well just stick with Jan. Darryl takes the megaphone and calls up to Michael that whatever Darryl may have said earlier, he never said Michael had nothing to live for. Michael asks for examples. Darryl looks around, but nobody has anything. Finally, Darryl remembers Jan. Michael says he doesn't know where he stands or what he wants in that relationship. Finally, Darryl says what Michael wanted to hear all along -- that Michael's life is hard too, although he doesn't say it in so many words. "It takes courage just to be you...I couldn't do it." In other words, Michael is a brave man. He's Braveheart, in fact. That seems to have done the trick. "Pam, I'm coming down to get my present," he calls down, prompting Pam to look worried about having to actually come up with something. As Michael climbs down the ladder on the side of the building, he VOs that an office is as brave as the people in it. "I saved a life," he says modestly. "My own. Am I a hero? I really can't say, but yes."
And the tag is simply Stanley in the parking lot at the end of the day, gazing at his be-watermeloned car in shock. Yeah, even with Michael's earlier comment about hate crimes, I didn't realize until now how that probably looks. Use a cantaloupe time, Michael.