Jim looks weird. He walks stiffly into the office with his hair parted in the center, wearing a brown suit and a yellow-and-brown striped tie. But on first viewing, I didn't get what he was up to until he removed his suit jacket, revealing a short-sleeved yellow shirt underneath. He sits down, and Dwight barely looks up when Jim dons a pair of Dwight-alike wire-rimmed glasses. Without preamble, Jim demands of Dwight, "Question: what kind of bear is best?" Dwight says it's a ridiculous question. "False," Jim snaps, redolent with contempt at Dwight's ignorance. "Black bear." Dwight tries to engage on this level, but Jim interrupts again. "Fact: Bears eat beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." Finally Dwight gets it, and he's not amused. Jim THs that he picked up the four-dollar glasses in a drugstore, and created the rest of the ensemble for seven dollars. He even calculates the eleven-dollar total for us on his watch. Dwight pretends not to be bothered, on the grounds that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And yet when Jim breaks out a bobblehead doll, Dwight loses it and angrily lectures him about identity theft. "Michael!" Jim bellows, heading for Michael's office. "Michael!" Dwight bellows, following Jim. I would kind of like to see where this would go.
After the ads, the entire office is in some kind of crisis mode, with everyone on the phone like some kind of parallel-universe version of CTU where more than four people get speaking lines. Michael THs about a disgruntled employee at the paper mill who put an "obscene watermark" on every sheet in five hundred boxes of paper. He shows us an example, which depicts a non-copyrighted cartoon duck doing a non-copyrighted cartoon mouse from behind. There's a black box discreetly positioned over the...um...parts, to protect the delicate sensibilities of the viewer. At least now we know why so few cartoon characters wear pants.
Michael rushes everyone into the conference room, trying to save time by using acronyms that he then has to explain. Pam messes with him by slowly pointing this out. Michael moves on to pointing the finger of blame for this at Creed, since quality control is his job. "Uh" is all Creed has to say at the meeting, but in a TH, he tells us, "Every week I'm supposed to take four hours and do a quality spot check at the paper mill. And of course the one year I blow it off, this happens." Back at the briefing, Michael says that they're at threat level midnight, and reassigns the Accounting staff to Customer Relations for the day. This is over Oscar's protests, and to Kelly's joy, since she's going to be training them. Michael also assigns Jim (back to his normal Big Tuna look) to go to the local high school that sent out its prom invitations on the paper (uh, where the fuck is the prom committee's quality control?), and names Andy as his partner. Andy has at least given up on the "Drew" thing, but when he wordily accepts Michael's assignment in a fake Cockney accent, Jim says, "Yeah, I'm definitely going alone." Michael insists, "I need two men on this. That's what she said. No time! But she did. No time!" And Dwight is going to be in charge of the press conference. Press conference?
Michael explains: they need to control the story, unlike O.J. Michael's bringing in a client named Barbara Allen to give her a personal apology. And with that, he sends everyone to battle stations.
Surprisingly, Creed is the one managing this crisis most assiduously. He's on the phone with the paper mill, claiming to have tried to meet with one of the floor managers last week, but pretending to "forget" which one as a pretense for finding out who was gone at the time. When he gets a name, it's not looking good for a paper mill employee named Debbie Brown. Creed THs that the only difference between him and a homeless man is this job, and that he will do what it takes to survive. "Like I did when I was a homeless man."
In the break room, Kelly has decided to begin training the accountants for customer service by telling them that, as of today, they're "no longer losers." Basically, all they need to do is answer the phone and say their names. Although, if they like, they can make up names and use funny accents. Which is what Kevin and Kelly proceed to do, in a conversation between Bridget Jones and the Crocodile Hunter, as imagined by morons. Excuse me -- I meant "bigger morons."
In the car, Andy tells Jim, "Beer me." That's his way of asking for a bottled water. "Gets a laugh like a quarter of the time," he explains. Of course Andy is the kind of guy who likes those odds. After enduring about ten seconds of conversation with Andy, Jim asks for some music. Andy is only too happy to oblige by singing Jim some "Drift Away" a capella. Jim clarifies. "A CD? Or...a CD?" "Beer me that disk," Andy agrees, pointing to a mix his girlfriend made him. Upon exiting the car at the school, Jim rolls his eyes and prays, "Lord, beer me strength."
In the crowded hallway between classes, Andy suddenly wonders why his girlfriend is there. "The teacher in the white?" Jim asks. No, Andy's referring to the girl in the green hoodie currently opening her locker. Oh, no no no. I think Andy's in danger of getting beered a prison sentence.
At the office, Michael puts Dwight in charge of making the place look nice. "Karen, Ryan, Pam, center stage!" Dwight barks. "Pam, run a comb through your hair." And then he THs that you put the best-looking beets in the front when you're selling them by the side of the road. I'm sure Pam, Ryan, and Karen will appreciate being compared to "money beets." Meanwhile, he slides the ficus over to block the view of Phyllis and Stanley. The media shows up, in the form of an aging, schlubby human-interest columnist/obit writer from the Scranton Times, and Dwight gives him his credentials and shuts him in the conference room.
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Andy follows his "girlfriend" down the hall, with Jim following Andy and saying that they have to get going. But Andy calls out, "Jamie?" I was half-expecting her not to know who he is, but she actually recognizes him. All she has to say to him is "This is weird. I gotta go to Spanish." Really not seeing how Andy mistook her for someone of legal age, unless they only spoke on the phone. "Oh my God!" Andy says to Jim when she's gone. "Oh my God!" Jim agrees.
In Accounting, Kevin and Oscar are doing a fairly good job of connecting with their callers, but Angela is being rude and hanging up on people. Kelly encouragingly says that Angela's doing great, but might want to work on...you know, the apologizing.
Creed comes over to Dwight to tell on soon-to-be-ex-floor manager Debbie Brown.
Barbara Allen has arrived. In front of the press conference -- which is, in its entirety, Dwight and the dude from Scranton Times -- Michael apologizes to her and gives her a giant novelty check for six months of free paper or twenty-five reams, whichever comes first. So it's really more of a novelty coupon. Michael thinks they can moved on, but the client is still pissed. Michael is confused; this wasn't in the script.
Jim and Andy wait outside the principal's office. Andy is distracted from the task at hand, wondering who Jamie was talking to. Jim answers, "Not important. Because you're not dating her. Because it's a felony."
Inside the office, the principal tells Jim and Andy that they teach the students that character counts. Andy disagrees: "One of your students is a bitch," he says, and considers taking out a full-page ad in the yearbook with two words. "Good luck," Jim interrupts. Which Jim will also need, to get his partner out of the building without an arrest.
Kelly tries to coach Angela through a call, which -- since it ends with Angela saying "You can take that apology or not" -- ends in another hang-up. "I think he had Tourette's or something!" Angela tells Kelly.
In the press conference, Barbara Allen is still pissed about the watermark, and isn't mollified when Dwight points out that at least the cartoon-animal sex appeared consensual. Barbara wants Michael to resign, thinking he's the head of the company and thus ultimately responsible. And I would be interested to see how this affects Corporate or the other branches, although not enough to cut any of the scenes that made it into the episode. Michael refuses to quit, and he and Barbara start yelling at each other while the Scranton Times guy writes furiously. Finally, Barbara storms out, threatening to call the Better Business Bureau, with Michael threatening in return to call the Ungrateful Beeyotch Hotline. "Did you get all that?" he asks the reporter, who is obviously looking forward to writing not only the human interest story about this scene, but also the obituary that is likely to follow it as a result.
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