A thirty-minute sitcom episode? If you say so, NBC.
Michael's in mid-presentation as we open the episode, which is historically never good for anyone, but he seems to have some degree of control right now as he leads a brainstorming session for their very first TV ad. Phyllis suggests dancing babies, which I'm sure Angela finds deeply offensive (or else totally adorable, it's hard to tell). Andy throws in his opinion that the best ad ever was...and then he starts singing: "Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that..." He totally blanks on the name of the product that finishes that lyric (Kit-Kat Bar), and the show pointedly refuses to acknowledge The Singing Bee by making a Joey Fatone joke. As Andy grasps for the right words, Jim yelps, "Nobody tell him!" He tells Andy he's so close, he doesn't want anyone else to ruin it for him. Andy knows it's three syllables, and thus he begins his episode-long quest to fill in those syllables with product names: "Ap-ple-sauce!" "Chrys-ler-Car!" "Foot-ball-Cream!" Michael finally shushes him and brings it back to the ad. Pam announces that she's taking a computer animation class, so she's going to make a logo. Michael is condescendingly proud of her.
Cut to later, as Michael's meeting with the professional ad guys Corporate has sent to make the commercial. He introduces them to the various office employees -- you know, "the talent" -- including Andy Bernard, who Michael on-the-spot dubs "The 'Nard Dog." Andy gives great back rubs and also "aromatherapy," which he demonstrates by making a fart noise with his mouth and then yelling "You just got 'Nard-Dogged!" I got 'Nard-Dogged once and had to get an injection for it. Michael introduces Stanley as their key to the urban market (Stanley, as always, doesn't know what Michael's talking about), Phyllis as a "Mrs. Butterworth" type, and the accounting department as made up of three people of various sizes. Jim interviews that it's great they're doing a commercial, because maybe now people will know what he does for a living. As it stands now, when people hear "Dunder Mifflin," they think "mufflers" or "muffins" or "mittens." Wow, I just got an idea for my specialty bodega; thanks, Jim!
After the credits, we look in on Dwight, who is at his desk, immersed in Second Life. Jim asks if he's playing his "game" again, but Dwight stresses that Second Life is a "multi-user virtual environment" that doesn't have things like points or scores or winners and losers. Jim: "Oh, it has losers." Maybe it's just me, but ever since Dwight's post-Angela meltdowns and Jim and Pam's subsequent feeling sorry for him, it's been harder to transition back into Jim-mocks-Dwight mode without sensing more mean-spiritedness than I recall in episodes. Anyway, Dwight interviews that he signed up for Second Life a year ago, because his life was so great that he literally wanted a second one. His SL character is like him in every way -- paper salesman, bad haircut, named Dwight -- except for the fact that Second Life Dwight can fly. We catch a glimpse of flying Dwight, and we see he's captioned in the game as "Asst to Regional Mgr Dwight Shelford." Okay, 1) He's still "assistant to the regional manager" even in Second Life, and 2) "Shelford"? That one I don't get.
Michael's in his office with the ad guys, pitching his idea, which involves a whole lot of zooming back to reveal that whatever image we just saw was, like, in a snow globe or something similar. The ad guys say that sounds really "ambitious," but they show him the ad they did for the national brand, and it's a very standard "guy shopping for paper" ad, though it's accompanied by weird plinky cowbell music and, like, mariachi horns. Is this guy shopping for paper on Cinco de Mayo? We may never know. The ad ends with a parking lot full of Dunder Mifflin employees waving cheesily at the camera. Michael's horrifed, because he was ready to blow some minds. Michael wants to make the Inland Empire of paper company ads, or he would if he'd ever seen or heard of Inland Empire. He scoffs that the ad "sucks," thinking that the guys in Corporate made it themselves (just like he thinks he's making Scranton's ad himself), but the ad guys are like, "Yeah, we made it. Also, that's pretty much the same ad you're getting, except you get to personalize the end." Michael gets it, for once: "The waving?" The ad guys try to sell the creative freedom inherent in decisions like waving vs. clapping, standing vs. sitting, inside vs. outside. Michael's not satisfied.
In the break room, Andy is cluelessly soliciting Dwight's advice on romancing Angela. So many things wrong in such a small room! Andy brags that they've been doing a lot of "necking," though he means that literally: no kissing thus far, just rubbing their necks against each other. Hey, it's been so long since someone's referred to making out as "necking" that maybe that's actually what "necking" means these days. It also makes me think of South Park and "scissoring" and ANYHOO... Andy needs tips on getting to first base. Dwight says they can't talk about this, at least not using the real names; he suggests keeping "Angela" but changing Andy to "Dwight." Andy: "That's not different enough." Dwight modifies it to "Dwike." Much better.
Corporate. Ryan's secretary announces that an "Eddie Murphy" is on the line, and Ryan eyes the phone suspiciously, because who else is going to call pretending to be Eddie Murphy? Unless perhaps Jan...wow, that would be awesome. Also: Ryan! Is that a pastel shirt I see? Are you going to a wedding later on? So Michael leads with his Donkey-from-Shrek impression, then complains that the ad guys are ignoring his ideas. "That's good," Ryan says. "They're creative, you're not." Ryan means this in the corporate, job-description sense, because in the sense of actual creativity, none of them are creative. Ryan compares it to the fact that just knowing how to cook doesn't mean you should open a restaurant, but Michael says he actually is opening a restaurant: Mike's Cereal Shack, where they'll serve as many cereals as are available in the supermarket. Okay, that needs to actually happen. Ryan makes with the corporate-speak about "delegation" and "skill sets," and actually reveals more about himself than he'd like when he explains that he wasn't any good at sales, but he's good at managing people who are in sales. He totally looks away from the camera right then, because he's kind of embarrassed that he got to the position he's in despite not being good at anything but speaking in that weird made-up MBA language. Michael interviews that his creativity is such that he was able to invent the concept of unicorns before he ever learned that unicorns had already been invented. He came up with the idea independently, though, when he was a mere five years old. Michael: "Couldn't even talk yet." Mmm hmm.
Michael finds the ad guys and tells them they can't shoot the commercial today, and that they should come back at "never-hundred hours." The one guy starts to say that they were commissioned to do this by Corporate, but the other one's like, "Yeah, I'm not going to argue with this douche, let's go." To Michael, he says, "Good luck, dude," in a way that means "Have fun making Citizen Kane on a used-car-dealership budget." Cut to Michael's office, where he has to justify this decision to David at Corporate. Michael begins by saying that Ryan's acting like a "little bitch," at which point Ryan pipes up that he's in on the call, and Michael's all, "Hey, buddy!" Michael says he wants to do the ad entirely in-house, and if it’s not to David's satisfaction, they can bring the ad guys back and do the professional commercial, on Michael's dime. He means that literally, I'm assuming, since after last week I think Michael only has one dime to his name. David: "This is weird." But he agrees, most reluctantly. Michael hangs up and turns to the camera: "And thus, Michael Scott sealed his own destiny. ...In a good way."
After the break, Michael is giving the staff a pep talk on how awesomely creative they all are. "You are so much more creative than all the other dry, boring morons that you work with." Jim tilts his head (I know!) and asks Michael who exactly he's speaking to right now. Kevin, no stranger to creativity himself (hey, Scrantonicity didn't think itself up), interviews that he's no stranger to commercials, since they called him "Kool-Aid Man" in school. Then he makes the most horrifying big-smiled face you've ever seen, which I guess is supposed to remind us of the Kool-Aid Man, but instead just makes me think of the last thing you see before you die. Back to Michael, who says they have three scenes to film, plus a song to write. He charges Kelly with doing makeup (she's thrilled), Oscar with doing the costumes ("obviously"), and he tasks Phyllis with finding celebrities around town and wrangling them to be in the ad. Cut to Phyllis at her desk, dramatically yelping, "Sue Grafton is at the Steamtown Mall! She's doing a book signing right now!" HA! Okay, maybe you had to have worked in a public library to quite get just how perfect and hilarious it is that someone like Phyllis is getting so worked up over Sue Grafton. Michael sends Phyllis to the mall to catch her a mystery author; "This could be a huge coupe, people!" Andy asks if anyone knows if Sue Grafton is even hot. Creed says she's "crazy hot," to which Andy smarms that they could just get Angela to pretend to be her, then. Angela says that's not happening, then interviews that she finds the mystery genre disgusting: "I hate being titillated." Which explains the choice in boyfriends. "Light it up, Phyllis!" Michael calls as she charges out of the office on her quest. "Get 'er, Phyl!" yells (I think?) Creed. I love that they sent Phyllis on a kidnapping mission instead of, like, Dwight. She's so the Squeaky Fromme of this outfit. And anyway, Dwight's too busy flying around his Second Life, as we see yet again.
Okay, here's something I cannot put into words, so you're just going to have to trust me: Darryl, Kelly, Creed, Kevin, and Andy coming up with a song for the commercial is brilliant. All I can say is that Darryl's on the keyboard, and the catchphrase is "Dunder Mifflin: The People-Person's Paper People!" The only person who doesn't love it is Michael, who was under the impression that this was going to be a rap. "What's rap?" Darryl asks, keeping a straight face like a champ. Michael: "You need to learn a lot about your own culture; I'll make you a mix." Over/under on Black-Eyed Peas songs on that mix: 7.
Dwight's hangdoggedly moping around the office when Andy whispers to him that he's got some "juicy" updates on "Operation Fallen Angel." Which just depresses Dwight even further. Also: "juicy"? Ew. I love how, when it comes to hearing about Angela's love life, we become the Angela.
Jim interrupts Pam's computer animating (kind of rudely, but whatever) to show her just how sad and pathetic Dwight's Second Life has become. He's actually on it so much that his character has created "Second Second Life," for people within the game to escape from their fake lives. Pam is the only one who gets what this means: "He must be in so much pain!" She's quickly distracted, though, by the avatar Jim created to spy on Dwight: Second Life Jim is a sportswriter from Philadelphia, with a great build and an electric guitar slung over his back. Pam: "How much time did you spend on this?" Jim's like, "Not much. ...So about making fun of Dwight," but Pam's more interested in Philly Jim. "I want Philly Jim!" she pleads, and Jim finally changes the subject and asks how the animation thing works. Pam: "Oh boy..." Awesome. I so thought that scene was going to turn maudlin, all about Jim's big-city sportswriting dreams and how Scranton's holding him down, but it ended up being yet another great "Jim and Pam can still be funny as a couple" scene. Because they can!
Back to the songwriters, as Darryl has produced what sounds like a Slow Jams version of the same song. Michael hates it, though: "It's not me. This is not my music." Darryl gets to the heart of it: "That's right. It's better than you. It's us!" Michael says he doesn't hate is, he just doesn't like it, at all. Darryl's all, "Well, if you feel that way..." and he stalks off, taking his keyboard with him. I believe this is how the Commodores and Lionel Ritchie went wrong.
Outside, Meredith is setting up a fake finish line for Andy -- dressed up like a marathon runner -- to cross. Andy's still trying to finish off the "Break me off a piece of that..." lyric. (...It's "Kit-Kat Bar.") Andy: "Lum-ber-Tar...Grey-Pou-pon..." (KIT-KAT BAR!) Michael's nonspecifically dissatisfied with everything now, and he yells at Meredith and Andy about needing to get everything perfect, which makes it the absolute worst time for Phyllis to come walking up to the building in tears, because her attempt at abducting Sue Grafton led to her getting kicked out of the mall. There is mascara everywhere -- it's like someone just murdered Kim Kardashian. Michael puts a seemingly-kind hand on her shoulder, then leans in and asks, "Did you or did you not get Sue Grafton?" Phyllis sobs that she did not. Michael is disgusted and asks if someone can get her a tissue. Kevin rips her off a piece of masking tape instead. Hey, Andy, how about that? "Mask-ing-Tape!" ...No?
Jim's ready to head home, but Pam's still hard at work. Jim's kind of a dick without realizing it here, telling her she probably doesn't need to work herself too hard here, since it's Michael's commercial and no one is ever going to see it. Instead of thanking her boyfriend for reminding her just how futile the only real task she's ever been asked to perform at this job is, Pam just smiles and says, "It's not good enough for me yet." Jim offers to stay, but Pam says it's fine. Out in the lot, Jim kind of redeems himself by interviewing that he's proud of her for working on "achieving her dream." Then Meredith hollers at him, saying if he still wants a ride home it's time to "piss or get off the pot!" Meredith, he's never going to go beyond signing your pelvis cast if you keep up with the trucker language!
The morning, Pam wakes up to the sound of her phone ringing. Yes, she slept at her desk. She's a real worker now! Jim's the one who called her, and he's also the one who bought her a breakfast sandwich and orange juice and put it on her desk for her. I'm sorry, what did I say about him acting like a dick? Disregard. In case you were wondering, yes, you can buy my love with breakfast sandwiches. Jim does apologize for looking away for a split second, allowing Creed to gank her hash browns. Pam interviews that she worked until 2:45 AM, then had to decide if she wanted to sleep in the office -- with Michael and also Dwight -- or drive home, fall asleep at the wheel, and die in a fiery car wreck; "I fell asleep on my keyboard trying to decide."
Dwight's got his face forlornly pressed up against the vending machine while Andy offers to pour him some "bubbly" and regale him with tales of his night with Angela. The "bubbly" is of course cola, and...oh my God, it's Wegmans pop ("Dr. W" if I'm not mistaking the color of the can). I miss you, Wegmans! Anyway, Dwight doesn't want to hear about it, but Andy insists. He says he was kissing up on Angela last night, and while she wasn't kissing him back, she did close her eyes and start to moan, "Oh, D! Oh, D!" Andy's like, "'D' for Andy, get it?" Dwight gets it far better than Andy, though, and is thrilled, in that weird, creepy way in which Dwight expresses joy. He starts repeating "Oh, D!" over and over, and Andy joins him, and pretty soon they're in unison, yelling "Oh, D!" to the empty break room. Dwight's never seemed more like a serial killer than in these last few episodes. I think killing that cat may have opened a door in his psyche.
Michael sends the ad to Corporate, then asks Pam to clear his phone lines so that when Corporate calls back -- after immediately watching the ad, as he's sure they'll do -- the lines will be open. Pam makes "beep-beep-boop" noises, which apparently fool Michael, because this is the time on Sprockets when Michael's retarded. Michael nervously rocks back and forth in his chair, checks his watch, then picks up the phone to call Corporate, just to make sure.
The camera then fades out and fades back, "ten days later," on Michael getting out of his car. I don't know if we've ever seen this kind of time lapse on the show before. It's very documentary-like, and I always enjoy when we're reminded that this is supposedly a documentary film. Anyway, Michael explains to us that "the geniuses at Corporate" rejected his commercial and tonight, they're airing the "brain-dead" version. We see that Michael's walking into Poor Richard's, where the whole Scranton gang has gathered to watch the ad. The ad is the same one Michael was shown by the ad guys, only with the Scranton branch doing the parking-lot-wave at the end. So they didn't even switch it up to clapping? Michael must've really been despondent. Everyone besides Michael seems to recognize it for the dumb, silly, kind of cool thing that it is -- "Hey look, we're on TV," that kind of thing. Michael, of course, is livid. He bitches to Jim and Pam and the waiter that the ad they made was "full of depth and humor and heart." Speaking of depth and humor and heart, Jim passes a DVD of the unaired Scranton as and asks the bartender if he could play it on the bar TVs. I really hope there wasn't a sporting event going on. Nobody needs to get beat up over this. Speaking of, is Roy there? Doesn't he live at Poor Richard's?
Anyhoo, we get to see the "real" Dunder Mifflin commercial, "the Michael Scott director's cut." The ad is just as queer as you'd expect, but kind of a cool accomplishment for the group of social retards that make up the Scranton branch. Does it feature Vangelis's score from Chariots Of Fire? Bet your ass. The ad's concept is one sheet of paper being passed on from place to place, holding a different, hilariously broad message each time. For Meredith and Creed it's a "Corporate Memo," for Kelly, dressed in a sari in front of a Taj Mahal backdrop, it reads "I Love You." She passes it to Andy, who holds it like a baton and wins the relay race. Frowny-faced Dwight hands housewife Phyllis a sheet that reads "You have a son, and it's me." Phyllis, as per Michael's voice-over, realizes that that's not so bad after all. Orange-jumpsuited Stanley picks up the paper while collecting trash at the side of the road (oh, Jesus...), and it's a flyer for Dunder Mifflin, who's hiring. It's his shot at a second chance! Jim crumples up said flyer and tosses it over his back into the trash, where Michael retrieves it, uncrumples it, and puts it in a frame in his office, where it reads "World's Most Creative Boss." Michael then hits us with the tagline: Dunder Mifflin: Limitless Paper In A Paperless World." Wow. That's almost poignant. In a terribly sad, antithetical to the marketing objective, totally depressing kind of way.
After it's done, everyone claps for Michael, and the waiter gives Pam props on the computer animation. Then he asks her if she's ever been on a motorcycle before, which is Jim's cue to put his arm around his lady. Michael, incredibly pleased, says the round of drinks is on him, which earns more applause. This is possibly Michael's greatest day since "Office Olympics." Which I think was the last time an episode ended on such a heartwarming note.
...What do you mean, "Then it's a date"?
Coda: Andy's still trying to figure out that damn Kit-Kat song. "Hair-For-Men...Poi-son-Gas...Nu-tri-Sweet..." He ultimately decides it has to rhyme with "piece" (um...), which leads him to "Fan-cy-Feast! Break me off a piece of that Fancy Feast! Nailed it." Damn right he did.