We open with the Dunder Mifflin Ladies Auxiliary (plus Oscar) standing around Toby as he talks about the weekend he just spent camping (sorry, Toby, "wilderness retreating") with Ryan and the other Dunder Mifflin branch heads (including one from Buffalo! Represent!). "But Toby is HR, not a branch head," you say? True, but as several talking-head interviews are eager to point out to us, Michael wasn't invited. Also, maybe it's giving Ryan too much credit, but not inviting Michael and instead inviting his arch-nemesis Toby? Diabolical! So Michael keeps hovering around while Toby holds court, making "no more s'mores!" jokes, until he finally tells Toby that nobody cares. He's not wrong, but it's still mean.
After the credits, Michael has not surprisingly got it in his head that he needs to go on a wilderness retreat of his own. He has Jim in his office and asks, "hypothetically" if Jim would be interested. Jim interviews that he always says "absolutely" when Michael talks in hypotheticals, and yet he's always busy when it comes to specific plans. Michael immediately switches gears, then, saying that the whole idea of Toby and a bunch of dudes camping in the woods seems a little "Unbroken Mountain" to him. His new idea is that the right way to go camping is by yourself -- unless Jim's plans change (they won't) -- and get away from all the people who are bugging you. He interviews that he and Jan -- back when they still had satellite -- used to watch a show called Survivorman, about a guy who gets dropped in the middle of nowhere and just tries not to die. thing we know, Michael is tasking Dwight with assembling all the things Michael will need for this ill-advised excursion. Dwight is, of course, the most perfect person for this task and also the most terrifying. I feel confident that he will provide Michael with jerky of some kind, but I will never, ever want to know where it came from. As if to illustrate my point, Michael asks Dwight to find him a knife, and Dwight comes back thirty seconds later with what can only be described as a stockpile of knives. He explains that he keeps a variety of deadly weapons hidden around the office, including (but I'm sure not limited to): a pair of sai behind the water cooler, a knife in the filing cabinet, a sword in the overhead ducts, and, most awesomely, a blow-dart shooter in the toilet tank. I now feel very confident that if a Bengal tiger ever got loose inside the office, Dwight would be able to take it down. It's good to know. I can't think of anyone at Bravo who'd be able to do the same.
Michael explains to Pam, in very ominous tones, that Dwight's dropping him off into the Pennsylvania wilderness to either die or survive: "the choice is yours." "Actually," Jim pipes up, "the choice is yours." Michael leaves Jim in charge of the office while he's gone and says he hopes to come back "a completely different person." Jim: "That'd be great." Meanwhile, Dwight interviews, "Do I believe that Michael possesses the skills to survive a hostile environment? Let me put it this way: no, I do not."
After the break, Dwight's driving Michael into the woods, and Michael is explaining that the Survivorman custom is to simulate some sort of disaster and leave the guy with only the clothes on his back. Michael's simulated disaster is that a serial killer (Dwight, natch) is abducting him and leaving him for dead in the woods. Dwight objects, because if he ever were to abduct Michael and take him into the woods, he would make sure Michael was dead before he left him. "And then I would remove your teeth and cut off your fingertips so you could not be identified. And they would call me the Overkill Killer." It's thoroughness like that which makes Dwight a good salesperson. Also: you know Dwight watches Dexter a whole different way than the rest of us do. Michael then blindfolds himself with his tie, so he'll have no idea where he is when Dwight drops him off, and of course Dwight takes it to the logical scary-ass step and starts beating Michael about the face with his shoe. While driving. That first one looked like it really hurt.
Back at the office, Angela reminds Jim that today is Creed's birthday. Jim's like, "Wasn't it just someone else's birthday?" The miracle of life happening all around us, every day, is perhaps a mystery to Jim. This is what goes on when you're busy smirking into the camera, guy! Anyway, Angela explains that it's "birthday month," with Kelly's birthday last week and Oscar's and Meredith's upcoming. Jim cuts Angela off and proposes they simply celebrate all of this month's birthdays at the same time, today. Because the founder and chairperson of the Office Olympics now suddenly hates fun? What the hell, Jim? His reasoning, in his interview, is that Michael makes all the birthdays insufferable with his stupid joke gifts, inappropriate or mean toasts ("Black does crack," Michael says to Stanley...but not the crack you smoke), only singing the high harmony on "Happy Birthday," and his insistence on surprising people, to the point where they freak out (we see, among other things, an all-star pratfall by Oscar here). So it seems like Jim hates the way Michael celebrates birthdays, which makes Jim's new policy doubly stupid, because A) Michael's not here today, and B) as soon as he gets back, Michael will just re-institute the old policy. Dumb idea, Jim. Pam realizes this too, and she asks Jim if he really wants to implement this. Jim, super pleased with himself, thinks it's a great idea. Pam gives kind of a Jim-like smile and is like, "Let's see how this turns out."
In the woods -- or, I'm sorry, Into The Wild, as Dwight intones (you know he fuckin' loved that movie and has at least fifteen bullet points as to how he would have avoided Emile Hirsch's fate) -- Dwight leads a still-blindfolded Michael past the "bushes and thickets" of the least dense forestry I have ever seen. Hardcore!
Office. Jim and Oscar are talking shop, then Jim points out the memo he sent out (on official "memo" paper, oh Jim) about the birthdays. Oscar's like, "Oh...great. This way we get them all out of the way at once." Oscar's not wrong, that is bullshit. Everyone deserves to have their birthday recognized individually, not in some crappy mid-September group celebration just because their birthday happens to fall during the summer months, not that I'm at all still holding on to anything from my school days. So Jim walks away thinking his idea is awesome while Oscar gives the camera the "...douche" eyes.
Woods. Dwight has finally reached a spot where there are some trees, and he tries to spin Michael around to confuse his sense of direction, but Michael is resistant. He gives Michael duct tape and a hug, and then runs off, leaving Michael to the "elements."
Office. Meredith approaches Jim and requests Devil's Food cake for the mondo-birthday bash. Jim's all, "Totally!" "Wow, that was easy," smirks Pam, and the really distressing thing is that Jim totally hasn't caught on to the fact that Pam is mocking him out, which is the most Michael thing about him, in an episode where he does a lot of Michael-like things. So Creed taps on the break room window and calls Jim aside for a private conference. Said private conference is filmed in super-close-up, with both Creed and Jim being very staccato-voiced, like this is Jimmy Cagney movie or something. It's awesome. Creed doesn't want Devil's Food, he wants pie, peach pie, see? And he doesn't care who Jim needs to talk to to make that happen. Jim: "It'll be Angela." Creed: "You tell her it's for Creed. She'll know what that means."
In addition to the documentary crew that obviously followed Michael into the woods, Michael has brought his own video camera, which he has set up on a tripod to record his wilderness musings. It's all very early-scenes-of-Blair Witch except without all the cursing and that girl everybody hated. Michael rambles about water and the position of the sun in the sky, and then he decides that it's getting too hot, so he'll have to cut his pant legs with Dwight's knife and turn them into shorts. As he hacks away at the pants that he's still wearing and hopes aloud that he doesn't nick his "corroded artery," Dwight looks on from behind a nearby tree. Dwight whisper-interviews that he will remain close by to offer Michael "unseen moral support" but no actual help. "I will let harm befall him," Dwight says, intensely, "I will even let him die. But I will never let him lose his dignity." Cut to Michael, in his newly-forged dress shorts, explaining how his excess clothes can be used for multiple purposes. Such as...repurposing as a kerchief. Awesome.
Office. Andy sidles up to Jim's desk and requests a "Fudgy the Whale" ice cream cake for the party today. Wow, I hate to say this but: I'm with Andy. Killjoy Jim, however, shuts Andy down even more swiftly than usual, then tells him he has calls to make. Andy -- and this is a little shocking -- won't let it go, and so Jim storms off all "I can't work like this!" and takes refuge in...Michael's office. I feel like this is the part of the movie where the once-hardcore rocker starts to wear eyeliner and fur coats with no shirt on underneath and all his old bandmates start to look at each other out of the corners of their eyes because they know He's Let It Go To His Head. Jim, right now, is that rocker, and Michael's office is that eyeliner.
Woods. Michael is carrying his own camera around, enthusing about how great it is that he's all alone in the woods and no one will be able to hear what he says. Except for the documentary crew who are no more than twenty yards away from him. And Dwight, but that's a secret. "I wish I could have gone with Ryan on that retreat!" Michael hollers into the void. We all kind of figured that, though. "Jan has plastic boobs!" he screams. Yeah, we knew that too. "IIIIII haaaaave hemorrhoiiiiiiids!" Okay, that one's new.
Elsewhere, Dwight is burrowing deeper into the woods, talking about Michael's quest for knowledge. He finds a bird's nest full of eggs and takes it with him. "Lunch," he explains. Naturally.
Back with Michael, he's duct-taped his pant legs back on because it's gotten chillier (has no one invented the zip-on-leg business slacks yet?). He's planning to kill a squirrel or a rabbit for food because, as he says, it's been three hours. Meanwhile, Dwight's already got his eggs cooking on a fire. This is just a normal weekday for Dwight, I think. Michael, in one of those moments where you realize that he's kind of sweet underneath the layers and layers of dysfunction and jerkiness and failed alpha-masculinity, remembers that it's Creed's birthday today. He starts singing "Happy Birthday." The high-harmony part, of course.
Back at the office, the B-team has gathered in the break room to bitch about Jim's new birthday policy. "I work hard all day," says Kevin, in his customary life-or-death breathlessly intense voice. "I like knowing that here's going to be a break. Most days I just sit and wait for the break." That totally describes every job experience I ever had between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three. Stanley dours that he took an extra shot of insulin in preparation for cake, and if he doesn't have some soon he might die. Okay, that doesn't help the cause, Stanley. You're still getting cake today. Or, okay, cobbler. But that's not the point! Oscar and Creed join in the grousing until Jim happens by, and Creed loudly asserts that they were talking about NOTHING. Then he shouts "Come on, gang!" and hurries back to his desk.
Woods. Michael has "tented [his] pants." Not as gross as you might think. He's simply once again mangled his clothing with the knife and duct-taped them across a couple of logs to create a ramshackle "shelter." From a distance, Dwight spies on his boss through the scope on his rifle. "Nothing to worry about," Dwight assures the camera. "Safety is...[clicks the safety into place]...on!"
Office. Jim's still in Michael's office, and Toby comes by to congratulate him on the "great idea" about the birthdays. Jim seems relieved that someone isn't giving him shit about it, for once, but Toby soon reveals an ulterior motive: he wants to be included in the celebration, since Michael short-shrifted his birthday two months ago by holding it in the parking lot at 4:58 on a Friday. Jim pissily interviews that Toby, while great, "can be a bit much." He imitates Toby's sad-sack request and is all, "It's a cake, Toby. I mean come on." This is so scary, watching Jim morph into this unholy combination of Michael and Ryan. Yikes. Anyway, back in person, Jim appeases Toby, but a passing-by Angela won't stand for it. She freaks out on Jim for changing the plans all "willy-nilly." She already has enough to plan for with all the devil's food and peach cobbler and Fudgy the Whale. Jim, finally fed up, strides out into the bullpen and calls everyone's attention. Pam shoots her hand up and asks, "Conference room?" At first I thought this was Pam trying to stop Jim from making an ass out of himself, but then I realized that this is the exact tone she takes with Michael and I got scared again. Jim asks who else hates the birthday idea, and everyone raises their hand. Jim's like, "Well then we won't do it." There's some business about who will eat the excess cakes (Kevin's game), and then Phyllis raises her hand and says, "Michael...I mean Jim..." Jim freezes and looks like he's just been shot in the ass with one of Dwight's blowdarts. "Yup," Jim interviews, "Phyllis called me 'Michael'." And I will always and forever be haunted by that fact."
Woods. Michael is about to Into The Wild himself and eat some wild mushrooms of indeterminate origin. Dwight sprints out of his hiding place, tackles Michael, and claws the mushrooms out of his mouth, thus simultaneously breaking both his oath to allow Michael to die and his vow to protect Michael's dignity.
Office. Everybody's gathered around Creed's birthday cobbler and singing to him. Michael (bundled up in a Battlestar Galatica sweatshirt that clearly belonged to Dwight) shows up just in time to hit the high harmony. Then Creed starts skipping around the room while everyone claps. ...I don't know.
Later, in his interview, Michael is coming to some realizations: man has no need for nature, or else he wouldn't have fashioned for himself an existence full of television and comfy futons. "I don't need the woods, I have my wood desk. I don't need fresh air, I have the freshest air around: a/c." Rather than open spaces, Michael points us to the Grand Canyon wallpaper on his computer monitor. It can also be blue skies. I am weirdly onboard with Michael's ideas about nature.
Back at the party, Michael hunkers down to Jim. "Sure glad you're back," says Jim, and for the first time ever, he actually means it. Jim says how he tried to combine all the birthdays, and Michael chuckles knowingly. "I did that," Michael admits. "Rookie mistake." He says in ten years, Jim will figure it out. Jim doesn't think he'll still be here in ten years. "That's what I said," says Michael. And while Jim's face registers that he is, in fact, going to be experiencing the "do I want more out of my life?" conundrum that will no doubt be the great obstacle in his relationship with Pam, Michael obliviously continues down his own train of thought: "That's what she said." Of course, it doesn't make any sense in that context, as Jim points out: "That's what who said?" Michael: "I never know. I just say it. You know, to lighten the tension when things get hard." Jim: "That's what she said." And then the once and future Michael Scotts share a dorky laugh together. Jim has been assimilated.