It's the first day of the Michael Scott Paper Company, and things aren't going great. Michael's so overwhelmed by everything that he can't face the day until Pam helps him pull himself together. But when that's done, they go out, draft Michael's ex-co-telemarketer Vikram and current bowling-alley shoe-bitch Ryan, and head off to a meeting with a potential investor. But things go downhill from there, as the potential investor wants no piece of Michael's company despite being his grandmother. Vikram bails, and Pam freaks, and then it's Michael who has to help her pull herself together. Which he does by finding them a new office space.
Back at the office where everyone else is still working, acting boss Charles turns out to be a rabid soccer fan, which has the unsurprising effect of turning everyone else in the office into soccer fans as well. Even Jim claims to be a soccer player in his own right, because his ass-kissing skills are as rusty as his soccer skills. His humiliation is assured, but it's Phyllis who takes the brunt of it.
And since Michael's condo won't let him run a business out of his home, he comes up with something else: an abandoned storage room at Scranton Office Park, downstairs from Dunder Mifflin. Of course. Michael's determined to make the best of the awkwardness, because he's Michael and thus has no choice.
Take a look back at the each staffers most embarrassing moment.
Kevin's at Reception, but not in the way we're used to, raiding the candy dish and stating the obvious: he's actually behind the desk. Of course, Jim has to remind him to answer the ringing phone, and Kevin reads his stock greeting off a card before saying, "Please hold while I transfer you. OSCAR, YOUR MOM." Jim diplomatically THs that Kevin's doing as well as can be expected, which Kevin now demonstrates by transferring a call for Andy all over the bullpen, chasing it from desk to desk. Finally he gets the call over to Andy, amid much celebration, which is still going on when Andy THs in shock, "My maid died."
Pam arrives at her first day of work, and shows off the new sign outside Michael's condo. He's taped laser-printed pages that read "MICHAEL SCOTT PAPER COMPANY INC." onto the front of an old election yard sign. She knocks on his front door, and Michael answers in his robe. "Oh, good, my hooker's here," he cracks, which drains the excitement out of her right quick, even though she's holding the first piece of mail addressed to the Michael Scott Paper Company, Inc. Inside, he's arranged the kitchen table in decent office configuration. And is making French toast like a man with a mission. To make French toast.
Charles address the troops in the conference room, telling them that he's the acting branch manager until there's a replacement. How much does it suck to be Charles? You get this great new job, and then you have to deal with Michael, and then you have to be Michael. Kelly's question? "Where will you be staying while you're in Scranton?" Charles puts an early end to the Q&A session, and gets ready to move on to spending cuts, pausing momentarily to glare Stanley into putting down his crossword. Jim whispers to Dwight to him about how loud he's breathing, and gets busted by Charles for it. "Oh, no, the new boss does not find Jim adorable!" Dwight THs happily.
Pam wants to get started with the day, but Michael is stalling by continuing to make French toast, until there's a veritable Eiffel Tower of it on the counter. Pam tries to get the mixing away from him, but it just ends up splattered all over his robe, triggering a rant from him about what a stupid move this all is. "I have egg in my Crocs," he concludes. Just when you thought he couldn't sink any lower.
At the office, people are marveling that they never see Charles eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom. Creed assures them that he does the latter.
Jim THs that he actually did used to play soccer. "From second to fourth grade. I was on the orange team."
Michael and Pam pick up Vikram from the telemarketing place, and the thing you know, he's in the back of the PT Cruiser. Michael makes a stop, claiming he has to pee, and as he gets out of the car and walks into a bowling alley. Vikram remarks that Michael seems very confident, and Pam says he sometimes is. Vikram says, "Confidence is the food of the wise man and the liquor of the fool." Pam speaks for all of us when she says, "I'm looking forward to getting to know you better, Vikram."
Inside the bowling alley, Michael goes to the shoe rental counter to talk to the shoe rental guy. It's Ryan, with a bad blonde dye job. Michael pitches the idea of a company that has no memory of Ryan's past misdeeds, "Because they have no files." Ryan's listening.
Out in the car, Vikram comments on how long Michael's been gone and wonders if Michael is bowling. She can't rule it out, so she goes in after him, and busts him talking to Ryan. "This isn't on the list," she says. Michael insists it is, and she takes the list out. "When did you add this to the list?" she demands. Michael says, "Everyone deserves a second second chance." And goes back to Ryan, Who claims he's making 60,000 a year. Pam doubts that, and Ryan retorts, "What do you make, secretary?" Ryan's boss yells at him, "Back to work, shoe bitch!" And as much as Ryan may have hated working for Michael, at least Michael never called him "shoe bitch." So Ryan steals them each a pair of shoes and they dash out. "He's already paying for himself!" Michael says happily.
Charles kicks a paper cup into the kitchen, trying to get Jim into it, and Jim ends up having to fish it out from under the counter with his hand. Charles even high-fives him in excitement over getting to play with him later.
In the car, Ryan offers to tell them about Thailand. "It was indescribable," he says. Thanks, Ryan.
Michael leads his new team into the meeting with the investor. Who turns out to be his grandmother. In an assisted living facility. Who belongs to an "investment club." thing we know, Michael is competing with the Maury Povich show for the attention of three oldsters as he introduces his employees. It's going well enough, until his Nana starts to ask some actual questions.
Out in the parking lot, Charles is asking what position everyone plays. "Wing?" Someone says. "Leg?" Kevin guesses. Charles asks Jim what he plays, and Jim agrees that he's a "striker," whatever that is. As Dwight blows a whistle and a non-kickoff happens, Jim says his strategy is to touch the ball as little as possible. "Chalk it up to teamwork." We'll soon see how that goes.
Back at the nursing home, Michael's grandmother shoots him down. Cold, flat, and hard. He sits down and pouts fiercely.
"I thought Nana raised some good questions," Vikram says in the car. "What kind of a name is Nana?" Pam tells him what it means. "Oh, sweet Jesus," Vikram breathes. He asks to be dropped off back at work. In the parking lot there, Vikram starts to give Michael some advice, but Michael slams the door and pulls away. I miss Vikram.
In the parking lot/soccer field, Charles tries to pass to Jim, but Jim ducks and the ball slams into Phyllis's face. Everyone gathers around her while Charles and Dwight give Jim a hard time for ducking, and Jim runs for ice. Chalk it up to teamwork.
At the condo, Ryan runs into the house to watch TNT. "I have cable and satellite as a backup," Michael explains. That's meant to be joke, but in my last five years of recapping, there have been a few times I could have used such an arrangement. Pam's still sitting in the passenger seat of his car, staring coldly up at him while he babbles. Finally she says she can't do this. "I had a real job. I sat ten feet away from my fiancé. I had health benefits." She says she was feeling impulsive, and this was one of those times where she let her boredom build up and did something too big. (Like dropping out of art school with one class left? -- AC) Now that she's freaking out, Michael is the calm one, and he says the first thing on their new list is to get Pam out of the car. She just throws the notebook with the list out onto the driveway. She wonders why she was the only one to go with him. "Your own grandmother doesn't even believe in you," she says. Ouch. Michael leans down to her window and seriously tells her about their situation. They both quit, so they have limited options, and here they are: "We can start this paper company... that's it, that's our only option." Michael says he does his best when nobody believes in him, which of course Pam knows well. So he says he's going to go inside, make some calls, and show her why she did this.
So inside, Michael's on the phone to Billy. You remember who Billy is. Or if you don't, you soon will. Michael's bugging him for some "secret office that you have lurking around. Something awesome, free... no, not there. That would be humiliating." Sounds perfect.
And he THs about how he stepped up, while we see him, Pam, and Ryan crossing the parking lot back into the Scranton Office Park. Of the people playing soccer in the lot, only Jim notices them. He and Pam shrug at each other. And then Billy, the wheelchair-using office manager from way back, leads them into what looks like an unused storage room. It's tiny. It's cluttered. It has exposed plumbing. It will be the corporate headquarters of the Michael Scott Paper Company.
Inc.
In the tag, Michael oversees Pam as she sticks the letters that spell MICHAEL SCOTT PAP up on the entry way signboard, right between Dunder Mifflin and Vance Refrigeration. "You know what they say," he says. "Keep your friends close." Pam waits for him to finish the expression. But he's already finished. If Michael wants to keep people's attention, he should learn the first half of a lot more sayings.
Charles passes by, and is surprised to see Michael back in the building. Michael says that Charles can't kick him out now, because he's started his own paper company. Furthermore, he's planning to "open a big ol' can of whoop-ass on Dunder Mifflin." Pam backs Michael with an adorably defiant look up at Charles. Charles doesn't say anything, until Michael starts to amend that to a "six-pack," whereupon Charles stomps out. "He looked scared," Michael tells Pam. Is that what scared Charles looks like? Weird.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter , or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.