Michael has been shaking Dwight down for inside information on Dunder-Mifflin clients, but when Dwight gets offered more responsibility by Charles, he rolls over on Michael and Charles tells Michael to knock it off. So that starts a war between them over clients. It escalates until Michael ends up in the office of Dwight's biggest client, facing off with Dwight himself.
And at Dunder-Mifflin, Andy's so hurt by Pam shooting down his terrible ideas for her and Jim's wedding that he advises Jim to dump her. Jim could just tell Andy to back off, but that wouldn't be very Jim of him. Instead, he pulls a prank on Andy where he acts like an emotional train wreck, leaning on Andy for the support Pam supposedly no longer gives him, and then tells him to back off. And he also tells Andy that despite what happened with Angela, he will find someone else. Nice to see Jim being awesome again for a change.
So does Michael steal Dwight's client? Of course he does. Welcome to the client roster of the Michael Scott Paper Company, Inc., HarperCollins.
In the teaser, the Michael Scott Paper Company may not be doing much business, but they're fast becoming the Cirque du Soleil of tossing cheese puffs into each other's mouths. Several permutations are successfully demonstrated, right up until Pam yawns and both Ryan and Michael take their shots from off-camera. Unfortunately, they both miss, and one lodges in her hair. With all these balls flying around all these open mouths, I can't believe nobody threw in some kind of "That's what she said" joke in there.
Old credits are back.
In the Dunder Mifflin break room, Jim and Pam are sitting with Andy while he pitches some of the ideas that he and Angela never got to use for their wedding. Right now, we're up to the part where he's playing a tape of himself with his old a capella group, whom he's offering to have flown in, put up, fed, and set up with a merchandise table at the reception for the low, low price of $9,000, all so Pam can boogie down the aisle to "You Can Call Me Al." Pam is not nearly as excited about this idea as Jim is pretending to be for his own amusement.
Dwight looks a little different today; not only is his shirt white instead of mustard, it's got long sleeves, buttoned to the cuff. And it's making him crazy. When Phyllis tells him he looks nice (in a "shut up and deal" tone rather than a sincerely complimentary tone), he complains about the new dress code compromising his "attack readiness." "Looking good," Charles tells Dwight as he passes through, and Dwight pretends to accept. Until Charles is gone, whereupon he spazzes, "It's a straitjacket!" and accidentally knocks a bunch of shit over. In a TH, he compares the days of Michael to the Roman Empire and the Wild West and two different versions of Poland. There was so much going on that nobody cared what anyone wore. "And in that chaos, I soared." Aw, someone misses his puke-tones.
Michael meets Dwight out by the dumpster and tells him about a small company called Ed's Tires, which is apparently considering new paper vendors. Michael tries to slip Dwight a wad of cash for the favor, but Dwight declines. "I don't need... six dollars to help a friend." Michael keeps the money, but gets annoyed when Dwight reminds him of the ten dollars he owes him from four years ago.
Andy approaches Jim because he's starting to worry about Pam's negativity regarding things like the crucifix cake he pitched earlier, and says he's worried that she's too bossy for their relationship to go the distance. Jim: "It's so scary, how right the things you're saying are. And you're coming at it with almost no knowledge, so of course I trust your opinion on this." Andy nods sagely, and then THs that he knows a few things about love. "Horrible, terrible, awful things." Jim THs in turn that his plans for the day just changed.
Downstairs, Michael gives his sales team the lowdown on Ed's Tires, and since the strategy involves affecting a distrust of women, Ryan's taking this one on. They do the "morning cheer," which is a bastardized version of the "U-G-L-Y" cheer from Wildcats. Yes, I'm embarrassed to know that, but not as embarrassed as Pam. "I'm here," she THs afterwards. "I'm part of this now."
Dwight enters Charles' office, and after insisting Dwight sit, Charles gets to the point. He wants to make sure Dwight is happy, because he's been impressed with his work ethic and wants to give him more responsibility. He even invites him out for a drink this week. Deeply moved, Dwight stands and shakes Charles' hand. "It's firm," he intones. Whether he's referring to the plans or the handshake, it's equally creepy.
Michael's on the phone to Dwight, trying to get DM's bid for Ed's Tires so they can undercut. But Dwight says something has "come up." After a brief detour about whether Mose fell down the well, Dwight obliquely whispers about someone who's torn between a "personal hero" and a "cool new guy." A Will Smith type, if you will. Dwight has Michael's full attention. Michael seems to get it. "So is this for a movie that you're writing?" he asks. From the poker table, having heard only Michael's side of the conversation, Pam holds up a big note that says, "He's talking About You!" Michael shakes his head, and Ryan emphatically taps the note. Finally Michael gets it, and gives Dwight his answer: "I would say the old boss has always been good to Dwight, and he was there first, so he has dibs. You respect dibs, don't you?" "I'm not a barbarian," Dwight says. So they'll meet again soon, at the usual place. But first, Michael has a question. "Is the cool new guy Charles?" Dwight won't say. "Is it Stanley?"
Jim parks his butt on Andy's desk and says he doesn't think he can dump Pam, because he's so emotionally needy. So Andy offers to fill that role for Jim. "Let me be your traveling pants," he offers. Sometimes I wonder if there's someone on the writing staff whose job is to translate ordinary comments into Andy-ese.
Michael meets Dwight down by the dumpsters again, and the first thing he notices is the shirt. The second is that Dwight is crying. Then Charles appears, and Michael freaks out, thinking he set them both up. But Charles says that Dwight came to him, saying that Michael has been "pestering" him for company info. Michael doesn't think Dwight would -- but Dwight would. And did. He even says he's okay with the shirt sleeves now. Charles tells Michael to knock it off, and asks if he understands. Michael: "I understand... nothing!" How true that is.
Michael storms back into his office, bitching about being set up. They don't know what he's talking about, so Michael clarifies: "It's like a girl says she'll make out with you, but her boyfriend is waiting around the corner with a pee-filled balloon." You know Michael didn't just come up with that analogy off the top of his head. And sadly, it would appear that one time back in high school? It wasn't an analogy at all.
Jim comes into the kitchen where Andy is eating and acts all distraught about having just blown a sales call. Andy tells him not to let it get him down; after all, Andy does that all the time. But Jim is not to be placated, and even kicks and stomps on his lunch bag. Ooh, that just become a small tuna.
Michael calls Dwight to threaten him, using his best Cape Fear voice over the phone. "I'm going to steal all of your clients, and then I'm going to kill them in front of you." Pam tries to reel that in, but Michael says he's just getting hardcore. "Finally!" Ryan says. As soon as Michael and Dwight both hang up, they both rush to call a Mr. Scofield, but Dwight gets his assistant and Michael fails to get an outside line at all. Up in the DM bullpen, everyone notices that Dwight's concern about the possibility of losing Mr. Scofield, who is apparently with HarperCollins. Whoa, that's a lot of paper, there. Dwight denies it, but Phyllis insists that he seems worried. "And you have bad skin," Dwight snaps at Phyllis. "Oh, look, we're all making observations!" Wow, if this is how Dwight is acting now, I'd hate to see him if he were actually worried.
Downstairs, Michael is leaving a message for Mr. Scofield about tickets to the Wilkes-Barre Penguins game, but then suddenly he's on the phone to the man himself, who apparently picked up when he heard it was Michael on the phone. Making him the only person in human history ever to do so. "Look at that old dude and his Rolodex go," Ryan marvels. Pam says she spent a month putting that Rolodex on his Blackberry, "Which he now uses as a nightlight." Sounds about right.
Upstairs, Dwight gets Scofield on the line, and makes an allusion to Michael's departure from the paper business after a nervous breakdown. In a tense TH, he says it's now apprentice versus master. "It's not exactly like Highlander, but still."
Dwight calls Michael to offer a truce. Michael declines at first, but then tells him to meet him at their usual spot, and walk 100 feet towards the sun at noon. "You have two seconds." Dwight's still conditioned enough to break into a sprint.
Down behind the warehouse, a waiting Dwight calls, "Michael?" But it actually is Madge from the warehouse, and not Michael in a clever disguise. The real Michael appears a moment later, and Dwight practically strips to his underwear to show he's not wearing a wire. They discuss a truce, and the first step is Dwight's offer to take Michael's the whole company out for lunch.
Cut to Michael, Ryan, and Pam at the restaurant, and Michael calls Dwight, who is in their office, putting a fish in their air vent and stealing all Michael's crap off his desk, including his Rolodex. He claims to be stuck in traffic, after having hit a bear, and asks Michael to order him a sandwich. When they return and find they've been robbed, Dwight calls with an evil smirk and asks if they enjoyed their lunch. Michael doesn't have time for this right now, until Pam holds up a note saying, "Dwight did it!" Michael is stung that Dwight broke their truce. Dwight makes dire threats Michael about the enemy he's made, and Michael tries to retaliate by eating the sandwich Dwight had him order. Which Dwight anticipated, which is why he ordered the worst item on the restaurant's menu. "Bastard!" Michael spits around a nasty mouthful.
Dwight's working Michael's rolodex now, stiffly making use of the personal notes Michael has on the backs of the cards like kids' ages and "ponytail." In a TH, he shows off his own card. "On the back he wrote, 'Great salesman, better friend.'" Except when Dwight holds it up to the camera, we can see it really says two things: "Tall" and "Beets." Ouch. Well, at least it doesn't say "Idiot," which is what I would have expected.
Dwight gets a call on his cell phone, and it's Michael, calling from a suspiciously tight shot as he says that if Dwight keeps coming after him, he can't succeed. Dwight doesn't care, so Michael adds, "I'm going to have you listen while I steal your biggest client." Michael puts his phone in his pocket, turning it down so it's essentially a one-way call as he enters the office of Daniel Scofield, HarperCollins.
thing you know, Dwight's in the car, racing to Scofield's office. He's still listening as Michael claims that buying paper from an owner and founder like himself is like buying software from Bill Gates. "ARE YOU SAYING YOU INVENTED PAPER?!?" Dwight bellows impotently.
In the outer hallway, Andy holds Jim, who is apparently crying so hard he can't speak. And a moment later, in the bullpen, Andy calls everyone out for whatever it was someone did to Jim. "I guess I could be nicer," Kevin concedes. Phyllis is the one to tell Andy that Jim's messing with him. Andy's doubtful, until he looks over to the window to the kitchen and sees Jim grinning out at him.
In the kitchen, Jim tells Andy two things: "Pam and I are very happy together." And number two? "That stuff that happened with you and Angela is a bummer. And I know you don't think that you're ever going to find someone else, but you will. I promise you, you will." Andy does a TH in which he says that Jim got him good. "I wish this was a sofa, 'cause I feel like I could sit here and talk for hours." I'm sure. But stick it in a webisode, please.
In Scofield's office, Michael is misquoting Dwight, just as Dwight is arriving in the parking lot. He runs out of his car without closing the door, and then runs back to grab something.
Cut to Dwight charging down the hall in an old, familiar mustard-colored shirt. "Hello, Dwight," Scofield's assistant says. "Spin move!" Dwight does and says, and bursts into Scofield's office. "I barge, because I care!" he pants. Dwight reminds Scofield of the time he came to his rescue, but Michael, in his element, calmly gives his own pitch, and Scofield decides to put this off by having them e-mail him offers. As they're taking their leave, Dwight pauses to look at Michael's Rolodex card on Scofield and ask, "How's your gay son?" Suddenly the temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
In a TH afterward, Michael explains his color-coding system. Green means go, as in "go ahead and shut up about it." Orange means Orange you glad you didn't bring it up. Most colors mean don't say it." What do you know -- Michael has a filter after all. It just has to be written down. Back in Scofield's office, Michael quietly leaves Dwight to flounder.
Once he's back in his own office, Michael THs about having wanted to start a paper company, not a war, because a war always pits you against those you're closest to. He continues in VO as we see Dwight changing back into his white, long-sleeved shirt, and Ryan finding the fish in the vent and dropping it on the carpet at Pam's feet. Michael compares the current situation to the Civil War, which set brother against brother, "And for what? Apart from abolishing slavery." But this doesn't feel as important. "That's just how the world works, I guess." In other words, it's not exactly likeHighlander, but still.
In the tag, the cheese-puff activity has moved on to seeing how many they can get in their mouths at a time. Ryan triumphs with a score of 32, but since all of their faces are stuffed, Michael can't intelligibly answer his phone if it rings. Which it of course does. At least they're all amused by it. And probably very thirsty.
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.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see what vloggers Val and Beth think of the Office-like Parks & Recreation in TV is the Answer.