Michael's paper company is doomed. DOOMED! He simply can't stay in business with the low prices he's charging. But all the people upstairs at Dunder Mifflin know is that he's stealing all their clients and it's starting to hurt. So David Wallace shows up from Corporate to work with Charles on solutions. With Jim and Dwight partaking in the meeting, Charles belatedly realizes that his protégé is insane, and Wallace decides the only thing to do is to offer to buy Michael out. Jim, who already knows the Michael Scott Paper Company is screwed because Pam told him, calls them up to hear the offer, which Michael negotiates brilliantly. He scores not only sixty grand, but their old jobs back. Except for Pam, who will be rejoining DM as a salesperson. So everything is back to the way it was, only better. As long as no one ever finds out Jim knew about Michael's weak position all along. But now is not the time to worry about that. If ever.
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It's 4:30 in the morning, and Michael uses some packaging tape to stick a sign on the door of a shabby delivery van. "I'm just a 44-year-old with a paper route." Are we sure he's ready for that kind of responsibility? He goes to pick up Ryan, and does that obnoxious thing where he keeps pretending to pull away every time Ryan reaches for the door. Ryan THs about the 5:00 a.m. deliveries. "Ever since I've gotten clean there's something about fresh, morning air that really makes me sick." At Jim and Pam's, when Pam comes out the front door with a goodbye kiss from Jim, Michael yells out, "Whoa, Halpert! Boner patrol!" I think it's just his PJs.
But where did the van come from? Pam says it was from a used car lot. "We think it says 'Hallelujah Church of Scranton' in Korean. It was either this or an old school bus with an owl living in it." It's already light out when Pam asks for coffee. "Milk and sugar," Michael says, handing back a giant cup. Yes, that's all that's in there. No coffee. Pam spits it out. Michael drinks it every morning, apparently. At the client's, Michael schmoozes the client while Pam and Ryan stack the boxes in the parking lot. And try to chase away a very confused Korean woman.
Credits.
Charles comes out into the bullpen, upset about all the clients they've been losing to Michael Scott Paper Company. Andy unwisely pipes up that he's been there the shortest. "I just think the bar should be lower for a newbie?" Charles is not impressed. "But I think it's important that you know it," Andy points out. In a TH, Charles painfully admits, "Maybe it's my fault." "It's not your fault," Dwight snaps from his old position, leaning against the file cabinet. He's just beginning to explain about a memo he wrote asking for ideas for saving money when Angela pops in to say she's cracking down on expense reports. "Waste not, want not," she says. "Well said, Angela," Charles manages. "Been there, done that," Dwight murmurs once she's gone.
A very tired Michael Scott Paper Company is considering options. Ryan pushes for a delivery guy, but Michael likes the idea of sleeping lofts over the desks.
David Wallace tries to quietly enter the branch, but of course Dwight leaps to attention, loudly saying his name. Charles comes out of the conference room in a hurry to greet Wallace and suck up. This doesn't escape Jim. Indeed, he does the longest kissing-head clip ever. Charles starts to usher Wallace into the conference room, but first Wallace want to address everyone about how he thinks the problems presented by the MSPCo are temporary. It's Phyllis who says, "Maybe, and I don't know, if you'd just returned Michael's call, none of us would have lost clients." Wallace admits that might be true, but they're on it. He starts to call Jim in to the conference room, but Charles quietly makes his case for Dwight, so both get invited to the meeting. "Come along, afterthought," Dwight tells Jim.
The MSPCo is in the office of an accountant, who tells them they can't pay a delivery guy, because their prices are too low. In fact, "at these prices, the more paper you sell, the less money you'll make." Michael's in denial so he insists the accountant crunch the numbers again. "Crunch," the accountant says, taping a key. "Did it help?" Pam asks.
In the van on the way back to the office, it's very quiet. Even when an old Korean woman climbs in. Is this really better than the owl, you guys? I like owls.
Back at the office, Michael's making awkward phone calls to clients while Pam and Ryan watch. "Yeah, we got the check, but we're gonna need a much, much bigger check." Pam gives a TH from outside: "When a child gets behind the wheel of a car and runs into a tree, you don't blame the child. He didn't know any better. You blame the 30-year-old woman who got in the passenger seat and said, 'Drive, kid. I trust you.'"
In the meeting, Jim suggests a temporary price reduction, which both Charles and Dwight think is stupid. "I suggest we fill Michael's office with bees," Dwight counter-suggests. Wallace tells them to take five while Charles glares at his "guy," and follows him out for a word as the meeting breaks. Jim gets out his cell to return a call from Pam. And then cut to them in the hallway, as Pam tells him they have about a month left in business. Jim is reassuring, but since he's Jim, it works better than it did for Michael. "Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!" says his phone, giving him a chance to show off his new Dwight ringtone. "Idiot, we're starting back up! This is Dwight, by the way," Jim hears. He gives her a kiss and another reassurance.
She returns to the office, where the boys are sitting on the floor. Michael says he always thought the day Steve Martin died would be the worst day of his life, but this is. Pam shares her own sad story -- she can't even score a weekend retail job. Ryan's got that beat: "I never went to Thailand." Just Fort Lauderdale. "There's a great Pad Thai place, though." Michael never even had Pad Thai.
There are clear battle lines in the meeting upstairs. Jim and Wallace on the window side of the table in blue shirts, and Charles and Dwight on the door side of the table in white shirts. The dialogue is less clear, with everyone talking at once until Dwight brings up his bee idea again. Finally Wallace says, "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I think the cheapest option is to make Michael an offer." Charles agrees, saying he was about to say the same. "But you didn't," Jim points out. Charles mood isn't improved when Dwight laments Michael's lack of children. Wallace asks Jim if he thinks they'd be open to an offer. Jim lies that he doesn't know, but he's willing to go down and feel it out. Dwight offers to go instead, but Charles agrees that Jim should take this. And off he goes.
"We're not hiring, Jim," Michael tells him when he comes in downstairs. Jim announces that he's been sent down to se if they'd consider being bought out. "Jim, what you don't understand is that this company's worth--" "Oh!" Jim cuts him off. All but winking, Jim says he's there to learn as little as possible, and just wants to know about a buyout. Finally, they say yes (actually, Ryan says maybe), and Jim heads upstairs.
Some short time later, the three of them are heading for the elevator, as Ryan says, "You're not going to reveal in any way that we're broke." Michael's confident he can handle it, but by the end of the elevator ride, he's convinced he's gong to blow it. Well, at least he knows himself. And then the three of them present themselves to New Kelly at reception, as Michael officiously announces, "I believe we're expected." Charles and Wallace emerge from the conference room with their suit jackets on. "Well, well," Michael gloats. "How the turntables..." Yeah, that's all he's got.
Now it's Walace and Charles across the table from the MSPCo, as Michael rejects their first offer of "very generous." So then Wallace offers $12,000. "That is insultingly low," Michael protests. "I don't even want to hear what your first offer was."
Kelly and Angela are both trying to eavesdrop through the door with a coffee mug, but all Kelly's hearing is Charlie Brown adult-speak.
Wallace tells Michael that he's not clueless about their situation, and that's the best offer they'll get. Michael comes right back at him: "Your company is losing clients left and right. You have a stockholder meeting coming up and you're going to have to explain to them why your most profitable branch... is bleeding. So they may be looking for a little change in the CFO. So I don't think I need to wait out Dunder-Mifflin. I think I just have to wait out you." Oh, my God, I think I'm actually turned on. And not just by the smile Pam's giving the camera. So Wallace says he'll ask the board for $60,000. Michael swallows audibly, and barely manages to say he'll need to talk about it with his people. Wallace and Charles give them the room. "We are so rich," Michael says the minute they're alone.
Out in the bullpen, Dwght is taking a call from a ex-client. "May I ask why you're leaving the Michael Scott Paper Company?" There's a pause, while the camera pans over to Jim, and Dwight says, "Please hold," and goes running to the kitchen to find Charles, Jim in hot pursuit. Dwight tells Charles the situation, which is that MSPCo has been calling its clients because they're broke. "Great work, Dwight," Jim says quietly. "This must be the first case you've ever cracked, right?" Charles is trying to get more info from Dwight, but Dwight lets Jim goad him into telling him about his other cases, like "The Case of the Beet Bandit." (It was Mose.) So Charles instructs Dwight, "Do not go anywhere near the conference room. Because you have embarrassed me for the last time today." Nice how he said "today." "You two are morons," he adds. "Got it," Jim says crisply, exiting. Dwight is a bit slower to follow.
Now that the principals have reconvened in the conference room, Wallace is ready to put this behind them. "No," Michael says. Pam asks for another minute. Michael says they need jobs, too. So back in the meeting, Michael makes his demands. He wants his old job, his parking space, a Sebring ("They don't make them any more," Charles says) and he wants Charles gone. Wallace won't budge on that one, so Michael says he wants Pam back, in sales. Wallace goes for that, but when Michael says he wants Ryan, Wallace balks again, listing off the costs of salaries, health, dental and so on. "Your company cannot be worth that much," Wallace says. "Our company is worth nothing," Michael says. Oops, he said it. But it's working. "That's the difference between you and I. Business isn't about money to me, David. If tomorrow my company goes under, I will just start another paper company, and another and another. I have no shortage of company names." He basically tells Wallace to take it or leave it. They shake on it, and Michael asks for the room again. And after Wallace and Charles leave once again, Michael closes the blinds, and the sounds of three people celebrating spill out into the bullpen.
As Michael peels his sign down from the door, he talks about defining moments in a person's life. "The day he's born, the day he grows hair, the day he starts a business, and the day he sells that business back to Dunder-Mifflin." Ryan pours Pam a plastic cup of champagne, but declines himself. A confused Korean woman sits in the van parked outside. He says he's flying high, and he wants to enjoy it. As he walks Charles to the door, Charles turns to say something, but Michael interrupts, "No, no, you're done." Charles lets Michael have this one, and leaves without another word. And in a final tableau, Michael rests his foot on Jim's desk, Jim points approvingly at Michael, and the rest of the office look on from the background in varying degrees of bemusement. Nice shot, director Steve Carell. I bet it would even be cooler if it weren't framed for a wider screen than mine, but then that's been going on all season.
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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.