Michael, Pam, and Ryan are back at Dunder Mifflin, but things aren't going so smoothly. Michael's showing favoritism to Ryan and Pam, while Dwight, Stanley, Phyllis, and Andy are angry about not getting their old clients back. Things come to a head when Dwight incites a mutiny, and Michael ends up apologizing to everyone. And when that doesn't work, he gives them their clients back. But that means Pam and Ryan can't both go on as sales people. Michael breaks the news to Pam that she didn't get the job…except she totally did, with Ryan being offered his old temp job back. And Michael enjoys fake-firing Pam so much he does it to New Kelly, who takes it pretty well.
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Kevin is bringing in a giant stock pot full of chili. As we watch him manhandle it into the office with oven mitts on his hands, he excitedly VOs about "Kevin's Famous Chili." He's just gotten to the part about how he spends the whole night before pressing garlic when he loses control of the pot and upends it on the carpet in front of reception. His expression of grief and horror is too abject to laugh at, but when he starts trying to scoop the mess into the pot using everything he can grab off the reception desk and his VO continues, "It's probably the thing I do best," we can just about manage it. Especially when he starts slipping in the puddle. Fortunately we're into the credits before he's into full-on Ann-Margret in Tommy, but it looks like it was going to be a near thing.
People are dressed pretty casually in the bullpen when Pam and Ryan come in carrying a big, homemade paper circle with a question mark on it. From behind it, Michael booms out, "Someone is returninnnng!" He gives himself a long introduction before awkwardly punching his way through and whispering, "It's Michael Scott." Polite applause. "Conference room, five minutes," Michael announces.
In the meeting, Michael starts by welcoming himself and Pam and Ryan back (a slightly smaller amount of even more polite applause), and then giving a shout-out to casual Friday (more sincere applause). Michael wants to do this meeting differently: let the people run it. "What are you doing?" asks Dwight, whose version of "Friday casual" is no tie with his suit and dress shirt. Michael wants people to bring up whatever they might want to say. "People are dressed inappropriately," Angela says. Michael bunts that to Toby. And it becomes clear that Michael's fishing for something else. "Can you give us a hint?" asks Jim, who has almost certainly figured it out by now.
Michael THs about how he's not going to expect everyone to grovel spectacularly. "I just want a tiny, microscopic version of that."
Back in the meeting, Michael's still not getting what he needs, so when New Kelly asks if she still has a job and Michael says it's "not important," people start complaining. And they aren't any happier when they learn that Pam and Ryan will be starting as salesmen, and keeping the clients that they stole from Dunder Mifflin. Obviously the DM faithful object (even Andy!), but Michael holds up the trash can and suggests that if they don't like his rules they can talk to the complaint department. "It's a trash can!" he explains, to anyone who might not get it.
Ryan settles in across from Meredith, who warns, "Don't fall in love with me, kid."
Phyllis encounters Pam in the kitchen, and they're wearing the same butt-ugly outfit. I wish I could say it looked better on Pam, but the truth is they both look like Prince's grandma. Phyllis is cool about that, but she calls Pam out for stealing Phyllis's clients by telling them Phyllis didn't have time for them. "Close your mouth, sweetie. You look like a trout," Phyllis advises. Ouch.
Angela has taken Michael's advice, and is now yelling at Toby about Oscar's sandals. "He looks like he just got off the boat!" Whoa. Toby suggests just not looking at Oscar's feet, so she freaks. "Do your job!" she screeches as she storms away.
Let's learn a bit about Toby. "I was in the seminary for a year [photo of a younger Toby, in a monk's robe and tonsure], and dropped out 'cause I wanted to have sex with this girl Kathy, followed her back to Scranton, took the first job I could find in HR. Later she divorced me, so... no, I wouldn't say I have a passion for HR."
Michael delivers beverages to the desks of just Ryan and Pam. Pam's desk, by the way, is across from Dwight's. You know, the desk with its back to Reception where Jim got stuck after returning from Stamford. And, obviously, right to Jim. Soon they're going to be sharing pants at this rate. In any case, Dwight does not fail to notice the snub.
So Dwight delivers a memo to Stanley, Phyllis, and Andy. It looks like something about a new filing system, which of course Stanley simply crumples, but Dwight heavily hints that there's a secret message in there. "You are going to want to heat my words." Dwight THs that he wrote an invitation to meet in he warehouse in invisible ink. He demurs to say where he got it. "Urine," he grins at last. Ew. Wish he'd kept demurring. Apparently the ink stays invisible, because we see him waiting in the warehouse alone.
Toby tries to address the Oscar situation, but Oscar doesn't want to borrow Toby's socks.
Dwight calls up to Andy and tells him to round up the salesmen save Pam and Ryan. "It is on like a prawn who yawns at dawn," Andy vows. Dwight impatiently hangs up on him, sighing, "God, the simplest thing." I love those fleeting moments when Dwight gets to the be the normal one.
Down in the warehouse, Dwight is fomenting unrest against Ryan and Pam being favored. "And frankly, I'm not convinced that Michael and Pam didn't have a thing going while they were gone." Jim offers to address that, but Dwight declines. "You're too close." Jim: "Okay." Pam gets put down some more, and suddenly Meredith appears at Dwight's elbow, startling the crap out of him. "I thought there might be a dogfight or something," she shrugs. Dwight chases her off and gets back to his point, which is that he thinks they should do something about the situation. Several dumb and/or illegal ideas are bounced around, until Jim tries to be the peacemaker, offering to talk to Michael directly. Dwight acts like that's a great idea. "See everybody upstairs." Then he pulls the other three back when Jim starts up. "Now is the time for action," Dwight hisses to Andy, Stanley, and Phyllis. And no, Jim is not fooled.
Up in the conference room, the former members of the Michael Scott Paper Company are too busy laughing over a little memory collage to notice that five-sevenths of the sales force is missing. Jim comes in, and Michael tries to kick him out, telling him, "Michael Scott Paper Company only." "I think you're going to want to cool it with that, because it's starting to upset the other salesmen," Jim says mildly. Michael says he'll talk to them when they get back from the bathroom. Jim says, "This is awkward to talk about, but there may or may not be, but definitely is, a mutiny forming in the warehouse right now."
Michael THs that he's not going to take this. "I am not to be truffled with." Then in the office, he sits and lets Ryan egg him on, telling him to "crack some skulls, Chiklis-style. Unfortunately, Ryan has to clarify that he means Shield-style, not Commish-style.
I think it's going to be more like Curly Howard-style.In the break room, Jim gets a soda and turns to see Creed commenting on the crazy goings-on. "Sometimes its best just to stay out of it," Creed adds, sounding frighteningly lucid. Jim agrees. "Want to play a game?" he asks. Jim looks blindsided.Who would have thought this day could get more frightening? he wonders.
When the salespeople return to the bullpen, they all act like they were at lunch together. Flanked by his ex-MSPCo employees, Michael says that means they won't be eating the lunches they brought, then. So he leads Ryan and Pam into the kitchen to raid the fridge, and passes their food out to Pam and Ryan. I'm sorry to see Pam taking part in this petty nonsense, but learning that Dwight brought a pony sandwich almost makes up for it.
Now Toby approaches Meredith about her outfit, which she stands up to reveal as a strapless purple dress that's too short on the bottom and too low on top. Oh, dear, no. He tries to get her to adjust it, but that ends up with a flash of boob, then cooter, then, when her front is all put away, she goes and bends over a file cabinet, to the horror of everyone in the office. Between this and Parks & Recreation, The NBC pixellators are earning their pay tonight.
Creed is schooling Jim over a chessboard. "I'm just hiding out until all this stuff blows over," he THs. "With Creed. Playing chess. At work. He's winning. I feel like I'm describing a dream I had."
Ryan's on the phone fielding a complaint from a soon-to-be-ex-client, when Dwight comes over and tries to rescue the account by yelling into the phone. By the time Dwight pries the phone away, the client is gone. Dwight yells at Ryan for losing a ten-year client, and Pam takes Ryan's side. Dwight yells at her that she's a secretary, and that Ryan's a temp, so he's confiscating his phone. Michael comes out to order them to shake hands. Dwight refuses, and in fact says if they don't get their clients back they're quitting. Michael asks who. "Me," says Phyllis. "And me," says Stanley. "Me too," agrees Andy (!). Dwight even threatens to start their own paper company. "The Schrute Bernard Lapin-Vance... Stanley Paper Company." Michael not only tells them to go ahead, but pulls out his wallet and starts bouncing crumpled bills at their foreheads as seed money. But, he says, if they stay, he wants an apology. Of course, they refuse. Phyllis emotionally says that Michael was going against Corporate, but they were the ones who got hurt. "You always said we were a family! Then you went after us." Michael does an amazing thing: he hears her.
After the ads, Michael THs in his office, "No matter how I look at this, I am in the wrong." How long was that commercial, anyway? Later, Michael quietly tells Dwight to arrange a meeting with the non-Pam and Ryan salespeople. Dwight sarcastically says, "Gasp, a secret meeting? I don't know the first thing about secret meetings." But then we see Dwight busily preparing a new memo with his "invisible ink," dipping a paintbrush into Ryan's America's Got Talent mug.
New Kelly compliments Kelly's casual outfit: skintight overalls. "You look like J. Lo." Aw, a Kelly alliance.
Down in the warehouse, in an alcove of paper boxes, Michael apologizes to Dwight, Phyllis, Stanley, and Andy, and wants to move right on to his peace offering of white chocolate bark (which, as they point out, only he likes), but they just want their clients back. Michael doesn't want to do that to Ryan and Pam, but they don't care. Even when he rescinds his apology in exchange for their clients. Just then the wall of paper boxes behind Michael is lifted away by forklift, revealing a dead-eyed Darryl glaring at him. "What'd I tell you about building forts in my warehouse?" he asks. Hee!
Ryan and Pam do a joint TH in which they explain that there aren't enough clients for Michael to keep them both. "I think you should get it," Ryan tells Pam. "You really grew into it." Pam returns the compliment. "If you really think that, would you tell that to Michael?" he asks. She's even more trout-like than Phyllis accused her of being, because she just got fished in.
Creed and Jim have moved on to Scrabble, and Creed suddenly says he wants to set Jim up with his daughter. "I'm engaged to Pam," Jim calmly reminds him. Creed thought he was gay. "Then why would you want to set me up with your daughter?" Jim wonders, reasonably enough. Creed? Doesn't know. Okay, then. Michael comes in, wanting to talk to Jim, and when Jim asks to finish the turn first, Michael clears Jim's rack, laying out the word NOSCRUB on the board, touching nothing . "Challenge," Creed says. Yeah, you can't let a bingo like that slide.
Outside, Michael's asking Jim which of the two salesmen from his old company he should pick. "I don't want to be biased, but I am very close to Ryan," Jim says. When Jim refuses to say anything bad about Pam, Michael says that costs Jim all his credibility, so he'll go with his gut, which means Ryan. Uh, I don't think that's his gut talking. So Jim admits that Pam can be "a bit shrill" when she's tired. Michael blows that up into a whole thing until Jim gets up and leaves.
Michael THs about what a difficult decision this is, like choosing between renting The Devil Wears Prada again and Sophie's Choice. The parallel, naturally, escapes him.
Toby is in a shouting match with Andy about clothes, except Toby's not shouting. So Dwight steps up and says he's "cowboying" the meeting. "Earth tones only! Also, women are forbidden to wear pants." Toby steps back up and announces, "Casual Fridays are canceled." Everyone starts yelling at him. Maybe someone is discovering a passion for HR after all.
Michael calls Pam into his office. "There is no easy way of saying this, so I will just drag it out. Since the dawn of time..." Pam gets him to just say that he gave Ryan the sales job. She gets up to leave, upset, but he starts laughing. He was just messing with her. As he enjoys his moment way too much, he says he offered Ryan his old temp job back, although Ryan wasn't happy when Michael did the reverse to him. Pam suggests not fake-firing people any more, so Michael fires her. Fakely. Which makes three times he's fake-fired her, counting the pilot. And then he has her send New Kelly in. No, I'm not going to call her Erin.
And in the tag, Michael fake-fires New Kelly, telling her no one likes her. He even pretends to call Hank to escort her out. She takes it pretty well, considering, and even laughs along with Michael when he tells her the truth. "Do they not like me, though?" she wonders. Michael doesn't know and doesn't care. Yeah, New Kelly, quit making this about you.
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.