Michael turns his old office into a "café disco." Nobody wants to come down and join the party, except Phyllis, who hurts her back there. So in a snit, he orders it shut down. Dwight applies some equine massage techniques on Phyllis in the conference room and soon has her back on her feet, but not before she confesses that she's worried about Bob cheating on her. The two Kellys accidentally resurrect the café disco, and it becomes a hopping club for the afternoon. Also, Jim and Pam nearly elope to Youngstown, Ohio, but think better of it while dancing to "YMCA." It's fun to say it, true, but you know what else is fun to say? Worst. Episode. Ever. Whatever, I just hope they were coasting as preparation for what better be a hell of a finale week.
From Reception, New Kelly excitedly tells everyone, "I just won an art contest!" While Pam and Jim exchange blank looks, Dwight gets up, cackling, and hands New Kelly a bill. "I still don't understand why you wanted me to say that," she murmurs. Dwight happily tells her to shut up, and then does a guffawing-head shot about how "I got her!" Pam and Jim both tell him, "Not cool." Dwight just laughs himself into the credits. So apparently Jim and Pam don't have anything to come back with. Which turns this into an amusing moment, but a missed opportunity to take it to the level and have something unexpected happen. As a welcome to tonight's episode, it's certainly apt.
The camera follows the sound of "Car Wash" down the first-floor hallway, all the way into the old Michael Scott Paper Company, Inc. office. Inside, Michael is having a one-man dance party. With "expresso." After explaining to us that he's still got the lease on the place and has been using it to blow off steam, he takes his espresso cup up to the bullpen and makes weak jokes about how he's becoming a giant. No laughs from the troops (or here at home, but it's still early enough in the episode that this comes off as intentional), and nobody but Dwight wants to go to lunch with him. When he asks Pam, she says she and Jim are leaving early to meet their contractor. Finally getting that clown painting off the wall, are they? Michael THs about a strict but mysterious "no lunch with the boss" policy that he really wants to break, and back in the bullpen, he mocks his employees by acting like a robot until Pam takes out his battery. Otherwise "He'll go all day," she THs.
New Kelly comes over to Jim and Dwight's desk to ask if one of them printed a map to Youngstown, OH. Dwight grabs it and loudly asks whose it is. "I will take your silence to mean that you are all hiding something," he says immediately. He knows there's a circuit courthouse there, and starts grilling everyone in general about who has a reason to go to court. He suspects New Kelly of wanting to get a learner's permit at age 14½, and sends her diving into her purse for her birth certificate.
But the mystery Youngstown pilgrims are actually Jim and Pam, getting married...today! According to their joint TH, Youngstown is the closest place that doesn't require a 3-day waiting period. They tell a story about all the headache and expense of planning a wedding, and how Jim looked up from his cereal that morning and said, "You know what I want to do today? I want to marry you." Pam assures us that she had just woken up and didn't look cute so she knew he meant it. Maybe, but we already know that Jim's a morning wood kind of guy.
New Kelly comes down and finds Michael in his dance sanctuary, and he pulls her in to join him. She actually gets into it, because she is the gamest person on the planet.
Michael returns to the bullpen, having "figured out what's up [their] butts." He thinks they have PTSD from working under Charles. Then he THs about how there wasn't so much focus on work when Michael was in charge. "It's like they've died or something." After a short but still too long interlude of baby talk that only Andy joins in on, Michael moves on to tell them about the space he's set up downstairs to help them relax. "Is this our punishment for not wanting to have lunch with you?" Oscar asks. Michael fumbles around with how to describe it until New Kelly helps him out by calling it a café disco. Not to be confused with a disco café, Kevin..
Downstairs, Kevin fumbles with the espresso machine, the only other person there besides Michael. Angela comes down, pissed at Kevin for not getting the answer she sent him down to get from Michael. Michael calls it a no-work zone. "Respect the lei," he orders, pointing out a sad plastic garland nailed to the wall. Kevin becomes the dog in a "come"/"stay" battle between Angela and Michael, which Angela wins after showing that Michael does not have a cookie in his hand. Hey, The Office? If I want to see protracted jokes that are based on familiar situations with a wacky twist, I'll watch some Friends reruns.
"Now I know what the founders of Philip Morris felt like," Michael THs bitterly in his office. "You just want to give people a smooth, fun way to relax, and suddenly you're just some terrible monster."Back downstairs, Michael climbs on a chair with a stereo speaker and crams some C+C Music Factory up into the ceiling vent. Up in the bullpen, reaction is mixed, but Phyllis is the first to break. "What the hell," she grins. She goes over to Vance Refrigeration to pick up her husband, only to be headed off by Bob's secretary, a younger and larger, yet somehow hotter, version of Phyllis. She says Bob's on a call and doesn't want to be disturbed. "Can I give him a message before he gets off?" Oh, no. Phyllis may have a mean streak, but she doesn't deserve this. By which I mean such an obvious and predictable subplot. She gives complicated directions for the secretary to relay to Bob so he can find her and they can go dancing.
When she presents herself downstairs, Michael's obviously surprised that she is there, but is nice about it. And then she gets too into it and throws her back out with a mighty, "Motherfucker!" Michael helps lower her to the floor, trying to act like she's okay.
Down the hall comes Dwight at a run. "I got your text, who's Phyllip?" he asks Michael. Seeing Phyllis lying on her side, he asks her, "Who tipped you over? Was it Phyllip?" Which is funny, but it's not The Office funny. She's begging them to call for help, but instead Michael and Dwight talk about how to get her out of there before she ruins the fun. Oh, and also maybe some medical attention.
Cut to them rolling her back into the office on an office chair. "Ramming speed!" Dwight says as they burst through the door. Despite her protests, they roll her into the conference room and close the door and pull the blinds, while Michael stays outside to downplay the situation. "Can you please go back to work instead of masterminding these situations wherein we hurt ourselves?" Angela asks Michael. I think that's the first time anyone has ever accused Michael of masterminding anything. Michael says Phyllis wouldn't trade her memories of the fun she had for anything, over the sound of what's starting to sound like a brawl in the room behind him. Michael accuses them of taking a life: "The life of the party." He tosses the keys to New Kelly and tells her to go shut it down, and locks himself in his office to pout. A moment later, Dwight comes panting out of the conference room, stripped to his wifebeater and asking for "two able-bodied men."
New Kelly has brought Kelly to help with the shutdown, which appears to involve flipping two light switches off. "More like crappy disco," Kelly says. New Kelly puts on a CD, and they both start dancing. A guy from Vance Refrigeration wanders by, spots this, and goes to tell a coworker, "There's girls in there."
Michael tucks into his sack lunch forlornly.
door, in the conference room, Dwight has Phyllis on her stomach on the table and actually cuts straight up through the back of her blouse. "This shirt wasn't doing you any favors," he says dismissively. Upon laying hands on her, he claims to be able to tell that she can grind her teeth, but then THs that he knows because she sits three feet from him. "It's like children singing Christmas carols," he complains.
Outside, Jim uses his office scissors to cut a bouquet of daisies from to the parking lot.
Almost everyone is in the café disco now, and New Kelly even invited a friend. Kelly pulls Andy into a dance-off. Are they planning on selling a soundtrack album for this episode or something?
In the kitchen, Michael tells Creed that he can still hear the music in his head. "I hear it too, boss," Creed agrees. Michael decides to check it out.
Downstairs, he's thrilled to see his creation brought from the dead. "It's better than I imagined," he says proudly. You know what this episode needs? A laugh track. Then I think I'd have an easier time knowing what's supposed to be a joke.
Dwight is working on Phyllis using an old Schrute technique. "My grandfather was told that Diamond Dancer would never race again. They were wrong. He came in ninth at the Apple Creek Derby, and his jerky came in third the following year." He feeds Phyllis a carrot, adding, "A majestic beast. So fast. So tender."
Angela comes down to have Michael sign some papers, but he limits her to one signature per song. Angela still resists the idea of joining in, but Michael assures her, "If these walls could talk, they would say, 'this is a magical place. You are safe here. We have talking walls. We are not going to eat you.'" Angela tries again, and flounces out when he refuses.
Dwight anoints Phyllis's back with otter oil and tells her to stay there for an hour. "Whoaa!" he says when he tries to get up. I'm sorry, these are the jokes, people.
Creed contributes a disco ball from his car to the café disco. "No problem, I'll just have no idea who's driving behind me now," he tells Michael. Andy escalates his dance-off with Kelly to a chair-dance straight out of Showgirls, to which Kelly responds with the one from Flashdance. Alas, she has to mime the bucket of water. A real one would have improved this episode considerably.
Dwight and Phyllis are talking snakes as he massages her, but she suddenly grunts, apropos of nothing. "I think Bob's gonna cheat on me with his new secretary." His pounding slows to a halt, and he crouches down with concern. But when he sees her face, she's smiling. "When I say it out loud, it's so silly," she chuckles. Well, I'm glad someone's laughing.
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Michal tells Angela to quit cleaning. "You are forcing me to be down here!" she protests. "Am I not allowed to have some fun?" You know what, Angela? I don't say this often, but I'm with you.
Jim waits for Pam with his bouquet, and she comes out of the bathroom looking lovely in a pink strapless dress. Aw. But by the way, Scranton PA to Youngstown OH=310 miles. And I think they have bathrooms there. They walk out past Stanley, sleeping at his desk. On the ground floor, they hear the music and Jim suggests they stop in, for Michael's sake. They duck under the limbo pole duct-taped across the entryway, and Michael's thrilled to see them. come Phyllis and Dwight, the former in a repaired shirt. He agrees to dance with her, and up comes Bob, asking to steal her. "You can't steal what is legally your property," Dwight points out agreeably. Bob pulls his wife into his arms and asks, "Are those staples?"
The party has reached the inevitable "YMCA" phase, and Kevin is making out with his girlfriend in the corner, high-school-dance-style. Pam tells Jim, "It's so cheesy!" Then she looks around at everyone dancing and decides she likes cheesy. "I think maybe I want a wedding wedding." Jim instantly agrees. Big hug and kiss. Wow, that was totally unearned, even if we didn't already know that this show would never dare cheat viewers out of a Jim/Pam wedding. And certainly not in an episode as plodding as this one.
Michael sits down to Angela and asks her to dance. She refuses, but Michael notices her toe wiggling to the beat. Gotcha. It's just like the ending of Bob Roberts, which was a great deal funnier.
The tag is Andy reluctantly submitting to Kelly piercing his ear in the women's room. "Are you sure that's not the gay ear?" he frets. She counts to three and goes for it. "Son of a bitch!" he screams. "Andy, that was just the ice!" She tells him. Oh, for fuck's sake, show. Get it together week, will 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.
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