Michael gets so annoyed at being shut out of the office gossip that he accidentally uncovers something a little beyond juicy -- namely that Stanley is having an affair. Michael has some fun with his little bombshell until Jim points out that this is not so much the fun kind of bombshell as the life-ruining kind of bombshell. But by then it's too late for Michael to do anything about it but attempt some misdirection. Specifically, he makes up a bunch of nutty rumors about everyone else, including everything from Kelly having an eating disorder to Andy being gay to Pam being pregnant. When he gets busted, he says all but one of the rumors are false. So Jim and Pam, who have kept their secret up until now, jump in to save Stanley, waving Pam's ultrasound photo around and everything. But it's all for naught when Michael calls Stanley's wife by Stanley's girlfriend's name. Smooth move, that. Oh, and there are interns, parkour, and a person inside Kevin operating him with controls (all but one of those is true).
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The office door bursts open, and Michael clumsily somersaults in onto the sofa, knocking shit over. As Dwight and Andy join him, taking turns holding the camcorder, while bouncing off walls and furniture with the grace of beached manatees, Jim explains that this is their attempt at parkour. Jim shows us a couple of internet videos of actual practitioners, describing it as getting from point A to point B in the most creative way possible. "As long as point A is delusion and point B is the hospital." This continues all the way out to the parking lot, all three of them yelling, "Parkour!" at random moments. Until Andy attempts a leap off a roof onto the top of one of the boxed refrigerators out behind Vance Refrigeration. Only to find it devoid of a fridge inside to bounce off of. He vanishes from sight into the box. The only sign of his continued existence is a weak croak of "...parkour..." At least Michael got it on video.
There are three summer interns in the office, doing things like watching Jim work, listening to Kelly cry, opening salsa jars for Andy, getting sexually harassed by Meredith, and whatever random shit Dwight can think of. Pam talking-heads that this is the last day for the first crop of interns since Michael's "Monica Lewinsky" incident years ago. Michael had a Monica Lewinsky incident? Pam unsurprisingly explains, "He just made far, far too many Monica Lewinsky jokes."
In the lunchroom, the employees are speculating on whether two of the interns, Eric and Megan, are dating. [Eric is played by Preston Scavo from Desperate Housewives, BTW. - Zach] Michael comes in and makes too much of it, until Phyllis blows it off as mere gossip. Michael looks disappointed and annoyed. There's nothing "mere" about gossip to him, because he never gets included in it. I wonder why?
Speaking of which, Jim and Pam do a joint TH in which they say they haven't told anyone she's pregnant. Other than millions of viewers just now, of course. But that's different, because apparently all of this footage is shot, boxed up, and immediately delivered to a drop box in downtown Scranton, where it is picked up, couriered to a particle accelerator in Brookhaven, and there dropped through a dimensional portal into our universe. Pam says it's not like she wants their coworkers to think Pam's dad will be marching Jim down the aisle with a shotgun. "No shotgun?" Jim asks, joking that this changes everything. "Free at last, free at last," he croons. "Keep it up," Pam advises.
Michael goes to tell Dwight about Megan and Eric, but Dwight already has the full scoop about their successful group date, which makes Michael crazy. He THs in his office about how much he hates being left out. "Whether it's not being picked for a team or being picked for a team and showing up and realizing that the team doesn't exist, or that the sport doesn't exist. I should have known. Poopball?" Hey, I used to be really good at poopball.
Michael buttonholes the third intern in the kitchen, sympathizing with him about being the third wheel in the group date. The intern wonders how Michael knows about this, and asks if his source was Stanley, who according to the intern was there with his wife. "I waved at him, but he didn't wave back." Well, Stanley doesn't wave back at anyone. But after ascertaining that nobody else knows about this, Michael's day just got a lot better. For a short time.
Michael returns to the bullpen to report that Stanley's got a midlife crisis, and was out with his wife "at a club for young people." Phyllis retorts that Stanley's wife Teri is out of town. "Stanley hates crowds, kids, and music. I think you should check your facts," she says dismissively. Michael just got schooled.
So Michael returns to the interns, enraged about being set up, unaware that that's actually the best-case scenario for him right now. But he learns that Stanley was definitely there, and he was definitely with someone, and they were definitely making out. Michael freezes for a moment. This just got heavy. Finally he leaves them alone with a discreet, "Never mind. Carry on." Has Michael learned his lesson, that if you go digging for dirt you might find more than you wanted? Yeah, look at how much of the episode is left and I think you'll know.
Sure enough, Michael gets right to work spreading it around. He VOs about the joy of seeing people's eyes light up, although as we watch him whispering into individual ears, it's not "lighting up" per se that we see. Especially when he looks to be spending the better part of an hour trying to convey the news to Kevin via a game of hangman, and Kevin gets stuck at "STANLEY IS CHEATIN_ _N TERI." When Michael finally encounters Stanley himself, who says he's off to meet a client, Stanley either doesn't understand the tweaking Michel gives him or doesn't care (anybody want odds on which it is?). No sooner has Stanley walked away than suddenly Jim appears in the doorway in front of Michael and tells him quite seriously that he needs to stop. Kind of too late, Jimbo. Michael makes fun of Jim for being out of the loop. "You might be ruining his life," Jim points out. That obviously never occurred to Michael until right now. Someone should post a sign on the inside of Michael's office door, so he can never leave that room without having to read the words, "Other people are real."
Michael runs out to the parking lot to ask Stanley if it's true. Stanley denies it, of course, and Michael gets into Stanley's car with him to talk about it, telling Stanley what the interns told him. Stanley looks disgusted, and Michael is a little slow to realize that Stanley's not annoyed about being falsely accused, but being spotted. Stanley admits the truth about his relationship with his rehab nurse while Teri's been traveling. "Cynthia's been keeping me company," Stanley says. Michael finally realizes with shock that it's true, but Stanley insists he's leaving to break it off now. Michael asks if lots of people often claim to go on sales calls and end up elsewhere, "because that's not cool." Stanley simply begs Michael not to tell anyone else about this. "You can count on me," Michael promises. Unfortunately, Stanley can count on him indeed. Just not to do what Stanley wants him to.
Michael returns to the office with some fresh gossip for Kevin: Angela's dating an 81-year-old billionaire. He explains in a TH that you can't un-tell something. "What you can do is spread false gossip so that people think that everything that's been said is untrue." He compares it to the end of Spartacus. "I have seen that movie half a dozen times and I still don't know who the real Spartacus is."
Michael tells Erin (formerly known as New Kelly in this space, which I'm not doing any more because it's more typing and wasn't funny to begin with) that Kelly has an eating disorder, and then tells Kelly that Erin's hanging by a thread at her job and that Andy's gay, and tells Meredith that Pam is pregnant. "She's gonna hate being a mom," Meredith says smugly. In the kitchen, Kevin makes fun of Andy for drinking tea. Andy laughs along about how much he likes tea, but when Kevin refers to Andy's being gay, Andy gets serious in a hurry. In fact, he starts grilling Kevin about who from his past told Kevin that. And then comes the most uncomfortable TH ever (which is saying something), in which Andy talks about the past occasions when rumors about his sexuality have come up, and what a strange coincidence it is. "Almost makes you wonder if it's not a coincidence at all. Hunh."
In the break room, Andy asks Oscar if he thinks he's gay. Oscar thinks no, but when Andy starts talking at length about a potential scenario with Brad Pitt, he gives up. "You might be gay," he says, getting up and leaving. And then Oscar THs that it's not his responsibility to reassure insecure straight guys. "That can't possibly fall to me." Yeah, let Toby have a crack at that.
There's a little farewell party going on for the interns in the conference room. After some weird remarks by Michael about all the rumors flying around today, Dwight gives them all a letter for the dean and his card, saying they can call him day or night. Eric asks why they would call him at night, so Dwight snatches his card back, saying, "Problem solved." "You're gonna regret that when you find yourself between a moose and her cubs at night," Jim warns Eric. Dwight tells the three interns that one of them will find huge success, one will only make a living, and one will make a great mother. "It's up to you what you want to be." Megan doesn't look entirely inspired by that speech.
"I am so happy you're eating again," Erin tells Kelly over cake. "Me too!" Kelly agrees around a mouthful of frosting.
Andy quietly admits to Jim that he's "kind of confused." Jim tells him to figure it out by having sex with a woman. Andy loves that idea. "And then a man," Jim says. Andy hates that idea. "And then compare." I think Andy's reaction clears things up, at least for everyone but Andy. Andy then congratulates Jim on the impending "Baby Tuna." Jim's face goes from its mildly sardonic default setting to dead-eyed, while across the room, Angela is telling a confused Pam the definition of the word "bastard." Jim pulls Pam aside, and while they're each trying to figure out who the other one told, other stuff is coming out. Who said Creed has asthma? Why do people think Oscar is the voice of the Taco Bell dog? Toby is a virgin? Jim spots the pattern, and Michael steps forward to say they should just discredit all of them. Pam suggests backtracing one of the rumors to get to the source, and Kevin wants to go first, because he's a little worried about his: "Who's been saying there's another person inside of me, working me with controls?" That bounces around the room until it hits Michael, but Michael is leaving the room. Wisely.
The crew catches up to Michael at the elevator. Dwight takes first crack, saying in a hurt whisper, "You told people that I use store-bought manure, when I showed you where my manure comes from?" Michael acts like he's going to step on the elevator, but makes a big show of bravely sticking around to take his medicine, saying he made it all up. Andy is quite relieved to learn that he's not gay. Michael tries to make excuses, but Oscar rattles off a bunch of the rumors, including the one about Stanley having an affair. "You told everyone that I was having an affair?" Stanley says, the angriest one in the group. Jim gives us a significant look, and it's clearly falling into place for Pam, too. Michael admits that there was one true rumor, and he was trying to cover for that person. And when the employees demand to know which one it was, Michael starts to blurt it out, until Jim butts in, "Pam's pregnant." Pam smiles proudly, right up until the waves of inappropriate conversation start crashing into them. "Don't get it vaccinated!" Ryan warns from offscreen, his one line of the night, probably phoning in from the Inglourious Basterds press junket. Failing to realize he's been let off the hook, Michael tells everyone that the true rumor is about Stanley, so Pam goes back to her desk to grab her ultrasound to show off to everyone. "That is the inside of your vagina!" Michael announces, waving it around. Jim grabs the photo away.
"It's clear why we were trying not to tell people," Pam THs with Jim. "That's clear now." Jim just nods mournfully. He can't even look at us.
Michael has Jim and Pam in his office, demanding to know how long they've known. "A week? A month? A year? ...Did you pee on a stick?" "I did," Jim deadpans. "It was inconclusive." Michael is hurt they didn't tell him, and just as Pam is starting to mock him for thinking that he's an equal part of this, Erin rings through on Michael's desk phone, saying Teri Hudson is returning his call. Pam is shocked that Michael called Stanley's wife, but Michael explains that he was just trying to corroborate part of the story of Stanley's affair with Cynthia. Pam and Jim both tell him not to take the call, but Michael says that'll look too suspicious. He picks up the phone, with a plan already in place to claim he wants Teri to redecorate his condo. Which would probably work if this were anyone else, but Michael chirps down the line, "Hey, what up, Cynthia." Michael then shows us what a man trying to swallow his own mouth looks like. Jim gets up, and Michael calls Teri "Cynthia" again, right before Jim hits the hang-up button. Too late again, Jimbo. Yeah, it's kind of a cliché for a man to call one of the women in his life by the wrong name, but it's not often you see his boss doing it for him.
In a TH by his office window, Michael brings us up to speed on the developments since the end of the scene. Apparently Teri was already suspicious, having caught Stanley and Cynthia months ago. Stanley had promised to end it, but we know what happened there. Meanwhile, Stanley is trashing Michael's Sebring with a crowbar in the parking lot. And by the way, it turns out Cynthia is also married. "You can't stop love," Michael concludes philosophically as Jim proudly tapes the ultrasound photo to one of the frames on his desk, so anyone walking by can see the inside of Pam's vagina. "And quite frankly I don't think you should ever even try." He should definitely not try to stop Stanley unless he wants his skull bashed in as well as his car.
In the tag, the three interns tell us what they learned, which isn't much. The Asian one says that if you look the tiniest bit like Jet Li, Michael will call you Jet Li all summer. "Julia Stiles," says Megan. "Alan Thicke," says Eric. Stupid Michael. Anyone can see Eric looks more like Matt Damon. [Sooo much like Matt Damon. - Z]
Discuss this episode in our forums, then read about the Office staff's Most Roastable (read: humiliating) Moments!
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.