Michael drives himself crazy-paranoid over a secret meeting between Jim and Wallace. Thinking Jim's trying to squeeze him out, Michael sabotages him, only to learn that Jim's secret plan was to take over the Scranton branch and have Michael promoted to boss of all northeast sales. To save his friendship with Jim and his hypothetical promotion, Michael tries to take it back. Ultimately, there will be changes again in Scranton: Michael and Jim will be co-managers. Dwight is so horrified he forgets all about his complaint against Darryl for workers' compensation fraud. Meanwhile, Pam spends the day trying to chase down RSVP responses for the Niagara Falls wedding. Come on, Pam, like there's anyone in the entire cast who's going to not show up.
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Michael has called Oscar in for a private chat. It seems Michael is a little nervous about an upcoming medical procedure. Oscar, who should know better, acts concerned and sympathetic, until Michael begins asking what to expect. "Is there anything I can do to make it more pleasurable to me or Doctor Schondry? My main concern is, should I have a safe word?" Fortunately, Oscar doesn't need one of those; he can just get up and walk out. Which he does.
David Wallace is at the branch, asking Michael when he should expect that rundown on the Buffalo clients. Once that's squared away in Michael's typically annoying fashion, Wallace invites Jim -- wearing a suit jacket today, so you know big doings are afoot -- into the conference room. Pam is smiling proudly at Jim, but of course Michael's typically weird about being left out. And he's just getting warmed up. Not that he doesn't try to convince us otherwise in a talking-head shot in which he claims that he and Jim and Wallace are the ¡Three Amigos! and sometimes ¡One Amigo! will go to the bathroom while the other ¡Two Amigos! have a secret meeting. Sorry I don't really have a joke to go here other than that typographical gag.
"You and Jim are close, right?" Michael asks Pam after escorting her the three steps from the copier to her desk. "Yeah, I think the pregnancy really brought us together," Pam agrees. But she pleads ignorance about what the meeting might be regarding. Michael literally gets on his knees to her and threatens that her baby will come out a liar if she's lying to him. Pam doesn't really have anything to say to that other than, "Please don't talk about my breast milk." I know I left out part of the setup, but that line really never doesn't apply.
Darryl is at Toby's desk in an Eagles jersey and shorts, balancing a pair of crutches on his lap, and explaining how he broke his ankle in a ladder accident in the warehouse. Dwight's hovering at the doorway eavesdropping, and when Darryl hobbles away, Dwight leans on Toby to look into it. Eventually the two of them head down to the warehouse to try to reenact the incident without Darryl. Toby admits in a TH that Dwight was correct in pointing out that the ladder doesn't reach the top shelf. Toby's actually kind of enjoying this, as a fan of hard-boiled detective stories. "I'll punch you in the mush, see?" he dorking-heads.
Michael bursts into the conference room, where the meeting he was specifically excluded from is still going on. Even though he's pretending to be on his cell phone and acting like he just swept in distractedly, Wallace kicks Michael right back out. Michael's left standing helplessly in the bullpen, staring. Creed comes up to him, all worried that they're talking about him. Michael tells Creed he thinks they're talking about him, which improves Creed's mood considerably. Michael THs about how it's unfair that they think he can't handle it, although he admits that it's been crazy since they took on the clients from the recently closed Buffalo branch. That explains all the file boxes stacked up around the bullpen. Michael says he even had to come in on a Saturday. He forgot his cell phone, but still. My question is how badly Michael needs his cell phone on a weekend anyway. It's not like anyone calls him, and how frequently does he need to pretend to be on it when he's not at work?
Pam visits Kelly in the back to confirm that she's not coming to their wedding. Pam THs that they're having the wedding in Niagara Falls so their coworkers will be discouraged from making the drive (she doesn't say what measure they've taken to discourage Jim's douchebag brothers, which is a way higher priority if you ask me), but of course Michael offered Friday and Monday off to anyone who attends the wedding. So as Pam says, everyone in the office now faces the Hobson's choice between the PB&J wedding and work. Back at Kelly's desk, Kelly is going on and on about how her attendance is dependent on whether Ryan's going. But not in the way you would hope she would.
Michael parks his ass on Andy's desk to stare through the conference room window. Simply to justify his presence there, he distractedly asks Andy about his sales, and doesn't even listen as Andy makes excuses about his declining numbers and overshares about a flirty cousin. Hey, at least it appears to be a girl cousin. Michael THs about how unfair it is that Wallace is looking at him during the four-month period when he's completely overwhelmed.
After the ads, Michael is much more serene now that he's come up with a plan: he's going to stow away in a cheese cart and have Andy wheel him into the conference room. Andy wheels the cart in with a tablecloth draped over it to hide Michael, and does a stellar job of overselling the cheese platter (which is clearly just a bunch of crap he and Michael scrounged from the fridge). But seconds after Andy has left them to it, Wallace and Jim end the meeting, leaving the room without touching so much as the can of grated parmesan. Somehow, as Wallace looks around for Michael, Michael manages to scoot the cart out into the bullpen and slip out of it without giving himself away. At least not to Wallace. Jim, however, does not appear to be fooled as Wallace and Michael adjourn into Michael's office.
Toby and Dwight have Darryl's house staked out in Dwight's Trans Am, and are discovering a shared love of trainspotting. After a while, they see a large figure in shorts and an Eagles jersey hefting a big bag of dog food on one shoulder. Toby yells something uncharacteristically rude out the window, and when the guy turns to face them, and it's not Darryl. In fact, it's not even a guy. As Darryl comes stumping out the front door on his crutches, Toby orders Dwight to peel out. Dwight does, plowing into some trashcans as he goes. So that makes Dwight 0 for 2 on executing emergency departures without hitting anything.
Pam wants to confirm whether Ryan's coming, and he won't commit. Yeah, Pam, I think Kelly could have told you that. She says it's $75 per person, and he brags that he once drank a glass of cognac that cost $77. Why doesn't he just save everyone a lot of time and tattoo the word "TOOL" on his forehead. Pam demands a yes or no, and Ryan gives her a yes. Pam walks away, loudly putting down both him and Kelly as a yes. If she was hoping he would change his mind when he heard that, she's going to have to wait until after the scene ends.
Wallace is talking to Michael about the best use of "everyone's talents," meaning whether Jim is ready to take a management position. Michael compares Jim to Big Bird: "Tall and yellow and very nice." But he wouldn't put Jim in charge. Better to go with one of the grown-ups, like Maria or Gordon. Way to make a case for yourself as one of the grown-ups there, Michael. Although I do have to give him credit for not mentioning Bob, who's probably more like Jim than anyone. I'm going to move on before I give everyone nightmares about Creed as Mr. Hooper. Michael digs out Jim's performance review and reads Toby's overwhelmingly negative remarks from back when Toby had that secret crush on Pam and thus not-so-secretly hated Jim. But Wallace isn't to know that, so he finally tells Michael what Jim was suggesting: put Jim in charge of the Scranton branch and put Michael in charge of all northeast sales. Michael's whole paradigm shifts as he says he'll have to talk to some people. Wallace says this will only work if they have someone to replace Michael, and since Jim has another job offer in place as of this moment, they'd have to replace Jim if this doesn't work. Michael looks like he ate some bad grated parmesan.
Meanwhile, Jim THs that he didn't share any of this with Michael because he thought Michael would try to help. "Example: he handed out Jell-O shots at the 23rd mile of the Steamtown Marathon." Hey, you don't need to convince us.
Wallace comes out of Michael's office, inviting Jim to walk him down to his car. Michael is left in his office with a childish set to his jaw, and after we see Jim looking dejected from the window above after seeing David off in the parking lot, Michael smugs, "I can't help but feel partially responsible." Oh, Michael, don't beat yourself up. Let Jim do it.
After the ads, Jim goes into Michael's office with him and asks what changed between the meeting and Wallace's departure. Michael feigns ignorance, but Jim isn't letting him off the hook. So Michael promises to call Wallace and recommend Jim for the promotion, as soon as Jim leaves the room. Jim's cool with that, except for the part about leaving the room. Jim THs his regret about keeping Michael in the dark. "I should have realized he can do just as much damage in the dark." You think?
Darryl and his younger sister come bursting into Toby's office, pissed off and planning to file complaints against Toby and Dwight. Dwight doesn't exactly help the situation by insisting that the two siblings look exactly alike. Which they wouldn't, even if she had a goatee to match Darryl's.
Michael gets on the phone with Wallace, and Jim hits the speaker button. Hitting the mute button at strategic points so he can pretend for Jim's benefit that he said the same thing to Wallace before, Michael tells Wallace Jim's the man for the job. Wallace is confused, saying it doesn't change what Michael showed him in Jim's file. Jim's mood doesn't seem to improve upon hearing that. "Toby Flenderson is doing drugs!" Michael flounders. Wallace gets pulled over for talking on his cell phone and has to hang up, so Jim just gets up and walks out. He didn't seem to need a safe word, either.
Down in the warehouse, Toby and Dwight come down to apologize to Darryl and his sister. Well, Toby apologizes. Darryl is in the midst of accepting Toby's apology when Dwight spots some other workers using the lift as an elevator, which is against the rules. He accuses Darryl of having gotten hurt by doing the same thing and lying about it. Threatened with a review of the security camera tape, Darryl admits as much. But instead of that resolving the situation, Dwight keeps pushing, saying he's going to file a complaint with Corporate. Darryl and his sister come right back at him. Toby tries to defuse the tense situation by pointing out that they could all file complaints and drown in a sea of paperwork if that's what they really want. So that's pretty much what they decide to do. Well played, Toby.
Jim gets off the elevator on the ground floor, only to find Michael waiting to be punched in the face. He says he never put Jim up for a branch manager position because he didn't want to lose him, or Pam, or, as of now, the baby. "So instead you screw me?" Jim says, because it's better than wading into the morass of Michael's boundary issues. Or at least I assume it is, because nobody ever does that, ever. Michael is unable to suppress a whisper of "That's what she said." Jim is unamused. Before any actual punches are thrown, Erin comes down to report that there's a call for Michael from Wallace. They both go up to take it, although once they're situated in the office, Michael spends a lot of time pretending that Jim's just arriving. Wallace presents the one idea he thinks he can sell to senior management (how many people are above the CFO, anyway?): two branch managers in Scranton. Specifically, Jim and Michael as co-managers. Jim likes the idea, because apparently he suffered a severe head injury off-camera since the last scene. Seriously, the only thing worse than working under Michael would be working side-by-side with Michael. As for Michael himself, he's not too thrilled about what sounds like an effective demotion to co-manager. Wallace tells Michael to pick up, and privately offers to figure something else out if Michael is willing to lose Jim. I can't believe Wallace is willing to lose Jim over Michael. Maybe Wallace hit his head, too.