Michael's pretty stoked about being invited to the Dunder Mifflin shareholders meeting to be introduced as the company's most successful branch manager. He even gets to ride in a stretch limo to New York, and Dwight, Oscar, and Andy get to come along. Michael's excitement vanishes when the shareholders meeting turns into a confrontation with an angry mob, which he tries to defuse in typical fashion, i.e. making things up. Even after inviting Oscar to share his plan for saving the company, Michael doesn't get to take part in the second half of the meeting.
Meanwhile, back at the branch, Jim is having his authority questioned, and Ryan's the ringleader. Until the full weecap, suffice to say that Ryan lives to regret it.
Enter Dwight, clad head-to-toe in a black costume that...oh, God, I don't even know where to start. The Samurai sword on his back is the subtlest touch in an ensemble built out of black protective pads, more hobby weapons, a motorcycle helmet with a single eye pasted on the center of the visor, and an LED display on his chest that keeps flashing, "KILL." "Not again," Oscar says wearily. "Bow down before Recyclops!" Dwight bellows.
Jim's got some retconning to do. He explains how Corporate imposed a recycling program five years ago, and Dwight took the lead, "And introduced us to a very close friend of his named Recyclops." What follows is a completely awesome montage of Recyclops through the seasons, starting when he just showed up in an Earth Day t-shirt and a green Cyclops bandanna around his forehead while Jim and his slacker bangs were draped over a reception desk staffed by a frizzy-haired Pam. Jim's narration continues, as Recyclops evolves through a parade of receptionists that includes Ryan and that middle-aged lady whose name I can't remember. "Then tragedy struck Recyclops," Jim talking-heads, "when his fictional planet was attacked by some other fictitious thing I can't remember." Then we're back to today, when Pam excitedly tells everyone, "Look, it's Recyclops!" "Recyclops destroy!" Dwight howls, hurling crap on the floor. "Oh, is today Recyclops day?" Stanley asks mildly. "I though you were killed by Polluticon or something." Dwight sprays an aerosol, ignoring Andy's protests that it's terrible for the environment. "Humans are terrible for the environment!" Dwight retorts, leaving a path of destruction to the annex. Pam talking-heads to Jim, "The thing I like most about Recyclops is that he's creating a different world for our child. A world where you truly can be anything you want." Dwight is seen sweatily sucking a soda can dry in the break room, then missing the recycling bin by a mile. Cyclopses have terrible depth perception just by definition, you know.
Michael is making everyone help him rehearse for some kind of brief greeting, then THs that the CEO is going to introduce him at the upcoming shareholders meeting "as the most successful branch manager that they have." He's trying to be cool about it, but he's either really stuffed up or more verklempt about this honor than he's letting on. Michael tries one wave with a twirl thrown in, which everyone tells him to leave out. He says he's not going to do it, plus it's not even a twirl, but a spin, "I might do the spin."
Oscar runs down the company's situation for Michael: saddled with bad investments, and short on cash. Which is still too complicated for Michael. Suddenly everyone is excited to see a full stretch limousine in the parking lot, presumably for Michael, who expected a town car. He THs that a limo is a sign that a company has cause for celebration, "And in this case I think they are celebrating me." The whole staff runs down to admire it. "It's like what high school kids take to prom on TV shows," Erin marvels excitedly. Michael starts inviting everyone along, until hearing that it only seats eight, so he has to pick and choose. And presumably that eight counts the documentarians. Pam and Jim pass, as does "Ryan and a guest" ("I'll use it when you're done," Ryan smirks), so it's down to who raises their hand. Which includes a very cynical Oscar, who THs that the company's stock symbol, DMI, stands for "dummies, morons, and idiots...And as one of those idiots, I believe the board owes me answers."
As the limo gets underway, Michael, Dwight, Andy and Oscar are in the back, acting like high school kids gong to prom. The divider goes up. Because the driver is closing it.
Back at the office, Jim tries to get Ryan to do some Rolodex/Outlook thing, which Ryan tries to talk his way out of on the grounds that the company is going under. It doesn't work. Which is to say, Jim wants him to do it anyway. Which is not the same thing as saying that Ryan will actually do it.
After the limo arrives at Corporate, a handler named Laurie meets Michael, who takes his leave of the other three as they wish him luck. Eventually Michael is led into the inner sanctum, where Wallace greets him and starts introducing him around to people like the CEO and a nameless former congressman, played by the guy who sometimes shows up on Burn Notice as Virgil (apparently he feels at home on Thursday nights). Michael hasn't really blown it yet, other than bowing and addressing the ex-congressman as "Your Eminence."
Downstairs, Dwight gets in line behind one of the microphones set up for shareholders' questions. But the other one has no people in line, so he goes for that one. But while he's on his way, that one racks up a bunch of people, and so does the original one before he gets back to it. He lamenting-heads that he was hoping to ask Michael's softball early so he could "swing by the Garment District, pick up a few crates of my shirts."
Meanwhile, as Oscar and Andy find their seats, Andy encourages Oscar -- who seems to have lost his nerve on the long, crazy limo ride -- to stand up for himself so he can have something to tell his grandkids. "How is he going to have grandkids?" Dwight asks from the line.
On the walk down to the stage door, Michael quizzes the security guy he's walking to about who he's protected before. The guy tries to be all Ving Rhames in Dave, but finally drops the name "Nelly Furtado," which impresses Michael. He's all excited to enter the hall, until the doors open, he and the brass enter, and are met with a huge chorus of boos. Oh, yeah, Michael seems to have forgotten that shareholders meetings are less like rock concerts when the company is broken.
After the ads, the CEO is trying to handle the meeting. Michael whispers to Wallace that this isn't as fun as he expected. "It was fun when we weren't on the brink of bankruptcy," whispers back Wallace, who should really know better. Because Michael repeats it into his live mic. In fact, who the hell thought it would be a good idea to give Michael a live mic in the first place? After Dwight refuses to let a lady in front of him go to the bathroom without losing her place, the CEO introduces Michael, who stands stiffly with one hand raised in a frozen wave. There are one or two people clapping for him, and they're probably Dwight and Andy. So much for Michael's big moment. The announcement of a waste repurposing plant gets a bigger hand, for Pete's sake.
Back at the office, Jim is mildly taking Phyllis to task for taking a two-hour liquid lunch, and claiming he's as much of a boss as Michael. Stanley chuckles, and Phyllis adds, "Not like you can fire people or anything." Jim stammers, asking who told them that. "We can't say," Stanley says, even as Phyllis says, "Ryan." Jim asks the whole bullpen who's heard this. Everyone raises a hand. Including, reluctantly, Pam. Jim asks who heard it from Ryan. Nobody raises their hand. Until Kevin asks if e-mail counts, at which point everyone does. Jim asserts that he can do anything Michael can. "Who here believes that I have as much power as Michael?" Nobody raises their hand, except Pam, and even she's a little late. "I forgot I have to support him no matter what," she THs. "Close one."
At the shareholders meeting, Andy is still encouraging Oscar to speak up. He THs about how he incited 500 kids to walk out in the SATs, but chickened out himself at the last minute and got a 1220. "I feel lachrymose," he concludes.
The meeting is still getting out of hand, with someone calling the board criminals. Michael speaks up in defense of how nice they are, and Wallace should really see where this is going, but he just sits there blankly as Michael starts talking about the free food and the hospitality suite and the stretch limo they sent for him in Scranton. The shareholders don't seem to appreciate that expense as much as Michael might have expected them to. In fact, this is on the verge of turning into a riot.
Jim watches Ryan goofing of
f with Creed in the break room, and wonders if he should just fire him to make an example out of him. Pam wonders if Jim can even do that, and actually so does Jim, but he says he can at least yell at him. "You've heard me yell," he reminds Pam. "I've heard you exclaim," Pam says, "Like the time you said, 'Hey, look, we parked over here!'" Jim points out that that wasn't really a yelling situation anyway. "You'll figure it out," Pam says patronizingly.The CEO calls a break at the meeting, but as they're leaving the stage, someone protests that they haven't said anything about the bankruptcy rumors. As the others file off, Michael blurts into one of the microphones that it won't happen. Someone asks how they're going to fix it, and Michael promises that they'll come back from the break with a 45-day, 45-point plan to get the company back on track. As the shareholders finally start clapping and cheering, he adds, "And limo lady? We are going completely carbon-neutral!" The CEO practically has to pull him off the stage, and he does the spin after all. And then comes back for another bow as the applause and cheers continue.
Jim finds Ryan playing Tetris, and Ryan claims, "I'm such a perfectionist that I'd kind of rather not do it at all than do a crappy version." Jim says Ryan seems distracted, and Ryan, without looking away from his Tetris, agrees. Jim says he's got a way to fix it. "Let me show you."
Returning to the hospitality suite, all of the higher ups are pretty mad at Michael despite the high he's still on. Even upon learning there's no plan, he tries to start coming up with one. "Day 45, company saved. Day 44, go. What do we got? We have fifteen minutes." That's three points per minute, though. Nobody's impressed, so Michael whips out his cell phone to call this Mexican guy he knows. "He knows economics as well as he knows bullfighting and I am going to call in a little favor." It's done before Wallace can stop him. Downstairs, Oscar looks at his buzzing phone, and then at us. The thing he knows, he's in the front of the room at the hospitality suite, where Michael has just informed the assorted bigwigs the he has a plan to save them all. "Take it away." Oddly, Oscar does not take it away.
Jim leads Ryan to the front of the bullpen for an announcement, and shows him what he's got set up for him to prevent him from being distracted: an office of his own. Which is actually the electrical closet, with a computer crammed in there. "For a job well done," Jim says. "Well, not done." Ryan starts making promises and apologies, but Jim just chuckles good-naturedly, claps him on the shoulder, and shuts him inside. "Is there internet?" comes a plaintive call from behind the door. Jim just smiles. If he needed to yell, he wouldn't be Jim.
Michael has Oscar completely on the spot, despite Oscar's attempts to get out of this by deferring to everyone and claiming he has every confidence in them. Eventually he succeeds in escaping, and Michael follows him out so they can argue about who embarrassed the other more before Oscar simply walks off. Well, that's not what I expected. Michael returns, defeated. "That was a waste of a text," he says, and confesses they might be in trouble. "Where's the off-button on this moron?" the ex-congressman asks Wallace. Michael takes exception to that, citing his branch's leading sales and his 17 Dundie awards. "So you're the moron."
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Cut to Michael hurrying down the hallway, mouthing open his phone and VOing about being honored by the company. "He can take the bus. He's had his limo ride," the ex-congressman says, back in the suite. "That is what it is all about, the perks," Michael, VO continues, as he leads his underlings out of the hotel at a trot and back to the limo before it can be cancelled. "After all, we are the only ones with anything to celebrate," he finishes as we see the four of them sticking their hands up through the open sunroof. And out on the street, the camera pans from the limo to a stock ticker on the street, showing DMI down 6 7/8 to 1.13. Ouch. Never let it be said that Michael doesn't have an effect on the company.
In the tag, Dwight has finally reached the front of the line, so he can say to the CEO, "If this line is any indication of how this company is being run, then we are in big trouble." Cheers and applause for Dwight as the camera pans around the hall, revealing that Michael's seat is now empty. Like Michael, Dwight is so encouraged by the applause he tries to build on his moment, but unlike Michael, his strategy of doing so by speaking at length about other kinds of lines doesn't really work. What I want to know is how he can be there and in the limo at the same time.
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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