Oscar finally acts on his longstanding crush on warehouse guy Matt by asking him out for happy hour. Well, actually, he asks the whole office and warehouse staff out for happy hour. Pam's so jazzed at having a night out that she invites along a friend to meet Michael. Because this friend finds everything funny, that goes fine, until Michael realizes he's being set up. Whereupon he morphs instantly and terrifyingly into "Date Mike," a Kangol-wearing megatool inspired by watching reality dating shows. He nearly gets himself kicked out by acting like a jerk, but instead ends up striking up a flirtation with the bar's manager (Amy Pietz from Caroline in the City). Too bad for Pam's friend. Or is it? No, I think we can safely say it's not.
In other relationship news, Andy's so keen to avoid the drama of people finding out he's dating Erin that he generates several gigawatts of drama his own dorky self, before making a big, gushing public announcement about the two dates they've been on. Pam's other friend Isabel shows up and gives Dwight about a hundred reasons to get out of his parenting contract with Angela -- and us about the same number of reasons to back him up on that. And unfortunately for Oscar, Matt's a no-show. Until the very end, that is. Which is not to say that Oscar's done shooting airballs.
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Michael has just finished doing 25 push-ups and one girl push-up, a new record for him. He challenges anyone else to beat it, and although nobody takes him up on it when the prize is "my respect," upping the ante to an early departure for the day has everyone hitting the floor like the place being strafed. "I say dance, they say how high?" Michael smugs. Michael DQs Angela for having her butt too high, and Creed for still sitting at his desk. Jim taps out at 19, and sheepishly claims, "I had a really hard workout this morning." But Stanley's still at it, sweating Howitzer bullets as everyone gathers around and chants his name, having completely forgotten that the poor guy has a bad ticker. In the background, Oscar compares it to a mother lifting a car to save her baby." Stanley completes his girl push-up and then, with rivers of perspiration and dignity rolling off of him, leaves with a polite, "Excuse me." He earns not one, but two rounds of applause.
Oscar has shown up early this morning to he can "run into" Matt, the warehouse guy he has a crush on. Oscar asks if he has any plans for later, and Matt tells him to let him know if he hears about something going on. Oscar agrees to do that. Then he talking-heads about how he's now talked to Matt both this morning and at Christmas. "So, a little momentum there." He turns to enter the building, but it's locked." Couple hours to kill before work," he shrugs.
Upstairs, Oscar visits Darryl in his office to say it's been a while since the last happy hour, when the office people and the warehouse people all went out for a drink together. "Has that ever happened?" Darryl wonders. "Ever?" Darryl's not fooled by Oscar's attempts to be cool about Matt, and asks Oscar to be straight with him. "You can be gay with Matt, just be straight with me."
Now it's Oscar's job to pitch the idea to the office staff. Phyllis is up for it, especially if Bob comes. "I tend to wear something low cut, get men to flirt with me, and Bob beats 'em up." Long pause. "What?" That's morally reprehensible, is what. One grows weary of Phyllis thinking she can dance through ethical minefields because she's hot.
Andy pitches the idea to Jim, who tries to beg off, but agrees to call Pam. Even though he says he'll "absolutely" call her, he actually does. Jim talking-heads about how amazing his baby is: "She gets me out of everything! And I love her. I also love her very much." Back in the bullpen, Jim is just telling Pam about the--"YES! YES! I WOULD LOVE TO!" Pam screeches in his ear loud enough for Andy to hear. And then we see Jim holding up his phone for its own TH, with Pam blathering about how excited she is to be with adults and see everyone. "I did not see this coming," Jim says as he holds it up. Sure sign of a first-time dad.
Andy and Erin are apparently trying to keep their relationship on the DL. Andy loudly and rudely orders her to fax something, then asks her in a whisper if she's going. She says she is if he is, and then yells, "Talk to me that way again and I'll cut your face off!" Yes, no one will suspect a thing. Then they do a joint TH about how they're keeping it quiet. "We just don't want all the drama," Andy explains, but is soon interrupted by a tap on the other side of the blinds. When Andy opens them, he reveals Kevin on the other side, making sexual gestures and giggling like a loon. "That's actually pretty funny, but in general, you know..." "Quiet," Erin says.
Andy asks Michael if he's in, and he's so in he announces it's quitting time. Even learning it's happening later doesn't dampen his excitement much.
Jim meets Pam in the parking lot, and she tells him she invited her friend Julie to meet Michael. Jim is trying to tell her she's been gone too long, and she's denying it when she suddenly spots Kevin and nearly shits herself with joy at seeing him. Kevin responds in kind, but keeps going "Waah!" until Pam gets weirded out and leaves. Kevin tells us he was trying to make her lactate. Pam's going to take the cure in a hurry, I'm thinking.
Michael enters the bar with Jim and Pam, so giddy with triumph and longtime wish fulfillment he might as well be at the Oscars. It's one of those game-room style bars, with the kind of machines that reward skill with printed tickets that you then exchange at the counter for useless crap. But for adults. Charles Edward Cheese, if you will. Jim says he, Pam, and her friend need a fourth for pool. "Sucks to be you," Michael teases, but is honored when Jim comes out and asks him.
Darryl's holding court at a table of warehouse guys and Oscar, who keeps watching the door. Aw.
Pam introduces Michael to Julie. He makes a lame joke, but Julie laughs anyway. Pam THs, "Julie laughs at everything!" Oh, well played, Pam. Then Pam's friend Isabel shows up, and casually says she's going to "do a lap, see if I know anyone."
Yes, Dwight is there, listening to Angela talking about someone saying "the most ridiculous thing about Anderson Cooper." He cuts her off when he spots Isabel, and gets up to ask her, "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" "A girl like me is why a guy like you comes to a place like this," Isabel retorts. Dwight says he loves repartee; it usually portends a battle scene. Yes, the flirting has commenced.
Julie tells Michael she's an ESL teacher, and they share a laugh about how he thought she meant ESP at first. Julie appreciatively THs that Michael doesn't act like a boss. "If I had a boss like that we'd never get anything done." Perhaps she has ESP after all. Back at the pool table, Jim quietly asks Michael what he thinks of her. Michael's like, yeah, she's nice, until he suddenly gets that he's been set up, and his jaw drops. And then we see him in the parking lot, opening the back of his car and trading his tie for a Kangol hat. "Apparently, Michael Scott is on a date," he announces to us. "And that? That, my friend, changes everything." Of course it does.
After the ads, Michael struts back in, steals a pool cue, and sends a ball flying off the table. Jim and Pam pull him aside and ask if he's okay. "Hi, I'm Date Mike," Michael THs in a fakely deep (and deeply fake) voice. "Nice to meet me. How do you like your eggs in the morning?" Then he either winks or temporarily loses motor control on one side of his face. As he starts twirling his pool cue, Jim asks Pam, "You want to just make a run for it?" "Maybe," she says seriously. Then up comes Kevin to cry at her chest some more.
Andy and Erin spot Ryan and Kelly playing DDR together. They want to take a turn of their own, but don't want to give themselves away. So Andy tells her to go play the racing game and then they'll switch. I'd say he could be a gentleman and give her some tokens, but he might as well hike her skirt up and shtup her on the game's railing if he's going to do that.
Dwight and Isabel are walking through the bar while he asks her potential-mommy questions, all of which she answers both gamely and correctly. He doesn't realize that Angela's following them until Isabel walks ahead and Dwight stops, only to see Angela there. He flinches and lets out a bleeped, pixilated curse. Dwight THs the tale of the tape, which gives Isabel the advantage in height, birthing hips, and remaining childbearing years. But alas, "Legal obligation: advantage Angela."
Michael tries to show off by tying a knot in a cherry stem with his tongue, and of course nearly chokes to death. Not that this changes anything. He THs about his unfair advantage: "I watch reality dating shows like a hawk."
Phyllis asks Andy and Erin, "Hey, you two having fun?" as she and Bob stroll by. Andy freaks out about the drama. "I don't want a drama," he drama-queens dramatically with a drama-filled drama.
Dwight and Isabel are playing whac-a-mole when Angela comes up wanting to join in. Dwight takes her aside and lets her out of the baby contract he made her sign. But at least he gives her a bunch of tickets for her trouble, so he's being a mensch about it.
While Michael mimes playing guitar for Julie on the pool table, Jim suggests telling Julie she's not normally like this. "Maybe it should come from a man," Pam suggests. "Maybe it should come from a note," Jim counters. "With flowers. Tomorrow." The manager, played by Amy Pietz from Caroline in the City, comes over to get Michael off the table, and when Pam and Jim try (and fail) to calm him down, over comes the bouncer. Michael hops off. "You got a problem?" The bouncer threatens. "Yes, homelessness," Michael cracks. Okay, that was actually funny. The manager tells Michael to leave, and Michael apologizes. Looks like he gets to stay. Pam tries to get the evening back on track, but Michael's too upset. "You let somebody talk to you like that, where does it stop?" "It stopped," Jim points out. Michael goes off to restart it. Pam suggests getting food, saying the wings there are really good. Do they come from free-range crow?
Creed's tearing it up on the DDR. Michael goes over to the manager and asks her to apologize to his friends for embarrassing them. "Then I am sorry that I didn't kick you out," she says. Michael argues with her about her management style, and claims to be writing a book on his own style, even though all he has is the title, Somehow I Manage, and there will be a picture of him shrugging with his sleeves rolled up. For some reason, she asks if he's read Iacocca's book. He says he owns it. Which is not to say he's read it. Suddenly he's on an entirely different date, and she's about to buy him a drink. At least until he says, "Grenadine."
Andy decides he and Erin need to work harder to throw people off, so he tells her to follow his lead. So he sits down to a blonde and says he never does this. Do what? "Just sit down to a beautiful woman and start talking to myself to confuse other people," Andy says. Then he spots Erin putting her hands all over some dude's lap, spits out his drink, and pulls her into the photo booth to ask where she learned to talk like that. She says the movies. "What movie, Black Snake Moan?" he demands. Meanwhile, the flash in the booth is going off, because it's apparently one of those photo booths that's activated by motion sensors instead of money.
Michael is telling the manager about himself, and when she asks for his card, he says he put it in the bowl. She fishes it out (digging through an awful lot of Stanley's) and tells him he just won lunch. Michael gives his table a thumbs-up. Julie wants to go, and Pam apologizes, saying Michael's not usually like that. "What's he usually like?" Julie wonders. Jim thoroughly enjoys watching Pam flounder a while before saying, "You can go." Michael waves at Julie as she leaves, and looks guilty when she just keeps walking. But then the manager reminds Michael to come in for his free lunch on a day when she's working. Suddenly Michael feels a lot better.
Darryl congratulates Oscar on putting together a fun night for everyone, even if the reason Oscar did it never showed up. He advises Oscar not to sweat it. "Matt's an okay dude, but he's a dummy." Oscar wonders if he should count himself lucky, but when Matt shows up wanting to shoot hoops, Oscar's all over it. Darryl's left alone at the bar shrugging at us while Oscar shrinks from his own rebounds.
Andy holds up the strip of photos from the booth, which of course show him arguing with Erin. He tells us, "This is not what I want my relationship to look like." So he goes up to the microphone to make one of those big embarrassing romantic-comedy public announcements: "I have been on two dates with Erin Hannon and they went well and there'll... there will probably be more." Erin smiles happily, and they do a joint TH where Andy says keeping it a secret was too much drama. "And I hate drama, so, there you go." Erin says, "You love drama." I know I do, right?" He admits. I'm a total drama queen." Oh, they're so perfect for each other.
Dwight and Isabel are walking through the parking lot together, discussing possible moves to protect oneself against an by the Scranton Strangler. That guy again? Suddenly Angela pops out at them, prompting Dwight to try his move, which is fortunately a purely defensive one. But Angela's even scarier than the Scranton Strangler; she's a scorned woman with a signed birth contract to wave in Dwight and Isabel's faces. Dwight's like freaking out, experiencing one of his vanishingly rare moments of embarrassment, but Angela refuses to back down. That is, until Isabel, steps forward, pops her on the forehead, and says, "Whack!" Angela scampers off, and Dwight turns to Isabel and says, "You are an impressive specimen." "Thank you," she says. He kisses her. And who could blame him?
The rest of the gang is also leaving. Kelly is crying shrilly over a spilled drink. Suddenly Pam has to get home, and Kevin makes a triumphant gesture in our direction. Michael jumps in front of them and says he did well with a young lady tonight. Jim, not getting it, says he didn't, actually. Michael insists he did, but he can't take all the credit. He's happy to share it with: "Date Mike. Nice to meet me."
The tag is warehouse guy Hide telling us his story at Darryl's prompting, with subtitles even though he's speaking English. Apparently he was a top heart surgeon in Japan, then stowed away on a fishing boat to America after accidentally killing a yakuza boss. Now he has a new life, thanks to Darryl, and tells us that he killed the yakuza boss on purpose. Darryl doesn't look nearly as nervous as he probably should.
Check out a dueling interview with The Office co-star Craig Robinson.
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.