Dwight's penny-pinching as the building's owner is driving the employees crazy, and dealing with the problem falls to the office administrator. Alas, since that's Pam, in a role she made up in the first place, she's a little overmatched. Attempting to extort better conditions from him by threatening to move to a different building looks like it's going to fail as miserably as her attempts to be an artist and a salesman did, until deliverance comes from an unlikely source: Dwight's assistant. Well, actually, an even unlikelier source, but we'll get to that in the weecap.
The latest random bug up Michael's ass is China, but when Oscar tries to correct him on some facts and turns out to be wrong, Michael's bigger problem is that Oscar wants a rematch for the title of the smartest guy in the office. Suddenly everyone's tired of Oscar's know-it-all-ism, and they help prop Michael up, which works until Michael blows it and then wins a TKO with a deluge of inspirational BS anyway.
Also, Andy keeps annoying Darryl with frivolous text messages, but that's such a minor plot with so little payoff that this paragraph feels even more frivolous.
Watch the episode below, discuss it in our forums, then see the staff's most roastable moments!
Want to immediately access TWoP content no matter where you are online? Download the free TWoP toolbar for your web browser. Already have a customized toolbar? Then just add our free toolbar app to get updated on our content as soon it's published.
Dwight is doing everything with his gross bare feet for twenty minutes a day. At his desk, of course. "Why?" Jim wonders. Dwight smugly explains that he'll soon have the pede-dexterity of a chimp, "and you'll be sitting there like an idiot." I'm just going to say that my wife has a freakish ability to pick stuff up with her feet, even with her socks on, and sitting there like an idiot suits me just fine. After Dwight knocks a bunch of shit onto Pam's desk trying to sharpen a pencil and starts toe-typing her an apology letter, Jim thoughtfully brings Dwight a nice full cup of coffee and a thinly veiled dare. Whereupon Dwight tries picking up the mug by looping his toe through the handle, only to dump the entire contents into his crotch. "A for effort, right?" Jim says, holding up a hand. Dwight slaps Jim's hand with his coffee-soaked bare foot. Way to snatch back the loss at the last minute there, Jim.
Cred--
Andy arrives at the building to find Hank shilling muffins at a coffee shop that Dwight's had set up in the entryway, and actually agrees to buy a blueberry muffin for eight bucks. Dwight talking-heads about how owning a building is a war between landlord and tenants: "I've surrounded the enemy and I'm slowly starving them." In addition to the thermostat being set at about Scrooge degrees Fahrenheit, here are also timers and motion sensors on the lights, meaning everyone has to flail around every few minutes when it goes dark. Dwight calls it part of his green initiative. "And by green, I mean money."
Michael comes into the office all out of sorts about how everything in sight was made in China. "Yeah, that's where they make stuff," Andy remarks offhandedly. But Michael's all worked up about a Newsweek he read in the dentist's waiting room. I think I like ignorant Michael better.
Darryl flags down Andy to ask him to stop texting him all the time. He THs that it used to be that you only got texts from people you wanted to get them from: "Girls. And they'd all say the same thing: 'I'm coming over, baby.'" And then Darryl would respond, "BTB," which stands for "Bring that booty." My wife and I exchange the same kind of texts when we're in different rooms of the house. Although I secretly suspect that she's typing hers with her toes.
Stanley complains to Dwight about the half-ply toilet paper in the bathroom, and when Dwight blows him off, Stanley turns to the "office administrator" for backup. Pam asks to talk to Dwight about it, but he blows her off as well, advising her to call his assistant Nate to schedule an appointment with his building owner self. When Pam reluctantly plays along, she sits on hold with Nate while she can clearly hear Dwight right in front of her telling Nate to blow her off. Now annoyed, Pam hangs up and tells Dwight he's screwing over his friends. Dwight sarcastically talks about how this is not just business but a home, "And I would much rather see a smile from Kevin than save hundreds on plumbing and electricity." Kevin obliges, which I guess means that Dwight gets to have it both ways.
Erin has joined Michael not only in his office but also in his newfound Sinophobia. She's just learned from Wikipedia (while the rest of us learned from The Amazing Race) that the tallest man in the world is Chinese. "So much for keeping our secrets up high," Michael frets, and charges out into the bullpen to whip up some paranoia about a world where forks are irrelevant and everyone has to play the cello. To stop it, he wants someone to come up with a big idea, right here, right now. Kevin suggests an antacid you only have to take once a week. After pursuing that for a bit, Erin cheerfully floats the idea of hiring a new guy and killing him for a $100,000 life insurance policy. She thinks everyone will like that idea. "I think that's what they're doing to me," Erin whispering-heads. "I can't prove it, but I wanted to see their faces when I said it. I learned nothing." Yes, I've noticed that about her. Back in the bullpen, Michael announces, "I don't know what the fuck that was." Dwight suggests bombing them (and Phyllis agrees), and Michael drops some scary statistic about how many cities China has with more than a million people (56, to the U.S.'s nine). Oscar tries to call him out, and Michael stands his ground (while Andy texts Darryl, "RU watching this?") Ryan jumps online and confirms Michael's stats, humiliating Oscar. "So I happen to know more than the smartest guy in the office, so what, I don't care." Michael gleefully laughing-heads. Michael's ready to move on after besting Oscar, but suddenly the daylight light from the windows is blotted out. DAMN YOU, CHINAAAA!!!
Oh, it was just Dwight. Outside, a giant sign advertising an exterminator has been hung in front of the building. Everyone complains to Michael, who defers to the office administrator. "Handle it. Takin' care of business," he says, leaving her to it. Pam orders Dwight to take it down, "Or else." Dwight's not scared. "We can move out!" Pam threatens. If anything, Dwight is less scared.
Angela's alone in the kitchen when the lights go out, and all her jumping and flailing doesn't work as well as Kevin just walking in. A little size differential humor for you. Out in the bullpen, Pam comes in from a two-hour scouting trip for new office spaces. She shows off a few snapshots, and Dwight seems a little worried. Pam keeps showing the pictures around and talking about amenities like an Outback door that makes it smell like steak all the time. "Are you trying to kill me?" Stanley wonders, but Kelly's happy to hear that the nail place is Korean and the dry cleaner's is white.
In the full break room, Jim makes a comment about all the brainpower in the room. "We got Michael and Oscar, the two smartest guys in the office. Also in that order." Oscar says that's funny, as good-naturedly as he can manage, and Michael one-ups, "Very comedically humorous." Kelly and Ryan join in on the mocking of Oscar, while Jim just stands there and grins. He THs, "Around here, Oscar is known as 'Actually,' because he will insert himself into just about any conversation to add facts or correct grammar. He really does fit that old stereotype of the smug, gay Mexican." And it's just now getting on people's nerves all of a sudden after six-plus years, to the point where they'll all turn on him in favor of Michael. Sorry, not buying it.
After Andy texts Darryl "Megan Fox?" Darryl warns him that he's one bad text from getting blocked. "But one good text away from a high five," Andy points out. They have a deal. Someone's time is getting wasted, all right, but it's not just Darryl's.
In an effort to be conciliatory, Dwight is surveying the employees to compile a wish list. Kevin asks for a million wishes, and you think he's just being his dopey self, but when Dwight pleasantly starts to explain that's not what he's asking, Kevin shuts him down: "Then see you later, Building." Meanwhile, Oscar invites Michael to discuss China with him some more over coffee. Michael agrees, and Jim and Andy worriedly tell him that he just consented to a battle of wits where Oscar will lord his factual superiority over Michael. Jim points out, "Haven't you noticed that I don't being up the Tour de France around him?" Of course Michael has. Michael figures all he has to do is learn everything about China. "And science and geography and math and literary." He's covered on politics, as he demonstrates with the worst Governor Schwarzenegger impression ever. Jim and Andy follow him into his office. "What?" he asks.
Dwight breezes through the kitchen inviting Pam to parley. Creed translates that Dwight wants to talk. Pam wonders if everyone in the office speaks pirate code. "I understand it, I can't speak it," Creed admits. Even the Creed jokes are weak, and there's no excuse for that even when you don't also add in the low-hanging fruit of pirate vernacularrrrrrr.
In Dwight's building owner office (which apparently also doubles as the room where his assistant Nate uses some kind of spinning machine to de-ply the toilet paper), he offers to stop watering down the soap. As for her threat to leave the building, Dwight warns her of the stress of moving, and the toll it'll take on her family. "And twenty-five years from now, Cece will become world-famous. For stripping." Pam will se that and raise it: "We move. The other tenants follow. The bank takes the building, takes your farm, takes your car, and beats the crap out of you. Penniless, you die. And my daughter Cece dances on your grave. Fully clothed." The lights go off in the tense silence that ensues, and after they wave them back on, Pam waits with a smug, expectant look on her face.
Ryan has joined the drill team quizzing Michael in his office, and Michael's whiffing on questions like "Where is Tibet?," "When was China founded?" and "Who is Mao?" Andy advises him to steer the conversation to something he knows about. Michael suggests boobs, then realizes he doesn't know much more about them than Oscar does. Andy starts a bit from Rocky II, then backs off, and Ryan offers him a cheat sheet. Michael doesn't want to cheat. "Show him how to use it," Jim suggests.
Dwight and Nate drive to the address Pam gave, only to find a vacant lot. They mock-ruefully sigh, "Pam, Pam, Pam," which happens to attract the attention of a woman named Pam who's walking by with a bag of groceries. Dwight explains and asks, "You're not a liar too, are you?" She admits a little flirtily that she's been known to bend the truth a bit. "Dammit, Pam!" Dwight spits, and yells at her to get out of here. While Nate starts driving back, Dwight gleefully says, "I can't wait to do to Pam what I just did to Pam."
Back in the bullpen, Dwight pretends to be interested in the new office, as an employee. That's just an excuse to get all in Pam's face asking about specifics, while she starts getting evasive. Dwight continues working it while Pam quietly agrees, "Mm-hmm."
Pam takes Jim into the stairwell to admit she may have made it all up for leverage with Dwight. Basically, she doesn't want to fail at being office administrator, like she did at art school and sales. Jim tries to be supportive. "I'm not an artist and I'm not a salesman, so what would you call it?" Oh, ouch. Jim quickly gives her a kiss and a hug.
But in the very scene, he's done being there for her, because he's down in the entryway coffee shop to support Michael. Along with Andy and Erin and Kelly and Ryan, he spectates while Oscar starts to lecture Michael about China. Michael keeps dropping facts that seem to keep Oscar on the ropes.
In the kitchen, Nate gives Pam a thick book and says, "I wasn't here." Which he has to explain to her. I didn't know that was pirate code.
Michael's keeping up his barrage of facts, but Oscar finds an opening, causing Michael to fidget nervously. Which in turn causes little sheets of paper to fall out of his sleeve. Ryan does a double facepalm. Him and me both.
Pam marches into Dwight's office and hands him the book Nate gave her earlier, saying he's breaking the law. "There are certain standards you have to maintain the building at. And that includes comfortable temperatures and adequate lighting. It also means no more cutting the tampons in two." I hope he's doing that before they're bought out of the machines. Dwight says he underestimated her, "And I didn't think that was possible. Nate, re-ply the paper." Nate reverses direction on the machine, which is what passes for a sight gag.
Oscar leaves some money on the counter for the coffee, acting like he won, but Michael says he forgot something: "I could fire you." "Fire him!" Erin cheers. "No, show mercy," she says when Oscar glares at her. Michael makes his point, which he clearly just came up with: "As long as people like you and me don't stop talking, nobody can stop the USA!" His cheering section applauds as Michael goes on. He says that people say if you dig enough you'll get to China, but if you dig enough in a conversation, you get to a friend. He invites everyone to raise their cups, and the win goes to Michael. "That wasn't what we were..." Oscar sputters lamely as everyone else walks out. Show, do not expect me to root for Michael over Oscar.
Dwight compares himself to a vampire by way of explaining that the best ones leave their victims enough strength to bounce back so they can keep bleeding them. "I spared Pam that I might feast off of her profits for years to come." As we see that he was the one who sent Nate to deliver the book to Pam, he says he wasn't motivated by compassion. "I have no compassion." But then, as we see him using the rearview mirror in his car to watch Jim and Pam celebrate the removal of the exterminator banner in the parking lot, he looks like he's feeling pretty warm and fuzzy inside. Of course, as a vampire, it's easy for him to spy on people with mirrors because his own reflection doesn't get in the way.
Darryl gets a text: "Come to parking lot -- crazy pigeon action." Outside, he joins Andy in watching a couple of birds scavenge a dropped ice cream cone, with their bird faces covered in the stuff. Darryl high-fives Andy and says, "That's your new standard." I hope this episode isn't The Office's new standard.
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.