Apparently, the planking craze has hit Dunder Mifflin, much to the annoyance of Oscar and Jim. Erin, who's totally into it, coolly tells us that you either get it you don't. "And I don't. But I'm so excited to be a part of it!"
Dwight and Andy are all "No, after you" to each other getting off the elevator, as Jim brings us up to speed in a talking head: the search committee picked Robert California (James Spader), who took one look around the office, left, drove his Corvette to Florida, and talked Jo into making him CEO. "He talked her out of her own job, and I don't know how someone does that." And Robert chose as the new Regional Manager, none other than one Andrew Baines Bernard. Andy clearly can't believe it himself, although he suspects some resentment from Dwight, whom he made his enforcer. "Smart, right?" "Very smart," Kelly agrees from her planked position atop his wardrobe. "I can't get down," she adds. Dwight THs that he was disappointed, but now he's finding a lot more time for martial arts. For now, however, he's trying to get a planked Kevin off a desk. Pam declines to help, because she's extravagantly pregnant with "little Michael Scott!" "Nope, told you I don't like that joke," Jim tells her. We also learn that Angela's pregnant as well, and she's quick to point out that she's much smaller, and carrying the offspring of a senator. State senator, but whatever. Darryl tells us that he ended up with something way better than the manager job: "This soda. This is mine." While three guys try to de-desk Kevin, Stanley has come up with a new thing where he acts helpful by offering lengthy advice which he then concludes with "shove it up your butt," which in this case, cracks everyone up so they drop Kevin. "It's stupid, but it's my thing now." Man, I hear that. Andy tasks Dwight with putting an end to the planking thing, which Dwight does by ambushing plankers all over the office with fire extinguishers, reams of paper, and pure meanness. "Kids, don't try planking," Dwight says into the camera. "It's dangerous. Especially with me around." With Dwight around, what isn't?
I don't know if these are the permanent credits yet or not. They start with Rainn Wilson and end with "And James Spader," right before a final shot of Andy leaning forward to adjust the little figure on the edge of the manager's desk and tipping it over onto the floor.
Pam is making herself cry by watching commercials on YouTube when Robert California comes out of the conference room, where apparently he spends half his time for some reason. His appearance causes everyone to suddenly look very busy. "You never know who he's going to zero in on for these really intense small talks," Jim THs. "You just hope it's not you. And yet you hope it is you, too." I've known people like that. Robert aims his intimidating jowls and forehead around the bullpen before setting on Erin, who literally says, "Here we go." Andy interrupts their talk before Erin's gotten past how she woke up today, because he has a "casual chitchat" with Robert scheduled for 9:30. Andy THs (from the boss's office, which is going to take some getting used to -- or, it won't, because he won't be in there long enough) that he has three agenda items for Robert: a request for a long Columbus Day weekend, to find out what Robert thinks of him, and, "time permitting, we lost our biggest client." Okay, so the good news is that they have a new biggest client.
As Robert enters Andy's office, Erin looks at the notebook he left behind. Concerned at what she sees, she calls Pam over to show it to her. It's a list of all the employees, including Gabe (who I thought got recalled to Jacksonville) and "Old Man," but divided into two columns, with mysterious gaps between some of the names. Pam insistently signals Jim to get off his sales call and come join them. Which he reluctantly does, while Andy's chitchat with Robert in his office devolves even further into purposelessness than its original conception would have indicated. Out in the bullpen, the others notice that something's going on at reception, and after some ridiculous attempts to write the list down or take a photo of it, Pam rushes it to the copier. Robert comes out as it's copying, and Phyllis falls out of her chair as a distraction while they rapidly return the notebook to reception before Robert notices anything being amiss. Anything actually amiss being amiss, that is.
Andy managerially thanks Pam and Jim for the "list of names," until he learns that it was copied from Robert's notebook and suddenly wants no part of it. Pam tearfully frets that it's a list of people to be fired. It would be pretty empty in there if that were the case. They bring in Dwight, who compares it to his old lists of names for various apocalyptic scenarios. I see Karen's name in there, so he needs to update that shit. Andy speculates that the left side of the list is the cool side, what with it including himself, Jim, Dwight, and Darryl. When Pam starts getting emotional over her absence from that column, Dwight tells her not to be such a "right-sider." Dwight would be a superstar at the Stanford Prison Experiment. When they come out of the office empty-handed, everyone wants Andy to go ahead and ask Robert what it means, which Andy isn't willing to do, because A) he doesn't want Robert to know they've been snooping; and B) he's already got that Columbus Day weekend request thing going on.
But then he goes in anyway and asks Robert, who's a little annoyed that Andy read his notebook, copied it, and distributed it. "No, they did," Andy aw-shuckses. Robert says it's just a doodle, like some people's drawings of houses and penises, only he doodles words and lists. Andy's relieved, until he realizes that Robert's moving his name from the left side to the right side. "Might as well have been sketching a cube," Robert shrugs. Well, Andy is pretty square, but I'm not buying it.
So then Andy has the copied list enlarged on an easel in the bullpen and is asking everyone what it means. Meredith wonders if they're supposed to "do it" with people in their group, or, alternatively, do it with people in the other group. "No, still wrong," Jim says. Stanley suggests a detailed puzzle-based solution that of course ends in "shove it up your butt." Kevin sys it's alphabetical, which it's clearly not. Dwight suggests they all line up in columns matching the columns of the list, and when they've done so, he instructs his fellow left-siders, "Attack!" A melee breaks out until Robert returns and invites a number of (suddenly very subdued) people to lunch. All of the people he invites are, probably not coincidentally, on the left side of the list: Jim, Dwight, Angela, Darryl, Kevin, Toby, Phyllis, and Oscar. And not Andy. The chosen few head out, Jim pausing to comfort his crying wife before leaving her behind. Andy tries to make the best of it by making a musical announcement about a pizza party.
At lunch, Robert makes what would seem to be an idle comment to Jim about Cece and Sesame Street that segues into an off-the-cuff yet thoughtful spoken-word essay about how Elmo reflects society. Everyone agrees without really getting it -- except Toby, who abruptly gets up and leaves, saying he was never there. It's like he knows something the rest of them don't.
Back at the office, Andy is trying to sell the pizza party. It's a pretty tough sell.
Dwight asks Robert why he picked this group, and Robert says he thinks they're winners. Phyllis asks the natural question, that being what about the others, and Dwight pushes him to admit that he thinks they're losers. "Probably shouldn't have said that," Robert mutters into his beer while Dwight and Kevin high five, and Jim looks a bit shocked that anyone could think his wife is a loser. Which, to be fair, kind of depends on which season you're watching.
Back at the office, the pizza has arrived at the same time as a text from Jim to Pam: "This is getting very weird. Will explain later." And then Pam and everyone else gets a mass text from Kevin: "Suck it, losers." No, Robert probably shouldn't have said that at all.
Ryan points out that he's part of the "right side" group too, which he thinks should make everyone feel better, until he cuts his lip on a pizza crust. Pam's crying, of course, about how she used to be cute and kind of funny and now she's just a "fat mom." Andy can't stop himself from comforting her with a gentle, "Chins up, okay?" He tells her to look around and asks if she sees a group of losers. Pam scans the room. Yep, everything makes Pam cry right now, but that especially.
When the left-siders return, Kelly lies that they had fun with their pizza party, but Dwight is happy to lord their lunch over everyone else. "Now it's over. Back to work, everyone. You too, Andy." Oooh, no he didn't.
Jim settles back into his desk, telling Pam only that it was an odd lunch. She seems upset, but then she always does today, so he lets it go. In less subtle character moments, Kevin is shooting Meredith with a water pistol and repeatedly calling her "loser," while Dwight does the same to an oblivious Creed. Andy THs that when he was a salesman, he could say, "Not my job, not my prob, I'm off to the warehouse to polish my knob! Metaphorically, of course." But now the prob and the job are both his, so it looks like the metaphorical knob will have to go unpolished.
So he goes and calls Robert out into the bullpen in front of everyone, and asks him to clarify what Andy calls the misconception about "top-tier" people versus "second-tier" people. Robert says he never said that. "I said winners and losers. Is that what you're talking about?" Andy babbles, so Robert gets to work clearing it up. "Let me tell you some things I find productive. Positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement. Honesty." As for unproductive things, that would be "constantly worrying about where you stand based on inscrutable social clues, and then inevitably reframing it all in a reassuring way so that you can get to sleep at night." Good thing I've never worried much about productivity, then. "If I invited you to lunch, I think you're a winner. If I didn't, I don't. But I just met you all. Life is long. Opinions change. Winners, prove me right. Losers, prove me wrong." So there. Robert heads back inside the conference room and closes the door, but Andy's not satisfied. "Andy, don't go in there!" Erin warns, but he does anyway, and makes a speech of his own, not just for Robert, but for everyone out in the bullpen who can hear through the door he left open. "You don't know these people and I do, and if I let you work with faulty information, than I'm not doing my job as regional manager. So please take this pen and change your list." Robert's impressed with Andy's gumption, but he refuses, so Andy sits down to make a new list for him. In the course of doing so, he tells Robert about Stanley's consistently high sales figures and his not one but two long-term relationships, Meredith's refusal to say no, Gabe's correct placement in the loser column, Pam's creativity and kindness, and Erin being "a winner if their ever was one," which is a lot of telling and not showing, if you ask me. Erin THs that she likes her new group. "I liked my old group." And with that, Andy declares he wants a half-day for everyone the Friday before Columbus Day. "Then you are aware," Robert calmly says, "that Columbus and his legions committed genocide against an entire civilization of Native Americans." Andy storms out, large with not caring. Okay, well now that blood's on his hands.
Later, Andy tells everyone about the pre-Columbus Day half-Friday, which apparently they get every year anyway, but everyone still says an unusually friendly goodnight to him on their way out. Andy turns around and heads back into his office, smiling with pride at a good day's work. Maybe his best ever.
Jim heads out of the office at the end of the day to "go warm up the car," "accidentally" dropping a list of his own. Pam THs that she knows she's been weepy, but she holds up Jim's list for the camera. The left side is Pam, Cece, and new baby, with the right side consisting of "everything else." "I mean, that's just pretty killer, right?" Pam asks us. Show-killing, yes. Jeez, maudlin much?
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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