Andy gets the idea that business is war and he's a General, so he tries to drag everyone off for a field trip to Gettysburg for some history and inspiration. Only about half the staff agrees to go, however, and they're not nearly as excited about it as he is. He lugs them all around the battlefield, going on and on and boring them with long lectures and some nonsense about a flag. Dwight has come along to spread the story of The Battle of Schrute Farms, which he insists was a more savage (and more Northern) battle than Gettysburg. As it turns out, TBoSF is more or less the opposite of what Dwight had built it up to be. Also, Gabe is mistaken for an Abraham Lincoln performer, and ends up stepping happily into the role.
Meanwhile, back at the office, the contingent who stayed behind suddenly find themselves asked by Robert California to brainstorm game-changing ideas. Nobody comes up with anything that isn't totally ridiculous, but Robert finds some symbolic value in Kevin's cookie-based ramblings and thinks he's stumbled on a creative genius in the Accounting department. Fortunately, Ryan figures out a way to expose Kevin in the most dickish way possible.
When the staff refuses to join Andy on a hike far afield, he goes into a snit that only passes when Jim and Darryl catch up to him and assure him that while this was a dumb idea, everyone likes him as Regional Manager. Upon hearing this, Andy gives up on the whole general thing, so that's another victory at Gettysburg.
Gabe's running a meeting where he's basically reading the entire Sabre code of conduct when Pam decides to escape the meeting by pretending to go into labor. Apparently she's been doing this a lot, so it doesn't work this time. At least not until a puddle appears between her feet. Now it looks like the real deal, and everyone's all excited about it while Jim walks her toward the door. But then something else falls to the floor between her feet: an empty water bottle with a loose strip of duct tape. "False alarm," she announces.
Andy makes a big loud show of finishing a phone call and coming out to the bullpen to talk about how business is like war. He THs how it's hard to inspire people in a place like this, so today he's getting help from his friend, "America's bloodiest battle." Back in the bullpen, he makes like he's just now getting the idea to go to Gettysburg, on the bus that just happens to be downstairs. "I can't make you go, you're not my slaves -- thanks to Gettysburg -- but who's coming with me?" Erin, Phyllis, Oscar and Dwight (who maintains that the Battle of Schrute Farms, not Gettysburg, was the northernmost battle in the Civil War) are in, at least. Andy says the rest of them are dead to him, but there will be leftover sandwiches in the fridge.
Outside, Andy's handing out hot-pink baseball caps to everyone as they board the bus. Also joining them are Darryl, Jim, and Gabe, who Andy hits in the face with a hat meant for Phyllis. On the bus, Andy gets ready to put Ken Burns' Civil War documentary on the screen, but it's overruled in favor of Limitless. Timely!
Everybody still at the office is doing nothing when Robert California comes in, takes in the scene, and makes his presence known before asking where everyone is. Kelly explains about Andy and the "corporate retreat." Disappointed, Robert says he was hoping to talk about some ideas with Andy, "But what we have here is perhaps better." Pam, Kevin, Ryan, Kelly, Stanley, Angela, Meredith (who is dead asleep) and Kathy the temp. Almost all of them right-columners, mind you. Robert tells them to start to brainstorm game-changing ideas. Kevin gets right on it, inventing, building and testing a stapler with a marker taped to it.
The bus pulls into Gettysburg, and Andy's all excited to get off and start their experience, but the others would rather sit on the bus to finish watching Limitless, even though Andy says they can watch it on the way back. "I got Source Code on the way back," Darryl says while Andy tries to keep the excitement level up all by himself.
After the ads, Andy cuts off everyone's beeline for the tourist center, saying they'll be taking the tour he researched and created himself. As he leads them through the field lecturing excitedly, Dwight has buttonholed a totally credulous Erin to talk up the Battle of Schrute Farms. "What are you telling this girl?" Oscar says, and Erin gratefully tells Oscar she would have believed everything Dwight said. And then Dwight ends up yelling at Oscar about the Battle of Shrute Farms so loud that Erin joins right in. Have you noticed how many scenes Erin saves on this show, lately?
In the conference room, Robert has everyone assembled to share their game-changing ideas. Ryan has a whole flashy/cheesy verbal presentation about how origami is the sushi of paper. "This idea hasn't gripped me," Robert says, and asks what else he came up with. Nothing, because it took Ryan a while to memorize the presentation and build the swan. Robert: "That was bad." Stanley's idea is "Papyr: Paper for Women." Robert's not buying that, either.
The field-trippers are listening to a park ranger's talk when Dwight hijacks it by bringing up the Battle of Schrute Farms. Embarrassed, Andy leads them away, while Gabe hangs back, only to be mistaken for Abraham Lincoln by a girl in a stovepipe hat. Apparently this happens a lot. He agrees to pose for a picture wearing the girl's hat, which leads to him being mistaken for a Lincoln performer by a group of tourists. He says no, he's with a tour group himself, and when he inadvertently gets a laugh with that line he goes into a Lincoln bit. Well, that was easy.
Pam's idea doesn't even survive her own opinion of it as she's explaining it, "Unless you're responding to it," she tells Robert. "I am not," he says. Pam's off to the bathroom. "When you're this pregnant it's kind of like senior spring," she THs. "The other day I spit my gum out on the carpet." Robert calls on Kevin, who's forgotten all about his mutant marker-hybrids and talks about how the best place for the best stuff in the vending machines is not at A1, but dead center, in D4, because that's where your attention goes. Before our eyes, Robert picks the corn out of this turd and polishes it to a gilded finish, asking the room, "Who else agrees with Kevin that we're wasting facilities and manpower on our underselling products when we should be pushing our top performers?" Soon everyone's hand is up, including Ryan's. He bitterly THs, "Okay, we are now on a planet where Kevin is the most creative person and I'm just some good-looking guy."
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Gabe's in the thick of his routine that he's making up on the fly, miming the opening of a newspaper and deciding to go to the theater. "No!" the crowd yells. Yes!
Kevin's now holding forth about cookies, and Robert is riveted. "What is Dunder Mifflin's oatmeal cookie? What is the product that no one wants?" Stanley comes up with two-hole punch letter, and Robert is thrilled. "Fantastic, Kevin," he says.
At Gettysburg, Andy gives the hungry employees a big speech about how Colonel Harrison Jeffords died fighting for his battalion's flag before unveiling a flag he had commissioned for Dunder Mifflin for two hundred dollars. "Only two hundred dollars?" Jim asks. It's basically a drawing of a three-hole-punch sheet of paper with a cartoon tree on it and the words Dunder and Mifflin printed down each end of it. And then he tries to get them to chase after it. Darryl tells him this is inappropriate in a place where people died. Thanks for explaining the joke, Darryl. Now let's think about more respectful activities to do on a battlefield, like shooting an episode of a mockumentary sitcom.
Coming back, everyone's sitting on the grass, resistant to Andy's idea of hiking the mile to a spring. Andy heads off in that direction, saying he'll just assume they're with him. Which they're so not.
Robert is now having coffee with Kevin and talking to him about hedge funds, like they're equals or something. Kevin is doing a good job of faking it. "Yes, I am an accountant," he agrees.
Oscar has found an archivist to shoot down Dwight, who preemptively dismisses the member of "the Gettysburg-industrial complex." But the old guy has heard of the Battle of Schrute Farms. He sits them down in front of a video about that very subject, which, as it turns out, was not the bloody, savage meat grinder Dwight's been claiming it was, but a code name for an artistic retreat for sissy-mary nancy-boy pacifists. There are even daguerreotypes of men putting on plays, having drum circles and hanging out together naked. At least one of the guys in the photos looks distinctly Schrute-like. "Wow, this is so much better than the story you made up," Oscar tells Dwight, who storms out.
Up in the kitchen, Kevin is still talking to Robert about cookies when Ryan comes in to pitch what he calls "the Big Mac idea." "What? No!" Kevin protests. Kevin insists that it's his own idea, and Ryan's jealous of it. As Kevin explains, it involves setting one ingredient aside every time you buy a Big Mac, and at the end of the week you have a free Big Mac you made with your own hands. "You know what? That was your idea," Ryan tools, and leaves them to it. Robert: "Ohhh my. It was just actually cookies the whole time." Hard to say who came out of this little episode looking worse. What am I saying? Of course it was Ryan.
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Jim and Darryl find Andy peevishly trying to do a rubbing of a monument, but everyone else is back at the bus Andy asked the driver to lock. "I guess he follows orders," Andy grumps. Jim makes excuses for the others. "I think they're just tired. With holes in their shoes, and they have dysentery." Andy calls out Jim and the disease that goes by many names: "Sarcasm. Snark. Wisecracks. You take things that people care about and you make them feel lame about it with your jokes." Uh, Andy? Are you talkin' to me? Jim says the war analogy is false, and adds that Andy has nothing to prove. "We like you as Regional Manager. And if you don't believe me, take a look at what's on my head. I'm wearing a very pink hat. I've been getting weird looks all day because I'm pretty sure 'DM does GB' means something kinda sexual." But they're wearing them anyway. "I hate myself," Darryl deadpans. Andy seems to get the point. Heading back in the bus, Andy THs, "The world will little note nor long remember the fight that Jim and I had at Gettysburg, and that's good because I was basically wrong." He admits that his being a General in a war probably isn't as good an analogy as him being a manager at a paper company. Which, technically, it's a tautology.
In the tag, Gabe reenacts Lincoln's assassination, and quickly swaps hats back before making his escape. You call that a payoff?
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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