Something in the Water

S08E12

Robert's selling his mansion, and he's pretty down about it, given all the wild parties he never got to have there. Kevin suggests an indoor pool party as a last hurrah, and Robert's up for it. As is everyone else apparently, although Jim makes it his business to get out of there and home to Pam and the kids as soon as possible. Unfortunately for him, Robert ropes him and some of the other guys into a lengthy tour of the place, and all the wild bacchanals that never were.

Meanwhile, Erin's learned about how Andy followed her home after the Christmas party, so she's thinking she can win him back, if only she can make him jealous. This is while Andy's girlfriend Jessica is also there, mind you, and the person she decides to make Andy jealous with is Dwight. Dwight is surprisingly up for the task, but in addition to Andy's almost complete lack of interest in Erin, there's also the fact that he's carrying around an engagement ring that he's been considering giving to Jessica, and it's gone missing. So he's a little distracted by that, and it doesn't help when Kelly finds it and decides to destroy it to wipe out the bad juju she thinks accrued to it from the star-crossed Californias. In even more minor news, Darryl is shy about taking his shirt off in front of Val, and Kathy the temp might be a little bit into Jim.

Eventually, Robert realizes the party he's always wanted is happening right now, and jumps naked into the pool, blurred pixels and all. As competing sycophants Ryan and Gabe clumsily follow him in, Jim makes his escape at last. Andy's not so lucky, though, as the vision of Erin rising from the depths of Robert's pool with his family's ring in her hand seems to give him second thoughts. As it would anyone, really.

Dwight sits down at his desk, only to find a meatball already in his chair. That's bush-league crap from Jim, but from across the bullpen, Stanley seems to think it's hilarious. Jim explains to us that it's always more fun to mess with Dwight when he has an audience, and with Pam on maternity leave, Stanley has unwittingly stepped in. However, he seems to have some very specific tastes. For instance, Jim's replacement of Dwight's entire desk with a Lego version of it and Dwight himself with a bespectacled, puke-tone-clad dog doesn't seem to get much of a reaction from Stanley at all. In fact nothing does, except meatball-themed pranks. In fact, when Dwight opens his drawers to find them full of meatballs and his stapler entombed in one. Stanley loses his shit. There's something symbolic about this shout-out to the pilot, in which Dwight's stapler was magically suspended inside a light, translucent confection of Jell-O, as opposed to today, when it's trapped inside a sclerotic bolus of dense, heavy, fatty, dead flesh. Can't quite put my finger on it. Anyway, the joke's on Jim, because apparently Stanley and Dwight are in league. "We will never have to buy meatballs again," they tell us in the parking lot, happily holding up overstuffed freezer bags of the things.

At Reception, Erin fields a call from Andy's new girlfriend Jessica, like she doesn't have his direct line. After we see Erin do a TH about how she's moving on with her life by learning Italian (actually just eating Italian), she patches Jessica through to Andy. Who, in turn, THs that his parents loved Jessica. In fact, they gave him a family ring for her, although first they took out the main stone for his little brother. Andy seems to get that it might be a little premature, but as he points out, "I haven't proposed to anyone in years."

Robert's at Pam's vacant desk (Kathy the temp switched clumps after all, to Andy's old desk to Stanley and Phyllis), looking at photos of his big house, which ten years ago was going to be his own personal Playboy mansion, but he's planning to sell off now that his wife -- whose existence made it impossible to live the Eyes Wide Shut life he imagined there -- has left him. "The one percent are suffering too, people," he laments. Jim makes the mistake of chuckling at Robert's complaint that his "speakeasy lounge" is listed as a "rumpus room," and Robert pins him to the wall like a butterfly for laughing at his pain. Really, Jim? You couldn't have come up with a simple, "Heh, rumpus."? After Andy comes out to diagnose Robert's case of the grumpies, Kevin suggests Robert throw a literal last hurrah at the mansion, namely a party at Robert's indoor pool. Robert seems up for it, and he heads out, telling everyone to wear a swimsuit tonight. Do none of these people ever have plans for after work? After he leaves, his mood already improving, Meredith offers Erin a ride, since they live so close together, which Meredith knows because of how Andy followed Erin home after the Christmas party. Erin is surprised to hear it, and not just because Meredith even remembers anything at all that night. "He wanted to make sure California didn't put it in you," Meredith crasses. Erin looks through Andy's window with a new take, and then squeeing-heads about what stalker Andy is. Seriously, there's literally a squee in there.

That night at Robert's, everyone is gathered around the indoor pool (no swimsuits in evidence yet, which is probably good news) when Jim comes in with a whole speech about how he's leaving early. He explains to us how he's a pro at leaving parties early: make an impression, get evidence you were there, collect a talking point for later. And if all else fails, pretend to get a text saying your apartment is flooded. Sure enough, when he catches up to Robert, he quickly takes a photo of the two of them and tries to duck right out, only to get swept up into the tour. "You must see what you were laughing about," Robert tells him.

Jessica arrives and busts Andy playing pocket pool, although he'd rather tell her he's "flicking a bug off my wiener" than confess he's carrying a ring around in his pants. When she goes to get a drink, Erin moves in to get all flirty with Andy and even ask him out for the weekend. Andy's confused, to say the least, not to mention having plans with Jessica. Erin THs, "I guess Andy isn't totally over his current girlfriend." But she hopes she can make him jealous again, just not with Robert this time. "He told me he was a ride I wouldn't survive."

Darryl finds Val sitting by the pool, the first person to be seen wearing a swimsuit. You'd think at this point she'd be more careful about what she shows up to parties in. Erin, seeing Andy and Jessica canoodling by the edge of the pool, heads over to flirt with Dwight, although she does it like a second-grader. While Andy panics upon seeing that Stanley moved his pants from the deck chair he left them in -- and the ring is no longer in the pocket -- Dwight calls Erin a "little hick" and kicks her into the pool. Okay, now it's a party.

Robert leads the tour group of dudes to the parlor, where he once thought people would drop their coats and inhibitions. Dude, grow up already. Oscar spots the wine closet, and soon everyone in the tour group has a bottle of his own, with Robert's compliments. Oscar is deeply impressed with the one Toby chose (completely at random, obviously). Jim tries to take his leave, but Robert insists he come with them to the room.

Dwight dunks Erin in the pool, and she quietly explains to him about how she was just using him to make Andy jealous. Dwight's reaction to this new? He's totally up for it, of course. While he starts pushing it too far, Kelly finds Andy's engagement ring over on the far side of the room. Andy wonders what to do, because it's not like he can walk over and quietly ask for it back. Okay, he totally could. Well, if it were anyone but Kelly, he could.

In the kitchen, Robert goes on about the meat-drenched fantasies he once had for this room. "Then I met the vegan." Oscar is talking wine to Toby, who's totally faking, and has to keep it up when Oscar invites him to join his wine-tasting club. Toby THs to himself and his wine bottle, "You are playing a dangerous game. Guess I'm though the gateway now, though, right?" Enjoy the Chateau Fidelio. Don't worry, I don't even get that reference myself.

Val gets into the pool, but Darryl's not really prepared to follow her in. Apparently the working out he's been doing has yet to have much effect on his "outer layer." Erin and Dwight's game of smearing potato chips on Dwight's face doesn't seem to be having much of a jealousy-inducing effect on Andy, so Dwight suggests a chicken fight in the pool. Andy isn't up for the challenge, under the circumstances, so Erin invites Kathy in, apparently at random. Kathy just wonders who her partner would be. "Where's Jim?" she asks. Uh-oh. Lucky for her, Kevin's there and more than willing to step in jumps in. Soon, Erin and Dwight are winning chicken fights but not Andy's attention, even when Erin goes on about their chemistry and Dwight agrees, "I could bang you right here!"

Robert shows off the king-sized bearskin rug he had made (two bears sewn together) to the increasingly drunk tour group, who are all drinking directly from their wine bottles. Then on to the screening room, where Robert once planned to watch racy movies but ended up seeing crap like Marley and Me. Gabe to the rescue, as he offers up a Korean porno he apparently has on his iPod right now. "If you've got the cables," he adds, awkwardly.

Andy pretends to Kelly, who thinks the ring she found belonged to Mrs. California, that the ring of a failed marriage is bad luck. It looks like he's going to get it back by offering to get rid of it, but Phyllis says they have to destroy it, like they're all Frodo Baggins or something. In the pool, Kevin's trying to teach Val underwater handstands when Darryl offers her a beer from the deck, which she turns down. "Does Darryl not swim?" she asks Kevin. Kevin: "That's racist!"

Jessica and Andy beat Erin and Dwight at chicken fighting, but she insists on a rematch. This time she grips his hair and locks her legs around his neck so tight his eyes cross. She mushes him into the fray, and when she gets pushed over she just bobs back up like a watery Weeble in her determination to win. Unfortunately her thighs have just choked Dwight unconscious. But hey, the documentarians have an underwater camera!

After the ads, Dwight has been fished out and revived. "Erin, did we win?" he gasps. She lies that they did, but he knows it and tries to roll right back in for a rematch. Meanwhile, Kelly and Phyllis are trying to give the ring a Viking funeral in the pool on a paper boat.

Dwight talks to Andy aside about Erin, expressing his new appreciation for her after formerly thinking she was just "a second Meredith." Which is an opinion that could only be held by somebody who doesn't know the first one. Dwight wants to make sure Andy's done with Erin, so as to avoid a repeat of the whole Angela thing (not to mention Andy and Dwight's weird competition when Erin first arrived, which actually neither of them does) and Andy insists that he's well and truly with Jessica. "And you won't mind if tonight I just go crazy on her, go nuts?" Dwight says. Andy is almost completely cool with it, but then adds that they can take it slow if they'd rather. At that, Dwight gets in one of his rare flashes of insightful genius: "You're an idiot."

There's a pool-noodle fight going on when Darryl finally gets the nerve to de-shirt and cannonball in. Val looks pleased to see it. Remember the frisson we used to get from the tiniest Jim and Pam moments? Yeah, I don't know why I thought of that just now either.

Andy's moping alone by the edge of the water when suddenly Erin surfaces right in front of him, holding aloft the ring she found on the bottom of the pool like a tiny round Excalibur with the stone missing. Andy is clearly stunned by the spectacle, least of all because of the ring, but he quickly recovers. "How did you know it was mine?" Andy asks. "The Bernard family seal, duh," Erin answers. Andy just looks at Erin they way she looked at him at the beginning of the episode. It probably doesn't hurt that she's half-naked and wet, of course. Erin THs that this wasn't exactly what she was hoping for, but at least Andy's confused and she can work with that. "I totally get confused."

The tour of dudes has finally returned to the pool room. Robert and the guys drink a toast to madness. Then Jim goes over to Meredith to quietly ask her to move her van from behind his car, but she left her keys on a bowl. Rookie move, Jim, parking in the driveway. A true party-ditcher parks by the curb, preferably pointing toward home, ideally on the on-ramp. Ryan and Gabe, who are again trying to out-brownnose each other all night like they did at Andy's garden party, both promise to stay as late as Robert wants. A drunken Toby pours wine down an even more drunken Oscar's throat, and as he looks around, Robert realizes that one of those parties he always wanted has been happening all along, even if it is just with this bunch of dorks. And so he downs the rest of his wine, and then his pants, and jumps naked into the pool. And with that, I've finally figured out Robert California: he uses big words and long sentences, and talks in a slow, portentous voice that demands attention, but he's every bit the idiot the rest of these people are.

By M. Giant

His stunt clears the pool of other revelers pretty quick, but Gabe and Ryan are both so committed to sucking up that they both start undressing. "And there's my talking point," Jim says, making his exit. Gabe and Ryan fall into the pool still tangled in their pants and shoes while Jim plows his car through the landscaping in his hasty escape. Between this and dashing off to Philly last week, he's probably in a rush to get home before Pam decides to kill him.

In the tag Robert, Ryan, and Gabe are dancing drunkenly (but at least mostly dressed again) in the den until Robert passes out, telling them to keep going. Ryan tells Gabe they can leave now. "So leave," Gabe says, continuing to dance. Ryan stays too. What else can Ryan do but keep dancing as well? And still be Ryan, that is.

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.