It's after 5:00 on Friday in both Scranton and Tallahassee, but nobody's finished working. In Scranton, everyone stays late to go through the away teams' accounts, and Andy has food delivered by none other than Val's boyfriend Brandon -- who takes the opportunity to call out Darryl in front of everyone. Darryl is ultimately forced to read everyone all of his personal texts to Val, including one that ends with an incriminating five dots. Awkward.
And at the hotel in Tallahassee, everyone's got an agenda. Nellie has yet to name a VP, and both Dwight and Packer want the position. And when Dwight realizes that Packer plans to get the position under Nellie by taking another position under Nellie, he decides to try to beat Packer at his own game.
After Jim wearies of this scene, Kathy shows up in his room half-dressed claiming her room's overheated and asking to hang out. Jim is awkward and lame and can't figure out how to get rid of her, until he calls on Dwight to come up and do an impromptu bedbug fumigation. And even that doesn't work until the second try.
Also, Ryan makes a move on Erin, and she seems receptive, but when she says something about waiting six months, he tells her he's in love with Kelly. The sad thing is that Kelly would have been thrilled to hear it.
After the ugly scene in Scranton, Pam and Andy give Darryl conflicting advice. He follows Pam's, and hints to Val how he really feels. Who knows what might happen between them ....
Pam goes over to show Angela a cell phone picture of her baby and Oscar wants to get into the action with pictures of his dog. In a joint TH, the two mothers agree that nothing you didn't carry in your belly for nine months is anything like your kid. "Unless you adopted, of course," Pam amends. Angela: "That is where we disagree." Hilarious. Later, in the break room, Angela claims to Pam and Oscar that her baby is already crawling, leading to Pam sharing a TH with Oscar where they call Angela a liar. And then after Pam tells Oscar and Angela how much harder it is with two kids, Angela and Oscar joint-bitch about Pam. Then Andy comes in with a picture of his brother's new sailboat, saying there's nothing harder than taking care of a boat. Oscar, Angela, and Pam: "Unbelievable!" It's funny because people are all dicks.
Short credits, and then we're at Sabre HQ, which looks like a sawed-off Luxor from the outside. Nellie calls it a halt to the work week, but Dwight is pressuring her to pick a VP already before they adjourn for the weekend, trying to get her to choose him. It's just another sign of how unrealistic this show has gotten that any title with the word "Special Projects" is seen as anything other than the kiss of death. While Dwight's pushing, Jim teases him from behind while Kathy laughs at his side, like Pam used to do but with less subtlety. Nellie eliminates three no-names right off the bat (and Packer adds his own unnecessary dismissal), and invites everyone to a compulsory meeting at the hotel bar that night at seven. As the group breaks up, Kathy chats with Jim, who THs that she's been great and "normal." As it turns out, the hanging with Stanley thing turned out to entail a lot of Stanley hitting on cars full of women. Jim certainly wouldn't want that to put him into some kind of awkward position.
It's also 5:00 back in Scranton, where Andy and Pam try to get everyone all excited about the "late night work jam" they have to do to cover for the people in Tallahassee. Pam says they could have been doing this all along, but "someone dropped the ball." Andy recovers quickly, saying a ball-dropping can be beautiful. "For example, when it turns an awkward soprano into a rich, full tenor." But when that same rich, full tenor rips open his scrotum doing the splits, those same balls dropping are less lovely. As we've seen.
At the hotel bar, Packer and Nellie are debating Bond vs. Bourne until Dwight puts in a vote for Genghis Khan. "He would eviscerate babies and hang them from poles outside of villages!" And when Packer tries to resuscitate the buzz Dwight just killed by suggesting a drinking game, Dwight hijacks that too, suggesting his own game in which the person with the least buttons in their pockets gets kicked. He's got a pouch of 40, as always, but of course Kathy and Jim team up and turn it around on him, so Dwight's the one who gets kicked. Packer declares Dwight's game "lame," earning a compliment from Nellie for the quick wit shown by the double meaning of the word. Packer accepts the praise as though he intended anything of the kind.
Ryan and Erin are off at a table alone when, after Erin's awkward attempt to order a waffle from the server, she breaks the news that she's planning to move down there. Ryan decides to step up and get her a waffle. And then he THs that he figures Erin wouldn't tell him her plans if she didn't want him to make a pass. Well, at least Ryan doesn't mind lying to himself any more than to other people.
The Scranton conference room is full of people working. Kelly is literally so bored that she literally screams.
Nellie excuses herself, and Dwight takes this opportunity to tell Packer that he, Dwight, is getting the VP position. But Packer insists Nellie will give it to him, "as I'm giving it to her tonight." Then they engage in a horse-noise duel. I don't know.
Andy brings in a tray of Jamaican takeout, courtesy of Val and delivered by Brandon, Val's boyfriend. Everyone says hi, including Darryl. Brandon pleasantly asks him how he's doing. "Must be doing real good since you're fucking my girlfriend." This looks like it's about to blow up, but it's Andy to the rescue, as he tries to return to the subject of the food. Brandon: "Hope you all like goat." Oddly, the change of subject doesn't make things any less awkward.
Nellie has Packer blow in her ear to make her feel like she's on the beach. I've heard British beaches can be pretty foul, but I had no idea. Dwight joins in with seagull sounds, and then he and Packer are now doing another noise duel, with wave crashes this time. This is so stupid that Jim picks the moment to take his leave. Kathy looks crestfallen. I am too, but only because I have to stick around.
Later, Jim's alone in his room (as Stanley squires a young blonde past his patio door) when Kathy knocks on his door in shorts and a wife-beater (and, for some reason, boots) claiming her TV is on the blink and asking if she can hang out in his room. After a pause, Jim stupidly says yes and she plunks herself down on his bed to join him in watching basketball, which she clearly knows nothing about. Jim perches on the end of the bed, but then thinks better of it and slides to the floor. What a shame Sabre couldn't spring for hotel rooms with chairs. And what a shame Jim couldn't spring for a pair of balls. When Kathy hops up to go to the minibar, he suddenly finds the ceiling very fascinating as she bends waaaay over. Don't worry, Jim -- you can watch the footage later.
In the hotel bar, Packer ties a knot in a cherry stem with his tongue. Dwight decides to outdo him by untying it. Nellie must be the horniest woman on earth.
In Scranton, the employees are still trying to get some work done while Brandon is confronting Darryl over a text Darryl sent Val at midnight. Kelly decides that they all need to hear the text, and now that something interesting is happening there for once in her life, she's no longer bored enough to scream. Or even go home. Not for anything in the world would she go home now.
Kathy's putting lotion on her legs when Jim rapidly gets up to answer a knock at the door. It's Stanley, come to raid Jim's minibar for rum, but he leers a hello at the half-dressed temp stretched out on Jim's bed. Stanley not only doesn't stay when Jim invites him to, he warns, "Careful, Jim, it gets easier and easier." Oh, man.
Ryan leads Erin into the hotel kitchen, and when they hear a noise, they dive under the counter so nobody sees them. "Do you want us to get scolded?" Ryan hisses. "Shut your beautiful, beautiful mouth." It's not clear where the camera crew is hiding, but they're obviously invisible as well.
In the Scranton conference room, Darryl reads aloud the texts in question: "I got too much ice cream. You want some?" "Getting my fry on." "The moon is huge tonight." But the killer is. "You're such a great friend....." The 1.4 ellipses are included in the message. Kelly, with her long experience of parsing Ryan's signals, is shocked that Darryl would be so indiscreet with his dots. Val says the idea of her and Darryl is ridiculous. "I'm stranded on Shutter Island over here," Darryl pretends to agree. Has everyone forgotten that Darryl and Kelly dated, for like a week?
Dwight tries again to interrupt Nellie and Packer's flirting, only to pick up a call from Jim, reporting that he saw a bedbug in his room. Which is sort of true. Dwight rushes off to take care of it, but first he orders Gabe to make sure Nellie doesn't sleep with Packer, demanding, "You really want Packer as your boss?" Even Gabe isn't enough of a weirdo to have that as a goal. On his way up, Dwight says he can't risk bringing any bedbugs back to Schrute Farms. "Our biggest attraction is our 200-year-old mattresses." Upstairs, Jim eagerly admits Dwight, who immediately strips the bed (with Kathy still on it, mind you), makes Jim describe the bug (which Jim does, with relish), and announces that he's going to turn himself into a human bedbug trap. He'll do this by getting heated up, undressed, and all covered up in Jim's blankets. Which he does forthwith. Kathy's so grossed out she goes to take a shower. "All right, catch you later!" Jim chirps. He thinks his problem is solved now that he's gotten rid of Kathy, but now he's got Dwight in his bed instead of Kathy on it. Worse: the shower Kathy is using is Jim's.
Down in the bar, Gabe awkwardly sprays something in Packer's beer while he's not looking. Aerosolized seahorse, probably.
Dwight announces to Jim that there are no bedbugs, as he wasn't bitten even while farting continuously under Jim's blankets. Dwight's off to go back to trying to screw Nellie before Packer does and when Jim asks if that's really how Dwight wants to get the job, Dwight calls him a "chorus girl." As if to underline the point, Kathy comes out of the bathroom with wet hair and Jim's hotel-room bathrobe, asking Jim, "Is crazy gone?" The expression on Jim's face says, "Yes and no."
Dwight returns to the bar to find Packer and Nellie drunkenly lurching around the dance floor, until Packer pukes in Gabe's lap. "They don't make these cords in boot-cut any more!" Gabe bitches as he storms off. Dwight makes his move, telling Nellie, "A real man swallows his vomit when a lady is present." Then he sits down and is all, "Hey." Because that would totally work.
Kathy's on Jim's room phone ordering dessert, then she clambers over the bed and sticks her bare legs in his face. I know this wouldn't happen anyway, but hello, there are at least two cameras in the room filming all this. You'd think Kathy would be more discreet, but I guess anyone who'd be willing to lounge on a bed full of Dwight-farts must be pretty fucking determined. Jim scrambles to his feet and reminds her that he's happily married. Kathy acts all offended at the suggestion that this is anything but the two of them hanging out, and Jim not only buys it, but apologizes. It's like that bit in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman is so embarrassed after accusing Anne Bancroft of trying to seduce him. Of course, we know how that turned out. And if Kathy were really offended, would she still be here? Sure enough, as soon as Jim decides it's safe to sit on the bed after all, she snuggles right up to him.
Pam and Andy find Darryl alone in his office. Andy advises Darryl to play it cool with Val, but Pam advises him to make a move, like Jim did. With her, not with Kathy.
Ryan and Erin are still hiding under the counter with chefs working around them, somehow not hearing them as they whisper to each other, or noticing the cameras filming them. Erin suggests Ryan move down to Florida with her. She even hints that maybe they could hook up, in six months or so. Stunned by this timeline, Ryan coldly tells Erin he's in love with Kelly. His swath of destruction just keeps getting wider.
At Nellie's suggestion, Dwight tries to read her thoughts by pressing his giant forehead to hers, but he's only picking up a seven and two ones. So Nellie spells it out for him: meet her in his room in seven minutes for some one-on-one time. He hands over his card key, and she takes it, but not without planting a kiss on his mouth. As she steps away, Dwight calls her back, supposedly so he can write his room number on the card. He THs, "Win at all costs, don't respect women. These are the tenets I was brought up with and they have served me well. But my ancestors never worked in corporate America." Dwight's speech goes on to explain that one of his ancestors is his own time-traveling self, so it goes a little off-track.
The Scranton gang is finally done working. As they break up for the night, Val holds Darryl back to apologize, and asks if they can never talk about it again. Darryl agrees, but points out, "Me and you? I don't think that's ridiculous. Dot dot dot...dot dot." Well, now it's out there. And Val looks a bit stunned.
Jim comes out of his bathroom to find his robe on the floor and Kathy in his bed, in her underwear. Even Jim can't pretend this is innocent any more. "All right, now I think it's time for you to go," he finally says. Kathy tries to blow it off, but he sharply insists, "Kathy! Go." But she still doesn't move until Dwight bursts in with a dust mask on and two spray bottles from a housekeeping cart, demanding, "Where's the bug?" Jim: "Awesome." Dwight goes to work, spraying the bed and the sheet Kathy's wrapped in, chasing her clear out of the room, possibly even for good. Choking on the fumes, Jim congratulates Dwight on his success in fumigating the place. Dwight warns Jim not to stay there. "This place is a biohazard. If I were you I'd just bunk with Kathy."
In the tag, Jim's eating the room-service desserts Kathy ordered in his bed... with Dwight. Must have aired the place out. There's a fumbling at the door -- Nellie trying to get in, because obviously Dwight wrote Jim's room number on his card. She plaintively whines that can see the light under the door, until Dwight turns Jim's lamp off, leaving her out there alone. Well, alone with another camera crew, who I'm sure are thrilled to be once again getting more footage to add to Dunder Mifflin's dedicated sexual harassment vault.
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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