Dwight, Stanley, Jim, Ryan, Erin and Kathy are all down in a hotel in Tallahassee, where Dwight takes it upon himself to do individual wake-up calls. Everyone's decidedly grouchy at the crack of dawn, aside from Ryan who wakes up horny and hits on Erin, and Jim, who woke up on his kids' schedule and took the extra time to stage a murder scene. God, I pity the cleaning lady who has to suffer these fools.
Once they get down to business, we see Nellie Bertram (A.K.A, Catherine Tate. A.K.A, my beloved Donna Noble) and she's out to prove to the likes of all the Dunder Mifflin Sabreites assembled from around the country (including Todd Packer) that she isn't just boobs, but has a giant penis for a brain... or something. She's holding a grudge against Jim since he didn't hire her, and we're behind that, but the rest of the time is just spent with her talking about her business plan (snooze) and the time she had sex with Hugh Grant's older, uglier brother. Love her, but so far, this is more disappointing than when she arrived shrieking in the TARDIS in a wedding gown.
Dwight has appendicitis and refuses to deal with it, in order to impress Nellie. Eventually he has surgery and then comes back in order to deliver a useless presentation and nearly pass out from pain. It's as insufferable as it sounds. While Dwight's dealing with the fact that he has a real ailment and Jim didn't just poison him, Jim is marveling at Vacation Stanley and the effort that it takes to really be that lazy and not dedicated to your job. Great. So Jim can be even more of a slacker. Why hasn't he gotten fired yet?
Back in Scranton, things are stupid. Erin forwarded the calls and no one realizes it for like half a day, and then when the phone does ring, they don't know what to do without a receptionist. Andy tries to get Pam to resume her old post, but she staunchly refuses and they all sit around letting potential sales fly out the window instead of getting up and answering the phone. These people are idiots. Is there not a group home they could safely live in so that they don't endanger themselves? Finally, Andy caves and the office manager becomes the best receptionist they've ever had. Multi-tasking and making delicious office snacks. It seems that this Cornell grad has missed his true calling. Oh, and he misses Erin. If anyone still cares.
We open on Dwight, who is super psyched to meet and impress his new boss Nellie Bertram (she's the wonderful Catherine Tate) and he's got a game plan to get everyone to Sabre HQ on time. It takes 30 minutes to get there, he allows 20 minutes for showers, 50 for Jim to style his hair, 20 for breakfast, 40 for Erin to get lost between her room and the lobby. 90 for Ryan to do his "morning ecstasy. " At 5:10, they are already 20 minutes late. Guess it would be weird to expect any less than this particularly over-thought plan from Dwight.
He uses a keycard to go into everyone's hotel rooms to wake them up. Door locks, people. Erin sleeps backwards, with her feet at her pillow, because she fell asleep reading the mattress tag. Maybe there should have been an hour allotted for her to get lost. She happily joins in the morning wake up call, and even flirts with Ryan to rouse him. He's psyched, and sleepily admits to going to her door twice the night before, until he sees the camera. Jim is up at 4:15 out of habit because of his kids. He used the extra time to stage a murder scene, with money and a sign that says "It was Dwight" on the wall and clues, and he dramatically falls out of the closet like a corpse. Even Dwight looks momentarily freaked out that Jim fell in with a bad crowd. Pretty good gag, but housekeeping is going to be pissed. And I'm sure he could have found better uses of his time, oh, say, preparing for this meeting with the new boss.
In the lobby Kathy asks Jim if he's buying puppets for his kids. That's her big move? After last week's end tag where she said she was going to use this time to get with Jim, I expected a lot more. Dwight loudly rounds everyone up, so that they don't make a bad first impression by being late. We learn that Dwight has hated Pam since the moment that they met because she said something that rubbed him the wrong way at their first meeting. Even though she's been delightful since, that first impression made all the difference. We're just finding this out now? After all of these years?
Dwight buys a ton of antacid from the gift shop, and looks to buy something for his "son." Everyone seems concerned about Dwight's physical health, as he's holding his stomach and obviously in a great deal of pain, but he shrugs it off as stress because he cares about this project. You see where this is going, right? Jim has other ideas -- he says he's poisoned Dwight. Dwight offers to set Jim's face on fire in retaliation. That seems like even stevens. Actually the behavior on Even Stevens was more mature than that on this show this week. Before this inane discussion can go any further, Stanley pulls up in a red convertible and says he's on vacation from the wife and kids and is living it up. He lets Jim ride with him, to run the iPod, so long as it is Kenny Loggins. Not Loggins and Messina. Poor Messina, always getting written off.
Back in Scranton, the land that time (and I) forgot, Andy remarks on how quiet it is. So he drops and invisible pen, and everyone stares at him and wonders if he actually picked it up. It's stupider than normal, or because of the Dwight thing my tolerance for inanity is already at capacity. Either way, Pam realizes that the phone has been set to voicemail this whole time and once she fixes it, it starts ringing and Andy just expects her to answer it because that used to be her job several seasons ago. Kelly starts freaking out, and she's sitting at Dwight's desk and worries that it is for her. Eventually Andy caves and gets the phone. Way to be an effective manager, dude. I miss Michael Scott.
Stanley is proud of how fast he drives, and starts doling out some of his pearls of wisdom, "Life is short, drive fast and leave a sexy corpse. That's one of my mottos." Jim seems dutifully impressed.
Packer is there, he claims he has nine lives and, if he's to be believed, a nine inch dick. Methinks he's overselling it. But that's only the first dick "joke" of the night. Well, excluding the morning ecstasy comment. The comes up rapid-fire from the Nellie who is sitting in the crowd of people and feeding Ryan lines about where the guy running the meeting is. But Dwight knows who is in charge. Did he not see her? Or think to correct Ryan? That seems unlikely. Anyway, my beloved Catherine Tate has to make some comments about how she's not a man with a big whopping penis, but her whopping penis is her brain. This isn't funny, or even that awkward funny that this show used to do so well. I'll just say it's painful. Case in point: "Stop looking at my breasts, and start looking at my penis." She's president of special projects, and Erin is eagerly hanging on her every single word. Penis related and all.
Nellie's first order of business is calling Jim out for saying she wasn't a good fit for the Scranton branch, and blames him for her 13 piano shopping spree. She thought of the store, and pitched it to her friend Jo and hence, president of special projects title was born. Kathy has an idea about seasonal themes, and she's immediately dismissed.
Dwight's popping antacid like candy, and Jim says that the antidote is true love's kiss. Someone watched too many Disney movies during his jury duty week at home. Jim's called on to pull down the projection screen, but Dwight is so eager to prove himself that he jumps up to do it, and nearly kills himself in the process.
Cut to a few moments later and he's on the phone with some sort of medical professional, saying that he eats plenty of bacon, so appendicitis cannot possibly be the problem. If that's true? I'm starting that caveman diet tomorrow. He still believes that Jim poisoned him, but Jim finally tells him he was joking. Dwight reluctantly asks for an ambulance, until he notices on the screen that the Vice President spot is still available and turns his focus to getting that. And here's where things start getting really stupid.
He takes a wheel chair and shuffles himself over to insinuate himself in Nellie's innuendo filled conversation with Packer about hunting. There's a cheap joke about Mose being a master baiter, before Nellie wonders why he's sitting down. He tries to spin it as original, and not being a lemming, but really, its just annoying.
Stanley's spiking his coffee with rum, and offers to share some with Jim. Jim realizes that he's spent so much of his life trying not to be like Stanley, but thinks that Stanley has some impressive commitment to this lazy lifestyle and Jim isn't sure he can hack it. Oh lord. The last thing we need is for Jim to become even more of a slacker. He's barely competent at his job as it is.
Nellie's showing off the Sabre pyramid tablet, which is nowhere as cute as iCarly's pear pad, and introduces some team building exercises. Erin and Packer are the first up to volunteer, and Jim defers to join in the building of an actual human pyramid, until Stanley says it could be fun. Anyone else sick of the Jim/Stanley bromance? Dwight of course wants to climb on top, despite everyone telling him not to, and he passes out and has to be taken away by EMTs to get his appendix removed. He tries to pin it on Jim poisoning him, but Jim immediately sets this record straight as he's afraid of the Florida death penalty. Not afraid of the poor cleaning lady who's gonna be hella pissed at what he did to his hotel room though. If I were her, I'd actually poison him. On his way out the door he leaves a message for Phillip, saying that he's the rightful heir to Schrute Farms and that he should kill poor Mose before he kills him. Mose, taking the all the hits even though he's not there to defend himself.
Back in Scranton, where the morons roam, Andy's made mini-pizzas as snacks, put out some new magazines and has managed to fax things. He says that he is only pretending to like reception, but he's gleefully arranging pens and putting up motivational signs, so you know he's lying. And he practically skips out of his interview to answer the phone.
Dwight calls Erin from his hospital bed, finds out that Jim is giving the presentation for their group, and that Ryan started a fad with moving your nametag around. Cue Dwight walking in with his IV bag attached to him during Packer's speech. He immediately demands that he be allowed to give the presentation, though he knows nothing about the topic and though he just got out of surgery. It's really annoying. I know hospitals can't hold a person, but you'd think the could have slipped him some drugs to keep him relaxed and in place, given how dramatic and agitated he was on the way in.
He's clueless about the facts of their retail consumerism presentation, so Erin has to feed him all the info. Why doesn't he know this stuff? Were they not allowed to put this together in advance? That seems like a waste of time to do it there. Anyway, while you'd think that, in all of his preparation for this trip, Dwight might have done some research... he hasn't. So what he says is the opposite of all of the information that's coming up on screen, and refuses to allow anyone else to come up to help him. So he starts going off about the menstrual cycle and shopping habits. Everyone looks mortified on his behalf. He pauses part of the way through to dip his face in ice chips.
In Scranton, Andy's delivering mail and singing songs about it. I half-expected a little bluebird to come sit on his shoulder as he dances through the office. Also, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone deliver mail in a mail cart in this office before. Does Erin just quietly do it without me noticing? Or is it because she doesn't sing a peppy song about it that it isn't so obvious?
Dwight doesn't know the famed pillars of retail, despite Erin trying to give him the answers, and he instead gives an inspirational speech about determination. This makes Nellie share a story about how she slept with Hugh Grant's older and uglier brother by sheer force of will. Dwight starts bleeding through his shirt, and he just ties his jacket around his waist and keeps going despite all the pain.
Pam and Darryl have a receptionist intervention with Andy, telling him that this job sucks and how it's is just flashy, but really not appealing. Darryl relates it to a girl who looked attractive, but you realize the day it isn't. Yeah, so that happened.
Nellie seems impressed by Dwight's wound and the fact that he's there mere hours after surgery. She asks him and Packer to meet her for breakfast to talk more about the store. Dwight's just proud that he made himself known to Nellie, and that he got a souvenir for Phillip, in the shape of his appendix. But I think that Nellie is checking Dwight and Packer out for potential suitors. Perhaps she overheard Packer telling the cameras about his large penis. I'm going to guess that enthusiastically eager Erin who seems to really have paid attention to everything, is going to end up being the one to wow Nellie and land the gig. It's Florida, stranger things have happened.
Andy's the last on in the office and hears the phone ringing, and peppily answers the phone. The client on the phone wonders what happened to Erin, and says that she misses her. Andy says he misses her too. This reception bit was a long way to go for him to get to that realization.