Mad Nard-Dog

S08E20

Andy's back, and he wants his office back, but Nellie's not giving it up. And Robert isn't backing up Andy, because he still wants to get into Nellie's pants. And neither is Angela, who as head of accounting is willing to dock Andy's pay on Nellie's orders. All this causes Andy to suddenly remember the anger issues that got him sent to counseling half a decade ago, and the day it turns out that his workplace defeat has had consequences in the bedroom. Word of this development gets back to Nellie, who tries to help Andy out by having an employee meeting about impotence. Which is not as helpful as she might have hoped.

Also, Kelly and Ryan have broken up again, and Pam has set her up with her and Jim's pediatrician, Ravi. As before, Ryan can't stand to see Kelly happy with anyone else, so he makes what is, for him, a heroic bid to win Kelly back. Which doesn't work… almost.

Andy's frustration finally causes him to snap, as he and Erin throw a joint hissy fit and he ends up re-punching the same wall he perforated five years ago. After that meltdown, Robert has no choice but to tell Andy that he's making Nellie the permanent manager and shunting Andy back down to sales. Andy's calmed down now, and his answer is no. Robert fires him, but at least Andy has recovered his manhood. In more ways than one.

Phyllis comes in shaking her umbrella, saying it's raining cats and dogs. Apparently this is one of the same twelve clichés she uses every time it rains and Jim has promised hot chocolate for everyone if she uses them all before noon. That cues a montage of the coworkers setting her up for her usual responses and by 11:59, the only one left is how the rain makes her want to stay home curled up with a good book. When she returns to the bullpen with her coffee mug, there's some more prompting from almost everyone to get her to say that one, but it's too late. Then Phyllis THs about how the rain normally makes her want to curl up with a good book, "But everybody's being so nice to me today!"

Erin and Andy show up at the end of the day to say hi and to sing "My Girlfriend's Back" to everyone. Not sure why Andy's in a suit and tie, then. Kevin walks up in a straining red Cornell sweater, which he says Nellie gave him. Also, "Old Salty," the guy Andy always knocks over in the opening credits, is now "bobble-ized" and living on Dwight's desk under the name "Captain Mutato." The absence of a similar shot for Nellie the past few weeks should have indicated a long time ago that she's not staying in the manager's office -- even fucking Creed got that honor for one episode. After taking in the changes -- and a portrait of Nellie hanging outside the door of the manager's office in place of Pam's old drawing of the office -- Andy says, "Okie doke," and walks into the manager's office after the briefest possible knock. He takes in the redecorated room, introduces himself and thanks Nellie for filling in during his "temporary absence," and says he'd like his office back when she gets the chance. "No," Nellie says. Andy pretends he didn't hear, but Nellie repeats, "No." Can it just be that easy?

Jim and Pam are chatting in the kitchen with Kelly and some Indian guy, who turns out to be their pediatrician, Ravi. Apparently Pam set him up with Kelly, because, as Jim puts it in a joint TH, "Kelly is Indian, and... oh, that's it." Pam insists that this is just Ryan-detox for Kelly. Ryan sticks his head through the door and gives Jim and Pam some parenting advice to add to Ravi's; namely, not to shake the baby. Then Ryan does a TH about how he and Kelly broke up, "and her boyfriend seems awesome, if you're into Indian people. I'm not." We've noticed. After Kelly and Ravi leave, Ryan overshares a bit with Jim and Pam: "I'd rather she be alone than with somebody. Is that love?" Jim: "That's about it, yeah."

In the manager's office while Andy stands by, Robert tells Nellie she's been great, but she needs to clear out now because Andy's the manager. Nellie: "No." Now they're both flummoxed. Robert says he's not used to being said no to, so Nellie sex-voices, "Well Bobby get accustomed to it, because then it feels so good when they finally say yes." Robert leaves them to work it out between themselves, as we all knew he would. Robert THs that he never lets lust affect his business decisions; he prefers to recuse himself until he can get laid and then comes back to address it rationally. "Buffett operates the same way."

Back in the office, Nellie threatens to dock Andy's pay $100 unless he leaves the room. He calls her bluff, but when Nellie hollers out to Angela to make it happen, it does. Andy responds with a similar order to Angela, but this time there's no response. And then Nellie gets Angela to agree to dock Andy $200. Sitting with Erin in a TH, Andy cops to having "a little bit of an anger problem." I thought the writers had forgotten all about that, but there's a short montage of Andy's greatest hits dating back to Stamford, and the time he punched a hole in the wall. But now Erin's there to put her hand on his arm when she sees him getting angry. Oh, and the intervening five years since the anger management training he went to in the third season. Back in the present, Nellie starts the countdown to a ten-thousand dollar hit and that gets Andy to clear out. Erin walks him back to his car in the parking lot, parks him in the passenger seat and promises him a "hot date." Andy doesn't look like he could possibly be less in the mood.

The day, Erin tells Andy in the break room that last night wasn't a big deal. Andy tries to play it cool, but gets pissy when she repeats it. Clearly it was a big deal to him. In the sense that his deal obviously didn't get very big.

In the kitchen, Ryan is showing Kelly some old photos of him, taken by her, while Pam watches suspiciously. Even now in charming mode, he's still belittling her, but he THs that he's in love with Kelly and wants to spend the rest of his life with her. At least right now. "Again, that could change."

In the stairwell, Erin is quizzing Dwight about whether his loss of the manager job gave him what she uncertainly calls "penial softiosis." Somehow Dwight manages not to jump up and down as he says he's so glad she trusted him. Of course he is. "No, I have never once experienced anything remote like that," he says firmly. "Never. Okay? Washington Monument. Eiffel Tower." See what I did there? With the "firmly?"

By M. Giant

Pam's at Kelly's desk, listening to her talk about how sweet Ryan is now. "Remember how it felt when he cheated on you?" Pam reminds her. Kelly: "Which time?" Pam THs that he's not going to let Kelly throw her life away on Ryan. "And it has nothing to do with access to my pediatrician. Why you would even ask -- or were going to ask... I feel like that question was coming!"

Dwight is in what is still Nellie's office for his daily briefing. As he tells us in a TH, "Most of it's irrelevant, but a good informer doesn't judge what's worth passing on." Today's briefing includes the news that Andy's gone impotent. "By contrast," Dwight adds, "I went to sleep with an erection so large it was like I was wearing no blanket at all." Nellie looks a bit stunned. "I just wanted to take the man's job, not his manhood," she THs.

Nellie calls everyone into the conference room, but Andy says she can't. Seeing that everyone's going in anyway, he decides to call a meeting of his own and tries to take it over. He starts with a talk about "importance," having misread the word Nellie wrote on the flip chart, which is "impotence." Nellie asks him to sit and THs, "Take a man's job, but leave him his balls. Margaret Thatcher said that. Probably. Don't know. Don't read. Didn't see the movie." Back in the meeting, Nellie insists that this isn't about anyone in particular, but that Dwight mentioned it earlier. Everyone's stunned and after Dwight gets up to prove it wasn't him by tenting his suit pants then and there, Andy announces it was him. Andy THs that it happens to lots of guys. "It's usually not followed by a giant workplace discussion and an interview."

Back in the meeting, Andy calls out Jim and Darryl, the latter of whom points out that he's got other faults, like how Andy is in much better shape than he is. Robert concludes that Andy's the only one with the problem. Gabe points out that it doesn't matter, since Erin doesn't even like sex. "Remember? You said it feel like getting tackled by a skeleton." Nellie polls the rest of the guys, but nobody is ready to admit anything... except Pam, who seems to want Jim to fall on his fictitiously flaccid sword. Jim eventually goes along, but can't sell it. Phyllis admits that she didn't have an orgasm until she was 42 and it lasted until she was 44. Gabe says something about prostate stimulation and Dwight offers to rent Andy his bovine "retro-electro-ejaculator." Robert asks the room for erection stories. Is Toby even in the room? "HR is a joke," he admits to Erin. "I can't do anything about anything." Well, that explains a lot of the last eight seasons. Nellie tells Andy not to stress about it, because that makes it worse. Robert happily THs, "I almost didn't come in today!"

Andy's on the phone to his dad trying to spin the news about his downward promotion when Nellie comes out to ask Erin to start writing the date in format of day, month, year, British-style. "Small, bigger, biggest. Sexual innuendo not intentional," she adds. "Shut up!" Erin snaps, shocking a nation as she stands up yelling and throwing the phone at Nellie, telling her to take her own messages. Robert bursts out of the conference room and Andy stands up and angrily announces their sex life is none of their businesses. Erin adds that Andy's the manager and Andy yells at Erin that he can protect himself. "This is misdirected anger and I'm sorry, I don't mean to lash out at you. There's a lot coming up right now, all at once. Dad, go to hell! I'm taller than you!" He slams the phone down and Nellie tells him to calm down. Red-faced, Andy insists that he was chosen to be the manager and Robert uses a suicide-negotiator voice to invite Andy to sit. Andy just throws his chair at him and calls him an idiot. Erin throws a bunch of shit from Reception and Andy smashes Nellie's picture, then puts his fist through the wall under where it used to hang. The exact same spot as last time. Into the stunned silence, Darryl says, "He does not like that wall."

Later, Andy (with ice on his hand) and Erin sit on the Reception couch, watching Nate clean up the mess, as Erin says they could get sent to anger management together. Andy thinks that would be cool. "I'd like you to meet some of the guys." Robert calls Andy and Erin to join him and Nellie in her office.

Ryan bursts into the busy break room during lunch and accuses Pam of badmouthing him to Kelly. "If you have something bad to say to me, Pam, say it to my face." Which is what people always say when they mean "don't say anything bad about me at all." But Pam reasonably tells him he's not a good person and she doesn't like him. Ryan argues that he's a better match for Kelly, but Oscar, Kevin and Nate prefer Ravi, even though Nate's never met him. The others dare Ryan to read the love people he wrote for Kelly, but he refuses, bluffing that it would destroy them all and throwing it in the trash. Ryan eventually yields the ground, loudly talking about how his and Kelly's love scares everyone. Maybe, but not in the way he means. Kelly's been quiet through all this, but has clearly been eating it up and in a TH, she says Ravi makes her happy, but Ryan puts her through so much drama. "I just have to decide which of those is more important to me."

By M. Giant

Robert tells Andy that they're going to put Andy back on the sales team and promises they'll all laugh about it one day. Andy, after touching Erin's hand: "No." He calmly repeats it, even when Robert tells him he can't. Robert is going to be totally used to people saying now to him at this rate.

Most of the staff comes out of the building at the end of the day to see Ryan on a white horse (whose bridle is being held by the wrangler Ryan hired) in a white Indian costume and turban. He's roundly booed, at least until Jim calms Pam down. Ryan tells Kelly he has some things to say and doesn't want her to interrupt. "You do a lot, so just don't," he reminds her. "I know that I haven't always treated you in the way that you, for whatever reason, feel you deserve to be treated. But I want to marry you, Kelly Kapoor. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. And probably." Pam openly heckles him and even as the horse turns its back to Kelly so Ryan has to awkwardly twist in the saddle, Ryan goes on about how he can't promise her anything, including not to cheat on her, but "Even if the odds are fifty-fifty that we'll break up within the week, I want to roll those dice." Kelly goes up to him and says he means so much to her, "But I love Ravi and I choose him." She hopes they can be friends and Ryan agrees to lean down from the saddle for a hug. Which soon turns into making out. "Well, it's good to see Kelly's matured," Jim says. That was empowering.

By M. Giant

Up in the office, Andy is still saying no to everything Robert and Nellie say. Robert threatens to fire him if he says no one more time and asks if he'd like to say anything else. Andy: "No." At the exit, standing to Erin with the box of his belongings, Andy says he feels in control and alive. Erin offers to take the box from him, but he says "I got it." By which he means, "I got it." Not that we can tell, with the box in front of it, but I think that's part of the reason he wants to hold into the box. Erin hustles him out of there toot-sweet. There's another box that needs dealing with.

In the tag, Pam digs Ryan's poem out of the trash to read it to Jim, who's in a hurry to get going, at least until Pam reads him the first line: "Kapoor and kadesperate, he watches." Jim asks for the second line, which is, "He is a drifter out to sea." Cut to Jim reading the end to Pam: "And when the Indian Ocean calms, one speck of white remains, in waters cold and Kelly green." They're both fighting back tears. Jim tells the camera, "Ryan can never know."

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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