Andy Scores a Homer

S08E22

Robert California went and threw himself a post-divorce bender last night, and in his alcoholic blackout he did two things that set the stage for this episode. One of them was leaving a voice mail on Nellie's phone, and the other was closing the Binghamton branch. With all of Binghamton's clients up for grabs, Jim and Dwight are racing to snatch them up. Until Harry, an angry salesman from the closed branch, shows up to voice his objections. He -- and Dwight and Jim -- want a decision from Robert on who gets the clients who are up in the air. In particular, there's one huge direct-mail client that all three of them want. Of course, we all know how Robert is about making decisions like that. So does Andy, who's still hanging around the office for some reason, and after overhearing part of the discussion, he sees an opportunity to make a big move.

As for the voice mail, Robert knows from Nellie's response that he said something inappropriate, but can't remember what it was. So he assigns Pam the unsavory task of finding out. Her attempts to chat up Nellie are thwarted by Angela (sent in by Robert as Pam's backup) and Gabe (being Gabe), so she ends up stealing Nellie's cell phone instead. But after hearing a few of Nellie's other private and deeply depressing voice mails, Pam deletes the lot and returns the phone to Nellie. Who is not only none the wiser, but is deeply moved to think she has a friend in Pam. The only thing that could be sadder is if that were true.

Jim, Dwight and Harry race to the big client's office, but Andy gets there first and secures the business. While the three flummoxed sales guys lick their wounds and consider their move, Andy offers Robert a deal: hire him back and regain the big client, or watch Andy find another buyer. Robert refuses to be blackmailed -- and is pretty darn rude about it -- but Andy wasn't bluffing. In fact, he was calling from outside the home of former CEO David Wallace, who we know from last week has twenty million bucks lying around. And who turns out to be rather interested in Andy's proposal.

Gabe talks to Jim in the kitchen about his lack of fat and wondering how much protein powder to mix in with his water. Dwight comes in and mocks him for even needing water. "Why don't you just take estrogen?" he snots before choking down a dry mouthful right out of the container. So Jim ends up privy to an argument about their respective methods, which he short-circuits by suggesting the two of them have a thigh-curl contest to prove who's stronger. So down in the gym, everyone watches while Dwight and Gabe competitively hump the machines. Jim takes it to the level by giving them pillows and phone handsets and then snaps a picture that he later turns into a photo of a sleepover party. Robert comes in and orders everyone into the conference room, but Dwight and Gabe can barely make it in there after a quad workout that's left them nearly quadriplegic. Hey, it's better than Jim's "Hypno-thighs" pun.

Andy walks in to return Erin's socks and also to announce that he's going to cook everyone a feast right there in the office. Embarrassed, Erin explains the new rule about how all visitors need to sign in and wear a visitor's badge. Andy seems a little offended at being singled out in a TH: "Is it because I'm not an employee any more? Because that's what it feels like."

Andy notices that things are pretty busy in the bullpen and learns that with the recent closing of the Binghamton branch, there are a lot of clients up for grabs. And absolutely nobody reading this is going to get this, but I think that with the closing of Binghamton, The Office just came up with a great idea for the second season of Alphas. Andy tries to foment dissatisfaction with Robert's leadership, but Jim and Dwight aren't interested -- plus Stanley and Phyllis point out that the Syracuse branch isn't going to be happy about New York clients coming to Scranton. Robert comes in shushing everyone, as if to support the older salespeople's call for discretion -- then takes a deep breath and vomits epically into one of Jim's desk drawers. He explains about his "one-man Saturnalia" celebrating the finalization of his divorce last night, giving some details that Ryan nods knowingly at. Curiously, Robert appears to be the last to know that Binghamton's been closed. Or, at least, the last to know since having done it himself last night. "In vino veritas, as they say," he THs. "I'm not going to start doubting my drunken self now."

In the kitchen, Nellie approaches Robert to give him an answer to his voice mail to her from last night: "Yes, yes, yes, yes and never." After Nellie leaves the room, Robert assigns a very reluctant Pam the task of finding out what he said on Nellie's voice mail. That's the downside of making yourself office manager: she doesn't have a damn thing else to do and they both know it.

By M. Giant

At reception, Andy is cooking on a camp stove when a guy comes in demanding Jim Halpert and Dwight Schrute. "Jim and Dwight, what are your last names?" Erin asks. Turns out the visitor is Harry, a salesman from the Syracuse branch and as predicted by Phyllis and Stanley, he's in quite a mood. Which is not improved by Andy igniting his cherries jubilee behind him. Harry wants to talk to Jim, Dwight and one Lloyd Gross. Who, as Jim and Dwight explain in a joint TH, is a fake salesman they made up to get around the commission cap. "It sounds sketchy, but it helps us get more money," Jim explains reasonably, holding up a composite sketch from Pam that looks like the mutant love-hate child of the entire Scranton sales staff. Pressed to produce a Lloyd Gross, Dwight points out Toby, who soon finds himself facing off against Harry with Jim and Dwight in the conference room over Scranton salespeople crossing state lines. Toby is playing Lloyd like a tough character, but when Harry nearly lunges across the table at him, he fakes getting a text from his nonexistent wife and flees the room. Jim suggests going to the CEO to resolve this, like Robert's ever resolved a conflict between employees even when not scandalously hung over.

Robert enters the kitchen to find Andy there and asks how they'll have to get rid of him. "Hire you back and send Erin back to Florida?" Andy catches the snap like it's Ebola and says he'll leave as soon as he's got the dishes clean. Just then Harry comes in, demanding to know why Robert closed the Binghamton branch without a transition plan. Andy tries to escape the room, but Harry's cool with him staying, still thinking he's just the caterer. Robert tries to BS Harry about high-level decisions until Dwight comes in. He and Harry both want the account for Prestige Direct Marketing -- a huge junk-mail producer -- but Robert refuses to make a decision right now. "As Solomon once said," he begins, as Andy hurries out of the room and straight to the elevator. Talking about Prestige, Andy says, "They can give their business to the first person to walk in the door. Could be any idiot. Any idiot at all." And it looks like Andy's going to make it the idiot in the rearview mirror of his Prius.

Harry leaves the office to go get some fresh air, grabbing his coat on the way out. The moment he's gone, Dwight suggests to Jim how "dastardly" it would be if the two of them snuck out and got to the client first. After a long moment, Jim runs to Nellie's window and looks out to confirm that Harry is doing just that.

While driving down the street, Jim catches up to Harry's car at a traffic light and with Dwight telling him to slash Harry's tires or something, Jim slows him down by... opening Harry's passenger-side door. Then Dwight tells Jim to "Hit the nozz," like in The Fast and the Furious. After making sure that's what Dwight really, really wants, Jim counts down and activates -- the windshield wipers.

Andy walks into the front office at Prestige, asking to see the CEO. Just like that. But even without an appointment, the receptionist says she can squeeze him in, much to his surprise. In fact, the little bald guy inside sticks his head out the giant door and invites Andy into his office himself. Clearly junk-mail magnates don't get many visitors.

In the break room, Pam is having a schmooze with Nellie and just about to get the goods from her, when Angela comes in acting all chatty and friendly. She explains in a TH, "Robert sent me to take over if Pam fails. If?" Then she gives an actual laugh. Back in the break room, Angela tells Pam and Nellie she needs girl talk. Overhearing through the window, Gabe's in. "Sometimes I wonder if I have ovaries in my scrotum because I am great at girl talk," he THs. Which he demonstrates by chattering at them about his favorite Korean soap opera. Nellie wonders if she needs to have an Asian fetish to enjoy that. "It'll be upsetting if you don't," Gabe chuckles condescendingly. No, this is already upsetting.

Andy is telling the direct mail CEO -- played by Dan Castellaneta not doing Homer Simpson's voice -- that he can save him 25% on paper costs as a "rogue" paper salesman. To show his commitment to service, he hands over not only his personal phone number, but a key to his house and his wi-fi password (eatpraylove, in case you're ever driving through Scranton and need to sign into a network that I'm assuming is called N@rd_d0G).

Dwight and Jim beat Harry to the direct mail HQ and Dwight ties the door handles shut with his belt before diving, loose-trousered, into the elevator. While waiting for the doors to close, Jim gives him a long, mocking look -- long enough for Harry to join them in the elevator. In the thick silence, Dwight reaches over and hits a button for a lower floor, then pushes Jim out to take the stairs when the doors open. While Jim dashes off in search of them, Dwight starts jumping up and down in the elevator, hoping to activate the "seismic fail-safe" to get them stuck between floors. But all that does is make his pants fall down. The doors open on the floor and he and Harry join Jim in the footrace to the CEO's office, Dwight nearly pantsless. All three of them rush into reception, Dwight somehow in the lead. The CEO, who seems to barely need a door at all, comes out and says he's already decided to go with "Big Red Paper Company." All three of them look confused, but Andy is victoriously punching the air as he drives away. Big day for the Cornell man, don't you know.

At a coffee stand outside the building, Jim offers to buy for all three of them, but Dwight slaps the money out of his hand. Harry cannily asks how long the two of them have been dating. "Jim couldn't land me in a thousand years," Dwight sneers. "But you're saying there's a chance?" Jim asks him, getting the first smile we've seen from Harry.

Pam joins Robert in the conference room, having lifted Nellie's phone. Robert's both impressed and troubled that her "first instinct is thievery. "What do you want from me?" Pam demands. Nellie really needs a password on her voice mail, because Robert easily plays them back on speaker. The messages include a chin-up message from her mum, a collection call from MasterCard, a brother who wonders if her boss is still hitting on her and a rejection voicemail from an adoption agency before Pam snatches the phone back and accidentally-on-purpose deletes all the messages. Robert yells at her for having "bungled" this, but otherwise lets her out of the room scot-free. Pam looks like she's thinks she's done a good day's work.

In Nellie's office, Pam enables Nellie's compulsive shopping a bit before returning her cell phone, which Pam claims Nellie dropped. Pam acts understanding, what with everything going on with Robert and that gets Nellie started about how "Robert is a filthy beast." She says all he talks about is sex and Pam wittily points out that Robert sometimes also talks about flesh and bacchanals. Nellie tells Pam she can't even say what Robert said on her voice mail last night. With her original goal in reach, Pam instead tells Nellie, "Just put it out of your mind." Nellie does and offers to send Pam a pair of the shoes she was looking at for herself. Then she THs, "Things are looking up. I might be a mother soon, I have MasterCard right where I want them and I have a new friend. A friend. At work." Oh my God, that is so sad. But I wonder who her new friend is?

Erin tells Robert he has a call from "Salvation." Robert picks up the conference room phone and hears Andy telling him, "You once put me on a list of the losers in the office. Well, this loser just got your biggest client to give him all their business. So hire me back, that business is yours. Don't and I will find another buyer." Robert accuses Andy of blackmailing him. "It's just business," Andy says coolly. Robert darkly chuckles, "I will not be blackmailed by some ineffectual, privileged, effete, soft-penis debutante. You want to start a street fight with me, bring it on. But you're going to be surprised how ugly it gets. You don't even know my real name. I'm the fucking Lizard King." Click. And all of that without even raising his voice. In his car, Andy goes, "Whoa," clearly not prepared for that onslaught. But then he breezes, "Well, I gave him a chance." And then he gets out of his car and walks right up and rings the doorbell of none other than David Wallace -- to try to sell him Dunder Mifflin itself. Wallace says it's worth half what it was three years ago and closes the door. But with himself outside with Andy, so he's clearly interested. Andy agrees with Wallace's assessment and points out that Wallace knows that with the right management, DM could soon be worth twice what he would pay for it today. Wallace gives Andy a long look and invites him in. Even though I don't believe a second of any of this, I'm looking forward to seeing it play out. Especially since there's no way it can drag on as long as the Michael Scott Paper Company arc from a few years ago.

By M. Giant

In the tag, Harry asks Jim what he'd do if he weren't selling paper. Jim shares his "dream" about growing beets for competition. "Why have we never talked about this before?" Dwight wonders in amazement before realizing Jim's having him on. "You don't even care about Nationals," he accuses. Jim admits that he's always wanted to own a bike shop, because we know what a gearhead he is from that time he rode his bike into the Stamford office. Harry says he'd like to sell just one big thing, like a plane and be done. And then he points out that since Robert's going to run the company into the ground, "We won't be doing this in six months." As he leaves, Jim and Dwight exchange looks with each other and the camera. That wouldn't be much of an ending, if this weren't the penultimate episode of the season -- and possibly the series. Seriously, have you heard anything? I haven't heard anything.

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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