The Long Goodbye

S09E01

Things have changed over the summer. Ryan and Kelly have moved to Ohio (though not together and we all know they've just gone off to The Mindy Project), there are two new young guys in the office and Andy's returned from a month-long Outward Bound retreat having turned into a dick. We learn that Jim got an offer from an old college buddy to help launch some kind of sports-marketing startup that was originally Jim's idea, but it's in Philadelphia so he passed it up for the good of the family. Angela's trying to adopt out one of her cats, Comstock, because he's the only one her baby's allergic to. Oscar ends up taking the cat, which leads to us finding out that he's having an affair with Angela's husband, although nobody else does as of yet.

But it's mostly about the two new guys, Pete (Jake Lacy) and Clark (Clark Duke), who are dubbed the new Jim and Dwight. After having found out that Angela's baby isn't his, Dwight spends about ten seconds trying to latch onto "Dwight, Jr." as a father figure before ending up feeling threatened by him, both for Clark's sales ambitions and his ability to walk the slack line during Andy's Outward Bound demonstration in the parking lot. Dwight attempts to prove his superior manhood by riding a bicycle across a tightrope from the building's roof to a telephone pole and ends up dangling three stories over the heads of his horrified coworkers instead.

Jim's reaction to the New Jim is more nuanced, though hardly less suicidal. He dismisses the idea of any resemblance between the two of them, until he overhears Pete talking about his grand ambitions that he's taken no steps toward realizing. Sound familiar? Suddenly terrified of living out the rest of his purposeless years here at Dunder Mifflin, Jim decides to jump on board the startup after all, which is probably great. But he does it behind Pam's back, which is definitely not.

And then there's Andy, who has decided to make a career out of exacting his revenge on Nellie after all and crapping on anyone who gets in his way (primarily Toby). Listen show, I know we all missed Steve Carell last season, but abruptly turning Andy into Season 2 Michael is not the solution.

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Erin is very excited that Andy's returning from a month-long Outward Bound retreat today. It was David Wallace's idea to help make Andy more decisive, and Erin proudly says that both Andy and Wallace's son "grew up big time."

Dwight updates us on his own summer; he invented a blue "power drink" made of beet runoff, but "got some disappointing medical news." We flash back to a short time after last season's finale ended, when the doctor at the DNA lab told Dwight and Angela that he wasn't the father of Angela's baby, whereupon Dwight immediately vomited neon blue all over Angela. Yes, this is what it's come to: puke jokes

Kevin apparently spent his summer trying to patch up the shell of a turtle he ran over in the parking lot, unaware that he'd killed it outright on impact. Jim brags about the mural Pam painted in the kids' room, and Pam raises that by talking about a sports marketing startup Jim's friend is launching, using an idea Jim came up with in college. Except they couldn't move to Philly for whatever reason, so Jim's basically reduced to hoping for a new car out of the deal. Toby reports that Kelly's fiancé got a job at Miami University. We see Kelly happily throwing her no-longer-wanted wanted winter coats and blankets at everyone in flashback, while Toby explains that this is Miami University in Ohio, about three seconds of latitude south of Scranton. Toby adds that Ryan moved to Ohio shortly thereafter. Ryan inflicts on is a spiel about the Silicon Valley, even though he's apparently living at a bus shelter. Have fun on The Mindy Project, you two. Or at least more fun than you'd have here.

Jim and Pam wrap up their talking-head shot, and we hear them talking to someone behind the camera, who explains to them that this isn't so much about the paper company any more, but "following you guys to see how you turn out." Pretty much the only thing left to look forward to is finding out what is up with these goddamn documentarians already, but for now we just hear a voice. Not one I recognize, either, and I'm usually pretty good at that. Pam scoffs that it doesn't look like anything else interesting is going to happen to her and Jim for some time. Jim follows her out, looking like he's just now getting that memo, and it came wrapped around a brick that hit him in the head.

Erin's still staring out the window like a faithful dog, looking forward to Andy's return. Are they seriously not going to see each other until he comes into work? Aren't they still dating?

By M. Giant

There are two new cast members this year, a couple of guys in their twenties who now share the annex with Toby. Stanley says they're like the new Jim and Dwight, which, since one of them is played by Clark Duke and the other is handsome in the most unthreatening possible way, doesn't seem so far off. Except to Jim and Dwight, of course. "Hey, New Jim, come sit on my face," Meredith invites one of them, who politely declines corrects that his name is actually Pete. Jim protests in a TH that the only thing he has in common with Pete is that neither of them wants to sit on Meredith's face, which makes everyone New Jim.

Andy returns and gets a hug from Erin before launching into a ramble alluding to his three-day solo on the mountain changing him. He's also wearing a plaid shirt and knit tie, like the dress code has been changed to business lumberjack. Nellie invites him to tell them all about it, and he asks, "What are you still doing here?" "Wonderful, thanks," she smiles awkwardly. Andy says he dreamed that she died, and says he wants to see her in his office later. Spotting the new guys, Andy dubs them "Plop" and "Fart," for obvious reasons, until he learns about the Dwight, Jr. thing. He makes Clark and Pete stand together and says they look like father and son. Dwight, Sr. is only too cool with this. "Maybe someday they'll hire someone who looks like a younger version of him," he THs. "And then I'll have a grandson.

Later, Angela is telling Kevin and Oscar how she needs to give up her denim-pants-wearing cat Comstock, playing them a video of him and everything set to "Eternal Flame." Of course her actual target is Oscar, after Kevin's debacle with the turtle, but Oscar says he's a dog person. Angela suggests he pray himself into becoming a cat person. "Those guys always turn back, Angela," Oscar warns.

Andy's in his office gushing about Outward Bound to Wallace on the speakerphone, until he abruptly hangs up when Toby comes in. Andy wants Nellie gone, but Toby's not going to make that easy. "Now I know why Michael hated you so much," Andy tells him. And I'm starting to remember hating Michael. This is not a good direction.

Dwight creepily tries to act fatherly to Dwight, Jr. in the break room, completely weirding him out. When he asks about farming, Dwight, Jr. thinks he's talking some kind of gay code, but assures Dwight that he's more into the ladies. Then Dwight, Jr. offers to make some of Dwight's sales calls, but Dwight gets angrily protective of his sales leads. In a TH, Dwight says he's not familiar with the word paranoid. "And I really don't have time to learn new words right now, okay? A pudgy 22-year-old is trying to take my job!"

Dwight returns to his desk to warn Jim that the new guys are after their jobs. Jim just winds Dwight up even further by claiming that the new guys called a sales meeting, and Clark gave a karate demonstration at the end. "Did you know there was a belt above black? It's a color you would never expect."

Angela makes an announcement that she'll be holding interviews for someone to adopt Comstock, like it's such a get. "You're in this, but you need to wow me," she warns Pam.

In Andy's office, he informs Nellie that their working relationship is "going to be terrible." "Not necessarily," Nellie says naively, so Andy clarifies that he's going to make sure of it. "I don't like to throw around the B-word, but I'm gonna be a huge bitch to you."

Andy has everyone outside for a "slack-line" demonstration, clearly designed to humiliate Nellie and Toby. For those not familiar with the skill, it's basically tightrope walking, but with a looser strap instead of a wire, a few feet off the ground. While watching Andy's Outward Bound counselors "Feather" and "Rafe" perform, Jim tries to find common ground with Pete, who likes none of the same sports Jim likes. "I have nothing in common with Plop," Jim THs conclusively, somehow making me laugh against all odds.

Andy calls Nellie up onto the slack line, high heels and all, supporting her up there until he flings her face-first onto the pad. Darryl declines to participate, saying, "Seems like the kind of thing white people with dreadlocks do." Driving by Lake Calhoun near my house, I can absolutely confirm that.

Dwight, Jr. agrees to take a crack at it, and nails it on the first try. "My doctor says I have gigantic inner ears," he THs by way of explaining his otherworldly balance. Dwight boos him, and falls off quickly when he tries to go himself. "Who ordered the hot apple fail?" Andy tools. That's just the beginning of a montage of spectacular falls courtesy of Dwight. At the end of which, Andy declares it official: "Old Dwight is lame and new Dwight is cool." "That's not true!" Dwight protests through a mouthful of blood. Toby finally calls a halt to this as Dwight claims he'd be embarrassed to be good at this and storms off. I guess this season might turn out interesting after all, if only to find out what happens when Toby kind of does his job sometimes.

Later, in the warehouse, Dwight is mocking the concept of a slack line while dismantling a bicycle and a folding table, to be recombined into some misbegotten hybrid of the two.

In the kitchen, Pam gets a text from Dwight, apparently summoning her to the stairwell where the ladder to the roof is. There she finds a cable attached to one of the rungs, stretched tight as a guitar string (which she plucks in demonstration), and Dwight on the roof wearing a helmet. She emerges onto the roof to find him with some kind of jury-rigged bicycle-on-a-tightrope setup.

Angela is interviewing Pete, even though he doesn't want the damn cat anyway. Jim listens in on Pete's ambitions, which Pete has been putting off in favor of fitting in around the office. Jim looks all superior and THs, "If he doesn't watch himself, he's going to be here for years. Doing nothing." And then the penny drops. "Wow, maybe Pete is the new Jim." Well, yeah, we got that.

Dwight explains to Pam what he wants from her: to sit on the swing duct-taped beneath his bicycle while he pedals across the tightrope to the telephone pole on the corner. Pam is not having it, even with this week's theme of how boring her and Jim's lives are. She suggests Phyllis instead. "The moment she steps off this bar I'd be launched into space!" Dwight protests. "God, you're so insensitive!"

Overhearing Angela tell Pete that the baby is allergic to Comstock, and that her husband is so upset about it he cried for the first time since their wedding night, Oscar at last agrees to take the cat. Angela's happy, except for how Robert won't get to say goodbye because he'll be at a business dinner. Cut to Oscar on his cell phone in the stairwell, saying, "Tonight when you come over for dinner, you can play with your old buddy Comstock." And then he ducks out of sight when he sees Pam coming down the ladder from the roof. So that's actually happening? Clearly Angela's husband is an idiot, shitting where his wife eats.

At 5:01, everyone's heading out for the day. Jim sends Pam on ahead so he can "make a call." Up on the roof, Dwight finishes duct-taping a printer under his wire-bike to serve as a counterweight, looks over the edge, and takes a deep breath. Down at his desk, Jim takes a deep breath of his own and dials, then hangs up quickly. He gets up to leave, but goes back to the phone again, like me when I used to work up the nerve to call this girl in high school. Yeah, it was our 21st anniversary last week, thanks very much.

Using a megaphone, Dwight calls down to the employees crossing the parking lot and brags, "This is what a real salesman looks like!" Inside the office, Jim is telling someone he's in. I guess it's the startup in Philly, although I don't know why he's hiding it from Pam. Or how long he plans to do so. Dwight rides out onto his tightrope and almost immediately flips the bike so it's upside down and he's left dangling from the handlebars, to the horror of everyone below. At least the duct tape is holding up, though.

By M. Giant

"In the parking lot today, there was a circus," Creed VOs as the fire department rescues Dwight. "The copier did tricks on the high wire, a lady tried to give away a baby that looked like a cat. There was a Dwight impersonator and a Jim impersonator, a strong man crushed a turtle. I laughed and I cried. Not bad for a day in the life of a dog-food company." So, I understand this is the last season, but is the network is committed to the whole season?

In the tag, Nellie's desk appears to have been surrounded by the trash and recycling bins, which means she's constantly getting hit by both as people throw their refuse from their desks. In a TH, she's trying to put a good face on it, claiming that she just happens to be sitting where the bins are, even as a can hits the window behind her. Andy THs about his two passions: "Recycling, and revenge." "Fluke," Nellie says as another can hits behind her. And then, as is customary, the teaser of Parks and Recreation makes me laugh harder than I did the whole last half hour.

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.