The Truth May Set You Free, But It's a Little Late For Others.

S09E03

Among Andy's latest humiliating projects for Nellie is requiring her to research his family tree, which more than pays off when Nellie reveals to Andy that he is related to Michelle Obama. Andy's on cloud nine, until Oscar spreads the theory that this must mean that there's a history of slavery in the Bernard family. After crashing to earth, Andy takes the mature, reasonable step of tasking Nellie with digging up dirt from the family history of everyone else in the office.

Nellie gets this latest assignment while she and Pam are out for some driving practice in Pam's car, and she reveals to Pam that the Michelle Obama thing was something she totally made up. As if we hadn't guessed. Pam gets into helping Nellie invent some more family connections, including an obscure relationship between Jim and former president Richard Nixon. In part because Pam knows Jim's been lying to her.

Already intimidated by Andy's family, Erin agrees to let Dwight tutor her in a foreign language. Alas, it's Dothraki, which she doesn't know is a made-up language from Game of Thrones until she's already fluent in it. For a moron, she's turned out to be something of a linguistic savant. By the end of the day, Pete (a.k.a. Plop, a.k.a. New Jim) is talking to her in Dothraki, as yet another sign that he gets her more than the increasingly unlikeable Andy does.

Andy holds a meeting to expose everyone else's genealogical dirty laundry, which backfires when he learns from his mom that back in the day, Bernards never owned slaves -- they only transported them. Andy's attempts to enlist Darryl in putting out this ridiculous PR fire so disgust Darryl (who's been trying to get some traction for his productivity ideas, which are actually useful) that he storms out of the office. Jim catches up to him and both offers him a job with his secret new enterprise and rehearses for breaking the news of same to Pam. Who, when the opportunity comes minutes later, appears to take the news pretty well, even if she's privately still not cool with Jim keeping it from her in the first place. She's far from the only one who wonders why he would do that.

A stranger settles in at Jim's desk for the morning pretending to be him, but Dwight's not fooled: "You're not Jim! Jim's not Asian!" The newcomer congratulates Dwight for not noticing race. Dwight tries to trip the new guy up, but he knows all about Jim's current sales pipeline, not to mention his voice mail password. Dwight's freaking out about this security breach when Pam comes up and joins in the charade, even kissing fake Jim on the lips. She THs that Jim is at the dentist, and "Steve is an actor friend of ours." As an attempted coup de grace, Dwight picks up the family portrait of the Halperts (which he was present at the taking of) and sticks it in Steve's face, shouting, "This is Jim!" But of course Steve's been Photoshopped in Jim's place. Dwight sputters comedically.

Erin sees Darryl in the break room reading Getting Things Done. That and her French book makes them study buddies, she figures. Darryl spends the ninety seconds he saved brushing his teeth in the shower explaining it to Erin, then concludes, "Dammit!" In a talking-head shot, Darryl explains that as the new Assistant Regional Manager, he's trying to get more efficient. Which he demonstrates by trying to record another TH as long as they're at it: "Whoa, that person has really gotten him or herself into quite a predicament." Back in the break room, Erin is practicing her French, explaining to Dwight that everyone in Andy's family speaks more than one language. "Usually when I'm there." Dwight suggests she take up Dothraki instead. "Win over any man in my guild." Dwight THs an explanation of the episode-long Game of Thrones reference this is going to comprise, and startles Erin with a boisterous cry of "Excellent!" in the aforementioned language. I'm a GoT virgin, I'm just confessing right now.

Nellie is hovering at Pam's desk, explaining how she needs someone to practice with for her upcoming driving test, but "Dem-Andy" has made it impossible for her to find the time. On cue, Andy hollers at her from his office, "Get your wrinkly old balls in here." At that, Pam is sympathetic enough to agree to practice with Nellie at lunch. As a thrilled Nellie heads into Andy's office, Pam apologizes to Jim for ditching him for lunch today. "I have a thing," Jim breezes. "A thing of soup. That I've been wanting to try." And a thing of secrets, as Pam has clearly not forgotten.

Nellie gives Andy the results of her two assignments: research into how they can produce childproof, paper-cut-preventing paper ("We can't") and a printout of his genealogy from a website. The lede of which is that Andy turns out to be a distant blood relative of Michelle Obama's. Andy's so excited about that he forgets to hate Nellie. "This is a big day for both of us," Andy THs, meaning himself and the FLOTUS. Andy goes out and makes the big announcement. Erin, in a TH: "I was intimidated by Andy's family before, and now I have to see the First Lady at holidays?"

By M. Giant

Andy heads into the break room, where Clark and Pete are having lunch, and they applaud his announcement. Apparently they've been doing this for some time, in response to everything Andy says or does. Which, oddly, is making them think everything he does is awesome.

Darryl is explaining "batching" to Jim, who wants to share it with Andy when the latter comes into Darryl's office. But of course Andy's more interested in his news than any kind of workplace efficiency. "Cool, man," says an underwhelmed and possibly skeptical Darryl. Andy, in a TH: "He called me a cool man."

Nellie's driving Pam's car and eating a salad at the same time, which is making Pam very nervous.

Oscar, Phyllis and Stanley are sitting in the kitchen discussing the implications of Andy's news, and how it would seem to imply slavery somewhere in the Bernard clan's past. "Well, somebody owned somebody," Stanley says, "and I don't think anybody would buy an Andy." I certainly don't buy the Season Nine version of him.

Dwight is helping Erin conjugate the Dothraki verb forms for "throat-ripping." Seems pretty straightforward. Not to mention handy for dinner at the Bernards', I would imagine.

In the Halpert-mobile, Nellie tells Pam that not only is Andy not related to Michelle Obama, "I barely know how to turn on my computer." Pam THs that Nellie's not only fearless but "Might me maybe almost sort of fun." And behind her, Nellie mimes head-clubbing the mechanic who's changing the tire. Which cracks Pam up and leaves us wondering what Nellie did to necessitate the changing of Pam's tire.

Back at the office, Andy walks into a very somber bullpen. "I'm related to the First Lady, get over it," he orders. He asks everyone to get back to work, and then, unwisely under the circumstances, mimes being a slave driver. Horrified, Oscar explains the slavery theory he's apparently shared with everyone in the office, and Andy asks, "Does anyone else think it's possible that I come from slave-owners?" Almost half the hands in the room go up, but only because most people only raise one. Darryl THs, "Whoa. That person has really gotten him or herself into quite a predicament." Okay, heh.

Dwight is leading Erin through the bullpen pointing out different objects things so she can practice her Dothraki nouns. "Does anyone here have fermented mare's milk?" Dwight asks the room at large. Creed shakes his head, but not before checking his drawers to make sure. On to the annex, where Erin responds to Pete's greeting with a hostile-sounding torrent of glottals, fricatives and plosives. Pete: "Okay, sorry."

Back in Pam's car, she's trying to have a conversation with Nellie while also pointing out little cues like turn signals and "red light, red light, red, red, red!" She shows Nellie a cell phone picture of a mural she did for Angela's nursery. "Angela insisted that all the animals be fully clothed," Pam explains.Andy whispers a request to Erin to remind people about their status reports, since he's trying to "downplay the whole bossy-boss thing." "Because of your slaves," Erin says understandingly. She tries to console Andy that the Dothraki word for "slavemaster" is a term of respect. She also asks if he's impressed. "That you're learning a made-up language from HBO's Game of Thrones?" he drones. In other words, he clearly isn't. "I have a lot going on today, but this was a great nerd-out," he tells her on his way back to his own office. After he leaves, Erin protests to Dwight that he didn't tell her it was a made-up language. "People laughed at Klingon at first, and now you can major in it," Dwight points out reasonably. I don't think that means anyone's stopped laughing at people who do.

Andy goes into the break room, where Phyllis, Creed, Kevin and Meredith tweak him a little for being a slave driver. Kevin even changed Andy's ringtone to "Dixie" somehow.

Nellie gets a text in the car, and Pam commandeers her phone to read it to her so she doesn't text and drive. According to the message, Andy has a new special project for her, telling Nellie to dig up dirt on everyone else's family trees. "Looks like it's pretendy time again," Nellie sighs. "Write back, 'looking for dirt.'" Pam wants to help, and suggests pretending someone's related to Tonya Harding. Wounded, Nellie says she is, but of course she's just practicing. For Jim, Pam suggests saying he's related to Richard Nixon. Nellie compares her own ex to Tricky Dick: "All of the lying, none of the sexual charisma." That doesn't seem to strike Pam as funny at all, and she confesses that she thinks Jim isn't telling her something. With her powers of projection, Nellie concludes that it's an affair, which Pam doesn't believe. "You're a cocky little thing, aren't you, Pam?" Nellie says.

By M. Giant

Andy goes into the break room, where Phyllis, Creed, Kevin and Meredith tweak him a little for being a slave driver. Kevin even changed Andy's ringtone to "Dixie" somehow.

Back at the office, Andy has assembled everyone else to read Nellie's made-up genealogies for everyone off his phone. According to which Phyllis is related to Cholera Patient Zero in the U.S, Kevin's related to John Wayne Gacy and John Wayne Bobbitt, and Jim's related to Nixon. Jim does a TH with Nixon's presidential portrait that everyone has lying around, saying Pam always says he looks like Nixon, but he doesn't see it. "Oh, no," Jim realizes. Back in the meeting, Dwight tries to preemptively downplay his grandfather being a proto-Nazi. "I was going to say tax evader," Andy says, and Dwight plays it like he was just kidding. Finally, Meredith is supposedly related to Lizzie Borden. Andy says his point is that the actions of their ancestors aren't anyone's fault, so they don't have to talk about it.

Oscar points out that Andy's the only one still benefiting. "Your family's rich. I have to believe that a big part of the Bernard fortune was earned on the backs of slaves." Andy makes some Romney-like refusals to apologize for his family's success, a tirade interrupted by his phone ringing with "Dixie" again. This time it's his mom, and in front of everyone, Andy asks her if there were ever any southern plantations in the Bernard family. That's a no. As for the question, "Did any Bernards ever make money in an unsavory way," that's clearly a longer answer. "No, I don't want to know that,' Andy says shakily after a while. And then he hangs up and says there were never any Bernard slave owners. "We merely transported them. Which, at worst, makes us amoral middlemen." Oops. Clark starts to applaud that, but Pete stops him. I have to admit, the pre-break callbacks are really working well tonight.

Jim catches up to Darryl in the warehouse, asking if he's okay. Darryl says he's done and needs to get out of here. "It's not just today. It's every day. Seems like the better title I have, the stupider my job gets." Jim says there's always something better. "Hypothetically. If I said that there was another job. That you and I could both have... something cool, like sports marketing." Jim has Darryl's attention, even though I still don't know what "sports marketing" means. Jim asks, but what if it was in Philly? Darryl loves Philly, and Jim jumps on his agreement, like he's practicing this conversation with Pam. Which of course he is. Darryl asks if this is for real, and Jim assures him it's happening, but they need to keep it between the two of them for now. "And Pam's into it?" Darryl says, and is crestfallen when Jim gets wishy-washy about that. "It's not real until your wife is on board," Darryl says. I remember when Jim wouldn't have needed to be told that.

Nellie comes into the warehouse with Pam, pointing out a big ugly gray wall and saying it needs a mural. Pam's thrilled about the assignment. Jim and Darryl come up to them, Jim asking to talk to Pam, but Nellie protectively orders Jim to say anything he has to Pam to her. "She never loved you," she snaps. Pam tries to defuse things, but Nellie assures Pam they'll find her someone better and rich. "And Filipino," she THs. "But we'll break that to her later."

Cut to Nellie and Darryl standing outside Val's office, where Jim is apparently breaking the news to a rather grumpy-looking Pam. We can't hear what the Halperts are saying to each other, but Nellie and Darryl both have their own idea of what's going on in there, even if Nellie's is wrong. Nellie calls Jim a snake, and Darryl defensively says, "Hey, he deserves this. And he said I could get in on it too." Nellie is horrified, and not much less so when they watch Jim and Pam embrace. Maybe because she's wondering how she ended up on Friends.

Jim does a TH in the euphoria of relief. "I don't know what I was so worried about. I have the best wife in the world!" Pam's TH of her own: "I still can't believe he didn't tell me." Yeah, neither can we.

Out in the parking lot at the end of the day, Pam picks bits of hedge out of her grille, trying to explain to Stanley as he passes. "Do not care," he says. As Erin and Andy get into his car, Pete walks by and he and Erin exchange goodbyes in Dothraki, which must be a pretty easy language to learn. "I like that guy," Andy grins. "We should hook him up with Meredith." Erin pleasantly agrees, as though Andy's not the one who deserves Meredith lately.

By M. Giant

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.