Jim's eager to find a way to make it up to Pam for how cool she was about his new second job, and when it develops that the office may have dangerous EMF hotspots, he might have just found a way. Repairing the wiring will not only be costly but require shutting down the office for a week, neither of which landlord Dwight is willing to do. At least not until Jim uses some masking tape and a barely-popped bag of microwave popcorn to convince Dwight that his testicles are getting nuked. Jim's plan was to take Pam and the kids for a family getaway with a stop at a rural pie stand during the enforced week off, but it backfires when Dwight rents a work bus instead. That way everyone can still do their jobs, but in the parking lot, under close quarters and extreme general discomfort. Jim realizes the only way to save the situation is to make Dwight drive them all to the pie stand. Which he does, unhappily. So unhappily, in fact, that Pam starts to worry about Dwight.
Nellie is filling out paperwork so she can adopt, but a major obstacle is that her employer has to provide a reference, and Andy hates her. Erin, however, is willing to help Nellie out by bringing to bear her own experience in the foster care system. And when Andy shoots Nellie down again, Erin takes it rather personally.
Just miles from the pie stand and minutes before it closes, Dwight snaps and goes to sulk on the bus's roof. Pam dispatches Jim to talk him down, which is when Dwight reveals to Jim what's really bothering him: he's sterile. Or at least he thinks he is, thanks to Angela's baby not being his and Jim's prank. Whether he actually is or not will have to be determined at a later date, after he gives in and completes the breakneck drive to the pie stand. Where Andy signs Nellie's letter after all, Kevin happily gets Oscar to pie him, and Jim and Pam appear to be all better. Even though there's still the question of when they're all going to get home now that it's already five o'clock.
Andy shows the employees the "Fail" reel he put together of the office's softball season, consisting of nothing but just normal footage with some mocking editing courtesy of Andy. Which makes it a meta-fail, I guess. But it's Jim to the rescue, showing an actual fail in which Andy attempted to pick up the Gatorade cooler and dumped it all over himself. Now that's a fail.
After truncated credits, Dwight, Erin, and Toby are busy in the bullpen with a scanner and red masking tape, which they're using to mark X's on the walls. Toby explains that there's an EMF hotspot, which Oscar elaborates is from a concentration of poorly insulated wires. Andy comes in, thinks the mark on the wall indicates a concealed beehive, and is mean to Toby old-school Michael-style. Stanley says he's not working in a microwave oven, and Dwight, who still owns the building and is theoretically responsible for its maintenance, mocking-heads the very idea of insulation. "It's a wire, I'm not buying it a fur coat."
Jim THs that Pam was so cool about his new job that he wants to do something great for her, like beat down some bikers in a bar. How about you just stop being an idiot?
Nellie reluctantly goes into Andy's office. He is as rude to her as expected, giving her a minute and purposely talking through most of it, but she still manages to communicate that as her employer, she needs him to sign a reference letter -- which she offers to write herself -- so she can adopt a baby. Andy's a dick about it and then sends her away, but in a TH he reasonably promises to read the letter. "And if she tells the truth about how evil and unfit to be a mother she is, then yeah, I'll sign that." Oh my God, Andy, you won. Get over it.
Dwight's been Googling the health risks supposedly associated with EMF radiation, and assuring everyone that the "mainstream studies are inconclusive." Plus in order to fix it, he'd have to tear out the walls and shut the place down for a week. "Week off, that'd be great," Pam mumbles to Jim. That's all he needs to hear. We see him with some microwave popcorn in the kitchen, futzing with it in the microwave but not actually popping it as Darryl and Clark come in bickering about whether Clark will teach Darryl PowerPoint. He explains to them that he's getting his wife a week off of work, and hurries out with the still-flat popcorn pouch.
Out in the bullpen, Jim loudly starts a new round of complaints about the potential health problems. Dwight remains unmoved. "Sorry, Lucky Jimbo," he THs. "I can live very happily in a magnetic field. Most of my childhood heroes got their powers that way." Jim pretends that he's finding info online that EMF can cause infertility. Dwight scoffs, but surreptitiously covers his groin with his mouse pad (and I briefly consider whether it's worth going back to the '90s to make a joke about the balls that used to be inside computer mice. Conclusion: no). Then Jim asks Dwight to pass him his popcorn, which he supposedly "forgot" under Dwight's desk. Dwight picks it up, going from annoyed to curious when he realizes that a few of the kernels are already popped -- and he's directly under a red X on the ceiling. "Andy!" Dwight cries, rushing into his office. Jim triumphantly mimes a basketball three-pointer, and then we cut to him promising Pam a week on the lake and a dozen pies on the way, stopping at "Laverne's Pies Tires Fixed Also." So now we can picture what the pie stand's sign looks like. Andy and Dwight come out and announce that the office will indeed be closed for a week. Dwight adds that this contract stipulates he provide a temporary workspace. "It will arrive in one hour." Wait, what?
Out in the parking lot, everyone watches as a bus pulls in. Dwight VOs a sales pitch as we see a montage of the employees all trying to do their jobs while crammed inside. It's a far cry from a week at the lake.
The trials continue after the ads, with conflicting phone calls, overly powerful fan vents, and general overcrowding. Nobody seems to mind the camera people adding to the discomfort, even though they probably take up more room and move around more than anyone. While delivering the mail, Erin sees Nellie working on her adoption paperwork, which she remembers well, even though she herself was never actually adopted. "Not lovable, maybe," she speculates as breezily as she can manage. But she agrees to help Nellie, as long as they don't mention it to Andy. Who, as Nellie recognizes, "Hates me, thinks I'm a monster, should go back to Loch Ness."
Stanley threatens to "hammerspank" Clark for needing to get up all the time. After defusing the conflict, Jim apologizes to Pam, but she says it's cool, just before Angela opens an overhead bin above her, spilling paper and coffee on Pam. Jim helplessly follows his wife to the exit, but pauses to call Dwight on the smirk he's wearing. Unrepentantly, Dwight says, "You forced me to spend money on needless repairs and now you're locked in a prison bus and your woman drips with beverage." Jim asks Dwight to help him out already by taking them somewhere, but Dwight's not about to spend more money on gas. So Jim calls to Andy -- in his nest at the back of the bus where the political candidate normally sits -- to suggest they might all be more productive if the bus were en route to, say, a pie stand. Andy yields to the chants for pie, saying, "The fat people have spoken!" Dwight has no choice but to get behind the wheel and drive them out of there. Oops, they left behind Clark and Darryl, who sit at the table outside the building entrance and unconvincingly drone, "Stop. Come back. Too late. Hmm." Well, now it looks like Darryl might get to learn PowerPoint after all.
The bus tools down the road while Jim leads a sing-along. Dwight pulls over to pick up a nattily dressed hitchhiker in a straw hat. "Thanks, playing a little hooky from work today," says the mysterious gentleman as he steps aboard. Of course it's Creed, who else?
While pausing for a roadside photo op, Pam wonders aloud to Jim why Dwight is sulking rather than "scheming or preparing to avenge?" Jim assures her that Dwight's indestructible. Besides, Jim's too occupied with fixing his marriage.
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While Erin's helping Nellie with her application, Nellie says she wishes she could make Erin a parentless five-year-old again and snap her up. How sweet.
Everyone's back on the bus looking forward to pie at the stop. Before it pulls onto the road, Jim warns the pie wagon closes at five. Kevin observes that's only twenty minutes away, which is just the start of a whole long bit where Kevin is suddenly Good Will Hunting if pies are involved. Dwight announces that they're almost out of gas, and is refusing to go back to a "name-brand" station. Jim gets a little heated, ignoring Pam's warnings not to push Dwight because she deserves pie, dammit, and tries to lead another rebellion. "What do we want?" "Pie!" the workers respond. "When do we want it?" "Pie!" Jim shrugs. At least they're on-message. Dwight pulls the keys and carries them back to Jim, saying he's finally won and now he can buy his wife and the whole damn world a pie. Jim says that's impossible, and Dwight abruptly pulls himself up through the emergency exit in the roof. Kevin's so upset after witnessing this emotional display he doesn't even feel like pie any more. "Wait -- now it's back."
After the break, Pam prevails on Jim to go up on the roof and check on Dwight, even though everyone else is more stressed out about the ticking clock. "Banana cream's the first to go. We'll be lucky to get pumpkin at this point!" Andy snaps bitterly, slamming his curtain. Up top, Jim asks Dwight why he's such a jerk, In mid Jim-tirade, Dwight interrupts, "I'm barren, Jim. My trouser-hives are void of honey." He says he had sex with Angela and her baby isn't his. Jim tells Dwight that they're only here because of a prank. "You mean you flooded my building with dangerous electromagnetic radiation as a prank? That's genius. That's the best prank you've ever done." Dwight even laughs at that, and Jim says he'll take it.
Nellie presents Andy with her letter, which he refuses to sign. "It's inaccurate, dishonest, and in a word, dungwater." Erin overhears him shooting her down, and looks pretty unimpressed. Join the club, Erin.
Jim tells Dwight that some couples take years to conceive, which Dwight turns it into a quiz about Jim and Pam and how they conceived. "Regular or lady on her back? You used lady on her back, didn't you, freak? Ugh, gross, never mind."
Andy comes up to the front and hears crying behind the other curtain. He makes a comment about famously overemotional British women to Pete, who says, "I don't think that's Nellie." Indeed, Nellie's comforting Erin, who is the one doing the weeping. Even Pete gives Andy a dirty look off after that.
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Jim and Dwight talk about the German concept of "bildenkinder," which Dwight says is usually reserved for childless landlords. Jim warns Dwight that his own bildenkinder are in danger of not getting pie, and only Dwight can save them now. Jim comes down, followed by Dwight climbing down on his shoulders. Pam asks Dwight if he's okay, and Dwight grabs her by the shoulders and promises her pie. Then he gets behind the wheel and peels out. Looks like they make it to Laverne's Pies Tires Fixed Also just in time.
Andy comes up to Nellie while she's wistfully watching a mother and child picnicking on the grass and gives her the letter he signed after all -- with a few additions at the end. "Trust me, it needed it. But, yeah, whatever," he says churlishly. Cut to Nellie reading to the camera, "She's tough in business but tender with the people she cares about. She'll make a wonderful mother to any child who can overlook weird accents." Nellie's clearly touched, and that was clearly the work of Andy.
Kevin attempts to insult Oscar in order to get Oscar to pie him. Oscar knows exactly what's up, and kindly obliges. It's the happiest day of Kevin's life.
Jim and Pam enjoy their pie on a bench. We did it," he says. "You did it," she corrects proudly, putting her head on his shoulder. I don't know, I think the nicest thing Jim did today was not caring about or spreading the fact that Dwight and Angela had sex again.
Back at the office. Andy tries to resurrect the sing-along magic from the bus, complete with a banjo solo. Needless to say, everyone's over it. Isn't it tiresome when someone tries to drag out something fun long after it should have ended, The Office?
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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