Levity

S09E07

David Wallace sends word that the Scranton White Pages is in the market for a new supplier, and he puts Dwight on the case as the branch's top salesmen. Dwight is triumphant, but when it turns out that the new boss at the White Pages is a she, the women in the office draft Dwight into a crash course on how to sell to clients who aren't men. That goes about as expected. But the sales call doesn't, because as Pam and Dwight learn to their horror, and seconds too late, the big new potential client is Jan Levinson.

Angela airs her suspicions to Oscar that the Senator's having an affair, what with all the time he's spending at yoga class. Oscar joins Angela on a stakeout because he suspects the Senator is also cheating on him. The evidence, however, is inconclusive. At least until Angela and Oscar watch her husband dial his phone and the call goes to Oscar.

Jim has a board meeting with his new company, which he tries to attend remotely by phone. This does not go well, to the point where it sounds like Jim might be on the verge of getting fired. From the board.

Also, to show just how out of ideas this show is, Toby is leading Clark, Pete, Kevin, and Darryl in participation in "Movember," growing mustaches to fight prostate cancer. At least until Pete finds out how much Erin hates his new cookie-duster and apparently decides, "Screw prostates."

Pam realizes that she and Dwight are merely pawns in Jan's failed plan to engineer a confrontation with David Wallace, but Dwight isn't prepared to let go of the sale. So while he leaves Pam to keep Jan busy, he goes back to the office and returns with Clark, whom he pimps to Jan as a potential replacement for her old young assistant, Hunter. He may have not only made the sale, but learned a little something about women. Well, very little. It's still Dwight.

From his family's boat, Andy's on Skype back to the office, revealing that his skin is as hot-pink as the swim trunks he's wearing. Erin THs that she was sad about being abandoned in favor of Andy's brother at first, but drew inspiration from the Bob Marley song, "No, Woman! No Cry!" Back at Reception, Andy shows off how he wears his underwear on his head, then accidentally jettisons his drinking water, and then his desalinator. He tells them the Skyping is the only thing keeping him sane, and then gives an unhinged laugh. "He's been sailing for two days," Darryl THs. And then Andy loses whatever he's Skyping on overboard as well. Cool, now maybe he'll come back dead.

After the mini-credits, Jim and Pam walk in just in time to hear Dwight put David Wallace on speaker phone, making much of the fact that Wallace called him instead of anyone else. Jim steals Dwight's handset, making it impossible to take Wallace off speaker, so everyone hears when Wallace breaks the news that the Scranton White Pages is looking for a new paper supplier. Dwight does a TH about how sure, phone books are over, but there's a reason paper suppliers call them the White Whale: "Look at all that sweet blubber." Wallace says they need their top sales guy on this, meaning Dwight, who briefly puts Wallace on hold to celebrate and tell everyone to eat it (although he has to send Erin into the bathroom to tell Stanley). We hear her scream, "Eat it, Stanley!" while Dwight asks about the contact there. All Wallace knows is that it's a new woman whose name they didn't catch. Wallace signs off while Phyllis reminds Dwight -- and everyone else -- that he can't sell to women. Everyone agrees, but Jim can't step in because he's got his first board meeting. "Also, the first time I've ever been excited about work," Jim THs. "So that feels... wrong."

Pete enters the break room with a barely perceptible smudge on his upper lip, assuring Kevin, Clark and Darryl that it's only him, not Tom Selleck. Apparently Toby has gotten them all into Movember to raise money for prostate cancer. "So this is how we look now," Clark says in a TH with Pete, looking like he drew his on in number two pencil. "I hope you like being turned on all the time." Toby comes in looking like Yosemite Sam, only creepier. "Smile if you love men's prostates," he says to a mother with her kid while following Pete and Clark out to lunch.

In Accounting, Angela whispers to Oscar that she thinks the Senator is having an affair. Oscar, as he does whenever this comes up, nearly flips shit. "I literally have nightmares in which what just happened happens," Oscar THs. "I wake up in a sweat and then I make Angela's husband spoon me back to sleep." Angela tells Oscar about the secret smile her husband has when he comes home in the morning, and about all the time he spends at the yoga studio with Blake the instructor. Oscar assures Angela that Blake's a guy's name, so there's nothing to be concerned about... although he's soon sharing Angela's concern, but for different reasons. Oscar agrees that its suspicious, and offers to go with her and check it out.

Phyllis, Meredith, Erin, Nellie and Pam sit down for some role-playing so he can practice selling to a female client. It doesn't work with Erin playing the client, because even the deep voice she puts on doesn't convince Dwight she could be a boss. Pam steps up, and Dwight goes into bossy, aggressive, hard-sell mode full of double-entendres. Pam hits pause, and Nellie poses a few questions to Dwight: "One, have you ever killed a woman? How many women have you killed? Please, sir, will you not kill me?"

Out in the bullpen, Jim's dialed into his board meeting, and is a little thrown to realize that he's the only member not there in person. Plus Kevin is being distracting, and Jim can't seem to find the right tone of voice. He scampers off to find another place to do this over his cell phone. Which of course is always when the signal turns to crap.

Pam has a flip chart up for tips Dwight can use to sell to women, including tips like "No eye-rolling," "Don't insult body," "Don't compliment body," and "Don't mention body at all." The flip charts on this show remain funnier than a lot of the actual lines. Pam tries to show Dwight how he can demonstrate that he's listening, and Dwight gamely tries out some nodding and smiling while Nellie filibusters about Pam's planned mural, but she can't keep it up in the face of Dwight's listening-face: "He looks like he is laboring over a stool, having just eaten human flesh." Phyllis tells Dwight to just ignore every instinct he has, and suggests some role-playing reversal in which Dwight plays the woman, which lasts about ten seconds of Dwight holding forth in first person on the biology of motherhood before Meredith blares, "Boo, weird." Phyllis gives this up as a bad job. Pam THs that she never cared about Dwight, but parenthood makes you soft. She used to laugh at Pulp Fiction but now thinks, "That poor Gimp is somebody's child!"

Cut to Dwight driving Pam to the meeting, as she has apparently agreed to act as his wingwoman. Dwight insists that he has no problem with women -- just business women. Pam asks him to remember a nice reasonable person to visualize the client as instead, and Dwight comes up with a barber who used to comb his hair gently. Pam tells him to go with that, and then Dwight adds, "He used to fight dogs."

Oscar and Angela are staking out the smoothie bar at the health club when they spot the Senator and a woman who may or may not be his yoga instructor Blake. Believe it or not, she's even tinier than Angela, much to her envious disgust. Unseen, they watch her help Robert with his hip position in downward-facing dog (which Angela confuses with "dog style), and then accept a hug from a guy with a ponytail. Angela's relieved to see who she assumed is the tiny woman's boyfriend, and even mocks, "I'd like to see that running for office." Satisfied, she thanks Oscar and is ready to go, but Oscar is distracted by watching Robert getting a long hug from another guy, who takes over his instruction. Looks like they're staying a little longer after all.

By M. Giant

In the annex, Kevin and Darryl have joined what Toby sadly thinks is some kind of mustache party.

Jim's trying to have his call outside, in the cold in his shirtsleeves, while someone's operating a power grinder nearby. Plus when he leans against Meredith's van, he sets off the alarm, bringing both Hank and Meredith outside in a noisy rage.

Pam and Dwight are ushered into a large office and are told by the boss's female assistant, "She will be right in." Pam asks the assistant her boss's name, and the young woman looks uncomfortable enough that for a moment I think she's the boss, but she leaves them in there to wait. Dwight is in his happy-place with his childhood barber, while Pam takes in clues from around the room. A photo of a woman skydiving, goggles hiding her face, teeth and claws outstretched. Aromatherapy candles on the table, and a photo of someone's daughter. And suddenly Pam takes on the stricken look of the one surviving girl at the end of the horror movie who realizes she's blundered into the killer's lair. Because on the far wall is a Warhol's Marilyn Monroe-style print of none other than Jan Levinson. "Oh my God, it's Jan!" she blurts. Dwight: "Dear God in Heaven." They look up to see Jan herself standing in the doorway, regarding them like a killer regards the survivors who have just blundered into her lair. Pam THs, as though this show has any new viewers, "Jan used to be one of my superiors, and she's one of the most erratic and terrifying people I've ever met." Montage of some of Jan's greatest hits (or as many as they can find that don't have Michael in them, including the time David Wallace fired her) and Pam mentions her suspicions that Jan had an affair with her 17-year-old former assistant, Hunter. "But she looks great! If she asks will you tell her I said that?" Back in the room, Dwight stands in shock and Pam hisses at him, "Forget everything we taught you!"

At the office, Erin is finding herself pretty put off by Pete's mustache. "It makes it look like there's an eyebrow in the middle of your face," she apologizes. "A handsome eyebrow, but, um, it makes your mouth looks like an eye socket...you look like a Cyclops whose eye fell out. Which is great! It's such a great cause!" Cut to Pete coming out of the bathroom with a razor, shaving cream, and a bald lip. Fuck those prostates, man.

Pam sits through a video slideshow, whose soundtrack consists of Jan herself singing a song about how Astrid thinks she's the greatest. Pam accidentally finds herself in a one-upping match with Jan, which she finally loses on purpose, though not without some effort. "Don't patronize me," Jan snaps. "I'm so sorry, I hate this, you're better," Pam concedes in a panic.

Angela wants to leave the health club, but Oscar wants to see more of what's going on with Robert and the yoga instructor. Angela suddenly accuses Oscar of getting his jollies. Oscar tells Angela this could be the affair she's worried about: "Politicians are wonderful liars. You never know who they really are," he says with a little too much passion. Off Angela's alarmed look, he assures her, "But, uh, he's probably not gay. He's straight. He's straight, so." Well, now we know why Oscar never went into politics.

Dwight storms into Jan's office, saying she thought he was out of cards, but he presents what he calls "The Ace of Babes." Enter Clark, asking, "Where's the Quiznos?" "You're the Quiznos," Dwight smirks, introducing Clark as Jan's own personal Dunder Mifflin liaison. He sits on Jan's desk all nasty-like and hints that Molly may not be cutting it, unlike her old assistant Hunter. "I don't recall," Jan lies. "And yes, Molly is crap." Pam whispers to Clark that he doesn't have to do this, but Clark says he wants to -- get into sales, that it -- while Dwight whispers to Jan, "He's been growing that mustache for weeks. Best he can do." Jan has Clark turn around, and sends Dwight and Pam away so she can get right up in Clark's space and ask him, "Do you have a valid passport?"

Back at his desk, Jim takes a call from one of his partners, who says it's not really working. "What does that mean?" Jim stammers. Nothing good, I'm thinking. Is he going to get fired and take three weeks to tell Pam?

At the gym, Angela is trying to get Oscar to say more about the Senator possibly being gay. They watch, still unobserved, as he pulls out his phone and makes a call. They both dive under the table when he turns in their direction, and of course Oscar's phone buzzes. He doesn't answer, but the guilty look he gives Angela is clearly all she needs to see.

By M. Giant

In the tag, Dwight and Pam are on their way out when they tell Molly she should quit. Dwight adds sympathetically, "I know it can't be easy working for Jan. God luck with your feelings." After she's gone, Pam tells Dwight that was nice and he should ask for her number. But Dwight already has her license number, and he promises to let Pam know when he's "curried favor with her." "Why me?" asks Pam, slightly touched. Dwight says, "Because you are my friend. And you are a woman. And women love gossip! It's like air to you people, ugh, God, blegh, blegh!" Pam follows him out with that small smile that tells us Dwight's a pig and all is right with the world.

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.