Credits. 9653. . Those are the numbers, just like on Lost.
Michael is in his office, and Jan is on the speaker phone. Of course, he's not paying very much attention to anything she says, except as it might pertain to setting up a crude and/or ethnic joke, and she's well aware of it, so she expositionally repeats herself that there's a new incentive program, under which the top salesperson at the end of the month can get a gift worth up to a thousand dollars. Michael's ears perk up, and he wants to know if he can pick the prize. Jan foolishly tells him that he can, and Michael naturally wants to know whether the prize can go to...you know...people who were once so great at sales that they've since been...you know...promoted. And maybe their names rhyme with "Richael Mott," but just maybe. Jan is wise to this crafty approach, and she tells Michael he can't win the prize. "I didn't mean me," he says, like it's the silliest of ideas. When it comes to easy ways to actually get his employees to like him -- keeping his grubby mitts off the prize money, for instance -- you'll notice that Michael's need to be loved seems to evaporate.
Now, Michael is behind his desk, pondering what motivates people the most. "Sex," says Dwight, who turns out to be standing against the wall behind Michael. Michael derails this idea on the basis that it's illegal. So: no hookers, is the thing. Dwight's other idea is "torture," so he's maybe missing the point a little. Torture costs way more than a thousand dollars! Just then, Pam comes in, and after putting her through yet another "riff" on her name (this one painfully relating to the prospect of a "Pamburger," which will send poor Pam straight to therapy, no doubt), he finally lets her explain that there's someone in the office who wants to sell purses. Michael puts the kibosh on the idea and refuses to even talk to the woman, until he peeks through the window of his office and sees that she's the lovely, lusciously redheaded Amy Adams (Junebug, Catch Me If You Can), at which point he figures that, well, you know, maybe he'll get out of his chair and make the trip.
Michael opens with a "cock in the henhouse" joke, which he manages to dismissively reprimand Dwight for repeating, like saying "cock" became rude after Michael said it. Oh, this poor woman. This poor woman who has no idea what she's walked into introduces herself as Katy. "You're like the new and improved Pam!" Michael enthuses. "Pam 6.0!" Pam looks like she's grown impatient all at once, and Michael chortles and instructs the women that there are to be "no catfights." No catfights for the lovely ladies! Don't be hitting each other with your purses, either! Michael tells Katy that he'll allow her to use the conference room to sell her bags all day long. Pam points out that there's a meeting scheduled for that room later, but Michael is only too happy to volunteer to kick the meeting into the hallway. He declares that this kind of "decisiveness" is important, according to Small Businessman. Or Small Business Man. Or Small-Business Man. Depends. Michael THs that he does read this marvelous publication, along with USA Today and American Way, an in-flight magazine that recently featured "Doris Roberts, and where she likes to eat when she's in Phoenix." I cannot explain why I find that joke so blisteringly hilarious, but it's one of my favorite jokes of the season. I find that I want to know where Doris Roberts likes to eat when she's in Phoenix, despite being one of the world's few stubborn Doris Roberts dislikers. (Except when she was in Remington Steele.) (And now I am one million years old.)
Michael sets Katy up in the conference room as Dwight and his suddenly awakened hormones stew outside. Michael wildly overreacts to her simple request for a cup of coffee by unloading his entire kit bag full of Starbucks lingo ("Gotta love the 'bucks!") at once. Katy looks mortified, like she really, really wishes she'd turned the other way and wound up at Vance Refrigeration. She tries to tell Michael that regular coffee will be just fine, but Michael bizarrely and somewhat frighteningly seizes on this moment to deliver an "I'm a complex guy; nobody gets me" speech that pedestrian men (by which I mean that they are dull, not that they are on foot) frequently use to woo women. Usually, it is attempted either in bars or in Match.com profiles, but...I guess the office is okay, too.
Out at reception, Kevin wants to know whether Pam is jealous with Katy in the office. She says she's not. "She's prettier than you, though," he says. Pam considers this. "That's a very rude thing to say, Kevin," she says firmly, delivering the line like she's his mom observing the remark, rather than the target of the remark. She just wants him to learn. Meanwhile, Dwight THs that "the purse girl" has all the attributes he looks for -- a list that ends with "amazing breasts. Not for me, for my children. The Schrutes produce very thirsty babies." Childbearing hips! Good teeth! Give her the once-over, Dwight!
Michael brings Katy a cup of coffee. When he tries to show her around, she tries to get away like he's a farmer and she's a Thanksgiving turkey, but nothing doing -- he orders Ryan to watch the purses and shepherds Katy around the office. Michael's interest in taking Katy around is mostly in trying to show off the fact that he's a big shot, so there's a lot of casual intruding and interrupting as they move from person to person. Pam THs that having Katy around is great: "It's another person for Michael to, um...interact with." Heh. When Michael introduces Katy to Toby, the two of them find a high school in common (based on her ring), so Michael eagerly leaps in to tell the tale of Toby's divorce and subsequent nights spent sleeping in his car. Katy's sympathies evidently lie where you would expect in the wake of that maneuver. Wanting absolutely nothing so much as an exit, Katy heads back to her table. Michael THs that he normally lives by a "no office romances" rule, but also by another one: "Just do it." Unless he lives by another rule along the lines of "always carry chloroform and a rag," I don't think this is really going to be an issue today.
Break room. Roy is giving Jim crap about how he should go after "the purse girl." Jim counters that Katy really isn't his type. "What are you, gay?" Roy asks sensitively. "Mmm...I don't think so," Jim says thoughtfully. "What is your type?" Kevin asks from inside the open refrigerator. Jim pauses for a moment as his eyes flick over to Pam. But he covers: "Moms, primarily. Yep. Soccer moms, single moms, NASCAR moms, any type of mom, really." "That's disgusting," Roy says. "Stay away from my mom," Kevin says quietly. "Too late, Kevin," Jim answers inevitably as he takes a bite of his sandwich. Just then, Katy walks by and into the bathroom, and Roy says he "would be all over that" if he and Pam weren't "dating." "We're not dating, we're engaged," Pam says, just wishing that the string of indignities would end already. "Engaged, yeah," Roy agreeably agrees. Pam walks out. Jim THs that he and Pam are "good buddies," and that he's her guy to talk to about problems with work or...Roy. He's not sure Pam has any other problems, which is probably because Pam doesn't do a lot else.
For now, Jim's objective is exploiting the vulnerability that an attraction to thirst-quenching breasts has exposed in Dwight, so as he and Dwight watch Katy in the conference room from their desks, Jim tells Dwight that Katy would be perfect for him. Dwight senses that perhaps Michael is in the way, but Jim encourages Dwight to follow his bliss. "He's your work boss," Jim says. "He is not your relationship boss!" It's sad how many people would benefit from having that on a magnet. Jim goads Dwight into making an approach, and then poor Katy THs that guys tend to be the greatest customers, buying a lot of sparkly bags as gifts. Jim, meanwhile, is persuading Dwight to buy himself a purse, which he says is perfectly okay for a guy, because it's really just a "mini-briefcase." "Lots of guys have them," Jim insists. Dwight is skeptical, but Jim is on fire, and he nearly shoves Dwight toward the conference room. And then Jim is over at reception, where he leaps behind the desk and insists that Pam stop what she's doing and watch with him from afar as Dwight shoots himself in the proverbial foot. Or face, really. Jim even does a weird, high-pitched, slightly British voice, kind of like the Dan Aykroyd Julia Child impression, as he imitates Dwight asking to buy a purse. They mock together as Dwight demonstrates that he doesn't know how to...put on a purse, exactly. Jim chirp-talks for Dwight all the way through a hilarious stress test in which Dwight whaps the purse on the table, punishing it like a piece of Samsonite luggage, and then Dwight emerges, having indeed bought himself a purse. Oh, sorry -- "mini-briefcase." Jim throws Dwight a thumbs-up. And with good reason.
Later, Pam herself takes a look at some purses, and she and Katy talk about the fact that she's engaged. They seem to be hitting it off a little, but then Michael comes in, of course, to ruin everything. As is his genetic programming. He asks Katy how the coffee was, and he manages to make even that part awkward. He passive-aggressively scolds Pam about being here instead of out at her desk, and she exits, defeated. "Come back," Katy calls plaintively out the door. Poor Katy. Michael leads (drags) Katy into his office, where he has purchased a thousand-dollar Starbucks espresso machine. Where'd he get a thousand -- oh, Lord. Katy indulgently sits through Michael's patter about coffee, which he continues in a TH focusing on caffeine as a drug, and how it's apparently replaced cocaine as the Dunder Mifflin drug of choice since an earlier era in which many drugs were abused, but they really knew how to sell paper. Unfortunately for Katy, she tells Michael the truth when she gets a text message telling her that her ride home is unavailable. As you can imagine, Michael is only too happy to take her home. She declines, but Michael refuses to be refused until she can't really say no unless she's prepared to hit him with a hammer, so she says yes.
When we return, Michael and Dwight are sitting at Michael's computer while Michael bitches about how Ryan cleaned up his desktop. Dwight tries to explain that the cleaned-up desktop is better, but Michael is sure it isn't. Suddenly, Dwight blurts out that he wants to ask Katy out. Michael generously declines to say no, but he warns Dwight that he's taking Katy home. And he might take her out. And he might have sex with her, which he characterizes as "dot-dot-dot." Dwight is tortured by this revelation -- "Do you love her?" he demands, and now, we are in Port Charles, where it's like Michael is initially inclined to scorn that question, as would be sensible, but then he comes back with an allegedly thoughtful "I don't know."
As Katy finishes selling a purse to Stanley, Michael enters with an espresso for her. Stanley busts him for making this with what was supposed to be the sales incentive prize. "Very easy to clean," Michael counters.
With his mini-briefcase over his shoulder, Dwight takes a sip of coffee. His own worst enemy, that one.
Michael has Pam in his office, and he's chattering at her about nothing, and she's trying to figure out why she's there, but she can't. She gets up to leave, and Michael stops her cold with this question: "How do girls your age feel about futons?" Pam looks at the camera, and we cut to her explaining this to Jim. "A futon?" he asks incredulously. They agree that Michael's use of a futon would be both strange and "innovative." Jim touts its undeniable bed-couch qualities, but they both seem to feel like as sad as they envision Michael's life being, this is sadder than they were thinking. Just then, Roy shows up, invading the territory of Jim's desk as he often does not, and he wants to know if Pam is still mad. She is, but he manages to win her over by nuzzling her up against Jim's desk, which, hi, have a little sense, people. You don't tickle each other up against other people's desks at work. Bleh. Pam THs that Jim is "like a brother." They're best friends. She hopes he'll find someone. Oh, Pam.
Dwight watches, an anxious tangle of personality disorders, as Katy tries to sell a purse to Angela. Finally, he pounces, heading into the conference room and asking to talk to Katy, potentially kicking the customer out in the process. Katy resists, but before Angela can even leave, Dwight blurts out that he wants to talk to her in private to ask her on a date. Katy says, "No." Angela tries to disappear into the floor. Dwight starts to leave, but he turns to ask whether that was a "no" to talking in private, or a "no" to going out with him. Katy confirms that it was both. Yow. Looking like he can barely walk, Dwight returns to his desk. At least she didn't drag it out.
Michael asks Ryan to help with a "special project," which turns out to involve cleaning out Michael's car. Throwing out empties. Putting an "unopened Arctic Chill" in the passenger-side cup-holder. It's genius how they really show you a whole scene here that hasn't happened -- Michael offering Katy the Arctic Chill; Katy cringing.
As he must, and still reeling from seeing Roy pawing Pam all over his paperwork, Jim finally makes his way into the conference room to talk to Katy. He is effortlessly adorable, in the infuriating way possessed by a vexing subset of self-deprecating nerds, and she giggles appreciatively.
Ryan is barely stopped from throwing out Michael's counterfeit Rite-Aid version of Drakkar Noir. Damn. Damn. While it appears empty, Michael insists that "there's some in the straw," and he dabs himself. With counterfeit Rite-Aid Drakkar Noir. Say that slowly to yourself. Let it sit on your tongue. Now cry. Just kidding. "Wow," Ryan comments as he continues to throw out trash. "How many Filet-O-Fishes did you eat?" Michael indignantly points out that it's buildup from "several months," which...nice point of pride, there, Michael. "Still," Ryan mutters almost inaudibly.
Pam is at Jim's desk. "What's up?" she asks. "I'm bored," she says with a grin. "Thank you for choosing me," he volleys. She asks him about plans for the weekend, and he tells her that he's going to see Katy. Her face freezes, but fortunately for her, it's in a smile. And what are they doing? "Dinner, drinks, movie...matching tattoos...." Pam tries to smile. What will Pam be doing with her weekend? Well, Pam will be helping Roy's cousin move. Hey, at least he shows her a good time. They agree to see each other Monday, and Pam leaves, conspicuously miserable.
Michael THs that being a ladies' man is all about nobody knowing you're a ladies' man. He is on the right track, then. He adds two items: (1) that "women are attracted to power"; and (2) that he's been told he has "a very symmetrical face." The thing that's great about Michael is that you can catch yourself thinking, "You just can't make that up, how bad he is," and then you remember that somebody made it up, and you thank everyone involved inside your head.
Pam applies lip gloss at her desk, but she looks guilty when she sees the camera spying on her. Interesting moment. I haven't formed a firm opinion on that one yet.
And now we're outside, and people are leaving the office for the day. Michael, Katy, and Jim are all walking together, and as Michael goes one way and Jim goes the other, Katy and Jim have to break the news to Michael that Katy's coming with Jim, not going home with Michael. She tries to phrase this as "you're off the hook," but pretty much, everybody knows what's up. Even Michael, a little, in the back of his head. Michael gets into his convertible. Jim eases Katy into his Corolla (hee) as Pam drives off with Roy, watching wistfully.
In a TH, Michael says he does, in fact, have a "special someone" -- his employees. If he had to pick between a one-night stand with "some stupid cow" from a bar and "these people," he would pick the employees. With the employees, he still knows their names after.
And with that, we close the season. This episode, I think is the weakest of the first season. It's a lot of play on the same joke, and there's too much similarity between the Michael story and the Dwight story, as far as their making idiots of themselves over Katy. There's a lot of crudeness and not a lot of charm, and I would rather have seen more of Jim's conflict over working his way up to asking her out. All things considered, I think the first season is very underrated owing to unnecessary comparisons to the British version, but this is its weak moment for me.
Fortunately, the second season is about to start, and things are about to get amazing.