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Michael has what looks like a cold sore, so Dwight takes on the role of the Ghost of Michael's Girlfriends Past so Michael can notify all of them that he has herpes. Which is bad enough, but after Holly blows off their relationship as a "fling," Michael also finds himself playing the John Cusack part in High Fidelity, quizzing everyone from Jan to Carol to Pam's mom about whether he remembers their relationships as being more than they were. Michael's conclusion: yes, in every case except Holly's. I could have told him that.
Meredith is, of course, the office's authority on herpes, which lets her in for some pretty catty criticism. Andy sees this as a chance to show off some of the mad skills he learned as a Resident Advisor in college (whatever school it was he went to), while trying to divine whether Erin and Gabe are Doing It. When signs point to yes, Andy forgets all the mad skills he learned in anger management training, in a pretty spectacular way.
Finally, Michael talks to the one sexual partner he almost forgot: Oscar.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Dwight has apparently been picking up "day laborers" (read: the guys who hang around in the mornings waiting for work), telling them he'll pay them at 6:00 and then having Mose drive them to Harrisburg at 5:45 and telling them it's Canada. The ones who speak Spanish now know better, but a guy whose Spanish is worse than Dwight's -- because he's "secretly" Anglo -- is eager to step up. Back at the office, it turns out that the "do or die" project Dwight has assigned him is to deal with a hornet's nest to the parking lot. And if he doesn't? He dies. "When did the phrase 'do or die' become so corrupted?" Dwight wonders. Everyone watches out the conference room window in horror as the poor guy tries to choose from the tools Dwight left him to deal with the problem. Blowtorch? Bow and arrow? Baseball bat? We don't see how it ultimately plays out, but it's quickly apparent that the baseball bat was the wrong choice.
Michael enters wearing a fake mustache, trying to act all mysterious about it, but when it falls off into his coffee, it reveals a giant red sore on his lip. He tries to claim it's a pimple, and when Phyllis says that's not it, Michael wonders if it's cancer. Pam quickly nips that in the bud, and does a quick talking-head to say, "It's just good to catch a Michael train of thought early before it derails and destroys the entire town." Meredith tells him it's a cold sore, which means herpes, which lots of people she knows has, including, of course, herself. Creed says he's never seen it on her, and she says that's because it's on her genitals. "You have a penis?" Kevin asks. Andy brings up whether Michael's been tested for STDs, which gets derailed into a discussion about just how long it's been since Michael's last physical. It was when he was 40, but we can't seem to settle on a final sum. Alone in his office, Michael covers it with a Band-Aid.
"Can we please talk about how gross Meredith is?" Kelly requests in the break room later. Of course they can. Andy tries to keep it mature and respectful, drawing on his experience as an RA in college, but the discussion ends abruptly when Meredith enters and Angela leaves, holding her breath. Of more concern is that fact that Andy is clearly not himself, having passed up the best chance he ever had to remind everyone that he went to Cornell.
Dwight's now in Michael's office, trying to get him to notify Holly "that she is crawling with herpes." He tells Michael to contact every woman's he's been with, but Michael resists. Dwight explains in a TH that although he's not a doctor, he believes it's the duty of anyone who gets an STD to contact all of their sexual partners, find out who gave it to them, and exact revenge. Again, he's not a doctor; "I'm just a guy who really likes revenge."
Michael gets his most recent partner, Donna, on the phone and tells her that he has a sexually transmitted disease. She's pretty upset at first, until she realizes that he's calling to ask her if she gave it to him. "If you did, I would be able to avoid a lot of sucky conversations." She doesn't have it, and neither does her husband, so Michael cuts off the call as quickly as he can. "So long, Donna," Dwight sings out, which I'm sure was a fancy little bonus for her.
In the bullpen, Andy stands and asks for everyone's attention to talk about this whole STD topic, but gets derailed by people talking about Andy's tendency to stand up and ask for everyone's attention.
Michael gets Holly on the phone, and the conversation starts off long and dorky and weird and digressive, like a bad improv routine. Like they've never been apart, in other words. Dwight gives us a WTF look that rivals Jim's best ones. And that's saying something.
Andy comes into the bullpen with a stack of pizzas, offering some to anyone who's willing to discuss this with him. It's a trap!
Back in Michael's office, Dwight is still listening with something like alarm as Michael is fantasizing about if Holly hadn't transferred, which she's not into because she's been with A.J. for a year and a half now. She accuses him of over-romanticizing everything, which is fair (and which even Dwight agrees with), but when she tells him, "You made us out to be more than we were, " that's going too far. Michael's so hurt he ends the call. Shit, I'm hurt. Dwight whispers to us, "He forgot to mention the herpes." Michael says, "It didn't come up organically." That's what she said.
Michael and Dwight visit Jan at her work, and she's doing pretty well, seems like. She THs, "How do I do it? Raise my daughter, work as director of office purchasing for this hospital, and release an album of Doris Day covers on my own label? If I knew, I would tell you." They all sit down in a conference room, and after Michael excuses Dwight (who would really like to visit an operating theater anyway), he asks Jan if he misremembers their relationship. Clearly what Holly said to him is still heavy on his mind. Jan, of course, misinterprets his question; meaning she thinks he wants to dissect their relationship. And since she wants to, it looks like that's what they're going to do.
Andy is leading a rap session in the conference room, which he starts off by showing everyone a partially pixilated photo of genitalia, which is not well received by the employees. "Is it 'cause he's black?" Andy challenges them. "Nope. 'Cause it's genitalia," Jim says. Andy says it's perfectly normal. Then Andy holds up a picture that's entirely blurred, and draws an even more horrified reaction. "Sure it's got some herpes on it," Andy says, but it's still normal. I've never been more grateful for pixilation in my life.
Jan is yammering to Michael about their relationship in a metaphor about a queen and a princess (both of which are Jan, of course) that I can't follow any more than Michael can. In comes Jan's daughter Astrid ("Assie" for short) and Jan apparently only communicates with her in song. Michael realizes that there is something worse than telling Jan he has herpes, and it's happening right now, so he blurts, "I have herpes." Back in his office, he THs that he once thought Jan was the one. Or at least a the one. "And if I called that one so wrong..."
Andy's trying to get people to list consequences of sex, but only the pro column is getting filled in, with STDs all lonely in the pros columns. Erin gets it back on track, bringing up possible negatives like unplanned pregnancy. "Like Jim and Pam, whaaat?" Kelly shit-talks. They are not amused, especially when Kevin adds, "Just admit that your baby was a mistake." Pam will admit she was a surprise. Darryl, sitting between them, cuts in, "I'm sure they don't regret having their baby. Let's move it to the pros." What I love about that is that it seems like he's being diplomatic and restoring the peace, but really he's just fucking with Andy.
Dwight is navigating while Michael drives to their stop, still trying to figure out if Holly or Jan was right about him. Dwight snaps, "Forget it, Michael, today is about herpes. Who gave it to you, who has it, and who is going to pay." He adds that Jan is insane, so even Dwight is right twice a day.
Michael goes up to an old lady in the park, kindly telling her they dated for a while. But or course he's actually looking for Pam's mom Helene, who's sitting nearby on the ground with Cece. Not that we get a good look at the baby. Michael plays it off about as convincingly as you'd expect.
Andy tries to talk about abstinence as a way of asking if anyone's practicing it. Nobody speaks up, even Erin or Gabe. Then he wants to show them how to put a condom on a pencil, and when everyone starts laughing at him, and Meredith even calls him a pencil-dick, Andy loses it and throws a pizza against the wall art. Haven't seen that Andy in a while.
Michael is trying to talk to Helene about their relationship, but she's apparently still pissed about the way things ended between them. About the nicest thing she has to say is that his memory has failed him. I can't blame her, but Michael apparently can. "Jerk," he says, stomping away. Ooh, he's going to be in trouble with Pam sometime between now and week, although I'm sure it'll be resolved before the Halloween episode.
Michael finds Carol in the middle of showing a house, pretending he saw her sign outside. But of course she already knows that someone called her receptionist, claiming to be Carol's "ex-lover." Too bad Michael couldn't see the receptionist in person and show her his 2006 Christmas card.
Andy's having to meet with Gabe, who calls him on being upset about Erin, even though Gabe talked to Andy before asking Erin out. And we know it's true from Gabe's recounting of Andy's weird-ass answer, complete with Gabe's version of Andy's version of a cockney accent. Andy angrily says he only said it was okay because Gabe asked so politely, which may explain a lot about Gabe's professional success as well. Gabe says he's letting it slide, but Andy needs to put Erin behind him.
Michael finally tells Carol why he's there: a) he was told he romanticizes relationships, making them a bigger deal than they are, and b) he has herpes. "Did you have it while we were together?" Carol asks. He offers her a peek under the Band-Aid, and she says that yeah, he does tend to make a bigger deal of things. I hope she's referring to how that's so not herpes, but he's actually talking about how he proposed to her on their fourth (actually ninth)date. Suddenly Dwight enters, accusing Carol, "Someone died in the upstairs bathroom, didn't they?"
Andy parks himself across from Darryl in his office, crying. After Darryl suggests making an appointment in a quintessentially Darryl way, he realizes that Andy's crying. "I don't know what's got you upset, but my advice is stop crying." Andy insists he's only sweating. So Darryl steps up and gives Andy a strong, inspirational pep talk, telling him he will win this and to be his best self. Andy bucks up. Darryl THs, "I have no idea what his problem is. It's my standard advice. It's good advice, right?"
Michael's back in his office, leaving Holly a voice mail after what she describes as "the sound of a tiny truck backing up." That does not make me miss Holly any less, y'all. Michael says he's been thinking about what she said (derr), and how today he saw a lot of women he used to date. "In my mind, they were all great, and then when I actually saw them, it was mostly a freak show. And you and me, that must have been a real train wreck." Aw. But then he tells her she's wrong. "I remember every second of us. And talking to you today? I don't feel with them anything like what I feel for you...you were the only one who was actually happy to hear from me. I don't know why you downgraded what we had, because I did not make us up." Good for him, man. That needed to be said. Oh, and so does this: "And you should talk to a doctor because you might have herpes."
In the tag, Dwight and Michael are talking to one last partner: Oscar, because of that time Michael kissed him. "I have already contacted all of my ex-lovers except for you." So now Dwight wants a list of all of Oscar's partners. "I'm talking train stations, men's rooms." Michael goes on, "Flower show, fireworks celebrations." "Fence with a hole in it," Dwight adds. Michael: "Moonlight gondola, carriage ride through Central Park." Dwight: "The woods behind the liquor store, the swamp behind the old folks' home." Michael: "Electric car dealership." Dwight. "The Democratic primary." Oscar gets up and leaves, Michael calling after him, "Think!" What Oscar needs to think about is suing, already.
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.