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Robert California went and threw himself a post-divorce bender last night, and in his alcoholic blackout he did two things that set the stage for this episode. One of them was leaving a voice mail on Nellie's phone, and the other was closing the Binghamton branch. With all of Binghamton's clients up for grabs, Jim and Dwight are racing to snatch them up. Until Harry, an angry salesman from the closed branch, shows up to voice his objections. He -- and Dwight and Jim -- want a decision from Robert on who gets the clients who are up in the air. In particular, there's one huge direct-mail client that all three of them want. Of course, we all know how Robert is about making decisions like that. So does Andy, who's still hanging around the office for some reason, and after overhearing part of the discussion, he sees an opportunity to make a big move.
As for the voice mail, Robert knows from Nellie's response that he said something inappropriate, but can't remember what it was. So he assigns Pam the unsavory task of finding out. Her attempts to chat up Nellie are thwarted by Angela (sent in by Robert as Pam's backup) and Gabe (being Gabe), so she ends up stealing Nellie's cell phone instead. But after hearing a few of Nellie's other private and deeply depressing voice mails, Pam deletes the lot and returns the phone to Nellie. Who is not only none the wiser, but is deeply moved to think she has a friend in Pam. The only thing that could be sadder is if that were true.
Jim, Dwight and Harry race to the big client's office, but Andy gets there first and secures the business. While the three flummoxed sales guys lick their wounds and consider their move, Andy offers Robert a deal: hire him back and regain the big client, or watch Andy find another buyer. Robert refuses to be blackmailed -- and is pretty darn rude about it -- but Andy wasn't bluffing. In fact, he was calling from outside the home of former CEO David Wallace, who we know from last week has twenty million bucks lying around. And who turns out to be rather interested in Andy's proposal.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Gabe talks to Jim in the kitchen about his lack of fat and wondering how much protein powder to mix in with his water. Dwight comes in and mocks him for even needing water. "Why don't you just take estrogen?" he snots before choking down a dry mouthful right out of the container. So Jim ends up privy to an argument about their respective methods, which he short-circuits by suggesting the two of them have a thigh-curl contest to prove who's stronger. So down in the gym, everyone watches while Dwight and Gabe competitively hump the machines. Jim takes it to the level by giving them pillows and phone handsets and then snaps a picture that he later turns into a photo of a sleepover party. Robert comes in and orders everyone into the conference room, but Dwight and Gabe can barely make it in there after a quad workout that's left them nearly quadriplegic. Hey, it's better than Jim's "Hypno-thighs" pun.
Andy walks in to return Erin's socks and also to announce that he's going to cook everyone a feast right there in the office. Embarrassed, Erin explains the new rule about how all visitors need to sign in and wear a visitor's badge. Andy seems a little offended at being singled out in a TH: "Is it because I'm not an employee any more? Because that's what it feels like."
Andy notices that things are pretty busy in the bullpen and learns that with the recent closing of the Binghamton branch, there are a lot of clients up for grabs. And absolutely nobody reading this is going to get this, but I think that with the closing of Binghamton, The Office just came up with a great idea for the second season of Alphas. Andy tries to foment dissatisfaction with Robert's leadership, but Jim and Dwight aren't interested -- plus Stanley and Phyllis point out that the Syracuse branch isn't going to be happy about New York clients coming to Scranton. Robert comes in shushing everyone, as if to support the older salespeople's call for discretion -- then takes a deep breath and vomits epically into one of Jim's desk drawers. He explains about his "one-man Saturnalia" celebrating the finalization of his divorce last night, giving some details that Ryan nods knowingly at. Curiously, Robert appears to be the last to know that Binghamton's been closed. Or, at least, the last to know since having done it himself last night. "In vino veritas, as they say," he THs. "I'm not going to start doubting my drunken self now."
In the kitchen, Nellie approaches Robert to give him an answer to his voice mail to her from last night: "Yes, yes, yes, yes and never." After Nellie leaves the room, Robert assigns a very reluctant Pam the task of finding out what he said on Nellie's voice mail. That's the downside of making yourself office manager: she doesn't have a damn thing else to do and they both know it.