In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
The pressure caused by Jim's company in Philadelphia rises, in more ways than one. When Dwight gets wind that Darryl's headed there too, he launches a one-man Darryl-retention program that begins with a guilt-inducing presentation to the group on customer loyalty, evolves into Dwight's idea of a "fun" day in the paper business and ends with Dwight cleaning the kitchen of a fast-food restaurant after throwing a milkshake through the drive-through window. Needless to say, it's not much fun for anyone… including us.
Nellie realizes that Erin and Pete are flirting in Andy's increasingly protracted absence, and is afraid that she'll be blamed for it when Andy returns (if he ever does). So she co-opts Dwight's loyalty meeting and ends up turning it into a public referendum on Erin's personal life before taking them off the special project she assigned them to work on together. But then Toby (who seems to think he's her boyfriend now, after one steaming hot kiss weeks ago) points out that Andy's a rather shitty boyfriend anyway and she puts Erin and Pete back to work together. Which they both seem pretty happy about.
But back to Jim's company and the challenges it's raising. It's the day of Cece's dance recital, but Jim is trapped in Philadelphia trying to keep a key investor from bailing. Pam tries to record Cece's performance on her phone, but a combination of an ill-timed call (notifying her that she's been commissioned for a public mural, yay!) and her own lack of smartphone smarts causes her to miss the moment. After spending the day failing to hold onto the investor, Jim has the nerve to yell at Pam for messing up the recording and they end up having a huge fight. And then Jim gets to hang up and go back to his job while Pam sits in the bullpen alone, crying.
But of course she's not alone, is she? As always, the documentary crew is there to capture every tear. But for the first time, we actually see some of them, as sound guy Brian breaches protocol to step into the shot and comfort Pam. Those guys are always there, after all. Unlike Jim.
Think you've got game? Prove it! Check out Games Without Pity, our new area featuring trivia, puzzle, card, strategy, action and word games -- all free to play and guaranteed to help pass the time until your show starts.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!After taking it upon himself to clean out an overstuffed file cabinet crammed with files for dead accounts, Dwight discovers a yellowed letter purporting to be from Robert Dunder himself, alluding to a treasure he allegedly hid "until such time as a person of strong intellect may safely recover it. This golden chalice is of immeasurable historical and religious significance." After everyone hears Dwight reading it aloud, Pam sneaks off to call Jim in Philadelphia: "Did you send Dwight on a quest for the Holy Grail?" Jim says he's too busy for that, but suddenly remembers that yep, six years ago, he did just that. Flashback to a younger, more floppy-haired Jim at his old desk, creating the letter and fake-aging it, as present-day Jim recalls staying late every night for a month six or seven years ago to work on "The Dunder Code." He had a lot more spare time then.
In the present, Dwight holds the letter over Phyllis's desk lamp to render the lemon-juice ink visible, with the message "Higher than numbers go." He then climbs on Angela's desk and finds in the ceiling a key attached to an X, which Oscar figures unlocks something in the annex. Meanwhile, Jim confesses to Pam that he doesn't remember if he ever got around to hiding the actual Grail. Dwight finds a false bottom in one of Clark's desk drawers containing a scroll of fake parchment reading "SEDE INTROITI." Translating the Latin, Dwight rips open the seat cushions near the entrance but finds nothing but five playing cards inside. "That's a flush," says recovering gambling addict Kevin. From inside a toilet, Dwight discovers a toy forklift. Cut to everyone ransacking the warehouse. Pam reports to Jim over the phone that nothing is there. "I expected more from young Halpert," Jim sighs disappointedly. Sure, but young Halpert is being written by the old writers. Dwight calls off the search as the camera pans over to a warehouse worker in Val's office, dipping his donut into a Holy Grail full of coffee. He chose...wisely.
Nellie is meeting with her "Youth Task Force" consisting of Pete and Erin in the conference room as they explain the social media strategy they're implementing, which so far consists of making up fake Facebook accounts. Nellie is proud of herself for putting the two of them together, and Erin THs about how she and Pete work well with each other. But she assures us that it could be any guy, or any girl, not that she's into girls, not that she's into Pete either. "What was the question again?
Jim shows up at the office in Philly and the partners tell him about an important business lunch he's expected to attend. Jim wants it kept early, because he's also expected at Cece's first ballet recital in Scranton this afternoon, and of course they assure him it'll be fine. He's all excited to see her, and he demonstrates for us the spin-kiss move he's been working on with Cece.
As Darryl shows up for the day toting an Athlead duffel bag, Dwight mocks the company name and says they might as well have gone with "Stumpany," for "Stupid Company." That's actually not much worse than Athlead. Darryl gives Dwight his perfectly good reasons for wanting to work there -- which apparently he already is, on weekends -- and Dwight is stunned enough at this news that he immediately calls Jim in Philly to yell at him for wanting to poach all of their coworkers, including Dwight. "I'll be damned if I'm gonna let us lose me," Dwight vows just before Jim hangs up on him to greet the visitor.
Pam asks Angela for an update on some mural that her husband the Senator helped nominate her to paint for an Irish American Cultural Center. Pam's doing that fake-pessimistic thing where she says they'll probably go with some other, more established local artist like Tracy Fleeb. I only write down the name because I assume it'll come up again later, but it turns out that Pam only mentions the other artist because that's what passes for the joke in this scene.
Pam heads out to take Cece to her recital. In the car on the way, she talks to Cece about their plans to meet up with Jim there and calls him up on the hands-free. Jim explains that he's still stuck in Philadelphia trying to save an investor. "I want daddy!" Cece wails. Jim asks Pam to record the recital for him, and makes the tactical mistake of asking if she can handle it. Pam's in no mood, insisting that she can handle her phone. Having to be reminded by both her husband and her child that she needs to press "End" after the call doesn't help.
Erin and Nellie are gathered around Pete's computer to enjoy the company's first legitimate Facebook like. Erin and Pete try to do am elaborate handshake and screw it up dorkily but sweetly, to Nellie's visible horror. She goes and THs how Andy (who?) had just started to be nice to her and now she's driven his girlfriend into Pete's arms. Yes, in the sense that she put two of the youngest people in the office on a youth task force together. And also in the sense that it was her idea for Andy to literally sail off and leave Erin alone for months and also for Andy to act like an inattentive douchebag toward Erin for months before that. Stupid Nellie.
Dwight asks everyone to sign a clipboard for what he claims is a coffee order, but Phyllis quickly susses out that it's actually a loyalty pledge to Dunder Mifflin. Everyone tells him to chill out, especially Darryl, who says it isn't a big thing and that nobody even knows he's got this other gig on the side. So Dwight goes to Clark and demands access to all of Darryl's complaints from the last few weeks. "They got us set up with Windows 95, so you're kind of dreaming here," Clark explains. Instead, he fires up his dot matrix printer and they begin waiting.
Dwight's now holding a presentation in the conference room about loyalty, introducing a client who supposedly came storming in today over Darryl's failure to properly prioritize his current job. The guy is clearly not that upset, beyond being a little uncomfortable at all the fuss Dwight's making. Darryl explains to the client that the one-time delay in his shipment was due to unexpected truck downtime and it's very unlikely to happen again. The customer is satisfied with that explanation, but Dwight refuses to let him leave and keeps hammering the loyalty thing. Nellie hijacks the discussion, turning it into a metaphor for how Darryl is dating Dunder Mifflin. "Darryl is dating Val. Still," Darryl grumbles. With a significant look at Erin and Pete, Nellie adds that Darryl's flirting with Jim's company on the side. Because this is all too subtle for anyone in the room to actually pick up on, she asks everyone if it would be okay for Erin to cheat on Andy in his absence with, say, a Mr. X. Angela pipes up that it would be immoral. "Didn't you cheat on Andy?" Erin asks her. "Yes, and he didn't like it," Angela insists. A confused Kevin asks if they can just refer to Mr. X as Pete, since that's clearly who Erin is flirting with. Awkward silence.
Pam's in the front row at Cece's recital, trying to record the performance on her phone when she gets a call from the City of Scranton. Worse, she takes it, and is loudly excited when she hears she got the mural commission. She manages to get off the call just in time to see Cece's spin-kiss. Cece does it better than Jim did.
Dwight and Darryl bid the customer farewell at the elevator, Dwight thinking he's made his point. Darryl says Athlead is his future, even though Dwight can't understand how it could be more fun than selling paper. "Are you pretending to be crazy?" Dwight asks him.
Back in the conference room, where the increasingly inappropriate discussion of Erin's personal life is continuing, Pete asks where this is even coming from. "Your feelings for Erin? Probably your heart... and a little bit your penis," Kevin speculates. Erin quietly begs Nellie to shut down the Youth Task Force. "You're welcome, Andy," Nellie THs. "And you're welcome, my own ass."
Jim and the other partners are still trying to calm the skittish investor. Jim expects a call from someone who's on the road with some crucial numbers, but he ignores the buzz on his phone because it's only his wife. Pam leaves him an excited voice mail about how Cece did great and she wants to tell him something.
Down in the warehouse, one of the workers tells Darryl to hop on a delivery. He tries to blow it off, but goes out and gets into the cab of a truck, only to find himself being kidnapped by Dwight at the wheel.
On the road, Dwight turns on some music and party lights (part of the "shipment of fun" he promises) but Darryl turns them back off and asks how far it is. Dwight throws a ball at him and sys they can play sports along the way. That seems more dangerous than fun.
Toby finds Nellie in the kitchen and gives her a big long hug of congratulations before asking why she has it in for Pete and Erin. Nellie reminds Toby of Andy's recommendation letter for her adoption, but Toby points out how Andy pretty much abandoned Erin. "Not everybody has what we have," he reminds her. Nellie THs, "I just remembered: I kissed that man. Oh no."
Dwight stops at a drive-thru with Darryl for fun, and for more fun, throws his milkshake at the window worker, saying it's a YouTube thing. Darryl, not amused, takes the keys out of the ignition.
Back in the office, Pam offers to show everyone Cece's recital video, but all she has is the end of the recital after she toggled the wrong way between "pause" and "play," because of the phone call she got in the middle of taping. "User error. I heard it happens to other people," Oscar says understandingly. Angela thinks Pam is "already kicking herself for choosing a phone call over her child." Pam plays it cool, THing that she hasn't told anyone about the mural because she wants Jim to know first. "Whenever I tell him good news, he's always like, 'Beesly!'" Probably not today, though.
Pete makes a copy and says "hey" to Erin, who stiffly greets him, "Hello, Peter." Nellie looks on pensively.
Darryl stands over Dwight while he cleans the fast food place's kitchen, complaining that it barely feels like a prank any more. Karma moves fast this week, as another drive-thru customer hurls a milkshake at Dwight and drives off. Dwight yells out the empty window, "Joke's on you, buddy! They make you come back and clean it up!"
Nellie's in the conference room with Erin and Pete, telling them she's reinstating their task force. "You have no choice in the matter. And everybody knows it," she tells Erin. They take it pretty well. In fact, Erin's grinning as she returns to reception, and Pete tips Nellie a wink on his way back to the annex. And then Toby comes and is gross all over her. After all, if it weren't for people stealing each other's romantic partners on this show, there never would have been a Jim and Pam. Or an Andy and Erin, for that matter. Much as there soon won't be again.
Darryl and Dwight show up for their delivery, and Dwight tries to mistake Darryl's idle throat-clearing for a gleeful laugh. Indeed, the laugh threshold on this show has gotten pretty low.
People are leaving the bullpen for the day, including Meredith and the blonde Donna Reed wig she's rocking this week. When Pam's the last one still in the office, her phone rings. Jim sadly tells her that they lost the investor despite all his best efforts, which means they'll all have to "work insanely hard" over the few weeks to fill the gaps. Pam is sympathetic, saying it kind of feels like he already has been. He asks her to upload Cece's recital video for a pick-me-up, and Pam has to admit that she blew recording it after all. Jim is a total dick about this, blaming Pam for his having missed it. Pam rightly points out that if it was so important to him he should have been there. And a second later they're in a full-on fight, with Pam pointing out that she's trying to make everything perfect while Jim is off chasing his dream, and Jim self-righteously claiming that he's in Philadelphia all the time for the sake of the family. He gets called in to the conference room, and Pam barely holds herself together long enough to wrap up the phone call as they agree to talk tomorrow. After he hangs up, she breaks down at her desk, alternately covering her face and looking up helplessly at... someone. "Hey, you okay?" asks an unfamiliar voice from off-camera. "What am I doing wrong, Brian?" she asks tearfully. The camera pans over to the guy standing to the second camera operator and holding the boom microphone, who tells Pam, "Nothing, you're doing the best you can." To the mild shock of the guy holding one of the cameras, Brian pulls off his headphones, telescopes his boom, and goes over to comfort Pam. "Let's turn the cameras off, seriously, guys. Enough. Enough." They do. So I guess this makes Brian the new Jim and Jim the new Roy?
Darryl sits at his desk, happily watching a YouTube video of the guy who hit Dwight with the milkshake. "And, replay!" he says happily. "I'm gonna miss the paper business."
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.