In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Andy's coming back tomorrow and nobody's really looking forward to his return. Kevin will miss the three-month-old milk he left in the fridge, Dwight will miss having an imaginary boss who does his bidding and Erin's planning to dump him… as she should. Pam and Jim are looking forward to a low-key but romantic Valentine's Day together, while everyone else decides to hit the mini-mall to score the couples discount for one last boss-free hurrah. So, of course, Andy shows up a day early, one hacky sack short of looking like a full-on island hippie.
Andy racks up a number of impressive achievements in his first hours back: losing the Scranton White Pages account, collecting a bonus for the fantastic numbers the branch posted in his absence, pissing everyone off and revealing that he never technically informed David Wallace he was leaving. When Wallace comes into the office for a meeting, Andy tries to cram by getting the employees to catch him up on everything he missed (read the weecaps, dude), so they fill his head with lies to trip him up rather than outright squealing on him. Andy figures it out and rescues himself with some fast talking (and a shave and a change of clothes), but his relationship with the employees is probably not the best right now. He also manages to talk Erin out of breaking up with him, but doesn't exactly cover himself in glory there either.
Meanwhile, Jim and Pam go to meet Brian the sound guy and his wife for lunch, only to discover that he came stag. In fact, he and his wife will be splitting up. During an emotional moment, Brian alludes to Pam's breakdown from a couple of weeks ago, which is the first Jim's heard of it. He gets pissy with Pam and tries to run away to Philly rather than dealing with it, but she puts her foot down and decrees they're going to spend their Valentine's Day having the fight they've been needing to have since… oh, October or so. Good call, that.
At the end of the day, Erin breaks the news to Pete that she couldn't pull the trigger, but when Pete understandingly says he just wants her to be happy, she changes her mind and goes and dumps Andy for being gone for three months. While, unbeknownst to her, he's on speaker with David Wallace. So, you know, that's kind of awesome.
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!No teaser this week; just mini-credits and we're on, with Jim and Pam talking at their desks about how lucky it is that Jim's in town for Valentine's Day. Of course, it's going to cost him an extra day in Philly week, but whatever. Up at Reception (which is decorated with a Happy Valentine's Day banner), Erin flirtatiously invites Pete to play hooky with her today. "I really want to have fun today, because tomorrow is going to be a nightmare," she THs. She adds that when Andy returns from his "stupid dumb boat trip" (no argument about that) tomorrow, she plans to dump him. Cut to Pete's TH, voicing his doubts about Erin's plan. After all, she's offered to do anything he wants, just like his family did with his childhood dog on his last day before going to "the farm." And then Erin waves a Frisbee at Pete, which doesn't seem to calm his fears.
Dwight enters Andy's vacant office and plays out a scene between the two of them, taking both parts, complete with annoying humming as Andy. Dwight THs about how well he gets along with Andy lately. "He's pretend, and he does exactly as I tell him to." He's also not looking forward to Andy's return tomorrow, "unless he comes back as Pretend Dwight, in which case we're in for an epic, confusing showdown." Couldn't be worse than last season.
Kevin has been sneaking a bit out of Andy's milk carton in the fridge in his absence, but the boss's return will mean "goodbye chunky lemon milk." He comes out of the kitchen and announces to the bullpen that he wishes Andy would stay away. Nellie suggests "one last fun bossless day." Meredith's idea of booze and cocaine doesn't get much traction, so Phyllis suggests hitting the mini-mall to cash in on the couples' discount instead. Stanley offers to pretend to be Phyllis's husband, having already been sick of her for years, and Kevin volunteers to be Angela's "foot-buddy" at the nail salon where she gets her feet detailed. Nellie drafts Clark ("It's what I do," he says gamely, at least when Jim's in the office and he has nowhere to sit), and Oscar asks Darryl to go with him. Darryl sneers, "No," then quickly corrects himself by going into "not that there's anything wrong with that" mode in record time.
Jim and Pam hang back and eat chocolates in the kitchen, and discuss their romantic plans to share a bottle of wine that evening. Pam tells Jim that they have lunch reservations with Brian and Alyssa. Pam thinks it's a good idea to thank Brian for saving her life, and Jim doesn't disagree. In Jim's TH, he maintains that he's looking forward to seeing Brian and his wife. "And he got fired for protecting my wife from a jerk in the warehouse? I'm sorry, but you know him. He's a good guy."
The Asian ladies at the nail salon fawn over tiny Angela, as she's clearly (and happily) used to them doing. At another table, one of the manicurists points out that Clark looks like a pretty girl. Nellie joins in the kidding, and Clark announces they're not actually together, so the couples discount won't apply. "She's living a lie," he says loudly. "Turns out I can't even be in a pretend relationship," Nellie THs.
Oscar and Darryl show up at the counter and ask for the couples' discount. The older woman in charge laughs them off, so Darryl steps up, grabbing Oscar's hand and passionately declaring their love. "And we have two disposable incomes and no kids, and we're taking our business elsewhere." And with that, he leads his fake boyfriend out of the store.
Jim and Pam show up at the restaurant and find Brian sitting at a table alone. He gives the crew -- his former coworkers, obviously -- an awkward smile as they sit down. They make a little small talk, and Jim thanks Brian for everything. And Brian breaks the news that he and his wife are splitting up. Think it's because he's in love with Pam? Nah.
In Andy's office, Dwight has Pretend Andy sign another form, complete with a gratuitous "Rinka dit-dit-dit-doo" in Dwight's Andy-voice. "Hi, Dwight," says a bearded figure in the doorway behind him, wearing a guayabera shirt, a Rasta hat, and beads in his scraggly facial hair. "You're back!" Dwight gasps at the new arrival because it's Andy. "And you're disgusting!"
Everyone returns to the bullpen to find hippie-Andy perched on a desk, saying, "I guess I can cancel my order from Zappos, because the loafers have arrived!" Good one, especially coming from a dude who skipped out on work in November. He goes for a hug from Erin, but is fended off by an awkward high-ten from her instead. Erin THs that she's so bad at breakups that she's still dating her first-grade boyfriend, plus she forgot to get him something for their twentieth anniversary.
Oscar asks Andy why he's back early, and Andy duhs that this is his super-romantic Valentine's Day surprise for Erin. He presents her with a couple of bamboo sticks and expects her to join him in an impromptu performance of some island music on the spot. "Hey, Burning Man, if it's not selling out too much, you might want to throw on a tie," Dwight interrupts. "David Wallace is gonna be here in an hour." Andy says that's why he's here. Oh, and also for Erin (who repels another hug attempt). It turns out that Andy never technically told Wallace he was gone for three months. "But we've been in touch the whole time. It's not hard to get high-speed Internet in Turks and Caicos, people." Erin looks visibly disgusted, for reasons that become clear with a quick TH inset from her saying, "He only emailed me four times." That's actually twice as much as I thought he had. Andy asks where Jim is and wonders why he's at lunch for two hours. Oscar pointedly asks if long absences from the workplace concern Andy. "If the shoe fits, "Andy non-answers. I think he means loafer.
At lunch, Brian is talking to Jim and Pam about the end of his marriage and suddenly breaks down into tears. "We have to find a different way to communicate other than breaking down in front of each other," he says to Pam. "At least my crying won't get you fired." Which is all clearly news to Jim. "Crying?" he asks, taking his hand from the back of Pam's chair.
Andy congratulates Dwight on landing the White Pages account, but dings him for not getting pricing approval. From Andy. "You were on a boat," Dwight grumbles, and refuses to agree that they're "coolio." So to win the point, Andy calls up Jan on the phone. Once she's on the line, Dwight desperately hisses "coolio" several times, but it's too late; she's so disgusted at Andy calling her after the fact to price-gouge her that she cancels the contract on the spot. "That was not how I had hoped that would go," Andy understates.
Andy visits Accounting to collect his back paychecks. Which turn out to include a bonus from David Wallace for the branch exceeding its sales targets the last quarter. Roughly the length of Andy's absence, in other words. Angela and Oscar look at him expectantly, but he takes the bonus and heads out. Even Kevin glowers at the camera over what a bum deal this is.
In the break room, Dwight is holding court with complaints about how Andy blew the branch's biggest sale ever. Clark takes it particularly hard, given what he had to do to get it. Even Dwight is sympathetic. They're all wondering what they can do. "Short of telling David Wallace that he was gone for three months..." Dwight floats. Nellie refuses to rat Andy out after he gave her another chance. "So the least I can do is have somebody else rat on him." She turns to Meredith, but apparently there are lines Meredith won't cross. After all, nobody ever called her a narc. "Floozy, yes, alky, check... vomit-mop, sure. Floor-meat, that's me. Flesh-Hoover--" Pete finally cuts her off, asking, "Why does no one stop her?" Erin says she understands that everyone is mad at Andy, including hers, and says there's no need to rat on anyone; Andy can get in trouble all by himself. Dwight agrees that Wallace will fire Andy after taking one look at him, at which point Andy walks in, still rather tan and floppy-haired,
but now shaved and wearing a suit and tie and ordering them all back to work.
Returning to the office, Pam asks Jim in the parking lot why he's mad at her. He says it was a little weird. "You told me Brian got fired for that whole warehouse thing, and you intentionally left out a kind of major intimate detail. I don't know, Pam, I guess I just feel like a chump who knows less about his marriage than the sound guy." Well, yeah. Thanks for finally reading the memo, Big Tuna. Pam says she kept it from him to try to spare him additional stress on top of what he's already dealing with. "Then thank you. Thanks to both of you," he grumps at her. Then he admits that he isn't mad at Brian, and probably shouldn't be mad at Pam because he wasn't there. Which he wasn't. "So let's just forget about it." They stalk on into the building, but I can't help thinking that neither of them has forgotten anything.
Andy is leading a "What's Been Going On?" meeting in the conference room, complete with flipchart. His plan is to get some updates on recent events to he can drop references to them in his upcoming meeting with Wallace. Wallace himself comes in, and Andy claims it's their weekly roundtable. Wallace says they should keep doing whatever they've been doing this last quarter, and they'll talk after he discusses the fired warehouse worker with Val. As soon as Wallace is gone, Andy is shocked at the news that someone from the warehouse got the axe. Kevin starts to bring him up to speed, and Dwight interrupts to claims that Frank lit Pam's mural on fire. In fact, the whole warehouse burned down. "This is what I'm talking about!" Andy says. "This would be good to know!" He pumps them for more "facts," so Phyllis volunteers that they've expanded into balloon sales, and Clark adds that Kathy Ireland is now the company's official spokesbabe. Too bad Andy hasn't been in the country to see her as the official spokesbabe for some insurance company instead.
In Andy's office, he mentions the balloons and the warehouse fire to Wallace, who doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. Lucky for Andy, he realizes what's up before he gets in too deep and digs himself out. "Think you'll agree I explained that pretty well." Wallace eventually leaves, none the wiser, and Andy directs his dirtiest look at the bullpen.
Later, Erin comes into Andy's office and finds him scratching distractedly on his wooden fish. "I don't love you anymore," she blurts. Andy's stunned, and she explains that he was gone a long time and didn't email her all that much. "You retweeted me a lot, to be fair, but I don't love you." Andy insists there's a lot of love -- at least on his side -- but they're just out of sync; it's merely a question of timing. Like his parents, who were never happy at the same time for several decades together. And look how that turned out. "I know you may not be feeling love for me right now," Andy begs, "but if you fake it, I won't be able to tell the difference." She seems almost willing to be convinced they can get it back.
Jim gets up from his desk and suggests to Pam that they bag that bottle of wine and he can catch tonight's bus to Philly instead. "I just feel like we're gonna fight," he explains. Well, now you are, sooner or later. "So how about let's not?" he adds. And then for a little extra passive-aggressive jab, he hands her her Valentine's Day gift: and old drawing of hers he had framed, that she didn't know he even kept. "Happy Valentine's Day," he grouches at her. They're stiff and weird and distant as they get their coats, but before heading out, Pam says he shouldn't go to Philly. "I think you should stay and I think we should fight." Finally, one of them acts like a grown-up. "You really want to fight on Valentine's Day?" Jim asks, and she says she does. "All right, put your dukes up, Beesly," Jim grins sweetly. Aw, man, this fight is going to be lame.
Erin comes up to Pete while he's scraping windows in the parking lot and tells him that she couldn't do it. Pete's cool, saying she doesn't have to apologize and that he just wants her to be happy. So she kisses Pete, marches right back up to Andy's office, and tells Andy they're breaking up. "And just so you know, I was worried that you were dead. You were gone for three months!" She leaves him sitting there at his desk. I don't know, I was expecting more in the way of a punchline here at the end. Suddenly Andy's speaker phone pipes up: "Andy? David. Still here. What was that about three months?" Ah, there it is.
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.
1 2