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The elevator is down for maintenance, so when Stanley finally makes it up the stairs to the office, he's not about to leave again for a scheduled sales call with Dwight. Having finally accepted that he's never going to be manager anyway, Dwight tags Stanley with a salvo of tranquilizer darts and gets Clark to help him drag the unconscious salesman back downstairs, into his car, and all the way into the client's office, where the three of them somehow close the deal despite Stanley being a total space case as he slowly recovers from the effects of the drug. Then when they return to the office, Stanley still refuses to negotiate the stairs while conscious, so he avails himself of a leftover dart and waits to wake up at his desk.
There's also some further documentary fallout. Andy, both realizing the impending revelations of the documentary mean he's not long for the company and emboldened by a reviewer's throwaway mention of his musical talent, decides to go find a talent agent and kick off a new career in showbiz. Believe it or not, he actually finds one willing to take him on. Even better, she's played by Roseanne, and she only charges him five grand up front.
Angela's husband the (state) senator sees the writing on the wall and decides to hold what she thinks will be one of those damage-control press conferences with his devoted wife at his side. So she ends up standing to him on live TV (with the others watching back at the office) as he comes out as gay, thanks Oscar publicly by name and announces that he's in love with his chief of staff.
As for Jim and Pam, they're at enough of an impasse with this Philly thing that they're about to start couples counseling. They spend the day warming up for it by talking the ears off of Toby and Nellie respectively, but as things stand now, Pam is refusing to go and Jim is refusing to stay. And now they only have four or five episodes left to work it out. Not that anyone's counting.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Stanley is uncharacteristically cheerful as he enters the building for the day, but that ends in a hurry as he is horrified to see the elevator down for maintenance. Erin follows him inside and happily leads him to stairwell, saying it's "Stairmageddon." She's all excited about it, as she is about everything. Apparently Dwight has been spending lots of prep time getting people ready, complete with informative posters on how to operate stairs and even a small practice flight set up in the bullpen. Now the big day is here, and Erin is coaxing Stanley up step by painful step, while Oscar THs, "Our office has an unusually large number of... unusually large people." Thus the need for cardiovascular effort must be compared to the end of time.
After some truncated credits, Andy enters the bullpen all "Red alert!" about a text from his brother notifying him about a review of the documentary in the local paper. Dwight points out that they're already at red alert because of Stairmageddon, and wonders if they should up it to double-red. Meanwhile, Stanley appears to have ascended another step, with the help of a 5-hour ENERGY.
Up in the bullpen, everyone's reading the online version of the review that describes Kevin as "Falstaffian;" Dwight as always chasing a manager position he'll never get; and Andy as a manager whose incompetence is emblematic of the economy, though Andy asks for a printout when it mentions his musical talent. From his office, Andy THs that he's probably not long for the company now that the documentary is coming out, which is fine; "I wanted to be my generation's Lisa Loeb." Erin reads on about a "lurid subplot" involving a hypocritical public figure in a gay affair. She figures it's Katie Couric, but a couple of other people in the office appear to know better. Stanley finally shows up, looking like he just ran a marathon, and Dwight says they need to go on a sales call together. He tries to make it an order, but Stanley yells right back that Dwight isn't his boss and never will be. And Stanley wasn't even here for the reading of the review.
Nellie overhears a call from Pam setting up her mom to babysit, and fishes for more information about the Halperts' exciting plans for the evening. Pam's cagey, so it's not really a surprise when we cut to the two of them outside, just after Pam has confided to Nellie that they're going to marriage counseling. "That is the only kind of counseling I have never had," Nellie says.