The Office: Night Out

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

Ooh, okay, this is The Office I know and love. A+ episode.

First things first, Michael has gum in his hair. From crawling under Stanley's car because he saw something shiny. Dwight lovingly spreads peanut butter all over Michael's head to help get the gum out. Does that work? It's totally creepy and wonderful. Also Pam is wearing a really pretty green sweater that I sort of covet.

Da-naaaaaa, nananananaaaaa...

Michael's love life is not looking up. He has been dating a lot of ugly girls, basically. Also ugly is Ryan's "beard" (must be a Penguins fan still) as he tells us from New York that he's making the Scranton branch come in on Saturday to re-enter sales they made as sales made by the website or some equally ridiculous thing that only a middle manager could dream up. He is not greeted with a resounding cheer when he arrives in Scranton.

There is a weird scene in the kitchen in which Jim tries to pitch the customer service angle over the impersonal nature of the website to Ryan, and Ryan's all "I heard you told David Wallace this. Watch your back, Jim. HA HA JUST KIDDING," and Jim's like, "Um...?"

We're all in a meeting in the conference room. The gist of it is that Ryan is a giant tool, as if you didn't know this, and that everyone hates the website and it sucks. Also, Kelly is still angry at Ryan. The best part is when Michael tries to abbreviate "to be determined" as "TDB" and Ryan's face almost falls off his head he's smirking so hard. Actually, come to that, I'm not so sure that was Ryan's smirk and not BJ Novak's, heh.

Ryan's on his way out, so Michael gives him a big hug – a big, long hug – and tells him, "Ryan, I need a girlfriend so bad." Wow. Ryan makes him let go. Michael asks him about the girls in NYC, and Ryan says they're hot. He tells Scranton to stay real, and is all, "Peace" on the way out, like he could not be any toolier if he was actually a tool in a toolbox in a tool shed.

Michael tries to get Jim to come to New York to go clubbing with Ryan, but Jim's like, "I'm not single," and Michael's totally confused like, "Who are you dating?" and Jim nods toward Pam, and he's like, "...Pam." Michael: "That's still going on?" So Michael recruits Dwight and Andy tries to tag along. Dwight is not into this idea, mostly because Andy is still/again rubbing the Angela thing in his face. And wearing a really ugly tie.

With Michael gone, Jim suggests everyone stay a couple hours late tonight instead of coming in on Saturday. They're all in, and soon they finish up and are heading out for the weekend until they get out to the parking lot and realize security has locked the gate and they're stuck, because Jim failed to notify security they were staying late. Stanley especially is displeased.

Meanwhile, Michael and Dwight find Ryan at a club, and he is at first shocked, and then positively gleeful to see them. And that's how you know Ryan's definitely on some narcotics. There's also this whole subplot with how Ryan's friend Troy looks like a Hobbit and Dwight feels the need to protect him as though he is the mighty Gandalf himself, and it is mostly dumb, so I'm going to pretend it's not there.

In Scranton, Jim's trying to figure out how to get ahold of the security guy at home. Pam only has the number of the desk, which is not going to help since they are standing right beside it. Toby, however, has the security guy's home number (Pam thinks he's the best for this; Toby is bashful), but no one knows his name, so when Jim gets him on the phone, the following one-sided conversation ensues: "Heyyyyy, ...Chief. This is Jim Halpert from... where you work. You... are... the... guy who... sits behind the... desk, you -- you're the, uh, African-American guy, I mean, you're the... Who've I got here?" Oh man. It is a thing of beauty, and I'm sorry you missed it if you did. John Krasinski's voice is all cracking and it's just hilarious. At any rate, Jim gets the guy ("Hank") to agree to come down, but he'll be about an hour. Oscar suggests they should all tip him really good this year. Everyone hems and haws that they didn't tip him last year, and Phyllis says Jim was supposed to collect it. Everyone hates Jim.

Andy wants a show of hands for who thinks he and Angela are a better couple than Jim and Pam. Stanley, Kelly, Toby and Meredith raise their hands, while Kevin makes the waffly hand and Oscar raises one finger. Pam is appalled when Phyllis also raises her hand. Jim just raises his eyebrow.

Ryan's got the jitters, is rubbing his nose, and keeps going to the bathroom. Dwight worries he has a bladder infection and promises to order him some cranberry juice while he's gone. Ryan would like it with vodka, please.

Michael's awkwardly flirting with some 18-year-old who's never heard of Back to the Future. Ryan suggests they go someplace with older women and smashes his beer bottle on the floor. So the boys are lined up at the new club behind some women's basketball team, whom Dwight dubs Amazons, and Ryan comes back to tell them they can't get in without girls, so Dwight resolves to use the b-ball team, with two or three girls for each of them. Once inside, Michael flirts awkwardly some more with a random brunette. He decides he wants to introduce this girl to his mother; this girl who has just abandoned him under pretense of using the powder room.

The Scrantonites are bored in the parking lot, but Toby has found a football. Pam winds up to throw a long pass to Andy and she totally beans Meredith right on the head. Oof. Meanwhile, back at the New York club, Dwight is making out with a hot blonde Amazon. I have no idea either. She must have some serious beer goggles on. Michael takes a picture of this on his phone and sends it to the Scrantoners. They're not excited.

Ryan is still high and crazy. Michael's woman has moved on to another guy. In Scranton, Jim calls Hank to hurry him up. Ryan "dances" like he's in a mosh pit. He falls down. Michael cuts short his phone call with his mom (yep) to rescue Ryan. Also, Meredith has got a big red welt on the side of her face.

And THEN, in a scene of comic BRILLIANCE, Toby makes a joke about Michael; Pam, sitting next to him, laughs a little too enthusiastically; and all of a sudden Toby's hand is clamped right on Pam's thigh and it's not budging. Jim, on the other side of Pam, just looks down at Toby's hand in utter disbelief; I mean, it is seriously the best facial expression I have seen maybe ever. Everyone else is looking around in awkward shock as well (Pam just has a seriously furrowed brow) until Toby slowly removes his hand and announces he has an announcement to make, and that is that after thinking about it for some time, he is moving to Costa Rica and right now, he's just going to go hop the fence and jog home. Which he does. Paul Lieberstein is my hero. Oh man, that was so good. Deliciously awkward. Jim and Pam are both slack-jawed.

In New York, the boys are escorting Ryan out of the club and he is in rough shape. Troy the Hobbit takes off, instructing Michael not to take Ryan to a hospital. Dwight's Amazon doesn't want him to go; she's all "Call me," and he's all, "Uh-huh" and then as soon as she turns away, he's like, "Not gonna call her," like the true cad he is. Ryan, Michael and Dwight get back to Ryan's studio apartment, where Ryan promptly passes out on the bed and Dwight tries to sing him a lullaby while Michael offers to remove his clothes. That wakes Ryan up, and he tells them he thinks his friend Troy the Hobbit might have a drug problem. Michael offers useless advice involving spy equipment (he says he's been watching The Wire and he doesn't understand a word of it).

In Scranton, the cleaning people arrive and after Oscar begrudgingly acts as a translator ("Why are you assuming they only speak Spanish? ... Okay, they happened to speak Spanish."), they let the Dunder Mifflinites out. In the tag, Hank arrives to find everyone gone, and he is unimpressed at having been yanked away from his online poker game or whatever it is he was doing at home that was so important. All I know is, I'm grateful to him for taking so long, because it afforded us the beauty of that scene with Toby, which shall live in infamy. I'm still laughing about it.

Tags: The Office, Paul Lieberstein, John Krasinski

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