The Office Recap

We’re slowly learning more about Clark and Pete, a.k.a. Dwight Junior and New Jim (though those nicknames from last week have completely disappeared). Most notably, we’re learning that Clark is a creep who is trying to take advantage of Erin’s stupidity and her longing to be a TV news anchor. He offers to help her make an audition tape if she comes over to his apartment with a selection of sexy clothes and loosens up with a few glasses of wine. Not only does Erin not clue in to Clark’s real motives, Andy doesn’t either, and he even gives Clark his credit card so that he can take Erin shopping for appropriate clothing.

Pete sees all of this and outsmarts Clark by telling Andy that he should go to Clark’s apartment to be part of the audition, because it is important to show how Erin interacts with co-anchors. Clark is dismayed to see Andy and Pete accompanying Erin, so he doesn’t get the raunchy night he’d hoped for. In fact, he gets stuck letting Andy practice his news anchor delivery while Pete gets to take Erin out for dinner.

Roy, Pam’s ex-fiancé, gets married in the backyard of his nice home at 8 a.m. on a weekday morning and invites all Dunder-Mifflin employees who were there when he was, including Jim and Pam. Pam assumes that she knows exactly what Roy will do at this wedding, but he surprises the Halperts by being a changed man. He’s quite successful in the gravel business, he takes piano lessons to serenade his new wife, he’s marrying a restaurant owner, and he owns an expensive car. Pam predicted he would serve hot dogs at the wedding, but instead she is greeted by a waiter offering mimosas. Jim and Pam start to wonder if they truly know everything about each other, and it seems that they’ve told each other everything there is to know about themselves. Pam starts to suspect that Jim is withholding something when he takes secret phone calls; Jim still hasn’t told her that he took the job at his friend’s startup and plans to eventually move to Philadelphia. Awkward.

Nellie starts an initiative called Operation: Give Back, where employees get to choose a charity to which the company to donate money. Dwight doesn’t believe in charity, so when he is forced to pick one anyway, he chooses the Taliban.  Not wanting to scrap her project, Nellie accepts if he agrees to follow Taliban law in the office. She steals his pen and points out that he now has to chop off her hand, so he spends the rest of the episode stalling so that he won’t have to do it. By the end of the episode, Nellie still had two hands.

While the Halperts were looking pretty boring, this season could put a whole lot of conflict into their marriage. I sure hope that Jim comes clean before Pam suspects he’s having an affair, because I don’t think my little heart could take seeing Jim and Pam break up. I’m also not sure if my brain can take Erin being so dumb. Why is she so dumb? She came up with a new story that seemed to mash together an actual news story and an advertisement for a car dealership.