Rally's On

Remember TV? And I don't mean American Idol and reruns of Cheers, I mean turning on your television and seeing a brand new episode of a scripted show, with actors and scripts and whatnot. Well, it's coming back-- more specifically, The Office is coming back tomorrow, Thursday the 10th. But it's been a long, hard strike, and you may not remember the last episode that aired way back in November. So, for your convenience, here's my recap of episode 4.08, The Deposition. (And don't worry, I will eventually keep recapping Mad Men! I got a little busy, but then I downloaded the Mad Men theme song as a ringtone for my cell phone, and every time I get a call I think, "Man, I gotta watch the rest of the show.")

Michael’s in a meeting with the accountants when Pam comes in with a post-it note. Pam talking heads that whenever Michael is in a meeting he makes her come in with a post-it note and tell her who’s on the phone, so he can act important and say he’ll call back later. “The thing is, he doesn’t get that many calls, so he has me make them up every ten minutes.” We see Pam bringing Michael post-its that say “Good morning,” have a drawing of a smiley face, and, to Michael’s meeting with Ryan, a cartoon hot dog saying, “Hiya buddy!” I can totally relate to Michael because one of my favorite things to do is screen calls when I’m hanging out with friends, because it says, “I like you so much that I’m going to make this person, who I like less, wait to talk to me until you’re not around.” But maybe I only feel this way because my mom and sister are the ones calling most of the time.

Michael looks at the hot dog post-it and tells Ryan that although an important client is on the line, Ryan is more important. This backfires when Ryan insists that Michael take the call. Pam fakes putting a call through, and Michael fakes answering it. It’s not much of a punchline.

In Michael’s sweet PT Cruiser, Jan and Michael are on their way to New York for the deposition in Jan’s wrongful termination case against Dunder Mifflin. I love at the end of season three when David Wallace tells Jan that they should have fired her long ago, because, “You smoke constantly in your office. You spend most of the day online shopping. You disappear for hours at a time, sometimes days. Always saying you're visiting your sister in Scottsdale.” Switch in drinking for smoking, and that’s exactly how I plan to self-destruct when I’m inevitably stuck in a soul-killing, dead-end job. Michael tells a different story to the camera: “They fired her for having the courage to augment her boobs.” Jan jumps in with her thesis statement, which is that DM “displayed a pattern of disrespect and inappropriate behavior.” Michael starts making up memory devices to remember this phrase, and is also trying to convince Jan to put the convertible top down (she doesn’t want to mess up her hair). Michael is excited at the thought of getting 4 million dollars in damages if Jan wins, and I don’t blame him. Jan could buy a lot of matching sweatsuits with 4 mil. We get the sense that Jan’s been coaching him harder than a Romanian gymnastics coach on what he’ll say during the deposition, but she tries to cover up for the cameras and says, “He’s just going to tell the truth, but the truth is very complicated. So we went over it very carefully just so we wouldn’t leave anything up to chance or Michael’s judgment.”

In the lobby of Dunder Mifflin corporate, Jan is trying to tame her windblown hair (Michael won their top up or down battle) when Ryan comes in and asks to talk to Michael alone. Ryan’s facial hair is like, “Behold my powers of douchiness!” In the hallway, Ryan starts by asking Michael if they can “talk off the record, as friends.” Ryan’s such a manipulative weasel that I can’t help but adore him. I’m hoping and praying for the spin-off to involve Ryan, Darryl and Kelly in a Felicity/Ben/Noel-type love triangle. Ryan continues, “Jan has put the company in a very tough position here… we just want to make sure that you won’t do anything to hurt us with your testimony.” Michael looks thrilled to be able to assure Ryan that he’ll do anything to help the company, but also like he’s getting some idea that he’s about to be ripped into little shreds by this situation.

In the warehouse, Darryl is kicking Jim’s ass at ping pong. Pam tells us that “the warehouse guys got a ping pong table last week, and now Jim comes down and plays with Darryl. Sometimes I bring him juice. My boyfriend is 12.” Aw! As Jim misses the ball, Kelly (wearing a great purple wrap dress) comes over to Pam and gets her bitch on. “What has two skinny chicken legs and sucks at ping pong? Guess who’s boyfriend it is?” Pam doesn’t want to guess. “I’ll give you a hint: it’s not my boyfriend. I think it’s the guy over there.” In an interview, Kelly says, “I don’t talk trash. I talk smack. Trash talk is all hypothetical, like ‘Your momma’s so fat she could eat the internet.’ But smack talk is happening, like, right now. Like, ‘You’re ugly and I know it for a fact because I got the evidence right there [complete with in-your-face hand gestures].’” I don’t think I need to mention that Kelly is my hero and an inspiration in all I do and hope to one day be.

Up in the office, Pam asks Jim to join her in the conference room. He’s probably like, “Yes, are we finally going to have middle-of-the-day sex at work?” Last night I was discussing TV-related dreams with my roommate, and we agreed that while having a dream in which you get with Jim is great, you feel kind of bad afterwards for coming between him and Pam. Uh, anyway, Pam’s turned the table into a makeshift ping pong table. She tells him he has to practice and “get really good and beat Darryl.” Jim matter-of-factly tell her that he can’t beat Darryl, and is surprised to learn that Kelly’s been trash-talking Pam about his lack of skills. Is Jim deaf to not hear all this going on three feet away from the table? But I don’t care about the contrivance, because it gives us a brilliant montage of insults from Kelly: “Your boyfriend is so weak, he needs steroids just to watch baseball.” “Jim couldn’t hit a ping pong ball if it was the size of the moon.” “Were Jim’s parents first cousins who were also bad at ping pong?” I don’t want to criticize, but, according to Kelly’s definition, those are all instances of trash talk, not smack talk. Although, I love that in those scenes they’re wearing the same clothes, so Kelly said all these things to Pam in one day. Jim clarifies, “So you’re asking me to defend your honor against Kelly?” He accepts the assignment, because he’s the perfect boyfriend.

At corporate headquarters, DM’s chief counsel comes out to greet Michael and Jan, but Michael freaks out when he sees that Toby is there too. “What is he doing here? Are you renewing your divorce vows before my deposition?” The low blow that doesn’t really make sense: Michael’s specialty. Toby mildly says, “I’m your HR rep. I’m on your side.” Michael tries to pretend he has any influence and says he won’t talk until Toby leaves, but forgets about it two seconds later. I would also watch a Toby spin-off, maybe following him moving to the big city with his adorable daughter Sasha and reentering the dating world, co-starring Kristen Johnson as his crazy ex-wife and Kristen Davis as the flirty single mom in the apartment next door. In the deposition room, Michael is sworn in and then parrots the line about disrespect and inappropriate behavior. Jan looks as proud as a new pet owner whose puppy finally learned how to pee outside. In an interview, she says, “People underestimate Michael. There are plenty of things he is well above average at. Like… ice skating.”

In Scranton, Pam tells Kevin that Jim needs help with something in the conference room. He walks in and says, “Oh, AWESOME,” because Kevin is my kind of guy.

Jan’s lawyer asks Michael how long he’s known the plaintiff, and Michael goes off on a John Grisham tangent. The lawyer clarifies that he meant Jan, and Michael says that he’s known her “six years and two months.” Aw, do you think Michael celebrated the 74 month anniversary of the day they first met? The lawyer asks, “And you were directly under her the entire time?” Michael automatically replies, “That’s what she said.” I can’t blame him; that’s the kind of set up you really can’t let go. Unfortunately, the other people don’t get it. “Mrs. Levinson told you she was your direct superior?” the lawyer asks. Michael doesn’t get that they don’t get it, and it goes around in circles until the court recorder has to read back the transcript. Michael notes that her “delivery is all wrong. Butchered the joke.” Heh. After reading The Westing Game I really wanted to learn the shorthand writing court recorders use, but that never happened.

Kelly goes to walk into the women’s bathroom just as Pam is leaving. The two stand off in the doorway for a second until Pam moves to the side. Kelly: “Yeahhh, that’s what I thought.” Kelly’s such a mean girl and I fucking love it.

The lawyer (I’m sure they said his name but I can’t remember it, so sorry) asks Michael if Jan said why she thought she was getting fired. Michael very maturely answers, “The twins. They hang off m’lady’s chest. They make milk.” Then the lawyer asks if Jan’s relationship with Michael had something to do with her firing, and Michael brings out the HR agreement they both signed (he framed it! I love how even in this very depressing episode there’s a very sweet quality to Michael’s love for Jan) before they started dating. But Dunder Mifflin’s lawyer can top that: she has a copy of the photo of Jan sunbathing topless in Jamaica that Michael forwarded to the entire company. Somehow, Jan never knew about this happening, which I guess is believable if she’d been out of the office a lot and really isolated from her co-workers. DM’s lawyer pushes him to clarify the timeline of their relationship, and Michael says everything he wasn’t supposed to: “Well, it depends on how you define ‘begin’ [So Clintonian!]. If it’s from the first time we shook hands, like six years ago. If it’s from the first time we kissed, then it’s like two years ago. If it’s the first time we kissed sober, it was like four months after that.” Jan’s lawyer wants to take a break, but DM’s lawyer wants some answers. Michael says, “line,” as if he’s in a play. Jan realizes that this is probably not going to end well for either of them.

After the commercial, the court recorder is reading back Michael asking if he can go to the bathroom so he can get out of the question. Michael looks at the camera, but he’s getting no help from anyone.

In the office, Meredith leaves the conference room as Jim tells her good game. She flatly says, “Don’t patronize me.” I totally stole that line at the end of this year, when comparing with my friend Andrea the lists we both kept of how many books we had read in 2007. It’s not supposed to be a competition, just a sort of reading journal, but I turn everything into a game so I was not pleased that she read like 15 more books than I did. And she would say, “Well, you still read a lot of books,” and I’d say in my coldest tone, “Don’t patronize me.” It’s ok, I’m going to kick her ass in 2008. Dwight storms into the conference demanding to know what is going on. Jim says, “Thank god you’re here. As it turns out, one of our biggest clients is a ping pong master, and I have to play him tomorrow or we lose the account. Will you help me practice?” Pam’s in the background, nodding like, “Damn, that’s smooth.” I would be maybe concerned to find out I’m dating such a skilled liar, but it’s Jim, and Jim is perfect, and Jim and Pam have a fluffy puppy relationship, so she’s probably fine. Dwight agrees to help, and it’s not very surprising to learn that he’s a table tennis pro. He talking heads that all of his heroes are table tennis masters, and that he has a life size poster of one on his wall. “The first time I left Pennsylvania was to go to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony” of some guy who’s name I can’t spell. Wouldn’t it be cruel if the Table Tennis Hall of Fame didn’t have any tables just sitting around for visitors to play on? Oh, and that’d be cool if there were some retired Hall of Famers standing around for you to play against.

At corporate, Michael’s managed to get it together and explains that he and Jan “had an on-again, off-again relationship for two years. And I know this destroys her case, and I’m sorry, but I’d like to throw myself on the mercy of the deposition.” Michael thinks he’s done, but Jan’s lawyer has a trump card: Michael’s diary. Betrayed!! I love how the lawyer calls it a journal in order to preserve some measure of Michael’s dignity, but Michael calls it a diary nonetheless. It even has the word ‘diary’ embossed in silver on the leather cover! Did he buy it at Limited Too, I wonder? The lawyer starts reading an entry out loud, and I swear, this situation is my biggest nightmare. On January 4th, 2007, Michael wrote, “Just got back from Jamaica. Tan almost everywhere. Jan almost everywhere. Hehe. Oh diary, what a week. I had sex with my boss. I don’t know if it’s going to go anywhere. Jan was very specific that this is not going anywhere, that it was a one-time mistake. But we had sex six times so you tell me. I am definitely feeling very eerie. More tomorrow, xoxo, Michael.” The only thing missing would be if Michael gave the diary a name and addressed all entries “dear Tiffany” or something. The lawyer concludes that it seem as if neither Michael or Jan considered that they had a relationship. Jan’s nodding her head, but can’t bring herself to look at Michael. DM’s lawyer wants to see a copy of the entire journal, and Michael makes what I think is a good point, that “I don’t think anyone in this room has the right to read my diary.” Oh man, if I were him I would lunge across the table, rip the diary from the lawyer’s hands, start running and not stop until I reached Canada. The judge (or mediator or whatever) agrees that they’ll make ten copies, but Toby interrupts to ask if he can have one too. That’s evil, but who can blame him?

They break for lunch, and in the cafeteria Michael looks around and sees everyone he knows reading his diary. Unable to sit with Jan or Ryan, he finally goes to Toby’s table. Toby puts the diary away and starts empathizing. He says, “When I was a kid, my parents got divorced. They both wanted custody, and they both asked me to testify against the other one in court. And I didn’t want them to get divorced in the first place. I loved them both so much, I just wanted…” Toby’s act of baring his soul to comfort Michael is interrupted when Michael reaches over and pushes Toby’s tray of food onto the ground. Poor sad sack Toby. Michael gets up and leaves.

Michael and Jan are putting their trays away at the same time, not looking at each other. He asks her how she could steal his diary, and she says, “I’m sorry, I had to. I have to win this.” Or… she could get a new job? He asks how she found it. “You keep it under my side of the mattress.” “I don’t like the lump.” Michael’s such a princess. Jan says, “Alright, I stole your diary and gave it to my lawyer. You emailed a topless photo of me to everyone in our company. Let’s call it even.” They exchange angry “I love you”s and walk away in opposite directions.

Back in the deposition, DM’s lawyer asks Michael about “this other woman, Ryan, who you refer to as just as hot as Jan, but in a different way.” Heh! He says, “not another woman, just a cool, great-looking, best friend.” Toby can’t help himself from giggling at the situation. I wish Ryan was in the room too so we could see that horrified silent stare he’s so good at. Remember in the Valentine’s Day episode where Michael tells Jan’s boss that he was joking about them dating, and that it was just a misunderstanding? This is pretty much the same thing. Michael tells the lawyers that although he considered Jan his girlfriend, she didn’t feel the same, so “her actions are completely rightful.” DM’s lawyer tells him it’s “admirable that you continue to defend a woman whose feelings towards you are so obviously ambivalent.” Michael thanks her, and hey, ambivalent is kind of a tough vocab word. I use it a lot, but only because I tend to be ambivalent towards almost everything (except ping pong, and Kelly. There’s no ambivalence in my love for ping pong or Kelly).

DM’s lawyer points out that Jan consistently gave him poor performance reviews, and Michael explains that “that was before our relationship. She was going through a divorce, and she was drinking a lot… of water.” The lawyer brings out a review from March, after their relationship became official. He reads Jan’s review of him out loud: “I am out of carrots. I am out of sticks. Mr. Scott has time and again proven himself to be an unmanageable employee and a poor branch manager. I recommend that he be removed from that position and reassigned to sales where he belongs.” The thing is, Jan’s totally right to suggest that Michael go back to sales, since it’s something he’s actually good at. The lawyer asks, “after reading that, wouldn’t you at least say that Mrs. Levinson’s judgment is very seriously flawed?” Man, everyone in this room is very seriously heartless. Michael’s eyes get a little watery and he doesn’t respond.

Commercials. Dwight is still kicking Jim’s ass at ping pong. Pam asks how it’s going, and Dwight responds that Jim’s gone from “completely hopeless to simply miserable.” Jim is proud to show Pam his new spin serve, but Dwight, playing on his cell phone, slams the ball back without even looking up. That’s kind of hot. You know, it really isn’t fun to play ping pong with someone who’s either a lot better or a lot worse than you, because there’s no satisfaction in short rallies. My ultimate goal in life is to marry a man who is exactly as good at ping pong as I am, so we can get a ping pong table instead of a dining table and just play all the time. He’ll win 50% of the time, I’ll win 50% of the time, and it’ll just be bliss. Jim tells Pam he’s ready for the rematch with Darryl, and Dwight says, “Wait a minute, Darryl is the client? Oh, no, no. He works here, dumbass.” Heh! I love when Dwight is so close to figuring something out, but then veers off in the wrong direction at the last second.

In the deposition, Michael asks Jan how she could do that to him. She can’t give a good answer, but tells him, “I am not the enemy. Dunder Mifflin is the enemy.” He replies that Dunder Mifflin has always treated him with the “utmost respect, with loyalty. They were going to give me your job, and I should have taken it.” This is Jan’s cue to pull out the final humiliation of the day. Oh man, you guys, this episode is so bleak. Jan has her lawyer read part of David Wallace’s deposition about whether Michael was a contender for Jan’s job. When asked if Michael was his first choice, David said, “Michael Scott is a fine employee who’s been with the company many years.” The counsel asked if Michael was in the top five, and he said, “What do you want me to say. C’mon, he’s a nice guy.” Eventually, David Wallace said that no, Michael wasn’t seriously considered for Jan’s job. David Wallace is such a classy guy; I sort of have a crush on him (and I love how he totally has a man crush on Jim). He’s over in the corner, listening to the lawyer reread his testimony, and just looks broken hearted.

Jan’s lawyer goes for the money shot: “Wouldn’t you agree with Ms. Levinson that the company displays a pattern of disrespect towards it’s employees?” Michael: “Absolutely… not.” Yay!

In the warehouse, Jim and Darryl are having a rematch. Jim wins a rally, and Pam says to Kelly, “Ha, see that?” Kelly says, “Yeah, that floppy haired girl you date won a point.” And the score is 19-4, so Kelly sort of has a point herself. Darryl scores again, and Kelly gets up and starts singing that Avril Lavigne classic, Girlfriend: “Hey, hey, you, you, I don’t like your boyfriend! Cause, cause, cause, cause he sucks at ping pong!” That’s some good smack talk. Pam is not going to take it anymore, gets up and tells Kelly to pick up a paddle, they’re going to play. Kelly asks, “You think you can handle this?” Pam: “In my sleep.” Girl fight! They rally for serve, but can’t get past the “i” in “ping pong.” Oh no, girls are bad at sports! Jim and Darryl decide to go play on the table upstairs, and again, it’s like there’s some sound barrier surrounding the ping pong table.

Everyone’s filling out of the deposition room as David comes over to apologize to Michael. All the men at Dunder Mifflin are wearing similar red patterned ties—it’s sort of distracting me. David says that they never meant for Michael to get caught in the middle of this (I’m guessing David didn’t ask Ryan to do the “as a friend, can you…” thing), and he’s very sorry. Such a classy guy! David Wallace is so the George Clooney of Dunder Mifflin corporate. They shake hands, and Michael tells him that he thinks David is a nice guy too. Aw, man love!

Michael talking heads, “What did I do it? I don’t know. Jan said it was because of the photo that she revealed the diary. But she already brought the diary with her to New York, so… You expect to get screwed by your company, but you never expect to get screwed by your girlfriend.” I can’t believe there’s not a “That’s what she said” joke right there. Also, kudos to Michael Scott for displaying a degree of logical thinking no one (especially Jan) previously thought he was capable of.

Jan and Michael drive home. That must have been an awkward two hours back to Scranton. She suggests getting Chinese for dinner (mmm, now I want orange chicken), but Michael says that they should save some money and get something cheap. Chinese was Jan’s cheap suggestion, but Michael was thinking more like fast food. She says that’s fine. This episode is such a downer.

Luckily, the end tag has a little taste of the glory that is Mose. Him and Dwight are in the warehouse after hours, wearing protective goggles and playing an intense game of ping pong. They don’t have a table at home? Preferably one that Dwight whittled out of a tree? Oh, fine.