“Night Out” ~ Donna’s Recap

Ok, I have to say I’m feeling a little hung-over from the “Night Out”. It sort of fell flat for me. There were great moments, true, but overall I can’t say that I loved it.

The episode starts off with the announcement that the Scranton Branch will have to work on Saturday to help fix sales errors that the floundering Dunder-Mifflin Infinity web site created.  Then along comes Ryan, with his half-beard, telling his old co-workers not to worry all will be fixed once DMI 2.0 is launched. “When will that happen?”, an exasperated Stanley asks.  Ryan hastily replies, “TBD”. And it is at that moment that you can see the cracks in Ryan’s armor beginning to show. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dunder-Mifflin’s wunderkind is slipping.  It sort of reminds me of that scene from the “Wizard of Oz”, where the all powerful wizard is revealed to be nothing but a phony. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. ha ha! Poor Ryan!

And Ryan’s humiliation is only just beginning. His former co-workers then begin peppering him with questions about the faulty web site.  Phyllis asks Ryan, “did the police solve the problem with the…?” What?! Police?! Ex-squeeze me, you say?! Yep, we come to find out that Ryan put a social network on the DMI web site and it was infiltrated by sexual predators. Oh boy!

Ryan tries valiantly to put a polished spin on why he made the decision to put that feature on the site, explaining, “It’s all about creating a one-stop consumer experience. Say you’re chatting with your friends. You’re talking about the latest music, the election…All of it happening in our virtual paper store.”, but Jim cuts him down to size and interupts with, “and than an older gentlemen asks you boxers or briefs”.  lol

And then, Creed (who is always good for an awesome quote) chimes in, “I don’t get the big fuss here. I like the site.” ha ha!  Could our favorite Office-thief be one of the sexual predators lurking around the Dunder Mifflin Infinity chat room asking about underwear preferences?! I couldn’t be sure, but you have to admit, with Creed, it’s possible.

In the middle of all this is of course, Kelly. Sitting smugly in the back of the room with her arms folded defiantly. She can’t help but chime in and give Ryan a few more lumps, telling him point-blank, “If I created a web site with this many problems, I’d kill myself”. Ouch!  But hey, before you start feeling too bad for the boy wonder, remember last year’s season finale when Ryan announced, “You and I are done”.  The cocky Mr. Howard deserves to be knocked down a few pegs, and it’s very cool that Kelly gets to do her share of the pushing.

After the question and answer period, Michael tries to invite himself along to NYC with Ryan to go out and meet women. Ryan blows him off and quickly scurries out, but not before taunting Michael by telling him how “amazing” the women are at the clubs in NYC. Not thwarted at all by Ryan’s rejection, Michael tries to recruit Jim to head up to NYC with him, saying that his desperation to meet women is “not horny-ness, it’s the loneliness”.  But then in the next breath, he asks Jim the “hypothetical” question, “would you have sex with Meredith? Do you think she’d keep quiet about it?” Geez! Sounds like Michael is really “lonely”. lol   Jim, of course, turns down Michael’s invitation which forces him to recruit….you guessed it, his ever-faithful lap-dog, Dwight! And, off to NYC they go, to stalk an unsuspecting Ryan.

At the office, Jim has come up with the brilliant idea of everyone working late on Friday so that they don’t have to come in on Saturday at all. That Jim, he’s so great right? No wonder David Wallace wanted to promote him last season…

Cut to NYC late-night, where Michael’s snooping has unearthed the whereabouts of an unsuspecting Ryan. He and Dwight enter the night club and Ryan is…annoyed? upset? furious?! Nope, none of the above. He’s thrilled to see them! Michael says to him, “We came to hang out with you like you said”, (he so never said that!) Grasping Michael in an embrace he yells, “That is so awesome man! And, you brought this guy!” It’s so out of character for Ryan to be nice to them that even Michael has to reply, “Ryan, it’s Michael and Dwight”, like even he can’t believe that Ryan is actually happy to see them. So right now I was thinking, he must be drunk. Well, sorta….but more on that later.

Ryan then introduces his friend, the diminutive Troy. Dwight suspects that Troy might be a Hobbit. Yep, you read it right, I said a “Hobbit“, as in those tiny people from the J.R.R. Tolkienn series. This starts off a whole evening’s worth of inappropriate comments from Dwight to Troy like, “Do you have powers?”. lol But before you say, poor guy, it’s becoming clear that Troy serves another purpose to Ryan other than just friendship. More on that later too…;)

Back at the office, it’s after 9pm and the staff is just finishing up working late. But when they leave the building to head out, what do they find? The chain-link fence that surrounds the entire Scranton Business Park is locked up tight. Seems Jim forgot to let anyone know that the staff was working late to avoid working on Saturday, so they got locked in! How’s David Wallace’s first choice looking now?! And, to make matters worse, they can’t even go back into the offices because they self-lock once you leave, and Pam was the last one out. No one has a spare key, because that’s one of Dwight’s duties and he’s in NYC! So basically, Jim and Pam aren’t looking so “golden” right now. Stanley says it best when he tells Jim, “Perfect, you guys worked together on this one. If I’m not in my bath in an hour with a glass of red wine you’re both dead”. lol

Trying to make the best of a bad situation, Toby finds a football in the parking lot and tells Pam he will teach her to throw it. Pam scoffs at him, “I know how to throw a football”. We then hear Toby mutter under his breath, obviously finding yet another thing to admire about Ms. Beesley, “Of course you do”. lol  Then football-champ Pam throws the ball and promptly hits poor Meredith right in the face from a range of about 3 feet. Ouch! Fuzzy feelings over, the gang makes there way into the foyer of Dunder-Mifflin to await their release.

As the gang waits in the foyer of the offices, Toby remembers that he has the building’s security guard’s phone number programmed into his cell phone. Eveyrone is thrilled, including Pam who playfully punches him in the arm. Toby gazes lovingly at her and just has to punch her back. Now, every Office fan knows that Toby suffers from a major crush on Pam. The object of his affections however, and his other co-workers, are unaware of Toby’s misguided love.

Jim grabs Toby’s phone and dials the number. As it’s ringing, he realizes that he doesn’t know the name of the building’s security guard he’s calling. So, he quickly polls everyone to get the man’s name before he answers the phone. Everyone begins yelling out different names, but before the group can come to a consensus, the man answers the phone. So now we get to watch Jim painfully try to have a conversation with this man whose name he should know because the man works in their building and he sees him everyday. Oh, and it also turns out that Jim was the person who was supposed to collect a tip for the security guy at Christmas. And, once again he didn’t follow through. It’s hysterical when he answers the phone with, “Hey Chief! You’re the African-American guy at the desk? Um, who do I have here?” So awkward and brutal. Simply awesome! (The security guard is Hank by the way. The only one who knew it was Creed.)

Back in NYC, the boys have moved onto a new club where Michael can hopefully meet some “older girls”. He just wasn’t feelin’ the last club, even though it was like a “sexy preschool”. lol At this club, Dwight meets some players from a women’s basketball team. He promptly dubs them, “Amazons”. lol You can only imagine what sort of world lives in his head. It must be like Comic-Con come to life with real Hobbits and Amazon Women…must be nice to be that far removed from reality…

Either way, he still scores with one of the “Amazons”. Later on, you see him making out with one of them. Michael takes a cell phone picture of them swapping spit, and sends it to everyone’s cell at the office. When the call comes through, they are all still languishing in the foyer and let out collective grunts of disgust as they view the photo Michael sent. ha ha (I was watching Angela’s face when she checked her cell and expected surprise, but she was grossed out too…hmm…)

Michael is faring better with the ladies at this club. He meets a beautiful dog groomer. When she asks what he does for a living, he replies, “I’m a bank teller”. Why would he demote himself professionally like that you ask? Well, Ryan told him to always tell women that you work in finance. lol So, shocker, the pretty lady finds a way to get away from him ASAP. Forelorn, Michael calls his Mommy from his cell to complain, but gets interrupted by Ryan’s antics on the dance floor.

Ryan is now on the dance floor, basically moshing. Everyone around him is upset and they basically begin pushing and shoving him away. It turns into a full-scale fight between Ryan and the ladies on the dance floor. And the ladies are winning, hands-down. Michael and Dwight come to his rescue after he is kicked out. Where is Hobbit Troy you ask? He scurries out of the club as Dwight and Michael shoulder out a staggering Ryan. Troy calls back to the group, “Don’t take him to the hospital”, as he takes off down the street. 

What gives? Why can’t Ryan be taken to a hospital? Why is his friend Troy basically running away from them down the street?! I’ll tell you what gives! It seems that boy wonder has gotten into drugs and Hobbit Troy is his dealer. Ahhh! No wonder he was nice to Michael and Dwight! ha ha He was on drugs…now it all makes sense….! lol

Back in Dunder-Mifflin’s foyer, Pam is trying to make light of the gang’s situation by making jokes at Michael’s expense. Everyone laughs, and when Toby chimes in with a funny too, Pam, who is sitting next to Toby, playfully bumps his shoulder. Toby, caught up in the playful moment, forgets himself and reaches out and grabs Pam’s bare knee and begins rubbing it. The whole room freezes in awkward silence. After all, this isn’t Packer rubbing Pam’s knee, it’s meek Toby for goodness sake! Mortified at having been “caught” lusting after his secret crush Pam, Toby blurts out that he has an announcement. He is “moving to Costa Rica”, a place he has mentioned in the past he would love to move to. Then, he jumps the chainlink fence and jogs home. lol Poor Toby! Pam unwittingly made his brain explode! But, maybe it’s for the best that his crush was revealed. He always wanted to move to Costa Rica. Getting caught feeling up Pam’s bare knee might have just given him the push he needed to finally make that move. Otherwise, he might never have found the courage for such a bold decision.

Back in NYC, Dwight and Michael get a sick Ryan back to his apartment. They have no idea he is on drugs. They think he is drunk or dehydrated. Ryan feeling sick and sorry for himself (and who wouldn’t with Dwight and Michael preparing to have a sleep-over in your apartment?!) attempts to “confess” his problem, but instead of saying he has the problem, he uses the “friend excuse”. He says, “Guys, I think my friend Troy might have a drug problem.” Dwight then delivers my favorite quote of the night, “I think his species might have a higher tolerance than ours”. lol  Seriously, Ryan must be on drugs if he thinks that he is going to get any help with his drug problem from Michael and Dwight.

Back in the foyer, Jim sees a minivan pull up right outside the gate. It’s the building’s cleaning ladies! Hurray! So, he grabs Oscar and heads out the door. Why Oscar you ask? Well, that’s exactly what Oscar wanted to know. Jim, caught in yet another awkward situation, tries to explain without being rude that the cleaning ladies probably speak Spanish and he needs Oscar to translate. Oscar takes offense and Jim is rightly chastised. However, when Jim tried to explain the situation to the women, it becomes clear that in this particular case, the stereotype is fact. The women do not speak English. Oscar grumbles, but goes ahead anyway to speak to the women so they can be set free. And bada-bing, bada-boom, the gang is free to go from another socially awkward day at Dunder-Mifflin.

So, what did you think of this ep? Do you agree with me, or think my opinion is completly ridiculous? Either way, we’d love to hear from you! Sound off in the comments or give your opinion in our forums, the “Night Out” thread. And as always, thanks for reading!   ~Donna

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