Suri’s Recap, The Delivery - Part I

Because this is such a long episode, I decided to do the recap in two parts, just like the show.  I must apologize for the late posting, but my husband had surgery on Friday and it was a roller coaster weekend after that, and then Monday happened and so did work and well, you know the drill.  I’ll try to get the second part up later today.  Until then, I hope you enjoy the first part:

I don’t know how I got so fortunate to be able to recap the biggest episodes so far this season: the big wedding episode, Niagara Falls, Secret Santa, and now the next big office event: The Delivery. We are finally going to meet Baby Halpert. But as everything else in The Office goes, it won’t come without some crazy, inappropriate and awkward exchanges from our favorite office mates. Even our usually cool-headed Pam lets a little Michael Scott rub off on her as she attempts to maximize her HMO benefits. What people are reduced to because of health care today, don’t even get me started.

Instead, let’s get this recap started.

Cold Opening – Pam, Jim and Dwight are all at their desks making sales calls. Pam asks her client if there’s anything they need before she goes out on maternity leave. She gets a nice order from her customer and Dwight is appalled. He says that she can’t exploit her baby for sales. Then he hears Jim telling his client that they are going to have a baby and he gets an order too. Dwight says that they have to come by their sales honorably. Pam says there’s nothing dishonorable about talking about your life, and that people like it. Dwight gives it a shot and when the client doesn’t bite when he tries gaining sympathy for Mose’s new goat fungus, he decides he needs to have a baby because he’ll never outsell Jim and Pam without one. Also, he’s been noticing a gaping hole in his life; sometimes he wakes up cradling a gourd.

After the credits, we see Pam and Kevin sitting in the kitchen eating macaroni and cheese. Kevin is excited because he and pregnant Pam have connected through food. Pam gives Kevin the coveted title Gourmand; and Kevin is flattered. He says that he’s cooked his way through Julia Child’s cookbook (a nice little Amy Adams reference there; almost an ode to Katy,) and now he’s halfway through The Twilight cookbook. I wonder what other ingredients could be in such a cookbook other than human blood??

Kevin has even prepared an Ultra Feast as an early dinner for the two of them for later that afternoon. As she and Kevin are eating their first lunch, Pam begins to feel contractions. She is adamant that she is not in labor. If she waits until midnight to check into the hospital, her insurance will pay for a full extra day and night post partum. Jim says that it would be great to get an extra night because once they bring the baby home, and it cries all night; someone is going to have to take care of it. And he only plans on helping if it’s a boy. Of course, he’s only joking.

Angela is eating lunch in the break room. Dwight enters and pretends to go and buy something from the vending machine. He turns slightly and asks Angela to “bear his child.” He says he wants to have a child for business purposes and that he wants Angela to be the mother. He tells her that if she agrees, to say nothing. We see her smile slightly. Could this finally be the reunion of Dwangela? It looks as if Angela is game, so Dwight says to meet him at their old rendezvous spot down in the warehouse and they’ll “Bang it out”. TWSS

Pam attempts to go about her daily activities, but the contractions, or as Michael calls them, “contraptions”, are becoming more intense and closer together. Jim wants to go to the hospital, but Pam insists that she’s fine and wants to wait. Michael and her other co-workers start to talk to her. Even Nick, the new IT guy, gets in on the action and tells Pam she better hurry up before the baby becomes a teenager in the womb and starts playing loud music. Even Michael calls him a weirdo. Jim tries to get them to back off, saying that it’s too crowded and Pam needs some space. Pam intervenes and says that the distractions are actually good and are helping her. We see Michael’s face light up at this statement. He gets excited and calls a conference room meeting in 5 minutes, no, 5 seconds.

In a talking head Michael says that he’s kind of a master of distraction. (As if we had any doubt.) He continues to say that when he was a kid, his mother got compliments from his teachers all the time regarding his talent for distracting the other students. (Yeah, I bet they called Michael’s mom into numerous Parent-Teacher conferences just to compliment her.)

Meanwhile, Kelly is on the internet searching for pictures and descriptions of women giving birth. She is horrified that labor can last for weeks, epidurals don’t always work, that they take out your insides and lay them on a table and the most memorable; you can poop yourself. Ok, that’s not really the way it happens, but it is pretty painful and gross. I guess she’s not so anxious to get married and have babies with Ryan anymore after viewing those horrifying photos.

Michael calls the meeting to order and says that the purpose for the meeting is to take Pam’s mind off of what’s going on inside her body. Andy asks if they can do sleight of hand tricks. Kelly enters and calls Pam a woman warrior and hugs her. Pam is confused, but thanks her. Phyllis says she can put on lipstick the way Molly Ringwald does in The Breakfast Club. Pam and Michael reject that offer. Andy decides to do the Evolution of Dance dance which is featured on YouTube. He says he needs complete silence. He starts, but Pam claps after he’s only done 2 moves. Andy gets upset and says he needs complete silence and starts over.

Meanwhile, Angela heads down to the warehouse where she expects to consummate her reunion with Dwight, or how he put it, “Bang it out”. However, when she gets there, she finds him pounding away on an old type writer. She asks him what he’s doing and he replies that in any such business venture there must be a contract, which he is “banging out” on the type writer. Once Angela realizes what Dwight meant by “Bang it out”, she gets down to brass tax and starts negotiating (she is an accountant after all). She draws the line at, “The child will be male.” claiming that she can’t control that. I’m finding this subplot to be most amusing. I like the way that Dwight is handling Angela since she’s the one who usually pushes everyone around.

Back at the meeting Jim starts getting frazzled and wants to leave to the hospital since the contractions are now 6 minutes apart. But Pam is insistent on waiting it out and Jim tells his co-workers that he doesn’t like getting frazzled and he hates that they’re helping her with this. He leaves the meeting. He grabs all the baby books on his desk. (I didn’t notice the famous title What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but I’m sure it was in there.) He goes out into the hall and sits on the floor. He goes through each one and they all say to go to the hospital when the contractions are 5 to 7 minutes apart. He thinks that Pam is acting crazy and doesn’t appreciate the rest of the gang encouraging her insanity one bit. I kind of liked seeing Jim come unglued a bit. He’s always the calm, collected, rational one. Even at their wedding when Pam was starting to lose it, he knew exactly what to do. It wouldn’t have been realistic to have him hold it totally together here, and I really liked the way the writers handled Jim in this situation.

Getting back to the woman in labor, we see her come up to Jim who is sitting distraught in his car. He roles down the window and Pam tells him that she’s not going to get in because she doesn’t want Jim to try and drive her to the hospital. She reassures him that she’s doing fine and he shouldn’t worry; she isn’t coming for a while. Jim is taken aback that Pam referred to the baby as a “she”. She says that she couldn’t wait and had called the doctor a week ago to find out the baby’s gender and she hopes Jim isn’t mad. His face is glowing; how can he be mad knowing that they are having a little baby girl? He says that he feels a little better, and Pam leans in and kisses him and then heads back to the building. Jim notices that she’s changed her clothes. She responds by telling him that her water broke; so much for Jim feeling better.

Back at the office the contractions are getting stronger and it looks like Pam is leaking some more water. Michael tries to call it and help her back out to the car to head to the hospital. He says that Pam should have conceived the baby at night instead of having an afternoon delight (as if the time of conception coincides with the time of birth). Pam says that it’s time for ultra feast and heads to the break room to meet Kevin. Michael isn’t aware of this holiday and confuses it with Oktober Fest, but Oscar sets him straight by telling him it’s just something they made up so they can pig out.

Pam has a talking head where she says, “There’s no rush to get to the hospital. I’m fine. I’ll get there. And if I don’t get there, I don’t get there.”

Kevin is laying out all the food he made with a Hollywood theme while Jim is pacing back and forth outside the break room. Pam is having another hard contraction and Jim starts to freak out because the contractions are about 2 minutes apart now. Pam starts to panic, saying that she’s not going because she doesn’t think she can do it. Jim reassures her that he’s scared too, but he knows that if anyone can do this, it’s her. Michael chimes in that he’s also scared and Kevin says he’s petrified. Pam is worried that they waited too long and she doesn’t want to have the baby at the office. Michael insists on driving them to the hospital in their car and Dwight decides to escort them. He says in a talking head that he loves escorting people. He once put an ad in the paper for an escort service and he got a lot of calls; mostly creeps though.

As they head out the door Jim checks to make sure they have everything. He says the “Go Bag” is in the car. Michael has Erin retrieve his “Go Bag” from under her desk but it’s empty. As they leave he turns back and asks everyone to wish him luck. Meredith then realizes that its 5:00 and everyone starts to leave and has the baby crew hold the elevator for them.

Dwight is in the lead car and when the traffic is moving too slow for his taste, he pulls out a cherry light and sticks it on the roof of his car. He promptly gets pulled over for impersonating a police officer and Michael speeds ahead without him. Pam realizes that she forgot her iPod and starts to panic because it has her birth songs on it. Michael calls Dwight on his cell phone and tells him to go to Jim & Pam’s house to get it. Dwight is still sitting on the side of the road waiting for his ticket. He tells Pam that he doesn’t need a key as she’s describing to him where to look for the iPod.

They get to the hospital and Jim asks Michael to park the car as he and Pam enter the hospital to get Pam checked in. Michael leaves the car in the ambulance loading area. When a hospital employee tells him that he can’t park there, he throws the keys across the street and tells him that he just did, and runs into the hospital. I know that’s from a movie, but I can’t remember which one. Maybe Kgreene can help me out here.

Stay tuned for Part II