Spoilers for “The Negotiation” below:

Things that happened

True to his word all those months ago, Roy tries to kill Jim Halpert. Seriously, he busts in the door with fire in his eyes! There’s a few seconds of tension until suddenly the day is saved by unlikely (but, on second thought, entirely likely) hero Dwight K. Schrute who blasts Roy in the face with pepper spray.

This all sets off a fantastic chain of events: Pam and Roy have some painful — and seemingly final — relationship drama; Angela, buoyed by hero-slut lust, gets everyone in the office to recount their version of events; Jim and Karen have some awkward moments; Kelly and Ryan are delightful and alternate between making out and arguing about everything; and Michael — wonderful Michael — embarks on a salary-centric odyssey that results in a beautiful kind of wikipedia vandalism:

It all adds up to a (super-size!) episode that isn’t quite so easy to recap. But let’s give it our best shot.

After the pepper spray incident, Roy is summarily fired, finally giving us a clear picture of what it takes to get fired from Dunder-Mifflin. It’s assault. And, presumably, anything worse than assault. (Rape, murder, genocide, racketeering) Daryl is forced to pick up the slack in the warehouse and because of this asks Michael for a raise. Michael decides to play it tough, and so spends his morning reading wikipedia to learn about the art of negotiation. It’s his hope to avoid giving Daryl raise he wants.

Unfortunately, the negotiation goes off the rails rather quickly, as Daryl points out that the suit Michael’s wearing — the one he picked out of a free clothing bin with “Miss Tyerious” on the label — is actually a woman’s suit. This sends Michael into a deep shame spiral, and this is compounded upon when it’s discovered that Michael actually barely makes more than Daryl currently does, despite being a loyal employee for 14 years.

Having now completely lost any negotiation power he hoped to have, Michael appeals to Daryl for help in getting a raise. Daryl takes Michael under his wing and is actually really nice about it, aside from two occasions in which he refuses to let Michael stay at his cousin’s house and, then, later, teaches him more “black slang” that does not, actually, exist.

Daryl, Michael and Toby head down to the New York Office to ask Jan for a raise. It all goes really well until Michael starts to talk, at which point he decides to using withholding sex as a bargaining chip in his negotiation with Jan. As a person who often faces that exact negotiation tactic, I can tell you that it never ever works. But, in this case, it sort of does, as Jan comes around to the same combination of pity and sympathy that leads to her finding Michael so damn endearing all the time, and Michael gets his 12% raise. Which goes nicely with his corporate perk of “getting to have sex with Jan.”

Meanwhile, back at Scranton, Angela is upset that she missed Dwight’s hero moment, and so she asks everyone in The Office to recount their version of the events. Most people (Oscar, Kelly, Karen) have fairly accurate memories, but Creed steals the show with a fucking phenomenal rendition that moves the event to “11 or 11:30 at night” and has Dwight attacking Roy with hairspray and a lighter.

While this is going on, Jim is doing everything he can to think of ways to thank Dwight. This is difficult for young Halpert, since his expertise is clearly in tormenting Dwight and not embracing him as a heroic figure. Jim’s attempts are varied — they include trying to give Dwight a plastic display case for his bobble head, asking to buy him a beer and printing out a certificate from the local Police department — but nothing sticks, largely due to Dwight having an airtight Star Wars analogy explaining why heroes don’t need any kind of gratitude.

But, in the end, Jim’s problem is solved when he happens across a driven-to-the-brink-of-horniness Angela and Dwight making out in the office. He decides that keeping their secret will be thanks enough. Hopefully that means he can safely and with clear conscience go back to the pranks.

And, lastly, there’s a whole slew of relationship drama. Kelly and Ryan are driving Toby crazy now that they both sit near him, as they continue to argue about ridiculous things and then shout at each other and then make out. Jim and Karen, meanwhile, experience some tension over the whole Roy-trying-to-kill-Jim-over-Pam thing, which is fair. And, lastly, Jim is very cold to Pam over the attempted-murder, essentially snubbing her and insinuating that Pam will never be able to really break things off with Roy. And, then, in a move fueled by equal parts spite and determination, Pam seemingly does just that, meeting the big murderous lug for coffee and telling him effectively that it wasn’t because of Jim that she broke off the wedding.

The last words we hear Roy to say to her? “I don’t get you, Pam.” And that about sums things up, doesn’t it?

And in a little bit that I bet was filmed way after the rest of this episode, we get to see Andy Bernard return to Scranton, having triumphed over his anger management course. But, when he walks into the office, Dwight promptly pepper sprays him.

Things that were good

• I am so happy to have this show back. I wish NBC would schedule things better, because this break was long enough that it was way too easily to forget certain plot points, but this was a great return.
• I’d generally say that attempted murder is way too much for a show like this, but it worked, mostly because it wasn’t really attempted murder. The portrayal was realistic without being overwrought, and my only concern coming out of the whole mess is that maybe we won’t get to see Roy for a while. That’d be a pity, since he’s really a good character.
• Kelly trying to convince Ryan that “Usher Jennifer Hudson Kapur” is the perfect baby name (along with all of the background Ryan and Kelly scenes in this episode) was one of two contenders for funniest thing in the episode.
• Creed’s bizarre retelling of the Dwight incident was the other. And they’re both so good that they would potentially make a list of the funniest Office moments ever, I think! I really liked them!
• Andy Bernard’s return is good news, because Ed Helms is consistently hilarious. I know some people felt like the character wore out his welcome with the string of episodes in the fall, but I am not one of them. I just want to hear him play the banjo some more.

Things that were not so good

• I still get that annoying voice in the back of my head telling me “this is not realistic documentary behaviour!” when they do scenes like they did at the coffee shop. But I really think that’s more my problem than the show’s at this point.
• I’m at a loss, really. I have about ten more things I really liked about this episode that I had to stop myself from listing above (The wikipedia negotiation tactics, Michael’s suit, Toby’s lawsuit prediction, Angela’s facial expressions, the Rush Hour reference, etc.) so to list things I didn’t like is harder than ever before. I think this was just a really good episode.

Worth Watching If…

You like really good episodes. Again, not the most accessible of episodes for new viewers, as it relied on a plot carried over from an episode that aired almost two months ago, but for those who have followed the show for a while, this was great stuff.

In Five Words

Wikipedia Page Is Now Locked