The Office: 4.15 ‘Night Out’ Recap
April 29, 2008 by Chandra
Original Air Date: April 24, 2008
While MICHAEL bemoans the poor quality of the women people have been setting him up with — according to him, they lack a certain Cindy Crawfordness — RYAN takes a trip to the Scranton branch after informing everyone they’ll have to work the next day, a Saturday. Why? The goal is to reformulate the sales they’ve been making by phone as website sales through Dunder Mifflin Infinity, a change that will get the sales reps no commission.
As the staffers complain during the unenthusiastic meeting Michael calls with Ryan, it’s not just switching the origins of sales that bothers them. Apparently, the website has an unnecessary social network feature that’s been infiltrated by sexual predators — of course, kinky CREED thinks the development’s just keen — not to mention that there’s no logical reason why a paper company needs a Web 2.0 site anyway.
Ryan promises everything will get better when Dunder Mifflin Infinity 2.0 arrives at a date TBD. But, Michael is more interested in whether Ryan can hook him up with some beautiful women in New York, where Ryan claims he meets tons at clubs.
So, what does Michael do? After inviting JIM first because he doesn’t realize Jim and PAM are still together, Michael decides to take DWIGHT along to pay Ryan a surprise visit in New York. Meanwhile, Jim convinces the Scranton staff they won’t have to come in the next day if they spend two hours that night working intensely while Michael is out of the way.
Too bad nobody bothers to notify security that the employees are working late. When they go downstairs to leave, the gate is chained and locked. Worse, Pam closes the self-locking office door behind them, and she doesn’t have an extra key because Dwight refused to hand one over before he and Michael left for New York.
Shockingly, in New York, Ryan seems genuinely glad to see Michael and Dwight, probably due to the drugs he’s likely snorting when he goes to the bathroom every five minutes. He’s out with a really short friend named TOBY, and the four men eventually end up in a second club when Michael realizes the females in the first one are too young to have even heard of the movie Back to the Future.
After getting inside by pretending they’re with a team of New Jersey basketball players, Dwight immediately hooks up with one of the tall and pretty athletes, while Michael at first thinks he’s scored with another pretty woman. He sees her talking with a younger, better looking guy after she claims to be going to the bathroom, and the snub leads Michael to call his mother. The conversation is cut short, though, when Ryan, acting like a drugged-out maniac, gets stormed by a group of angry women on the dance floor.
Back in Scranton, the office workers wait and wait and wait in the lobby for HANK the security guard to show up as promised after they call him. Many think he’ll never arrive since most of them didn’t bother to tip him the previous Christmas, and none knew his name.
The downtime heats up — and gets way weird — when TOBY puts his hand on Pam’s knee and not only leaves it there a lot too long, but begins rubbing it, as well. While everyone throws “WTF?!” looks at each other, Toby suddenly reveals he’s moving to Costa Rica and then goes outside, jumps the high fence, and runs home. Thankfully, the cleaning crew arrives shortly afterwards, although Hank’s not too happy when he arrives after them to find the Dunder Mifflin crew gone already.
In New York, Michael and Dwight save Ryan on the dance floor and take him home to his teeny tiny studio apartment after Toby warns them not to take him to the hospital and runs off. Still unaware that Ryan is high, satisfied and clueless Michael expresses his opinion that the night has ended fairly well since he’s got “Boys on His Side” and “The Boys Are Alright.”
I like the twist they’re doing in putting Jim into these “Michael-like” situations. Great writing!
“…putting Jim into these “Michael-like” situations.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but, yeah, I see what you mean.
My favorite part had to be poor Toby getting carried away with Pam’s knee. That was a classic Michael moment that was ten times funnier because one of the employees who dislikes Michael most was the one who committed the offense. I wonder if Toby’s really leaving the country now…