The Office: Get The Girl

What Happened, Yo!:

-Nellie Bertram shows up in the office, now apparently working there and decides to claim the empty manager's chair. Everyone is confused about her presence, and when they try to point out that they already have a manager, Nellie asks where he is, causing Robert to wonder the same thing.

-Andy has gone to Florida, where he hopes to bring Erin home. He fakes being sick when Robert calls him (Although Robert still insists he come into work immediately) and shows up at the house of Irene, the old woman Erin's been helping, hidden in a package. Erin is happy to see him, but won't return to Scranton with him, particularly when she learns that he hasn't officially broken up with Jessica yet. Andy keeps trying to convince her, but eventually they realize that the timing never worked out with them and it probably never will. Andy leaves, but Irene tells Erin that Andy is a good guy and she made the wrong choice. As Andy drives off, Erin runs after him and the two kiss passionately in the streets, before getting back together and driving home.

-Meanwhile Nellie is still insisting that with an empty manager's desk, she should be the new manager, and Robert seems willing to let this all play out. Dwight and Jim are both opposed to Nellie becoming manager. Nellie tries to do performance reviews, despite not knowing anyone and Jim tells the office they have to protest this. But Nellie starts winning people over by handing out raises. Jim still refuses to take a raise or a performance review, but Nellie gets everyone else (including Robert) to clap for her in an effort to get Jim to collapse to peer pressure. Later on, Nellie brags about how she got a job that she's ill-suited for that belonged to someone else and calls it the American dream.

I Liked This: Get The Girl was essentially a transitional episode for the season, tying up the remaining loose ends from the Florida arc and setting the stage for the rest of the season. Nellie is finally given a chance to be more of a character, than a plot device and the results are entertaining. She is ambitious and won't let something like someone else having the job she wants stop her from getting it. Her wackiness amused me this week and I liked how she essentially bribed everyone into letting her be manager. Of course, Andy should be back soon so the upcoming power struggle between these two should be a lot of fun to watch. The office plot also had some good character moments like Dwight being thwarted in his efforts to take Daryl's office only for Creed to take Dwight's desk and Kevin being heavily invested in the "Nellie is Tinkerbell" idea. As for Andy and Erin finally getting together, it's about time. The show got them together too fast the first time and then spent way too long trying to get us to care if they get back together. But their reunion was sweet and I enjoyed their conversation on the way back to Scranton about Erin's philosophy on toothbrushes.

But...: The drama leading up to Erin and Andy's reunion felt kind of forced. And Robert was pretty wasted as a character this week, only serving as a strange enabler of Nellie.

The Bottom Line: Get The Girl was a good way of wrapping up loose ends and setting the stage for episodes to come. Bring on Andy vs. Nellie

Grade: 80% (Great)

Memorable Moments

-I enjoyed the opening with the fall of the balloon and how it made everyone reflect on the sad states of their lives until they were happy to see it destroyed.

-Andy: "I'm in Florida to get Erin. Soon as I heard she wasn't coming back to Scranton, I jumped straight in my car and drove straight down 'till I hit the ocean. My heart is my map. Turns out Tallahassee is about 200 miles inland so I overshot a good amount. Still, not bad for a heart map, right?"

-Nellie to Kevin: "Wait, I'm very good at intuiting names. Is it... Chumbo?" Jim (In Interview): I think it's a cross between Dumbo and Jumbo with a hint of chubby. It's not a name.

-Dwight: "I wouldn't let [Nellie] manage a celery farm." Dwight (In interview): "Those who can't farm, farm celery."

-Robert: "All life is sex. And all sex is competition. And there are no rules to that game."

-Nellie: "I grew up poor. I had little formal education, no real skills. I don't work especially hard and most of my ideas are either unoriginal or total crap. Yet, I walked right into a job for which I was ill-prepared, ill-suited, and somebody else already had and I got it. If you ask me, that's the American dream, right there. Anything can happen to anyone. It's just random."