People working. Sheila looking really tired and wiping her eyes. Such an exciting workplace. Dawn picks up the phone, but someone's got the wrong number. She seems tired too.
Tim is showing some moonwalking moves to Ricky and Donna. Ricky says he's doing it wrong, but Tim says it's straight from Thriller and does a fairly good voice impression of Michael Jackson: “Ee-hee! Shamou...” They're right outside David's office, so he walks in and wants to join in the fun. As usual, he manages to make a fool of himself: “Afternoon Mr Jackson! (nervous giggle) I know you're an international superstar, but did you send that fax yet?” He looks at the others for a reaction, but they just stare back. Yeah. Spelling out the joke is usually not all that funny. Embarrassed, he launches into a joke: “Have you heard Michael Jackson's new song? He's teamed up with the West Ham football team. I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.” Everyone just stares again. I don't know much about British soccer, but apparently “I'm forever blowing bubbles” was some kind of slogan for them, and Bubbles was Michael Jackson's monkey, which... makes the joke kind of gross. David points at Donna and says she doesn't know about football and he'll fill her in later. Do you really need to know about football to get a lame joke like that? He continues with George Michael's latest song, but he has trouble getting started: “Have you heard of George Michael's latest release.. the latest song he's released..” Get on with it! Asked if it's about blowjobs, he says, “yeah, it's about the toilet stuff, it was a handjob.” Don't want them getting the details wrong. But before he can go on, Donna says, “Is it Wank Me Off Before You Go-Go?” The guys laugh out loud, and David is pissed that Donna stole his joke. It must be her revenge for something he's done while she has to live at her place. Maybe he's bored her to death with stories about.. well, the topic doesn't really matter when it's David telling the story. David wants to get laughs, so he continues: “What's white and slides down toilet walls?” “I don't know,” says Tim. “Michael Jackson's latest release!” he says fast and then corrects: “George Michael's..” with a nervous laugh. No one else laughs and it's really awkward. Tim wants to end the jokes and asks if David can moonwalk. David claims he can, but can't on the carpet. Tim says you can and demonstrates it, David says he used to do it all, “total control of the body and all that”, which is pretty hard to believe. He does a kind of weird robot dance, which looks dorky more than anything. Jennifer walks in and smiles benevolently, asking if David is busy. “Just keeping up the morale,” says David. “Can we have a chat?” says Jennifer and walks into David's office. As he's leaving, David still laughs a bit, adjust his tie, and makes a few really dorky dance steps into his office, complete with a slightly Michael Jackson-esque “Oh!” I think he doesn't realize how old and flabby he looks, especially while dancing like that. Tim can pull it off, but he can't.
Gareth's investigation room. Keith sits on the chair opposite to him, looking as blank as always. Gareth repeats his name and thanks him for coming in. He tries to act like one of the guys by saying they had a laugh at it. “We did, it was funny,” says Keith with some actual tone in his voice, sounding amused. Gareth gets serious and starts saying how offensive the picture was. “Not only was it derogatory...” and he takes his pen and uses it to look through Venetian blinds. That is a move that he's copying out of some detective show or movie, I'm sure. It's just totally gratuitous and seems to serve no other purpose but to show how important he is. I love it. In an interview, Gareth discusses why David might have given him this assignment: “Not only have I got people skills, but I'm trained in covert operations.” I love how Gareth sees the world inside the office as so important. He's undercover! He's solving a mystery! For just one day, that makes him important. It's kind of sad because it shows he's got a pretty low self esteem and needs to back it up by acting important about stuff like this. But that won't stop me from laughing at him. He mentions the phrase “softly, softly, catch a monkey”. I've never heard it before. He then trails off to talking about catching monkeys: “I'd make poison darts out of the poison of deadly frogs. One milligram of that poison could kill a monkey. Or a man. Prick yourself with that, you'll be dead within a day.. Or longer.. different frogs, different times.” Both David and Gareth seem to have an obsession with precision: they always have to add something that totally ruins their point. But only Gareth can start with a fake porn picture in the office and end up with frog poison. Priceless.
In his best official voice, yet slightly lacking in grammar, Gareth slowly asks Keith: “Do..you..know..who..DONE..the..picture.” Keith replies, “Yeah. No, I mean.. no.” His tone is totally blank. “Your first answer was yeah,” observes Gareth. “I meant yeah,” says Keith in the exact same tone as before. Gareth tries to find out why he said yeah, but Keith just blankly says he doesn't know. “Am I making you nervous?” says Gareth. You wish. “No.. I mean, yeah,” says Keith. “Interesting,” says Gareth, eyeing a chart he has in his hands. I think Keith might be quite a challenge for interrogators much more experienced than Gareth. I can just imagine them yelling at him, torturing him and asking the same questions for hours, and all he'd say is the same blank, “Uh.. I don't know.” Keith rocks.
Cut to Jennifer talking to David. She says she's been to Neil's office, and he's made some changes. David had promised to make some changes himself, so Jennifer is wondering how those are going. David is clicking a pen on and off and looks like he's been caught doing nothing. “Great...” he says evasively. Jennifer doesn't realize he's lying and asks for concrete examples. David tries desperately to think, but only comes up with jargon: “streamlining the whole ongoing...” Jennifer interrupts him by saying she thought he hated “management speak” like that. He does? He might have said he does, but I think he loves jargon. It's easy to hide behind when you really have nothing to say. She wants to hear five concrete things he has done. David stupidly offers to give her “three, and then another two if you need them.” His examples are none too impressive: “Efficiency, turnover, profitability.” Jennifer says that still sounds like management speak: “You hate that.” I think it seems weird to tell a person twice what he hates, but I love how she never takes his bs. Jennifer gives three concrete examples of what Neil has done. One of them is that “all purchases that cost over 100 pounds now go through him.” David tries to show his efficiency by saying, “I was gonna make it ninety but hundred's alright.” Jennifer also mentioned that Neil has started with the redundancies. David nitpicks that that was only four examples. I love how Neil is already being set up as the more professional boss, even if we won't see him until the first episode of the second season.
Jennifer demands if David has fired anyone. David proudly tells her that he gave a speech this morning about how there won't be any redundancies. “Why on earth would you do that?” says Jennifer. Ouch. David thinks it has to do with a word important for management - “morale”. Jennifer thinks it's bad for morale in the long run if David lies to his employees. David doesn't know what to say, and it would be a good time to shut up, but he lamely says, “They won't remember.” He looks at the camera awkwardly.
Donna is bending Tim back to do the Michael Jackson moves. The camera zooms on Dawn, who is leaning on her desk, looking bored and left out. Jealousy?
Jennifer tells David he has to fire people, and if he can't do that, she offers to do it for him. “You're not the boss here,” says David, which sounds impudent to me, but Jennifer doesn't react to it. He lies that he has already made cutbacks. “Cutbacks where?” “Staff...” Jennifer asks if David let anyone go, and David says he did. Jennifer asks who, and David says, “Julie..” in a very guilty tone. “Where does Julie work?” “Warehouse...” Same tone. Jennifer wants to know Julie's job description and he says “general warehouse in the warehouse...” You know, you'd think a smart woman like Jennifer already realized at this point that David is lying. Maybe she just trusts his integrity so much that she doesn't suspect anything. She is, however, surprised that she doesn't know Julie, because she thought she knew everyone. She asks for Julie's last name and David offers “Aa.anderton...” Perhaps because of Julie Anderson? He's an idiot. He's lying to Jennifer on camera. The documentary crew has evidence that he's lying. His employees and his bosses are going to see this footage. He is so busted, sooner or later.
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