And this is not a case of lust, you see (Michael)

Jan is always in charge with them - always - even when she thinks she isn't. The guys in the warehouse cheer Michael for sleeping with her (the ice queen), and it hurts because he thinks maybe he could love her. For once it's not about boobs or hotness, it's about how smart she is, and how much better she is than him at life, and how she can just get up and continue living after something as horrible as a divorce (he can't imagine a worse fate in life than a broken home). And he keeps trying to get her to see how perfect she is and how he's better with her, and finally, finally she does (even though her doctor ordered her to).

I should have seen it when my hope was new (Karen)

She woke up in a hotel room that morning, feeling temporary and displaced. She misses cooking her own food and toilet paper without a folded point and finding her towel where she left it in the morning. Most of all, she misses her friendship with Jim. He had seemed to cling to her in those last days at the Stamford office like a life preserver, as though she were the only thing keeping him sane. It made her feel needed, necessary, something she's not used to and was kind of counting on. Only now Jim's pushing her away (he's somehow different in Scranton) and she's wishing that she'd seen this side before she fell for him, because now it's really too late for this to end without her getting hurt. So she crosses her fingers and hopes that day will never come. The apartment for rent becomes an unintentional metaphor for their relationship. If she tries for permanence, takes that lease on him, she might lose her damage deposit, but she's come this far and it's either keep moving forward or give up.

And she was serious before when she told him she wasn't a quitter.

I don't know what you're looking for

You haven't found it baby, that's for sure (Roy)

Pam comes back from the bathroom with a pale face and red eyes. Roy sits next to her, just to be close, and he can't for the life of him understand what the hell is going on with her. Maybe it's because she never explained it to him properly, only said that she was leaving because she wasn't happy anymore. But that can't be it, can it? Every time he sees her these days, she seems fucking miserable - worse off than when they were together. When he thinks back, really examines the last ten years (something he's been doing a lot lately), the answers just aren't there. All he knows for sure is that when she laughs it makes him whole again.

You rip me up and spread me all around (Pam)

It's all messed up and she can't make any sense of the state of things. Pam suddenly finds herself a sufferer of unrequited love, karmic revenge for something she's not entirely sure she's guilty of. Jim isn't fitting where he did before. Karen sometimes masquerades as Jim's replacement. Roy is not anything like the shape she used to remember. Even Dwight, goddammit, is beginning to change from what she knows and she's wondering if maybe he hit his head again, because despite the PMS comment, he'd known exactly what she needed - a shoulder to cry on. She finally pulls herself together, but returning to the warehouse still feels like facing a firing squad.

It's pretty funny to see Angela in a grass skirt, though.

I only know what I've been working for

Another you so I could love you more (Jim)

When Pam helps him put things right with Karen, it's his biggest fear and his most fervent wish all rolled into one, because it proves that he was right to move on and things can work with Karen, but it also means that even now that she's single, Pam still doesn't want him (and he'd secretly been hoping that she would come around someday). He works so hard at the new version of himself all the time that he's fucking exhausted; he can see it in the mirror. Karen should be better for him, is everything that Pam won't let herself be. Bold, confident, knows what she wants.

After an awkward, painful conversation in the break room with Pam, Jim realizes Karen is the safe, sane choice, and (except for that one time last May) he has always gone for the sure bet, so he prints off the rental listing and hands her his future.

I had a vision I could turn you right (Jan)

Indulge in your self-destructive tendencies. She repeats it, over and over, in the back of her mind. A mantra, a prescription. God knows she's tried everything else. There's part of her that doesn't mind, because it's nice to spend time with man that's actually in awe of her power. It doesn't scare him away like most (they usually hate her for it). Michael knows what lies behind her icy demeanor. And sometimes, when he focuses for more than ten seconds, he's a really great salesman (certainly the most persistent person she's ever met - he never takes no for an answer until he gets results). And she keeps coming back, because she hopes that someday, someday he'll just get it and stop acting like an out of control teenager. He can be really sweet and tender and thoughtful and if she could just figure out how to reconcile that with crazy and oblivious and mind-numbingly ridiculous, he would be the perfect man for her. Not the one she thought she'd marry as a young girl (god damn fucking Gould), but the one that suits her emotionally damaged, tired, stressed-out self.

Still, the first thing she's going to do when she gets him alone in his condo is hold him down and cut off those stupid Jamaican beads. Because she has to draw the line somewhere.