Michael is excited when he's invited by David Wallace to attend the Dunder Mifflin shareholder meeting in New York; he is dismayed by the hostile crowd and causes the board of directors even more trouble. Jim finds he is being undermined by Ryan who refuses to do work, so Jim decides to make an example of him in front of the staff.
Episode Tropes:
- Became Their Own Antithesis: Parodied with Dwight's Earth Day mascot of "Recyclops", who eventually became disillusioned with humanity's self-destructive nature and lack of respect of a planet he loved so much and swore eternal vengeance. The montage ends with Dwight, in costume, lazily throwing an aluminum can at a recycle bin and missing.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: In order to punish Ryan instead of firing him, Jim permanently puts him in the storage closet as his own "office" in front of everyone.
- Did Not Think This Through:
- Michael tries to cite the Dunder Mifflin Inc. board of directors and management as nice people and not criminals and thieves by listing the luxury suite with free food and the limo ride he was given, not realizing this just makes Dunder Mifflin's management look more corrupt.
- Dunder Mifflin's senior management is still spending money on lavish employee lounges and limo rides despite their official stance being "we have almost no money or fungible assets".
- Michael publicly promises that they were looking to find a solution, only for David and the rest of the board to tell him that they have no plan or anything to get them back on track.
- Jim asserts that he has the same authority as Michael only to find out that he does not have the authority to actually fire anyone.
- Dumbass Has a Point: After CEO Chris O'Keefe insults Michael, the latter argues that Scranton is the only branch making money right now and points out that he is the only one that tried to offer positive solutions instead of doing nothing.
- Fun with Acronyms: Oscar says that DMI on the stock boards means Dunder-Mifflin Incorporated. However, after seeing the company give them a limo to go to New York, he says that acronym should be Dummies, Morons, and Idiots.
- Green Aesop: This episode was part of an NBC initiative to have all their programs send an environmentally friendly message for one week. Said message was limited to the cold open, pared down to "reduce, reuse, recycle", and quickly shoved aside to make way for jokes.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction:
- On Michael's entrance and wave (which, in rehearsal, includes a twirl everyone hates):Michael: I'm not gonna do the twirl. (beat) It's not even a twirl; it's a spin. (beat) I might do the spin.
- Michael asks a fancy security guard if he ever had to guard anyone important, such as a celebrity."I'm not allowed to talk about it." (Beat) "Nelly Furtado."
- On Michael's entrance and wave (which, in rehearsal, includes a twirl everyone hates):
- Miles Gloriosus: A business-world equivalent. Oscar is very confident and assertive in listing the major failings of Dunder-Mifflin in running their business. Less so when it comes to actually saying so in front of anyone who might be in a position to do anything about it (or take offence and punish him for doing so).
- Noodle Incident: Recyclops had previously been killed by something or someone called "Polluticon", but he got better.
- Oh, Crap!: Ryan, after smugly flaunting his disrespect and insubordination towards Jim all episode, quickly shits a brick when he realises that while Jim might only have questionable authority to fire him, he does have the unquestionable authority to exile him to an out-of-the-way desk with a computer with no internet access and prevent him from interacting with others because he's been flagrantly not bothering to do the work he's supposed to be doing, distracting other people and undermining Jim.
- Right on Queue: Dwight waits in line to ask a question to the board of directors, but by the time he gets there, he is so fed up with how long he had to wait that he ditches his original question and starts criticizing how the line is managed.
- Sanity Slippage: According to Jim, Recyclops was originally peaceful, but then went insane and vowed to destroy the planet he once cared about.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After the CEO decides to revoke their limo ride, Michael quickly gathers Dwight, Andy, and Oscar, and leaves the conference before the driver can get the message.
- Series Continuity Error: In the cold opening, both Ryan and Ronni appear during Dwight's past appearances as Recyclops on Earth Day. Earth Day is on April 22. Ryan was the receptionist during Pam's vacation in "The Carpet," which was in January, and Ronni was the receptionist for two weeks in the summer.
- Shrinking Violet: Oscar freely criticizes the actions of the company brass and has several ideas on how they can mitigate the company's financial problems. But when Michael actually gives him a platform to voice his concerns to the board of directors, he clams up because he's afraid they might fire him for questioning their decisions.
- Wham Shot: At the end of the episode, the stock price for Dunder-Mifflin goes down from $1.13 and continues to drop.
