Lotto

"Lotto" is the third episode of the eighth season and the 155th episode overall. It was written by Charlie Grandy and directed by John Krasinski. The episode originally aired on October 6, 2011.

In the episode, the entire warehouse staff quits after winning the lottery, leaving Andy and Darryl to scramble for replacements while several of the office workers get a taste of the warehouse life.

"Lotto" has received mostly positive reviews from critics. According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was viewed by 5.82 million viewers and received a 3.2 rating/8% share among adult between the ages of 18 and 49, marking a slight drop in the ratings from the previous episode, "The Incentive".

Plot
The six warehouse workers win $950,000 in a lottery pool, and quit in a celebratory fashion of running through the office, making a mess and mooning the staff. Darryl was originally part of the pool (with his birthday being the winning numbers) but stopped when he was promoted, and falls into a depression, unable to find any motivation to work and further dismayed when his ex-wife's response to him not winning is to ask for the number of his pool-winner friend Glenn. Everyone else speculates how they would spend a hypothetical lottery score, with Jim and Pam ultimately deciding to fuse their two main ideas into one for a lovely brownstone located in the great outdoors.

Andy has a hard time finding any office workers who will step in for the day and make sure that the day's important orders ship out. Jim, Erin, Dwight and Kevin take over the process, but don't know how to use the heavy-lifting equipment and discover that they are not strong enough to fill the truck by hand. Upon Kevin's suggestion, they create an oil luge to slide the boxes across the floor, which results in a lot of damaged inventory, a failed shipment, and Phyllis losing a large client.

A melancholic Darryl finally assembles a conference room meeting with several potential new hires, but utters several discouraging remarks about the job and exits, leaving Andy alone to take charge of the process. Andy doesn't know what he's doing and all of the workers simply leave. Darryl blames himself for the failure and asks Andy to fire him, but Andy refuses, thinking/hoping Darryl is speaking in code.

Andy finally manages to hire three workers: a bodybuilder from Oscar's gym, Dwight's building handyman Nate, and a PhD candidate who can only work two days a week. Darryl demands anew to be fired, then switches gears: he tells Andy to give him the manager job, saying he deserves it and wants that or a pink slip. Andy then steps up and bluntly tells Darryl he not only isn't going to do that, but Darryl was not the runner-up to Andy in the selection process; as he brings up Darryl's short temper, his hiring of the unqualified Glenn, and his loss of interest in taking business education courses, Darryl finally snaps out of his funk and listens to him. Andy tells Darryl that Jo Bennett loved him and saw something in him, and he simply stopped striving after that. He convinces Darryl to stay on board, and they head down to the warehouse, only to find it has become a slick mess.

Deleted scenes

 * Talking head interviews about what you would do if you won the lottery.
 * Toby says he wouldn't make any big changes. "Quit my job, move, meet someone..."
 * Pam would give 35% of the money to AIDS-related charities, then reduces it to 25% because "If they can't cure AIDS with 25%, the extra ten's not gonna make any difference."
 * Phyllis would get new boobs, but for her mother. "She has the worst boobs."
 * In the warehouse, Dwight asks Kevin to "act as a human bumper shield" as part of their paper-sliding scheme.
 * In the warehouse, Jim wonders if the truck can be backed up to the door.
 * In the warehouse, Dwight tries to back up the truck to the door.

Trivia

 * James Spader (Robert California) is credited but does not appear in this episode.
 * Oscar breaks the window so the dog doesn't get too hot. However, the sunroof was clearly open when Dwight poured his beverage in it.
 * Kevin originally applied to work in the warehouse, but Michael Scott convinced him to work in accounting instead. As we can see in this episode, Kevin probably wouldn't be much better in the warehouse than he is at accounting.
 * The pallet jack wouldn't have helped much with loading the truck, as the load was on full pallets, and the truck wasn't backed into the dock.
 * Dwight is able to easily control the dog using German, similar to how he was able to get Cece to quiet down almost instantly in "Viewing Party".
 * Toby Flenderson would spend most of his lottery winnings launching his true crime, called The Flenderson Files dum bum bum.
 * Nate says that "when there’s a lot of noises occurring uh at the same time, I'll hear them as one big jumble." This is a condition known as . As Nate says, it is technically not a hearing problem; it is a neurological problem.

Cultural references

 * Pam imagines "a townhouse in ", a neighborhood of in New York City noted for its art galleries and home to many artists.
 * As Jim continues to describe his fantasy life in Maine, Pam tells him, "In your fantasy we’re Stephen King characters." Writer is from Maine, and most of his stories are set there.
 * Andy fails at a  impression. Mr. T's catch phrase is "I pity the fool", but Andy says, "I feel sympathy for the jerks."
 * Andy introduces Darryl as "my other brother Darryl". This is a running joke from the comedy "", in which three brothers are always introduced as "Hi, I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl."
 * Andy thinks the warehouse uses the "Dewey Decimal System" (officially the ) to organize their stock. The Dewey Decimal Classification is used to organize non-fiction books.
 * When Darryl tries to dissuade the applications from taking the job, Andy asks him, "Are we scaring them straight?"  was a 1978 documentary about prison life directed at kids.
 * ' and ' are national chains of fitness centers.
 * The is an annual multiple stage bicycle race primarily held in France. It is held all over France, not just in the south of France, as Pam believes.
 * Jim and Dwight talk about the films ' and ', both of which feature.
 * Jim names the delivery system "Señor Loadenstein", a made-up silly name that combines the Spanish honorific "Señor" ("Mister"), and the traditionally Jewish surname suffix "-stein". Jim sheepishly admits choosing the name "porque es muy rápido" (Spanish: "because it is very fast").

Main cast

 * Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute
 * John Krasinski as Jim Halpert
 * Jenna Fischer as Pam Halpert
 * B.J. Novak as Ryan Howard
 * Ed Helms as Andy Bernard

Supporting cast

 * Leslie David Baker as Stanley Hudson
 * Brian Baumgartner as Kevin Malone
 * Creed Bratton as Creed Bratton
 * Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer
 * Mindy Kaling as Kelly Kapoor
 * Ellie Kemper as Erin Hannon
 * Angela Kinsey as Angela Martin-Lipton
 * Paul Lieberstein as Toby Flenderson
 * Oscar Nunez as Oscar Martinez
 * Craig Robinson as Darryl Philbin
 * Phyllis Smith as Phyllis Vance

Recurring cast

 * Hugh Dane as Hank Tate
 * Ameenah Kaplan as Val
 * Mark Proksch as Nate

Guest cast

 * Michael Daniel Cassady as Gideon
 * Barak Hardley
 * Jason Walsh
 * Mike E. Winfield