Lotto (The Office)

The series—presented as if it were a real documentary—depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

In the episode, the entire warehouse staff quits after winning the lottery, leaving Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) and Darryl Philbin (Craig Robinson) to scramble for replacements while Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), Erin Hannon (Ellie Kemper), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), and Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) temporarily get a taste of the warehouse life.

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 Philbin, who was originally part of the pool but stopped when he was promoted, falls into a depression, unable to find any motivation to work and is further dismayed when his ex-wife's response to him not winning is to ask for the phone number of his pool-winner friend Glenn.

Upon Kevin's suggestion, they create an oil luge to slide the boxes across the floor, resulting in a lot of damaged inventory.

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 assembles three applicants: a bodybuilder from Oscar Martinez'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.

[7] Pam tells Jim that in his lottery fantasy "we're Stephen King characters", due to his desire to live in Maine.

[8] During one sequence, the scene begins in medias res when Jim and Dwight are having a conversation about the films Message in a Bottle and The Postman, both of which involve Kevin Costner.

[11] In its original American broadcast on NBC, "Lotto" was viewed by 5.82 million viewers and received a 3.2 rating/8 percent share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49.

HitFix reviewer Alan Sepinwall wrote highly of the serious dialogue in the episode, noting that "if there's been a consistent element to Paul Lieberstein's work on this show ... it's that he understands what makes the main characters tick, and is able to use that for real emotional resonance ...