Contains spoilers for this episode and earlier episodes.
Jennifer visits Slough with news about the company's restructuring. She is becoming a partner, leaving her current job available to Brent or Neil. The board favours Brent, but accepting the promotion would mean Neil stays in Swindon and Slough is downsized into his branch. Brent accepts anyway, abandoning the loyalty he has repeatedly promised his staff. He then announces the threatened job losses alongside his own promotion and cannot understand why nobody shares his enthusiasm.
Gareth is distressed to learn that Brent will take a proper personal assistant instead of bringing him along. The staff are angry about being sacrificed, and Brent struggles to justify his decision as good business. At the office party, however, he announces a reversal. He says he has rejected the promotion so that everyone can stay in Slough and the branch can absorb Swindon. The announcement wins him the gratitude he wanted from the room.
Malcolm later questions that account. He has heard that Brent failed the required medical because of high blood pressure, rather than freely refusing the job. Brent avoids a clear answer and suggests he might have deliberately failed to protect his colleagues. Tim also reverses his planned departure. He tells Dawn that Brent has made him Senior Sales Clerk, with an extra five hundred pounds a year. His psychology degree will have to wait as he begins imagining a future within the company instead.