EP. 54 — The Job Part 2

OFFICE-054-20201022-TheJob2-SKv04-PW.mp3

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:03] I’m Jenna Fischer.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:04] And I’m Angela Kinsey.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:06] We were on “The Office” together.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:07] And we’re best friends.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:08] And now we’re doing the ultimate “Office” rewatch podcast just for you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:12] Each week we will break down an episode of “The Office” and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:19] We’re the “Office Ladies”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:23] Hello and welcome back to “Office Ladies”. This week, we are breaking down “The Job, Part Two”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:29] It’s the Season 3 finale, second half, written by Paul Lieberstein and Mike Schur, directed by Ken Kwapis. Last week, we interviewed Paul Lieberstein, a.k.a. Toby, about this episode. It was great.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:44] So fun. So fun to talk to him.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:46] Well, this week we’re going to break down the second half and I’ve got a summary to catch us up.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:53] Well, Jenna, you know, I can’t wait to hear it, so.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:55] I know. Now, what? Do you really like my summaries, Angela? Or is this, are you patronizing me?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:59] I actually really do. Now, that probably sounded like I was being, some BFF sass to you, but I actually really do because you’re so good at summarizing them. I think you might have missed your calling as like someone who writes the caption for movies, you know? Like the-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:16] Oh, yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:16] The slogan.

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:16] The little thing that comes up on your TV guide.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:18] Yes. Yes. I think you could have been that person except for “Look Who’s Talking”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:29] That made me laugh out loud.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:31] I know, I got you.

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:32] As y’all heard.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:32] OK, so give us a summary.

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:34] All right. Last week, we discussed how Michael got back together with Jan after she revealed her breast enhancement. He named Dwight as his successor to Dunder Mifflin because he was so sure he was going to get this job at corporate. But I have, just pause one second here, is that even Michael’s decision to make? We did not talk about this. I mean, if Michael gets the job at corporate, is he allowed to just say who gets the manager job at Dunder Mifflin, Scranton?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:05] No, no.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:06] Right?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:06] Absolutely not. I’m sure that’s like a corporate decision. Where they, like, have an overview of all, and, you know, all the employees. I’m sure Michael gets to put in his recommendation as someone that worked in that branch. But ultimately, that would be David Wallace’s decision.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:22] Thank you. I feel like we failed to discuss that last week and I needed to bring it up.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:26] Well, I got ya.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:28] Done and done. All right. So, also last week, Dwight interviewed Andy to be his number two, and Jim and Karen left for New York.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:36] Mmhmm.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:37] This week, Pam is going to become Dwight’s secret assistant to the Regional Manager. We will see Michael, Jim and Karen all interview for the position at corporate, and we will ultimately find out who gets the job.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:53] Yes, there’s some relationship stuff thrown in there too. But, you know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:59] There is a little bit, isn’t there? Of relationship stuff. All right. Fast Fact Number One, fan question from Matty Jensen. “I noticed that Ken Kwapis directed the finale for Season 3 along with the finale of Season Two. Both episodes are crucial to the Jim Pam plotline of the show. Was this an intentional decision to have the same director in charge of these important episodes, or was it just a happy accident”? Well, this was very intentional.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:27] I’m so glad you said that because I was sitting here and I wasn’t sure. I was. I was like, what is she going to say? And I was like, I hope it was thought out because Ken was so caring about the different dynamics and relationships on the show. He had been with us since the pilot. We had such a trust for his vision. And if you were about to say it was just a scheduling thing, I was going to be like, no.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:51] No, I traded some emails with Kent Zbornak and he told me that he and Greg always wanted Ken Kwapis to direct milestone episodes. So season openers, season closers or any episodes with big story movement, especially if they involved Jim and Pam. He wasn’t always available, but that was the intention. And if you look back, Ang, you’ll see that oftentimes it was Ken Kwapis, Greg Daniels, Paul Feig or Paul Lieberstein who would direct these big milestone episodes. Which makes sense because those guys were kind of the original team of visionaries for the show and they were with us since the first season.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:04:34] Yeah. So they knew every character’s journey. And I think that was super important.

JENNA FISCHER [00:04:38] That was sometimes a learning curve for new directors. If they hadn’t seen every single episode, they would come in and maybe not understand why a character was making a certain choice. And I remember the cast would sometimes just bring them up to speed.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:04:53] Oh, I did. I remember I was in a scene, I forget who the director was, but they were like, so let’s have Angela over there, like cutting the meat or something. It was like a party episode. And I was like, oh, she wouldn’t touch that meat. She’s vegetarian. She wouldn’t, she wouldn’t go near it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:08] Yes. Exactly.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:05:08] And they’re like, oh, OK. I guess I’ll put you over there by the bag of chips. I’m like, yes, that’s better.

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:14] Exactly. So this created a really nice sense of consistency for those big episodes to bring people back who knew us all so well. All right, Fast Fact Number Two, this is a fan question from Beatrix Smith, Brooke B., Amelia C., Erica P. and Supa Nandurry. “Did the conversation at the beach between Jim and Pam that we see throughout this episode, did it have to be recreated like the kiss on ‘Casino Night’ or was it a deleted scene that was added later without audio? What’s the story”? Well, guys, this was a new scene.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:05:56] Mmhmm.

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:57] But we knew about it when we were shooting “Beach Games”, so we shot this during the “Beach Games” shoot. We did not have to go back to the dam.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:06:07] Oh, yeah, we couldn’t get that location again. So they shot it while we were there. And Jenna, I remember that they brought Ken Kwapis to direct that. So, and that was actually very common. That wasn’t like anything weird to Harold Ramis. That was really common on a show. If you had a cross board moment where you had a scene that was in another episode, the director of that episode would come and direct that.

JENNA FISCHER [00:06:30] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:06:30] To sort of complete their story. So Ken came back and Jenna, I read that this was supposed to be in the beginning of the show, like the cold open.

JENNA FISCHER [00:06:41] Yes, just like that, jump from “Casino Night” to “Gay Witch Hunt. We were going to originally open this episode. The cold open was going to be watching this scene between Jim and Pam on the beach.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:06:55] I’m so glad it wasn’t that way.

JENNA FISCHER [00:06:57] I think it creates so much more tension.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:00] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:02] To leave it until later as a flashback.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:05] And, you know, Jenna, it really did add to the tension because now we know as the audience that they had had this moment. And so when Pam is saying goodbye and good luck and all of that, it’s layered with this moment that they shared at “Beach Games”. And I love that our show did this. Our show didn’t always just spoon feed the audience. It just had them, like, sort of pick up in the middle. And I, and I just loved it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:30] Me too. Me too. It was during the editing process that they decided to take it out of the cold open and put it later.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:38] Dave Rogers said in the DVD commentary that it was Mike Schur’s idea to make it a flashback later in the episode.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:46] I love that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:47] I know, he’s so smart. He’s such a smarties.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:49] Fast Fact Number Three, Angela, I’m staying consistent today. It is a fan question from Fei B., Kayla Mophet, Tiffany L., Breonna K. and Rowena C. “Did John and Rashida actually film in New York and how much of the crew was with them”? Yeah, guys.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:08] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:10] They went to New York for one day of filming.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:14] We were so envious whenever anyone got to go anywhere because we, we never got to go on big trips. But this was a skeleton crew and they went to New York.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:23] Yeah, we actually wrapped filming in Los Angeles on March 28th, 2007. They did not go to New York to pick up the Jim and Karen scenes until April 19th of 2007. So we had been wrapped for the season for a little while.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:41] Wow. I didn’t know that.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:43] That was from Kentapedia. Of course he’s going to give us those details. He’s Kentapedia.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:46] Mmhmm. He’s Kentapedia.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:48] Well, the people who went were Greg, Paul, Mike Schur, Kent, Randall, our DP, our camera assistant, Chris Workman, and our sound mixer, Ben.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:09:01] Now, they talked about this a little bit on the DVD commentary about how they had to sort of do that gorilla shooting. You know? Like they were sort of sneaking around, filming in little spots where they could. And John jokingly called Greg, Covert Greg, because like Greg, Greg would have a note, but he wouldn’t want to talk directly to him. So he’d be like, like he would act like he was passing by or he would send Kent Zbornak with his kid. Kent’s kid was with them and they would walk across the street nonchalantly, kind of tell John a note. And then, so it looked like they were just people, pedestrians in Manhattan.

JENNA FISCHER [00:09:37] Amazing, because they, I guess they didn’t want people to notice that they were filming because all those people became background people. They didn’t want to draw attention to John and Rashida, I guess.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:09:48] They had seen what happened when people, like, realized Steve was being filmed, right?

JENNA FISCHER [00:09:53] Yeah. Well, they had a tight day. Kent told me they filmed in nine different locations around New York City, all in that one day. And they hired a local crew to fill out the production for hair, makeup, wardrobe, grips, electric drivers, craft service and set production assistants. They had to come up with a little mini New York crew, but that’s how we did it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:17] I love it. I love it. Here’s one other little piece of trivia. Rashida and John said that they wore their own clothes for all the scenes in New York City.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:26] That makes sense to me.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:28] Yeah. I also thought they looked really cute and I was like, oh. I’m like, Rashida has great taste and, and John is cute. They look like, they look like normal people, not like, you know, the Dunder Mifflin folks. Here are some tidbits. Ready?

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:41] OK. “Kinsey Tidbits”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:43] “Kinsey Tidbit”, from the DVD commentary John said that there was like this kind of drunk guy while they were filming in the restaurant and he kept coming up to them and he’s in a white shirt. So if you see at 19:34, there’s a guy standing there sort of next to John and he was like, “What are you guys doing”? And John sort of was like trying to keep it like, you know, he didn’t want to draw attention to it because they were filming from like across the street, you know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:09] Yeah, through the window.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:11] Yeah. So he was like, “Oh, you know, man, we’re just doing a scene”. He’s like, “Oh, you’re doing a scene. You’re doing a scene”. Like, he was like, “Buddy, come on”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:20] Oh, my gosh.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:21] So they were, and he said that he like, this guy like heckled them through that whole moment.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:24] That is crazy.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:26] I know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:27] Listen, lady, should we take a quick break? And then when we come back, we can start breaking down “The Job, Part Two”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:33] Yeah, let’s do it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:34] All right. We’ll be right back. OK, we are back and Jim and Karen are arriving in New York, they’re getting off the subway and, oh my God, Angela.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:48] What? Do you have a story about Astor Place?

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:51] I do not. I want to know, did you see the lady with the baby stroller? Who gives major side eye to John and Rashida?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:03] No. Is she by, as they come out of the subway station?

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:06] As they come out of the subway station, there is a woman with a baby stroller. She is clearly not with us.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:13] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:13] She’s just a lady walking her kid.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:15] Living her life.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:16] Living her life. It’s at 18 minutes, 29 seconds. I need to know who this woman is. I need to hear her story.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:25] I need to see her face. I need to see it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:27] I took a picture.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:28] Oh, good. Show me. Show me. We’ll put it in our InstaStories, guys. OfficeLadiesPod. OfficeLadiesPod.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:35] OK, lady, I found it. Here she is.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:41] She’s so annoyed. I love her. She’s so over it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:45] She is so over it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:48] Oh my gosh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:48] So over it. We, I, lady with stroller please contact us at OfficeLadiesPod.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:55] Lady with stroller, we’re sorry.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:57] Yes. Please email us at OfficeLadies@Earwolf.com.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:01] What is she going to say?

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:03] I just, she’s like prominently featured in an episode of “The Office”. Is she an “Office” fan? What does she remember about that day? Did she recognize them? Because her response is like, who are these guys?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:15] Well, Jenna she wasn’t the only one who was ticked off that day because at 20 minutes, 34 seconds, there is a girl and clearly like a party dress and she’s hailing a cab. She was not an extra. And I guess they had to make her stop hailing her cab because she was so featured and sign a release and she was really annoyed because she like missed her cab or something. They talk about-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:35] Oh my God.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:35] They talk about it on the DVD commentary. She was like, I just, you know, I’m sure she’s like, I just want to go to my party. What, what are these forms? Maybe she’s like me, Jenna, and she doesn’t like a lot of forms.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:46] OK, woman with baby stroller, woman hailing a cab, email us.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:51] And party dress.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:52] In a party dress. We want to hear from you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:54] OK. Before we move on, I have a little mini deep dive.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:58] Please.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:59] OK, so Jenna at 19:43, Jim mentions that he went to a bar that used to be a church and I was like, I know exactly what they’re talking about.

JENNA FISCHER [00:14:09] What?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:14:10] The Limelight. Remember?

JENNA FISCHER [00:14:12] I don’t know The Limelight. No, I don’t know this place.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:14:15] It’s on Sixth Avenue. OK, so when I was interning on Conan O’Brien, you guys, I was, you know, I was a bit of a sad sack. I never went out. New York was so expensive. I didn’t know anyone. And a gal I worked with, Debbie Wunder, kind of took me under her wing and she was like, “Angela, you got to get out”. And I was like, “Whaaa”. And she said, “There’s a great band we’re going to go listen to tonight”. Jenna, I’m pretty sure I wore my gap denim dress and some kicks because I knew what New York fashion looks like.

JENNA FISCHER [00:14:41] Oh yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:14:42] We show up, by the way, I went with Debbie and her boyfriend. So hi, third wheel. We show up to where the band is playing and it is inside a Gothic cathedral that is a bar. And Debbie’s like, “This is a famous New York bar”. And I’m like, “Um, lady, that’s a church. I can’t go inside it because I’ll get in trouble with my mom”. You can’t have a bar in a church. Yes, you can. And this church has the most cool, amazing story. OK, I’m going to walk you through it really quickly. So it was built in 1844. It was this Gothic revival church, huge, beautiful structure. Looked like a medieval church like from England, you know, and it has the main big church. Right? I’m talking cathedral ceilings, the big stained glass.

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:23] Oh, yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:24] It’s got a rectory. It’s got a sister’s house for the nuns. It’s got a parish house, a chapel and a garden courtyard. This is huge.

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:31] Wait, wait. Is this the one on Sixth Avenue with the red door?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:36] Yes! Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:37] I do know what you’re talking about. Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:39] OK. It’s beautiful, right? It’s beautiful.

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:43] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:43] OK, so I guess, you know, it was a very happenin’ church for a long time. But then in the 60s, the neighborhood kind of took a turn. People started moving out to the suburbs. All of a sudden, this big Gothic structure, you know, it was hard to maintain. The heating and the repairs and all of that. So they had to sort of repurpose it. At first they made it into a cultural center and that sort of went on for a bit. That makes sense, right? Cultural center.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:10] Yeah. Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:10] They couldn’t keep up with the cost of running the place. So this famous sort of New York like bar owner bought it and people were furious. They were like, you cannot make this church a bar. You can’t. Well, he did. And he, like, tricked it all out. Like he made the sister’s house, I guess, into, like, the shampoo room, you know, like where you-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:36] The shampoo room?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:37] I didn’t know what it was either. But I guess it’s like a party where you get sprayed with foam, I don’t know, it sounds horrible.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:43] What? What?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:43] I know, I would get it in my eyes. How can you not? But he made it this big, big, like hipster bar scene. Andy Warhol opened it up on the opening weekend. It was like this big place for music and events from the 80s through the 90s. Then in the 90s, I guess things took a turn. I think crime got bad again. And Lady, this party promoter named Michael Alig murdered and dismembered this guy at The Limelight.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:12] What?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:12] Yeah, he murdered a guy. And and so then they were like, OK, they close it down. Then they try to, like, give it a new reopening. They call it the Avalon in 2003. That doesn’t really work. People are like done. They’re like, you know, get your bar out of the church. We’re done. 2007, it permanently closed its doors, which is interesting to me because we filmed this in 2007.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:38] Wow.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:39] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:39] Them mentioning that they went to this bar, if we had film the following year, they couldn’t have done it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:45] Yeah, I think, I think the writers all knew about this bar. Right? It was famous, a bar inside of a Gothic church. Right? All the writers knew about it, I think. But here’s the interesting thing. Guess what it is today?

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:59] Not a bar?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:00] You’re not, you’re not going be able to guess.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:02] What is it?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:02] Well, first of all, the people that bought it restored all of it. It really meant a lot to them to, to restore the integrity of the structure, the stained glass. But it is partly a gym, called the Complete Body Limelight. So you can lift weights inside the church.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:19] OK.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:20] And then the chapel is a modern dim sum restaurant called Jue Lan Club. So you can go work out and then get some dim sum.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:29] Let’s do it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:30] Let’s do it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:32] I love that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:33] I just found it fascinating because as soon as he said that, Jenna, when do I ever know about any bars or pop culture stuff? Never.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:40] Never, nothing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:42] Never.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:42] You know nothing about them.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:43] And not only did I know, but I had been there.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:46] That’s pretty bad ass.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:48] I know, I went with Debbie and her boyfriend at the time who was an exterminator.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:54] Oh.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:54] Yeah, and Debbie, it’s OK if I say this, right? In the cab ride home, you and him started making out and I had to sit awkwardly looking out the window.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:03] Sounds like they had a good time.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:04] They had a great time. Mom, I’m sorry. I went to a bar that was inside a church. Mom, I’m sorry.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:10] Well, listen, Ang, also during this talking head, Jim says that they think they saw Lorne Michaels.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:19] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:19] And we got a lot of fan questions about that. From Angela A., Ali S., Kirstyn O., Tyler N., Heather C., and many more, all want to know is the man that walks behind Jim, Lorne Michaels. Was that a little cameo joke? No.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:39] No.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:39] It’s not Lorne Michaels. I zoomed in. It’s definitely, definitely not Lorne Michaels.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:44] I like to think that Jim is someone who thinks he recognizes famous people, places, but they’re just, just normal folks. I feel like, I feel like my sister, Tina, does that, you know? She’s be like, “That’s Angelina Jolie”. I’m like, “Why would Angelina Jolie be in the mall in our hometown right now”?

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:04] Yes, exactly. Well, you know, another thing that happens here is that Karen kind of confronts Jim.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:11] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:11] And she says, what is going to happen to our relationship if one of us gets this job? If I get this job, will you move to New York to be with me? And Jim is clearly uncomfortable. He’s making jokes. He’s trying to make jokes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:26] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:26] But Karen brings it around and she’s like, actually, I’m, I’m kind of serious, like after what happened on the beach. Do I have a future with you? Because I don’t feel like I have a future in Scranton, but I’d like to have a future with you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:40] Well, she just says there’s one too many people in Scranton.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:44] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:44] You know? She was like, I was at the beach. And I don’t know, he just sort of jokes it off and then grabs her hand and they cross the street and I’m sure deep down she knows that, that he’s on the fence, she’s got to know it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:01] She’s trying to practice good self care, she is trying to take care of herself here. She’s being assertive, but then she’s not really reading the signals, which I think are super clear.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:14] You don’t ever read them when you don’t want to see them, though.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:16] That’s true.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:17] Put that on a t shirt. All right. So now it’s the next morning and it’s interview time. Karen, Jim and Michael are waiting in the lobby. I should own the fact, since I was snarky about the lobby, just having a bunch of brown sticks, that there is also a big plant on the other side of it, a big potted plant, everyone.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:39] Hey.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:39] A little bit of green in the corner.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:41] There you go. Well, that is nice.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:45] It it nice.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:45] That’s nice.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:46] And I’m sorry I was so snarky about your big brown sticks.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:51] Well, back at Dunder Mifflin, Dwight has appointed Andy as his number two, officially, and Andy has accepted.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:02] And Jenna, we do that really cool thing, except now it’s Dwight where we start on him and we reveal Andy in the corner.

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:09] Yes. You know, that’s my favorite thing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:11] I know, I know. Andy has this talking head and, it’s at 21 minutes, 54 seconds. He’s saying, you know, three months ago I was a Cornell grad in anger management, but look at me now, and he’s washing out Dwight’s mug. Jenna, can you hear that sink?

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:26] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:27] I couldn’t not laugh because you and I know it’s a fake sink and it had that weird tinny sound because the water was going underneath into a bucket.

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:36] Yes. They had a little pump that would pump water through that faucet, but then it just came down the drain into a bucket.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:45] Yeah. There’s no plumbing there. Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:48] And then it would recycle. There’s no plumbing. That’s right. They would set it up and take it away. So something you could not do is improvise, turning on the sink because nothing would come out.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:57] Or pour anything down the drain because it would just hit the ground.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:01] Correct. Correct. Well, now we have the scene where Dwight pulls Pam aside, he explains he’s very impressed by her coal walk. And he would like her to be his secret assistant to the Regional Manager, and she accepts.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:21] Everything about this scene was delightful. I loved every single thing about it. I love Dwight’s bravado. And Pam’s just like, uh huh, uh huh. Like, what an idiot. But I’m going to go along with it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:33] Well, I think this is her way of staying connected to Jim. He’s all the way in New York, but she has this talking head where she says she learned from Jim if Dwight ever asks you to accept something in secret, you reply, “Absolutely, I do”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:47] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:48] So I think throughout this whole episode when Pam is doing this little bit with Dwight, she is imagining how she’s going to get to tell Jim all about it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:58] Oh, for sure. For sure. Well, here is Dwight’s team, as he sees it. Dwight is the Regional Manager. Dwight is also the Assistant Regional Manager. Andy is his number two because it’s political. Pam is the secret assistant to the Regional Manager. And guess what? In a deleted scene, we find out that Angela is the spy in charge of the secret assistant to the Regional Manager.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:24] Oh, and what does that mean?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:26] Well, as soon as Pam says, “Yeah, absolutely I do” and agrees to be the secret assistant to the Regional Manager, she leaves, and when she does, the scene plays out. Dwight calls Angela and says, “Keep an eye on Pam”. And Angela is like, “Done”. And then immediately my little head pops over the partition between accounting and reception. And I just start spying on you. I’m watching-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:52] That’s amazing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:52] I’m watching you. I’m watching you.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:54] Oh, I wish they’d left that in.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:56] I know. It’s a fun detail, right?

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:58] I love that detail. Well, now, lady, we go back to corporate and Michael’s interview has begun.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:06] Andy Buckley is so fantastic in the scene. I mean, Steve is always fantastic. But to, to watch Steve as Michael, because Michael’s so ridiculous, play off someone who’s so believably a corporate person. It just was so fun to watch.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:21] So my favorite part of this scene with David and Michael is when he asked Michael where he sees room for improvement. And Michael’s suggestion is that they rename the company altogether.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:37] Do you know his three names? Right? His three suggestions.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:40] I. I wrote them down.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:41] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:43] Here are the names. Paper Great, Great Papers’ Our Passion, We’re Great, Superduper Paper or just Superduper.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:53] Yeah. Any of those. Any of those could work.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:57] Well, we had a fan question from Rebecca W., she said, “We’re the suggestions Michael gave for a change of name of the company improvised”? I checked the script. They were all in there with the exception of Superduper Paper and Superduper. Those were, but there was also way more to this interview scene. And I have to ask you, Angela, are they in the deleted scenes because they were so funny?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:26:25] There are so many deleted scenes for this particular episode and this scene has several and they are hilarious. One of my favorite ones is that David says, “What? What do you see in the future”? But he’s meaning about the company.

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:40] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:26:40] You know, where, where do you see the future going here? And Michael goes, he goes on about all this stuff. He goes on about how many kids he’s going to have and all this stuff. But then he says “Also, I think there could be one vitamin that you take for all of these other vitamins, but it’s just one. I don’t know”. And David Wallace goes, “You mean a multivitamin”? And Michael’s like, “I don’t know what they’re going to call it, like, I don’t know”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:27:11] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:27:11] It is so funny, but there are great deleted scenes for this episode.

JENNA FISCHER [00:27:15] That multivitamin thing was in the script and it made me laugh out loud when I read it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:27:19] It is hilarious.

JENNA FISCHER [00:27:20] When he’s like, I don’t, I don’t know what they’re going to call it, but that’s the idea.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:27:24] And, and David Wallace’s look to him is just like, OK. And he’s like, thanks for coming in, Michael. So, you know, Michael feels like he’s had a pretty great interview. He’s on his way out and he says, “Oh, you should know that Jan and I are dating again. So I’m going to need to fill out one of those love documents”. And David Wallace is like, “Well, you should know that this job you’re interviewing for is to replace Jan”. And Jenna, all I could think of was like, no, you can’t tell Michael this kind of information. There is no way this man can hold on to that.

JENNA FISCHER [00:28:00] You know, what it made me think of, Angela, is when he says I need to sign another one of those love documents. I was like it reminded me in “Dinner Party” when Michael explains he’s had a vasectomy, but then had it reversed and then had a vasectomy, and then had a reverse. I was like, how many of these documents have they been signing? It’s like, we’re on, we’re off. We’re on, we’re off.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:28:22] And I wonder also if they had dramatic ripping in half of the document.

JENNA FISCHER [00:28:27] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:28:29] Like, the love contract!

JENNA FISCHER [00:28:29] Yes, I have so many questions about the love document. But I agree with you, this news to Michael, that the job he’s applying for is Jan’s job and she doesn’t know yet that she’s going to be let go. This is a secret that you should not allow Michael to hold.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:28:44] You can’t tell Michael any secret. You couldn’t say, hey, don’t tell anyone, but I have toe fungus. Forget it. The next thing out of his mouth would be, I’m so sorry. You have toe fungus. In front of everyone.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:00] Yes. Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:01] I don’t have toe fungus. I was just trying to think of something.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:04] I have fungus on my toenails.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:06] I know, but you treated it and it’s all better.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:09] It came back.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:10] It did?

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:11] Yeah. You know, if you wear nail polish long enough and your toenails don’t get a-.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:17] Oxygen.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:17] A good amount of oxygen, you can get it, you know, it, by the way, everyone, toe fungus is just like on your toenail. It’s just like a little white spot.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:27] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:28] That’s what those white spots are, everyone, if you’re like, what are these white spots on my toenails? When I take off my nail polish. That’s toe fungus, y’all. And you can get a special like oil and polish to put on there to get rid of it if you care.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:40] Well, my mom always would say, every once in awhile, just take your toenail polish off and let your toenails breathe.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:45] It’s good advice.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:46] It’s not pretty. You’re going to have a week of, like, funky looking yellow toes. Sorry. All right. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Where are we?

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:54] Well, we need to go back to Dunder Mifflin because Dwight would like everyone to gather in the conference room. He needs to discuss and introduce the Schrute Buck reward system.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:08] It’s so funny to me. You know what I loved about this, first of all, at 25 minutes, 3 seconds, Angela is so proud. She’s so proud. She has this look.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:18] Yes, Dwight is calling his first conference room meeting.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:20] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:21] She can’t believe it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:22] But I love how he leads everyone in. He’s like, no more meetings. Right? Michael had all these useless meetings. Instead, we’re going to have lectures.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:32] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:33] And Pam, Pam can’t wait. She’s like, what is he going to do? I can’t wait. I can’t wait to see what’s about to happen.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:38] Well, we get in there and we start getting our first lecture. And it is about the origin of papermaking.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:47] Yeah. He starts with a bunch of Tupperware tins full of soil, different types of soil.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:54] And he asked the question, what would you say is the most important element in the production of above ground leafy growth? You probably think it’s phosphorus.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:05] And then Angela secretly shakes her head, no. I improvised that and our camera operator caught it and was like, Oh, that’s so good. Ken loved it. And he told me to keep doing it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:16] I love d it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:17] Like I had like I obviously knew the speech that Dwight had practiced it for me. I used to love having those moments.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:23] I’m sure he practiced it for you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:25] Oh yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:25] And he’s killing it. According to you, you’re like he’s killing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:29] Crushing it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:31] By the way, the answer is nitrogen. Per Dwight. Lady, I had to know.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:38] Did you look it up? Did you look up phosphorous?

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:41] You know that website, Quora?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:43] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:44] It’s where you post a question about something and then experts on that subject weigh in.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:49] Did you post the question?

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:51] I didn’t post the question.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:53] Oh, I got really excited.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:54] But years ago, someone posted that exact question. The wording was exact. Exactly what Dwight says.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:02] There was an “Office” fan years ago that was like, wait, is this true?

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:07] Yes. So it’s really amazing, the back and forth from all the people who are not realizing that this is a direct quote from an “Office” episode. It is just soil scientists weighing in. There’s charts. There’s pages and pages of these scientists debating what is the most important element in the production of above ground leafy growth. And the consensus is nitrogen.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:35] Huh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:35] Nitrogen.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:36] Way to go, Dwight, way to go. Jenna, do you remember filming this scene? Because I remember the smell. Can we talk about it for a second?

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:45] We can.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:46] There was an earthy smell. Now, you know, this room had no real windows. So it’s like sitting in a box. Now, it didn’t, didn’t have a full ceiling, but we were sort of trapped in there with smells.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:57] Oh, yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:57] And there was a real dirt smell. And then, it’s in the deleted scenes. You guys don’t get to see it. But Dwight actually starts by dumping a whole bunch of trash on the table.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:08] I remember that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:09] To talk to everyone about recycling. So we had some earthy, trashy smells going.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:16] Yeah, it was intense. We also have the great moment, which is one of my favorite moments, where Stanley does not want to participate.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:27] He won a Schrute buck but he doesn’t want it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:30] No, he doesn’t want it. He does not want to participate in any of this. And Dwight is like, “You don’t want your Schrute Buck”? And he’s like, “No”. And then he offers him like a thousand Stanley nickels to leave him alone.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:43] A billion. A billion Stanley Nickels, if you never speak to me again.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:49] Yes, thank you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:51] It’s brilliant.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:52] And Dwight’s response is he would like to know the conversion rate between Stanley nickels and Schrute bucks. And it’s the same as leprechauns to unicorns.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:01] Yeah, and then Jenna, you must have had so much fun because then everyone starts to be like, I’m out of here, I don’t want to do this. And Pam is like, “Hey! Pay attention”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:13] Lady, when I heard that delivery, now this was before I had children, but when I heard my voice, I was like, oh my gosh, that’s the voice when I have to lay down the law with the kids, when I’m like, “Listen to me. I’ve asked three times to brush our teeth. It’s time to brush teeth. Now. Hustle. Go to the bathroom”. I was like, oh, my gosh, that is my mom voice. That’s my mom voice.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:42] That’s your mom get-in-line voice.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:44] Yeah, that’s right.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:45] Yeah, for sure.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:46] I was shocked.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:48] You had it in you all along.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:50] I did. It was meant to be.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:52] Well, there’s a nice little moment that I think Phyllis just improvised and we often did things like this in the background. We just sort of made up our own story if we didn’t have dialog of how we would react to these moments. And she’s sleeping.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:04] I know. I noticed that too.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:07] 27 minutes, 29 seconds.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:11] I thought that was an amazing choice.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:13] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:14] An amazing choice. Well, listen, lady, we’re about to go back to corporate, we’re going to see Karen interview with David, but I think we should take a break.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:24] I think we should take a break and come back, because Karen is crushing her interview. We need to get to it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:28] She’s doing really well.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:29] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:30] All right. We’ll be right back.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:34] OK, we are back from break. Karen is being interviewed. Before we get into that, Jenna, I had to look at The Limelight one more time because I was pretty sure, and in fact, this is correct, there is a documentary about the history of The Limelight, this huge part of New York’s culture. I’m sorry to go on and on about it, but I think I want to watch this documentary.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:56] Number one, I will be watching that documentary tonight. Number two, you do not need to apologize for your interest in The Limelight or for the interesting facts that you shared with us. Because, lady, I want to say something. We got this really nice letter from a fan. And in it, she said, “I just need to tell you that you guys do not need to apologize for going off subject. You guys always apologize for it and I love it. It’s a great part of the podcast”. And you know what, lady? It got me thinking that is a thing, hold on, soapbox coming out. That is a very common thing that women do. Women apologize all the time for things they don’t need to apologize about. And I think we do not need to apologize for our deep dives. We do not need to apologize for the things that interest us or for our banter that comes to us in the moment while making this podcast. I don’t apologize. I don’t apologize.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:52] I like how by the end of that speech, you have an affected way of talking. You’re like. “I don’t apologize”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:57] I don’t apologize for that either.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:37:00] Well, you know, that has been something I’ve sort of struggled with, I guess, my whole life. I don’t know. I, I think I used to say I’m sorry about everything. I don’t know. Like I would say I’m sorry about the most ridiculous things. Like my chair would squeak. I’d be like, “Oh, I’m sorry”. Or I reached for a glass of water the same time someone else would I be like, “Oh, I’m sorry”. And-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:37:19] Yes. Or like, how many times have you been walking down the street and someone bumps into you and you say, “Oh, sorry”. What? I’m sorry for taking up the space my body requires to walk down the street. You walked into me. Why am I apologizing? It’s a thing that women do. We do. I mean, it’s not just women, but there’s this, I just I noticed it when we got that nice letter. I thought, this is the coaching I needed. This is good. Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:37:48] Well, I appreciate that letter. I think, I think I probably had read a comment that probably wasn’t healthy where this guy said we talked about appetizers for 8 minutes and he wanted to drive his car into a pole. Then I was like, oh, no.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:02] I read that too.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:02] But you know what? You know what I want to say to that man? Listen, mister, I’m sorry. Sometimes we’re going to talk about appetizers and we’re going to talk about bars that used to be in a church and pockets and Clementine Paddleford. And you know what I really want to encourage you to do? With love. Hit fast forward.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:20] Angela, you are right. You don’t have to listen to anything you don’t want to. But we also get to talk about what we want. Right?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:30] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:30] Without apology.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:32] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:33] Thank you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:34] Thank you. And good day!

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:36] And good day to you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:37] And now, Karen is crushing her interview, 28 minutes, 58 seconds. I thought she was going to get the job.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:46] Well, she should get the job.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:48] I mean, really, it was between her and Jim. I think it was theirs to lose. And David Wallace clearly has like a man crush on Jim.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:56] Well, we noticed this back when David threw his party and he wanted to go shoot hoops with Jim. I mean, I’m, I don’t want to get my soapbox out again, so soon but-.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:05] Oh no.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:05] This happens in the male corporate culture. There’s all these ways and activities that men have to bond between men. And it’s been difficult for women to, you know, get in there. They’ve got their golfing and they’re shooting of the hoops. And, you know, yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:23] Well, while this is going on these interviews-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:26] I just said I was sorry to get out my soapbox.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:29] Oh, my God.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:30] I did it again. I just apologized. I can’t stop it. We can’t stop it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:36] We will stop.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:38] We’ll try.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:39] We’ll try.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:40] OK, so listen, while Karen is interviewing, Michael goes to Jan’s office.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:47] Nope, nope. He should have just kept on walking.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:51] He immediately tells her that she’s going to be fired. She’s being replaced. So, of course, Jan storms into Karen’s interview and starts yelling at him.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:04] She says, “Hey, you son of a bitch”. Like just right away.

JENNA FISCHER [00:40:11] And David is so calm, we talked about this last week with Paul. Where Paul really admired David for being so pointed and calm during this moment and he says, “Jan, this is long overdue, long overdue, you’ve shown no interest in your job lately. You, we can never get a hold of you”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:32] Very erratic behavior. Like, like your head’s not here. You’re not here.

JENNA FISCHER [00:40:38] He calls her unstable.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:39] Yeah. And then Michael’s like, “You’re unstable”. And then David’s like, “I’m, I’m sorry, what”? And Michael’s like, “Never mind. We’re all unstable”. What’s happening?

JENNA FISCHER [00:40:49] Michael also insists he didn’t tell her.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:51] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:40:53] It wasn’t me.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:53] While hiding behind the partition. “I didn’t say anything”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:40:58] Well, Jan asks if this is because of her new boobs.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:02] Because Michael loves them and she doesn’t care.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:05] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:05] He loves them, that’s all that matters to her.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:09] Well, then she’s being escorted out of the office. She’s got a bunch of stuff. She hugs Hunter.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:15] Her whole scene with Hunter is brilliant. She’s like, “Good luck with the band. Don’t let them change you here”. It’s so good.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:26] Well, she drops a bunch of her stuff on the ground and Hunter and Michael are trying to help her pick it up. And lady, did you know that was not supposed to happen?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:35] I did know that. I did know that because they talked about it in the DVD commentary. Melora said she had this box full of like, what was Jan’s belongings. Right? And it was sort of a awkward, different shaped items. And a few things spilled out. And Ken did not yell, “Cut”. He just let the scene play out. And Michael and Hunter, everyone just stayed in the moment. They’re trying to help her put things back, and Melora said they actually had a hard time getting everything to fit back in. And that’s why that played out so long. But everyone’s reactions are perfect. David’s like, what’s happening? And then you have Jim and Karen. That was all unscripted.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:13] I love stuff like that. I love that and, you know, it reminds me, Angela, when I’ve had to do scenes where I have to carry a lot of stuff, a lot of times they’ll give you like a suitcase that’s empty or they’ll give you a bag and it doesn’t really have much in it. And I had to shoot this scene where I was coming through the door and I had all this junk and I said, will you make it real?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:37] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:37] Because I think that if I’m really struggling with it, if I’m not pretending to struggle with it, it’ll just be better. And I swear, every time I would do the scene, some other insane thing would happen. And it was so much better than if I was faking it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:55] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:55] And so, because these are the moments, right? And this was a real life moment and everyone rolled with it and it was so funny.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:03] It’s so funny. But you’re right, those real moments that, that the camera captures when we’re playing make believe, I always think about that famous scene on “Friends” where they’re trying to get that sofa up the stairwell and Ross is yelling, “Pivet! Pivet!” and they’re all holding the sofa, like these are these moments I love because it’s like real life. But Melora did say one thing. She said, if you notice, if you watch the scene, the whole time we’re picking up items and putting them back in the box. You do not see my face because I bent over as far as I could so my hair would hide my face because I am laughing so hard.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:40] Oh. I love that. I’m going to go back and look at that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:47] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:49] Well, Michael then tells David, “Hey, just let me know about the job, let me know when you know”. And David is like, “You’re not getting the job”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:44:00] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:44:01] And so then, of course, Michael is like, “I withdraw myself from consideration”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:44:05] “Do you accept my withdrawal”? David’s like, “Yeah”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:44:10] Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:44:13] And then, and then, and then Michael’s like, “But do I get to keep my job at Scranton”? And David’s like, “Yes”. And he goes, “Good, because that’s all I ever really wanted”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:44:23] Well, speaking of Scranton. Michael is going to be in for a surprise because Andy and Dwight are painting Dwight’s new office, Michael’s old office, soon to be office again, black. They’re painting all the walls black.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:44:41] Well, Michael is going to be really surprised because he also, in a deleted scene, told Dwight, don’t do anything to my office for one month, out of sort of like mourning, like, don’t touch anything for one month to honor my absence. And Dwight immediately starts painting it black.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:03] We had a lot of questions about how we did this. They did not paint the real walls. They brought in other fake walls that were black.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:12] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:13] So we did not paint the walls that were Michael’s office, they made dummy walls.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:17] And then they could take them down.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:19] Yes. Very easily.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:20] And the old walls were right behind.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:22] Yes, very easily. But they were really painting and they had different panels of these fake walls that they would paint throughout this scene. But yeah, it was very easy to reset it back to the original Michael’s office.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:36] Well, Jenna, back in New York, one of the things we didn’t talk about was Jim and Karen’s reaction to Jan’s big meltdown. I mean, Karen’s like, “Wow, that was really self-destructive”. And Jim is like, “I kind of feel bad for her”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:52] Yeah, Karen does not feel bad for her.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:55] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:55] Karen’s like, “Um, I don’t know”. I think, she’s not having any sympathy for Jan.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:03] No. Karen is done. She is done with these folks.

JENNA FISCHER [00:46:07] Well, speaking of done, Jim still has to go into his interview. And I thought this was interesting. Jim was like, “Hey, you know, if you want to take off, I can just, you know, meet you later”. And Karen kind of jumps on it. She’s like, “Yeah, actually, I wanted to meet some friends downtown for lunch. Do you mind”? Bye.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:26] NowI didn’t, I didn’t see that as like weird. That seemed like wha-, you know, if she’s just sitting in a lobby just waiting for him and she does have friends who are eating like, couldn’t she go meet them and then he come after?

JENNA FISCHER [00:46:39] I don’t know. I’m just imagining like if Lee and I had gone to New York and we were both going for an important meeting in the same building and my meeting was first and he had to wait for me, I would just be like, I’ll wait for you. So that I’m the first face you see after your meeting and you can tell me all about it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:59] That’s so sweet.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:02] I don’t know.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:03] That’s so sweet. That’s so sweet. Clearly, I’m like, OK, meet me for lunch. I’ll be having mimosas. Bye. Good luck, babe. See you in a bit.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:11] I don’t know. I just sort of like, if I don’t have anywhere that I have to be. Now listen, I do get it. She’s in New York for a brief period of time. Maybe this is her only chance to see these friends.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:21] That’s what I thought. I thought, you know, she had friends there she never gets to see and they’re like, when you’re done with your interview, meet us for lunch. You she’s like, oh, my God. Yeah. But now, now Jan has had this whole meltdown and maybe things, the timing of the interviews got pushed back a little. And she’s going to miss lunch.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:39] Maybe.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:39] And I, I don’t know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:40] But I mean, think about that. I’m like thinking forward like so now when Jim gets out of this big interview, he’s not going to have Karen alone. He has to walk into a restaurant with her and all her friends. And how’d your interview go? Good. We can’t talk about it right now, though. I don’t know. This is a big deal. It’s a big interview. I think there’s, there’s room for, like, intimate support. I don’t know.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:03] Well, they’re clearly not meant to be together.

JENNA FISCHER [00:48:06] Well, I don’t know, I think Pam would have waited.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:10] I think Pam would have waited too.

JENNA FISCHER [00:48:13] I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:14] And I think Jenna Fischer would have waited.

JENNA FISCHER [00:48:16] I would have waited too.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:18] Angela’s on the fence. It depends on the restaurant and how bad you want the job.

JENNA FISCHER [00:48:26] Well, listen, now we cut to the car ride back to Scranton with Jan and Michael. And lady, this reminded me of Jan’s car moment in “Cocktails”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:40] She falls apart in a car ride, guys.

JENNA FISCHER [00:48:43] What is it about car rides and Jan? There, you know what? Is it because the cameras are tiny and Jan forgets that she’s on camera and she, this is like her confessional, is the car. Best stuff comes from Jan in a car.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:57] I think it’s a couples thing. I really do, because I think you hold it together while you’re at the party or the school assembly or the soccer match or shopping at IKEA, wherever you are and something goes down, you hold it in and then you get in the car and then you either let each other have it or you start laughing or one of you cries. Like that’s the moment where you’re like, oh my God.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:20] You are right. Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:22] We used to, I had a group of friends when I was like starting out here in comedy and like if we were out somewhere and we saw a couple kind of have a little tiff moment like at a bar or something, we’d all whisper, “Car ride home, car ride home”. Like it is not going to go well.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:37] Well, I love it. I can’t get enough of Jan in the car.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:41] I can’t get enough. She starts crying and she’s like, “oh, it’s these painkillers they gave me after my boob job”. And then she’s like, “Oh, wait, this could work”. Like her emotions are going up and down. She’s like, “I could wear stretch pants and wait for you to come home at 5:15”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:56] Yes, she invites herself to move in with Michael.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:01] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:01] And Michael is like, what? Oh.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:04] Well, he come on, he walked himself into that. He was like, “I guess you could move in with me and my condo. I guess I could get it back. I’d probably get a negative review on my eBay account”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:15] But it’s like at the beginning of this episode, he asks all of the ladies to help him not get back together with Jan, and it ends with them moving in together.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:27] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:29] Wow.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:29] And she doesn’t have a job and she’s spiraling.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:33] It’s a lot. Well, Michael comes back into the office, he announces he has withdrawn his name from contention. He notices that his office is now painted black.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:45] Mmhmm.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:48] I liked this bit, he tells Ryan to go get him a coffee, and Ryan said he doesn’t do that stuff anymore.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:54] And he says, “No, it’s for me, bimbo. Kids”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:57] Yeah, I know.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:59] Oh, Ryan is about to have his moment.

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:02] And this is when Pam asks, “Did Karen get the job”? We don’t know.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:09] Yeah, someone’s real curious. Michael has a whole speech here that is sort of heartbreaking, he says, “Yeah, so I’m going nowhere, never going to leave. This place is going to be the hospital where I was born, my house, my old age home, my graveyard for my bones”. And the camera pans across everyone’s faces. Like, this isn’t good news for anybody.

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:34] Yeah, it’s true. And then Dwight’s back at his desk. This is a sweet moment. I love these sweet moments between Pam and Dwight, where he thanks Pam for serving with great dignity and she salutes him and he salutes her back.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:50] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:51] It’s kind of their version of the high five.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:54] Well, you know, Dwight goes on to say eventually that Pam is his best friend.

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:57] Yeah. I know, it’s so sweet.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:01] Well, this is something that probably most people didn’t catch. But at 35 minutes, 34 seconds in the background in accounting, Brian, as Kevin sort of improvises this moment when Michael’s saying that he’s back and he’s like doing all that weird stuff, he’s like, “I’m baaack”, right?

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:17] Yes. Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:19] “It’s good. I’m back”. Anyway, Kevin sort of leans over to Angela. And Brian improvised this, he was like, “So wait, did he get the job”? And I just shake my head, no. And you can’t hear what he’s saying. I just remember these little moments like that. And we just were having our own scene back there.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:37] I love those. We’re always acting. You never know.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:41] You never know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:42] What the camera’s getting.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:43] You never know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:46] Well, now we go to Jim’s interview.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:48] He’s a shoe in. David Wallace is like falling all over him.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:52] Yeah, I mean, David Wallace should have started the interview by saying, “You’re hired”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:57] David Wallace should have started the interview by saying, “Will you be my best friend”?

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:02] It’s so true. Everybody wants Jim to be their best friend.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:07] He’s a very likable guy.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:09] He’s a good best friend. Yeah, he’s a great guy.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:10] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:11] So David’s asking him a few questions and he says, “What is your favorite thing? What do you like most about the Scranton office”? And it’s right at this moment that Jim opens up his little folder and there is like a note of encouragement from Pam along with a little yogurt lid that she has saved since “Office Olympics”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:35] You know what that note says to me?

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:37] What?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:38] I would have waited for you until after your interview. I wouldn’t have gone and met my friends for a boozy lunch somewhere.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:48] Exactly. Thank you, Angela. Thank you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:52] You matter. And what happens to you matters to me.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:55] Yeah. And Jim looks at that, and he says his favorite thing about the Scranton office were the friendships. And that’s when David asks him, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:09] Well, Jim is rattled now. He had all these answers ready to go. I’m sure he had prepared for this interview. But now Pam is there with him.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:20] Yeah, and we flashback to the beach. And we hear, Jim tells Pam why he left Scranton. He acknowledges he’s never really come back.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:30] And then Pam, talk about some Pam sass, I thought this was super ballsy. She’s like, “Well, I wish you would”. Whoa!

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:40] Yeah, well now, we sort of hear Jim’s interview, we hear like he’s distracted, he’s making jokes, we cut to a Pam talking head. Where she explains she hasn’t really heard anything. Jim probably got the job. You know, there’s no reason for him not to get the job. And she’s, she’s really like you can see her trying to process it and stay really positive. She’s, all day, she’s been trying to stay really positive about this and convincing herself that her and Jim are friends. This is in the past. The beach was just closure. That was closure. And, you know, she says, “We just never got the timing right and that’s OK”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:33] And then Jim walks in the room. I mean, she’s so surprised to see him.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:38] Yeah. He interrupts the talking head.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:40] And asks her if she wants to have dinner.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:43] She says, “Yeah”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:45] And then he’s like, “It’s a date”. Jenna, many, many people have talked about how great you are in that moment. And you are. You are. You are so good in that moment. So many emotions go across your face and your eyes tear up. Ken Kwapis said you made him cry.

JENNA FISCHER [00:56:02] Well, here’s the thing. I owe that moment to Ken Kwapis. And I’ll tell you why. A lot of people wrote in and wanted to know what was going through my head during that scene when Jim finally asked Pam out. It’,s it’s crazy because Ken Kwapis, he was a type of father figure to us. Right, Angela? When he was on the podcast, he explained that his technique is to love people into their best work.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:56:31] He’s just a very gentle, kind soul. He’s so, so kind.

JENNA FISCHER [00:56:37] Yes. I’m going to cry just thinking about it. I think, and I don’t know, but I think we got that on the first take. I think what you are watching is the first take.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:56:47] Oh, wow.

JENNA FISCHER [00:56:47] Because we had kind of planned it out with the camera when it was going to swish over and when it was going to come back to me. So in that moment when the camera swishes back to me, I was actually looking at Ken Kwapis and he had tears in his eyes and that made me tear up. And we just shared this moment, this, this private moment of acknowledgment for this journey of this character. And he smiled at me in a way that a parent smiles at you when they’re proud of you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:19] Listen, if Ken Kwapis looked at me with tears in his eyes, smiling, I would disintegrate because he’s just, it’s like your dad looking at you like that.

JENNA FISCHER [00:57:29] Yes, yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:30] Like you did it, kiddo. You did it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:57:32] Yes. Yes. And, and I don’t even know if that performance could have been there with any other director. Frankly.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:42] Oh, I don’t think so. I mean as much as-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:57:44] That was a moment between Ken and I, that was about so much about my personal Jenna journey with Ken Kwapis on this show.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:51] From the very first day.

JENNA FISCHER [00:57:54] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:54] Well, it was a beautiful, beautiful moment. And I have one question for you and all the fans out there.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:02] What?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:04] Did Jim frickin’ leave Karen in New York? They rode together, he drove back alone. What the F?

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:14] Well, I’ll tell you. So first of all, there were actually two versions in the script for the ending of this episode. There was this version with Jim interrupting my talking head, and then there was a second version which we shot. And in the script it says, “Shoot both versions”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:35] It’s not in the deleted scenes. What is it?

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:37] OK, it’s not in the deleted scenes, but we shot it. So in the second version, you hear voiceover of Jim throwing his interview with David. But it’s even more. It’s like he’s really cracking jokes. He’s not taking it seriously at all, to the point that David actually says, “Do you even want this job”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:57] Oh, that would have made me uncomfortable.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:59] Yeah, it really tips it a little bit more than what you see. Meanwhile, while all that’s happening, you see Pam leaving for the day. She doesn’t do a talking head. She’s just leaving for the day. She gets in the elevator, she goes down the elevator, and then when the elevator doors open, Jim is standing there and she says, “You’re back”. And he says, “Yeah, do you want to go to dinner”? And Pam says, “Yeah, I do”. And she walks out of the elevator and Jim pushes the camera back into the elevator. And as the doors are closing, they walk off together and he puts his arm around her and they smile at each other.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:59:42] Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. I like the way it is.

JENNA FISCHER [00:59:49] Well, I touched base with Dave Rogers, who said that that scene exists. That alternate he’s like, I have that in an archive. He’s like, I think we should throw that up sometime. You could see it if you want. But he also said that it was never, ever part of the cut of the show. They always had the one in that you see now and then they would play the alternate for people. Everyone voted for what you see. But they also shot in New York, an ending where you see Karen crying because Jim broke up with her.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:00:25] And I’m sure Dave Rogers has that. I picture Dave Rodgers having this hard drive in a vault and it’s like “Mission Impossible”. It’s like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

JENNA FISCHER [01:00:37] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:00:37] With all these codes and traps because he is holding on to some serious “Office” footage.

JENNA FISCHER [01:00:44] Well, listen, now we find out who does get the job. We know it’s not Jim. We know it’s not Michael. We’re assuming it’s Karen.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:00:54] But guess what? Someone else interviewed and they had an MBA.

JENNA FISCHER [01:00:59] Yes, an unknown MBA.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:02] Masters of Business Administration, is that right?

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:06] I don’t know, not sure. Masters of business, something within A. Guys, it’s Ryan.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:16] Ryan, the temp, will not be getting your coffee anymore. He’s goin’ to corporate.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:22] Well, we talked about this last week with Paul because a lot of people wanted to know, “Why does Ryan get the job”? And, you know, lady, Dave Rogers told me they did shoot an alternate scene where Karen gets the job.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:35] Wow.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:36] Where she’s crying in New York and then the phone rings and they offer her the job. So I just think it’s a very, very interesting how they left options on the table for this big finale. I think maybe in some cases they were still debating who gets the job. How do Jim and Pam get together?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:55] Well, yeah, it seems like they wanted to give themselves some choices. But we also know what was going on at this time, which is that Rashida booked her role on “Parks and Rec”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:02:06] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:02:06] And she was going to be starting that job. So, A, they needed, you know, finally Jim and Pam to be together, without any kind of distraction. And also, Rashida just got a great new job.

JENNA FISCHER [01:02:19] Yeah. So she, she can’t be Michael’s boss at corporate.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:02:23] No. No. She’s going to be over at “Parks and Rec”. And I think there were a lot of story endings that had wrap ups that didn’t make it to air because it was such a big episode. One of them I loved was there’s a scene where Jan is moving in, it’s moving in day, there’s a moving truck. There’s like guys and she’s barking orders at them in front of the condo. And Michael is just watching it all in horror. He’s like, oh, crap, what have I done? And it’s such a good scene.

JENNA FISCHER [01:02:52] Oh, my gosh. They had to rent that location and shoot that scene and then it didn’t even make it in the episode.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:00] Yeah, I know, I know. But boy, is it going to set up some good stuff like “Dinner Party”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:07] Oh, yes, “Dinner Party”. I am so excited for that episode. I’m so excited for Season 4.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:14] I just watched the “Dinner Party” bloopers and it got me so excited because we laughed our butts off. Oh, I can’t wait to talk about it.

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:23] Well, guys, this round is out Season 3 and we will see you soon with Season 4.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:30] Empat. That’s “four” in Indonesian.

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:34] Quatre. That’s “four” in French.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:36] Do you want me to say “four” in Spanish?

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:38] Sure.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:40] Quatro. Empat. Quatre. Did I say it right in French?

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:45] You did. IV, that’s four in Roman numerals.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:51] See you in Season Empat.

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:52] Bye guys.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:58] Thank you for listening to “Office Ladies”. “Office Ladies” is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey.

JENNA FISCHER [01:04:03] Our producer is Codi Fischer, our sound engineer is Sam Kieffer and our associate producer is Aynsely Bubbico.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:04:10] Our theme song is “Rubber Tree” by Creed Bratton.

JENNA FISCHER [01:04:13] For ad free versions of “Office Ladies”, go to StitcherPremium.com. For a free one month trial of Stitcher Premium, use code “Office”.