Get the Girl

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I'm Jenna Fisher.

And I'm Angela Kinsey.

We were on The Office together and we're best friends.

And now we're doing the Ultimate Office Rewatch podcast just for you.

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.

We're the office ladies.

Hello!

Hi there.

Are you ready to get the girl?

Let's go get her.

All right, it's season eight, episode 18, written by Charlie Grandi and directed by Rain Wilson.

Here's your summary.

Andy drives to Tallahassee to declare his love for Erin and bring her home.

Meanwhile, Nellie shows up in Scranton and helps herself to the manager's position and starts offering everyone a raise.

Yeah.

Also, Robert California's there and he just lets it happen.

We'll get to that.

Yeah.

Before we dive into this episode, you know what?

I just need to make a quick phone call.

What?

I'm just, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

It'll be so fast.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Okay.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Dialing.

Why are you.

Please leave a message for Andy Bernard into your name.

Oh, crap.

Sorry.

I went to voicemail.

Oh, sorry.

Andy wasn't there.

Andy wasn't there.

That was a bit.

It was a bit.

You just did a bit.

I did a bit.

Did you really think I was making a phone call?

Of course.

Why wouldn't I?

You said you had to make a phone call.

I thought it would be funny.

I mean, Andy's not going to answer his phone a lot.

And I was like, I'll make a phone call.

Yeah.

Andy.

He's in Tallahassee.

Also, that voicemail is so good.

It's so good.

I want to hear the whole thing.

I think that if you meet Ed Helms, you should not ask.

for a picture.

Don't ask for a picture.

Oh, Jenna, what are you doing to him?

You're about to say, ask him to sing his answering machine.

Yeah, he should do an audio memo that you can turn into your voicemail.

Listen, listen i would love to do audio memos when i meet people because i don't always feel picture ready i don't always want to just for all time document the way i just do my hair that way or whatever so i i think i would like it i'd be like yeah sure i'll do a quick dunder mifflin this is pam leave a message That's a great one.

Right?

Yeah.

Hit me up for audio memos, please.

Yeah.

I'll just lean into your phone and say, save bandit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is going to change our lives.

Oh, my gosh.

I'm going to, you can really.

And Ed.

Sorry, Ed.

Sorry, Ed.

Let's get on to Fast Fact number one.

This episode aired on March 15th, 2012,

and it was not a beloved episode.

Sorry to say, in my deep diving of this episode, I just came across a lot of critique.

Did you happen to read what Miles wrote about it?

You know what?

Miles was not even the harshest critic.

You're kidding.

Miles gave it a C.

Miles McNutt, C plus.

Who was the harshest critic?

There was a critic named Matt Doherty who wrote for the filtered lens, and he gave it two out of 10 stars and said that this episode was, quote, the worst and that it, quote, lacked any form of logic or emotion.

Oh my God.

It was just like scathing.

Scathing review.

That is really bad.

I know.

Sorry.

That's what I'm saying.

I didn't know how to not mention it.

No, no, no.

Because it was all my research led me to these just like really,

really harsh reviews.

Oh my gosh.

Okay.

It was also ranked 23 out of 24 in the Office Stella fan poll.

It's going to get worse before it gets better.

Matt Doherty also said, was anyone else rooting for Erin to just stay in Florida?

I certainly was.

And a review from Click Clack said this episode was, quote, miserably insufferable, end quote.

Oh my God.

Sorry, that's hitting me so hard.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

A lot of critics, however, praised Catherine Tate.

They were very excited to see what she was going to bring to the show moving forward.

People also praised the balloon cold open.

And, you know, all that said, this episode was still the highest rated show on NBC the night it aired.

So we have that.

We have that.

That's fast fact number one.

Okay, just a lot of bad

fact number one really tickled me.

Okay, moving on.

Fast fact number two is an office ladies update.

We want everyone out there to know we had an amazing show in Toronto at the Just for Last festival.

We kicked off the festival.

Yes, we were opening night.

Oh my gosh, what a turnout.

You guys, it is so fun fun to go on the road and see everybody and meet everyone.

We did like an impromptu little meet and greet kind of after the show and we got to meet a lot of people.

We did.

We didn't have a formal meet and greet for the show, but there was a show right after us.

So they were kicking us out.

But we were like, we're going to take 15, 20 minutes.

We went to the front of the stage.

We signed as many things as we could.

We took as many selfies as we could.

But it was, I mean, we're always kind of doing our art art in a vacuum where you know we do it and then it goes on tv or we talk in our microphones and then in our closets or in a little room and like oh i guess maybe someone listened so this was the joy of live performance and i love our live show me too and something really exciting happened which is why i was bringing it up while we were there in toronto we solved the smell risty Did you combine smell and mystery?

I did.

Did you like it?

I did.

A smellistry.

a smellistry a smelleristry

one of those okay

of

the canadian 100 bill remember yes yes during our breakdown of last day in florida we got a letter from amy in nova scotia who told us that there was this crazy thing that happened where people in canada thought that the new 100 bill smelled like maple syrup Well, we brought this up during our live show.

And a woman in the front row had a $100

Canadian bill.

Yes, she just popped right up.

She was like, I have one.

Do you want to smell it?

We're like, yes.

So we smelled it.

Here are the results.

Jenna, what did you think?

Did it smell like maple syrup?

No.

Angela?

I thought it did.

I could smell it.

So I don't know what that is, but we have now smelled a Canadian $100 bill.

Thank you to the woman in the front row for letting us smell your money.

Yes.

And also, I have had a few people say to me, do you say syrup or syrup?

I say syrup.

I say syrup.

I want to know what Sam and Cassie say.

Oh.

I say syrup.

And I say syrup.

You guys were divided.

It's like a 50-50.

I went on to Google Translate and I typed in the word syrup.

And here's what Google Translate has to say.

Ready?

Mm-hmm.

Syrup.

Syrup.

Syrup.

It sounds like the combination of syrup and syrup.

It sounds like syrup to me.

I hear syrup.

Hmm.

Hmm.

What are you doing today?

What are you doing?

This is our Laurel Yanni moment.

Do you say syrup or syrup?

What do you hear?

I want you to know, I just Googled syrup.

And did you know that there is an American pronunciation and a British pronunciation?

Are you British, Jenna?

Maybe I am.

You tell me.

Syrup.

Syrup.

Syrup.

You're British.

I'm British.

Cassie, we're British.

Sam, we're American.

Moving on now to fast fact number three.

Angela, my favorite thing is when I take fast fact number three.

You have a fast fact number three for us.

What do you got?

You know, I was just curious about where all the office has been remade when I looked it up.

Well, I know they just are about to launch one in Australia with a female boss.

Yes.

Okay.

So the new Australian version has gotten a lot of buzz online.

It's in production right now.

Okay.

And obviously we all know the OG version, which was created in the United Kingdom by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

But their idea has spread to all these other countries.

There have been office remakes in Brazil.

Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and of course, our version in the United States.

And here's the thing I found really interesting.

A lot of these remakes were starting right when our show started at the same time.

Yeah.

And they didn't run as long as ours did, but you can see all of their TV posters for their remakes.

They're on IMDb.

I can put them in stories.

Isn't it true?

I remember hearing this, that the France, Jim, and Pam were like gorgeous, like runway models.

Yes.

They were super, super beautiful.

Yes.

In fact, I'll tell you how they're described.

Okay.

The Jim Pam characters are stunning and nubile up-and-comers.

And then the article said, this is France after all.

You know, we get asked all the time, there are always these rumors of another American version,

like a reboot or a remake or a spin-off.

Yeah.

No one has ever in all of these years, ever one time contacted me about being on another version of the office or any cast member.

Whenever I talk to the cast members, they're like, never heard anything.

Not a word.

And we get like tagged in all these articles all the time.

And then we'll have like a text thread like, guys, any truth to this?

Nope.

No one's reached out to me.

Never heard of it.

Every time one of these news articles comes out, my phone blows up from people who've read this article.

Is it happening?

Did you hear?

Are you on it?

What's going on?

And I can only ever say the same thing.

No one has ever contacted me.

I don't know anything about it.

I don't know what it is.

It's like every couple of years, it just the rumor catches fire again.

Yeah.

But listen, we don't work at NBC Universal.

We're just two gals talking about our lives.

But you know, I would say this, if there was ever any truth to it, Greg would reach out to us.

He definitely would.

I did see that Greg briefly addressed this in an interview with Collider.

He said, well, I think that is very speculative.

The fact that it kind of blew up based on one line in a puck piece was kind of cool.

I guess in the sense that the fans still care a lot.

And then he went on to say, the thing I would say is, when there's something to announce, I will definitely announce it.

It's true.

So there you go.

Maybe there will be one one day.

I don't think I'll be on it.

I mean, I'm going to be 50 next year.

Do we need a 50-year-old Pam sitting at a a desk in Dunder Mifflin?

I don't think we do.

We might need a 50-year-old Pam cameo.

I'll pop in.

Yeah.

I'm up for a pop-in.

Yeah.

Old Krusty Angela Martin will pop in too.

I really like the idea, if they ever remade the office, that Creed still works there.

A hundred years.

And maybe Meredith.

Or if Creed doesn't work there, he just lives in the warehouse, like in the back corner.

Yes, he comes down from the ceiling at night.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, that's all I got for Fast Facts.

Thank you for your Fast Fact, Angela.

I really enjoyed that.

Oh, you're welcome.

I mean, I guess there's about 80 countries that have options to this.

So who knows?

I might have missed one by the time that article was published and I read it.

There might be more.

Well, should we take a break and then when we come back, we can talk about the balloon?

Yes.

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We are back.

And before we get started, I just want to say if you like your coffee to stay real hot on the go, you really need to get our Office Ladies BFF coffee tumbler.

My coffee is still so hot.

So, so hot.

And it would stay super, super cold too if you put ice in it.

It's a colder?

You can do cold and hot.

Look at it.

I don't even know this.

It's my own merch.

I didn't know I could put cold stuff in it.

Oh my gosh, it will stay so cold.

I've put iced tea in there with ice, and it's been like cold for an entire day.

The next day I woke up, I forgot I hadn't poured it out.

There was still ice in it.

Wow.

Yeah, it's really good and it has a handle, guys.

I wanted something with a handle because I like to drink my tea.

I don't always want some huge thing, you know, like a carafe of coffee that you travel out the door with.

I would love, I would love someone to just travel with a carafe.

You know what I mean?

Some of these travel things are so big.

And I liked that this one was like kind of like a cup of tea.

Well, my coffee is still so hot.

It's, I poured it in there like an hour ago.

But let's get started.

This episode begins with Pam getting a very important, urgent phone call at her desk.

Yeah, I guess there's a balloon that has been caught in the rafters of the warehouse for years.

It's finally coming down.

Yeah, the whole office is going to go down and watch this balloon slowly fall.

Pam says, you know, it doesn't sound cool, but you just have to see it.

Then we go and we see it.

And then she says, you know what?

It doesn't really look cool either, but it is a big deal.

So so everyone goes down to the warehouse it's very exciting they formed a circle and they're watching this balloon just very very slowly fall to the ground pam says did a good job buddy now it's time to come home did anyone else catch the huge angela martin eye roll at pam it's back guys the eye roll is back i saw it And now everyone begins to reminisce about their first memories of when they saw the balloon.

Oscar says, wow, you know, I was still with Gil.

Kevin says I had hair like Rapunzel.

And Dwight's Warcraft clan was still on speaking terms.

Meredith's kid hadn't gotten a face tattoo yet.

Daryl was thinking of going back to school.

And Jim was just a paper salesman.

Yeah.

Little sarcasm there from Jim.

Mm-hmm.

A little sarcasm.

Everyone's kind of bummed now.

Yeah.

Thanks, Pam, they say.

But then Daryl is going to pop the balloon using the forklift and everyone cheers.

Everyone cheers, kill the balloon.

We got a lot of fan mail about this cold open.

Chris H.

from Lafayette, Indiana, Kelsey S.

from Toronto, and many others really want to know how did we get the balloon to fall?

Was there really a balloon?

Was it CGI?

How did this work?

How did we manage to get the timing just right?

Well, guess who told me all the deeds?

Steve Burgess.

Steve Burgess, because I couldn't remember.

I couldn't remember, were we looking at a real balloon or not?

I thought we were.

I thought we were, but then I was like, how did we make that happen?

Was it like on a fishing hook or something?

And there was like a ladder and like someone with like a, I feel like there was like a

rod and reel situation happening.

You are correct.

There really was a balloon.

It was not CGI.

It was inflated with air, not helium.

And we had a special effects person on a ladder off camera and he had a fishing pole

with some of that monofilament, which is fishing line attached to the balloon.

And he just lowered the balloon at the speed we needed.

Wait, monofilament?

Monofilament.

Is another word for fishing line?

The way Steve Burgess wrote his email, it is because he wrote monofilament and then he put fishing line in parentheses.

I never knew that.

So, like, if we went down to a dock, could I be like, hey, can I have some monofilament?

Yes.

Okay.

I encourage you to do that.

I'm going to save that.

Oh, man.

I really want to go fishing, but I need some extra monofilament.

Yeah.

I would fish with you, but I'm out of monofilament.

Sorry.

I can't.

Please, please do this.

You know who could probably tell us if this is true is the folks at Bass Masters.

I love Bass Masters.

I love them.

I wore my hoodie the other day to play tennis.

I still have my leather journal from Bass Masters.

It's a great one.

Steve Burgess said that it also made it really easy to do multiple takes using the monofilament technique.

And he reminded me that when Craig popped the balloon, we had to tape it to the ground so that it wouldn't slide out from under the forklift.

And Craig had to be certified to drive the forklift and use it.

That's kind of a cool thing to have, like on your resume.

Like, oh, yeah, I can drive a forklift.

He could put that in his special skills.

He could.

Well, listen, before we break down the rest of the episode, I have a little something from my digital clutter I wanted to share with you.

What's that?

The week we filmed this episode, I emailed you and I want to read you what I sent.

All right, this would have been January.

It was.

Yep.

January 12th.

Okay.

Okay.

The subject was titled, I Want to Buy This, LOL.

Okay.

When you open the email, I wrote, go to beachbody.com and look up Brazilian butt lift, thinking of trying this.

Lady.

Yeah.

What is it?

You wrote back, too funny, three exclamation points.

So I'm like, what the heck were we talking about?

So I went to the link that was in my email.

It's an old link, but this is what it said.

Leandro Cavalho's Brazilian butt lift.

This super-focused hardcore workout will reshape your booty, lifting, firming, and rounding it with strategic, targeted sculpting routines.

It's so much fun, you'll forget you're working your butt off.

And then there is a separate article that said, What type of workout is best for my butt type?

Oh, yeah.

Did you figure out what your exercise?

Wait, can I still buy this product, by the way?

Did you buy it?

Is it here?

It's a series of workouts.

It's like videos and workouts.

So I'm buying workout videos.

You're buying workout videos.

Oh, I thought it was a product.

No, I am.

I never did it.

Okay.

I never subscribed.

I never did the workout,

but I think it still lives.

Oh.

Yes.

Okay.

But anyway, this is what you and I were emailing about when we made this episode.

I wanted to reshape my booty.

I wish I had known this before I re-watched it.

I would have looked for signs of this in your performance.

You know, the secret one that I had.

All right.

Well, let's get into this episode.

We have the opening credits, which was interesting that they did not change for Nellie.

Oh, we got a fan mail flurry about that, Angela.

Oh, yeah, really?

We did.

So many people wrote in to say, how come we didn't have Nelly as the final manager image since we've done that with everyone else, including Creed?

I thought about it, and here's my theory.

Okay.

If they set up her at the desk at the very top, it ruins the whole storyline and the surprise that she's taking over Andy's job slowly but surely.

Well, do you think she'll be there next week?

That's what I'm curious about.

Me too.

I didn't watch ahead.

I didn't either.

Well, find out next week.

The episode starts with Jim and Pam arriving to work.

They got an extra breakfast sandwich.

Does anyone want it?

Guess who wants it?

Nellie appears out of nowhere and she's back and she's eating their sandwich.

And she does not like it.

She says it's disgusting.

She says, you call this a King James breakfast pie?

I looked it up.

It's really weird because it's believed to have originated in England and it's basically a pie and it has layers of bacon, sausage, eggs, cheese, sometimes hash browns or mushrooms all baked together.

Okay.

I don't understand how you take it on the go.

I saw some pictures where it looked like a pizza pocket, where it was like pie on top and bottom, and then some that just looked like a pie, but I cannot get.

any origin story on the King James breakfast pie.

Why is it called the King James breakfast pie?

Who really invented it?

Some people say it was like an American invention based on British breakfast.

I don't know.

It was very frustrating.

It sounds good.

It really looked good.

I didn't bake one, but you know.

I'm so surprised.

Well, I'm- I'm so surprised you don't have it for all of us to try today.

Well, you know.

What's happening to you?

I don't know.

Nellie is also going to dig on the Houdini Museum.

And then she announces she's come to work in Scranton.

Toby walks right up to her and introduces himself as Tony.

We got so much mail about that.

Oh my gosh.

He so casually then tried to cover this up.

I thought, has he introduced himself as Tony before and why would he?

Is this a Scranton Strangler Clue?

Well, we had a fan theory from Natasha M.

in Wales who said, I think maybe his name was Tony all along.

But someone called him Toby one day and he just didn't correct them and now it's spiraled and he will be forever known as Toby instead of his real name of Tony.

Natasha, that's hilarious.

You totally flipped it.

That is so funny.

You know, I thought maybe

Tony is his alternate identity.

Tony's a different guy.

We all know Tony.

Like Jekyll and Hyde, Tony and Toby.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We had a fan catch from Amanda A in North Carolina who said, Toby seems to not know who Nelly is and introduces himself, but didn't Toby already meet Nellie at the end of season seven in search committee when she interviewed for the manager position?

Such a good catch.

He sat across the table from her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also, doesn't he know she's the president of special projects?

Like as the HR manager, he sent a bunch of his employees to another state to work on a project.

Wouldn't he know who they're working under?

Come on, there'd be forms to fill out.

There's definitely forms.

There's so many forms.

Yeah.

What's happening to Toby?

I don't know.

Well, Tony tells Nellie, welcome, find a desk, have a seat, and then we'll wait for Robert to arrive.

Nelly notices there's an empty seat in Andy's office.

She'll take that seat and that job.

Yeah, she says her business philosophy is simple.

If the seat is open, the job is open.

That's how she came to briefly race a Formula One car.

Mm-hmm.

Slowest lapse ever recorded ever recorded.

I love, that is like a record.

You are a record holder in a sense.

Exactly.

Down in Tallahassee, Aaron is walking out to get the newspaper.

Alonzo drives by.

She tries to make small talk with him.

He just keeps driving.

Yes.

Well, Alonzo was played by Alexander Sobaha.

He did a great job.

He did fantastic.

I cracked up when he just kept going.

And now, lady, I really have a special award to give out.

Okay.

Are you ready?

Because the award for the worst green screen in the run of our show goes to Erin's talking head.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

This was a fan mail flurry.

I talked to Steve Burgess about it.

He said, yeah, it was a talking head that they had to add later on a green screen.

He said there were two talking heads that were added after we shot this episode, and this was one of them.

And I don't know why they couldn't just walk over to the outside of Tom Melby's house.

It was right there.

Yeah.

But I guess instead they filmed it as a plate and then they shot her talking head on a green screen.

It was real awful.

It was so obvious.

It was crazy.

I told you that when I was researching this episode, it was just like a lot of critical articles.

This talking head came up a lot for its terrible green screen effect.

Well, I get it.

In this talking head, we're going to learn that Erin is a maid for an old lady, runs her errands, gets to clean all five rooms of the house, not to brag.

Back at Dunder Mifflin, Robert arrives.

He greets Nellie, asks her how she's adjusting, and he says, I can't wait to find something fun for you to do here.

Yeah, Nellie says, you know what?

I've already taken care of that.

I found something.

I'm the manager.

He says, we already have a manager, and I love this line.

She says, oh, really?

Because it's 10 a.m., I've been in this office for an hour, and no one has come and sat in my lap.

I don't think you have a manager.

Manager.

By all standards, you don't have a manager.

Well, now everyone is really wondering where Andy is.

You know, he's usually here by now, and they start to discuss.

There were a few versions of this scene, and there's one where Ryan and Oscar really get into it, and I want you to hear it.

Has anyone talked to Andy?

He's not returning any calls.

I checked his Facebook.

Status said, pumped for Wednesday.

Today's Thursday.

I hate to take it to this place, but Re-Andy, has anyone checked the morgue?

checking the morgue isn't a real thing.

Yeah, it's a real thing.

You're a policeman?

No.

Anyone?

You're just like, hey, can I look around?

Anyone?

Yeah, and they have names on everything.

I didn't know you were there.

Then you go to the graveyard.

Then you go to the graveyard.

Okay, okay.

Look for a cemetery.

Nice.

All right.

What is that?

I don't know, but just all of Ryan's phrasing, too, when he's like, R.E.

Andy, has anyone, like, just the way he talks.

I'm like, oh my God, Ryan.

And I love that Oscar just called him out.

Like, that's not a thing.

Well, Robert calls his phone.

Andy answers and says he is sick.

But Robert says, I don't care.

Come to work anyway.

Yeah.

And then Andy says, I'm just really sick and I've got that and hangs up on him.

Yes, Andy hangs up.

And then we reveal he is standing on a beach.

He says he's in Florida.

He's here to get Aaron.

He's like shaving on the beach.

He's like standing in the ocean.

Yeah.

I guess he couldn't have gone to a gas station to do this

or something.

I don't know.

He needed to do it in the ocean water.

By the way, I looked up shaving using salt water.

Not recommended.

I wouldn't think so.

It burns.

Of course.

They also say don't shave your legs right before you go in the ocean water because salt can get in the pores and sting.

I think I've made that mistake.

Me too.

Okay, back to Andy's talking head here in the middle of the ocean.

I think I caught a little line fumble that made it into the show.

I am curious because we got a fan meal flurry about something Andy said.

Okay, well, I did a little mom detective work.

So when Andy has his talking head, he says, I'm in Florida to get Erin.

As soon as I heard she wasn't coming back to Scranton, I jumped straight in my car and drove straight down till I hit the ocean.

My heart is my map.

Turns out Tallahassee is about 200 miles inland, so I overshot a good amount.

But still, not bad for a heart map, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Our fan mail flurry, which I'm hoping you detected, but I don't know, is that the closest beach to Tallahassee is only about 40 miles inland.

That's right.

So if he's 200 miles away from Tallahassee, people would like to know where the heck did Andy go?

Okay, I'm on it, you guys.

So yes, we have discussed a little bit about Tallahassee in previous episodes, but I think they might have intended something a little different than the way it was interpreted.

Oh.

So yes, the Gulf of Mexico is about 22 miles from Tallahassee.

You can see water there.

The truest white sandy beach on the internet, apparently, people say is St.

George Island, which is about 90 miles, but still, this is not 200 miles.

Right.

I was curious, why would the writers write this?

I went to the shooting draft to see if this talking head was scripted the way it aired.

And this is what I found.

Everything was the same, except for this line.

I overshot Tallahassee by about 200 miles.

There's no mention of the word inland.

And I think Edis Andy was not supposed to say the word inland.

It wasn't scripted.

I think maybe he just said that line in the moment, and maybe that was their best take, and they left it in.

But it does change this talking head.

So I spent a lot of time on Google Maps.

If you drive from Scranton, Pennsylvania, down to Florida, a straight shot down the coast, because Andy said he was driving straight down till he saw the ocean.

Yep.

Well, there is one beach town that is a straight shot down from Scranton, Pennsylvania, but that is also 202 miles from Tallahassee with St.

Augustine Beach, Florida.

And that is my theory for where Andy is when he does this talking head.

But I'm not done.

Oh.

I was curious, how long would it have taken Andy to drive from Scranton, Pennsylvania to St.

Augustine Beach, Florida, and then over to Tallahassee?

The first leg of of the drive is 981 miles, roughly.

The second part of the drive is 203 miles to correct his overshot, and it's around 1,200 miles altogether and about an 18-hour drive.

That got me wondering, how did Andy do this?

Did he have to stay at a motel?

Did he drive straight through?

Well, there's a moment in deleted scenes that fills us in a little bit about how he did this drive.

You must be tired.

No, actually, I'm not tired.

I had a 12-pack of this energy drink called Up Yours.

It has a picture of a hyena giving you the finger on the can.

I feel weird.

It's just.

So I guess Andy got himself a case of Up Yours

and powered through the night.

Well, I mean, he's going to tell Erin later he didn't stop at all.

And she's like, not even to pee?

Not even to pee.

Even though he drank all that up yours?

Yeah, I don't know.

Angela, this was very, very good detective work.

Thank you.

Now, people from Florida, you might tell me there's a different beach town.

That would be the first one that Andy would see, but that's the one I saw that was also, because it's two things.

It's got to be straight south from Scranton along the coast, but then it's also got to be around 200 miles from Tallahassee.

I think this was excellent work.

I can tell you where we actually shot this.

Oh, yes.

Where was Ed?

Ed was at Will Rogers Beach.

And Steve Burgess said, We just sent a small crew, a splinter unit, as they're called.

It was two vans, one camera, sound, and a few props.

And Ed was there about two hours.

Well, that was a lot of Google Maps for you guys.

Maybe we should take a break.

Because when we come back, Robert is basically going to share with everyone he's not going to do anything about Nellie's takeover.

Because you know what, Jenna, sometimes the flowers arrange themselves.

Exactly.

We'll take a break.

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We're back and yeah, Robert is not going to take any action.

Jim is like, what the heck is going on?

The wheels are coming off the bus.

I think that little, where is Andy at the end of Jim's talking head, I feel like that was an improv.

Do you think?

I didn't look it up.

I should have looked it up.

I don't know.

I feel like I could just tell.

But I'll tell you where Andy is.

Andy is in a box because Irene opens her front door and there's a box.

There's no postage on it.

Yeah, there's, it's a package.

It's for Aaron.

And Andy is going to pop out with flowers and he's singing.

Signed, sealed, and delivered.

I love that no one in the house like saw him doing any shenanigans in the front yard.

You know, this was not a simple, like, oh, just set a box down.

It was like, I'm going to put a box, then I'm going to climb in it, then I'm going to try to tape it.

Like, what's happening in the front yard?

You know, I didn't think about the moment before.

Moment before is what we're asked to imagine before we go on stage as an actor.

Yes.

This is a big part of acting crap.

Prep.

Yeah.

What was my moment before I appeared?

In my mind, Andy had stuff.

There was like a roll of tape somewhere.

There wasn't in the, how did he do it?

I don't know.

I get hung up on the moment before.

Well, this moment before is a mystery.

We We had a fan question from Victoria Kay in Wisconsin who wanted to know how much did we have to pay for the rights for Sign Sealed and Delivered?

And the answer was

$20,000.

It was a pricey song.

However, I looked up a little history on Sign Sealed and Delivered and I'm going to say it's worth every penny.

This song was originally released in 1970 and it is a Motown classic.

It has a really interesting history because Stevie Wonder co-wrote this song with his wife, Sarita Wright.

They're no longer married, but after this song was released, they married just weeks later.

He also co-wrote it with an occasional collaborator named Lee Garrett.

But the song carries an additional co-writing credit for Stevie Wonder's mother, the late Lula Mae Hardaway, because Stevie Wonder said that she said the title phrase when she heard him working on the song's melody.

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah.

And this was also a really significant song because it was the first single on which Stevie Wonder was listed as a producer.

And it's also his first to win a Grammy nomination.

It's a song with a lot of history.

A lot of history.

And Andy is going to jump out of a box and sing it to Aaron.

Yep, with flowers.

That's the other thing.

He had to crawl in the box with flowers.

He had to stop and get a box.

He had to get a Sharpie because he had to write on the outside of the box.

And tape?

Is it taped or is it?

How do you, did?

He get in from the bottom?

Maybe he got in the bottom.

Maybe from the bottom.

Now, maybe he had some of these supplies at Dunder Mifflin, but it really looked like he just ran right out.

Yeah, it didn't look like he grabbed supplies for a box.

No, I think this was maybe an idea he had while he was drinking the up yours.

Yeah,

12 hours into his drop.

Yeah.

Well, once in the house, Andy is going to tell Erin that he loves her and he wants to be with her.

He wants to be together.

And he's there to take her home to Scranton.

Irene says, where's the ring, Lancelot?

I loved that line.

And Aaron says, you know what?

Thanks, Andy, but I'm not going to go with you.

What?

What?

Can we play a few bullshit cards here?

I mean, she's in love with him.

Yeah.

He drives all the way there.

This is her moment to be like, no, not so much.

This is

where

if they'd had me, they would have lost me because I don't need all this.

Like there's this much cat and mouse in your relationship.

It's not meant to be.

Don't do it.

Like truly.

Yeah.

You can't spend your whole relationship with someone just waiting and waiting and waiting for them to chase you.

And then when they do, you punish them by rejecting them.

Like that's like, that's a cycle we don't need.

No.

That's not a happy life.

I have to say, I don't think there's that cycle with Jessica.

Of course there's not that cycle with Jessica.

I know.

We clearly need t-shirts that say team jessica jessica because we are we've had a few people point out to us that we are clearly team jessica sorry we are

back in scranton nellie is going to lead a conference room meeting called what is going on

what is going on i would love to sit in a meeting called what is going on

it's pretty funny

Yeah, she asks everyone, does anyone know what's going on?

Kevin and a few people raise their hands.

What are they going to say?

I wish we could have called on them.

My character raises her hand.

I think I just did it just for fun.

What is Angela Martin going to say?

Well, Nellie calls on Kevin.

She's going to guess his name.

She's going to call him Chumbo.

This made me wonder, is Chumbo a name?

It's clearly meant as a joke in our script, but is anyone named Chumbo?

I did not wonder about this, Jenna.

I did wonder about maps, but I know.

What do you got in the name department?

Well, according to the Urban Dictionary, it is a slang term that is used in the gay community to describe a ridiculously straight man.

Oh,

I called a gay friend of mine to check this out.

You

stop it.

Stop it.

This is the most mom moment.

Honey, kids, listen.

I called my gay friend and here's what he said.

Well, we've been friends since college, so I felt like I could call him with this research question.

And he said, Jenna, I've never heard it, but I'm in my 50s and I don't always have my finger on the pulse of the hip younger gay community.

It could be that chumbo is being thrown out all the time.

He said, I've not used it.

But yeah, according to Urban Dictionary, chumbos tend to be womanizing, beer drinking, steak eating, American football watching, heterosexists.

Heterosexists would mean that you have to be all those things and then also, I guess, homophobic.

Oh.

Yeah.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, that's a chumbo.

I don't know.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, chumbo means lead.

Lead like L-E-A-D?

Lead as in the material.

Like lead poisoning.

Right.

Okay.

Yes, lead paint.

Yeah.

Chumbo.

In Portuguese, it means prickly pear.

Could I get a chumbo, please, with my breakfast?

I would like a chumbo salad.

Okay.

One more thing.

If you put the name chumbo into meaningslike.com, this is a website that tells you the meaning of names.

It says a definition.

It says people named chumbo represent ambitious independence strength reliability and professionalism.

This sounds like a bogus website.

It was.

I put my name in and I put in Regina.

Yeah.

Regina means queen.

It didn't say that.

I feel like I could put in like stinky shoe and it would say, this is a name that would lead nations.

Yes, yes.

I did get that feeling.

I also couldn't find anyone with the first name Chumbo, but I did find Chumbo as a last name a few times.

Okay.

Back in like yeolden times.

Ye olden times.

There were some chumbos.

Sir Charles Chumbo.

Yeah.

Okay.

Charles Chumbo ate a prickly pear.

Ate a prickly pear in Portugal.

Yes, while wearing a lead ring.

I guess.

And watching football.

Exactly.

What has happened to us?

I don't know.

We're like Andy.

We're loopy.

We're loopy.

Okay.

Well, Nellie is going to explain to Chumbo and everyone else that she is the new manager.

Pam asked Robert if this is true.

And Robert is doing that thing that he does where clearly life is just like entertainment for him.

And now he's finally entertained.

He's been bored and asleep, but what?

What?

What's happening?

Something's happening.

Robert says, in a world of routines and rhythms, Kevin eats someone's lunch.

Phyllis has a new necklace.

But who is this woman?

He's in.

He's like, I just bought my ticket.

I'm going to watch this show.

So this was the other talking head that was added later in reshoots.

This Robert talking head outside by the Dunder Mifflin sign.

Well, I I think we needed it.

I do too, because even with this Talking Head, a lot of the articles that I read thought it was a little bit of a stretch that Robert was so permissive of this takeover by Nelly.

Right.

This kind of explains it.

Like you said, it's for his entertainment.

The world is here to entertain him.

Yeah.

But people had a little bit of a hard time with that.

Well, here Nelly is in her first ever conference room meeting that she set up, and she's going to tell people she feels disrespected.

And all she's trying to do is get to know everyone.

And I'm sorry, but they've left her no choice.

She's going to have to conduct performance reviews.

Oh, oh, I forgot to say something.

What?

Did you notice anything about this whole conference room scene?

Did you see where we were?

We're seated.

We're next to each other.

I noticed that.

I noticed that.

It's been so long.

I can't believe they let us do it.

Yeah, I totally meant to bring that up.

Mm-hmm.

Seated next to each other.

I know.

But you're right.

She's going to start conducting performance reviews.

And she says smiling goes a long way.

So think about smiling.

Her performance reviews, by the way, are based solely on her first impressions.

Yeah.

Not on any performance.

We're now going to get a real disgusting lunch from Erin.

It's hot dogs.

She's been reusing the hot dog water.

It really gives it a lot more flavor.

It's only going to get better, she says.

There's so much more to this scene.

It's in deleted scenes.

They wrote Glenn as such an asshole.

I think they had to dial it back.

I loved watching Glenn in this scene.

I loved all of his facial expressions.

I was eating it up.

He has a line in deleted scenes where they're all talking and he goes,

does anyone have anything I can read?

Because I'm not into this conversation.

I'm not here for it.

I have a little trivia about Glenn, the character of Glenn.

Okay.

You know, sometimes when the writers would write early versions of the script, they would put in the name of a friend or someone that they imagined in the role.

Yeah.

So in the early outline for this script, it said, cut to Irene's 45-year-old son, Phil Rosenthal.

That's very funny.

But Irene's grandson was actually played by the very funny Brad Morris.

He was a member of Second City Chicago.

He's also had recurring roles on Cougar Town and The Good Place.

Well, he's really funny.

There's a lot more of his character in deleted scenes.

He's just a real jerk, but it's hilarious.

I do love that in this scene, Irene calls Andy out.

She says, So, Andrew, how does your skinny brunette girlfriend Jessica feel about you visiting your ex-girlfriend?

Andy says, We're not really dating anymore.

So, basically, I mean, I just have to cross a few T's and dot a few I's.

And Erin's like, Wait, so you came to get me and you still have a girlfriend?

Andy.

Andy.

Yeah.

Andy would have had a talking head after this scene.

It's in deleted scenes.

I want you to hear it.

Irene knows all about Jessica, which means that Aaron has been talking about me a lot.

Does that sound like someone who's moved on?

Do you even want dessert or are you still doing South Beach?

So Aaron's clearly been talking about him quite a bit, but also I did think it was funny that we learned he was on South Beach diet.

What's the South Beach diet?

I can't remember.

I know it was like a big fad.

It's so funny to me, these diets that come around, right?

What am I eating now?

I feel like I remember my mom had the book, but what am I not eating, I guess?

Here, I Googled it.

So it was a popular diet created by a cardiologist.

There was a book, The South Beach Diet.

And I guess basically this diet is lower in carbs and higher in protein and healthy fats.

So it's just every other diet.

I mean, that's every diet, right?

Isn't that paleo?

Isn't paleo the same thing?

I don't even know.

It says if you are doing the South Beach diet, you focus on eating lean proteins such as seafood, skinless poultry, lean beef, and soy products.

You can also eat high-fiber vegetables, low-fat dairy foods with healthy, unsaturated fats, including avocados, nuts, and seeds.

I'm going to start a diet.

What are you going to call it?

Just eat the good stuff and stop eating all the junk, everyone.

Is that too long of a diet title?

Just, I mean, obviously, it's called just like fing common sense.

Like, don't eat.

Don't be an idiot.

Yeah, just like eat stuff that grows out of the ground and lean protein.

The end.

Every diet is the same.

There's no difference in the diets.

Like, how many different ways do we have to repackage the same information?

But then everyone's like, oh, I'm this diet.

I'm that diet.

And it's like, oh, what are you eating?

Oh, lean meat.

You're avoiding carbs and you're eating some fresh leafy vegetables.

Who could have ever thought of that?

Oh, my God.

Oh, genius moment from whoever wrote that down again for the 70th time.

I swear to God, I'm going to start a diet.

I think you should.

And I really think that I want to pitch the title is Don't Be an Idiot.

Eat Good Stuff.

Eat Good Stuff by Jenna Fisher.

So like a two-page book.

It's super simple.

I think it's one page.

I think it's one page.

Maybe the first paragraph is you venting this vent.

Yeah.

And then the second paragraph is.

Don't be an idiot.

And then you're done.

It's not hard.

It's not hard.

Everybody knows what good food and bad food is.

When I am sitting at home at night right before bed, eating two bowls of lucky charms, I know what I'm doing.

I don't need a book to tell me this isn't a great choice.

Wait, are you doing that?

Yeah.

You're eating two bowls of lucky charms at night?

Yeah.

Yeah, because it's gluten-free cereal, and then I have it with like a coconut soy milk.

And is that like your dessert?

Oh, no, I've eaten dessert.

No, it's not my dessert.

I mean, dessert is dessert.

This is just your late-night nosh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

You know, my late night nosh might maybe used to have been some sort of ice cream treat.

Yeah.

And here's the other thing about my bowls of cereal.

Because I feel like I'm being really honest right now.

You are really, really honest.

You should cut your face, you guys.

Because

each time I do it, I make one bowl of cereal and then I put everything away and then I eat it.

And then when I get down to just the milk, I get up again and I go back and I get the lucky charms out and I sprinkle more in.

Why don't you just leave the box out?

Because I'm not admitting that it's going to be a two bowl night.

Okay.

You know, there's a chance it can be a one bowl night if I put the lucky charms away.

If I leave the box out next to me, we might be three bowls deep before I stop.

But I'm just saying.

You're making your own little obstacles.

That's right.

My mom used to do this.

My mom still does this.

She goes to the pantry and she takes a handful of chips.

She rolls the bag back up, puts it in the pantry and goes and sits down and eats one handful of chips.

And when she's done, she gets up, she goes and repeats

because she's just eating a handful.

But my point is this: I don't need a book to tell me that this isn't

a great choice.

I don't need to read that.

I know what I'm doing.

We all know what we're doing when we're just eating fried foods and barely any vegetables.

This is why we

lie at our yearly physical when they ask you questions.

You're like, how many glasses of wine do you have a week?

Three, four, maybe

for the whole week really yeah how many bowls of cereal do you have I don't know

I don't I don't eat a lot of cereal

you know what I would say I don't have cereal for breakfast yeah I don't how many chips do you have just a handful yeah yeah

we know what we're doing that was a tangent I didn't know I felt strongly about it

I have something getting us back onto the episode please Andy really tries to bond with Irene.

I mean, have you you noticed this?

Like, he's trying to bond with her.

He's doing leg exercises on the bed while his phone keeps ringing and ringing.

But he also really appreciated her home decor.

It's in deleted scenes.

I thought it was really cute.

Oh, I want to hear it.

And we learned something kind of interesting about Irene.

Irene, this house is lovely.

Okay.

I'm serious.

Did you decorate it yourself?

Because I love it.

You really like it?

Because everything's for sale on eBay.

I'll send you a link.

I would love that.

Now, listen, this was my favorite Irene Andy scene of the whole episode.

I know it didn't make it to air, but it was so great when he says, I really like what you've done with the place.

And she goes, okay,

I know.

And why is she selling the contents of her entire home on eBay?

I do not know.

You know, I have a few background catches in this scene.

One comes in from Thea A in Sweden, who says that there is a framed picture of a girl in a dress on the wall of Irene's bedroom.

Yep.

And it is the Sir Thomas Lawrence painting Pinky.

Well, Thea, it's for sale on eBay.

It is.

I also noticed that the television was on in this scene.

There's a shot of a dog walking around.

I asked Steve Burgess about this.

He said, yes, they paid a small fee for some stock animal footage, and it featured both dogs and penguins.

The second time I watched, I noticed the penguins.

Nice.

Yeah.

I'm not sure what they're doing in the same show, the dogs and penguins.

But I have a third catch.

In this scene, Andy's phone keeps ringing.

And when he gets it out, I have a new tech alert.

Oh, he got a new phone?

Andy has a smartphone.

Oh, wow.

You know, in Test the Store, Jim still was using a flip phone.

But Andy has, I saw it.

It was just like one of the very, very early iPhones.

But shouldn't they all be answering phones on the little triangle

cell phones from Sabre?

They should be.

The triangle smartphone.

And, you know, Andy is going to say in this scene that he doesn't know how to put his phone on silent.

And did you catch?

Irene knows how.

Irene knows how to put a smartphone on silent, this device that's new tech alert.

She knows how to put everything on eBay.

In the previous episode, she's telling Aaron how to FaceTime.

I know.

There is a deleted scene where she talks to Andy about all the different spices she has.

And she goes, yeah, she goes,

I bought everything to make a paella.

And Aaron goes, she means papaya.

And Irene goes, no, I don't.

I mean paella.

So she's got a lot of interests.

And she's smart and knows her way around technology.

You know, Angela, you played Andy's voicemail for us earlier.

Yeah.

And we got some fan questions about it.

People thought maybe he was singing a jingle.

They wanted to know, like, what song is he really singing?

I asked Steve Burgess about it, and he said Ed just made it up.

We didn't pay any rights for that melody.

That's just an Ed Helm special.

I 100% knew Ed made that up because he would make up little songs around the set.

And sometimes we would do all these little bits together, comedy bits.

One day we were like walking into set at the same time, and it was like, I don't know what we were doing, but I said something like, oh, I forgot my Uggs.

And he's like, you forgot your Uggs.

Got to go get them or whatever it was.

It was something really silly.

But he could just make up a song at the drop of a hat.

Well, Andy's phone is going to keep ringing.

He continues to ignore it, but Glenn answers it.

And this is where you see some of the way they wrote him to be just so obnoxious.

He answered the phone, Proctology.

That's right.

right.

And it's Jim, and he's like, Andy, where are you?

And this is when Jim learns that Andy's not coming back, at least not without Aaron.

He's in Florida.

So Jim is going to have to try to unify the group against Nellie.

He says we cannot participate in these performance reviews because then we are essentially accepting her as our manager.

Dwight says he doesn't trust Nellie.

I mean, he wouldn't even trust her to run a celery farm.

Yes, he has a talking head where he says those who can't farm farm celery.

Is this a dig on the celery community?

Well, I had to know more.

I guess what he is referring to is that, according to the internet, did you see what I did there, Angela?

I credited the whole internet, just like how you did.

Thank you.

Because I forgot to write down my source.

I know the source sometimes, but sometimes there's multiple sources that say similar things.

So I just say according to the internet.

All right.

Well, according to the internet, as a lady who Googles,

it turns out it's really quite easy to grow celery.

It has very specific needs.

You plant it in the spring.

You just have to give it a lot of water, have a good, rich soil.

And then in the fall, you get a bunch of celery.

I don't ever need to eat celery again for the rest of my life.

Josh puts it in soups.

I'm just like, great.

Now I have a crunchy thing with no taste.

No taste.

Celery has a taste.

What's the taste?

Celery.

It tastes like celery.

It can't taste like something else or then it would be another thing.

It just tastes like celery.

It tastes like nothing.

Okay.

If you get a note, are you sure you're not thinking of like a water chestnut?

Because those things taste like nothing.

Forget those.

I hate those too.

Celery, you know, if you crush up enough of it, you can have celery juice.

But you just chop a celery in half and take a bite of it, I get nothing.

Do you remember the celery juice craze?

Yeah.

That hit California in like 2019?

Everybody had f ⁇ ing celery juice.

They were walking around with it.

I did it.

And their big sippy cup thing.

I did it.

I did it.

I was on Splitting Up Together, and me and Oliver Hudson, we did the celery juice craze.

I don't know why we would do this.

Is this part of your don't be an idiot diet?

It could be.

It could be.

But there was this doctor, I guess.

So there was.

There's always a doctor.

I know.

There's a doctor or something.

I'm putting doctor in quotes.

I don't know.

Sorry, doctor who came up with celery juice, maybe a real doctor.

I don't know.

But the idea was that you juice fresh celery first thing in the morning.

You have to drink it on an empty stomach.

That sounds like it.

It has to be the first thing.

It just runs.

Well,

it was interesting.

It was supposed to be this miracle cure, like Kim Kardashian talked about it.

Gwyneth Paltrow put it on goop.

And I don't know.

You know, this happens on like TV and movie sets.

You get the board and then you do some fad.

Yes, I once did a show with Elijah Wood.

I had a guest star on Wilfred

and Randall Einhorn directed Little Office Reunion.

And their whole thing on their set, and I like learned it the first day, is everyone did crossword puzzles.

They would get the same crossword puzzle, and from the New York Times, they'd print it out, and everyone all day long would be doing the crossword.

And each day it gets harder.

We used to do the words with friends on our set when that came out.

Well, you guys did.

We did weird drinks.

Okay.

Oliver and I did this weird tea for a while.

Now we started drinking celery juice in the mornings.

This whole craze, it created a shortage of celery.

In California?

In California.

Yes.

I went and looked up an article on it.

The LA Times said the sales increased by 350%.

Prices skyrocketed to as much as $5 a bunch.

And there were pictures of like...

produce departments and then the celery part was empty because everybody started, you had to juice it fresh in the morning.

This was the other thing.

I was already going to work at 6 a.m., but I was getting up even earlier to juice myself.

Just juice my celery, and then you would drink it.

Nothing happened.

You just, I mean, something happened.

But pretty much nothing happened.

Nothing in my life changed for this effort.

Well, I'm putting it in my book.

This is my theory on why I don't ever need to eat celery again.

I'm just saying, I guess, don't do silly things.

Don't do fads.

You know what is good and you know what is bad the end she sounded like a poem like for like an elementary child

it's that easy it's that easy Nelly is going to emerge from her new office it's time for her performance reviews to start first up is the woman with the beautiful fingernails and tiny feet Angela starts to march towards the door It's not Phyllis.

It's not Angela.

It's Phyllis.

And Phyllis says, you know what?

I don't feel comfortable being reviewed by someone that doesn't even know me.

Nellie says, that's fine.

That's fine.

I'll show you how it's done.

Dwight?

Dwight says he also does not feel comfortable.

He lost all respect for her in Florida.

So she just offers him a raise.

Mm-hmm.

He deserves it.

Dwight obviously is going to agree that he deserves a raise.

And Jim's like, the raise isn't real, Dwight.

And Dwight says money isn't real since they got off the gold standard.

And then he's going to start negotiating with Nellie about his raise.

He demands 5%.

She says, not good enough.

7%.

And then he says, no, 6%.

I know my worth.

I loved that.

Well, Phyllis now sees where this is going.

So she's like, yeah, I'll get a review.

Nellie tells Phyllis that she's impressed with how she conquered her fear.

She even likes how she sits.

So guess what?

You get a raise.

I guess that was a good first impression.

Jim is going to go into the conference room and speak to Robert.

He wants to make sure Robert knows that Nellie is just basically handing out raises.

And Robert's like, oh, I guess you want one so you can take the kids to Disneytown.

Yeah.

He wants to give Jim a metaphor.

And the choices are nature metaphor or sexual metaphor.

The nature metaphor.

Includes animals having sex.

Yeah.

The sex metaphor is that all life is sex and all sex is competition.

There are no rules.

And Charles Darwin ultimately decides who the manager is.

I summed it up.

That's

how, I guess, Robert feels.

Robert talks about sex a lot.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It's really the lens through which he looks at the world.

Mm-hmm.

Well, thank you for summing that up.

Yeah, Jim is speechless and Nellie is giving Kelly now a raise.

So many raises.

And now Dwight, he's sort of taking this all in.

He's like, you know what?

Nellie's right.

So he, inspired by her, marches over to Daryl's office and says, hey, this is my office now.

And Daryl's like, no.

And Dwight's like, yeah.

And then Daryl literally drags him out by his hair.

Dwight's like, well fought, I accept the outcome.

And during all of this, Creed has taken Dwight's desk.

So Dwight actually lost a desk in this scenario.

You know what I would have liked is if they would have held on to that.

And then for like the rest of the season, Dwight was in the corner and Creed was across from Pam.

Oh, that would be pretty great.

And Dwight just keeps waiting for Creed to get up so he can play in his chair.

Yes, I wish it would have become a runner.

Back in Florida, Andy is fixing Irene's fountain and I spotted some birds of paradise for you, Angela.

I spotted them too.

It's a dolphin fountain.

Erin says she's heard they're really beautiful when they work.

Andy's been kind of hanging around, maybe hoping that Erin's going to change her mind.

He had the hot dog lunch.

He did the leg exercises, he's fixing the fountain.

But Aaron's going to come and confront him.

I would like to just point out something.

In my opinion, this scene where Erin says, Look, I care about you, but you know, you hurt me.

And he said, Well, you also hurt me.

And she goes, No, but you hurt me more times.

I had to watch you date other people.

You had to reject me over and over.

I thought this scene was maybe the first time

in so many episodes where Erin just seemed like a real person.

A very grounded person.

Yes, not a caricature

who doesn't know what papaya is.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah,

I do.

And I really liked Ellie's performance in this scene.

I did too.

It was very real.

I had a lot of empathy for Erin.

This is when I'm like, okay, in this moment, I root for Erin a little, right?

Because all the other times, she didn't sound like a real person and Jessica seemed real.

Well, they're going to hug and Andy's going to leave, but then Aaron is going to be so easily influenced, Irene is going to say, you're making a terrible mistake.

That guy seemed great.

Even though she was being a real bee to him.

Yeah.

She was just trying to protect Aaron, but now she's like, you should go.

You should go.

And just to finish up this storyline, I guess, Andy's driving away and Erin is going to come running out of the house, screaming, I love you.

She runs up to a Prius.

She's like, don't leave.

I love you.

Wrong Prius.

But then she finds him and they have an embrace in the middle of this intersection.

And they're going to drive off in the sunset together.

Her without any of the things she brought to Florida.

I'm assuming she had a suitcase for her time working for Sabre, clothing, toothbrush.

There's no rush, right?

They could have gone back to the house for that bag pretty easily.

There was in this scene a lot of driving choreography.

I was very impressed.

You know, we had to shut down this street.

There was the wrong Prius.

There's two cars that drive by honking.

I asked Steve Burgess about it.

I mean, this is complicated stuff.

Like,

for us, this felt like a giant car chase fast in the furious.

Yeah, exactly.

Safety meeting.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

Steve Burgess said we got the extra Prius from the Transpo department.

He's not sure who was driving it, but one of the cars was driven by our stand-ins, Stephen Saux.

He was one of the honkers.

Nice.

I know.

Go, Stephen.

Yeah.

Well, back at Dundromifflin, Nellie is now going to win over Pam.

She's going to tell Pam

basically that she's fantastic and deserves a nap.

Yeah.

And, you know, it made me think.

I mean, I know Nellie's kind of coming out of left field here this episode, but she's really good at reading her employees.

She's really good at knowing what they each want and how to butter them up.

Isn't that a good manager?

You're so right, Angela.

I mean, I know she doesn't know the company or anything else she's talking about, but she seems to know how to relate one-on-one with people.

She knows people.

Yep.

And so did Michael.

That's right.

Did you notice that when she gets the pillow and blanket out of the little credenza, did you think that was like a Cornell blanket and pillow?

They were red.

And also, Nellie didn't arrive with a pillow and blanket, right?

Where did she get this pillow and blanket?

Has Andy been taking naps in his office?

Maybe, but I did notice the filing cabinet behind the desk that normally has tchotchkis on it.

There was nothing on it.

She had cleared it.

I saw that too.

Mm-hmm.

Well, Nelly's tactics have worked on everyone but Jim.

He's very resistant.

No, he says, you know, you're not the manager, Nellie.

And she says, I am if you believe I am.

Just like Tinkerbell.

You just have to believe.

Just believe.

And then she starts sort of doing this thing where, like, if people don't believe Tinkerbell's going to die.

Well, that's what happens in Peter Pan.

Right.

But like, she's acting it out in the office.

That's, yeah, that's what they do, like, in the stage show.

Like, Tinkerbell is like.

dying, but then if you clap really loud in the audience, then she comes back.

Oh, gosh.

That's the bit.

Okay.

I haven't seen this on stage.

I just saw, actually, Peter Pan Goes Wrong.

Oh, Isabel went and saw that.

It's so funny.

We saw it on Broadway and Ellie Kemper was the narrator.

We went the week that she was filling in as the narrator.

My daughter and I went.

It was so cool.

And we got to go backstage after the show, you know, because Ellie had done it.

But it's this great troop of British performers and they do Peter Pan Goes Wrong.

But this is how I know.

This is why it's so fresh in my mind.

Now I understand how Tinker Bell works.

Now I understand.

Yeah, my daughter and a group of her friends went and saw it and they loved it.

It's so cute.

You know, Nellie's going to get the whole office to cheer for her.

A la Tinkerbell.

Kevin is so worried.

You know, we got a fan question from Kevin, speaking of Kevin, in Shelby Township, Michigan, who says, when everyone besides Jim is cheering and clapping for Nellie, who is yelling, we believe, over and over again in the background.

I really hope you're able to solve this.

Well, you said, Angela, that Kevin is really worried.

I think it's Kevin.

So do I.

It's really weird because you hear we believe, and then it cuts to a shot, and Kevin's just clapping.

So I think they did some like interesting

editing here, but I have an audio clip.

Let's listen to it.

Come on, Jim, you're killing her!

We believe!

We believe!

I have a theory.

What's your theory?

That second one really crystallized it for me.

Okay.

I think it's Creed.

Oh, you do?

The way he held out his E like that.

We believe.

That sounded like Creed to me.

Okay, I need to hear it again.

Come on, Jim.

You're killing her.

We believe.

We believe.

I hear it now.

I think you're right, Ange.

I think it's Creed.

And I think that's why when we cut back to Kevin, you don't see his mouth moving and Creed's off camera.

Yeah.

I think it's Creed.

I vote Creed.

I looked at the script.

That was not scripted.

No, that was a bunch of ad libs.

Well, the episode is going to end with Nellie's talking head.

She says she grew up poor with no education or skills.

She doesn't work hard or have good ideas.

And yet she walked into someone else's job for which she was ill-prepared and ill-suited and got it.

And that's the American dream.

Anything can happen to anyone.

It's just random.

And while she has this talking head, if you notice, she's walking through the office and messing with people's desks.

I did see that.

She removes Dwight's personal photos and puts them on Pam's desk.

She takes Pam's photos of her children and puts them on Dwight's desk.

She then walks over and picks up that duck that's on the file cabinet, throws it over her shoulder towards Meredith's desk.

And lastly, she goes up to Phyllis's desk, drinks what's left left of her coffee out of her coffee mug, grabs a bunch of papers off of her desk, and puts them in the trash.

Yeah, we're in trouble, guys.

That's her management style.

Dunder Mifflin might be in trouble.

Well, I'll tell you, I don't know where this is going.

I haven't watched the next episode yet either.

I'm curious.

Same.

And we're coming to a close on season eight.

I can't believe it.

We're really getting close, aren't we?

Yeah.

Thank you, Steve Burgess, for your helpful information each week.

Gosh, we just couldn't do the podcast without you.

I love, love, love all of your insights into the production life of each episode.

Yes.

And I also love Steve when you just send us pictures.

Just,

you know, I mean, I love your yellow lab.

His dog is the cutest.

He takes great pictures of him at sunset.

Steve is just a lovely dog.

This is true.

We've gotten a lot of dogs at sunset pictures.

I love them.

Steve, you're awesome.

The rest of you are fantastic as well.

Thanks for sending sending in your comments and your questions.

Really and truly, you open up these episodes for us.

You help us to see them in a new way, and we just appreciate you all so much.

It's been really fun doing this rewatch with you.

All right.

Well, we'll see you next week.

See you next week.

Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.

Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey.

Our senior producer is Cassie Jerkins.

Our in-studio engineer is Sam Kiefer.

Our editing and mixing engineer is Jordan Duffy.

And our associate producer is Ainsley Bubbico.

Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

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