Second Drink: The Merger | Office Ladies

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Welcome back to the second drink of the merger.

Director Ken Whittingham joins us for this episode.

And one of my favorite things he shares with us is how strategic they were with where all of the new employees would sit in the Dunder Mifflin bullpen.

And that really helped shape some of these new storylines with the Stanford branch joining the Scranton branch. ranch. I love that as well.

I thought that was one of like, when I think about our whole series rewatch and different interviews we did with people, I felt like that was one of like a key nugget.

Yeah. You know, we also talk about who can see each other from their desks and which characters are no longer in each other's line of sight.

Yeah. Loved that. Loved that.

Jenna, you shared how you realized that Pam will no longer look up and see Jim at his desk anymore.

more. Yeah, his back is to her.

That's right. And there was a deleted scene between Jim and Pam where they're all flirty flirt, and it's annoying the crap out of Ryan.

Because Pam has basically walked up to chat to Jim because his back is to her.

Yeah. So she can't make eye contact with him.

We talked a little bit about this moment, but we didn't play it, and I think we should hear it.

This is weird with you faking the other way.

Yeah, I never even knew that part of the office us existent.

Hey, who's that guy?

That's Stanley Hudson.

Huh. He's one of our salesmen.

Seems like a nice enough guy.

Oh, very. What about, uh...

Hmm. That is Janet Fenstermaker.

Really? You should say hi.

Use her full name. Thank you for all of this.

This is so helpful.

You You know what? One last question.

Who is that fine older gentleman in the corner?

That is Creed Bratton.

He has four toes, and he fought in the Civil War.

For the North? For both sides.

Whoever paid more. Obviously.

Yeah. Hey, sorry. Seriously, can you guys...

I'm trying to get some work done.

Sorry, man. I love Ryan so much. So much. And you know who she's talking about when she says the Janet...

Is that Phyllis? Meredith.

Oh, okay. Well, also this episode, we talk about Andy's nifty gifty bags, and we talked about the fakie bag, that that was a prop bag that we would use when we were filming because they were silent.

And we sort of mentioned we weren't sure what those bags were, but Angela, you said someone wrote in and told us.

Yes. Thank you, Emma B., for writing in to tell us that but those type of bags are actually made of vinyl.

Yeah. So they hardly make any noise and that helps the sound department.

And Jenna, you'll love this.

She called it a, quote, Foley fun fact.

Oh, I love that. Foley fun fact.

After Jack Foley. Right.

Yes, you know I love movie making trivia and Jack Foley is the person who developed all of the sound effect techniques that were used in the early days of filmmaking.

You've seen it sometime in movies where they're watching it live and they're making these noises using different things.

Well, if you do the Universal Studios tour, at least here in California, they have a whole like show.

It's like the Foley artist show.

Have you done it? It's so fun.

We did it with our kids and they'll pull people up on stage and you'll each get like a different sound effect and you have to like watch the screen and make the sound effect to go with it.

That's so fun. Yeah, like you'll put shoes on your hands and make clumpy sounds for a horse.

Yeah, it was so cool.

Well, thank you, Emma, for writing in to share your Foley fun fact with us.

Lastly, before we get to our breakdown, there is one more deleted scene that we wanted to play because many of you have noted that Jim and Angela rarely have scenes together where they actually speak to one another throughout the entire series.

I'm not talking about like if we're in a conference room, I'm talking about Jim and Angela having a back and forth.

Yes, this was very similar.

the observation that Stanley and Creed almost never speak to each other.

All right, well, you talked about this scene in our initial breakdown, but we didn't play it.

And I really thought we needed to hear one of these few times that Jim and Angela speak directly to one another.

Jim has just returned to the Scranton branch and is talking to Kevin over in accounting.

Let's hear it. Hey, Kev.

Hey, man. How you doing?

Good. Listen, my M &Ms are under the desk if you want any.

okay hidden from them smart, good hey, Angela you need a haircut bye, Angela, alright, Kev see you later, Jeff see you later it's his first day back his hair's flipping out on the sides I like it oh my lord I mean I think this might be why he doesn't speak to Angela I know I know also that last line obviously you know I talked about this I improvised it but could it be more not in character oh my lord that's true well now you guys here is the breakdown of the merger I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey we were on The Office together and we're best friends and 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, it's The Merger.

Hi, everyone. We're merging.

Where are we merging to?

We are merging two worlds today, Angela, the Stanford and the Scranton branches.

branches. Not all of the Stanford branch, but some will be merging with Scranton.

I also feel like we're merging as friends because I'm looking at you.

I think we have almost the same outfit on today.

You know, I mean, seriously, like they always say like pet owners start to look like their pets, best friends start to look like each other and like husbands and wives and partners.

Like I feel like we're starting to look like each other.

We might be. Also, neither one of us has had a haircut or a hair color in a very long time.

I did my own hair color, lady.

I did too. Well, actually, Leigh did mine with my hair colorist on FaceTime.

I did mine, but no, I haven't had a haircut.

And I kind of have given up on makeup.

Just lipstick. Do you notice I only wear lipstick?

Yeah, you show up to these Zooms in lipstick.

I was walking out to my That's What She Said to start the Zoom, and I put on a little lipstick.

And the kids were like, why are you putting on lipstick?

And I was like, because I'm yeah, because.

Yes, I will be on a Zoom.

I'm going to be on a Zoom.

All right. Well, this is season three, episode eight, written by Brent Forrester and directed by Ken Whittingham.

Do you want a summary?

I do want a summary.

All right, good. The Stanford branch merges with the Scranton branch, which means Jim will be returning to his old stomping ground.

Oh, I'm so excited.

Michael does his best to welcome the Stanford transplants, but he goes a bit too far, causing one employee to quit.

But Michael tries to save face by then firing him, leaving Dunder Mifflin with having to pay a sizable severance.

Jan's not happy. Jan is not happy.

Meanwhile, Pam senses something is going on with Jim and Karen, and Dwight clashes with Andy.

Good summary, lady.

Thanks. You know what I started realizing?

What? You know how I have that Bible from The Office, The Office Bible?

Yeah. Yeah. Every show has a summary.

Every episode has a summary in The Office Bible.

So I've been able to now refer to The Office Bible summary.

I tweak it a little.

I put a little zhuzh on it.

But yeah, I used to just sit down at a blank page and think, how do I summarize this episode?

And a team of writers have done it for me, and it was just sitting on my desk.

So if you've noticed my summaries are getting better, it's thanks to the office Bible.

Wow. How excited were you when you realized there were summaries in there?

You must have been so excited.

Lady, yes, so excited.

Excited. Fast fact number one, this episode was directed by Ken Whittingham.

We've talked a little bit about Ken before.

Ken directed nine episodes of The Office, including this one, and we reached out to him.

Yes, and he sent in some audio clips.

We're really excited to hear him talk about this episode.

And Jenna, he is going to come on and be a full Zoom guest for Phyllis's wedding.

I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but we're very excited.

Yes. Yes. And Phyllis's wedding is such a milestone episode.

And so is this. We wanted to ask Ken, what was it like to merge these two worlds?

And a lot of people wrote in wanting to know how did they decide where everybody would sit in the office?

Like if you notice, suddenly the desk pods go from two to three.

Yeah. I remember being so happy that Ken was the one directing this because we already knew knew Ken really well.

We were so comfortable with him.

And this was big even for the cast, Jenna.

There was a buzz because we hadn't been around these people.

And we barely got to see them at table reads and things like that.

So there was a real sort of buzz on set.

And I remember being happy that Ken was there because he's so calm and like he was going to guide us through the merger.

Well, here is his audio clip explaining how he and Greg decided where all the new people would sit?

Introducing the characters from the Stanford branch would be very important to establish these characters and how they interacted with the Scranton employees, their likes and their dislikes for each other.

I remember Greg Daniels asking me to decide where the new characters would sit and why.

So he and I walked the set and I laid out where I thought everyone should be.

Since Ryan had taken Jim's old desk, I decided that Jim would sit directly across from Dwight, which would be fun for Jim and irritating to Dwight.

It would also put Jim in the middle of Karen and Pam, which also made Jim uncomfortable, and Pam to be able to check out interactions between him and Karen.

I sent Andy in between Kevin and Angela to establish Andy's instant attraction to Angela.

And also, they would be in Dwight's eyeline to create Dwight's jealousy.

Andy would later move on to Karen's desk.

I placed Tony in the back near Toby at a very obscure desk because he would be quitting or getting fired in that episode.

We also discussed discuss how important it was to build pam's awareness that jim had moved on and was interested in karen i love how much thought went into where everyone sat i love it so much i love the idea of depending on which character who could see who right yes yeah and thinking about it from pam's perspective and i remember sitting at the desk and there's even a moment in the episode when when Pam realizes she's not going to be able to see Jim's face anymore.

Yeah. There's a whole deleted scene about that lady where you actually come up to him and you're like, this is kind of weird. I just stare at your back now.

It's really, it's a great deleted scene.

And you and Jim start doing a bit.

And then Ryan's like, can you guys stop?

I'm just trying to get some work done.

It's really, oh my gosh, I want to go back and see that.

Yeah. Because also after I heard Ken's clip, I was thinking about how, wow.

So now Pam can see Karen's face.

So if Karen is making flirty googly eyes at Jim or something, she doesn't know if Jim is reciprocating or not because she can only see the back of his head.

Yeah. So in terms of Pam trying to track this relationship going forward, she's only going to have that one thing she can see.

I just love all the thought that goes into these choices.

Yes. Yes. And some people I saw wrote in and asked, why would Andy sit in Oscar's desk and where is Oscar?

But you have to remember, Oscar is on his paid vacation leave. So his desk was available.

Yeah. Although I will say this, Angela, someone wrote in to note that the character of Hannah is technically an accountant.

Oh, yeah. So maybe that's another layer why my character feels so threatened by her.

Yeah. There can only be one bitch in accounting.

All right. Well, I loved that.

Let's move on to fastback number two.

This is the first episode featuring writer Brent Forrester.

Yes. And Brent also sent in audio clips.

We asked him a lot of questions and he sent in clips as well.

So all throughout this episode, you guys, we're going to have clips from Ken, the director, and Brent, the writer, which is just so fun.

Yeah. I love getting to have those different perspectives.

perspectives so Angela you asked Brent about what it was like for him to write his first episode yeah this was his first episode and it's such a huge one I was like Brent that feels very intimidating you know you're writing the merger of Scranton and Stanford what was that like yeah and this is what he had to say hi I'm Brent Forrester the author of the merger I was not part part of the original writing staff of The Office, Greg Daniels, the show creator, was a writer with me on The Simpsons, and he had me as a writer on King of the Hill.

He brought me in in season three, and what I remember most about writing this draft was how I totally failed in the first draft to capture the tone of The Office.

I was trying so hard to be funny.

I wrote witticisms for every character in The Office every time they opened their mouth, and Greg was so horrified.

He made I made Mike Schur, Jen Salata and Paul Lieberstein, the three senior writers on the show, sit me down and explain to me the tone of The Office, which is the tone of naturalism, where we don't require characters to be saying funny things all the time, where we let things be dramatic for long stretches and where we get comedy from performance above all.

Well, I transformed as a writer between draft one and two of the merger, and I learned the tone of The Office real fast. Oh, don't you love that?

I love that. Yeah, I got it wrong.

They kind of let me know what was what, and then I gave it another try.

Well, what people should know is that Brent went on to be a co -executive producer of The Office.

He ended up running the show with Paul Lieberstein, so he figured it out.

He figured it out. Yeah, he did just fine.

That's right. Okay, I'm so excited.

We're going to have more clips from him coming up too.

Yeah. Fast fact number three, let's talk about the transfers from Stanford. Yes, Stanford. Here are our new characters.

We have Tony Gardner, played by Mike Bruner.

we have Ursula Burton, who plays Hannah, and we have Wayne Wilderson, who plays Martin Nash.

Now, you might recognize Mike Bruner because he did have a small scene with Rashida in an earlier episode.

Hannah was in the background of a few scenes over in Stanford. She had this storyline and some deleted scenes with Jim, but they had been cut.

And then you might recognize Wayne because he had a big recurring role on Veep.

And by the way, now he's in Greg's new show, Upload.

Nice. And I want to take a tangent real quickly, Angela, to say that I'm really loving Upload.

I know it's sci -fi -y, but I'm super digging it because I realized something about my sci -fi thing.

What? Okay. I really like Black Mirror as well.

And I feel like Upload has a a type of sort of a comedic Black Mirror thing going on.

Is that sci -fi? Is Black Mirror sci -fi fantasy?

Yeah, I would say it is.

It's a lot of like alternate realities and sort of, yeah, it is.

I think it is. Okay.

Is Handmaid's Tale sci -fi fantasy?

See what I'm saying?

This is the category that I like.

I like a tiny spin.

in. I love zombie movies.

I love a tiny zombie is horror, though.

I know, but I feel like it's falling in this new category that I want to designate, which is like it's some of life as we know it and then some new rules, slightly altered reality, altered reality.

I'm doing a lot of gestures right now.

You are. I wish you could see Jenna.

She's like cupping the air and and then spinning it over her head like it's a world, a ball.

I don't know what's happening.

This is reality. And then this is altered reality.

Here's the thing, Jenna.

Handmaid's Tale, I don't think you can handle it.

I watched it. It's fantastic.

I couldn't sleep at night.

I was like, oh my gosh.

I watched one episode of Handmaid's Tale and I had nightmares for three nights.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

And I've seen a lot of horror films, but that was, I mean, that got in my head.

Holy moly. Okay. But here's what I'm saying.

I feel like there is a tangent.

Here's what I will not let go.

I think there's a tangent of sci -fi that I'm super into, and it's altered reality sci -fi.

Okay. Fair enough, lady.

Fair enough. Also, transfers that you have to mention are Karen Filippelli and Andy Bernard. Oh, my gosh.

Of course. Yes. Yes.

We have those guys coming over as well.

So it's a total of five, a total of five new employees from Stanford that come to Scranton.

We had a fan question from a lot of people.

Jesse K., Seth Anderson, Connor McCulloch, and Molly Frank all asked, did the writers and cast know that Martin, Hannah, and Tony, those three of those five transfers were only temporary characters?

characters? Yes, we did.

We did. We didn't know how many episodes, right?

But we knew they were going to be part of this new wave that came over that Michael slowly alienates.

Yes. I remember that there was a conversation that was after the merger, each week, one of the new employees would quit until we were just left with Andy and Karen are the two people who would stay.

Yeah. All right, All right, lady, maybe we should take a break and then let's get into this episode because I have a big catch right out of the gate in the cold open.

And I'm really excited to talk about it.

All right. We will take a break on that and we will be back with Angela's big catch. Yeah.

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All right, guys, we're back.

We start at the Stanford branch. Jim has a talking head.

He He tells us Stanford branch is closing.

Andy made Stanford RIP hats for everyone.

Andy asked Jim what Michael Scott is like.

Yeah, he wants some intel.

He wants some intel.

He wants to know how to work the system over there.

Yeah, and Jim's like, you know what?

You just kind of have to meet him.

You have to meet him.

But did you notice when Andy was asking him about Michael, he was like, what kind of magazines does he like?

We know. We know what magazines.

American Way. He loves American Way.

If Jim had given Andy the list of magazines, would that have helped Andy?

I feel like if someone gave me Michael's list of magazines, I would be like, I am even more confused about this person.

I am intrigued. Who is this person?

So then Jim and Karen, they have a little moment.

They agree this is going to be a big adventure.

Karen gives Jim a real flirty flirt look, but Jim doesn't see it, right?

But like she's pining.

Her heart is a flutter.

I think I feel like Karen flirts and then Jim high fives, which for any woman like that's into a guy, if you flirt a little and like maybe cut some eyes at him and you get a high five, it's like, I'm like, Karen, there are so many signs here.

Don't do it. We're going to get into something I've started tracking called Wishy Washy Jim.

Oh, well, welcome. Welcome to the club.

I mean, he's been wishy washy for a long time.

Yeah, but he does a lot of super big wishy -washies in this episode.

All right. Now we're back in Scranton.

Toby has come up to Pam at reception, and he's talking about how he completed his run.

And I have a catch. Oh, and is this what you teased us about before the break?

This is what I tease you about.

Now I've set it up.

It is going to be so lame.

but at a minute six seconds new plant alert new plant alert at front reception you have a friend in Hadley Lock who wrote in to say Angela is that a new tree at Pam's desk Hadley it is a new plant it's in a maroon ceramic pot like not just like usually Pam's plants are just in like that plastic crap that comes from the store.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. This isn't an actual pot.

But Hadley, my friend Hadley, did you see what happens to the plant later in the episode?

What happens? Where's it go?

Hadley, did you notice that at a minute, six seconds, there's the one plant, but then go to five minutes, 25 seconds.

It's a totally different plant.

What? Whatever plant we used in the cold open, I don't know what happened to it.

They couldn't find it.

Someone got a different plant.

It is a different plant.

The plant at a minute, six seconds is like small, light green leaves.

And then at five minutes, 25, it's the big dark green kind of leaves.

And it's in a different potholder.

It's in like the clay looking potholder.

Whereas at a minute, six seconds, it's like a shiny maroon potholder.

Guys, I know this is what you're here for, but this is some serious plant gate.

Plant gate. You have found the evidence for something I was wondering about.

I think we filmed this cold open on another day.

I think we inserted this cold open that it wasn't in the original shooting draft. So I think we came back and did this whole Dwight, Toby running thing at a different time.

And that's why the plants are different.

Yes, that would make sense.

They knew there was a plant on your desk, but they couldn't get the same one, so they just had to budget.

Okay, because here's the thing.

Pam takes Dwight down to the parking lot, right, because he says that he can run faster than Toby, faster than anything.

He's not impressed with Toby's running time.

Jenna, he can run faster than a snake, a mongoose, and a panther, somewhere in there.

That's his speed. Right.

So Pam is like, all right, I'm going to time you.

And she makes Dwight run around the building.

She's holding a digital thermometer.

She has this sort of long kind of sort of a talking head.

She's kind of talking out loud, talking to the documentary crew.

And then she just goes inside.

She abandons Dwight.

We had fan questions from Spencer Brandon, Mateus Almeida, and Angie T.

tea, does rain actually run around the whole building in the cold open?

How did they time it out for Dwight to be running around the corner just as Pam finished talking?

All right, Angela, I watched the scene.

It is a one shot. There is no cut.

So did rain really have to run around the building?

Well, you reached out to Ken Whittingham, right?

And you asked him what he remembered.

And he said He did not film this cold open No, which again is further evidence to you that we filmed it on a different day So someone else had to direct just this cold open because it was an insert right?

Yes I was trying to remember shooting this scene and I have a memory that yes The reason i'm talking kind of so slowly is because rain really had to run Yet at the same time, I didn't think he ran around the whole building So I reached out to Rain.

And Rain said he cut through the warehouse.

Oh, that's smart. So if you notice, the camera pans to me, and he cut through the warehouse, through the building, to the door on the other side, and then he ran around the corner.

So he was still running a significant amount.

Here's what I also thought when I watched that is, once again, Pam has become the gem of this office.

She's the prankster now.

She's timing him with a thermometer, making him run around the building.

Pam is Jim. Oh, I bet she can't wait to tell Jim what she did when he finally gets there.

Too bad. He's not going to want to hang out with her.

Sorry. He doesn't engage.

Well, we'll get to that.

We'll get to that. All right.

So now here it is. Dwight and Michael, they're prepping the office for the new arrivals.

They're going around.

They're putting name tags for everyone.

There's gift bags. I have to think the party planning committee had to stuff those bags with pencils and coupons.

You know, I wanted to discuss the gift bags, Angela, because I thought they were a really nice gesture.

I think they are too.

I, you know, I sort of appreciate, we have to go out of town a lot, right, for work.

And I always appreciate when the film company or the television company, they'll put like a little binder full of local restaurants and attractions for me to thumb through as I am now about to spend two months in this location that I don't know.

I think it's lovely to offer people little local coupons, suggestions of where to eat.

Very thoughtful. Very thoughtful.

I'm the type of person if I check into a hotel and they give me a bottled water, I'm like, thank you.

I don't know. I love small gestures and I think this is really sweet.

I do too. And I feel like it just doesn't get the sort of appreciation that it should.

The Nifty Gifty bag.

I thought it was very thoughtful of Michael.

Also, I want to start using Nifty Gifty.

That is a fantastic phrase.

Nifty Gifties. Nifty Gifties.

Nifty Gifties. Okay.

So as they're walking around prepping the office, Dwight suggests Michael fire Anthony Anthony Gardner, before noon to consolidate power.

But Michael's like, I'm not going to do that, Dwight.

I'm not going to do that.

But he's planting the seeds.

Someone must go today.

Yeah. OK, so at four minutes, Pam enters in.

She's carrying food.

Michael asked her to set it all up in the conference room.

Jenna, you're holding two really big grocery bags.

And I have what I'm going to start calling random prop alert.

Yep. Yep. Jenna, you know the story behind those bags.

Oh, yeah. You and I both know.

Those are fakie bags.

They're fakie bags, guys.

They're fakie bags.

Here's what we mean.

Those bags, they're made of this material that won't make any crinkly noises.

Yeah, it's super weird that it's almost like a fabric, but it's really stiff.

Yeah, that's what she said.

How would you describe it?

I don't know how to describe it.

It's like it is. It's sort of like a stiff fabric felt kind of exterior.

But as soon as you spot one, you'll spot them in every show you ever watch. I'm telling you guys, any show you're watching where someone goes to the store and comes in with like anything that looks like a grocery bag, it's the fakie bag.

Yeah, because the real bags make too much sound for the sound engineers for the boom operators.

So the props Department came up with these kind of fake bags, and every single TV show uses them.

You'll see. You'll see.

They fascinate me. The first time someone handed one to me, I was like, what is this item?

What is this made of?

This fabric -y, stiff, felty, fake grocery bag.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm always fascinated by them.

And you're right. Once you see it, you can't unsee you can't unsee it because the brown paper bag it doesn't look like paper look closely it doesn't you're like what is that you'll see it you'll see it also there's never any printing on it there's never any like name of grocery store it's just this solid brown bag yeah so next pam has her talking head and she is um she's excited to meet all the new people she's excited to see her old old friend.

She's definitely in a good mood.

We had some fan questions.

Okay. Alice64, Jessica Scott, Harrison Perez, Amy Ardilla, and Jamie Kearns all asked about Pam's hair.

They noted that Pam's hairstyle changes from the little smaller scrunchy curls to bigger, smoother curls.

They wanted to know if this was intentional for Jim's return.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

For sure. her someone shushed it up and then decided to wear a sweater that her mom made her because that's how you shush up when your fella's coming let me get that sweater my mom knitted me with the extra big button right in the middle the button is so huge all right andrew and maggie mendes diana swanson and Morgan Ostreg all asked, is Pam's sweater really homemade?

No. Look at it. No. I thought they could have done a better job of finding you a sweater that looked a little bit more homemade.

Well, that was a store -bought sweater.

They did alter it a little bit to try to make it look homemade.

The giant button was an ad.

Oh, well, great job.

Oh my gosh. I am not throwing shade.

I'm just saying. The sweater was hilarious.

And to me, listen, listen, the wardrobe department did not have time to knit me a sweater.

I mean, they got the script.

What are they going to do?

I guess they could have tried to find some homemade sweaters.

We did try a bunch on. But here was the other thing.

They wanted the sweater to be flattering, you know, like they wanted Pam to look cute for Jim.

And so this was our compromise, a store -bought sweater that we altered a little mom i need you to knit me a sexy sweater exactly it has to be sexy mom and only one button please now here's something no one brought up but i totally noticed purple eyeshadow oh purpley eyeshadow and a little gloss on the lips well i noticed the gloss but clearly all i notice are lips these days so that's where you're at and That's where I'm at.

Well, you know, the new transfers start to arrive.

And Jenna, we like to track things.

I just want you to know I tracked and Michael insults every single person except for Andy.

Yes. We have a series of racist and sexist microaggressions courtesy of Michael Scott.

Here they are. He tells Hannah her ball and chain is over here.

He calls Tony Gardner the big guy.

He tells Karen she looks exotic and asks if her father was a GI.

And then he tells Martin Nash that he will show him where all the slaves work.

Yes, Michael manages to find a way to start everyone's first day with a completely inappropriate comment.

Michael, Michael. Well, Pam can't do her trick where Michael gets the redo.

You know how Pam doesn't put a call through the first time because his first instinct is always the wrong instinct.

Yes. Hannah arrives first. Michael shows her to her desk.

Yes. And he walks her to her desk and they walk past accounting.

Four minutes, 41 seconds.

Kevin is at his desk, but Angela is not.

I mean, I feel like where are you?

Kevin made it to work before Angela.

Hmm. Just saying Angela's running a a little late today.

Where's Angela? Where is Angela?

I don't know. All right.

So Tony Gardner is the next to arrive.

And guess who's standing right there?

Who? Hannah. What? Didn't she just get walked to her desk?

How is she now back at reception?

Why isn't she at her desk?

I think this is a continuity error.

I didn't notice it, but in hearing it, I'm going to have to agree with you.

Yeah. All of a sudden she's right back.

Now Karen arrives and her and Pam, they kind of immediately hit it off.

There's like some nice banter.

If not for Jim, Pam would finally have a friend in the office, right?

She would have another woman around her age who is nice to her.

Yeah. Who she can have a conversation with because I think Kelly is nice to you, but but Kelly just wants to talk about, you know, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's baby.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

Kelly is nice to Pam, but they don't have a lot in common. Karen is someone she could actually be friends with, but nope, no, it's not going to happen.

No. So then we have Andy's talking head down in the parking lot.

He's about to arrive, and I love this talking head.

He says he plans to be the number two in Scranton within weeks.

weeks. He lays out his game plan.

Here's what it includes.

Repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.

He says you always have to think one step ahead like a carpenter who makes stairs.

I want to discuss this.

I think this is a really good strategy.

I kind of want to try it.

No, no, Jenna, I don't see this going well.

Don't, I don't know.

You You can't walk up to someone and just start imitating how they talk and their movements.

I don't know. I mean, I think it's personality mirroring.

Is that an actual thing?

Is that taught at leadership seminars somewhere?

Because this feels very much like Andy went to a leadership seminar, and they're like, here's how you make a good first impression.

Say their name a whole bunch. Yeah, name repetition.

Never break a handshake.

I don't know, Ange.

can we try it i'm gonna meet you okay go ahead i'm gonna be andy go hi hey how are you i'm good how are you angela i haven't told you my name yet creeper how'd you know it was me have you been stalking me psycho i googled you before our meeting okay this is not going well I failed.

I did a terrible job.

You failed in three sentences.

Oh, boy. All right.

Maybe not. Okay. Okay, so Andy arrives, he gets his nifty gifties.

And he does. He does his strategy and Michael loves it.

Yes, Michael thinks he's awesome because Andy is doing impression of Michael.

So Michael probably feels like he gets me.

Yeah, he loves it. We had a fan catch Angela.

Oh, Oh, Veronica Ramirez noted that when Andy was in the parking lot doing his talking head, he has his tan jacket on.

Yeah. But when he walks through the door, it's nowhere to be seen.

Where did he take off his jacket?

Where did he put his jacket?

He left it with that other plant.

He did. They're in a warehouse somewhere.

In a box of lost things.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

Guess who's making his big debut?

Jim. He walks in with Martin.

They're talking sports.

Pam about does a cartwheel to get to him.

And hugs him. Leaps into his arms, really.

Yeah, I was going to say, this is not just a hug.

She throws herself on him.

Yeah. But can I say something?

Say it. Seven minutes, 27 seconds.

I have a giant zit next to my chin and they have tried to cover it up, but it's like a little bit like when you try to cover up like super big zits.

This is one of those zits and I honestly remember it, believe it or not.

And when I saw it, I was like, oh yeah, I remember that.

It's one of those zits that feels like it's throbbing on your face.

Yeah, it's a zit that has a heartbeat.

That's what I call it.

It has a heartbeat.

And you can't squeeze it because it's so underground, but it's like a beacon shining off your face.

And here it was, we had to film this scene where Pam is going to see Jim for the first time.

And I was like, I cannot believe we're dealing with this today.

And the makeup department, I mean, they did their best. They caked a bunch of makeup on it.

There's only so much you can do.

There's only so much. And it's there.

Yeah. And it still bums me out today.

It's okay, lady. I had a big zit in the Valentine's episode and all the photos we took.

Remember we did? It was like a whole press photo day.

There's like photos of me looking up at Dwight, this like Valentine's photo, and I have an enormous zit.

So, you know. I can't remember what episode it is, but I'm going to ask Greg because there was a future episode that was like a huge Jim Pam thing.

And I had another one of these big zits.

Mm -hmm. And then when I saw the episode, it was gone.

And I swear, I was like, Greg, what happened?

He said, you know what, Jenna, we decided to take it out and post. Oh, good God.

We CGI -ed your zit away because it was really distracting.

How embarrassing, Jenna, that there was a room full of people that you didn't even know who had to have a conversation about, do we have it in the budget to scoochie out her zit and post edit?

it. And then it was someone's job to painstakingly remove it frame by frame.

Yeah. It was so distracting.

Oh Lord. Well, Jenna, you're not alone.

Hadley, who also noticed the plant, wrote in and said, at the talking head at three minutes, 55 seconds, does Dwight have a little pimple on his right cheek?

Now, why were we all so pimply in this episode?

Was it the summer? Were we just all hot and sweaty?

I don't know. Maybe so.

All right. So Jim now enters and Dwight and Jim are reunited.

Jim messes with Dwight immediately by pretending like he's meeting his eyeline, even though he's not.

Yeah. Jim and Dwight are right back at it.

And if you guys love to track a really good John Krasinski do white go to seven minutes, 53 seconds.

Oh, really good. Hi, Hi, Doe White.

Nice. So everyone has arrived now and we had a fan question.

A lot of people wrote in.

Kristen F., Sarah Hodges, Connor McCulloch, Erika Sansom, and more all wanted to know what was it like having all these new actors on set from the Stanford branch?

And what was it like to have John back?

I wrote about this in my journal.

Of course you did. Of course you journaled this.

this. I said, we were really excited to shoot the merger.

It was like we were meeting new people.

The Stanford and Scranton branches shot on different days and different sound stages.

So we almost never were together except for maybe just a few times.

And we all really missed John's presence on set.

So when the branches merged, it was the first time we were all acting together as a group.

And it was a blast. Ed Helms made me laugh so loud.

I pulled a Phyllis and snorted.

responded oh I love that yeah it was great it was great to have this new energy and new people and I just have such fun memories of it yeah I I will tell you the place where I snort laughed when we get to it I okay good I I wrote a little note can we talk for a second about one of my two favorite scenes in this episode yes it is the ryan jim desk dance oh yeah they both set their bags down on the same chair yeah I I love it so much they're both doing that sort of like polite thing like oh I'm sorry are you was this you you're sitting here now or yeah did you and then ryan ends up getting the desk

and I love his talking head so much I talked a little bit about this with bj where I said as an older person I am looking back on The Office and I'm super loving the character of Ryan I don't know what it is I think maybe when you get older you just you give zero more often and I feel like Ryan gives zero I feel like you're you're connecting with Ryan because you feel like you finally aged to his place of zero f's exactly I think that's what it is.

And I just love his talking head.

And he's like, yeah, Jim's a nice guy.

That's why I got the desk.

Yeah. And I'm like, that's so funny.

Okay. I want to say something in the script.

There was a different talking head.

Oh, what was it? So that talking head that made it in was an alt.

Okay. Talking head in the original script, Ryan was supposed to say why?

Because this is Ryan's desk now.

Oh, I liked it. I liked the one that made it in better.

Me Me too. Me too. I like the alt.

More layered. Well, Jenna, up next is a pretty big moment for the characters of the show because we have two adversaries meeting at nine minutes, seven seconds, Dwight and Andy.

Yeah, neither will break the handshake.

That handshake goes on forever.

They see that they are each other's enemy.

They know it immediately.

I love that their rivalry is born out of a competition for who has seen more films or appreciates movies more.

Well, you know, a director, a director has more power.

That's, you know, that's Andy's whole thing.

Yes. But Dwight has seen 240 films. Over.

Over 240. Over 240.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to see that list. He's got a spreadsheet.

sheet um okay well we are coming up to one of my very favorite scenes in this whole episode i have two i think i think my second one is maybe one that you like as well but this one i loved and if you're relating to ryan jenna i think i'm relating to toby oh because jim comes over and toby is excited to see him and i think toby just wanted to be cool and he tries to do a fist bump.

And then Jim was like, Oh, is this what you're doing now?

And then Toby's like, I just forget it.

Just forget it. I'm sorry.

I don't know why I did that.

And he has like, this such self loathing in this moment, and my heart just breaks for him.

But I feel like I feel like that's what I do.

Like whenever I try to be like, I'm gonna be cool.

It's like, Oh, forget it.

That was lame. Yeah, that was definitely Toby's glitchy up in here moment.

Yeah, it got glitchy up in there, Toby, but it was so like, it felt so honest. Like it felt, I just loved it.

Also, I have a little bit of a beef with Jim in this moment.

Same. He knows that Toby's trying to be cool.

He knows that Toby just wants Jim to like him and he should have just fist bumped him back instead of commenting like, oh, is this what you're doing now?

And sort of giving him shade.

So, Jim, I have issue with you right there.

Just fist bump back.

Don't comment on the fist bump.

Just do it back. Agree.

Agree. I need to bring up something called Shreddergate.

Oh. Angela. Okay. Which version of this did you watch for our rewatch?

Did you watch the iTunes version or the Netflix version or the DVD version?

I watched the Netflix version and the DVD version because I watched this episode three times.

Okay I watched it on iTunes and Netflix.

If you watch the iTunes download you will see a whole storyline with Kevin shredding things using a Staples shredder.

It has a giant Staples sticker on it and he talks about what a great shredder it is and yada yada.

If you watch the Netflix version This storyline is not in there.

It is also not on the DVD.

So, folks who watched the iTunes download like I did, here is what that was about.

This was an embedded advertisement for this staple shredder, which actually existed at the time and was launching, and they paid the show to feature it on the show by one of our characters.

they picked Kevin, something that people should know.

Like, if a show gets money to make a character drink a Coke versus a Pepsi, the actor does not get any coin for that.

No, no, no. But also, people noted Staples is Dunder Mifflin's main competitor.

Yeah. So it was especially strange.

I mean, it's the Staples, theoretically, is the whole reason this merger's happening, happening because that's how they lost Josh Porter.

Yes. So it was an odd thing.

It was odd. Okay, Angela.

So now Michael is ready.

Yeah, he's making everyone go in the conference room.

Yeah, he has a gigantic performance, Jenna.

That's yeah, coming up.

He has named this the official merger day all family welcome breakfast. He's put out some food, but only the guests are are allowed to eat and drink.

Do you see the food, though?

It looked like little pieces of toast and salmon. I didn't see anything else in champagne.

Yeah. I mean, Pam carried two fake grocery bags into the office, and this is what was in it?

I feel like this is on Pam.

Is this all Michael gave her money for, or did Pam just do a horrible job of shopping?

Also, was Angela Martin like, I did the gift bags.

I'm out. I'm out. I have to say, I don't think Michael used the party planning committee at all here i feel like michael put together those gift bags i don't know i think the reason this buffet is sad is because the ppc was not involved i think if you only have two items it can't be a buffet i think it's gotta be well you're the buffet expert i'm the buffet expert i think it's like three items or more um also i love that on their very first day he is going to insult them all and then also give them champagne he's like Like Michael, Michael would be fired.

Michael should already be fired.

For sure. For sure.

Also, at 12 minutes, 36 seconds, I see Mindy break.

Oh, you do? Yeah. Yeah.

So after Michael tells Kelly to consider the salmon to be poisoned beef, Mindy starts to break and puts her hand up to her face as she walks away.

Oh, I have to go back and look for that.

that. So, Ange, we asked Ken Whittingham, our director, how did he fit everyone in the conference room?

I mean, Jenna, we could barely fit in it before five new people.

And remember, also in the room with us are two camera operators, two boom operators, and usually a first AD.

So there were also additional crew members.

Should we play the clip?

Yeah. To see what Ken said about getting us all in there.

Yeah. It was very challenging staging and shooting the conference room scenes.

I wanted to create a us in them kind of situation.

So I put each branch on opposite sides.

However, in the first conference room scene, Karen was the only person from Stanford that I put on the Scranton side.

I remember Rashida asking me why she was the only person on that side.

And I told her the reason being is to put her and Pam and Jim in the same shot to capture all of their reactions when Karen passes Jim a stick of gum to pique Pam's curiosity.

Okay, this leads me to wishy -washy Jim and the stick of gum.

Why is he wishy -washy if he takes a stick of gum?

Listen, are they dating or are they not dating?

Because when you bring a girl that you are dating into a new office where you used to work and then you don't sit next to her in the first group meeting, wishy washy, what is that?

I feel like I'm watching normal people all over again.

Did you watch that show?

My God. No. All right.

Well, yeah, I don't know what he's doing.

I don't know if, you know, here's the thing.

I do think he's wishy washy.

I don't know if I support it in this moment because for all we knew, like, he went in to sit down and to save her seat, but then Pam sat down, and now he's like, oh, crap, what do I do?

Maybe he's just a little deer in headlights.

Well, then maybe he should have moved back to the back row and sat next to Karen.

I don't know. Here is what I'm saying.

I'm saying we're going to learn at the end of this episode that they're dating, and I don't think he is regarding Karen as a woman he is dating right now.

I agree with that. Also, he doesn't even say who he's dating at the end of the episode.

That too. He doesn't even own that.

Wishy washy Jim. Wishy washy.

I actually got to sit next to Rashida in this scene, and it was really fun.

She was great, and we got to chat in between takes and stuff.

So I remember being excited.

Oh, well, that's very nice.

So Jim's loss was my gain.

So there you go. Wishy washy Jim.

There you go, Wishi Washi Jim.

Should we talk about Lazy Scranton, Angela?

I can't wait to talk about it.

This made me laugh so hard. And of course, you know, there had already been Lazy Sunday on SNL.

So this was like inspired by Lazy Sunday.

And it made me laugh so hard when we watched it.

So many of Michael's bits are based on the bits of Saturday Night Live and or other comedians.

He really writes no new material.

He thinks he's a world class comedian.

I mean, by because he just restructures and redoes other people's bits.

But he truly thinks he's like an amazing comedian.

He even called this meeting, which should be just like a new employee orientation meeting.

He calls it his gigantic performance.

Yes. Yes. Michael reminds me of a cruise director.

Oh, gosh. Wait, that's perfect.

That's all you need to say.

I'm sure there's a story here, but that is the best example.

Michael is a cruise ship director.

Yeah. What you have to tell me the story.

What happened on the cruise ship?

Well, I took a cruise and our cruise director, like 15 years after Austin Powers had come out, his bit was to dress up like Austin Powers and be like, oh, behave. Oh, my God.

And I remember thinking, like, has he been doing this bit for 15 years or where is we are?

I don't know. And then, you know, of course, there was some Borat thrown in there.

It was like it was like watching Michael Scott live.

But I'll tell you what, by the end of the cruise, I don't know this guy.

I was on board like he was like, yeah, baby.

Yeah. You were like, I'm in by the end of the cruise.

I was full on doing like a scavenger hunt with my mom and my sister.

It was a cruise I took with my mom and sister.

It was like, you know, a girl's a girl's trip.

Girl's trip. Yeah. Yeah.

And and we were with a bunch of other strangers and we were doing this scavenger hunt.

And like my poor sister is going to be so embarrassed to tell the story.

The the thing we had to find was just like a piece of woman's clothing.

So my sister took off her bra and like took it out of her shirt and was like waving her hair.

She's like, we got it.

And we were like, oh, behave. Oh, my God.

It was insane. I love that story, Jenna.

And you know what? Having now competed with your family in Family Feud, I know how competitive everyone in your family is.

I believe that Emily was like, oh, we will win this if I have to take my bra off.

We're going to win.

She was. She was. And we didn't win, I'll say.

Well, sadly. But we gave it our best effort.

You sure did. All right.

So we asked both Ken and Brent what they remembered about filming Lazy Scranton.

And here's what Ken Whittingham had to say.

One of my favorite scenes in the episode was creating the Lazy Scranton video, which was inspired from SNL's Lazy Sunday sketch. We kind of went off script and created a bunch of really funny extra scenes to make the video really hard to watch for the Dunder Mifflin employees.

Unfortunately, we couldn't use all of them.

Hold up. Are you telling me there's extra footage from this?

Yeah, there must be.

I need an extended cut.

I want the extended cut of Lazy Scranton.

I know. I know because this was one of those moments where Rain and Steve got to go off on their own and shoot a bunch of stuff and we only got to see what the audience sees.

We only got to see that final version.

Yeah. Oh, Ken, I want those extra scenes.

All right. Well, we also asked Brent and here's what Brent remembers about shooting those scenes.

What I remember about shooting that Lazy Scranton video was just being in awe of Rainn Wilson and Steve Carell as performers.

These guys are such serious actors and between takes they would be talking about this performance like they were the Royal Shakespeare Company.

And then the director would yell action and they would suddenly become these cartoon characters bouncing off the walls like Bugs Bunny.

and then cut and suddenly they're inside the actor's studio for about two minutes and then action and it's Benny Hill.

It was so wonderful to watch and it ended up, I think, in a kind of classic little bit of comedy film in the middle of the episode.

I wish we would have asked them also about the little clip of Michael doing the Scranton witch project.

Yes, because that's something else they filmed.

And I'm sure Steve did a whole bunch of stuff that didn't make it.

Well, speaking of stuff that didn't make it, Brent sent us in some insight into something that I saw in the script, which was Michael went on to do a magic show for us after showing us Lazy Scranton.

But we'll let Brent tell you about it.

What I remember about filming this episode is that we ended up with too much comedy.

The premise for Michael Scott was so perfect that he would have these new employees and and a new audience to perform for and impress, that we just ended up writing too many comedy bits for him.

And I remember one that made us laugh so hard. We had made a giant deck of cards for Michael Scott.

And in the conference room, he says, If you put your heart into your sales, you will be a king of hearts.

And then he has an employee pick a card, and it is the king of hearts.

And he says, And if you all put your hearts into your sales, then you will all be a king of hearts.

and he flips his deck of cards over and they're all the king of hearts.

And then he acts like he's blown their minds when in fact he's just done the worst magic trick ever.

It was so funny and we just had no room for it because the episode was so packed with good stuff.

Angela, I remember shooting that.

I remember the giant deck of cards.

Yeah, and how he fanned them all out.

Well, it's in the deleted scenes.

Oh, it is? We can watch that.

Oh, good. So if you have the DVDs, that one made it.

I remember Steve's handling of the prop of the cards and the kings of hearts and how he did just like the worst magician hand work with the cards.

I just remember trying so hard not to laugh.

It was so hard to not laugh.

All right, lady, that kind of sums up the first conference room meeting.

Oh, there's going to be another one, but should we take a break and then we'll come come back.

Yeah, let's take a break and come back because Andy continues to try to win over everybody.

We'll talk about that when we come back.

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If you went on a road trip and you didn't stop for a Big Mac or drop a crispy fry between the car seats or use your McDonald's bag as a placemat, then that wasn't a road trip.

It was just a really long drive.

All right. So we are back and at 15 minutes, Andy is hitting on Angela.

Is that what's happening?

Yeah, he has put a cat dressed as a cowboy as his screensaver.

Yeah. And he compliments your smile.

smile. My what smile?

Look, look at my face.

I remember doing this scene.

And I remember Ken Whittingham and Brent Forster and I just brainstorming a little bit.

What how, how big would my actual smile be?

You know what I mean?

Like, sure, it wouldn't be just like, it couldn't be a smirk.

It couldn't be a full smile.

It sort of was like this pursed lips, barely reacting, acting, but slightly amused.

So we did, we did a few takes of like me sort of like trying to not smile, but seem like I'm somewhat happy.

And, and that like is something that I laugh thinking about.

Cause I remember Ken and Brent both being like, okay, maybe even less of a smile or okay.

Maybe you've got to do something.

We were just like trying to dial it and find it.

it well I love where it landed I think it's perfect and it is probably more smiling than we've ever seen from Angela Martin so well I think the biggest smile my character has had is when she realizes that Dwight gave her a key yes that's the biggest smile but this is this is amused yeah slightly amused besides your smile I was very distracted at 15 minutes 50 seconds with your all brown outfit.

This is a new color for you.

You're usually in the gray tones.

These are striking moments because like rain almost always wears mustard yellow.

But I noticed in a recent episode, he's in green.

He's like, but it's monotone.

Like that's the other thing.

Both you and Dwight dress in like a monotone.

Have you noticed? It's like.

Like, yes, absolutely.

I mean, it was a brown skirt.

And then I had a brown button sweater over like a black shirt.

Like, it was so weird. The whole outfit was so bizarre.

Yeah. Should we move to the heartbreak in the break room?

Oh, lady, do you know what I titled this scene on my note card?

What? Very hunchy. Oh, yeah.

Very punchy, very punchy, but it's so true, and you know why she's doing it.

Okay, Jenna, set up the scene.

Jim is getting a water instead of his usual grape soda from the vending machine, and Pam comes in, and she is, finally she has him alone, right?

So she wants their old banter back, and she's like, oh, no grape soda, huh?

And he's like, yeah, no, just water.

He doesn't meet her there right and she's like oh you've changed so much and he's like oh yeah I don't know and then Michael comes in and Pam tries to give Jim a little like look a little bit like oh my gosh and Jim does not return no he is giving you nothing back and he says to Michael you're not interrupting anything because nothing's happening it's kind of cold and he just leaves and Pam was was like, yeah.

And then Jenna, it looked like if you could have crawled inside your sexy sweater that your mom had knitted you, you would have. Cause you hunch way into yourself.

And I was like, oh Pam, so hunchy.

There's a country song here called Heartbreak in the Break Room Getting Hunchy.

I was wearing a sexy sweater that my mama gave me.

And then I went in the break room and he broke me so what did i do i tried to crawl into my sexy sweater i got my heart break in the break room our country music singing's really breathy it's not like it's not like peppy like country like there's a heartbreak in the break room and i'm gonna tell you why Oh, good Lord. Okay.

Oh, good Lord. Hey, can I put it out there?

Anybody want to write heartbreak in the break room?

Here are your keywords.

Heartbreak in the break room.

Very hunchy. Mama, sexy sweater.

Yeah, mama knit me a sexy sweater for my heartbreak in the break room.

Oh, there it is. Mama knit me a sexy sweater, but all it got me was heartbreak in the break room.

Oh, come on. All right.

So now where do we go from here?

I mean, where do we go from here?

Hannah is pumping in the bullpen.

Creed is leering at her.

Creed's so gross. Ryan is like, hey, I'm sorry.

It's distracting. Angela does not approve.

Jenna, you and I both breastfed.

We both had pumps. We had to pump at work.

But I would not have pumped in a bullpen.

No, I wouldn't have pumped in a bullpen.

I've pumped in lots of places.

I have pumped while driving down the road.

While you were driving?

While I was driving, I had a day where I had to go to a meeting and the traffic in Los Angeles is so bad that I was not going to make it home in time to pump and or breastfeed.

Yeah. So I put, after my meeting, I got in my car, I hooked up my pump with my hands -free bandana thing.

Oh yeah, you had the hands -free one.

And I just pumped as I drove.

I also pumped in a restroom at the airport.

That was really the grossest experience of my life.

This was before airports had, you know, nursing lounges.

I pumped in the coat closet of the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

I remember that. And lady, a couple of years later, I did the same.

and I remember you being like, oh, Jenna, I'll show you where to go.

Here's this coat closet I used several years ago.

And I was like, great, you really, you helped me out.

So Jenna, now we have basically the Stanford branch and the Scranton branch trying to work all together and it's bumpy, right?

It's like having that new roommate and it is, they're having to sit next to each other like Creed is laughing way too loud on the phone.

Hannah is pumping in the bullpen.

Martin tries to have this moment with Stanley, and then, of course, there's Karen and Phyllis.

We'll get to that. Yes, well, we got a fan question about that moment between Martin and Stanley.

Kenya Hunt wrote in to say, as a Black American, I personally lived for the really intimate details about Blackness in the show, like Daryl teaching Michael Dink and in Flicka, for example.

Another example is the moment between Martin and Stanley in this episode.

Martin tries to give Stanley the black nod, the nod Black people give each other as a sign of understanding in mostly white spaces, and Stanley rejects him.

It is too funny. Who wrote that part, or was it improvised?

Well, we asked Brent Forrester, our writer, about that, and here's what he had to say.

That was written into the script, but the performers, Leslie David Baker and the great Wayne Wilderson, who played Martin, they did make it their own.

And it was directed by Ken Whittingham, who I remember thought it was very, very funny.

And yeah, that was a collaboration for sure.

So glad you liked that.

And here's what our director, Ken, had to say about that moment.

The interaction between Martin and Stanley was written by Brent and Forrester.

And yes, it was scripted.

And I laugh out loud every time I watch it.

It just really kills me.

Some of us know that guy.

OK, so now is one of my favorite scenes in this whole episode.

Same. I mean, we didn't even talk about this.

And then this morning when we were getting ready to do it, we both had this scene down is like we've got to hear this scene because we love it so much. Karen is sitting at her desk and she is like, what is that smell?

smell smells like a funeral home smells like a funeral home she says yeah we come to find out it's Phyllis's perfume Phyllis is like oh I'll help you find the smell and then Karen is like oh oh I think I'm allergic to your perfume and Phyllis has a response that I love so much this This is Phyllis Sass, right, Angela?

Such Phyllis Sass. So much so there's part of it I want on a t -shirt.

It's so great. Can we play a clip of it?

Yes, please. Oh, you know, never mind.

What is it? I think I'm just allergic to your perfume.

My perfume? It's just my crazy nose.

I'm used to different smells.

Bob Vance bought this perfume for me in Metropolitan, Orlando.

It's made from real pine.

Who's Bob Vance? You have a lot to learn about this town, sweetie.

Oh, the First Lady of Vance Refrigeration is not pleased.

Phyllis is pissed. Yeah.

First of all, she insults her perfume, and it's from Metropolitan, Orlando.

Hello. Yeah. It's made with real pine, Angela.

And then Karen doesn't know who Bob Vance is?

Oh, oh, good luck, Karen.

Good luck. You really stepped in it, Karen.

And Stanley has that amazing talking head where he is like, I don't know who these new people think they are, but I have sat downwind of Phyllis's stinky perfume for years and I have never said a word. Yeah.

Oh, man, no one's getting along.

No one's getting along from the new branch. And it's it's all going to come to a head.

I love throughout the series the sort of subtle tension that happens from time to time between Phyllis and Stanley, I have to say.

Every once in a while, Phyllis gets real annoyed with him.

And then now we're getting a peek into what Stanley has endured in that desk clump.

Years of this perfume.

They're like an old married couple, the two of them.

They are. They really are.

They have each other's back.

but they also like drive each other crazy, but it's a sort of like subtle, quiet anger.

They definitely eat dinner in silence, right?

Yeah. That couple in the restaurant and they haven't said a word for 30 minutes.

It's because they've been together so long, they've said everything they need to say.

Exactly, exactly. Oh, I love it so much. Angela, I have to point something out here.

This is a tangent, but it's short.

You know, we're talking about how this is Phyllis Sass.

you really coined the sass?

A fan sent in that on one of our episodes in the podcast notes, it says that our guest on the episode is Michael Sass.

What? Yes. Like on the Apple download site, it says like our guests are, and then it lists the guests and one of the guests is Michael Sass.

There's no photo for him though.

That is hilarious. Whatever the algorithm is that like listens to your podcast and then picks out guest stars to highlight, somehow this computer program believes that there's someone on our podcast named Michael Sass.

Because we've said Sass so many times, it's now like the thing the computer picks up on.

Yeah, Sass is one of our guest stars.

Oh, man. All right.

So guys, it's hard to believe, but Michael didn't feel like one conference room meeting was enough.

He makes everyone go inside for what he's now calling the integration celebration.

Well, he's really noticed that no one's getting along and he's worried about it.

And so he says, you know, I mean, a great show can make people forget about their differences.

You got to give them another great show, everybody.

Yeah. So what he decides to do is reenact another Saturday Night Live bit, this time Night at the Roxbury.

And this is what Michael thinks.

This is the way to bring everyone together is to imitate these idiots at the nightclub.

But his boombox doesn't work.

So Andy comes to the rescue and he sings for him.

Andy starts going, He starts doing that.

Well, none of us knew what that was going to sound like, really, right?

Yeah, it was just in the script that he would provide the music.

Right. And so I don't think we were really prepared for Ed Helms as Andy to go full out.

And we lost it. And that's when I did my snort laugh because we're all in this little room and it's totally quiet.

And then with full commitment, Ed is like, peep, peep, peep.

It was like so crazy.

Sorry, I dropped my pencil.

I was like, ah, it was crazy.

That was amazing. I'll never forget that.

And also remember, Ed was new to us.

So we were like, oh, oh, he showed up in full uniform, ready to play today.

Yeah, we didn't know what was coming.

Yeah, Ed made us laugh so hard. So next, Michael asks all of the new employees to sit up on the conference table.

This is to illustrate that the older employees are not above them.

I have some fun trivia from Dunderpedia about this moment.

Okay, Dunderpedia, what do you got?

Dunderpedia notes that in the British version, they have an episode called Motivation.

And the manager, David Brent, says he would never make his employees stand on a table because it's against health and safety regulations.

Kind of fun little thing.

Fun little thing. I guess Michael never read the health and safety memo.

Oh, clearly. ever. This is Toby's whole life is having to try to catch Michael up on every regulation.

Yeah. So there's one person who's not on the table.

It's Tony. And Michael says, Tony, let's get you up on the table.

Right. And Tony is like, yeah, I I can't I can't get on the table.

And Michael's like, no, yes, you can.

He's thinking there's like right.

He's like giving him a pep talk to get on the table.

And then Tony is like, no, I like I physically can't get on the table.

But Michael will not let it go.

He's like, we'll help you.

We will physically help you get on the table.

Yeah. And then he gets Dwight involved.

And and then it's just it's really cringy.

And I remember, like, even when we were there being like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, Oh, my God.

And then, you know, Tony's like, stop it.

I'm done. I am done.

Yes. And he says, I can't work here.

I can't work here. And of course, Michael is like, oh, my God, is it Toby?

And Tony's like, no, Toby was actually very kind and helpful.

It is you. It is your management style.

But like Tony is being nicer about it than I am.

He's like, No, Michael, it's your management style.

And Michael cannot believe it.

He cannot believe that there would be someone who doesn't think he's an awesome manager.

Michael cannot hold up the mirror to see himself.

He just can't. And throughout the course of this day, he's been disrespectful to all the new employees.

And Tony has had it.

He's not going to work in this environment anymore.

But of course, Michael gets hurt and embarrassed and turns it around and says, you know what?

You're fired. I'm firing you.

To Dwight's delight, Dwight is like, that's what I said.

I said we should fire him.

So Dwight takes it as a win.

And Tony is just like, I can't.

I can't even. Yeah.

And you start to see that Hannah is like, yeah, he's got the right idea, right?

Yes. And it's unraveling.

All of this is unraveling.

And Michael is starting to spiral.

role. Now, we had a few fan catches and questions about this scene.

First, I'm going to give you this fan catch from Luke Jensen.

He says, I noticed a potentially huge mistake in season three, episode eight, The Merger.

The episode depicts the entire merger day and Tony Gardner gets fired, right?

Yeah. But then in the threat level midnight movie, Tony Gardner is playing the piano. How is it that Tony Gardner ended up in this movie of Threat Level Midnight?

There's no way that Michael filmed Threat Level Midnight on this one merger day.

Right? That is a great catch. Here's the thing.

BJ Novak gave an interview about this.

Oh. BJ said that the writers thought that it would be very funny for Tony Gardner to have a cameo in Threat Level Midnight.

and they have this whole weird backstory as to why he appears in Threat Level Midnight.

They think that Michael had this realization and he called up Tony Gardner and apologized profusely for the way he treated him and then said, I would like to offer you a role in my movie.

And Tony was like, BJ in the interview says like in his mind, Tony was like either like, well, I don't know.

I have nothing else better to do.

Like, maybe he's bored.

He's like, maybe he wanted to be in a movie.

Maybe he was an aspiring actor on the side.

Maybe he's a cinephile.

And I was like, yeah, I'd like to be in a movie.

Why not? I love movies.

I'll be in your movie.

But this was like a choice that they would have this person that Michael wronged in an earlier episode have this cameo in Threat Level Midnight.

I like it. I like it.

So there you go. I want Michael to have growth.

I want him to learn and evolve.

Now, here's another fan question from this moment.

At 22 minutes, 56 seconds, Tim Althaus, Sidney Pauls, Ben Pavey, Grace Bromley, and Declan Jensen all want to know, who is the man wearing business attire who is standing next to Andy in the conference room when Michael fires Tony?

Did you notice it, Ange?

Oh, I noticed it. I noticed it, and then I saw all the questions pouring in about it.

Yeah. Yeah. Philip Centani.

That's who that is, guys.

He was one of our male stand -ins for the actors.

It was Philip and Stephen Socks were our two male stand -ins, and you will probably spot Stephen in some future episodes in some scenes.

And his wife Lori has already been in one.

That's who that was.

Good catch. Good catch, guys.

Very good catch. So Michael's really bummed.

He says that today was supposed to be a love union, but it's more like when his mom moved in with Jeff.

And now his job is to fix it.

He's got to fix it, you guys.

And how does he decide to fix it?

He goes into the parking lot and lets the air out of everyone's tire.

And he's like, oh my God, we got punked.

You know, they got us good.

Come see. Like he thinks this is going to bring everyone together.

Yeah, that's right.

But Angela, everyone's tires except Michael's.

Yes. And he got a hate note that says that you guys suck.

It's from Vance Refrigeration and that they suck.

Because Vance Refrigeration would suddenly for no reason decide to hate on Dunder Mifflin.

It makes so much sense.

But they would spare Michael's car.

Well, they saved the worst for him with the hate note, according to Michael.

Yeah. And everyone's like, oh, come on.

They totally know he's full of crap.

app now they're really annoyed but I guess Michael in some way Jenna he was kind of like on the mark because what brings people together more than a common enemy yes the enemy though is Michael yeah because then you have that great scene of everybody standing around around Karen and Phyllis they have a nice moment because Phyllis says oh Bob has an air pump and they're gonna put air in all of our tires so we can get home and then Karen is like oh you mean Bob Vance from Vance Refrigeration and Phyllis is like yeah she's got it yeah everyone is starting to bond I I can't breeze past the moment

though where Pam clocks Karen scratching Jim's back Well, scratchy, scratchy.

This is what I'm saying.

They're clearly dating.

Why? Why does Jim come into the new office and not tell the new woman that he's dating, that he's kissed the receptionist, and why doesn't he give Pam a heads up?

Wishy -washy, Jim. Kiss the receptionist?

How about the fact that he told her, I love you?

I know. We've discussed this.

We've talked about this.

This is our beef with Jim.

It's our beef with Jim.

Well, now Michael's in trouble, though.

Michael's in trouble because Jan finds out that he fired Tony when Tony was quitting.

And now they have to pay Tony a big severance package.

Yeah, exactly. And Michael's in trouble with Jan. And he tries to blame Dwight.

He's like, well, this was the advice of my number two.

And Jan is like, he's not your number two.

Jim is your number two.

So then Michael calls Jim, Dwight, and Andy into his office and makes it seem like he's chosen Jim to be his number two, even though we know from this phone call it was mandated by Jan. And now Dwight and Andy want to know, who's your number three?

It's so funny to me that they so quickly gloss over that neither one of them is number two.

They're just interested in like, well, now who's number three?

Yeah. I mean, I would imagine that Dwight would have been mortified that Jim got number two over him.

But I guess now he's just more worried about Andy getting three and having Jim and Andy over him.

So everyone's leaving.

This insane day is done.

And Karen calls Jim.

He's in his car, invites him out for a drink.

Yeah. And Jim's like, wait, can I call you right back?

Because he sees Pam.

And Jenna, is this this moment where Jim is going to try to be real with her?

maybe, but it's too little, too late for Pam.

She's really stung.

She's embarrassed. She would have liked this information.

I mean, she really would have behaved differently in this day had she known.

And so she kind of cuts him off.

You know, he tries to say, Oh, hey, I'm sorry.

I think things were a little awkward today.

And she's like, Yep, no, I don't know.

See, seemed it was fine.

I don't know what you're talking about.

And he's like, Yeah, well, you know, I'm dating someone.

And she's like, Yeah, well, you can do what you want.

Because we're friends.

And we'll always be friends.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, she was, she was kind of cold in that moment and kind of shut him down.

But you know, I see both sides.

I see her being hurt.

But I also see him as being like, you're not the person I share with anymore.

So I don't need to tell you you I'm dating anyone.

It's none of your business.

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know?

Yeah. Well, Brent Forrester sent us an audio clip about this Jim -Pam storyline that runs through this episode, and it's going to seem like I paid him to say this stuff.

I just want to preface this clip by saying I did not know he was going to send this in.

Oh, let me tell you, there's going There's going to be like balloons and confetti going off when he mentions Jenna's name.

He really, he really, really admired your performance.

Yes. So everyone, this is not a paid endorsement.

Go ahead. If you look at the structure of this episode, you can see it was kind of designed to be a classic Office episode.

It's got that big A -story performance piece for Steve Carell where Michael Scott has twice the audience, twice the family to perform for.

And we knew that Steve was just going to kill it in these big performance conference room scenes.

We also knew that we had this clash of two comedy characters who had never been in any scenes before.

That was Andy Bernard and Dwight Schrute.

and sure enough that two -hander is just so funny to watch those guys performing together for the first time but what really distinguishes this episode is the jim and pam story where once again we relied for the emotion of the episode on jim and pam and look at the tremendous performance that jenna fisher delivers here she does so much with so little right from the start where she says it'll be nice to see my friend again and you know that what she means is i can't believe jim and i can get together for the first time and then watch how she discovers that Jim is dating Karen Filipelli it's just

done in little looks where she notices a piece of gum passed between them oh it kills me man it's the greatest performance and it's part of this tremendous ongoing performance that Jenna Fisher did as Pam Beasley one of the great performances ever captured on tv in my opinion yeah it really is it really is one of the greatest performances ever captured on tv I wrote that out for him and I felt like he delivered it perfectly.

No, thank you, Brent.

No, listen, in your defense, it is a fantastic performance.

And that was just a heartfelt message from Brent about how moved he was.

And really, everyone is by Jim and Pam.

They break our hearts all the time because that is what a sort of star -crossed lover's courtship is.

It's one moment you're available for that other person, either physically or emotionally and the other person isn't, and then it flips and they break your heart over and over until they hopefully find each other.

Well, here's the thing, you know, I did not make up any of that performance.

That was all written for me by the great Brent Forrester.

But truly, it's like those directions were in the script.

I didn't invent those.

You know, all of those moments of embarrassment, those were all described to me in the script, and I just had to play them.

So, you know, that's some of the beautiful detail that we would get in our scripts that I so appreciated as a performer.

Those quiet moments that they allowed to play out, those moments of silence, moments of realization.

conversation, we always took our time with those and it, and it allowed me to like, really go for it.

I loved it. Well, it's, it's great.

And that scene broke my heart.

There are a lot of moments in this episode where I was just as excited as Pam was that Jim was going to be back.

And then he's just not available to you.

So it was really hard to watch. Yeah.

It's like a brick wall, wall like a brick wall well luckily this episode does not end there it does not end on pam's heartbreak or this awkward moment it ends with a fantastic scene between andy and dwight where they're arguing about their cars their iqs uh they have an amazing like coughing they do they They go contest. You're an idiot.

You're a bigger idiot.

I have a fan catch in this final scene.

Reese Pearsall wrote in and said at 28 minutes, 42 seconds, if you're watching the iTunes version.

So Dwight and Andy are fighting over their car.

Andy's like 1985 called once it's Trans Am back.

And Dwight goes, huh?

Well, it's an 87. So there.

But in the pilot, when Dwight is describing his car to Ryan the Temp, he says it's a 1978 Trans Am.

All right. So fantastic catch, Reese.

And oh, hold up. Sam is saying he has a little info about this car.

Sam? Yeah, I think I can solve this one, actually.

I think from the pilot in the first couple of seasons, he has a 1978 Nissan 280Z.

And I think you can see it in the grief counseling episode when Pam and Roy walk outside to talk about her new car.

And then at some point he gets a 1987 Pontiac Trans Am.

That's the maroon one you see most of the season.

So it's just two different cars.

And I know this because I grew up in the 80s in a car family.

And my uncle had the first car and my brother had the second car.

And I've listened to much Motley Crue in both of them.

Sam! Applause! Wow.

Sam, add to your list, muscle car knowledge.

I love it. I have one thing I noticed about this scene, Angela.

So we know that this elevator goes nowhere.

Yeah. We know that when Andy and Dwight stepped into that elevator, it was just a room on a stage.

And I clocked the moment when then the elevator doors open and they're suddenly quote unquote quote, downstairs in the lobby.

They had to film that at two different times in two different buildings, and you can see the moment that the camera cuts, and that's the moment it starts to move.

It pans to the left, and then there's a cut, and that is when they were now relocated in the different stage for the exiting of the elevator, and so it's a fun little moment to watch, I think.

You and Reese getting all the catches in that final scene.

But it looks so seamless.

It looks so seamless.

It really seems like that elevator went from one floor to another.

Well, I have one deleted scene I want to talk about before we close out the merger here.

You know, Jenna, we've talked before that John and I rarely interacted as characters.

Yeah, we rarely spoke to each other on camera.

Well, in the deleted scenes, there's a scene where Jim goes to accounting.

Kevin says that he hid his M &Ms under his desk if he wants any.

They're under his desk, but he didn't want the other people to have them.

And then Jim looks at me and goes, Hi, Angela.

And I go, You need a haircut.

And he goes, Oh, wow.

And he goes, Bye, Angela.

And he leaves the scene.

And that's it. That's all the scene was.

But then they left the camera were rolling and we improvised a beat and it made it in the deleted scenes.

So after Jim leaves, Kevin goes, it is his first day back.

And I say, his hair is flipping out on the sides.

And Kevin goes, I like him.

And I say, oh my Lord. Well, here's something though.

And you said earlier in the clip that they ended up using of Kevin hiding his M &Ms. You're not even at your desk.

I know. I would have been there because then Jim would have walked up.

I don't know, guys.

I'm out. Interesting.

I'm hanging out with the plant from the other day.

I don't know where I am.

Yeah, you're with Andy's coat and the plant.

Just the three of you.

I'm in the box of lost things.

Yes. Oh, all right, guys.

That was the merger.

We want to thank Ken Whittingham and Brent Forster for sending in those awesome audio clips.

Ken is a prolific director.

He is directing contacting just about every TV show out there.

The Upshaw's American Housewife.

Yes, also Bless This Mess, but I will not hold that against you, Ken, because, you know, Bless This Mess is the show that replaced my canceled show, Splitting Up Together.

Oh. But it's okay. It's okay.

I'm not bitter. Oh, good.

I'll let you guys get into that when he's on Phyllis's Wedding.

Okay. And Ken left us a little clip saying goodbye and where you can find him on the socials.

Thank you so much, Angela and Jenna, for having me do this.

Of all the television I've done, some of my best memories are being with you guys on The Office.

So let's do some more of these podcasts and talk about Phyllis's wedding and some other episodes I've done.

So Ken Whittingham, at Ken Whittingham on Twitter, and Kenny Witt on Instagram.

And also thank you to Brent Forrester.

We're going to have him back again in the future.

Guys, Brent Forrester is the head writer for Space Force season one.

And he also online has Brent Forrester's Comedy Knowledge School.

It's awesome. It's a six -week workshop on half -hour comedy writing.

You can Google it. You can also find it over on YouTube at Reach Forrester.

I love that. I absolutely love that.

Well, everybody, that was The Merger.

Thank you so much for listening in.

And we can't wait to see you next week.

See you next week. Reid Bratton.

Thank you. Thank you.

[The Office Ladies: Breaking Down 'The Merger']-[Second Drink: The Merger]

📋 Summary

Episode Overview: 'The Merger'

The Logistics of the 'Bullpen' and Character Placement

Production Trivia and 'Foley Fun Facts'

Writing and Character Development

The Jim, Pam, and Karen Dynamic

The 'Phyllis Sass' and Office Conflicts

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript