Goodbye Michael with Greg Daniels, Pt 2

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.

Good morning.

All right, we're still saying goodbye to Michael.

I know.

It's goodbye, Michael, part two.

This is the real deal. Goodbye.

This is it, this is the tearjerker.

Yeah.

We had the funny last week and now we're going to get into a lot of crying.

Oh man.

Once Again Season 7, Episode 22, Written by Greg Daniels and directed by Paul Feig.

You know, last week we didn't do a summary. no summary needed. No, it's goodbye, Michael.

I'm not summing anything up again, that's right, I'm sticking with this.

And this week, we are back again with Greg for the second part. But Jenna, did you have any fast facts?

I don't have any fast facts, but I have a fun fact.

I'll take a fun fact.

All right, here's the fun fact. This episode aired on April 28, 2011, and its broadcast in the United States was interrupted in several places because of William and Kate's royal wedding.

Yes.

Yes.

Like, you're like some other William and Kate.

Yeah, like, who else is having a royal wedding that's preempting television?

Okay, okay, yes, okay.

So they were married on April 29, but with the time change, it was a conflict. And so, for example, in Chicago, the NBC affiliate posted a notice on their website that said, due to live coverage of the royal wedding. Tonight's regularly scheduled lineup of Community, The Office, Parks and Recreation 30 Rock and Outsourced will be seen on Sunday, starting at 7 p...m.

Oh, no way. So you still got the episode? you just got it a few days later.

Yeah, I feel like I would be so mad if I was in Chicago. It's goodbye, Michael. Yeah, that's a big one. It's one of your like favorite shows. And then everybody else got to see it on Thursday and you have to wait until Sunday.

Yeah, and this was also before. You could just go online and see like little clips of the wedding. I know like, maybe you don't have to watch the whole shebang.

Well, we learned that now. Yeah, now we just watch the clips.

Yeah, although I did watch their wedding.

You watched the wedding instead of our show?

No, I got to watch both.

Do you have a little side-by-side setup? No, you're watching William and Kate. No, no, no watching Michael check names off his list.

No, I got to watch both, I got to sit and have my moment with both. But, you know, I mean, I love a wedding, I'll watch any wedding, invite me to your wedding.

People do invite us to their weddings. I know I know this is going to be our retirement. ANGELA It's going to be people's weddings, it's popping up at people's weddings.

Well, I have a fun fact.

What's your fun fact?

I've got some awesome office ladies news.

Mm-hmm.

Are you ready for it?

I know it, tell them.

Next week on Office Ladies, we have Steve Carell.

Yes.

He's going to be in the studio with us.

It is such an amazing interview, we had so much fun talking to him. I can't wait for you guys to hear it.

We've had a really exciting 2023 so far. Big episodes, big guests.

Yes, new studio, very spicy stuff, guys, spicy.

I don't know.

We're shaking it up.

Shaking it up.

Shaking it up.

Do you remember shake and bake? Yeah, did you ever shake and bake?

Are you kidding? Is that still around?

Could I shake and bake today if I wanted?

I'd be so excited. I love a shake and bake.

I'm going to look for it in the store, all right. Listen, let's take a quick break and then we'll be back to break down the rest of. Goodbye Michael with Greg Daniels.

Get your tissues.

Well.

I'm trying to remember what the whole story was about that book. Because that was another one of those things that was floating around on our cork board forever in the writer's room.

It was mentioned in Date night. Yeah, right to Donna.

He's trying to impress Donna.

Mm-hmm, that he's a manager. I actually think it had an existence as a book project, really, yeah.

I just need it to be written, I know, right? That would be a terrific piece of, I mean, it's just what is that? That's just unclaimed money sitting on a shelf.

I was really curious if there was any version of a book with that name out there. When I googled it, I did find a book on Amazon. And it's got a photo of Michael Scott on the cover, he's in a suit, it's got a little gold sticker. That says Scranton Times bestseller. Then when you go to see what the book is about, it says this.

Yeah, obviously B.J never turned in the manuscript.

I guess not.

You can buy a blank one.

Michael's final wish is to get to operate the Baler.

Another callback?

Yep, I love that. Daryl is like, No, then right away it comes to Michael in the warehouse. He's like, So Daryl said, I could use the baler.

Exactly then, another callback to basketball. He's going to catch them all on the flippity-flip, and he's trying to toss the basketball into the hoop over his shoulder from behind. Kelsey H. from Olympia, Washington, loves this multiple attempts to catch people on the flippity-flip. Wanted to know if that was scripted, that he would have to do it over and over and over again, it was scripted.

Well, it makes sense. There's no way he would have sunk it on one attempt.

In the first one, right?

What if he had?

That would have been amazing.

In re-watching it, the thing I liked best was the lighting change.

Yeah, to show the passage of time.

It's like the sun is setting. He's been at it for four hours.

Well, we have another callback within the scene because flippity-flip was first said in the episode murder.

Oh, yes.

He says to David Wallace, his secretary, all right, catch you on the flippity-flip.

Was that in the script, too? Flippity-flip?

Yes.

Yeah.

It was.

Nice.

Andy and D'Angelo are out on their sales call. Now. D'Angelo's wondering what their bid's going to be, and D'Angelo's trying to pump Andy up. He's trying to pump himself up.

Annie, Annie Shelto. It's what he says.

Yes.

That can't have been in the script. That sounds like a complete Will Ferrell.

That sounds like a Will Ferrell ad-lib. I didn't check. Randy said that Will was really driving the car during this whole car scene, that that was freestyle driving and that Matt Soane and Paul Feig were in the back seat.

We shot a lot of stuff in cars like that. Mm-hmm, and it's funny. Now. Whenever I bring that up as a possibility on anything I'm working on, people look at me like, you know, that's the most dangerous and unprofessional thing anybody could ever do. So I don't know.

Well, we will get to it. But do you remember when the character of Nellie is learning how to drive?

I know this story.

And Pam is going to help her with her driving lessons.

Were you in the car together?

We were in the car together and they let Catherine Tate drive.

That's an extra layer because she's on the wrong side of the road for her.

Catherine Tate didn't know how to drive.

Oh God, she didn't drive.

I'll tell that story more in depth when we get there.

Well, I think back to the fact that my character ran Moe's off the road. We really did do this crazy driving stunt, where then I got out of the car and ran up and slapped him. But I pull into this like cul-de-sac and he goes sideways and I was driving my car.

Yeah, well, you know, it's weird. It's like for the documentary part of the show, I don't think it's unusual for a documentary to, you know, to interview somebody driving a car.

Yeah, true.

But, you know, there's a lot of sort of Hollywood rules. So, like nowadays, it seems like they would tow that car, or, you know, or have a drone hovering outside of the car.

Well, they find their Annie, Annie Shell Tow.

By the way, this is such a weird scene.

So bizarre.

And I don't like at this distance from the show. Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly everything that, you know, I've put in. But my feeling is that I really like this scene. But it doesn't feel like I wrote it to myself. I don't know where it came from. It feels like a weird kind of a room build out.

I wonder if this was another ad.

Yeah, was this shot afterwards?

I think that it was. I asked Randy Cordray if we went to a real animal shelter to shoot this, and he said, No, it was a fakie animal shelter, he said. The exterior was just a building, and our graphics designer, Michael Bayouth, made the sign. I have some fun info on the dog that they're passing back and forth.

What did Wally make this day?

The total was $1,713.

Does it say that it was stunt work?

Yes.

Does it have a per diem?

Here's the thing. He gets a prep day, so he charged us. The dog cost $225 for the prep day, and the trainer was $344. Then he charged us for a shoot day, and a trainer for a shoot day, charged us for transportation.

That's another spinoff. I want to see the jealous Amos-Wally relationship.

It's playing out behind the scenes well, there's a very important piece of information that comes out of the scene, which is we find out how D'Angelo was hired.

Yeah.

He basically was hired because he stopped someone from taking Joe's dog.

Wow.

That's how he became manager of a paper company.

Well, the arc with Will Ferrell was so terrific and so useful and everything for the show to have this exciting guest star come in. But I think that people knew it wasn't forever. And some of the fun jokes in this episode are just these little hints that we're getting. That he's really not going to be a good manager or a long-term choice.

Next up, we have a scene between Michael and Aaron. And this is a wonderful callback to Secretary's Day. In fact, this whole scene takes place on the bench where they sat in Secretary's Day. I thought it was really sweet.

Yeah, yeah, Michael says. You don't need a mom because you have me. Yeah, you have my number.

That's one of the relationships people always used to say about workplace ensembles that they turn into family shows, even though the people aren't related. But they have variations on family relationships. Sure, yeah, and this was a good opportunity for Michael to be a dad to somebody.

Yeah, I think that's right, Aaron.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's good advice, the other thing is if you want to make somebody likable, if they give good advice to somebody. That was one of the tricks that we used in Season 2, I wrote that into Booze Cruise to try, and if you remember, the season 2. Fall was all about giving Michael little things that people would like him for, right?

And he gives that advice to Jim.

Yeah, yeah, and he gives good advice to Jim, so that's another callback in a way.

Yeah.

We're back in the bullpen. The camera starts on Aaron on the phone at reception, it pulls back to reveal Phyllis. On a sales call, Michael hangs up Phyllis sales call and tells her, Just work on the mittens. I need the mittens by 4 p..m.

Yeah, he's kind of laying waste to the company, isn't he on his way out, right? He's interrupting her sales call, Andy's blowing all their biggest clients, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, at 21 minutes and 21 seconds, I noticed Greg that Aaron and Phyllis are holding their phones the exact same way.

Yes, and we have found out in this episode that Phyllis gave up a child. Yes, right, that was in a talking head.

I think so, I think so, because something like that would have been a card on the board a long time. Before we were writing, we would have been assessing all of the different possible storylines. And when does that start to really come into play?

I'm not sure exactly when it gets introduced, but there is that storyline of Aaron, who is being encouraged by Andy to kind of look for her birth parents.

Yeah, well, this is the first we learn that Phyllis had a child. That's the secret she thinks Michael's going to tell the bullpen.

That's right.

Yeah, that's a big drop of a piece of information there, yeah.

It's very Phyllis, though Phyllis really dropped some interesting info in her talking heads. I've noticed, yeah, like, you learn a lot about her and Bob Vance.

Oh my God. Speaking of talking heads, can we talk about Rainn Wilson's performance in this Talking Head, where he reads the letter of recommendation from Michael?

Yeah.

Just perfectly played.

I made myself cry writing this. I was in a coffee bean. And I identify a little bit too much with Dwight, probably, but yeah, I thought this was a great talking head and he was so good at it.

I love that last line. Well, I love the pause that he takes the turn. When he's mocking it, he realizes how good it is. Then there's the pause and then the blah, blah, blah, just a bunch more stuff.

Yeah, yeah, when he says.

Very repetitive.

Yeah, but then after that he's like, when he gets to the point. As a sales executive, as a leader, as a man and as a friend. He is of the highest kind, quality and order supreme. And then you see all the emotion. I was like, Oh, gosh.

Yes, it gave me goosebumps just when you read it.

Yeah.

And then I loved the button about paintball, it was perfect.

They really shot paintballs at each other.

Yes, that was real. I was looking at the DVD notes. Another instance of the show, perhaps not following the most stringent.

If you go to 23 minutes and 9 seconds when they're shooting paintballs at each other. There's a moment where Rainn, as Dwight, is running away from Steve, and Steve shoots a paintball. And I think it hits him kind of like, on his butt, and you hear Rainn go, ow, and he's so honest.

Yeah, I might be making this up. But I think they maybe undercranked the pressure just a little bit on the paintball guns so that it wasn't as painful.

Make it a little safer.

And they had all the padded suits on, too, which helped.

Yeah, and they had padding, but they're very close to one another. I sort of always imagined I've never played, but that paintball has more distance.

You're supposed to be further away. This was also a callback to Dwight's Secret Santa gift from season two.

That's right.

But he also shot paintball earlier in the show, right?

He has yes many times.

Yeah, it's been established well. Michael is going to smile. He can cross another name off his list. And Greg. I thought it was really interesting how Michael the whole episode has to keep looking at the time, he's checking the time.

He's got to make his plane.

Yeah, this 4 o'clock time. And it made me anxious a little bit as I watched it. Because I was so aware that we were coming to a close. And was that just you being brilliant?

No, that's intentional, yeah, but I mean. There's also a writing principle called the ticking clock, which often you need to add to a story because there's not enough tension. But it's not always cutting to a ticking clock.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's disguised a little better. Yeah, but you know, the Michael-Dwight relationship was such a big part of the show. So Dwight actually has, I think, a bunch of moments with Michael to say goodbye on this episode. And this was the big one.

Yeah.

You mentioned that tension of, like, not knowing who's going to be the next boss and Dwight wanting to be the next boss. And I remember that happening in real life, in real time, to all of us on the set, there was no new person cast at this time. Like when we were shooting this episode, it wasn't like you had made an announcement and you're like, Okay. So here's the thing we are going to bring in, this person to be the next boss, or this character is going to be promoted.

Yeah, well, you know, I'm trying to remember back in that timeframe and again, Paul was running the show, so there's conversations I probably didn't hear. But you know, there are a lot of people with opinions on it because at the time, I think we were NBC's number one show.

Well, I feel like when we were reading scripts as a cast, we were like looking for clues, just like Dwight was.

Yeah, so Steve was a producer this year, obviously, and I remember discussing it with him. Because there was a moment where we were like, should we just end the show? And he didn't want to, you know, pull the plug on the party early. And every week we cut really funny stuff from our ensemble.

Yeah, well, you did. I mean, this is a basketball term, obviously, but you had a deep bench, as they say. So I remember not being worried, maybe I was just really naive about how things work.

Well, the sort of the cliffhanger at the end of the season was, Who's it going to be? And there was this job hunt thing. And I think partly that was because we maybe suddenly found that there was some pressure to name something. And but we didn't have it because we were assuming we were just going to lean on the deep bench. But I will say that from a playwriting standpoint, it's harder to replace the central character, partly because of the dynamics of how the show is written.

You're so right, though I hadn't thought of it from that point of view. But it's so clear, when you say it, that all these characters were exactly where they were supposed to be, in sort of the placement of a story. Kate Flannery said this thing one time we'd gone to some red carpet thing and we were being interviewed and we were walking the carpet together.

I think Angela is the bitter greens on the plate. Yeah, I'm not sure what Pam is, maybe like a mushroom sauce or something.

No, yes.

Potatoes.

No, she's mashed potatoes.

Potatoes, yeah.

Yeah, we both thought potatoes.

Yes, I thought my first thing before you said potato was mashed potatoes.

I thought that, you know, if Michael is the steak, then Pam is the mushroom sauce that makes the steak go down even smoother, even better.

But you can have steak without mushroom sauce, I guess that's true. you can't have steak without potatoes.

Okay, okay, I'll take it. Yeah, well, we are on the sales call with D'Angelo and Andy. The client was played by Alfred Rubin Thompson.

This is a great two-hander storyline for Ed and Will. And I think in this moment, Will is being very funny. Saying this horribly undermining speech about, you know how Andy is as a flawed salesperson, but Ed is being equally funny, reacting to it. And it's just it's really a fun scene to see the two of them together.

They're very funny together. I needed Andy to have a win. Like, as I was watching this, I was like, please, please, don't let the sale, like, get lost. And then when he goes back in and he is able to make the sale and they get the call. I was so happy.

Yeah, well, it's interesting. One of the when I refer back to the episodes in the beginning of season 2, where we kind of rebuilt Michael. One of the big ones was the client that Paul wrote, Yeah, where he reveals that he may not be a great manager, but he was really good as a salesperson.

So apparently, part of Pam's process for pricing. Shredders is going to the movies and she's going to sneak off and see the King's speech.

It's a really great movie, you guys, it is a good movie. I enjoyed it when I saw it.

I really did, too. To me, the fact that Pam would pick a Colin Firth movie to sneak off to is very telling. It's very Pam, yeah.

We shot that in Pomona, it was the morning that we did the airport scene. So while they were sort of setting up the airport and building out that set, we sneaked away and we shot on the street. You can see they did their best to frame out the word Pomona on the big sign above the movie theater. But if you know that's what it says, you can still kind of see it.

Yeah, oh yes.

Ellie and Paul, Yes.

I'm curious, Do you guys think that Jim knew that Pam was going to see a movie?

I don't think he knew.

I don't either, I don't either. No, this is her thing.

This is her time.

Because it's Colin Firth.

Yeah, I used to do this at a job that I had as a media buyer.

You would sneak off and watch movies.

Well, part of our job because we bought time to advertise movies, part of our job was that we got to leave to go see screenings of movies. It was really cool, but we would after the movie, my girlfriend and I, who both worked there. Around the corner from the screening area was a place where you'd get a manicure, pedicure. And we would just tack one on to the end of our day out.

It was kind of fun.

That's the best is when you have a job where there's an excuse for you to be out of the office.

Right?

That's slightly fuzzy about when you're going to get back, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

I did do this when I interned on Conan. If they would send us on a run, you would just go sit for a little bit in a coffee shop.

Take your time.

Have a snack.

Enjoy a tea in Central Park.

I was a proofreader in one job, and it was in this very small publishing house. It was in a guy's house and he had a three-story house. I had two bosses, one of them was on the first floor and one of them was on the third floor.

Okay.

Sometimes I would just go to the second floor and just hang out, they always think you're with the others. Yeah, they were like, Oh, he must be down on the first floor, working on that guy project.

Well, Michael is going to have his very last conference room meeting. Greg, Did you think a lot about how you wanted him to have a conference room meeting in this episode?

Well, I think he's getting panicked because his time is running out.

Right?

I think that he enjoyed conference room meetings, yeah, because he was able to use them as tryouts for his stand-up.

Which is very on-brand because I feel like Michael called a lot of meetings like that.

Yeah.

I was very sad that I was not in the last conference room meeting. This was a bummer for me. These are some of my happiest times on set.

Yeah.

That was rough.

Well, if you go to 28 minutes and three seconds, I know this is what everyone's looking for in this scene. My hair is back in the clip again.

Oh, good, the continuity has returned.

That's what struck me the first time when we saw this, I was like,-.

What's up with Angela's hair clip?

Angela's hair's back. Yeah, all will be right with the world.

Well, in this conference room meeting, Jim is going to figure out that something is going on, and he asks Michael if he can speak to him in his office.

I mean, Michael's getting a little unhinged, yeah, and Jim is the most perceptive, yes, so he is the one who's going to figure this out.

When did you decide that Jim was going to be the person who figures it out?

Well, you know, everybody has their moment with Michael and Jim. It just seems like Michael is sort of graduating psychologically into being a wiser character. Here, you know, as he's going to float above the office into the clouds. And there is like this little ruse going in the middle of the show. And for Jim to have a moment and not be in on it, it seemed like it was good for his character, that he figures it out.

Yeah, this was the second-to-last scene that we shot that day was the scene between Michael and Jim in Michael's office.

Well, if you guys have the DVD box set, it's definitely worth watching this scene because it's a bigger scene. There is this great beat in the middle of it, Greg. Which I understand why it was probably deleted just because the flow of the scene is so perfect, but it's such a great detail. So Michael is going to share with Jim that he has a job interview already set up in Colorado. It's for a paper company that makes the ticket stubs for all the movie theaters.

Yeah, well, you know, my dad had two great friends growing up, Dick Town and Tom Hazen, and I can't remember which one. One of them had a family paper company. And they transitioned into tickets.

Small paper companies.

That small paper company, because it was a very high-tech form of paper, it had all these embossed, you know, things in it and everything. It's probably on somebody's phone now, so it's probably it was only a temporary reprieve. But I remember being told that around that time. And it did seem like a great job for Michael. Because it was paper, but it was a little show-busy form of paper, you know?

It was emotional to re-watch when you know, Jim says. But we clearly just saw John in the moment saying. When he said, You're the best boss I've ever had, I was just like, Forget it, I'm a mess.

Right, George Clooney and leatherheads didn't compare.

We had a fan catch from Juliana R in Atlanta, Georgia, who said, I have a fan catch. Michael forgot his voice recorder in his desk on the last day, you know, in that scene, he gets out his voice recorder because he has a t-shirt idea. Goodbye stink.

And he left without it.

Yes, Justin, A, from Buffalo, New York, noticed this as well and wanted to know was this an intentional joke? Because they both really enjoyed it.

They both enjoyed the fact that he forgot to bring it.

Yes, yes, he left. He walks out without his voice recorder, with all his good ideas on it.

Yeah, oh goodness. I don't think that was intentional, but I'm glad that they're perceiving it as a joke.

Own it.

Yeah.

I like the idea that it's a wonderful leave behind for the next boss, right? A drawer full of amazing ideas.

I like that t-shirt, yeah, I love that. I mean, that was a running thing. For Michael as a character is that he would sometimes interrupt himself to have a great idea. They were always terrible.

Do you do that as a writer? Are you ever somewhere or at dinner? Do you have a place where you put observations or ideas? Do you have a writer's notebook?

I have scraps because I don't ever have the special writer's notebook with me, of course. But I do have a box in my house and I'll throw in the napkin or the back of the envelope. Yeah, I'll throw it into the box.

Then you sit down, you have to write a new script or come up with a new character. Do you open the box and it's like, you look for the magical scrap that's going to be the seed.

They're down to, like, really useless scraps. At this point, I've used everything I possibly can.

Well, why don't we take a break, because when we come back, it's Michael's last bullpen scene ever. We'll be back.

Well, we are back and here it is. This is Michael's last bullpen scene. This is the last thing we filmed with Steve Carell on the office. He just walks out into the bullpen, he takes his unfinished mittens from Phyllis, and he just stands there and looks at this ordinary workday.

I remember going to the mix for this and cranking the sounds, the ordinary sounds of the office.

The phones ringing and the fax machines and stuff.

We had tons of those, we had tracks for every type of dot matrix printer over the years. We just threw it all in, jack it up. I thought it was something where it was an opportunity to just remind people of the sound of what it was. To me, the sound was as important as the picture on that thing.

In the finale, you gave Pam that line about the beauty of ordinary things. I feel like that is the story of this episode as well.

Yeah, it's in here, for sure.

That theme, it's here.

It's inherent in a documentary that you're looking at real people. It goes back to that poor guy who retired from Socal Gas.

Yeah, exactly.

I was not in the scene, but I was there because after we shot this day, we had a big goodbye party for Steve. I had come up to the set and I wanted to see his last scene in the bullpen. I was at Video Village and I was watching this. I remember that we did do a version where Michael turns out all the lights on everybody as he's leaving. Do you remember that?

Yeah, we yell at him like Michael.

Yes, that was going to be a big joke, right? That he assumed that when he left, the whole thing was that nobody needed to have light, exactly. I think that was hard, too, because there are windows.

Yeah.

I think we had some problems with it from an emotional standpoint. It was kind of negative when it was otherwise a very positive beat. But I also think it didn't execute enormously well because of the windows, it didn't get really that dark.

There's a great moment at the end when Michael's watching everyone work and Jim clocks Michael. Greg. You shared on the commentary that it wasn't scripted, but that the camera guys just caught the moment and that you loved it and it was so perfect.

Is that where Jim kind of gives him a little like, you can go?

Yeah, you got this, yeah.

Yeah, like, a little like, get out of here kind of head nod.

Yeah, Michael smiles and nods, and then he walks out.

Yeah, and we know he's going to Heaven Paradise with Holly. But there's also a little bit of like Michael's at the deathbed of his dad. I guess that's where Brent's getting this from, because he's like, I release you, yeah.

And he maybe needed that last little look from Jim, that last little nudge of assurance it's going to be okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I remember Nancy Carell had come up and was watching this last scene as well, yeah, on the monitors, and that was really special. And from a personal standpoint, I remember standing in the conference room.

Michael's realtor Why would she?

Carol, Why? Carol come back? Carol wanted to be there.

But I remember being in the conference room and I was pregnant when we shot this episode and I had not told anyone except for Angela. And I remember just wrestling with whether or not I should tell Nancy or if I should get Steve aside. Because I did not know when I would see them again. And all Steve ever wanted was for me to have the family that I always wanted, you know, yeah, so I just knew how excited he would be for me.

I remember urging you to have a baby.

Greg, you were urging me to have a baby from Like the pilot.

Like, all you did was go around and encourage cast members to start families.

Because you are such a family guy and you love family. I do remember this, though. You were like, When are you guys going to start having babies?

Well, I also felt, really—because it was counter to the interests as a producer. Oh yeah, and I always felt like, I just want to make sure I'm completely on record. As supporting anybody. Having a baby, the last thing I want is for somebody to come back and go. I missed having a baby, right, right?

Yeah, but I just remember holding on to that little secret while I was standing there, watching this last scene and wondering, when am I ever going to see Steve again?

Well, you probably did the right thing. This is a big moment in their lives, so it's probably, you know,—.

Maybe I shouldn't have made it about me.

Goodbye Steve and guess what?

I'm having a baby. Hey everybody, I'm pregnant.

You guys come to my I'm-having-a-baby party right after we wrap.

Yeah, it's down in the warehouse.

In the corner, there's a going-away party for Steve, but the real party—.

Hugh was a great actor and they had a relationship and that should have been in the show. But it was awkwardly placed because we were racing towards the ending. Now we didn't really have time to slow it down again and have this interaction. But it is a deleted scene.

Because it works so well that the taxi pulls up when Michael's with Jim, and it's so abrupt. He's leaving, and so to then have this extra beat, where then he's waiting for his taxi.

I think it was also sort of conceived of as his—he really is lingering because he wants to see Pam, but that was sort of implied elsewhere.

Well, he is going to get to see Pam. We don't know it yet, but we follow Michael to the airport. He's going through a security check.

But he also made a choice to go to the airport, even if he had to miss PAM.

Yes, he doesn't know he's going to see Pam, yeah.

Which is important, I think so, too. I think it's kind of like,—because he started off, everybody at this office is my family. And then he gets to have this talking head where he kind of recalibrates it. It's still super important, but he knows who his family's going to be.

Now you guys know that there's nothing I love more than a location report. But I'm going to let Amanda S. from Rancho, Santa Margarita, California, take this one, Amanda said. I don't know if they chose this airport because Lax wouldn't let you go back, but I do know that. Ontario had lost a lot of traffic around this time due to the 2008 recession and ownership issues. So maybe it was just an easier option because it was so quiet.

Way to go, Amanda.

Yes, we shot this at the Ontario Airport, in a closed terminal that was not open to the public. Everyone you see is a hired extra. The TSA check-in was set, dressing, brought in by us, but in order to shoot there, there were a lot of rules.

I love a memo with rules.

You know, I love a memo.

I love a memo.

Hi all, as we get ready to shoot at the Ontario airport. There are a few things you need to know, it says.

What?

Yeah, wanted you to know that all explosives, firearms and narcotics are prohibited. That was bolded all caps and underlined.

Okay.

If you have handled pyrotechnics or firearms in the last 30 days, you need to let them know. Because that residue can live on your clothing for 30 days, and if a dog alerts that you have any of these residues on you, you will be made to leave.

Is that all?

There's more.

That will happen to you, oh.

It doesn't sound like you'll be arrested, but you're not going to get to be in the shoot day in the deserted terminal of the Ontario airport.

Yeah.

Once you're in the airport, bold, all caps and underlined, Do not open any doors. If you open a door, you could be fined $11,000..

What if you have to pee?

Don't open the door, I don't know, you cannot open a door.

I don't think stall doors are part of that.

I meant exterior doors.

Like a door to a bathroom, No, that would go into a bathroom.

Can't you just pee out in the world? Don't you go into an interior bathroom?

I'm saying the door to go into the bathroom.

That's not included. They mean any doors, you can't just open a door and walk around outside and have a cigarette.

Go down to the tarmac.

Once you're inside, do not open a door.

Now your line makes sense to me. Do you just pee out in the world? I was like, What is Greg saying? Doesn't everyone pee out in the world somewhere?

As opposed to just at your home, yeah.

Bold and in italics, this memo would like you to know that the $11,000 fine is a personal fine to you. NBC will not be paying it. So if you open that door, it's on you. And the final note is that because of the nature of work for the Grip, Electric and Props department. Knives will be allowed because they did have to use a knife. However, it must be kept in your pocket when not in use.

Wow.

Thank you for your cooperation. Please call if you have any questions.

Who was that signed by?

Steve Burgess.

Typical.

I wonder how the airport settled on $11,000.

Yeah.

It's probably like $10,000 to one thing, and then like, someone gets a $1,000 cut. Why is that where my brain goes? I don't know.

Someone's on the side hustle.

Agency fee.

Yeah, someone's like, add $1,000 for the reps.

Well, Michael has now gone through security and he's going to say, Hey, will you guys let me know if this thing ever airs? And then he takes off his mic pack and he says, Feels good to get this off my chest. And that's where you see him mouth the words. That's what she said, Yes.

Yeah, but it was a silent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I loved it, though you couldn't have Michael's last episode without that.

Yeah, but it's almost like in a concert where the performer goes to their chorus and then just points the mic at the crowd and they all sing the chorus. It's like everybody knew what he was going to say, so he didn't have to say it. People just shouted at the TV.

Jenna, how was the scene for you? You go running up? Ask Pam. I loved that I could see your pantyhose, your commitment to wearing pantyhose all these years on the show and we phase off. I refused to wear them.

Yeah, well, a lot of people always mention. How did Pam get through TSA without a ticket? how did she get through? And I remember having that discussion on set and we did actually shoot me.

There's a bunch of things that are a little fudged there, I would say. And I think Paul did a great job shooting it. I think it looks very real and he had all this big-time movie experience and he really used the extras well.

Totally.

When you think about it, the security, I mean, he walked right through security, into a gate. Practically I don't see a lot of security that are that close, but maybe the Wilkes-Barre airport or whatever is just like that. But I would just believe there was another security thing off to the left.

She's gone through security, clearly.

I just chose to be okay with it, I just needed this goodbye so desperately, it didn't matter to me.

And it's so beautifully framed, it's so visual and everything.

And it's silent, which is interesting because presumably Pam would have had her microphone on, even though Michael has taken his off.

In the movie theater, she was in King's speech.

Oh, she must have clicked off her mic because she didn't want anybody to know that's a good call.

I like that, yeah, we often talk about, did our characters ever turn our mics off? like when we went to the bathroom, would we turn off our mic like we would as actors? yeah?

Have you ever said what you actually said, or is that a mystery that you will?

No, I've never really revealed exactly what I said to Steve. But, you know, the gist of it was just what it had meant to me to work with him over these seven years. And I thanked him for a few personal things that he had done for me along the way. And we both cried and we hugged each other, and I've said this before.

Because it was like, four minutes, right?

Of us, just like told Steve, every thought you'd ever had.

Right, because there's no other camera. It's a water, it's a water, yeah.

He's like, we just need to tighten it up a little. So then it got easier, we didn't do it very many times, it got easier. I needed the first one for me.

So often you're trying to get emotion in a take, and the first ones people are working out, the, you know, the dialogue or whatever. And then, like, two or three is where you really find your sweet spot. And then it starts to get kind of mannered and fake afterwards, yeah.

Well, then Pam has this talking head, and I remember we did a lot of versions of this talking head, but I love the one that we picked. It was really, really sweet, although I never felt like I nailed it.

Well, I disagree, I think you totally nailed it.

Connected to the plane taking off that thing, right? Or is that just is there a cut that's after?

No, but we did have to wait for that plane to take off so that we could do that, and a plane never took off. We waited like an hour to get a shot of me watching a plane take off, Randy reminded me that a plane did eventually take off.

So how did we do that shot?

We added it in post Fakie plane. I just looked off at nothing.

Another metaphor for him going up into the sky, see.

Yes, it was an important shot.

Had to get that.

He starts in the sky and ends in the sky. In this episode, Yeah.

One of the things I always love about our show is right after a big, emotional moment. There's then usually this great comedic bit, sometimes dark. And this one, this one is a definite foreshadowing of how D'Angelo is going to be. There is the party, it's Michael's party, it's the next day.

Yep.

And he starts eating the cake and then he throws it in the trash. He's like, No, and then he goes back in and then he does it again. And people are like, Oh my goodness, Dwight turns to Jim and goes, Oh, no.

I love that moment between Dwight and Jim. At the end, it's like the devil, you know, right? You're like, why did we ever wish we would want anyone other than Michael? Well, I guess Dwight never did, but.

But also, I love when Dwight and Jim team up and just to see, like, Oh, OK, it's going to be those two against this guy.

Yeah.

Is an interesting thing when you think about it. When you watch the show now on Peacock and there are no ads, and you're just kind of watching it. That does feel like, Oh, that's a weird place to end. But you have to remember that, you know, the show kind of ended and there was three minutes of commercials. And this is like a little, a little bitty tag on the end, yeah.

That's true, because you used to have to write for those act breaks, yeah, and now it can be viewed without them.

Right, it does change the experience a little bit.

It changes the pow a little bit because you're like, Oh, we're doing this now.

They chose to end on the cake. Gag, That's strange.

One thing I wanted to share was a lot of people in the cast who didn't have scenes on particular days. They all would just come back, even on their day off, to watch Steve's final scenes. And a lot of people obviously came back for this last day, crew and producers and writers and the cast all there to watch these final moments. And then we had a party in the warehouse to say goodbye to Steve.

It was so perfect. Do you remember Nancy made that cake? or had a cake made? Yeah, and it was a giant cake in the shape of a world's best boss mug.

Yeah, it was a huge coffee mug.

Yes, and John had made a tribute video. He had had a bunch of different people send in goodbye messages like you would have at a retirement party. Rain gave a speech on behalf of the cast.

I gave a speech, I remember you gave a speech. If I had known you guys were talking, I would have brought it. I think it's on my computer somewhere.

Oh, that's so great.

He jokes about how he could have been a dick, but he wasn't.

Oh, that's so sweet. A big thing that happened, and this was. Randy. Cordray's idea was that we retired his number on the call sheet. He was our number one, and moving forward, the call sheet started with number two. Forever. So it didn't matter whoever we were going to hire to ever be, maybe the boss in the future.

Well, we are at the end of this episode and before we wrap it up. I thought I would bring out my last bit of digital clutter. woo-hoo, digital clutter. Yes, at this time, I would do little vignette videos for NBC.com. Adventures with Angela, you guys around the set.

Here we are at Steve's Trailer, Steve.

It's Angela hey.

Don't be afraid.

Can I come in? Can we say goodbye?

Okay, not me personally, but you know, your fans.

Okay, come on in, okay.

So I just wanted to come here on behalf of all the fans of Michael Scott and of yours. And is there anything you want to say to the fans as your character departs the show? I do, actually, I've made an enormous mistake. Oh, no.

And I think that I probably shouldn't be going.

You're going to have like zero jobs.

I'm just I'm really thankful.

I think we're all very thankful to have had the jobs.

This is more than a job, really, and I think everybody here feels that way. It's been not only fun, but I was talking to my wife about it and I've been pretty emotional the last couple of weeks too. And one of the things she pointed out....