New Guys

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. When your schedule is packed with work projects, home projects, managing, kid activities. I don't know friends, big occasions. Sometimes you feel like you cannot carve out time for yourself, even when we know what makes us happy. It's hard to make time for it, but when you feel like you have no time for yourself. Non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

And I'm Angela Kinsey.

We were on the office together.

And we're best friends and now we're doing the ultimate.

Office Rewatch Podcast Just for You.

Each week, we will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind the scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you.

We're the office ladies.

Hello, hey there, Happy New year, Happy New year, happy new guys.

Happy new season, all of the new stuff, this is exciting.

It is.

Also, happy new projects to us.

Yeah.

We both have some exciting new projects. I have the Mean Girls movie, it's coming out on January 12th.

I cannot wait to see it.

I cannot wait to see it, I have not seen it yet, so I'm going to be seeing it in the theaters.

With everybody else.

ANGELA I had such a fun time making this movie. I have a small role, I play Ms. Heron. you know, the lead girl is Katie Heron.

If Tina Fey emailed me, I would print it out and probably, I don't know, I'd definitely put it in my journal.

I about pooped my pants. First of all, I didn't know Tina had my email. Yeah, she has her ways, I guess, so I get this email from Tina Fey and it's like, Jenna, we're doing a Mean Girls movie for a new generation. And I would love for you to play the role of Ms.

She looks like it's eerie.

It's eerie, we look the same.

Literally, you could be related.

She looks like my daughter, I believe it if my daughter grew up.

Yes, I so believe it, I see it.

I was like, Oh well, now I know why they thought of me anyway. Tina sent me the script and from the first five pages, I was like, I'm in. It was so funny, it was so good. It has musical numbers.

My daughter and her friends cannot wait to see it.

Well, my daughter and her friends are so excited because the trailer for this first ran before the Taylor Swift movie.

Oh, get out.

And I guess they all freaked out. You're cool now.

You're cool, I am.

This is what happened to me. When I did Tall Girl, my daughter was like, Oh, my friends, saw you in a movie.

Well, anyway, everybody, please check it out. Mean Girls movie January 12th. And Angela, you have some big deal news, too. I do.

I'm really excited, this is such a passion project for my husband and I. For those of you that have been listening to the podcast, you know, my husband's an amazing baker and a cook. We have done a little YouTube series called Baking With Josh and Ange. But let's be honest.

It's so cool.

It's all of our favorite family recipes, plus ones from our moms and our grandmothers, and little stories and photos, and I can't wait.

I told Lee and he said, Oh, that is just perfect, that is so perfect. And then he said, Does she realize she's writing another book?

Well, listen, Josh is doing all the recipes, and then I'm doing just like the little pops of stories, you know?

Okay.

I know it's gonna take two years. Who are we kidding? I'll be talking about this for a long time, but it is official we're doing a cookbook, yay.

And then Office Ladies has really big news that we're not allowed to share yet. I was gonna say, Wait, we can't share that yet. I know, but I'm so excited. At the end of the month, at the end of this month of January, something very, very big is happening.

Yes, and it's awesome and we can't wait for you to be a part of it, but we can't say anything yet, lady.

We can't say anything yet, okay?

All right, well, let's jump into this episode.

It is new guys, it is season nine, episode one.

Season nine, let that sit in.

I know.

We're here.

Sink in, Are you gonna sit it in?

I'm gonna sit it in.

Okay.

I am not gonna sink into any. I'm sitting in, sit into it, let that sit into it, let that sit anyway, you know what I'm saying.

Okay, this was written by Greg Daniels, directed by Greg Daniels, and here is your summary. This grant and branch underwent many changes over the summer. We're gonna get updates, we have said goodbye to a few employees and we're welcoming some new ones.

He went to outward bound to become like a dickhead. I don't understand what happened.

It's the worst advertising for outward bound. I'm sorry, outward bound in the history of advertising.

Oh my gosh.

Also, Angela needs to rehome her cat.

Yes, Comstock.

Mm-hmm, Jim is gonna do some soul searching. And Dwight has found himself a new rival in Dwight Jr.

Dwight Jr.

Fast Fact Number one Greg Daniels is back.

He's come home.

That's right, like I said before. This episode was both written by and directed by Greg. It is the first episode of The Office that he has written since Goodbye Michael in season seven. Yeah, so it's been a while, and he is also back as our showrunner, yes.

We were so excited.

Greg gave an interview to Variety where he talked a little bit about his vision for this season. First of all, he said, we will not be telling the story of who is in the manager's chair. who is manager is no longer a story.

Thank the Lord. Mm-hmm, you know what I was done with that?

Me too.

Not that anyone asked.

I think we were all done with it.

Yeah.

Greg said instead, he hoped to focus on big arcs in relationships. He also wanted to write stories where different characters were the lead of each episode. And you're gonna really see that in season nine, each of our characters is gonna have a real nice a story, yeah.

Dun dun dun.

So something I think everyone should know is that when we started shooting this episode, we did not know that season nine would be the last season of The Office. They did not tell us that until we were shooting work bus.

We talked about this in our book, The Office BFFS. That would be the first book I've written. Yes, I should write a second book. Yeah, we didn't know yet.

Yeah, but by the time this episode aired, we did know, so when it premiered, there was a lot of press about this being our last season. But at this point, what we knew was that Rain had only signed up to do 13 episodes of Season nine. Because he and Paul Lieberstein were branching out and developing a spinoff of the office called The Farm.

Featuring Dwight Yes.

And this is why Paul stepped down as showrunner and Greg stepped back in. The idea was that Rain Wilson would do a half season of the office, and then the farm would come out in January, and then Rain would leave the office, do the farm. And the two shows would overlap. Another thing that we knew was that Ed Helms only signed up to do a half a year because he was gonna leave in the middle to shoot The Hangover. 3. So we knew we would have Ed for a few episodes at the beginning and then a few at the end. So the only sort of two, like quote unquote lead characters that were left were me and John.

Yes, at Dunder Mifflin.

Yes, so. As a result, they asked John and I to come on this season as producers so that we could help direct the Jim and Pam storyline. Since it was gonna be our last full year together on the show.

And I have to applaud my BFF because all of a sudden. This meant that you were gonna have information that you couldn't share right away with me. Because you were now our producer, you were very professional, you never spilled the beans on anything, even though I'm sure you wanted to, so professional bff.

Thank you very much. It was actually very difficult.

I know it was, and I tried not to bug you because I knew it was hard.

And I appreciate that. ANGELA Well, like I said, by the time the season was ready to premiere, we all knew it would be our last season. And we did tons of press and interviews about it. You can see all of them on officetelly..com. AnGELa We are all so emotional.

I know I watched a few, we're all very weepy.

Phyllis is like choking back tears the entire time she's being interviewed. And I feel like, if you want to truly understand how emotional we all were, you just have to listen to Creed's interview because he does not make a single joke in the interview.

Yeah.

He's totally serious. I have the audio clip.

Let's hear it. Yeah, I think we wanna go out with a bang and raise our game and walk out of here. Feeling like we've. Well, we already feel like we've been on a winning show and we've left a mark. And but I always see you wanna take it up, take up the take the bar, raise the bar a little bit higher. So I think we're all pulling together as a team and not that we always haven't, but yeah, it's good. It's kind of, I wouldn't say I'm not modeling about it, but it's been. It's this family, you know? It's gonna be sad leaving these people.

Right?

Oh yeah.

Right?

Because Creed normally cuts stuff with a joke, you know, but that was just so honest, and yeah, yeah.

And I felt like it kind of summed up perfectly how we felt about it.

Yeah.

Are you ready for fast? Fact number two I am.

I'm just like, Oh my gosh, am I gonna be weepy this whole last season? Nine, maybe, maybe okay.

Well, fast. Fact number two is all about finding our new guys, Clark and Pete.

Yes, R. Plopp and Dwight Jr. who could have been called Fart, but.

No, you know, went another way, went another way. Well, we got a lot of fan mail. Corey K.

I bet two new people coming in at this stage in the show.

She said She auditioned people in New York, she auditioned people in Los Angeles. And one of the reasons that they searched so intensely to cast these two actors was because. At this point, there was an idea that the office would continue into season 10, even if some of the regular cast members moved on. The idea was that these two new people were gonna move us in to the next generation of the office. And Clark Duke did an interview where he said, When Jake and I joined the show, the idea was that this was gonna be a show. Like, Er, where new leads could move in and out. And it might run for like, 20 years.

The comedy, Er, yes, the 20 years in Dunder Mifflin, just rotating people through this paper company.

That's right.

The most successful small paper company.

With a documentary that never ends.

Never ends.

Well, Allison knew Clark Duke, who was cast as Clark. he was cast first. He had done a show called Clark and Michael, starring himself and Michael Cera. He was also in Hot Tub Time Machine with Craig Robinson and Kick-ass. He was sort of in that Judd Apatow comedy circle.

I was really flattered when they approached me about it. I'm a big fan of the show and have been since it started, I guess nine years ago. And the British one before that. So I was very excited, thrilled to be a part of it. My character is also named Clark, which is convenient because it's easy to remember on the call sheet, too.

But you never found out for sure.

We never found out for sure, but I did start sending his family my Christmas card just in case, just in case, and his mom would send me their Christmas card.

I just love that. Well, let's move on to Jake Lacey now, who got the role of Pete. Allison said that they read a couple hundred people for the role of Pete, and eventually they settled on a handful of people. They flew Jake in from New York to meet with Greg.

By the way, not having a lot of TV credits with Greg doesn't mean anything.

No, that was the wonderful thing about all of us getting cast on the office. He was like, I don't care about your experience, are you great?

Done.

You get the job. Jake did an interview at the start of the season where he said he had started watching the office when he was in college. And he was a huge fan of the show. And I remember this, Angela, I remember talking about this, it made me feel very old on set.

They were so young, we were dinosaurs, I remember feeling very old around them.

Me too, I loved them.

I know they were wonderful and, you know what, they were this really fun new energy.

They were the new guys.

They were, it was great having them around. Here's my little thing about Jake Lacey. I was walking down the hallway to the set. We had this sort of area behind the set we've talked about where hair and makeup was.

That's so funny, I remember you telling me that, and I hear it, I can hear it. Well, we will have more stories about these guys and obviously we're gonna ask them to come on office lady.

Yes, Jake and Clark, you have to come on.

Now, fast fact number three is a fan question from Elsa S in Minnesota, who asked This episode is the first time. We see a big shift in Andy's personality. That continues for the rest of Season nine.

Elsa Oh my gosh, Elsa, I have so many thoughts on this. I'm so glad you wrote in, Sorry Jenna, I interrupted, you, go on.

No, no, Elsa went on to say. He has always had flaws, but generally been a likable guy until now. Do you have any insights into why the writers chose to make this change?

Well, clearly, from what you shared, he was gonna be leaving the show. But my thought is like, I imagine this writers room meeting, which I know didn't happen. Where they're like, how do we just burn Andy to the ground? I know, how do we make him so horrible?

Well, I traded emails with Greg Daniels about this episode and he said, yes. They knew that Ed was gonna be missing for a big chunk of episodes in the middle of the season. And they had to write toward that, they had to come up with a reason why he was gonna disappear. So that kind of started from there and they worked backwards. But in the writers room, they talked about who is Andy, and Greg said. He was originally a guy with anger management issues who put his fists through a wall and over in Stanford. He had been introduced as kind of like an antagonistic, Dwight-like, annoying deskmate for Jim. And they wanted to bring back some of the old qualities of the character.

Foolishness-ness.

I don't know.

That's ultimate foolishness if you're foolishness-ness.

It's ultimate.

It's ultimate.

Finally, Greg said that this change in Andy's character was also gonna help kind of serve his vision, which was to center the season around Jim and Pam and Dwight and Angela as our core characters and follow their relationships through well, Ange, that's all I got. That was a long top of show today.

Yeah, you had a lot of stuff, I loved it all.

A new season, it's a new year, yes.

Well, I have quite a bit for this episode from my digital clutter, I have call sheets.

Ooh, ooh.

But why don't we take a break, cause when we come back, we'll get into this episode.

I have a lot of questions about Erin's new hairdo. Oh, to kick things off, okay?

Well, we are back, Erin is at work. She's very excited because Andy's coming back today. Andy's coming back today, Nellie's not so excited.

Why is she nervous? I mean, I'm gonna have to say that as we go through the very top of this episode, I have some continuity things that don't quite line up.

Yeah.

I'm gonna bring them up. And the first one is, why is Nellie nervous about Andy's return? If we don't know that he's a total jerk yet, right? Did something happen we didn't see before he left?

I might have a few things from the shooting draft that might help, but not really. there's just some continuity holes.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I said I had a lot for my digital clutter and I found a call sheet for this episode. It was originally called Workplace Bully. Yes.

Yep.

And I was trying to Mom Detective something, so I reached out to Steve Burgess and I said, Can I have all of the call sheets for this episode? Here's what I was trying to Mom Detective. Which then also just opened up a whole bunch of great stuff on the call sheets. But this is what it started with. I found an email that I sent to you this week titled Earthquake.

Oh, okay.

This is true, mom detective already, right? It's like, we have a thing and we don't know the answer.

So I thought, maybe it might've been somewhere in the call sheets, they would do that.

They would put the weather, they might say there was an earthquake, so I looked through all the week's call sheets, there is no mention of an earthquake. For all I know, there was a big truck driving by my trailer.

Their first day back to work after the summer break and it's gonna kick off with some slackline practice.

And it's in the nineties. Wow, and then Jenna? As I was looking over the call sheet, I saw this little thing that just made me smile. You'll remember it as soon as I say it.

Mm-hmm.

And basically, they would share fun little tidbits and feature one person a day. I loved them so much, I would look forward to them. So I thought I'd sprinkle a few of those in. But let's get to this episode.

Well, I love that. We'll have little news breaks we'll have where you help us get to know our cast and crew.

We'll have call sheet news breaks.

Oh, this is, I hope, gonna be a new element here for season nine.

Oh, let's do it.

Let's get all the call sheets. Yes, well, next up, Erin is gonna have a talking head. Where she explains that David Wallace sent Andy on an outward bound wilderness adventure. It's supposed to help with his confidence and his decisiveness. David Wallace's son also went.

Big time.

You know, we got a fan question from Chloe S. in Baltimore, Maryland, who said I am a full-time lead instructor. They're not called counselors and trainer at the outward bound school in Baltimore. Chloe said This episode makes me laugh out loud every time.

Thank you Bundles. I wonder what your trail name would be?

Oh, I don't know what's your trail name?

Snacks, snacks, mine's snacks.

Do you get to pick your own name or does someone give it to you?

No, I'm sure someone gives it to you, I bet that's the spirit of things.

Chloe, How's it work?

What are our trail names? CHLOE Well, Dwight is now gonna arrive to work. This is so interesting to me that everyone is talking about their summer. Jenna, you and I had a sidebar conversation. I guess. The documentary crew takes off for the summer.

Every year, they take off for the summer.

It just happened to coincide with our hiatus as well. Yeah, so Dwight says, you know what? During his summer, he created a new energy drink made from beet runoff. It's so good.

Yeah.

Before we get to that, I just want you to know. I thought about making some kind of beet runoff drink for us today because I did make beet vodka.

But you didn't.

I didn't because I looked it up and I don't think you can drink it. And in fact, the only thing I found that you can do with beet runoff. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong is I found that they're using it as an alternative to road salt.

It's true, like in bad weather.

I guess. For years, engineers have been trying to find alternatives to road salt, which can cause less damage to the environment and to our infrastructure. It's very bad for concrete, so they've started using this type of beet juice runoff.

Hmm, yeah, it doesn't sound like you should put it in your body then, right?

Well, it says that it's capable of causing a disruptive effect on the environment disruption in ice crystals, much like salt.

Hmm.

You know, the article was very interesting, I'll put a link to it, but there was a comment section, Okay, and there was a comment that made me laugh out loud.

Oh.

So, you know, I guess there are some uses for beet juice runoff.

Okay.

Yeah, I don't think you should be drinking it.

Well, if the next scene is any indication if you should be drinking it, I think it's gonna be another no. Mm-hmm. We flash back to the hospital waiting room. Dwight and Angela are there.

Angela's put her hair in a ponytail.

Oh, fan catch from Jenna F in Los Angeles, California.

Wait, I know a Jenna F in Los Angeles.

Well, Jenna had some questions about how Angela's hair is suddenly in a ponytail.

And how long have they been there, and why do we have a blanket?

I don't know, but the doctor's gonna come out and break the news that Dwight is not the father.

Yeah.

And then Dwight is gonna vomit his beet energy drink all over Angela.

All over.

Fan catch from Jenna F in Los Angeles, California.

Jenna wrote in a lot for this episode.

Yes, she did. Dwight says he started making his beet runoff juice over the summer, so how did he vomit it all over Angela at the hospital, which was before the summer?

Yes, this was not explained in the shooting draft.

And now Angela fan question from Valeria in Italy Obviously I need to know how Angela and Rain shot the vomit scene. I can clearly see that some of the stuff went into Angela's mouth.

Okay, I have all the details. First of all, the reason I have a ponytail is because they were worried this stuff was gonna get in my hair and we wouldn't be able to reset as quickly.

Okay.

Right, so that would mean washing my hair, blow drying my hair flat, ironing my hair. You can't do that in between takes, so that's why the ponytail. Secondly, they made this. It looked like, you know, when people go hiking and they drink out of those like pouches of water and they have the little bendy straw they suck on.

Yeah, like, camelback, right? Yes, that's it.

They made one of these and they sort of strapped it to rain under his blazer jacket, really. So he turned to me when it was time to vomit and just kind of squirted this blue stuff all over me.

So it didn't really come out of his mouth.

No, no, I would have never guessed that.

You really thought that rain?

They had rain, spit blue like hurl blue stuff at me out of his own mouth, yes.

No, that's what it looked like to me. To me, I would have never guessed that this was rigged. It looked so real.

No, it's look at it, it looks so projectile.

I know I couldn't figure out how he did it.

It was a little like camelback thing that he squirted with the hose, he had, like a little hose thing. That's why he turned so much to the wall. But yeah, it got all over me.

Did it get in your mouth?

Some of it went in my mouth.

What did it taste like?

I do think it was like some kind of blue Gatorade. I do. I can't remember. it didn't taste horrible. Okay, I can remember that.

How many takes did you do? Do you remember?

I don't remember, but I think we had to. I know we did two for sure, and I think we might've gotten it in two, but it was a lot to clean up.

Well, before we move on, I would like to give a guest star shout out to The Doctor, who was played by Oliver Vacour. He's done a mix of comedy and drama. He was most recently in the Barbie Movie. And he co-created and wrote a fictional true crime podcast called The Angel of Vine, which stars Alfred Molina and Constance Zimmer. Oh, your friend, Constance.

I love Constance and Monk Crossover My character kills Alfred Molina and Monk.

There you go.

There you go, well, we're gonna continue finding out what people did over the summer. Kevin shares that his summer was an emotional rollercoaster. I guess he was pulling into the parking lot and he ran over a turtle. And then he tried to save him by gluing his shell back together. But he's really not good at puzzles, so he just kind of found random things on his desk to help make the shell.

We got a fan question from Jenna F. in Los Angeles, California, who would like to know if the documentary crew was on a break over the summer. How did they get all the footage of Kevin running over the turtle and gluing it back together?

Jenna F has caught a lot of continuity errors in this episode.

Well, she has questions.

I found some fun stuff online about this episode. First of all, there was a great fan catch about the moment where Kevin runs over the turtle. They did a side-by-side of when Michael Scott hits Meredith. The moments are framed exactly the same, and both characters go from this moment of like, being really happy to these looks of like, oh shit. And they did a side-by-side.

I love that.

There was also some online chatter about Kevin's Turtle. Here's something I found on a Reddit thread, a user said Season nine Episode one New Guys Is Kevin's Turtle an allegory for the show?

Oh my gosh.

I mean, did was the show like run over? And then he was trying to piece it back together.

Only to discover that it was dead. Oh, no, I mean, I hope not.

I know.

So now we're gonna hear about Jim and Pam's summer. They have a talking head together, and Pam sort of says, Nothing new happened. But then Jim says, What are you talking about? You did that mural in the kids room. Yeah, lady, I want you to know.

So did my daughter. We both loved this little detail of our nurseries.

And so I said, what if Pam starts painting murals, if this becomes kind of a side gig for her? Because we know she's not gonna do graphic design? She didn't like it, she didn't take to it, I said she is a paint on canvas kind of person.

I love that. And now Pam is going to gush on Jim a little bit, she says. You know what? Jim's friend is starting a sports marketing company, and it was based on an idea that Jim had back in college.

Yeah, and he says he wanted Jim to be part of the company, but it's happening in Philly and that didn't really work for their family. But still, how cool, right?

Yeah, and Jim says, I mean, he'll probably make a billion dollars off my idea.

Yes, well, this was John's pitch. When we were sitting down with Greg talking about season nine, we wanted to talk about what is gonna come between Jim and Pam. That is not another person.

Right?

What is gonna test their relationship? And John pitched, What if Jim finally has an opportunity outside of Dunder Mifflin? But taking that opportunity is gonna cause tension between him and Pam? And that is how we got that storyline.

I mean, I thought it was a really great storyline.

Yeah, it already made me mad. In this episode, we'll get to it.

Next up, Toby's gonna share some things that happened over the summer. Kelly is gone, her fiance, Robbie fiance. Oh yeah, fiance.

Well, we got a fan question from Kay Elizabeth in Oxford, Ohio, who is a graduate of Miami University and was also very familiar with the confusion between Miami University and University of Miami.

Yeah.

Kelly is also confused. Yes, she believes she's going to Florida.

She walks through the office, throwing coats at everyone. I remember this.

I do, too.

I remember after she threw me the coat, I thought, Oh, I'm gonna use it to cover my legs in the next scene because it was freezing.

You're like, I'm gonna keep this.

Well, it was, you know, in the nineties outside, so they crank the air on the inside.

Kay Elizabeth went on to say quote. My fellow Red Hawks are all too familiar with the fact that Miami University was an established school before Florida was even a state.

Yeah.

And often get Florida-related questions from non-Ohioans.

Toby is then gonna share that. Ryan quit shortly after Kelly left and moved to Ohio for quote unrelated reasons. Then we see Ryan at a bus stop with his luggage and trash bags full of clothes, he says. Based on market research, southern western Ohio is the Silicon Prairie, aka the next Silicon Valley.

Fan deep dive from Elliot Kay in Southwest Ohio, who says I cannot wait for you to address the opening. When Ryan leaves the office suddenly to follow Kelly, of course, Ryan needs an excuse to not just be following a girl. So he claims that he's leaving for southwest Ohio because it is the next Silicon Valley, which he calls the Silicon Prairie. But this opening grates on me like nails on a chalkboard every time, for two reasons. Do you wanna hear why Elliot is so annoyed?

Elliot I would love nothing more.

Elliot is annoyed because southwest Ohio is hundreds of miles away from the nearest prairie, but more importantly, Elliot is annoyed because Southwest Ohio was the original Silicon Valley.

Oh so, this stings, Elliot.

It does, Elliot says. Have you ever flown on a plane, started a car, bought something requiring a cash register, opened a can of pop, used an ice tray, eaten a cheez-it. Because all of these things, and many more, were invented in Dayton, Ohio. Daytonians are a proud people. So will you please do what you can to set the record straight? P..S Don't let North Carolina fool you. Ohio invented flight.

Wow, Elliot.

Yeah.

Hot to trot.

Sure is.

That's a lot of impressive things that were created in Dayton.

Should we go to Dayton? I bet there's a museum about it.

I bet there's a factory.

Oh, there's gotta be a factory or two for the Cheez-it, maybe the Cheez-it factory. Is it in Ohio?

Elliot, tell us which factory to go to in Dayton.

Thank you for sending in that deep dive. We're happy to set the record straight.

Yes, next up, Jim and Pam are gonna say, Well, that's our summer, and they're gonna start to take off their mic packs. This was huge. This is part of Greg's plan to start really showing the documentary crew, right?

And we're gonna hear the voice of the documentarian.

Dave Rogers.

Yes, our editor, and sometimes director.

Pam says something we've all been thinking. She says. Don't you guys have all the footage you need? It's just a paper company.

Yes, and the documentarian says, Well, we're actually kind of following you guys, I think, meaning all of you guys in your lives. And Pam sort of says, Well, listen, you can follow us. But I don't think anything interesting is gonna happen to us for a long, long time. We're in a routine, a life routine called working kids.

Oh, pushing on Jim's face.

Right?

Oh, Lord.

This was another one of the pitches that we came up with over the summer, which was that. Pam is happy and content, and Jim starts to get a little restless. Which I think is a very relatable, very real thing in a marriage.

I think it is the show is gonna start. Erin is still very excited, telling everyone Andy's coming back.

And we got a fan mail flurry about her new curly hair. She's standing at the window and the sunlight is coming in, and you can very clearly see that her hair has bumped up to a much brighter red color.

Yeah.

It's curly. Ann M, from Florida, said. Holy Moly. Erin's wavy hair is awesome. Tally M, from Canada, said. This new curled style looks amazing.

What?

I have no answers, I don't know.

Way to mom Detective Well, you know what? I think she had some time away from Andy, maybe she's trying to find herself a little.

You know, that's what we said when Pam changed her hair.

Usually, when women change their hair, they're going through something. Just word to the wise. Well, our two new employees enter the bullpen. They ask where they can throw away coffee filters. They get a lot of Stanley and Phyllis Sass.

They really do.

Just right away, Toby has a talking head where he says the new guys back in the annex are in their 20s and he gets along really great with them. They all play video games in their computers, although it looks like Toby's really bad at it.

Yeah.

They're just three single guys getting into trouble. Well, there are two delicious candy bag alts for this Toby talking head. They were in the shooting draft. I want to share them with you. Here's one.

I was born in the wrong generation.

Well, that's one of my problems.

Stop breaking my heart, Bud, oh, come on. Well, Stanley is going to say that the new guys are like the new Jim and Dwight. Nellie agrees, Phyllis agrees.

And if that makes him the new Jim, then every human in the world is new Jim.

I thought that was really funny.

I did, too.

Greg said that from a storytelling standpoint, the theme of the year was kind of a realization from both Dwight and Jim that they had been at Dunder Mifflin for a very long time. By having these new guys come in, who everybody was calling the new Dwight and the new Jim, was a way to have Dwight and Jim. Think about just how long they've been in the same job, and maybe to prod them into getting their lives moving into the next stage.

Well, now it's time for a get to know your cast and crew moment from our call sheet. Yay. This one is about Anna Coates, who was our key assistant location manager. Three things you didn't know about Anna Coates. Anna's favorite book is The Poisonwood Bible.

I am gonna tell you right now that I'm gonna need this to become a regular thing. I should have been doing it all along.

Nothing like picking something up in the last stretch, Ange.

Guess what, everyone? Andy finally walks in the door. Apparently, when you come back to work for the first time, you're allowed to be late. He missed everyone, and he is immediately a jerk, immediately.

He said he had a dream. She died and then says, Meet me in my office later. Well, I'm gonna call a bullshard here.

What is it?

Because at the end of Free Family Portrait, Andy calls Nellie a sly bastard and hires her back as special projects manager. This was my question earlier. Yes, they even shake on it.

Right?

So I'm like, what happened? How did outward bound make Andy a colossal asshole? I found this in the shooting draft. It doesn't help much, but it might have tipped off why Nellie was nervous.

Okay.

Andy calls Toby into his office and says, Hey, why is Nellie still here? Didn't you get my postcard? Toby has a talking head where he's holding up a postcard. He shows the postcard to the camera and says, On the front is a pretty waterfall. On the back, it says, Fire Nellie. Then he smells it and says, I don't think this is ink.

Oh, oh.

What did he write it in? We don't know, but it does tell us that Toby might've known that Andy wanted Nellie gone. Okay, okay.

Okay, now Andy's gonna greet the new guys and he's gonna give them nicknames.

Yeah, he said, because outward bound is all about nicknames. His was Iceman, he decides P will be Plop because he dumps all the time, and he was gonna call Clark Fart. Because they both do these things constantly, even though he doesn't know them at all, doesn't know any of their BMs.

You know what? We got a fan question from Jenna F. in Los Angeles, California.

Uh-oh, Jenna wrote in again.

Who would like to know who hired the new guys? If Andy was away? Oh, good call, and was there a postcard to Toby saying, Hire two new guys, yeah?

I wanna make fun of him and call him plop and fart.

Exactly.

Daryl says they've been calling Clark Dwight Jr.

Clark says I prefer fart.

I know, but Dwight is very excited about this idea. He's like, in a way, he has a son. Maybe someday they'll hire someone who looks like a younger Clark, and then he'll have a grandson.

So ridiculous, it's so incredibly ridiculous. Well, next up starts a storyline for Angela. But I think we should take a break and then we'll come back and discuss the rehoming of Comstock.

Yes, it also has a line that I get quoted a lot.

I know it.

Well, we're back and we're over. In accounting. Angela's sharing that she has to put up one of her cats for adoption, Kevin wonders which one and starts listing them. This is how it read in the shooting draft.

Yeah.

Angela says No. The one with the long hair and the denim pants. Comstock She shows Kevin and Oscar photos of Comstock. And this is what the shooting draft said. There's a video of a long-haired cat in little jeans sitting on a motorcycle and sitting on a pillow being hugged by the senator as the song Nobody Does It Better plays. The videos of Comstock were some of the first scenes that we filmed on day two of filming this episode, which was July 31st. And there were some additional notes on the call sheet for this day, here's one.

More slackline rehearsal?

Second slackline rehearsal for those guys. Kevin is now gonna offer to take Comstock, but Angela quickly rejects this because of Hello the Turtle, okay?

Hey, Kevin is enormously proud of what he did for that turtle.

She says, Oscar, will you take him? and he says, No, I'm a dog person. And here, for those of you who know all of Angela Martin's famous lines, is one of my famous lines. If you pray enough, you can change yourself into a cat person, and Oscar says, Those guys always turn back Angela.

I know it's so funny. And we got a fan question from Ellen C in Scotland, who said. I have a theory that Angela got her cat, Comstock, when she was dating Andy, and that maybe it was Andy who named the cat. Because I noticed that in season five, episode six, when Andy is getting annoyed with Dwight for applying to Cornell, Dwight references Comstock Hall, which is a building at Cornell.

ElLEN I saw a few comments like this. I think it's really a great catch. I mean, I like to think that Andy got her this cat, but I think she is also worried about Phillip's allergies. Yep, I like to think that everyone Angela ever dated got her a cat. She has comstock, she has garbage.

Yeah.

We are now in Andy's office, he's getting off the phone with David Wallace. Toby enters, and Andy is gonna ask him why Nellie is still there, and Toby says, You know what? He can only fire her for cause.

Yeah, but Toby says, Well, now we can't fire her because you told me that it's gonna be made up.

And now I know.

Yeah, and Andy's like, Well, forget, I said that, and Toby says, I can't forget because I went to the Weintraub Memory Academy. Yes, not real. I looked it up.

Not real, I looked it up.

Which one?

There's so many, but when Dwight invites him to a slayer concert, that's 10 months away. Like, who does that? It made me very curious, though I was like, what is invitation etiquette? I went to emilypost.com.

Notice.

Notice.

Okay.

Holiday dinner two weeks to two months.

Okay.

Formal dinner three to six weeks.

Well, listen, if you wanna go see a Taylor Swift concert, you might need to talk about it 10 months in advance, a year in advance. Yes, so sometimes I think it depends on who's playing, yeah.

Well, Clark is gonna tell Dwight he'll be busy in 10 months.

Yeah, he's pretty sure he's busy that night.

Yeah.

So Dwight's gonna pivot. He's like, Dude, what's up with you? Like, let's talk farming.

Yeah, are you a fruit guy or a root guy?

And Clark said, Is this some sort of code for gay stuff? Because, I mean, I'm totally fine with it, but I'm into the ladies. Ah, spoken like a true root man.

And then Clark says, Hey, if you're ever swapped, maybe I could take some of your sales calls. Oh, no.

Now Dwight is done, you're not my son anymore, I'm over you.

It's done.

It's a quick turn.

Oh yeah.

Dwight is gonna go warn Jim. I think the new guys are trying to take our jobs, yeah. And so Jim immediately decides to mess with him and says, Oh, yeah. That must be what Pete was talking about at the sales meeting yesterday. Dwight's like, What sales meeting? what are you talking about?

Yeah, I guess. Clark ended the meeting with karate. Apparently he's above a black belt. Oh, lady. The scene was longer.

It was.

And Dwight keeps coming back and reporting to Jim about it, and I need to play a clip because there's a Star Wars reference.

I don't know, I thought you guys really had a good father-son thing going, kind of like Luke and Darth Vader.

No idiot, Luke and Darth Vader are enemies.

What?

Yeah.

Darth Vader tried to attach a hand on Luke's arm.

No, he cut it off. What Star Wars are you watching? Luke is trying to destroy Darth Vader.

Well, Angela, as you know, I understood that entire scene, I understood why it is funny. I chuckled along with it. Because we revealed on our Monday Mailbag episode that ran back in December that I watched Star Wars.

She watched Star Wars and didn't tell me.

So if you want to hear it and you want to hear Angela's reaction, go back and listen.

My reaction and Sam's we couldn't believe it. Angela now addresses the bullpen. She has a flyer for Comstock and she shares that he needs a home and she'll be conducting 20 minute interviews for anyone interested. Phil Shea made those flyers.

Yeah, Pam is like, I never entered this contest.

Well, time to turn on the charm.

Next up, Andy has called Nellie into his office. And this scene is really going to make the original title of this episode make sense. Because there's going to be a lot of workplace bullying.

He says he doesn't like to throw around the B word, but he's going to be a huge bitch to her.

Yeah, God, Andy, I know.

He doesn't stop there, he's now set up in the parking lot a slack line to teach focus and discipline, and, in some cases, humiliation. Yeah.

He's gathered everyone down in the parking lot and he says, we're going to walk across it. And if you make it, you're going to feel awesome, but if you toby out, you're going to feel like a real Nellie.

Yeah.

He's also brought along a couple of the instructors from his outward bound trip, Rafe and Feather.

Yeah.

So this scene would have continued. I was in the script looking up some descriptions of the stunts, and I came across this little nugget. You know, Andy is referring to these guys by their outward bound names, and they are going to refer to Andy as Iceman. And then Rafe is going to explain to camera. We called him Iceman because he always complained about his canteen water being warm. That's how Andy got his nickname.

Not because he was like, really tough and could be out there freezing and be fine. While Rafe and Feather are helping set up, Jem is going to find out that he has nothing in common with Plop.

Yeah, he really tries to bond with him, but there's nothing, he lists a bunch of things and there's nothing.

Nope.

We had a fan question from David H. in Preston, England, who wanted to know who plays Feather, The Tightrope guy. He's not listed on IMDB. Well, David, it was Cody Gilbert, and he is a professional stunt person. The character of Rafe was played by Jeff B.

First up on the slackline, Andy's going to make Nellie go, he says. Take off your heels, get up there. She says. No, I'd rather keep them on. I'm very insecure about my feet, so she gets up on the slackline in high heels.

Yeah.

And we don't even know if she can do it because Andy immediately pushes her off face down.

Yes, so we had a stunt person for Catherine Tate. Catherine's stunt person was Jennifer Cobb. But Catherine still had to try and get up on that slackline with the high heels before we cut to the fall. That was really her in high heels getting up on that slackline. It was bonkers.

I can't believe that you can just shove someone to the ground at work and not have any repercussions.

I mean, don't get me started.

Don't get me started, there's a little something in the shooting draft I'm going to share here in a minute. Where they would have tried to address it. Clark is now going to volunteer. He gives it a try and he crushes it.

Yep, this is going to inspire Dwight to try. I mean, Dwight Jr. did it. let's see Dwight Sr.

Yeah.

It doesn't go well.

How many times could one person fall off a slackline?

There was one time when he falls on his shoulder and I could barely watch it because it reminded me of breaking my own shoulder. We had fan questions from Ashley O. in Utah and Heather F. in California, who wanted to know. Did Rain perform his own stunts, was it choreographed or planned, how he would fall? Did Rain make any of the creative decisions on how he would fall? Well, I'll tell you guys, it was rain. And it was also his stunt double Kevin Foster, who is also the person who doubles for him.

I did love that he tried the door and it wouldn't open me, too. Because I feel like that's so classic. When you want to quickly get away from a situation and you can't.

Yes.

Well, immediately after the slackline scene, Toby would have called a conference room meeting about workplace bullying. It was in the shooting draft. It's a really long conference room scene, everyone attends and they all share when they felt bullied by Andy.

Okay.

Toby starts off the meeting and says, I felt bullied when Andy said he knew why Michael hated me, Pete says. I felt bullied by Andy when he gave me a nickname I'm not comfortable with. And then Andy says, Hey, Andy's a nickname, maybe you're bullying me right now, and Toby says, Toby's a nickname, too.

Wow.

You're changing the subject. Then Kevin says Angela bullies me, she won't let me have her cat because I killed my turtle so many times. Everyone starts turning on everyone, then somehow everyone ends up ganging up on Creed. And he leaves the room and the camera follows him to that hallway where we all go to have private conversations.

And Creed starts crying, Oh, no, yeah.

Then it comes back to the conference room scene and things get really heated between Phyllis and Angela. You have to hear it.

And how can I be a bully? I'm a sweetie pie, you're a bitch, oh God.

Angela calls Phyllis a bitch, and then Stanley goes, Oh, no, and Stanley has brought an extra crossword and passes it to Jim. And then Jim leans over to Pam and goes well. I guess I'm not even the new Jim now, I'm the new Stanley, and then Pam goes well. If you become the new creed, I'll divorce you.

Oh my gosh.

I am remembering this now, as you describe it.

It was a huge, epic conference room scene.

Well, instead, this episode goes to the warehouse, where Dwight is deconstructing a bicycle. I'll have you know that this was also meticulously described in the script. There was a whole paragraph describing how he takes this bicycle apart. And it just delighted me because it's very Greg Daniels.

I bet Greg literally met with so many people and they had to have precise like drawings and sketches and the physics of it and how it worked.

Angela He made sketches.

I'm sure he did.

Steve Burgess sent them to me when we get up on the roof, like the whole thing, he sketched it out. And this is like, this is the mad scientist part of Greg's brain, and I think Greg would think he could really do this stunt. He just needs a counterweight, that's all.