Office Ladies - Prince Family Paper

Episode Date: September 1, 2021

This week we’re breaking down Prince Family Paper! When David Wallace asks Michael and Dwight to go undercover and scout out a family-owned paper business, Michael’s conscience gets to him. Meanwhile back in the office, everyone debates whether Hillary Swank is hot or not. (The ladies may get on a soapbox or two for this one.) Jenna does a deep dive on Hillary Swank, the ladies delve into all the creative production work that went behind building and shooting the Prince Family Paper company, and Angela shares a funny blooper where a cast member got bits of smoked almonds spit on them. So congratulate yourself for getting up and putting on clothes today, we think that’s hot and totally deserving of this fun episode.

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. Hi, Angela. Hey, Jenna. How's it going? It's going good. Are you ready to destroy a small family business today? Oh, Prince Family Paper. The Prince Family? They're the sweetest family.

Well, we're going to take them down. I guess we are. So awful and cringy. Oh, there's a lot of cringe in this one. There sure is. Guys, it's season five, episode 13, Prince Family Paper, written by B.J. Novak and directed by Assad Kalada. Here's your summary.

Oh. David Wallace calls Michael Scott on the phone. It's so funny to me. I'm so sorry to interrupt your summary that I acted surprised. That I was going to read a summary? Yeah, you're like, here's a summary. I went, oh. Oh.

Well, look, his sassy pants has a summary. She has one every weekend. Just expect it. OK, go. David Wallace calls Michael Scott on the phone. He wants to get his help gathering intel on a rival paper company called Prince Family Paper. Michael takes Dwight along as his backup.

And meanwhile, the gang debate whether or not Hillary Swank qualifies as hot. Yep. Yep. All right. I have to say one thing. I just got to get this out. Get it out.

There used to be a magazine. I don't know which one. You know who you are. They would do this thing. Who wore it best? Oh, yeah. They would put two people side by side in like the same dress or a skirt or pants.

And there was always one person that wore it best. Right. And they would have a percentage. Like people voted. Yeah, people voted. And you might have worn it best because you were tall and not 5'1". OK.

OK. And maybe you knew to wear the right kind of heels and someone else wore flip flops with it. OK. I don't know. Right. I'm just saying to that magazine and people that like to compare who wore it best or who's hotter, who's not,

I say suck it. Thank you, Angela. That's all I'm going to say. Well, that was clearly a general comment. Nothing based on personal experience, I can tell. I'll have you know I've also been the subject of a who wore it best. So I feel that.

Yeah. You know what? You all wear it best. We all wear it how we wear it. Yeah. OK. That's how I wore it. That's my body.

That's how my body wears stuff. How about who wore it? Me. I wore it. Yeah. 100% to me. Yeah. For wearing it.

And you know what? I got dressed this morning. You're welcome. As you can tell, this episode might have triggered something for us. As you can tell, two gals are sitting here. Not super appreciating debates on who's hotter, who's not.

Yeah. Kevin has a lot of thoughts about it. This might be the most Kevin ever spoke in a whole episode. Yes. I think this is his most line count ever. Possibly. Well, I think we should get to some fast facts.

I agree. Here we go. Fast fact number one, new director alert. Yeah. Assad Kalata. Yes. So our line producer, Randy Cordray, had worked with Assad before, and he told us that Assad was actually

originally supposed to direct an episode in season four. But that season got cut because of the writer strike. Oh. And so they slotted him for season five instead. So we could have almost gotten to work with this man earlier. And I tell you what, he is a delight. You guys, he's like television legend. He's directed everything.

Yes. He has directed 77 episodes of the facts of life and 117 episodes of who's the boss. I know who's the boss. If your name is Angela, you know who's the boss. What? So the female leads characters named Angela. You guys, this show was out in the 90s.

I was in college in the 90s. I cannot even tell you how many people left this on my answering machine. Angela. I had that on my voicemail. I would say on a monthly basis. That's crazy. Let me finish telling you a little bit about Assad.

We loved working with him. I found an interview he did where he said this, which I thought was so great. He said that the most essential thing for making a successful comedy is casting. He said that is because, quote, you cannot make the actor be funny. Comedy is all about rhythm, timing, pace and energy.

I agree. I thought that was so well said. Yeah. All right. Fast fact number two. We got a lot of fan questions about the hot or not storyline. This one comes from Joe S. Who asked what inspired the

subplot of the debate about whether or not Hillary Swank was hot or not? Was it a magazine that said who were at best? It wasn't. It wasn't. BJ Novak did an interview with Indie Week and he said that he was on a flight and two of the in-flight movies were PS I Love You and The Great Debaters.

They were both Hillary Swank movies. He was tasked with coming up with a B-plot for an episode and he thought, quote, why not debate about Hillary Swank? And then he decided that the characters could debate whether or not she is attractive. We got more questions from Amy J. and Rohit R. How does Hillary Swank feel about this episode?

Oh, wow. Good question. Very good question. Well, she did an interview with Time Magazine shortly after this episode came out. She was asked if she had seen the episode and she said this, I'm not a big television watcher, but definitely everyone made me aware of it.

Oh, geez. I think it's flattering anytime someone mentions you, but I don't think of myself in terms of that, meaning like she doesn't lead with if she's hot or not. Right. Later on in the interview, she was asked about women in Hollywood in general and she replied, there is so much put on the way we look,

which is interesting going back to your office question. Are you hot or are you not? It really does a disservice because there's so much more to life than looking a certain way. We love you, Hillary. Hillary. Well said. Well said.

Fast fact number three, Hillary Swank is a badass. Would you like to hear a little about her? Yes. All right. She was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. She competed in the Junior Olympics and the Washington state championships in swimming and she ranked fifth in state in all around gymnastics.

Wow. All around gymnastics. That's the one where you have to do all the things. You do everything. You do all the things. She ranked fifth in the state. Okay. Her parents separated when she was a teenager

and she really wanted to be an actress. So her mom moved with her to Los Angeles when she was 16 years old. And she's spoken a lot about this. They did not have a lot of money for a while and they lived out of their car. They did eventually find a place to live. She enrolled in school and then when she was 20,

so four years after she moved to LA, she landed the starring role in the next karate kid. Julie Pierce. Yeah. Yeah. You know all about this, Ange. I do because you guys, I got really into Cobra Kai this past year.

Are you guys watching Cobra Kai? It's so good. I'm not watching it. Should I be watching it? I am loving it. It's also just major, like 80s nostalgia. It's so good. Is this something I can watch with my kids?

Or is it more adulty? I've heard it's a little bit skews older. It's skews older than my kids. Yes. I'm not watching it with my kids. Oh, this is your time. Yeah. Okay.

Josh and I watch it together. I'm sure there's, you know, teenagers that watch it, but Josh and I watch it together. So basically it's sort of picking up where they are now, right? Mm-hmm. With the two lead guys. And John Hurwitz, who's the co-creator, they reached out to me to play one of the kids' mom.

What? Yes. And I wanted to do it, but it was filming in Atlanta, and you basically have to go to Atlanta for a while, and I couldn't do that. I couldn't be away from my kids for that long. Yeah. You know, it wasn't like an in and out.

But listen, John Hurwitz, if you ever moved to Los Angeles, if you ever decide to film here, I am there. People have been speculating, will Julie come back? Because they're bringing all the characters back. And this is what John Hurwitz said in an interview. They discussed the possibility of bringing Julie Pierce on the show. He said, in our writer's room, we speak about literally every character that has appeared

in the Miyagi verse. They call it the Miyagi verse. So it's obvious we've spoken about Julie Pierce as to whether or not she'll return to the series. That's something you'll just have to wait to find out. Ooh. I'm here for it, John. Bring her back.

Also, a little bit of office crossover. Jen Salata has directed several episodes of Cobra Kai. Wow. Yeah. I would love it if Hillary's like, Hillary, go back. Go do a guest star on Cobra Kai. It'd be so good.

And then maybe there's like some little bit you could do in her episode. Yes, Hillary, maybe I could be your best friend. This is it. And then I could go just for a week, John, just like four days. Yeah. Okay.

There, we worked it out. Jen Salata. Jen Salata directed. Make it happen. Make it happen. Well, Hillary Sink was 20 years old when she was a next Karate Kid. When she was 25 years old,

she did the lead role in Boys Don't Cry. Wow. And she won an Oscar. She is one of the youngest women to ever win an Oscar. She also won an Oscar for her lead role in Million Dollar Baby. That movie destroyed me. Those movies. I mean, they're, ugh.

There are only 12 other actresses who have won two or more lead actress Oscars. Those are both lead actress Oscars. So she's in a very impressive club there. She sure is. So that's Hillary Swank, y'all. Well, Hillary, we are here for you. We should take a break and we come back.

There is a classic Jim Prink. This episode opens with everyone just working at their desks. We're just working. Just a normal day. No biggie. But then Dwight discovers a red wire that's plugged into his computer. No other computers have red wires.

What is it? Yeah, it's a new wire. It's never been there before. Yeah. Well, he starts tearing at this wire. Yeah, he wants to know where it's coming from. Yeah. In the script, it says, Dwight pulls the wire off the floor

and follows it to the wall. It goes over a door frame, under Phyllis's desk, and Dwight crawls under Phyllis's desk. Oh, we did it a little differently. We did it a little differently. First of all, you can't crawl through Phyllis's desk because there was like a backstop, right? Yeah.

It doesn't go all the way through to Stanley's desk. And in the script, Phyllis says, Dwight, get out of there. And that's pretty much in the episode. And then Dwight would have said, shush, shush, shush. But I think Rain improvised, shut up, Phyllis. So Dwight's going to follow this wire into the hall. Yeah, all the way outside and up a telephone pole, which we can see over Jim's shoulder in Jim's talking head.

Right. And it is a real telephone pole. It's a real telephone pole. Jim says he got 500 feet of red wire at a flea market for 20 bucks. How long did this take him? Jim has a lot of extra time. He gets to work so early. I feel like Pam is like, you know what,

I know we were going to carpool, but you've got that Dwight prank, and you've got to go at three in the morning, and I'm going to sleep in. Yeah. Like, what's the real life side of that? I reached out to Randy to find out how we did this stunt of Rain up on this telephone pole.

Right, he can't climb a real telephone pole. That's not safe. No, because what he told me was that the pole over Jim's shoulder really is an actual working utility pole that's embedded in our sidewalk, you know, right out there. Folks, don't go climb it for a photo. Don't climb it. You can get electrocuted.

Yeah, it carried high voltage electricity. They couldn't even have a stunt person dressed as Dwight climb that pole. Yeah. So our production designer Michael Gallenberg and his construction team rented a matching utility pole. You can do that, I guess. No. Where is that?

I mean, seriously, how do they know these things? This is the crazy part of Hollywood magic. Oh, you know what I'm going to do today? I'm going to rent a fake telephone pole. Yeah. That's huge. Huge. Well, they put it up in our parking lot between the two sound stages,

and they put like a green padded platform around it. In case you fell? Yep. And they put up a big green screen behind the whole thing. And then they brought rain out along with like a stunt coordinator and a safety officer, and they had rain climb up. It was only a few feet that he had to climb. And then in post-production, they had their visual effects team

digitally add rain to the real pole over Jim's shoulder. They superimposed like one pole onto the other. Yes. Got it. Even though rain was really only a little bit off the ground, they could like hike it up so it looked like he was like halfway up the pole. Way up there. Yeah.

That's movie magic, folks. That is some good movie magic. But here's the thing that gets me about that. That's like real special effects, kind of like stunty stuff for our little TV show about a paper company. Like I never really thought hard about how much work it took to do that gag until we went to break it down. Yeah.

Right? Like it's such a quick little blip. And you're like, that was like two weeks of figuring that out. Of prep. Yeah. I feel like every week we are learning how much Michael Gallenberg, Kyle Alexander, Phil Shea, our wardrobe department, set designers, how they all made these little moments happen and made it seamless.

Yeah. I know, so much work goes into these little things. It's amazing. The fruit fly wrangler. We had to know they're like mating cycle. Craziness. It's crazy. Well, that was the cold open.

Now we start this episode. Michael's in his office. He's on the phone with David Wallace. I feel like David's really playing Michael here because he dangles out that regional supervisor job. He's like, you know, I still haven't filled that slot yet. And Michael's like, oh, and then he asked Michael to go do this thing. Yeah.

He's like a spy on this tiny little paper company. I know. To do some field work. Michael's so excited. Oh, yeah. During this scene, I was really struck by the toys on Michael's desk because they would rotate them. They would, you guys.

Every once in a while, there would be some new toys. Here's what was on his desk. A Rubik's Cube. Not finished. Mm-hmm. A tiny pool table. Yes. A colorful plastic expanding ball thingy.

You know that thingy? Yeah, yeah. That's a staple. Yes. And also the wind-up teeth. Those are always there. Yeah. But the pool table had moved.

So he's clearly played it recently. And it's on top of all the stuff in his inbox. He can't get to anything in his inbox. It's not important. The pool table is number one of things to do. Yeah. Oh, make me laugh. A miniature pool table in his inbox

says everything you need to know about Michael Scott's work ethic. That's right. Emily and Phyllis are going to start having this conversation about whether or not they think Hillary's swank is hot. And the rest of the gang gets involved. I feel like these kind of moments happen in small offices. You sort of start to debate things. Like you pick a soccer team during the playoffs

and people debate about the players and it can become a whole thing. And it's just a way to fill the boredom. Oh, for sure. I have a bone to pick with Jim. Why is that? At three minutes, 18 seconds, I titled this moment, what the hell, Jim?

What is the moment? Jim suggests they put it to a vote in the bullpen. Angela says she isn't voting. And Jim says nobody cares. Oh. What the hell, Jim? That's some Jim sass. Jim sass.

Did you notice what Pam said in the scene? What did Pam say? Pam says, did you see her with her bangs? Oh, and lady, this made me laugh out loud because I have just recently gotten bangs. People have a lot of opinions about it. They do have opinions about my bangs. But what made me laugh was that before I got my bangs,

I of course Googled images of people with bangs. You have to do research. You don't just, you got to look at all the pictures. You Googled people with bangs. You texted me, I think I'm going to get bangs. Yeah. To which I replied, oh no. I said, I think I'm going to get bangs right now

because like I was getting a haircut in the moment. By the time you replied, it was done. I know. I was like, oh, I was busy with the kids. I decided we were going to paint. I bought the canvas and all the paint stuff. We're outside. We'd made this huge mess.

I'd set my phone aside so I didn't get paint on it. And then I just thought I'd check in, see what's happening. And I see this text from you that's half an hour old that says, I think I'm going to get bangs now. And I was like, oh no, I didn't get to weigh in. But lady, I think they're adorable. I think they're super cute because they're curly. I'm loving it.

I bring it up because one of the people I saw in my research was Hillary Swank with bangs. So when Pam said this in the scene, it made me laugh. But I really based my bangs on some like Mia Farrow from Hannah and her sisters. You look very 70s kind of like beachy wave with bangs. A little bit of Terry Gar. Terry Gar wore some bangs like no one's business.

That's right. But my main inspiration was probably Stevie Nicks. And I will admit that after getting my bangs, I did style my hair in a full Stevie Nicks. And then I took pictures and I put them side by side. I was too shy to post. I want to see the side by side. You want to see my Stevie Nicks picture?

Oh my god. Do you have it on your phone? Yeah. I mean, I really did this. Oh my god. Jenna, this is amazing. Oh, you kind of did the same mouth expression. I tried it.

I put on the same necklace. I did like a whole thing. Oh, you did. We got to put that in Office Ladies Pod Stories, please. It's okay. I mean, I'm doing a whole pouty mouth, so I got a little bit like shy. You even did the dark eyeliner.

I did. I'm telling you. She was my inspo. This was a whole afternoon. I thought I knew your life. This was a whole day. I didn't know what was happening. I mean, I had to take off my glasses for the picture.

I know. Which actually made it a little hard to take the picture. Because I couldn't see through. Tell me about it. I can't tell you how many photos I've taken of Josh and the kids. Because you know, when you're like a family, one parent has to take the picture. Yeah.

And half the time I don't have my glasses, because I'm not good about wearing them. And Josh will be like, babe, these are out of focus. And I'm like, I can't tell. I just click. I love how we literally could not be more off topic right now. We are so off topic. Okay.

All right. We'll get back to it. Let's get back on topic. All right. All right. All right. So we are now, oh God, you guys, we're about to talk about a scene I absolutely loved.

It's a driving scene between Dwight and Michael. They're headed to Prince Family Paper. Did you notice how much they bicker in this scene? They're like an old married couple. I loved it. They bicker about who would seduce the fictional daughter. They don't even know if this person exists. Yeah.

And they bicker about Denny's and IHOP. They bicker about the clouds. Dwight says, get your clouds right. Michael tells them to shut up. But I have a background catch. What is it? Oh, it sent me down a Google path, Jenna. All right.

So whenever we have driving scenes, we always look for palm trees, right? Yeah. Spot the palm tree. And this one, I recognize the street they were on. It's Chandler Boulevard. It's a residential street. And guess what else I recognized? What?

It was trash day. And there were blue recycle bins in every driveway. I took a few photos. Okay. I'll put those in Pod. So then I thought, is that what the recycled trash bins look like in Scranton? Mm. And that took me to the recycling laws for Lackawanna County.

Oh. Hang with me because there's a woman named Barbara who I am now fascinated by. First of all, that is not what recycle bins look like in Lackawanna County. So theirs are like these blue round tubs. Okay. And unless they've changed, you guys can correct me. Ours are these like skinny rectangles with lids. Yep.

So here's an article I read from April of 2019. Barbara Giovanoli is the recycling coordinator for Lackawanna County. Barbara shared that the recycling center in Lackawanna County accepts plastics and glass bottles and jars, aluminum, still cans, as well as newspaper. It is a dual stream system. They have containers, bottles, jars and cans in one and paper fibers separately. They do not accept plastic bags, take out containers or pizza boxes. And apparently, lady, the recycle centers get all kinds of wacky things.

People put all kinds of crazy things in the recycle bins. Barbara has a tip for you. She wants you to know. She says there's an easy way to remind yourself what can and cannot be recycled at the Lackawanna County Recycling Center. Quote, ask yourself, is it a bottle? Is it a jar? If the answer is no, that means it has to be thrown away.

I want to meet Barbara. I want to meet Barbara. I want to meet Barbara. It's real simple. Ask yourself. Is this a jar? Is this a bottle? No.

Trash. Wow. Mm-hmm. We have to meet her. We have to meet her. Anyway, this was a random thing I noticed in the background. No palm tree siding, several recycle bins. Also, in the scene for those of you guys keeping track of how many times Michael Skarn has mentioned

in the series, this is one of them because it's going to be Michael's alias, and then they get into a real heated argument. I mean, that has history about Denny's and IHOP. Yeah. They're going to rendezvous after they get the info. Michael says at IHOP, and Dwight's like, I did not agree to IHOP. Socialist. Yeah.

He's like, you socialist. I'm going to Denny's. And Michael's like, you were going to IHOP and you will have pancakes and you will like it. What do you like? Do you have strong feelings about IHOP or Denny's? I really don't, but I would say I've had IHOP more because there was one right on campus when I went to college, basically like across the street, and we would walk over there.

And there's also one by my kid's pediatrician office. So I've just been to IHOP more. I would say that if I'm looking for a pancake, IHOP is going to come to mind. But I want to say these words to you. Oh, what? Moons over my hammy. Oh, is that? That's a Denny's special.

That's a Denny's special. And it's real good. Okay. So if I'm wanting more of an egg sandwich, I'm going to have to head to Denny's. And now I'm just craving breakfast. I know me too, Kina. Well, these guys do eventually get to their destination of Prince Family Paper. It's in like a little strip mall.

Right. And I got a location alert. Let's do it. We rented an empty mini mall near the corner of Laurel Canyon and Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood, California. We rented a whole mini mall. I guess we did because Randy said our location manager, Kyle Alexander, had to find a location where we could have some sort of office front that had all windows because we assumed that

if they were going undercover, they couldn't bring a documentary crew with them. Oh, that's so smart. I didn't even think about that. When I watched every single shot is through the glass. Yes. And so they had to be able to have a total glass front on this office. But then we also needed this giant parking lot. So he was able to find all of that in this little empty mini mall.

I want Kyle to come on the show. Me too. He's like the master of every amazing location. So good. Get this. We had to bring all those cars. And did you notice the fakie snow residue? We put fakie snow residue on all the cars.

They're still dirty from last week. I know. And then our production designer, Michael Gallenberg, had to create the entire Prince Family paper offices from scratch. Michael, we want you one too. Michael and Kyle, we want you one. We're coming for you. So they're in the car and Dwight's got a little pair of binoculars and they're coming

up with their plan. Dwight's binoculars are like industrial looking. They look like they have night vision. Yeah. And then here is my question. Through this whole scene, they are eating. What are they eating? Is it a giant can of nuts?

I tried to zoom in. What is it? Did you see it? I did. I did take a picture. I actually loved the blooper for this scene so much that I filmed the blooper and I sent it to Rain and texted him and I was like, what are you guys eating? And he was cracking up.

He said, Angie, I am pretty sure those were smoked almonds. Yeah. They looked like almonds, but they had like stuff on them. Yeah. And he was pretty sure they were smoked almonds. And while they're eating these almonds, they decide on a signal that they need to give each other if there's danger. Yeah.

They need to get out of there. And Dwight says, you got to lick your lips. And Michael does a quick lick. Meanwhile, they're eating these almonds the whole time and Dwight goes, no, like this and does this big like, think, yeah, and in the process of doing this, they started laughing and when they did Rain in his laughter in his goof off, he spit like projectile almond and like flew and hit Steve in the face. I have the blooper clip.

We're going to need a signal to bolt out of there at the slightest sign of danger. Okay. I'm not signaling as with your lips. Let me see. No, no, no. Like this. Oh, no. Oh, dude, I'm so sorry.

Oh, I'm so sorry, dude. He sprayed the side of his face with a wet half chewed almond. I mean, you can hear it come out of his mouth. You really can. And then rain felt so bad and he grabs like a tissue and he starts in the moment just reacted. He's wiping Steve's face. Oh my gosh, it's so good.

It's so good. Michael then has a talking head where he says that in nature, there is a food chain where the bigger shark eats the littler shark and so on until it gets to the single cell shark. Exactly. And basically, you know, that's what they are. They're sharks. And then as he's getting out of the car, he's doing the whole Jaws theme. He goes into Prince Family Paper.

He introduces himself as Michael Skarn and he sits down and he starts having just the most wonderful conversation with Mr. Prince. Michael's doing kind of a good job. He is. And you know, he completely charms Mr. Prince. He does. He's a lawyer who knows a lot about paper because he is a genius about some things but not everything.

Not everything. What's this? Is this a phone? Is this a phone? Mr. Roger Prince can't get enough of it. He's cackling, laughing. He also learns that Prince Family Paper is a three-person operation. Yeah.

Mr. Prince, his wife, Linda, and his son. Yes. And his granddaughter, Rebecca, sits in the corner. Angela, I did a guest star breakdown for the members of Prince Family Paper. Oh, great. So, Roger Prince, the father, was played by Dan Desmond, and I found this really interesting. From 1990 to 2001, he was in five different episodes of Law & Order and he played a different character each time.

Let me tell you, I love Law & Order and they do that. I know. They pull back. One time you're a police officer, the next time you're a judge. I was literally just watching Law & Order Marathon and I swear, Jeremy Sisto was like just a guest star, like a guy. And then in the next episode, he was a police officer in like a series regular. No, I don't doubt it.

Did that happen? I feel like the rules of Law & Order are sort of like a soap opera. Yeah. You can come back in many different forms. Well, they loved Dan Desmond over at Law & Order. He was also in the movie Bruce Almighty and most recently in the mini-series Little Fires Everywhere. Gang, gang.

Roger Prince Jr. was played by Dan Backendall. You might recognize him for his recurring roles on Veep or the Goldbergs or Space Force. He was also a regular on Life and Pieces. He has also been on Law & Order, but just one episode. Okay. Linda Price was played by Sharon Blackwood, who recently appeared in two episodes of Ozark has never been on Law & Order. None of them have been on Monk.

What? None. Craziness. Okay, wait. I have a Law & Order story. What is it? It's one of my more embarrassing audition stories. You auditioned for Law & Order?

I did. Shocker didn't get it. You'll know why. You guys, I was so excited. I love Law & Order. I would watch the marathon on TNT. I loved it. Yeah, same.

I still watch the marathon. I still watch it. If it's on, I'm watching it. All right. I got an audition. I was so excited. And I was very new to auditioning. Okay.

I had only booked a few commercials. It was to be a real estate agent. You know how the guys at the top of the show would like interview people while they were at work? And they're always too busy. They're always too busy to talk. They've got to get somewhere. Yeah, yeah.

This murder you're investigating is a big inconvenience to me. I have to show a house. Yeah, exactly. Are we done? Are we done? Exactly. I had just watched an episode where they were questioning these guys that were loading trash into like a garbage truck.

Yep. They did not stop loading their trash. No. They're going to keep, they're annoyed. I'm busy here. I got to keep the truck moving. Always. Always.

I had this in my brain. In the script, it said, they questioned a real estate agent. As she is setting out her signs for the day with the little flag, her showing signs. Yeah. Right? You know those things. Lady, I'm not even joking. I think I literally just saw this episode.

Are you kidding? Yeah, there was a blonde woman and she had to be blonde because that was part of the plot, by the way, and she was talking to them while putting out the little sign for selling the house. Okay. Oh my God. I saw the part you didn't get. Okay.

I went there and I'm like, okay, I got this. So it's the casting agent, she's sitting across from her desk. I was so nervous, but I was like, I got this. I got this. Literally, it's three lines. It's like three or four lines. That's it. All I had in my brain was, you will not interrupt me from putting out my real estate sign.

Yeah. That's the energy. Jenna, in this woman's office, I moved two chairs out of my way. Her chairs. Her chairs. We had to put up your sign. I moved them. And then when we started the scene, I am setting things out.

Setting it out. Moving things. Yeah. Busy. Busy. I'm moving things. And it must have been really distracting. She said, you know what?

I'm going to stop you. Oh no. You never want to hear that in an auction. No. She was like, you're doing too much. Okay. You're doing too much. Stop moving things around and just deliver the lines.

And I said, okay. This went into my brain as, don't touch her chairs, but do some great space work. Yeah. Mime it. Now I mime putting out real estate signs, mime, mime, mime, mime, mime. I must have just looked ridiculous. Yeah. I didn't get the part.

I did too much business. You know who's been on law and order? Who? Rainn Wilson. Oh. He plays a creepy janitor. Oh, I need to see it. During one of my marathons, I was just sitting there and I was like, oh, it's Rainn.

Rainn. There he is. You know, who else has been on Jackie DeBotton? Oh. Yeah. She was just on in the marathon I watched. Jackie. Well, if I ever get to audition for law and order again, I'm not going to do a lot of business.

Don't do it. Finally, Rebecca Prince, the little girl, was played by Emily Evan Ray. And she's going to come back in a couple of episodes, actually. Emily recently produced and directed a documentary called Stop the Bleed about the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. My gosh. Emily was born and raised in Parkland and she made the movie to give a voice to the family, friends, and the community who were affected.

She won the audience award at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival for Best Documentary. Wow. Yeah. That's what she's been up to. That's amazing. Yes. Well, on that note, I think we should take a break and then we'll be back to join the group at Dunder Mifflin because they have more to say.

There's a big debate going on. Well, we're back in the bullpen. Okay. And the debate is still going on, the hot or not. There's a whole debate about what is attractive hot. Right. Kevin has a lot to say. The most ever.

But first, Jim is going to comment that, you know, sometimes we forget to think of celebrities as real people. Kevin sort of says, it's a gut thing, right? And then Jim gets all up in Kevin's ear and gives like a husky whisper. With a sultry, paints a picture of Hillary Swank coming up to him. We got so much mail about John Krasinski's husky voice to Kevin in this episode. It was like just, I was too shy to put it in my document. Oh, come on.

Give me one nugget, something you remember someone saying. One nugget. Basically, this woman said, John Krasinski could debate anything in my ear if he uses that voice. It was so funny to me. But I did write down this one because Laura B needed a soapbox moment, so I thought I'd give it to her. Okay, Laura.

Laura says this, it always bothers me that when Stanley asks why they're making a distinction between beautiful and hot, Kevin says, quote, a painting can be beautiful, but I don't want to bang a painting. But later in the episode, Kevin turns around and tells Jim to respect the game after Jim narrates the saucy scenario with Hillary Swank. And Kevin says, no, it's, is she hot, not, would you bang her? But he just used the same phrase to explain why he wouldn't bang a painting. Kevin, you can't use the same argument on different sides.

That's what Laura B says. She says, you respect the game, Kevin. Yeah, Kevin. Laura, we hear you. Angela has been over and accounting. She hasn't wanted to participate, but she can't take it anymore. All right, Kevin holding court like this, she's had it. She gets up and she says, okay, I wasn't going to dignify this discussion by getting

involved, but I don't even get the discussion. Hot is a temperature people, but Kevin deserves to lose for what he said. So yes, she's hot. She's hot as heck. She's a female Boris Becker. I love that Boris Becker is it for Angela Martin. Who knew? I know.

I didn't even realize Angela Martin was a tennis fan. Really? Yeah. Well, y'all, Boris Becker was a German tennis player who shot to stardom when he won the Wimbledon Men's singles title in 1985. It was significant because he was only 17 years old and he was the first unceded player and the first German to win the Wimbledon singles title, as well as the youngest ever male Grand Slam singles champion.

It was huge. I watched it with my mom. She's a big, big tennis player. She's phenomenal. She was ranked by the USTA by her age group. I spent my whole childhood on a tennis court. Wow. Yeah.

My mom is like... I did not know that about your mom. Yeah. My mom's a badass tennis player. We're a big tennis family, guys. There are two things that are always on at our house, either the weather or tennis because my mom has the tennis channel. Yeah.

And we'll watch old games. Oh, I'd love it when Boris Becker would play Stefan Egberg because my mom had shown me old games of Beyond Borg and he was the other big Swede, there was Stefan and Beyond Borg and Beyond Borg would play John McEnroe. Speaking of, Boris Becker played John McEnroe and it's one of the longest games in tennis history. It was the Davis Cup. It was six hours and something minutes.

Can you imagine playing tennis for six hours? No. Unbelievable. I can't imagine playing tennis for six minutes. Anyway, Boris Becker does it for Angela Martin. I think we should go back to Prince Family paper, lady. We forgot to mention that Dwight has come in, he's going to pretend to get a job there. He says, fire your son, I'll be your son.

You can visit him on the weekends. I know. He comes in like pulling a china cabinet. And he's going to explain to Mr. Prince just how awful his current boss is, you know, because he says, why are you looking for a new job? And he's like, well, my current boss is cruel. Terrible. Meanwhile, Michael's kind of walking around.

He wants to get a photograph of their kind of territory map over there by Mrs. Prince. And then he offers to help her granddaughter with a math problem. I have to say, when I was watching these scenes, I was just so impressed with the detail that went into this little set. I know. Well, I was emailing with Michael Gallenberg about this particular set and he said, everything you see, they had to bring in. Crazy.

Crazy. I loved all the details too. Well, I noticed on that little girl's desk, did you see it? She had her own nameplate. I know. It says Rebecca. I know. And also on the desk are all of these little like hand painted ceramic animals, like the

kind that your granddaughter would give to you. And also I noticed on the wall, there was one of those photo collages, love framed photos. They had clearly asked the actors to bring in some pictures and all of those details to me just like really set this up as a family business and it made the whole storyline even more heartbreaking. No, they had a whole family photo wall. I zoomed in, one is like a wedding photo. And then there's like your grandson in his baseball uniform holding his baseball bat.

Yeah. And there was a big painting like your kids do at preschool where they take their hands and put it in paint and then they make their hand prints into flowers. Yes. Just like the most amazing details. I feel like this is Michael's true dream office because it is a real family. Yes. Angela, you're so right.

He wants his office to be his family. And this office is a family. I know. Well, that's going to weigh on his heartstrings. Well, as he wraps up his visit, he gets Mr. Prince to just hand him a list of their top clients. Oh, Mr. Prince, he's just so trusting. He's like, listen, if you want to see, we do a good job.

Here's all of our references. Here's all of our clients. Oh, well Dwight and Michael immediately start licking their lips. Yeah. Time to get out of there. Time to get out of there. Dwight says, sir, can you give me a ride home? Michael's like, yeah.

And then they sprint. They walk. They hurry to the car. Get out. Peel out. Peel out. Because they know they got all the info. Yes.

Well, as they're trying to flee, Michael runs over like the parking curb. It's so funny. He runs over the bumper. Yeah, I don't know what you call that thing. What do you call that? It's like a partition. It's like the cement block so you don't go into the other spot. I've done it.

I've done it. But I haven't backed back over it. No, of course not. Once you realize you go over it. Just keep going. Just keep going. Well, I asked Randy how did we do this stunt? What'd he say?

He said we had two different identical cars. One that was totally normal and one that was pre-rigged with a damaged bumper. So Steve never damaged a car. And if you notice, the camera stays inside the car on Dwight and Michael. So what Steve was actually driving over were just a couple of sandbags. Well, it totally sold it. It did. It didn't add all that kind of crunching effect in editing.

So yeah, fakie cement thing was actually sandbags and sound effects. The Prince family hears this commotion and they come running out. And of course, Mr. Prince, because he's so sweet, offers to fix the bumper. And they're like, no, no, no. We won't wait. No, please let us. We'll get a tow truck. And he's like, oh no, they're too expensive.

I got it. And Jenna, this scene made me think of my dad. It made me think of my dad too because of the duct tape. My dad would fix anything with duct tape. Same. My dad did this with my first car. The handle on my glove box broke. OK.

My dad duct taped it. You know what it's making me think of? What? Josh's duct tape is zip ties. All over the house. Your husband zip ties it. Our dad's would duct tape it. Yeah.

My dishwasher tray has been zip tied for four years. It finally fell apart. We had to get a new dishwasher. But you can pretty much fix anything with duct tape. Pretty much. Including a whole bumper. So now they're in the car. They're going to head back.

Dwight still is celebrating. He wants to do high fives. He calls them the soccer family. I know. Dwight is that, like, young kid on the soccer field who doesn't know when to stop? Yeah. Like, you scored the goal and I'll stop taunting. Yeah.

All right? Exactly. Michael is having some regrets. Yeah. Dwight tries to high five Michael. And Michael's like not having any of it. Yeah. So back in the office, Toby is studying Hilary Swank.

Pam is going to make a speech. She's going to appeal to the ladies of the office. Yeah. What? Are we going to let the kevins of the world decide things for us? And then Oscar projects this picture of Hilary Swank's face with all this grid on it, right? Yeah. And he talks about coinophilia.

The symmetry, right, of the face. So coinophilia is this, stay with me here, evolutionary hypothesis for explaining why certain animals seek mates that look a certain way. And it proposes that animals, including humans, find the symmetry of features most attractive. I read all about it. I barely understood it. Okay. It was very wordy.

But in ancient Greece, they created something called the golden ratio of beauty or Phi. It's a mathematical equation. And it says if your face possesses a specific set of ratios of distance between the different features on your face, they believed it could be mathematically proven that you had a perfect face. This equation is what Da Vinci used when he was creating his vertruvian man. Oh. That is what Oscars, I think, really talking about.

I think he's talking about ratios. I don't think he's really talking about coinophilia. Stanley's going to address the group, and he makes a really moving speech about how he's trying to be more optimistic in life. And in years past, he might have been critical, but he's not going to be that person anymore. No. I liked this speech. I did, too.

You know? He's saying, why are we doing this to one another? Let's just live our lives, basically. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Andy calls for a final vote on Hillary Swank's hotness. It's another tie. We discover this is what happens.

People just argue their position. They don't listen. That's what Oscar says. Yeah, no one's moved. No one's moving. But Michael gets back to the office during all of this. He's clearly worked up. He goes in his office with Dwight.

They shut the door. He doesn't want to go through with it. Yeah. Dwight knows that Michael is bailing, so he's going to try his best to convince Michael that what they did was right. And of course, he's going to use the one argument that will clearly point this out to Michael, which is a Lord of the Rings analogy. Dwight says there was a terrible war.

Ugh, so many died. Far too many died. If Frodo hadn't destroyed the ring, then goodness itself might have died. I didn't understand that. I was Michael. I have questions. I wrote them down. Okay.

I thought you might. Listen, I am not a Lord of the Rings expert. I don't want to get mail, guys. I just am a fan. I've seen the movies multiple times. I've read some of the books. It's a big commitment to get through them all. Okay?

I have not gotten through them all. Okay. Well, here's my first question. Okay. Who is the Lord of the Rings? Okay. Is it Frodo? No.

Is it the guy with the beard? No. It's not like a one person. What is the ring? Well, it's called the one ring. Right? The one ring to rule them all. Okay.

Oh, Lord. Okay. All right. Where do I even start? First of all, here's what I want to say. I know the battle that Dwight's referencing. I'm pretty sure it's the battle of the Black Gate, right? Which is the big, major battle for the War of the Ring.

They fought it right in front of the gate, and they were trying to distract the Eye of Sauron because the Eye of Sauron tracks whoever holds the ring, and Frodo had the ring, and Frodo was trying to get to Mount Doom to drop it into the lava lake thing, right? That's the one place it can be destroyed. Why do I have to get rid of it? Why is he destroying it? Okay. Because it's innately evil.

I'll explain. Okay. So it's called the Lord of the Rings, but it's one ring. So it shouldn't be, why, it's not called Lord of the Rings. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

So Bilbo Baggins, right? When he found the ring, Gollum had been hiding it. This is a really bad overview from me. Anyway, he gave it to Frodo, and you know, Gandalf realized that Bilbo Baggins, like when he had the ring, it kind of made him a different person. So Gandalf was like, something's up with that, you know? But there was this inscription, when you take the ring and you put it in the fire, because just fire can't kill it, dragon fire can't kill it.

Not even dragon fire? No, no, won't melt the ring. But when you put it like in the fire, it has an inscription, and it's written, I think is it an elfish guys? Okay, don't write me. I believe so. Thank you, Sam. When it's translated, the inscription says, and I did look this up, so I got it right,

one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness, bind them. So the ring is essentially evil in nature, because it's an extension of Sauron, okay? And Sauron's like bad. This is bad, bad. But anyway, Frodo ultimately, you know, puts it in the lava lake thing, and it finally is destroyed. So lava is hotter than dragon fire?

Well, no, it had to go to Mount Doom specifically. It's a special lava. Because that's where Sauron made it. Oh, so it had to go back to where it came from. Right, sort of. Yeah, it could only sort of melt into its original source material. Yeah, I think so. Here's a cool thing, you know, can I just, before I know we're talking about the ring,

but at the end of this, are you going to tell me who the Lord of the Rings is? No, because it's, it's not one Lord, it's not one Lord. Sam? Okay, well, so originally they make a bunch of rings. Yes. There's like nine, nine for them, like men, some for the elves, some for the dwarves. Right. Then the one ring can rule them all.

That's what makes it so dangerous. Right. Yes, I mean, technically the Lord of all the rings would be Sauron, who made it. Well, because he made the one ring. Yes. If you were to get this ring, you would be the Lord of all the rings, but it will corrupt you and make you evil. It will corrupt you.

That's what happens. It damages people. It damages people. So, it'll cripple you. Yeah, and the humans, the humans, it makes them like crazy. Yeah, it makes you insane and murderous and jealous and awful. I mean, that sounded good, actually, Sam. That was, you made that interesting.

Oh my God! I'm sitting right here. I mean, I was like, while I was listening to that, I was like, huh, that sounds like really Shakespearean and sort of like maybe I'd like it. Maybe read the books. Maybe you'd like the books better than movies because you lose interest when things get fantastical and you could just flip a few pages past that. I don't know.

Well, Michael is not moved by Dwight's Lord of the Rings logic. Yeah, he is. Like you. He's like, nah, I don't know. Okay, whatever. I mean, you know, he's going to sprint out of the office with the piece of paper. He's going to destroy it. I assumed he was going to run to the shredder?

Yeah. No. He runs all the way outside to his car, but shoot, he forgot his keys. Meanwhile, Dwight is chasing him, trying to get it from him. He gets his keys and then goes back out. And we know how elaborate it was to shoot that because all of those places, the stairwell, the hallway, they're all in different locations, in different buildings. So they would have to reset up and then make those guys run and then move and set up and

make those guys run. Right. They did such a good job of selling how tired they were because they only ever really had to run for short distances. Right, right. It was not actually all tied together. In the end, Dwight is like, Michael, you have to do this because if we don't do this, someone will do this to us.

It will happen. Yeah. Did you see the piles of fake snow outside in the parking lot? I did. Nice touch, guys. Nice touch. Ultimately, Michael agrees to call Wallace and give him the Prince Paper client list. And he realizes he's not a shark.

No. It broke my heart that he gave him the list. I know. I was really rooting for Michael to destroy the list. There's going to be a callback to it. It's brutal. Brutal. Michael has a talking head.

He shares it's a bittersweet moment. There was an alt talking head. I have to play it, guys. It's in deleted scenes. The last line of it made me spit out my iced tea as I was watching it. Okay. I've always been intrigued with the idea of ruling with an iron fist, and it is good for ruling, but you know what it's not good for?

For caressing the face of a child, or making love to a woman with your hands, or thumb wrestling, or hanging out in the rain, or if you walk through a magnet store, you get covered in magnets. Oh, no. I'm done. No more iron fisting for me. He is so ridiculous. How did Steve get through that?

I don't know. How did he get through the line about walking through a magnet store? I don't know. All of it. It's so ridiculous. It made me laugh. I was like, everybody needs to hear this. How would they pick?

All of these are so good. How do they get in the editing room? They have to pick one. I don't know. We have to ask Greg about that sometime. I want to hear more about their process. Pick things. I mean, I know they would bring us in sometimes and ask our opinion, but it feels like every

episode they were having to make these decisions. Well, Michael ends up ultimately being the tiebreaker, so we do have a winner. Yes, he very casually says, she's hot. Yeah. And then our team wins. Our team won. And we had a lot of tangents in this, guys. We did.

We hope you enjoyed it. This is just a window into our search history, guys. You're welcome. We will be back next week with Stress Relief, Part 1, and an epic cold open that I can't wait to talk about. Save Panda! I can't wait. We'll see you next week.

See you next week. Thank you for listening to all of this. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Cody Fisher. Our producer is Cassie Jerkins. Our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubicoe. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

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