Office Ladies - Whistleblower

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

This week we’re breaking down the finale of Season Six, “Whistleblower”! When the news gets out that Sabre’s printers catch on fire, Jo Bennett returns to the Scranton branch to find out who the whistleblower is. Nelson Franklin sends in clips to share what it was like to play not one, but two characters on “The Office”! The ladies share how the crew shot on a real private plane, Angela points out a Kathy Bates moment in this episode that made it into the “Office BFFs” book and Jenna breaks down how Toby was able to get stuck holding the vending machine. So everyone, we are at a DEFCON 5! You need to listen to and enjoy this episode now. Listen to “Old Mr Bernard” song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa2SM9hzpbc

I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on The Office together and we're best friends. And now we're doing the Ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you. Each week we will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you. We're The Office, ladies. Hello! Are you being a whistleblower, Angela?

I was trying, I have the most pitiful whistle. Hello and welcome to the finale of season six, Whistle Blower, also episode 26. This was such a big season. It was crazy. I want to start off today apologizing if I sound a little nasally. I'm working out some head congestion. Just got a little bit of a stuffy nose. I know, can you hear it?

I feel like you can hear it. Lee said you can hear it. He said I should acknowledge it when I got on air. I can hear it. Okay. It doesn't bother me, lady. Well, he said, just right off the bat, if you just acknowledge it, then you know it's fine.

It's like when I had food poisoning. I was like, hey, we're talking to Ellie. I also sound like I just crawled out of the bathroom. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So there we go. It's been said.

Now moving on. To Whistle Blower. Yeah. Whistle Blower, which was written by Warren Lieberstein and Hal Stead Sullivan and directed by Paul Lieberstein. I have a very short summary. It is one sentence long, but I think it really sums it up. Okay.

An angry Joe Bennett descends upon Dunder Mifflin Scranton to identify which employee talked to the press about Saber's faulty printers prompting the group to turn on Andy. Lady, I have to say, I hadn't watched this episode since it aired. Same. Yeah. And I really enjoyed it. I did too. There's so many great moments.

Well, there's a lot of Kathy Bates in this episode and that made me very happy. There's a lot of Joe and Michael, which I could not get enough of. Same. I mean, they're two amazing actors doing amazing work. Yeah. All right. Fastback number one, like we said, this is the season six finale. It aired on May 20th, 2010 and was watched by 6.6 million households.

Now if I remember correctly, Angela, we were originally only going to do 24 episodes and at the last minute, suddenly we were doing 26. This was confirmed by our writers, Warren and Halstead. Yes, because we reached out to them for this episode and they shared with us lots of fun behind the scenes stuff that we'll share and sprinkle through the episode. Well, Warren and Halstead did share with us that the finale had this dual purpose of both having to wrap up season six as well as set things up for season seven. You know, in past years, our season finales have had some pretty big cliff hangers and

this one has a few, but they're maybe not as dramatic as other years. Right. But you know what's interesting about that to me? If you have been watching all along, which we have now, right, we're watching every week, just when Michael mentions Holly, that felt so huge to me. Yes. Okay. I remember that at this time, we knew that Steve would only be coming back for season

seven and that was it. Yeah. By the time we did this episode, it was, we found out kind of a few episodes before the end of season six. So the writers knew that that season seven would be his last and Warren and Halstead shared that they had started brainstorming what Steve's last year might look like. And the big thing that they settled on was that they wanted him to ultimately find happiness with Holly and that was going to be a seed that was planted in this season finale.

But besides that, they only set up two other things. They set up that Dwight was going to buy the building and we start to see Erin kind of warming up to Andy. She touches his calf kind of and lets her hand linger there for a minute. Like a lingering calf touch for sure. Lingering calf touch. Well, like you said, Warren and Halstead were awesome and we've got some fun little tidbits from them for this episode.

Thank you guys. Yeah. Are you ready for fast fact number two? I'm so ready. Please tell me it's a location breakdown of a private plane. It sure is, lady. We shot that private plane on location at the Van Nuys Airport on board an actual private plane that was not a set.

We got some fan mail. People wondered if we built the interior of a fakie plane. No, that was a real plane and it was very narrow. And our camera operators, that was a bit of a challenge to figure out how to shoot because they couldn't move any seats. They couldn't move any walls. They were just crammed in there. Our production designer, Michael Gallenberg, was friends with a senior executive at the

aviation company called Castle & Cook. And because of that, we were able to use their hangar and the interior of their jet for a cost of only $10,000. Plus we had to pay the Van Nuys Airport Authority a $5,000 usage fee. Oh, the usage fees. You know those. Dang usage fees. So Castle & Cook is a real aviation company and it only exists in Van Nuys, California

and Honolulu, Hawaii. So you are not going to ever find this anywhere near Scranton, Pennsylvania. But Warren and Halstead shared that they were writing this script up to the very last minute and by the time they got the idea to shoot on a private plane, they did not have time to change the Castle & Cook signage to something else. They couldn't make like a giant new hangar sign. Yeah. So they just went with it.

Incidentally, Castle & Cook is part of the company that originally owned Dole Fruit. What? Yeah. They are one of the largest suppliers of Hawaiian pineapples. Well, I guess they fly them on their planes. I guess. Oh, who knows? Who knows?

I would hope that if I'm on a Castle & Cook private plane, someone serves me some fresh Hawaiian pineapple. And if they don't, you'll bring it up. I sure will. I'll be like, you guys, you don't even have any canned pineapple back there. It's your thing. Well, listen, they didn't have time to change the big sign, but there are some really great details on the plane.

Thanks to our set decorator, Steve Rothstein. I noticed one. What did you notice? Are those Joe's initials? There's like a little fancy looking, I don't know what you call it. It goes over the chair, like for your head. Yes. Cloth, yes.

What are those called? I don't know what they're called. They're like, they're on the headrest. Like a doily for an airplane. Yes. They were little cloths on the headrest, and they were embroidered with JB for Joe Bennett. That was my question. I was going to say, is that real embroidery because it looked fancy?

Oh yeah. He had those made. Also, and I'll point out with a time code when we get there, on the outside of the plane, they do have a big sticker that is Joe Bennett's signature as a logo. Oh, so cool. Like she signed the outside of her plane. I love little details like that. All right.

Are you ready for FastFact number three, Angela? I know you are because you were a big part of making this happen. Yes. I'm very excited about FastFact three. FastFact three is all about our guest star, Nelson Franklin as Nick the IT guy. You guys know that Nelson has appeared in five episodes of The Office, and this is his last one. And I believe, Ange, that he has the distinction of being the only actor to play two different

roles on the show. I think that is correct. Now you guys out there who are just the diehard office fans might have some stats for us that we're not thinking of right now, but I feel like Nelson is the one that immediately comes to mind to me because he was in job fair. Yes. And two years later, he has this arc as Nick the IT guy, and Angela, you know him. You worked with him recently on Black AF and you reached out to him.

Yes. We were co-stars on Black AF and we got to spend all day together because our characters were writers and we were in a writer's room and we got to like improvise and we just had the best time together. Nelson is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. I was so excited to reconnect with him. And this is what he said about how he got his job on the office. Hi, Angela.

Hi, Jenna. It's me, Nelson. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm such a big fan of your podcast and obviously I love the office and I love you too very much. And so this is a big thrill for me. Thank you so much for having me. Let's get into these questions.

Number one, how did I get my job on the office? And had I seen the show before being cast, oh hell yeah, I'd seen the show before being cast. It was my favorite show. Literally my favorite show. It was one of the biggest shows in the country, if not the world at the time. So it was a very big deal for me to get this job. And how I got the job, it was just a good old fashioned audition.

Went in and ran for Alison Jones, of course, who we all like to reminisce about fondly and with love because she's the greatest and she deserves all the praise she can get. But I would also like to add that when I auditioned for the office, it was for the job fair in season four. And that was my first paid acting job out of college, if you can believe it. It was like 21 at the time and it was insane, it was a big deal for me to get on the show. So yes, I auditioned. I did not realize that we were his first gig.

I had no idea. You would never know. No. I mean, I did that scene with him at job fair. I never suspected that that was his first television gig. I feel like I was way more nervous and like, obviously, deer in headlights at my first acting gig. I know.

I mean, Nelson, you were so composed. Yeah, such a pro. Well, listen, Anjuan, you said you were going to reach out to him. I had to know how is it that he ended up playing these two different roles on the show and you asked him, right? I did. I did. And here's what he said.

Yes, it's true. I did play two different characters on the office and I believe I was the only one or this is being confirmed by you guys and that's amazing. I always wondered if I was the only one. So, you know, as I said, the job fair, that was my first job ever. It was supposed to be like a little one-off thing. I was totally unknown, literally unknown. It was my first job.

It made me taft hardly or whatever you call it and you got to join the union. And basically, Allison brought me back in two years later for the IT guy role because I was right for it and I'm basically an IT guy already. And I read and Greg and Mike Schur and those guys were like, oh, no, you can't be two people on the same show in the same universe. It doesn't work. It's too bad. We know that was his first gig and we would have wanted to give him something bigger,

but he already used up his one role. So that's not going to happen. And that was sad. And then they read more people for like a week and then after a little while they came back to me and we're like, yeah, you know what, fine, you get the job. And what a thrill that was being told no. And then being like, actually, remember when we said you didn't have that job? Well, you do.

And I said to Greg, like, what made you change your mind? And he said, no one's going to remember that you were the jobs fair guy. No one's going to remember that. It was 25 seconds at the end of an episode. Just don't bring it up to anybody who asks. No one's ever going to know. And I said, Greg, it's pretty feasible that a guy who was a graphics design person would then, you know, pivot into an IT guy career.

That's totally believable. And he was like, no, no, no, no, just don't mention it. No one's ever going to know. And boy, was he wrong because, you know, the office fans are voracious. They know every detail of every second of every episode. So yeah, it became a folklore hero basically is the end of this question. I love that so much. He was trying to justify it.

Yeah. He was like, you know what, let's just we'll have a little thing where maybe I got it. Like Pam's like, hey, and he's like, yeah, I'm in IT now. That's all it would have taken. All I would have taken is one line and then he's the same character. Yeah. Same guy. Now we know his name is Nick.

I don't think, do we know his name before? I don't even know. Job fair? I don't know. I think he's just graphic design guy. That cracked me up. And of course, we always ask our guests if they're still recognized from being on the office and here's what Nelson had to say.

Yeah, absolutely. That's like the number one thing I get recognized for. I mean, you know, the office, as I said, it was just such a big deal. It's got the most fans of any show I've ever known. I mean, it's totally ubiquitous. People from all walks of life watch the office and so I get recognized constantly. The other thing that happens is people come up to me and be like, wait a second, I know you.

Are you Tom's brother? No, no, no, you were at that concert last night and then I just after I let them flail around for a second and they say, IT guy and they go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, got it, got it. All right. Then they flip me off because they remember that scene. He gets flipped off. That's hilarious.

Well, he's got a big moment at the end of the episode. I know. It's pretty great. I know. You get people saying, don't throw a garbage at me. I get saved bandit, but he gets the finger. Well, Andrew also asked if he took anything from the show when he left and I loved his response because it made me remember a thing that I had forgotten.

Okay. You know, I wish I had that seems like a great idea to swipe something a little memento, but I didn't do it. I did take a cell phone picture of the like sort of whiteboard. There's like a dry erase board that somebody was keeping up the second 80 or something where it would have the names of the guest stars that were appearing in the episode for whatever reason. And the handwriting was super bad, so I have this great picture of this dry erase board

where it says like Kathy Bates and then right under it says Nelson. And it's like written like a sort of like a drunk person wrote it on there. It's just a fond memory. That's the only thing I kept. I remember that whiteboard and you know what's crazy in our final season. I was going around, I was just taking pictures of things because I just wanted to remember every detail. Yeah.

I took a picture of the whiteboard. You did. And it would have our like our numbers on it. Each cast member was assigned a number and it would say like who's in the scene? Who's on deck? Yeah. And it would have guest stars and it would have all these numbers. It was like a code like we knew what it all meant, but somebody coming in to visit may

not know. Yeah. It's like how, you know, I think so many baseball stats. I'm like, what's that? Yeah. Like that. And it was by the back door as you walked into our set right there on the wall. So the minute you walked in, you knew who was in the scene?

Who was up next? Who was in the background of the scene? Right. Exactly. He was speaking. Yeah. And I mean, my gosh, if I saw my name on a whiteboard next, I'd have a picture of that. Yeah.

Well, he is just wonderful. I loved hearing from him and we have more clips. Yes. He's going to share a few more things about his time on the office and we'll be adding those in as we talk about this episode. Well, why don't we take a break and then we'll get into this episode. Okay. We would not make good whistleblowers, clearly, not if it involves actually whistling.

This episode starts with Michael watching a clip of himself defending Saber on the local news. Yes. And then Todd Packer calls because everybody's seeing him on the news and of course he knows this. Oh, tickled. Oh, he loves it. He's probably rewatched this clip over and over.

I want to say at 14 seconds, Packer has a line where he says, I want to pinch your tiny wiener. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. The original table draft for this episode had the line, I want to lick your tiny wiener. Oh, my goodness. But standards and practices said no.

Okay. So they had to change lick to pinch and then it got approved. I have become fascinated by standards and practices. Who is that person that scrubs through our episodes with the red flag? Yeah. And it's like, we're going to no licking of the tiny penis, please. We need to change that. We need to change that.

I also would just love, love to have been a fly on the wall for their meetings about our show. I know. Are the email exchanges? I mean, that is some digital clutter I'd like to get my hands on. Same. While Michael is watching his news clip, did you happen to see the other news of the day? Oh, yes.

Yeah. It's all listed on the right hand side of the computer screen. Here are the news stories of the day and Scranton. Okay. Number one, local teacher wrongly accused of pedophilia. We're going to discuss that later. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Number two, area business manager responds to allegations. That's Michael. Mm-hmm. It's written in blue because it's the one Michael's watching. Nice detail. Mm-hmm. Number three, local zoo gets a baby otter. Oh, yeah.

Number four, last of three murder suspects arrested. Hmm. Number five, former fire secretary sentenced for theft. Wow. Number six, expert, semicolon, bill likely to be ruled constitutional. Okay. Okay. Very vague.

I know. Number seven, ex-state rep convicted in bonus gate scandal. Bonus gate. I'm intrigued. Number eight, parents pack meeting to hear about drugs in schools. And lastly, if you notice, Michael's clip has 1,069 views. Okay. Well, he's going to have a talking head where he brags about all of his views and all the

people who are watching his clip. He even called the radio request line and talked about it on the air. Yeah. Well, we had a fan catch from Kelly W., from Cary, North Carolina, and many others who said, Michael says he called Froggy 98.7. But all of the stickers and the magnets throughout the office say Froggy 101. Was this a continuity error or just Michael not knowing what he's doing? He asked Warren and Hallstead about this and they said, this was a goof.

Yeah. They know that fans have spotted this. It is totally their bad. And they can't believe that they wrote Froggy 98.7 and that none of us noticed. We've been surrounded by these bumper stickers for like seven years. Seven years. There's one on the file cabinet by Phyllis's desk. Here's the thing though.

I think they wrote 98.7. This is my theory because there's a local Los Angeles radio station that plays pop music, like whatever the billboard charts are, and it's 98.7. And I think that just went sort of from their brain right to the page. It must have. But it's very funny to me that everyone caught it. But we didn't. Well, now Michael's going to run out of his office and he is going to declare DEF CON

5. Do you know why? Dun, dun, dun. He is the number two most watched clip on the local news and we cannot have that. He has to watch his clip now. Yeah. He said he wants everyone to stop what they're doing and watch his clip 11 times. But pretty quickly, Angela gets distracted by that cute otter.

And then everybody gets distracted by the cute otter. It's everybody watching the otter and it's making Michael crazy. But then I loved it because Michael goes to watch it and he's like, I don't need it. And then he's clearly charmed by the otter. Well, I got a little interested in him calling DEF CON 5 because, you know, DEF CON 5, it actually stands for the lowest state of readiness. It means everything's going great and nothing's wrong. DEF CON 1 is we are in the middle of a nuclear war.

I just remember it from that Matthew Broderick movie. Yes. War games. War games. All the DEF CONs. Yes. Well, I did a mini deep dive on the DEF CONs and I personally found it fascinating, so I'm going to share.

Let's hear it. Well, DEF CON stands for Defense Readiness Condition. It is controlled by the President and the U.S. Secretary of Defense through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the combatant commanders. And different branches of the armed forces can have different DEF CONs going on at once. So many DEF CONs. One person can be DEF CON 5 and someone else might be a DEF CON 3. Here are the different DEF CONs.

5 means lowest state of readiness for everybody. Yes. Depending on wherever your DEF CONs are. That's right. Got it. DEF CON 4 means Increased Intelligence Watch and Strengthened Security. If you go to DEF CON 3, it means that we need an increase in force readiness above that that is required for normal readiness and the Air Force needs to be ready to mobilize in

15 minutes. That means they're calling everybody. Hey, folks, you got to come in. Yep. Yep. You got to be ready to fly in 15 minutes. DEF CON 2 is the next step to nuclear war. Oh, my Lord.

And armed forces need to be ready to deploy and engage in less than six hours. DEF CON 1 means nuclear war is imminent or has already begun. We're all dead. DEF CON 1, we're all dead. Yes. Nuclear war is in progress. Goodbye, planet. Well, as of 2014, the worldwide DEF CON level has never been more severe than DEF CON 3.

When was that? Since 2014. Okay. But the U.S. did reach DEF CON 2 twice. Yeah. Remember, DEF CON 2 means Next Step Nuclear War. Was that with Cuba? Yes.

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1991 Gulf War. We went to DEF CON 2 for a short period of time. Yikes. Mm-hmm. I'm happy to be at DEF CON 5 with Michael. Yes. Even though he seems panicked by it. Yeah.

DEF CON 5, everyone. Well, I find that so interesting, Jenna. And I also, like, as you were describing all of it, I imagine you and I in front of a huge boardroom, all the different heads of the military, all their accolades, and you and I, like, kind of dressed like the moms we are in front of a dry erase board breaking down DEF CON. Like, could you imagine if we were called in and you're like, here's DEF CON 4, and I'm like, yeah, everybody show up, time to get dressed, got a report to work.

Well, that's DEF CON 3. Got it wrong. I draw an arrow to it from 4 to 3. From 4 to 3. From 4 to 3. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Nothing has gone very wrong if we are the people explaining the DEF CONs.

I have to say. It would make a great scene in Mom Detectives, though. It sure would. You could have, like, a DEF CON, like, home edition. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. Where it's more...

Oh. I don't know what it is. Susie Chihuahua is out and there was reports of a coyote in the neighborhood. DEF CON 2. DEF CON 2. Yeah. Yeah. There's a permanent attack pending.

Yes. DEF CON 2. DEF CON 2. All right. We did get fan questions for the scene. Should I pivot to those? Yes. Let's go back to the episode.

All right. Marnie W. from Dallas, Texas says, everyone was watching Michael's press release on a YouTube-esque website, but it doesn't look like YouTube. Was this a fakie site? Yes, it was, Marnie. It was meant to be the website for the local news. So it was, you know, like a video playback. Randy said it was created by a company called Playback Technologies.

They created the fakie website and they also had to send a playback operator and a playback technician to make all the videos pop up on our various screens. And then we had a fan catch from Frankie C. in Seattle, Washington, who says, Hi, office ladies. My name is Frankie and I'm 14 years old. I have watched the office five times and I have a question about the cold open of whistleblower. Okay. Frankie, what you got?

Michael asked the whole office to watch his video and everyone's sound is playing at the same time. But you guys have mentioned in previous podcasts that Oscar was the only one to really have sound on his computer. So true, Frankie. So how did this work? Well, Randy said all of the computers ran the videos without sound and they actually added that in later in post-production.

So we're fakie reacting to sound. Yep. Exactly. The video, fakie sound. And finally, Randy said that the video of the baby otters was footage from the Monterey California Aquarium. But you know, the otters do not end up doing any of the things that Michael describes in his final talking head.

That's why you don't see too much of the video because it wouldn't match. It just kind of plays out on Michael's face in the most delightful way, like you really believe it. Yeah, you do. Are you ready for one of the most amazing commanding scenes of someone talking and just cutting up a piece of newspaper? Mesmerizing. I watched it three times in a row.

I wrote mesmerizing. Look what I wrote. I was mesmerized by the scene. I'm showing Jenna my paper, you guys. Joe Bennett is going to arrive and she is coming in hot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She comes in with two lawyers and her dogs.

Mm-hmm. It's a surprise visit, no one was expecting her. And she goes on to explain that the newspaper has run a story about Saber's cheap foreign printers attacking innocent Americans. And while she's saying all of this, she's moving around the room. She's getting a pair of scissors. She's cutting the article as she has this dialogue. One of my favorite moments is when Kevin was like, I think I know what happened.

And she goes, I don't think you do. And then he goes, no, I'm thinking I don't. I know I loved that too. But she's doing so much action while having all of this different emotion. It reminded me of that scene in Secret Santa, when Michael had to go from Santa to Jesus all in one moment with his clothing. Well we had a fan question from Ann S. in Zurich, Switzerland. Who said, can you explain Joe's insane choice to walk all the way over to Angela's desk

to grab a glue stick, to glue the newspaper article to the picture of the office instead of using tape? I looked in the script and all of this stage direction is meticulously outlined within the dialogue. There is like this whole silent play that is scripted out and I thought I would read it. Oh, great. And then I have a little tidbit about when she comes to my desk.

Ooh. All right. Here's what it said in the script. Now mind you, within all of this, there's also dialogue. Right. You're just reading the stage directions. Yes. Joe enters with a couple of well-dressed lawyers.

People are surprised. Joe pulls out a copy of the Times Tribune off Jim's desk and casually flips through it. Joe points to an article titled, Sabre Defends Printers. As Joe speaks, she walks over to Dwight's desk and grabs a pair of scissors. It looks like he might say something but swallows. Joe methodically cuts out the article. Some people nervously chuckle.

Joe slowly carries the article toward accounting, dropping the scissors on Jim's desk as she walks. Dwight is about to grab his scissors. Jim pulls them just out of his reach. Dwight is furious. Joe starts rummaging over the tops of Oscar, Angela, and Kevin's desk looking for something. Finally, she finds it on Angela's desk, a glue stick. Joe walks in a circle toward Michael's office while rubbing glue on the back of the article.

Joe slams the article onto Pam's painting. People look a little scared. Pam looks to Jim like, what the F? Dwight smiles smugly at Pam, like, that's what you get. That was all in the script. Yeah. And I remember us rehearsing it, Jenna. We rehearsed all of this because it was like a one-act play and Kathy had to walk around

the room and engage with all of us. I thought it was great when I rewatched it because you really feel her presence amongst all the workers, the way they staged her walking through the bullpen. But here's what I wanted to share. Here's my tidbit. If you go to three minutes, six seconds, that's when Joe crosses to Angela's desk for the glue stick. And this was the moment in rehearsal when Kathy Bates walked over to my desk and I was really

cold and I had my heater cranked and it had been cranked all morning and she said, it's like the Sahara over here and I'll never forget it. I wrote about it in our book, The Office BFFs, because with my foot went under the desk to try to turn my heater off and I was so embarrassed, I was like, oh no, Kathy Bates. My desk area is so hot. As soon as I rewatched it, I was like, that was a time. Yeah. I wondered if that was the time.

Well, at the end of all of this, Michael is trying to tell Joe, listen, nobody in our office spoke to the press. It wasn't anyone here. But of course, Phyllis knows that it was Andy. Yeah. And she's kind of like Andy. You better say it was you. Come on.

And Andy threatens her with such like intensity. I know. He said he will break her glasses, right, and poke them in her eyeball or something. What'd he say? Yeah. You know, the little nubs of your glasses that sit on your nose, there's a name for him and he says he's going to break them off and poke them in her eyes. That's hardcore.

Well, he has a talking head where he explains that he is no whistleblower. In fact, generations of Bernard's have made their money by silencing whistleblowers. In fact, Woody Guthrie wrote a song about them. For those of you who don't know who Woody Guthrie is, he was, by all accounts on the Internet and people who love folk music, one of the most significant figures in American folk music, he was, quote, a poet of the people. His songs captured the heart of hard economic times and war. One of his songs you might all know is, This Land is Your Land, This Land is Your Land,

This Land is My Land, you know that one. And incidentally, he was born today. What? In 1912, he was born on July 14th, which is the day we're recording this. That is crazy. I know, I thought so too. We got some mail from Barrett G in Arkansas who said, Have y'all heard the awesome song someone made from that snippet that Andy sang about his family being whistleblowers?

It's actually really good. No, I haven't. I found it. It's by someone named Stormlight on SoundCloud. Let's hear it. From ashes they rose up, from nothing they came. From utter damnation, Bernard was their name. The shame of their past drove them near the insane,

Wearing all of it crumbled while others they blame. Desperate for money, but with nothing to show, They stooped to the lowest a person could go. We'll rule with the ones who will tell what they know, We'll make sure they sleep with the fishes below. Oh, Mr. Bernard, Mr. Bernard, who have you silenced today? Oh, Mr. Bernard, Mr. Bernard, how will you make them pay? I love the idea that the Bernard family are notorious for silencing people who are trying

to do the right thing. He's like, there's no way I can be a whistleblower because we are silenced whistleblowers. Yeah. Well, I love that song. My gosh, what a beautiful voice. It goes on and on. It's really, really a good song parody.

It's really excellent. Well, here's a little tidbit from Warren and Halstead and also Randy because Jenna, you always reach out to Randy and they said the song was not in the script. Randy said that Paul pitched the lyrics on the day and Warren and Halstead said Jenna Edd had such a great talent for coming up with a tune and being able to make up a song and they could really rely on him and so they found this on the day. That's amazing. They put the lyrics and then Edd just sort of sang a melody and there it was.

There it was. See, if you gave me lyrics, my melody would be so awful. Oh, I feel like I only have one melody and it's like that whenever I improvise any song and it's the same and it's not great. It's like sitting here talking to Jenna. Exactly. Exactly. Edd is just an amazing musician.

Well, he's a songwriter in my life too, so it makes sense. Well, Joe is determined to get to the bottom of this. She's going to find out who that whistleblower is. She has an amazing talking head where she talks about when her mom worked as a prison guard and something went missing, to find the guilty party, she would ask everyone what they would do as punishment to the person who stole, right? And if they said, oh, you got to go hard on them, she knew they were innocent. And if they said, you know, maybe they had a reason, blah, blah, that's whose rectum

would have been searched. Her delivery on that line, that was the Anasade check, is so good. It's like brilliant comedic delivery. Because she puts nothing on it. She puts nothing on it. She never ever, as a performer, it looks like she's trying too hard. It's just effortless and I love it. I do have a random background check during this talking head.

But anyone else out there, notice, how much unopened mail is at Dunder Mifflin? Lady, I actually did. There were three enormous bins of unopened mail just sitting there. I'm so confused by the mail system at Dunder Mifflin. Yeah. The cart that never moves? Yeah. But sometimes moves, but really never moves.

We don't have a mail room. No. At Dunder Mifflin, I don't understand if that's outgoing mail, I don't understand if it's incoming mail, I don't understand how it's distributed. I know. Well, apparently it just sits there by the conference room. The next thing Joe is going to do is bring Michael into the conference room and ask what they should do when they find the whistleblower.

Yeah. She's starting her interrogation. Well, Michael says they should just ship him off to Montego Bay where they keep all of Al Qaeda. Joe gives a look to camera in that moment. That is so good. Well, here's an interesting tidbit about that scene. Halstead shared that at this time on the show, they were interviewing a new writer, Amelie

Gillette, who was a very funny AV club writer. All the writers were big fans of her, and she visited Set the day they were filming the scene between Joe and Michael in the conference room. It was her first time on a television set, and Halstead said they wanted to give her a feel for what it would be like to work on the show. So she stood in the corner in the conference room with Vada and Halstead and Paul Lieberstein. That was her job interview. Her job interview was great.

We're going to chitchat with you. Would you like a little tour of the set? And then they brought her down to a conference room with Steve Carell and Kathy Bates. I know. Was she dying? I know. Halstead said they just wanted to give her a feel of what working on the show would be like.

But then the next year when she joined the staff, she told everyone how crazy it was to suddenly be on the set of the show that she had seen for so many years and then only be feet, just a mere feet away from an Oscar award-winning actor, Kathy Bates, as she had this heated scene with Steve Carell. And Halstead said, in retrospect, I guess that is quite the introduction. I mean, my gosh, that is bonkers. When we reached out to Warren and Halstead, Halstead reached out to Amelie because he was like, I remember you were there that day.

And Amelie also shared this. She said it was completely bonkers to be in the same room with Steve Carell and Kathy Bates. All I could think about was telling my parents about it because they were huge Fried Green Tomatoes fans. And when I told my dad I met Kathy Bates, he said, did you tell her we love Fried Green Tomatoes? And I was like, no, it didn't come up that my parents love that movie.

I think it's so sweet. And she said she was fangirling the whole time. That is so sweet. Well, let's take a break because when we come back, Nick, the IT guy, is looking on everyone's computers. Yeah. And Dwight is going to put him in a patchy percussion hold, which I looked up and it's not real.

Yeah, thanks. So far, so good. Fine. We'll be back. All right, we are back. And like we said, Nick, the IT guy asked Dwight if he can look at his computer and he reveals that he's checking everyone's hard drives for information on the leak. I have never seen Kevin take off so fast.

Well, he sprints to his computer. He likes running. He's a runner. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know, I was talking to Nelson because this is such a great scene. And I did ask him, I was like, you know, what is one of your favorite memories? And I was like, which scene is he going to pick?

He's had some good ones. What do you share with me? I was totally surprised by and I wanted you guys to hear it. One memory that I definitely cherish is when I was shooting this episode, the whistleblower. I knew it was my last episode. It was a very bittersweet thing for me. I had taken another job opportunity, you know, to be the lead on a different TV show. But I had a lot of mixed emotions about it because as I said, the office is my favorite

show and I was really heartbroken to be leaving. So I was a pretty emotional that morning and I'm in there in the makeup trailer looking at my lines and Zach Woods pops in and Zach Woods who plays Gabe on the show, of course. And I was blown away. I was like, Zach, and just for a little bit of context here. I went to college with Zach. We were in the same graduating class. We went to NYU together.

I was in the drama school. I got a degree in acting and he was not in the drama school. He got a regular useful degree. And look, I knew he performed and he did UCB and he was so funny. He's an incredible performer, but I had no idea. He was a professional actor. This is the first time I've seen him since college. I was like, Zach, what the hell are you doing here, man?

That was quite a shock for me. If you just imagine one of your friends popping into your job and being like, oh, I work here now. That's insane. I know. And also, you guys, again, this was a time before Instagram, before you knew what everyone's life was. Yeah.

You could honestly be surprised by running into someone. This is very similar to you walking over to accounting and Oscar sitting there. 100%. Well, I love that we were his first acting job. I love that when he left us, then it was because he was going to be the lead in another show. Yeah. So he went on to have pretty big roles on Veep and New Girl and Black-ish.

And in fact, Angela, we got a fan question from Sierra E. in Silver Spring, Maryland and Deborah J. in Massachusetts. Can we please talk about the office's connections to New Girl? Oh, yeah. Angela, Oscar, Kate, and Nelson Franklin have all been on both the office and New Girl. Angela, what was it like working on New Girl? It was such a blast. I had a recurring role.

I was a school teacher where Zoe's character also taught the same school. We had so many fun scenes. I also had some really great scenes with Damon. And that cast was so fun. And also, the writers, it really felt familiar to me, like the office, where you would do a scene, you would get it scripted. Maybe if you had an idea, you could pitch it, you know? I loved every second of being on that show.

It was just great fun. And I'm still in touch with some of the cast members. Here's one memory, though, that sticks with me. And it's not from one of the regular cast members. I was leaving one day. I had worked a half day. As I was leaving the soundstage, Josh Gad was walking in. He was doing a part as well.

And we met sort of in the parking lot. And we were like, oh, my gosh, how are you? And we chit-chatted. How are things going? And he said, oh, I just got this really cool project. I'm pretty excited about I'm going to be a snowman. I'm going to be the voice of a snowman in the movie. Oh, my gosh.

It was frozen. And he had just gotten the job. And he was talking to me about it. And I was like, I remember thinking, oh, that's so cool. You know, that could be really cool. It's frozen. Oh, my gosh. He's Olaf.

He's Olaf. Wow. Wow. Well, now we're going to move into Michael's office, where Angela Oscar and Phyllis are trying to reason with Michael. They're saying everyone knows it was Andy. And everyone shouldn't have to suffer because of it. And Michael just needs to say it was Andy.

And you all are wearing pink and purple. It's like you had a club called throw Andy under the bus and the dress code is pink and purple. Yeah. The next scene is between Dwight and Joe in the conference room. I love this scene. It has one of my absolute favorite lines in the whole episode. Dwight says, I don't want to waste your time and I wouldn't dare waste mine.

It's like one of my favorite lines. I like want to say that in a meeting. He says he didn't do it and he doesn't know who exactly did, but he has a list of people she should fire. Well, we got a fan question from Mary M. in Canada asking about that list. Here is what Mary had to say. Number one, whose handwriting do you think that is? Is it Reigns?

Bill Shays? Number two, what are the numbers that correspond to each name? Michael has a five, Jim has a one, Creed has a four. What does this mean? And finally, what's up with the order of this list? Why is Michael first? Seems like whoever wrote this list just looked around the room and wrote an order who they saw.

I really need an explanation. Well, Mary, guess what? I was going crazy about this list too. I was very curious. First of all, Jenna, there's no way that is Reigns handwriting. No, it didn't look like Reigns. Reigns has chicken scratch. It's probably Phil Shays.

Probably. But Mary, the numbers. I was like, what is this list? What are these numbers? I took a picture of the screen. I zoomed in on them. Mary, this is what I caught. Michael Scott, five, Jim Halpert, one, Pam Halpert, three, Phyllis Vance, two, Andy Bernard,

one, Stanley Hudson, two, Creed Bratton, four, Meredith Palmer, three, Angela Martin, two, Kevin Malone, one. Then I saw Oscar, but I couldn't make Oscar and Darryl and Kelly. I could see their names, but Joe's sleeve was blocking it. So that's as far as the list I could see. Everyone is rated between one and five. Is it their DEF CONS? That's the only thing I know that you rate one through five at this point.

No, but I went digging in the shooting draft because I had to know, guess what I found? What? The answer. I can't believe you found the answer to this. Okay. In the shooting draft, the scene read like this. Dwight, I don't want to waste your time. I wouldn't dare waste mine.

It wasn't me. People who misuse products don't deserve to will to saber. Now I don't know exactly who did it, but I suggest you fire the following people. Dwight hands Joe some papers. Joe says, there's a lot of people on this list. Dwight says, you can fire them in waves. That's what the numbers next to the names are. The waves.

Wow. It's a wave number one and then wave number two. So now look back on the list. Joe's getting fired first per Dwight's list, Jim, Andy, and Kevin. Of course, I can't see Oscar, Darrell, and Kelly. Second wave would have been Angela, Stanley, and Phyllis. Third wave would have been Pam, all by myself, and Meredith. And then the fourth wave would have been Creed, and the final wave would have been Michael.

So even though he's number one on the list, he's number five in the wave. This is the weirdest list. I love that you got an answer to that. I know. It was so random. Well, also in this scene, Joe asks if Dwight's being smart about his money. He's had a good year. And she says that he really should have his money turn into more money and he should buy

property. Yes. That's what a smart person would do. Well, Warren and Halstead shared that when they had the idea that Dwight should buy the building, they needed a reason why he would decide to buy the building. And they loved this idea that Joe would plant the seed just by giving him some simple advice to buy property. Yeah.

So this was their way of planting that little cliffhanger, which is going to eventually pay off brilliantly. I mean, this little thing is going to grow into work bus. I know. Well, Michael is going to ask Andy if he talked to the press and Andy is going to, I mean, go overboard swearing on his parents' grave who aren't even dead yet, that he did not do it. And then he's going to cast some suspicion on Daryl.

I was very surprised that Michael confronted Andy with his office door open. Oh. The whole time I kept thinking, I feel like Joe could kind of hear this very easily or just right around the little corner. I also noticed that both Dwight and Jim were not at their deaths in the background of this scene. And I think part of that was to create a line of vision into Daryl's office because they could see.

They move right in there and then Michael moves in there. Daryl is going to confess that he actually did tell someone about the printer's catching on fire and it turns out that she works as a copy editor at the Tribune. I know. He was chatty at the bar. He was trying to hit on her. Yeah. I know Michael doesn't know what to do because he swore up and down that none of his employees

did this. And now he's discovered that maybe they did. Meanwhile, Joe is talking with Toby. I loved this so much. This scene delighted me. She says, you know, we know it wasn't you. We didn't find anything on your computer except his novel. His mystery novel.

And she's got a few notes for him to which he hears her out and then says, write your own damn novel. He's talking head, but Warren and Halstead shared something kind of fun with us. They said earlier in the season was the very first mention of the Scranton Strangler. And in this final episode of season six, when Joe finds Toby's novel, after reading it, she says that the protagonist needs to help in hiding a murder, which appears to leave Toby irritated and early egg if you think Toby might be the Scranton Strangler. And Joe indirectly helped Toby figure out how to cover his tracks.

Very interesting. There really is a lot of evidence pointing to Toby. I know. Well, in his talking head where he says, write your own damn novel, I have a background catch. Did you see the kind of like green foam dog bone thing on his desk that says Toby's troops? Yes. Yeah, I looked it up. What is it?

What is it? It says on there also. It says Toby Hanna Federal Credit Union. There's a website, but it's not working anymore. But I found a post online that says Toby Hanna is a real federal credit union in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And in the post, this person says a friend of mine that lives there told me the credit union used to call its members troops.

Oh my gosh, Phil Shea got that from the Chamber of Commerce for sure. For sure. And he put it on Toby's desk because his name is Toby. Very funny. Well, we have another whistleblower. I know. Apparently everyone who works here is real chatty. I love doing this scene.

This was a scene of Pam and Jim in the stairwell. This was a stairwell right outside of Randy's office. So that was always fun because I would walk up the stairs and just go chitchat with him when we were, you know, doing different setups. Pam says that she probably leaked the information. And I love her reason why. Yeah, she just needed something interesting to say to this other mom who had been chatting about her travels.

And Pam's like, well, our printers catch on fire. I know. It's so funny. Pam is going to tell Michael now. Oh my gosh, whose mind is going a mile an hour. It really is. We had a fan question from Shea T. in Montana wanting to know if that line was scripted or improvised because it is one of my favorite lines and Steve performed it so well.

Shea, that was scripted. Yeah. It's very funny. And it made me laugh every time Steve said it. Michael is spinning now because there are two whistleblowers. Yes. This is going to lead to an amazing meeting in Meredith's van. I want to break down the hand gestures.

Okay. Okay. Michael is going to walk up to Pam and he points to Pam. He points to himself. Then he points to Meredith and then he pretends to drink something. Then he pretends to drive. Then he points to his wrist. And then he makes the number five and Pam's like, oh my God, I know exactly what he's

saying. Here are the people who are going to meet in the van. It's not just Michael and Pam. It's also Daryl and then suddenly Kelly. Yeah. And Pam says we're not going for yogurt. And Michael says no, Kelly is also a whistleblower. Well while they're sitting in this van and they're discussing who is the whistleblower

and what they're going to do, Pam is holding up a bunch of unpaid parking tickets. Daryl holds up a boot. Yeah. You know, that's the thing they put on your tire when you haven't... You have too many parking tickets. You haven't paid your tickets. Or also incidentally, I looked it up if your license has been suspended. Did you know that they're called the Denver Boot because Denver was the first city to

use the boot? I didn't know that, but my friend, when I was living here in my twenties, her car got booted. Yeah. I knew people whose car got booted. Yeah. I had to drive her down to the impound lot and she had to pay an enormous fine. Oh yeah.

Yeah. I want to point out, I found it very interesting that Michael called this meeting in Meredith's van and not the Michael Scott Paper Company, which he is still leasing. That's such a good point, lady. I wonder if they wanted to call it in there and Randy Courgette was like, I am not cleaning that out again. Yeah. I'm not moving.

We just moved everything back in there. Right. I don't have any tapes. I cannot relocate it. How about Meredith's van? Yeah. There's got to be a story there. Some other place.

Well, Kelly is like, of course she's the leak. She probably tweeted it and this is when she sets up Wolf. Yeah. She said she spends the whole day talking, video chat, Skype, text, Twitter, phone, Wolf. And then we go to Ryan's closet and he's going to tell us what Wolf is. I will never get tired of seeing Ryan in that little closet. No. It's so true.

Ryan explains that Wolf is a site he's launching and hopes that it will be the last word in social networking. It basically links up all of your communication portals and he does a demonstration where he sends himself a Wolf, which then gives him a notification on all of his devices at once. Ryan notifies him via intercom, he gets a fax, it pops up on his screen, his phone, like everywhere. It all goes off at once.

Everything goes off. Well, a lot of people wrote in to say this was the first mention of Wolf and it is. Warren and Halstead said that this just started as a one-off joke for this episode. They kind of came up with it in the writer's room, but it is eventually going to become a whole episode in season seven. Yes. They reached out to writer Aaron Schur, because I know he writes the episode Wolf, eventually, right?

And he said he pitched the name Wolf, but someone else pitched the idea of it. But how he came up with the name was he said Twitter was just starting and he thought the sound a dog makes instead of a bird, if it's funny. Oh yeah. That's good. I like it. Yeah. Randy shared that they had everything rigged to go off at the same time, but that Ellie

does not actually call on the phone. To time that out, they had her just standing off camera to do her line, and then in post-production they put an effect on her voice to make it sound like it was from the phone. Well, I have to point out one thing about Ryan in this scene. He has now officially combined all of his new looks. Did you catch it? It's glasses, suspenders, bow tie, orange watch. Wow.

The only thing missing is his hat. It's kind of like he's woofed his wardrobe. Well, if Michael was freaking out that he had two whistleblowers, now his mind is completely blown because he has three whistleblowers. His solution to this is that they just smash all the computers, destroy the evidence. Yes. But really, Pam says, I think you just need to convince Joe to go easy on all of us. And then once we know our jobs are safe, we all confess at once.

So this is going to be the new plan. Meanwhile, Toby is in the break room. His snack is stuck in the vending machine, and he starts doing the thing where you kind of jiggle and try to move the vending machine. Dwight offers to help him, but he gets a call in the middle, and then Toby's stuck just sort of holding up a vending machine. They've tipped it forward. When I saw that, I was like, wait, was that in the script?

It had to have been in the script because it's such a big prop move. I couldn't figure out how he was doing it. According to thepromove.com, vending machines weigh between 400 and 900 pounds when they are empty. Wow. And you really can't move them without proper equipment. So I asked Randy Cordray about it. He said that Mike Thompson, our on-set special effects technician, rigged the back of the

machine with a safety cable, and it went all the way through that back wall. And then Mike Thompson stood behind there. He said this was the area, Jenna, where our lunch tables usually were, that I guess really is only something we can visualize, Angela, but just so you know, Mike's standing there. He's got this cord through the wall. He had manipulated it so that the machine could tilt at a certain angle, but Mike was actually holding the weight. And so it could never fall, like that cable was holding it so it couldn't actually fall

on Paul. And that's how they did it very convincingly. So Michael's going to go up to Joe and he's going to be like, you know, on second thought about this whistleblower, I think we make them work, come in here, and they just got to work. Yeah, they get to totally keep their job. And she's like, Michael Scott, what do you know? But he's not going to tell her.

No, she's going to bring them into the conference room and they just kind of face off. He will not tell her what he knows. There's a great moment where she says, Michael, speak, speak. And then the dog barks on the couch. We had a fan question from Enoch N and Sarah M from Pennsylvania and others who wanted to know when Joe says, speak and the dog barks, was that scripted or improvised? Well, I did not see it in the script. I have an answer for you because Warren and Halstead told me that the dog barking and

Joe saying speak were something that they came up with on the day. And luckily for us, the dog trainer was able to get the dog to Hal on command. Well, I'm glad because that was a good bit. I loved it. And Randy shared with us that the same Great Danes as before were our dog actors, Gabby and Guinness. I felt like I recognized them. Did you?

I did. I knew they were the same. You took Gabby and Guinness out of a Great Dane crowd. I don't know which one is which, but when they walked in the door at the very beginning, I thought, same Danes. Same Danes. Well, at the end of this meeting, Joe is going to invite Michael to leave with her and she drives him to a small airport.

I love how paranoid Michael is. He's like, I've got a dinner with Chief of Police. What does he think Joe's up to? Just in case she's up to something shady, he has some plans to meet with officials. Meanwhile, Dwight is getting ready to wrap up his real estate deal because he's buying that property that Joe suggested, but he sees a sign while he's on the phone with his real editor. It says Scranton Business Park.

He has an idea. Make him an offer they can't refuse. Actually lowball them. Just get it done. Yeah. He's going to buy the building. We had a fan question from Ashley S. in the UK when Dwight makes an offer on the Scranton Business Park, 1725 Slough Avenue, was that a nod to the British show which was set in

Slough? Yes, it was. Of course it was. Yes, it was. That has always been our address. It's even on Michael Scott's business card from the pilot. Yeah. Which you and I both took one.

Of course we did. Of course we did. Yes. Randy shared that that big business park sign in the background that says Dunder Mifflin, that was put up just for that scene and then it was quickly taken down. He said we never wanted to draw attention to ourselves. We did not want to have a sign that said Dunder Mifflin out on the street like that. Right.

Back in the bullpen, Gabe has concluded his investigation. Yes. He says Andy did it based on all the evidence and everyone agrees, although Jim does try to make Andy feel better but then Andy just throws him under the bus. By the way, Gabe didn't do a very good job investigating because David Wallace pops in for a talking head where he says that he did it. He's like, he heard from an old client about their problems and he immediately started spreading the news.

But he's not really here to talk about that. He wants to talk about Socket. He only wants to talk about Socket. Speaking of that talking head, Angie, we had a fan catch from Sarah H. and Williamsburg, Virginia, who said, as a dog obsessed person, I always get excited whenever we visit David Wallace's house because he has a dog. But in David's talking head, this is not the same dog as before. David originally had a golden retriever and now it looks like he has a hound mix or a

pointer of some kind. Sarah says this is not a groundbreaking discovery, but I thought it was kind of fun that the Wallace has got a new dog. Well I have an answer for you, Sarah. I thought I recognized this dog when I watched the episode and I reached out to Warren and he confirmed it. This was Paul Lieberstein's dog. His name was Dude.

Wait, this is Paul's dog in real life? Yes, it's Paul's dog in real life. His name was Dude. He was the sweetest dog. I love that dog. Oh my gosh. He was like one of those big dogs who thinks he's a lap dog. This is so funny because I wrote to Randy about this question and I said, what is this

dog? Was this Bob Dunn's animal menagerie dog? No. And he said, Jenna, I have no record of this dog. I can't believe it. I don't know who the dog is. It was Dude. Wow.

I love it. Well, lady, I think we stay in the bullpen because Nick is going to have such a big scene. Let's let all this play out and then we'll go back to the plane where Michael and Joe are. I like that. Yeah. Nick, the IT guy, he's going to say goodbye to everyone because he's going to Detroit with Teach for America.

No one can even remember his name, Jenna. I know. And Gabe is like, this is not the time. I am talking about an investigation. I forgot how badly the whole bullpen blows off Nick. Poor guy. He was just trying to say a nice goodbye. I know.

Nick is like, you know what? I've kind of had it. I've looked at all your hard drives and he starts revealing all these truths. Yeah. And then he says, and I'll tell you what, Andy is the whistleblower. I saw it. He wrote a note to the press, then he gives everybody the finger and walks out. Yeah.

He does a two bird salute on the way out. We had a fan question from Kyle T. in Houston, Texas. Did Nick call out other people that we did not get to see? Yes, Kyle. He did. He has a dig at Jim and Pam that I remember from when we were shooting. Yes. You do.

So I went back to the script and here's your answer. He says to Ryan, you are not a photographer. And he says to Kelly, you are not a size two. Those made the cut. Yeah. Then he would have said to Phyllis, you are sending flirty emails to your stepson Phyllis. And then he says to Pam, while pointing to Phyllis, she thinks your kid is ugly. Then he says to Jim while pointing to Pam, she hates that you can't put up a hammock without

a handyman. A hammock? A hammock? My God, Lee gives me trouble about saying hammock. It has a freaking O in it, everybody. Hammock. How does everybody say it? If you're on vacation with Jenna, you might go lay in a hammock.

It's hammock. You know it's hammock. No. Come on. You got to let this one go. Wow. I can't believe I'm saying something correctly. Here's the thing.

I bought a hammock for our yard. And you're not allowed to hang it till you know how to say it. To put it up. And the whole time he was like, Jenna, hammock. It has an O in it, H-O-M-M-O-C-K. There's a lot of words in the English language that don't make sense. Let's talk about knife. It has a K in it.

It's not knife. I know, but that is a common silent K. That's a thing in our language. That is common. It's a thing. You can't. Like the P-H is a fuck. You know? That's we.

Hammock. Hammock. Hammock. My gosh. Anyway. And then he says to Andy, and you told the press, well, lady, there was another unscripted call out that was not, you know, in our shooting draft. It's something Nelson said, and I know what a fantastic improviser he is.

So I had to ask him if any of his improvs made it into the show. I was curious if this one moment was improvised. And you know, I love improv, and whenever as an improviser, anything you say in the moment makes it in, you are so excited about it. It's like a little private moment of like, woo-hoo, victory. Yes. I asked Nelson if he improvised anything, and here's what he said. Angela is asking me if I improvised anything in this episode in Whistle Blower, and yes,

I did. I'm so glad you asked me that. It was a great moment for me. As you remember, I sort of, you know, my big final bow is that I come out and sort of hostily quit my job and start calling everyone out, you know, blowing the whistle. I blow the whistle on Andy for leaking the, you know, the printer video, and then I start blowing the whistle on everybody. I'm talking to Kelly, you know, and Ryan, blah, blah, blah.

But the one I improvised was when I turned to Daryl, and I say to him, Daryl, why haven't you told anyone you're on Facebook? People want to be your friend. You're on, you know, and it was this really weird, little weird thing that, and just for the kids back home, back then in 2008 or whatever, Facebook was like Instagram, it was the good one back then. Now they're all terrible. But I didn't have anything to say to Daryl, but I'm a big Craig Robinson fan in general.

I think he's insanely funny. And so I said that line, which seems sort of inconsequential, but it was really great because of his reaction. You know, they cut to Daryl and he's sort of looking like really ashamed of himself and embarrassed, and that made it all worthwhile for me just to get that, get that out of him. I mean, that's the whole point of ad-libbing stuff, to get an interesting reaction at your scene partner. And Craig is an incredibly good actor, and I loved it.

I love that. I love that so much. Oh, it was so funny and so quick, and he's right, like Craig's reaction was perfect. Well, you know, when he flips everyone off at the end, Randy told me that standards and practices made us pixelate his middle finger. Both of them. Yeah, exactly. And Randy said, quote, which was absurd because it made it even more obvious.

We fought this note, but unsuccessfully. Should we go back to the plane, lady? Let's go back to the plane because these scenes between Kathy Bates and Steve Krill are so awesome. I could have watched them for an hour. Me too. Yeah, it starts off with Michael kind of confiding to Joe that he's had just the hardest year of his life.

Yeah. His favorite restaurant closed down. Yeah. His second favorite sucks. He bought a video camera to film, I guess, special moments throughout the year, and he only had 12 minutes that were worth taping. Most of that was just birds in his condo complex, which you would like to watch. I would actually.

I would watch that. And then he sort of says he misses Holly. And she says, who's Holly? Yeah. Well, then Joe tells Michael that, you know, she's bummed because she thought that as a businesswoman, she'd be breaking the glass ceiling that she'd be a hero to little girls that they might even make a Barbie out of her. She says that the thing that she's really dreading is having to go in front of the press

and make one of those apology videos. Yeah. And Michael said, I'll do it. Yeah. He offers to make the apology video. She's like, you don't have to do that. Lady, we had a fan question from Kim See from Langley, British Columbia, Canada in the plane scene.

What do we think? Was Joe manipulating Michael so that he would take the fall and make the video? Or do you think she was really just sharing that she was upset that they sold cheap printers? What do we think? Well, I think she absolutely knew she was manipulating Michael, but I also think she did share a little bit. I think there's some half truth there. But as soon as she said, Mama Joe, you know, when she was like, Mama Joe thought so, Mama

Joe knew. I was like, she's doing her thing. She does where she kind of compliments you, but then like kind of pulls you in to get what she needs. It's really interesting because I really thought it was just a genuine moment of sharing and that she was completely surprised that Michael offered to make the video. I never saw her as manipulating him. Clearly if Joe invited me to her plane, she could get me to do anything because I just

bought it. I thought that she did share some truthful things, but the minute she referred to herself as Mama Joe to him, I was like, that was it. That was your clue. Yeah. Okay. I hear that. Now that you say it, I hear it.

Because they're not buddies. She doesn't want him to come visit her in Florida. Why is all of a sudden, she's Mama Joe to him? She needs something. Clearly I want Joe Bennett to like me just like Michael. I am very Michael Scott when it comes to Joe Bennett. I'm like, please invite me to Florida, Joe Bennett. Please take me on your private plane.

Please. I'll do whatever. Well, a very smiley Michael ends up making a statement to the press. Yes, he does. And he says there will be no questions. Are there any questions? He's so excited about this role. I will say this, Jenna.

Maybe I didn't think she was sincere on the plane, but when Joe thanks Michael at the end for making the statement, I think she meant that. Thank you. She was happy. She didn't have to do that. Yes. And she does say to him, is there anything I can do for you? Yeah.

And he says, yeah, you can transfer Holly back from Nashua. And he sort of just says that off the cuff, but then she looks at him with all seriousness and says, I'll see what I can do. Well, lady, we had a fan question from Sophia M. and Louisiana, something I didn't think of. In Whistleblower, Michael asked Joe to transfer Holly back to Scranton. But in Secret Santa, David says that Scranton is the only branch that will be kept in the Sabre buyout.

So technically there is no Nashua. Oh, that's such a good catch. I thought so too. I didn't think of it at all. But yeah. Yeah. So now we're doing this rewatch in real time. I'm very curious.

Where does Holly come from when she comes back? We will see. I'm sure you all already know. Well, at the end of the episode, everyone's kind of filing out, Andy can't find his bag. Phyllis says it's in the ceiling. They're like hazing Andy. And Phyllis is like, you deserved it. I know.

Andy told me that putting Andy's bag in the ceiling was a huge ordeal. He said, you know, our drop ceiling, we had a real ceiling with lights. But it was like, you know, it was suspended from the very high top of our warehouse. And if you opened up the little thing, you would have seen this just cavernous. Yes. It was like we were in an aircraft hangar. Right. It was just low ceiling over us, but if you peel back the ceiling, it was like a catwalk

of like little railings and bridges and things suspended in the air. Yeah. So he said our production designer, Michael Gallenberg, had to design like a fakie attic, which was basically a black box. Tim James, our construction coordinator, suspended the box over the drop ceiling so that the camera couldn't see all that empty space that went up above the ceiling tiles. That little gag. That little tiny gag.

That was many meetings and much construction. Andy is going to get his bag, and then he's going to receive a calf rub, a lingering calf touch. Yeah. From Erin. Yeah. She says she thought he was really brave. Yeah.

And that is whistleblower. Yeah. That is the end of season six. You know, lady, we did have this fan question from Natalie F. in San Antonio and Grace V. from Philadelphia who were asking, but who was the real whistleblower? Because there really were a lot of possibilities. There's Pam, Daryl, Kelly, Andy, and David Wallace. I mean, Nick says it was Andy, but really, I feel like it could have been all of us or

any of us. What do you think, Ange? Yeah. Any one of those people could have spoke to the right person that then ended up somehow coming back on them, right? They were all being pretty chatty about it. I think Andy is the one who, with great intention, wrote this email to the press. He said he didn't want, you know, people's houses to burn down or people to be injured

because of these faulty printers. I also thought it was interesting when I spoke to Nelson that Nelson said Nick the IT guy was also a whistleblower of his own because he went around and called out everyone in the office. He sure was. Well, listen, a big thank you to Randy Cordray for all of his great facts this week and also to Nelson Franklin for sending in those great audio clips. Nelson was most recently in the miniseries Gaslit, and you can find him on Instagram

at NelsonModeSquad. And Jenna, before we go, I have one last audio clip from Nelson. It was so sweet, and I wanted you to hear it. Thanks so much for having me, guys, again, and I want to say a special thanks to Jenna. As I mentioned several times, the Job Fair was my first job ever as an actor, and it was on my favorite show, and I was very, very scared and stressed out, and my scene was with Jenna. Thank God, because, you know, she's the sweetest, greatest person, so you made me feel very

comfortable and you let me thrive. So thank you a million times for starting my acting career on a good foot. I really, really appreciate it. And thanks for having me on again. Love you guys. Nelson. Is that so sweet? That is so sweet.

I want to say, again, I would have never known that that was his first acting job. He was so calm, cool, and collected. I learned that here with his audio clips. He was great and is great. Nelson, thank you so much for sitting in your audio clips. It was so great to catch up with you, and you guys, we will see you back here for Season 7. Next week.

See you then. 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. For ad-free versions of Office Ladies, go to StitcherPremium.com.

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