Second Drink: The Meeting

Office Ladies

The hosts break down The Office episode 'The Meeting,' analyzing Jim's secret promotion meeting with David Wallace, Dwight and Toby's investigatio

Key takeaways

• David Wallace serves as both CFO and CEO at Dunder Mifflin, though his frequent Scranton visits blur traditional corporate hierarchy with Alan, the board-appointed CEO.
• Rainn Wilson's primal scream in Dwight's talking head was a scripted 'must shoot' moment with multiple candy bag alternatives recorded on set.

Main topics

• Jim's promotion meeting with David Wallace
• Dwight and Toby's fraudulent injury investigation

Notable quotes

I was chasing mice in the corn crib while a fox was eating my mother's head.

Conclusion

This breakdown offers fans a deeper appreciation of The Office's production craftsmanship, blending

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:01) Welcome back to our second drink of The Meeting. I have a little behind-the-scenes tidbit that I discovered when I was looking back to our first table draft of this episode. Speaker 3 (0:12) This episode was originally titled Jim Goes For It. Well, that kind of feels very on the nose. It Speaker 4 (0:20) does. I guess the meeting is where we settled. Yeah. Speaker 3 (0:24) So we had a fan mail flurry for this one. Jenna, we both said we didn't know who Alan was. You know, the guy David Wallace says he has to run things by. We were both like, who the heck is Alan? And, you know, he is clearly in charge. But we said we had never heard of him, lady. Yeah, who's Alan? Well, Sarah F., Marlon R., and many others wanted us to know that Alan is the CEO of Dunder Mifflin, and he is mentioned in the pilot episode of The Office. It's during Jan's meeting with Michael, and Jan says, Alan and the board have decided that we can't justify a Scranton branch and a Stanford branch. Speaker 4 (1:03) Well, who is David Wallace? David Wallace isn't the CEO. He's Speaker 3 (1:07) not. He's not. There's a lot of debate about it. There was a very funny back and forth I saw online where people are like, what exactly is David Wallace? Like the role of CEO would never come in and have these like talks with Michael. No, Speaker 4 (1:23) you're Speaker 3 (1:23) right. You know, just the way he pops in and out of the branch is not very CEO like. I'm going to look it up. I want to Speaker 4 (1:30) know. Speaker 3 (1:31) What Speaker 4 (1:31) his official title is. What is David Wallace's official title at? Dunder Mifflin. Everyone hearing me? Oh, Speaker 3 (1:43) the Speaker 4 (1:44) CFO? And CEO. I know, but... He's the CFO from seasons two through six, and then he becomes the CEO? Speaker 3 (1:55) But there is a lot of online chatter. People are like, listen, David was acting like the owner, the CEO, the CFO, the regional manager, approving random expenses. I know. He's like, Speaker 4 (2:07) I mean, what is going on? This is very funny. Well, apparently, Alan is the biggest deal at Dunder Mifflin, and he and the board make the decisions. Yes. Speaker 3 (2:20) Okay. Okay, so we also got this question from Delaney B. in Lubbock, Texas. Delaney says, when Dwight finds out that Jim got their promotion and Dwight has that talking head where he just screams and screams, was that scripted or did Rainn Wilson just make that up? Well, this is a great question, Delaney. I went to the script and here's how it read in the shooting draft. Scene 46, Dwight talking head. A long, still silence. Then Dwight erupts in an enraged yell. Dwight semicolon, ah, exclamation point. But Delaney, there were candy bag alts that were, quote, must shoot. So that means these actually got shot. Because sometimes we get pages and pages that we didn't even get to. Totally. It was Speaker 4 (3:05) like if time permits. Speaker 3 (3:06) Yeah. But there was must Speaker 4 (3:08) shoot and if time permits. Speaker 3 (3:09) Here was must shoot. Dwight could have said, I was chasing mice in the corn crib while a fox was eating my mother's head. Okay. Or this better be a motherfucking prank. Or the one day I'm distracted is the one day Jim Halpert gets ambitious. That's funny to me. Yeah. Speaker 4 (3:31) Well, Angela, we also had some fun banter in this breakdown. You really got into the whole Grey Poupon mustard mention in this episode. And Jessica E. wrote in with this hilarious story. This is amazing. She said, That one day, her husband pulled up next to a Rolls Royce, rolled down his window, and asked for some Grey Poupon as a joke. Because, you know, that's what the commercial was. Right. These two fancy cars pull up next to each other, and they ask for Grey Poupon. Well, Jessica goes on to say, as it turned out, in the backseat of the Rolls Royce was television actor Eric Estrada, and he had little bottles of Grey Poupon. Speaker 3 (4:17) That is just so, so amazing that he was ready. He was ready for the day that someone said, pardon me, can I have your Grey Speaker 4 (4:27) Poupon? I mean, that is so funny to me. Does Rolls-Royce have a partnership with Grey Poupon where like if you buy a Rolls-Royce, you get a few bottles of Grey Poupon? I don't Speaker 3 (4:39) know. This is Speaker 4 (4:39) my question. I Speaker 3 (4:40) want them to bring those commercials back, but I Speaker 4 (4:42) want Erika Estrada in them. Yes. Speaker 3 (4:45) Well, we also talked about the storyline of Pam trying to get people to RSVP for her wedding so she can get a headcount. And lady, this sent us on a tangent about bugging the bride on the day of the wedding. And we got this amazing share from Melissa M. who said, for my wedding, I included a sheet in our hotel guests welcome bags that said, call anyone but the bride and gave phone numbers of who to talk to instead. For the wedding weekend. Isn't Speaker 4 (5:15) that so great? That is good. That is good. Well, everyone, please enjoy our second drink of the meeting. Speaker 4 (5:27) 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 Speaker 3 (5:36) 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. Speaker 3 (5:47) Hello! Speaker 3 (5:50) I just want to say I am so happy to be sitting across this recording booth table. Is it a... It's Speaker 4 (5:57) a table. Speaker 3 (5:57) Yeah. From my best friend this morning. Speaker 4 (6:00) Thanks, lady. Yeah. I am super peppy this morning. Speaker 3 (6:04) That's awesome. I'm really peppy and I got no sleep, which means I'm more loopy than peppy. So buckle in. What Speaker 4 (6:12) is in store for us today? I don't know. Would you like an update on my contrast showers before we begin today? Yeah. I've taken them to a new level. I don't shower anymore. I'm sorry, what? Well, I mean, I shower for cleanliness, obviously. My way of doing the contrast hydrotherapy shower is now I sit in the hot tub and it's super hot, and then I do a cold dip in our freezing cold swimming pool. Speaker 3 (6:43) Why, Chema? It Speaker 4 (6:44) is so cold. I am on fire about it. You know what? This is unlocking something in me. I am like, I'm starting to read books about it. Speaker 3 (6:55) Wait, does this mean Office Ladies is going to go somewhere like really icy and do a polar bear plunge? Are we going to Finland? Are we going to have a shot of... Like some kind of Speaker 4 (7:05) alcohol and then jump in an icy lake? I don't know if I'm at icy lake yet. I mean, I'm at pretty cold. Would you do it, though? Speaker 3 (7:12) No. Speaker 4 (7:13) Here's the thing. Lee is really into it. Lee wants to talk to Josh about it because Josh, you know, is a super healthy guy. Yeah. I think he's going to get Josh to start doing it. Lee and I think maybe 2022 we might get you to do it, Ange. Speaker 3 (7:26) No way. I hate being cold. I want it to be something that you do. No! I Speaker 4 (7:32) don't know why. I don't want to do it. All right, fine. I would do it Speaker 3 (7:38) on a vacation. I am vacation adventurous. I am not day-to-day adventurous. All right. Take me, you know, somewhere Nordic. All right. Speaker 4 (7:46) Maybe Speaker 3 (7:46) I'll jump in. All right. And holler after I've had a shot of something. Okay. That's probably not the health routine you want. Speaker 4 (7:56) Well, today we are going to talk about The Meeting, which is Season 6, Episode 2. It is written by one of our favorite people, Aaron Scher. Love him. And directed by one of our other favorite people, Randall Einhorn. Yeah. Here's a summary. Jim meets with David Wallace about a possible promotion. Dwight and Toby join forces to investigate whether Daryl submitted a fraudulent medical claim. And Pam... works to lock down her RSVPs for her and Jim's wedding. I Speaker 3 (8:28) found that storyline so relatable. Were you just RSVP, people? Speaker 4 (8:32) Just RSVP! When Meredith says, I'll just text you the day of the wedding, I mean, did you get texts on the day of your wedding? Because I did. Yeah. I was like, you may not be my friend anymore, person who texted me on my wedding morning to ask me. about parking instructions. I Speaker 3 (8:49) got a text the morning of my wedding about, would this outfit be appropriate? Speaker 4 (8:53) What's the attire again? Speaker 3 (8:55) Is it Speaker 4 (8:56) real fancy or could I wear something Speaker 3 (8:57) casual? Speaker 4 (8:58) See, now listen, Ange, if you text me the morning of my wedding to ask me a question, that's fine. But you know what? I wouldn't. That's the difference. BFFs get a pass. Speaker 3 (9:09) BFFs do get a pass, but they also know better. Speaker 4 (9:12) Yeah. Text another wedding guest. You know someone who's going. Text your most reliable friend who saved the invitation. Text the friend you know in the wedding party. Yeah. Speaker 3 (9:24) That's their job. Leave the bride and groom alone. Okay. We could really go off on that. Speaker 4 (9:30) I mean, listen, clearly it meant so much to us. We moved it up to the Speaker 3 (9:34) top of the show. Yeah. We Speaker 4 (9:35) didn't even wait to get to that scene. I know. All right. Let's do some fast facts. Fast fact number one, this episode is going to kick off a major story arc for Jim, in which he becomes the co-manager of the Scranton branch. Now, this is also going to signal a wardrobe change for Jim. Did you notice? Boo-ba-doo-boo, wardrobe change. Jim wears a jacket instead of his usual shirt and tie. Not just any jacket, a suit. Yeah, this is going to continue while he is co-manager. I guess jacket means you take things seriously. Look at Pam Speaker 3 (10:12) when she become a salesperson. They're the jacket couple now. We are. We're so cute. Speaker 4 (10:17) You know how Dwight wore his long sleeves for Charles Minor? Yeah. These are ways that our wardrobe department can really, you know, signal storytelling. I think it's very cool. And I wanted to give them a shout out. Speaker 3 (10:31) Love it. Loved our wardrobe department. I love that fast fact. Speaker 4 (10:34) Thank you, Ange. Fast fact number two. This episode has a very interesting pairing as part of its B story. This feels like one of those assignments that we've heard about, the taking of the two people, Dwight and Toby. When have we had a Dwight-Toby huge storyline? I can't think Speaker 3 (10:54) of one. I Speaker 4 (10:54) thought the same thing. They were on a card, and they got sent off to the writer's pod. Now, this B story was also ranked number seven on Screen Rant's Best B Plots. Do you know what was number one? No. Dwight's concussion. Speaker 3 (11:09) Oh, with Pam. Yeah. I did love that one. Speaker 4 (11:13) So incidentally, while Paul Lieberstein was starring in this very popular B story, he was also our sole showrunner for this season, season six. In season five, he shared that title with Jen Salata. But at this point, Jen was starting to develop some other projects. So she took a step back in season six. She was a consulting producer. She worked three days a week. So Paul, our showrunner, was starring in this episode. I don't know. It just amazes me how he juggled it all. Speaker 3 (11:45) I mean, I feel like he was living there for a bit. Do Speaker 4 (11:47) you think he ever slept there? I feel like maybe at least once. We should ask him. We should ask. Now, fast fact number three, Angela, I am handing over to you. What would you like to tell us? Speaker 3 (11:58) I would like to talk about the deleted scenes. For this episode, I am titling this Fast Fact because I guess I titled my Fast Facts. Oh. I'm titling my Fast Fact. Stay with me. Long, long, long, long. Speaker 4 (12:12) Oh. Long, long, long, long. Should I be titling my fast facts? No. Speaker 3 (12:19) I think we're all fine not to. You guys, this episode was a very long script. Oh. And a lot of our scripts came in very long, but I just thought this one really highlights how much didn't make it in that was written on the page, and I wanted to share that with you. Okay. It's a little insight, you guys, into the deleted scenes of an episode of The Office. So I was trading emails with Randy Cordray, and he said, that there was so much material for our episodes that our editors' first cuts were usually about 45 minutes long. And we had to narrow that down to 21 minutes and 30 seconds to broadcast the show. So Speaker 4 (12:57) they would cut more than half. Exactly. That brings me to this script. Speaker 3 (13:02) Jenna, I looked. The shooting draft was 41 pages. Speaker 4 (13:06) Okay, so it's usually a page equals a minute. We've talked about that before. Right. Speaker 3 (13:11) So they were going to have to edit out more than half the script. I went to the shooting draft and I read the shooting draft as I watched the episode that was broadcast. And there were six talking heads that never made it in, eight full scenes that never made it. And then five scenes were actually extended and longer than what made it onto the screen. And I was trading emails with Randy and he brought up a great, great note, which is. The whole Dwight and Toby runner, as well as some of the Michael Andy runner, really had to be cut for this episode. And there are elements that didn't make it in that would have really kind of explained a little bit more what was happening. And I'm going to share some of those as we go. Speaker 4 (13:53) Wow. This episode was almost like two A stories to me. Speaker 3 (13:57) Yes, exactly. Exactly. But if you think about it, I mean, six talking heads, eight whole scenes. Eight whole scenes. Wow. Right? Speaker 4 (14:08) Yeah. But you're going to give us the dish. I'm going to give you the dish. You're going to spill the tea. Is that what it is? Spill the tea? Do you spill the tea? I think you spill the tea and you Speaker 3 (14:17) serve the dish and you give the scoop. What else? What's another one? I don't know. That's my fast fact. That just shows you what we had to do every week to trim it to network broadcast. Speaker 4 (14:30) I enjoyed this top of show. Should we go to a break? And when we come back, we will. Spill the tea and give the dish and tell the things. We'll tell all the things. All right. Speaker 3 (14:53) All right, this episode starts with a cold open between Michael and Oscar. Michael has called Oscar into his office for advice on an upcoming medical procedure. And Oscar is concerned. He's like, Michael, are you okay? What's going on? Michael reveals it's a colonoscopy and wonders if, in Oscar's experience, there's anything he can do to make it more pleasurable for himself or the doctor. And Oscar, of course, walks out of Michael's office. Speaker 4 (15:20) Yes. Now, I always love scenes between Steve and Oscar. They are so good together. They're a good comedy duo. This scene made me cringe. Yeah. But Oscar's performance is so good. Speaker 3 (15:34) Oh, my God. Oscar's amazing. I caught an improv moment. Oh. Yeah. So it's not in the script. I went to the shooting draft. There's this moment where Oscar says, what's the procedure, if you don't mind me asking? And he scooches his chair real close to Michael's desk. Oscar Nunez. came up with that sort of physical improv in the moment to sort of, you know, try to bond with Michael, right? What's happening, Michael? I thought that was just smart acting. Well, Speaker 4 (15:59) Steve and Oscar have a very similar improvisation style, and it's based on small details and slow timing, like patience, pace, all of it. Yeah. Speaker 3 (16:11) Well, I have another background catch in this scene. Okay. I caught Meredith at front reception talking to Pam, and I couldn't help but wonder, is this a Kate-Jenna-Fakey spreadsheet conversation moment? You know what, lady? What? She's talking to Aaron. Speaker 4 (16:27) Oh no! Speaker 4 (16:30) Yeah. And you know what? I saw Kate at reception. And the first thing I thought was, oh, my God, are me and Kate doing our bit? And then I Speaker 3 (16:37) realized Speaker 4 (16:38) it's not me. Speaker 3 (16:40) I thought it was me, too. Oh, my gosh. It's Erin. That just shows you, even though we know the show, we're rewatching it, we were there, I will always think of Pam as that front reception. Speaker 4 (16:52) It's true. You know, Pam spends half of the series. As not a receptionist, and yet I still think of her as the receptionist, and people regard me as the receptionist when they meet me. Speaker 3 (17:05) Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I guess I did. I know. I did too. Well, as the episode starts, there is a deleted scene, you guys, that would have set up how truly overwhelmed Michael was. And I thought it was kind of important. I want to share it with you. In the shooting draft, it says we're inside Michael's office. Michael is looking slightly more haggard than usual. He sits in his office with Erin. She is just handing him post-it notes. We see the perimeter of Michael's desktop monitor is completely covered with multicolored post-it notes. And then Erin says, Bill Seidman from Buffalo. And hands Michael a Post-it note. He puts yet another one on his computer. Michael says, thank you. And then Aaron hands him another Post-it note. And then Aaron says, Angela's still waiting for you to