The Paper Ep 3: Buddy and the Dude

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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 lovers podcast just for you. Each week, we will dive deeper into the world of the office with exclusive interviews, behind the scenes details, and lots of BFF stories. We're the Office Lady 6.0.

How are you, lady? I'm good. Me too. I need an update from us. Oh, yeah? I want to check in on our New Year's resolution to get off the hamster wheel. How's it going? Well... Pretty good. I hamstered a little bit on Saturday. I know you did. And then I put it away. I put work away. And then I have started purging my closet. This is what I did with this extra time. Yes.

And I'm so happy about it. And also, like, I went through, and there's some stuff in my closet that I'm like, it doesn't really fit me anymore, but I still like the stuff. And I put together, like, a little pile, and Isabel got to go through it all, and she was so excited. It was like shopping in mom's closet. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Because you guys are the same size. Almost. But her feet are bigger than yours, right? Her feet are—she's—

tinier than I am, but like overall, but her feet are bigger, which makes her crazy because she's like, oh, you have so many great shoes. Well, I have added on to getting off the hamster wheel. I have added on doing one thing at a time. which I found has been really good for me. I think I used to pride myself on being an expert multitasker, and I want to become an expert single tasker.

I like that. Single tasking. You know what? Multitasking's overrated. I think so. And I think, again, especially as a person who works from home, I don't want to put in a load of laundry while also... answering an email. So I've stopped doing that. I have work hours and I have home hours, and I'm actually finding that I'm happier, more present, and more efficient.

In those spaces, when I divide them up rather than try to, like, make them work together. I like this. I've started doing this thing. Tell me if you think it's passive-aggressive. I'm excited. I'm sitting up. Okay. So whenever someone's on a device in my house, like we start a conversation and then maybe they check an email or look at a text, I stop talking.

Oh. Just mid-sentence. I love this. I stop talking. And then inevitably they realize and they look up and I go, hey there, let me know when you're ready. Oh, lady, I'm living for this. Here's the thing. I'm trying to have a conversation. Yeah. I don't want to like have a conversation with the top of your head while you're looking at a device. And I have a house full of teenagers. We're learning our boundaries with devices, right?

social cues and whatnot. And I think this is a good life skill to take out with you that when someone's talking to you, you focus on them. And then if you have an email or something you need to check, then you go do it. I like this. I think this is smart. I think this is good parenting. Maybe it's passive aggressive if you want to give it that label, but it's also proactive life lessening.

Okay. How about that spin on it? There's our self-help book. Proactive Life Lessening by Jenna and Angela. All right, everyone. Welcome to this week's Office Lady 6.0.

Today, we are going to be breaking down the third episode of Season 1's The Paper, titled The Buddy and the Dude. Yeah. But before we dive into that, we are going to kick things off with a chit-chat. Sent in from Steve T. from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hi, ladies. This is Steve from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm curious what your preferred thermostat setting is, both in the summer and winter.

My fiance and I both like to keep the house pretty cold, so any warmer than 68 degrees and we feel like we're roasting. That is not the question I was expecting. But okay, what were you expecting? I don't know. I wasn't expecting a thermostat question, but I sort of love it. It's very timely for me, Steve. I don't know how you knew this. Well, I loved this question because this has been a theme in my life.

The thermostat war. Yeah. I mean, especially on the set of The Office. Mm-hmm. We had Steve Carell, who ran hot. Mm-hmm. And so on the days he was there, the air was like cranked down. And then we were all freezing and we would have little heaters under our desk. But I guess I should also talk about what it's like at home. Well, he's asking our preferred setting. Yeah.

What is yours, Lainey? Well, my preferred setting is 70 degrees air conditioning at night. Really, all I care about right now, Steve, is what is the temperature at night when I'm trying to sleep through my hot flashes. Sure. But right now in LA, it's getting very cold at night. And so the problem is when I'm going to sleep, I need the air conditioner on. But then the house might get all the way down to like 66 degrees overnight.

If the heat isn't on. Yeah. I'm really in a pickle. I'm fighting with it. I'll get up in the middle of the night. I'm worried the kids are cold. So then I turn the heat on and then I'm sweating. This is a long story to say my preferred setting. is 70 degrees. At night? At any time. 70 seems to be my sweet spot, but I live in a very old house, and different rooms run hot.

And other rooms run cold. And it's very hard to keep everybody happy. So we have a few space heaters. My son sleeps with his window open a little bit because his room runs hot. It's a whole thing. I'm going to throw you a curveball. What is it? Your face is so funny. Why? You're like, what is it? I turn off the heat at night. I know. Me too. That's what I'm saying. No, no. But like, I let it get down. Like, it doesn't kick on ever. And I sleep with the window open.

And it gets cold. Like you wake up and the house is cold. But I like to sleep in a cold room. I'm with you, Steve. I'm like, I tell the kids, guys, pile on the blankets. Okay. And I sleep with the window open no matter where I am. So, like, we go to see Josh's family in Colorado in the winter. I open that window. You know, that's really healthy. I was reading about it. Oh, yeah? We're supposed to be getting more fresh air into our homes than we're getting.

Oh. Like you're supposed to, remember in ye olden times when there was no like, you know, HVAC systems? Yeah. You had your windows open a lot. Yeah. And that's really good to get that fresh air. I'm that person. I have windows open all over the house. Smart. I like it around 64 degrees at night. 64? Yes. Yes. That's what the thermostat said this morning when I woke up. It said it was 64 degrees in the house. And I just...

Oh, man, I just layer these heavy blankets and I'm so snug. But it is hard for me to get out of bed in the morning because I'm so snug. There you go. 70 and 64. Yeah. Those are our numbers. Thanks, Steve. Loved your question. Well, listen, why don't we take a break? Because when we come back, we've really got a lot of fun stuff to share about this episode. Yes, we reached out to Greg Daniels. Yes, and I...

Traded some texts with writer Patrick Kang and also Chelsea Fry. And we have a little something something from Creed Bratton. I'm really excited about that one. I know, me too. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. As you guys know, we use Squarespace for office ladies.com. It is an all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out like we were in 2019, it can grow. with you, you can...

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We are back. Let's discuss today's The Paper episode. It is season one, episode three, titled The Buddy and the Dude. It is written by Patrick Kang and Michael Levin. Guess what show Patrick worked on before? Like back in the day. You're not going to guess. I'm going to tell you how I met your mother. I might have guessed. I didn't give you time to guess.

I was thinking like, oh, it's got to be something we're connected to. That's where my brain was going. Okay. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, small world. I know. And this episode was directed by Yana Gorskaya. Are you ready for a summary? Yes. All right, here it is. In this episode, Ned scrambles to teach his staff about the importance of fact-checking sources. Mare pitches an undercover investigation into a shady mattress pricing scam.

Meanwhile, Esmeralda continues her attempts to sabotage Ned, including revealing the fact that Mayer might have a plan to leave the paper for a job in hospitality. All right, my single fast fact is a fun guest star crossover. Mary Hollis in Bowdoin plays Cindy. the mattress store employee. She's got a really great big guest star on this episode. You all might know her from her many roles on shows like HBO's The Righteous Gemstones or AMC's Kevin Can F himself.

Or maybe ABC's The Real O'Neils, which is where Angela, the two of you, met. Yep. You had a two-episode guest arc on that show, and I remember you telling me how much fun you had and how nice Mary was to you on the set. She's great. And I just enjoy her. Every time I'm around her, we've reconnected a few times throughout the years. She's just wonderful. And I reached out to her for this episode. You did.

You asked her about her time on the paper. She sent us some great behind-the-scenes details. We're going to sprinkle those in as we break down this episode. But the first question you asked her, of course, was, how did you get your job on the paper? And it turns out she first auditioned for a series regular role on the show when they were casting the pilot. I know. How about that?

She said she spent, quote, most of February 2024 auditioning under a cloak of secrecy. A month of auditioning for a series regular role in the show. That she knew nothing about. She said it, quote, could not be named. How crazy is that? All she knew was that Greg had created a show. She was pretty sure it was the paper, but...

She said it was hard to manage all the emotions around an opportunity that exciting. She also said the material was clearly decoy pages, which made it obvious that they were really just searching for the right ensemble chemistry. I thought that was so smart of her to like realize that. If I got decoy pages, I was trying to think about it. Would I really understand? Like, are they trying to get a sense of my timing, my comedy? But I think it's about.

Like, how are these people are going to mesh together? Yeah. And I remember Chelsea telling us something similar when we interviewed her. Yeah. Well, ultimately, they went in a different direction for the series' regular role. But Mary said in a truly generous twist, they invited her to join this episode as Cindy.

No additional audition required. Oh, that's so nice. She also said shout out to good casting directors who keep track and remember all the people who might fit into the world of the show. Well, I just love that.

And we have some more fun tidbits from Mary as we break down this episode, but how about we get started? Let's do it. The episode starts with Ned. He's in his office, and he's working off a dry erase board coming up with story ideas. Did you zoom in on the dry erase board? No, did you? Yes, I did. Oh. Okay, so here are the story ideas they're working on. First of all, on the dry erase board, there's all these squares, kind of like a layout, you know? And in the squares, here's what they say.

feel-good story, photo, water department update, downtown construction, senior center, shoplift story, mud hens game. Mud hens? Exactly, lady. What is a mud hen? Well. Mud hen? Mud. Like a hen that, like, lays an egg? Mud hen? M-U-D-H-E-N. Mud hen's game. Well, you know I had to Google it. What is it?

Turns out the Toledo Mudhens are a minor league baseball team. Oh! Yeah, their AAA affiliate is the Detroit Tigers, but they are located in Toledo, Ohio, and they play their home games at Fifth Third Field. Oh! But again, what is a mud hen, you might say? Are you going to tell me? I am. According to the internet, here is how they got their mascot name. A mud hen is a marsh bird with short wings and long legs.

and it inhabits swamps or marshes. I guess the Toledo Mud Hens earned their name in 1896. That's going back. That's going back. I guess that's the year the team played at Bayview Park, and it was surrounded by marshlands. And these birds hung out there. Oh. There you go. And the article goes on to say the abundance of mud hens near the park brought about the nickname and the rest, as they say, is history. Wow. Toledo mud hens.

So someone's going to report on that game. It's making me wonder how the St. Louis Cardinals got their name. Were they playing and a bunch of Cardinals flew by? How'd that happen? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I really want to now check out a Toledo Mudhens game. I'm invested. You are? You're going to follow their season now? I might have to go find them online. Does the board say anything about the status of all of these articles by any chance? No.

No status updates. Okay. Well, Mare is going to walk in and they've got this like really cute shorthand now. Yeah. They're going over a story about the inspection budget. You know who they should follow up with? And they both say, Angie. Yeah. They've got someone on the inside. It's so cute. They've got a nice groove.

Adam enters, and instead of calling Ned Ned, he calls him Ed. Ned corrects him, and he's like, no, no, I'm calling you Ed. It's short for Editor-in-Chief. I wanted to save some time. I'm sorry. Hold on. Yeah. Flag on the play. Who does this remind you of? I mean, Kevin. Why waste time? Say lot word when few word do trick. I know. I thought the same thing. I mean. Is there a world where one day Kevin shows up as Adam's cousin? Like, are they related, these two people? I think a big yes.

And they just don't say very many words. They leave words out of their sentences, and that's their bit. And they have weird number combinations. Maybe so. Yeah. Well, Adam has come into Ned's office to turn in his article about a man who stuffed a Dyson down his pants at Target as a joke. His source is the man himself. Yeah. Ned asks Adam to consider that maybe his source is lying to him. Uh-huh. Adam's like, I don't think so. I don't know. And then Ned is like, you know what?

I'm going to make this the lead story of the also news. And this is where we find out that articles that aren't sourced well, or maybe they're just not good. They end up in the also news because Ned doesn't want to hurt people's feelings. Yeah. And Adam, as it turns out, is the star reporter of the also news. Yeah, the also news is just printed on the copy machine and distributed it internally.

And we all know who else would be in the also news. Kevin. Well, now Ned is going to call the whole team into the conference room. He wants to coach everyone on separating fact from fiction. This is obviously...

for Adam mostly, but maybe for everyone. I think for everyone. He proposes that they play the game Two Truths and a Lie. so that they can help learn discernment. Right. He puts Travis and Atalola head-to-head. They're going to go first. They have to say two truths and a lie, and you have to figure out which one is the lie.

I want to point out at 1 minute 38 seconds that Barry is opening up a flask that he's now going to drink. Yes, I saw that. I love that he smokes and drinks whenever there's a conference room. Here are the two truths and a lie that Atalola says. Ready? Yes. I buy a new toothbrush every week. I can't feel pain on the bottoms of my feet. And I once misdialed a phone number and accidentally called Martin Lawrence. Yes.

Travis says, I think your story of accidentally calling Martin Lawrence is the lie because you would never sit on an anecdote that strong. And I've never heard that before. Yeah, he calls BS on that. Well, guess what, you guys? Adalola whips out her phone and calls someone, and you hear this. Okay, who doesn't have any good stories? Oh my goodness, you reach Martin Lawrence. When you hear that beat, you know what to do. What? Yeah. Yeah.

Martin Lawrence. So I thought, oh my God, how do they get Martin Lawrence for this? This is amazing. What a get, right? Well, that's what you said. And then I said, I don't think it's Martin Lawrence. And I said. Well, I'm going to call Greg and find out. Greg said it's actually an impression by comedian Jay Farrow. Oh, I love it.

DaveJ from SNL. Yes, he's so great. He was on SNL from 2010 to 2016. He does a ton of amazing impressions. I actually went down the rabbit hole and watched him on an interview, nine minutes of impressions. Yes.

saw that because the guy's just like throwing names at him and he just can do it. It's amazing. See, that fascinates me because— I can get honing an impression and then doing it, but like switching between accents or switching between impressions, one right after another, like how do you do that? It's amazing. And he did this whole bit where it was like Martin Lawrence and Will Smith going back and forth, but he does both of them. Oh, my God. And their cadence is so different. Yeah. He does.

So many amazing impressions. Anyway, shout out to Jay Farrow. You totally had me fooled. And then we go on to find out that Atalola did one time call him by accident, and he thought she was his niece. And they had this really nice heart-to-heart about her spending habits.

But now whenever she calls him, it just goes to voicemail. Have you ever played Two Truths and a Lie, Ange? No, I haven't. I haven't either. I don't think I'd be good at it. No? You wouldn't be good at giving the things or you wouldn't be good at guessing? I think I wouldn't be good at giving the things because I think I probably would have a tell. Oh, yeah? Yeah. My tennis gals, they said they can always tell when I'm going to go down the line, like go down in the alley.

They said I get this kind of like expression. So maybe you would have tells. I think so. I mean, I think I'm better at lying over the phone. than in person if history has taught me anything. Sure, because then we can't see your face. Yeah, exactly. Well, we find out that Atalola is pretty good at two truths and one lie.

You know, we were talking about this, and I thought, I want to play this, but I want to play it with Creed Bratton. Yes! He's the master of saying all kinds of crazy s***. that we think isn't true, but then it is true. And then we don't know what's not true. And I called him up and he said, I'll do it. Let's go, gals. He sent us in, you guys, three audio clips.

where he does two truths and a lie. We don't know what they are. We haven't listened to them. And then he sent us in an additional one where he reveals which one is the lie. But before we play them, I have to tell you, Jenna. right before he sent us these clips that we have not listened to, he called me. Okay. And he said, hey, Pumpkin. He was like, I'm going to need some room here. And I was like, huh? And he goes, to kind of get into it.

You know, I want you guys to believe it. So like, is this a one sentence, a two sentence, or do I have some room? Well, lady, this is what you need. You need room when you're telling a lie. I learned this. from when I was a struggling actor, and I would have to fib my way out of work to go to auditions. And you have to spin a yarn. Yeah, I think that's where the phrase comes from, right? You really have to tell a tale. So I said, Creed, babe, you do you.

Like give it to us the way you want to do it. So we have not heard these, but okay, everyone listening, we are all now going to play Two Truths and a Lie with Creed Bratton. Listen with us and let's see if we can all guess. Back in. The early 80s, I was involved in this drug deal, and I ended up owning a 1958 Gibson Carina Explorer.

one of the rarest guitars on the planet. I think there was only 20 of them made. This is like one of the earlier, even though they had only 21 of the earlier serial numbers on that. And later on, I had to sell it for some reason. And, I mean, God, this thing's probably worth $800,000 to a million dollars today, something like that. It was a loss. Okay. Okay. I mean, I'm already just, I'm in. I'm waiting. I know. Here we go. Number two. In 1965, I was doing a movie in Israel.

And I came on the set and was leaning against this wall. And unbeknownst to me, there were live squibs, explosives in the wall. And this gentleman walks over to me and he says, hey, kid, you're going to blow your arm off or kill yourself. And he's kind of led me away from the thing. And that man was Frank Sinatra. He probably saved me losing my arm or my life.

Thank you, Frank. Ooh. Now that's a tricky one because he told us in his All About Creed episode that he did that movie and that Frank Sinatra was in it. Yeah. So is he using a little bit of the truth? That's a very good strategy. I know. Oh my gosh, this one's titled Plane Crash. It was either... 1967 or 1968, and I'm flying in a little Piper Cub over the Florida panhandle with the grassroots.

And we're getting ready to land for this show. And we hear the guy saying over the radio, said, all right, the landing area there, blah, blah. I got a red light and a green light. And I look down and I see a blue, blue and a yellow light. So I started explaining to the guy, I said, hey, you know, those aren't the colored lights. And he turns around and goes,

Look, you play guitar and I'll fly the airplane. So then, and I felt really bad. I had a bad feeling about this, you know, this landing. So we land on the runway and there's debris all over and it blows out the tire on the right. And we end up at a canal with one wing down into the water. Everyone's, you know, I'm calm. I'm cool because I'm Creed. I'm chill. Next thing I know, over the hill, I see this light from a, you know.

truck or something back landing this military guys with machine guns and dogs, these big, big Alsatians. And they've got the guns on us. Get out, get out of the planes. We start to crawl off the wing into the water and look down in the water and there's alligators. There's alligators in the water. And so now...

are going to get attacked by the alligators or eaten by the dogs or shot by the soldiers. So they grabbed me and put handcuffs on me and took me off to the brig as I was on a restricted military base. Yeah, that's the story. Holy crap. So we have to pick two of these are the truth and one is the lie. Yeah. Okay, so we have guitar from Drug Deal. Right. Frank Sinatra saving his life. Mm-hmm. Or landing. Plane crash. Plane crash, landing in an Air Force base? Yeah, a restricted.

Air Force Base. Air area. Yeah. I think the lie is plane crash. But I think it's only half of a lie. This is my instinct. I think this thing with the lights did happen. And then I think the rest of it is a lie. Okay. I don't think there were alligators in the water, and I don't think that military people with guns took them away in handcuffs. Also, he named the type of dogs. That was so specific. I think the plane crashes. Oh, God. I don't know because—

The guitar, like he could know all that information. He has a ton of guitars. If you go to his house, he's got a wall of guitars. So he very well could have owned that guitar, but maybe it didn't come from a drug deal. All right. Do you have the answer? Wait, are we going to guess? What's the lie? What do you say? I said plane crash. You say plane crash. I'm going to say guitar. Okay. All right. We each picked a different one. Okay. Here we go.

He titled the last audio clip, I Lied. Okay, the false one, the one I'm lying about is, wait for it, the 58 Gibson Korean Explorer. Nope. I never owned one of those. I've owned a Les Paul, a 56 Black Beauty, a 335 Red Gibson, beautiful Gibson with a floating tailpiece. I now have a 69 Blues Bird. 57 country and western and a blues king a very nice little parlor gibson guitar but no 58 explorer unfortunately so there we go i lied

Do you all realize now what it's like to hang out with Creed? How long has he been sitting on this plane crash story? I know. We've never heard this story. I mean, that's wild. So when he tells you a wild thing, you see why it might be true. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't know. I just was like, there was a few details in that plane story that I thought. We're so specific. That's why I thought it was half truth, half lie. Wow. Wow. Creed, you got me. But you didn't get Angela. Thanks, buddy.

Well, now we're in Ned's office. He's having a meeting with Esmeralda and Ken, and he tells them, guys, we're doing pretty good, but we're one article short. Esmeralda pretends to be concerned, and she has a talking head. She's like, Ned is still here. He must have cockroach DNA. You know, it's like you smash it, but it doesn't die. And she does an impression of like a cockroach on its back with its legs wiggling. She does this thing with her hands.

Very funny. It's very funny. And she also has really long fingernails. Like, she's very expressive with her hands. Well, writer Patrick Kang said that when she did this bit where she pretends to be the cockroach. Everybody went wild. Like, it was so funny. And he said that they discovered that she is particularly funny whenever she is talking about or impersonating animals or creatures.

He said this was a big bonus, and you're going to see this more throughout the season because they started writing for it. That is so funny. Well, Ken is going to suggest that they need their own version of Wordle to keep... you know, people's minds off the actual news. And Mare has an idea. Esmeralda is so startled when Mare speaks up. Yeah, Mare is like sitting behind Esmeralda. Yeah.

And this is what I'm going to start calling Esmeralda, Queen of Shade. And shade alert number one, Esmeralda turns to Mare and says, I thought you were a pile of shirts. A pile of shirts. What a great line. Such good writing. That's such a good dig. Mm-hmm. Mayer proposes that they resurrect this column from the 90s called Shame on You, where they uncover a local business scam.

She says she went shopping for a mattress recently, and she thinks that there's a false advertising scam at local mattress stores. Ned gets so excited. Well, the meeting's going to end, and Esmeralda is stewing. Yeah, she stays behind. Yeah, she's so annoyed that Ned likes Mare's ideas. So she decides to be sabotage-y. And she's like, oh, you know what? Mare's leaving.

For, you know, a hotel business. Yeah. She got accepted to this concierge training program at the Radisson. Ned is, like, bummed out. He's like, but she's my best reporter. And he starts to panic. We have an Esmeralda shade alert. Number two. We do. She says mare, the woman whose parents named her after a horse. Yeah. Did you see her outfit, by the way? I thought it was symbolic a little bit.

You know, because she's the saboteur. She has on a snake belt. There's a great shot of it right around four minutes. So it's like this wide black belt, but then the buckle is this slithery gold snake. Oh. Snake belt. I like it. I looked it up. There's a gazillion of them. You can have one too if you want. You can have a snake belt if you want it. There's so many versions of it where the buckle is a snake. I don't know. I got a little into it. Are you going to get a snake belt? I don't know.

I mean, I might. What do you wear your snake belt to? Wherever I want. Right. It's your snake belt. Yeah. I mean, you know. Well, Esmeralda is not done being sabotaging. She also says that. Mare is asexual. Yeah, she's going to call out Ned for what she perceives to be his crush on Mare. Yeah. All of this, like his admiration of her, his maybe crush on her, is all fueling just her need to take him down. Well, she doesn't want Mare to be the superstar employee. She's the superstar employee.

Yes. Yeah. She's very jealous. Well, now Ned is going to approach Mare in the copy room, and she says to him, what are the odds of this paper succeeding? Well, she's hedging her bets, right? Do I try to stick with it, or do I leave and go work at this hotel? He says he thinks their chance of succeeding is 95%. Yeah, and then Mare has a talking head where she's like, that's delusional, right? And a little nerve-wracking because he holds my career in his hands.

But then she wavers. She's like, but he did sell a crazy amount of toilet paper. Did you notice something about this talking head? Clearly you did. What is it? It's a two-angle talking head. Oh. The camera punches in. It goes from kind of a medium shot to a close-up midway through the talking head. And I was like, ooh, it's a new way. Fancy.

I mentioned earlier that this episode was directed by Yana Gorskaya, who is new to the Office directing universe. And in addition to this talking head having this sort of like punch in. I noticed so many spy shots in this episode. Like, she really used the spy shot. I feel like she got the documentary style and then she built on it. I just thought,

Visually, this episode was very interesting. And it's going to get even more interesting as we use these spy shots later. At the mattress store. Exactly. Yeah. No, I thought it was really cool. Well, Ned is so worried that Mare is going to leave the company that he's decided he's going to stick with her for the day and do this mattress story with her. And Mare says, great, we'll be Woodward and Woodward's boss.

And immediately, Ned says, Ben Bradley. And Mare's like, oh, of course you knew that. But then Ned is so giddy, he takes off running. And Mare says, oh, you run so athletically. Lady, did this remind you of anything? No. When he took off running like that, all I could think about was that scene in Friends when Rachel and Phoebe decide to go for a run, but Rachel has clearly never seen Phoebe run.

And the way Lisa Kudrow runs as Phoebe is so hilarious. I do not remember this. Oh, my God. It's such a great scene. I don't know which episode it's from, but— When Ned took off running, all I could think of is, I need to see him run more. I thought it was really funny physical comedy.

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to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Okay, we are back, and now we're in the bullpen. And Detrick goes and sits opposite Nicole because they have clearly been paired up. They're supposed to play two truths and a lie. Mm-hmm. He's going to offer her some sushi, and she says, where'd you get that sushi? There's no sushi around here.

And he says, oh, I hate to disagree with you right off the bat, but they have it at the gas station. And Nicole goes, ew. Jenna. What? Would you eat gas station sushi? No. Would you? I know. But there is a Reddit thread about this very topic. Gas station sushi? Yes, whether you should eat it or not. And really, there's a few different views here. I want to read three to you. Okay. One person said,

Taste and quality is just not the same as what you'd get from a good sushi place or making your own with quality ingredients, but gas station sushi is not the worst prepackaged. Someone else said, What country? That's a deciding factor. Oh, that is the deciding factor. They go on to say, 7-Eleven sushi in Japan is not bad. Oh. And then lastly, someone says, again,

coming here to say it depends on where you get it from. Sometimes it's great. Sometimes it's like a whole tuna fish farted and shit in your face. I'm so sorry. If you ever purchased gas station sushi that tasted like a tuna fish, farted in your face, why would you ever buy it again? Like, why do they keep going back? I don't think this person went back, right? I don't know. They say sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. You're right, clearly. That confuses me. That's right.

You're right. They've tried it a few times. Anyway, what I learned from this Reddit thread is it really depends what country and where you are at what gas station. Let me tell you what gas stations are for. Gas. Gas. A bag of chips, maybe a hot dog, maybe a hot coffee. They are not for sushi, fruit. Fruit. I've had a good banana from a gas station. I've had quality banana. Yes.

Quality banana. Okay. Listen, I'm with you. I'm not going to do uncooked raw fish from a gas station, but I'll get a banana there. I think gas stations are for processed food. That's the food you want to buy at a gas station. Maybe a banana. A long shelf life. All right. And then that's it. We're almost on the same page. Minus the banana, we're on the same page. A soda. Okay. You know?

The other thing I clocked in this scene that I want to talk about is all of the birds. There's so many birds at Nicole's desk. Yeah. There's like a bird on the wall. There's little bird figurines. So many tchotchkes. If Angela Martin was the cat lady, Nicole is the bird lady.

Well, we're about to find out where Ned ran off to. It's to Oscar's desk to ask him to whip up another Sudoku just in case he and Mare don't make their deadline for the mattress story. He can throw that in. Oscar does say to Ned that this type of pressure is giving him PTSD from an old boss. Any guesses who that is? Did you see what's right behind Oscar over his shoulder? Yes, it's the Scarecrow, the homemade Scarecrow doll that Michael Scott gave him. But I also...

caught something else. It is a framed picture of Oscar's dog, Gus. Oh, his real dog. Yes. So Gus was his dog while we filmed The Office. Gus has since passed. But that picture of Gus in that frame was the same one that was on his desk. In the office. And I actually reached out to Oscar and I was like, Oscar, am I losing it? But I'm pretty sure that's Gus in the frame. The same one you had when we filmed, you know, at the Dunder Mifflin set. And he said, it is.

Isn't that nice? So there are two things there from Oscar's original desk that have made it into the paper. I love that. Well, now we're in the parking lot of the mattress store, and Mare and Ned are discussing what are their alter egos?

Like, what kind of couple are we going to be as we shop for this mattress undercover? I mean, this is totally mom detectives, lady. When I watched this scene, it was cracking me up because it made me think of me and you undercover trying to figure out. out what was the windowless building in my neighborhood. Yeah. I have an audio clip of their discussion in the car because I loved it so much. Okay, so what kind of couple should we be? Just a regular.

couple, not regular, hetero, cis. What are you asking? No, I just mean, are we bougie? You know, or are we cheap? Are we too online? Are we not online at all in a way that's kind of weird, you know? Do we have kids? Do you want kids and I don't? And it's kind of tearing us apart. If this is making you at all uncomfortable, we don't have to be a couple at all. All right? We can just be brother and sister.

We're buying a mattress together? Our mom gets debilitating bladder infections. She's incontinent, so we have to buy a mattress for her. We're just a couple, okay? and keep the mom thing in your back pocket if everything goes wrong i am so sorry to hear about your mother thanks thank you it's his mother we're actually married i'm also her boss

It cuts to them in the mattress store. And he has already talked about this mother. She's like, keep it in your back pocket. And it's clearly what he led with. Well, I have a fun thing from Clarissa in Austin, Texas. Ladies, this isn't a question, more of a comment. When I was watching the scene with Mare and Ned before they go into the mattress store, it made me think of Suit Warehouse, where Dwight and Jim say they used to do calls as brothers.

And Dwight says they were Jim and Dwight Schrupert. Oh, yeah. Isn't that cute? That's super cute. I know. I love those scenes, too. Well, lady, I just remember your big idea when we were going to be mom detectives. to figure out what was going on in the windowless building. Do you remember it? Because it was very funny. No, I don't. You said that the way we get into the building is that we should deliver them.

like a fruit basket or some flowers. And you were like, I was like, what? We're going to take a fruit basket in? I'm like, no, we're just going to walk in. Just walk in. Let's just go. And you're like, no, we need a reason. We need a thing. We need a cover. And then you walked in. We walked in together. And you were like, hey. And then you went blank.

There was like this weird moment and this guy is just looking at us. And then finally you're like, we're just wondering, what is this place? You just asked him. I know. I know. I was like, let's not beat around the bush. There were some clues. As we walked up the ramp to get inside, there were some elderly people having some sunshine. Yeah. But still. Yeah. Yeah. It was very clear people there were of a certain age. Yeah. Yeah.

Why are you dancing around it? I don't know. The thing I found most interesting, though, is that he said, we're a senior center. And I was like, yeah, ding, ding, ding. And he goes, but we also rented out for weddings. No, he did not. Yes. Is that true? That back room. That room where they were like playing cards and stuff, you can also rent that out.

I missed that. Oh, yeah. How did I miss that? I don't know. You were jotting something down on your notepad that you had. But he said you can also, you know, sometimes we do like events, you know, like wedding receptions, things like that. That's fascinating to me. I feel like I need to go back.

Also, by the way, it wasn't a live-in facility. So that makes sense. During the day, it was just a daytime facility for elderly people to go to. A senior center. Right. Where they can go play cards or bridge or they'll have someone come in like. But there's nurses and physical therapy there too. Yes. Right. But that room where they play cards and stuff. At night. You could also have your, you know. What a business model. Wedding reception.

All right. Well, now they're inside of the mattress store and they're talking to Cindy, the mattress store employee. And they ask about a particular mattress. And she says, oh, this one's great. It's $1,900. And Ned is like, well, you know what? you guys have like a price match guarantee, right? I was down at this other mattress store and I saw this mattress for $14.50. Would you honor that price? And she's like, oh no, you didn't see this mattress.

Because this is exclusive to our store. And he's like, really? It looks like the same mattress. Could you go check? This is part of the scam. Guess what? This whole storyline is based on a true story. from Greg Daniels' life. Greg Daniels was trying to find a mattress that he loved, and he was trying to buy it again because he loved it, but he needed a new one. So he couldn't find it.

This is when he uncovered the truth. The truth, which is that mattress stores do this. They have exclusive names for the exact same mattresses so that you can't compare prices. I looked it up, lady. There are a gazillion, gazillion Reddit threads and websites dedicated to decoding all of the names for all these mattresses that are actually the same mattress. Wow.

Yeah, and I feel like it made its way into this episode as Greg's little way of exposing this to the world. He's like, I got you. Yeah, this is his expose. Yeah. Well, I did ask Mary, who plays Cindy, if they filmed in a real mattress store or if that was a set they built. And here's what she said. She said, yep, it was a real mattress store. So at lunch, I just went ahead and laid down.

Wow, that's amazing. She also said that everyone she met that day was so lovely. There was no ego, no tension, just really funny prose on and off screen. She also said a crew can really make the set feel cozy. And for a guest star who's in for one day, it's so lovely to be greeted by everyone so warmly. I felt like family, even though it was just for the day. And then she had one other thing I want to share about shooting these big scenes.

There are big scenes in this huge room, right? She said, I had never shot a documentary-style TV show, so it actually didn't dawn on me when we were filming for real. She didn't know where the cameras were. She didn't know they were filming until they wrapped her first scene. She said, I'm so used to cameras being really invasive. You know, they're right there where you can see them with cords and lights all around.

And she said, I didn't know where the cameras were until one of the grips started a la Dear Evan Hansen style waving through the window way over here. We're over here. Wow. Yeah. Because she was like, are we filming? Like, where are the cameras? That's how far away the cameras were. And that's what you were talking about. Yeah, the super spy shot. Yeah, that the director was creating this very cool vibe on this set that you didn't even see the cameras. Mm-hmm.

Well, now we're going to go into this meeting. Marv is running this meeting. It's with Esmeralda, Ken, and Oscar, and there's supposed to be a fourth person there. Ned, he's missing. He's missing. I called these scenes Big Boardroom Budget Meeting. Oh, Ken calls it Bi-Weekly Budget Meeting. But I like your name, too. Big Boardroom Budget Meeting.

Well, we're just not in this big boardroom very often, and it looks prestigious. It looks like a place where important things happen. Yeah, this is on another floor. This is on the executive level. This is Marv's world. That's right. Well, Esmeralda is just going to continue to throw Ned under the bus. Yeah, she's super sabotage-y in this scene. She's making him seem incompetent. Like, she says, I told him about the meeting. But what she did was she put a little sticky note.

that says M-O-B-M-I-A-B. On his computer, yes. Which I guess means Marv's office budget meeting in a bit. And, you know, of course he didn't know what that was. Right. But she's going to tell Marv, oh, I told him about the meeting. Yeah. I left him a note. She doesn't tell him she left a note saying, mob meab. I love that you took on pronouncing it.

Now we're back at Nicole and Detrick's desks, and they're doing some would you rather questions to try to learn about one another. Yeah, they say, would you rather be able to speak to animals? or speak any human language ever that you ever wanted to speak? I want us to answer this question. I have it too. I said, Jenna, what do you pick? This is really hard for me. I don't know.

Because they're both really good. This is a very good would you rather. Is this the best would you rather question? Like, is it the best? In the history of would you rathers? Maybe. Maybe. Because I feel like every time I hear a would you rather question, and also because it's a would you rather that isn't like gross or harmful. Yeah. This is like— Two skill sets that could be cool. Yes.

I know my answer immediately. What is it? I would rather be able to speak any human language ever. Here's the thing. I have a lot of bird feeders. Oh, you don't want all that chatter. I don't know if I need, like, move over, move over. It's my turn. It's my turn. I don't know if I need to know all that. You're right. The world would be very loud if you could hear all animals and all humans. Yeah. I think about my two crazy chihuahua mix rescues. Biscuit every day.

We have this joke in our family where I say every day she has this, this like sort of passion she wakes up with. Like, I feel like if Biscuit could like get us to all gather around, she'd say something like this. Listen, that ass.

hole's going to come to the door today. He's going to say he has a package. That's bullshit. We're going to fucking go at him. We're going to go at him with everything we got. Who's with me? That's biscuit synergy every morning. Like the minute I open the door, she's like, hey, you motherfuckers. Did you come on this yard? You know, now that you've broken it down, I take back what I said about this being the best. Would you rather? Because I was going to pick animals, but you...

Totally 100% dissuaded me from that choice. I'm going to go with the other one. Any human language. I wish you could pick and choose the animal, you know, or when to turn it on. Right. You know. So maybe if I was whale watching and like some amazing humpback whale came up to the surface, I might say, dude, how you doing, man? You know, maybe I want to hear what that humpback whale says. I don't need to hear what my crazy chihuahua.

mix says every day, all day. Let me bring it down. This is going to get a little somber. Oh. What if you or a veterinarian or something could speak to animals when they're in distress or before they're passing. You could tell them everything you loved about that. You could share that back and forth, that comfort, you know? What about that? What about those moments in pet ownership? What a gift that would be.

Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, it'd be nice to comfort them, wouldn't it? Yes. But the tradeoff is you're also going to have to listen to them all the time, right? So this is a different Would You Rather. This is like, would you rather be able to know what animals are saying and be able to communicate with them all the time? Or would you rather pick and choose when you? I'm just saying there's a benefit.

to being able to speak to animals, but there's probably more benefit in being able to speak any human language ever. That's it. That's where we land. That's where we've landed. Well, listen, Nicole's going to say— Talk to animals. And so is Detrick. And then this leads her to talking about her pet bird, Cardi Beak. And then that leads to her revealing that she got said pet bird from a guy she was dating.

And he was a married guy. And then she gets really ashamed that she shared so much. Yeah, I think, you know, Detrick jokes, was the bird the last straw? And she says, no, it was his wife. And that's awkward, right? Yeah. Yeah. And she walks away. And he's like, what just happened? He didn't know. Yeah. Cardi Beak is a great name for a bird. It is a great name for a bird. I love anytime people do that. Anytime people do what?

like kind of have a pun on a name like that. Like Isabel's fifth grade class had a plant and they named it Keanu leaves. Okay. So cute. Anyway. Okay. Up next, I want to talk about a scene. Now, this scene was in the Peacock version. It's not in the NBC broadcast version. But basically, we're back in the big boardroom budget meeting. Yep.

We get to meet Anne. It seems as if she's maybe Marv's longtime secretary. And Marv is getting really worked up. The longer Ned isn't there, he's starting to get riled up. And I loved this scene between Marv and Ann. I'm really rooting for Marv and Ann. If any of the writers are listening, can we please have more Marv and Ann? And I want you guys to hear this. Where the heck is this guy? I'm starting to get worked up.

Anne's right. I'm not gonna get worked up. Let's get him on the phone. Anne? Yes, Marv. I think we should start. Ned is so gifted at delegating to me. Let's start. Fall some more, man. Oh, well, it was time for me to stretch my legs anyway, so. You okay? Yeah, Bob, good. She comes bustling down this long hallway.

And then when he's like, false alarm, Ann. I just love that she was like, well, it's time to stretch my legs anyway. It's just their whole dynamic is wonderful and just so great. And I love how he's like, are you okay? Like, how's it going? I think Marv just wants to hang out with Anne. They're like an old married couple a little bit. 100%. Well, shout out to Nancy Linhan, who plays Anne. Guess what? She was also in two episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

Crossover connection. Well, now we're going to go back to the mattress store. And Cindy is still in the back. She's clearly gone back in the back to, quote, talk to her manager and is hoping that Mare and Ned will just leave. So while they're waiting for Cindy, Ned starts snooping around her desk. And he discovers the name of the mattress supplier on the desk. And they're like, should we call it? Let's call it. And he does this brilliant thing. He calls.

And clearly the person on the other line is like, Cindy? And he says, no, no, this is Ned. I'm calling from Cindy's desk. She's in the back. Yeah. But I was wondering if you could cross-reference the various mattress names for the model number that I have. And they do it. Basically, they expose the scam. Jackpot. They're so excited. The two of them do this dance for joy. It's so cute. It's so cute. I did feel like Ned's dance was a little Ed Grimley. Very Ed Grimley.

But this was really exciting to me. I was rooting for them to have a good article. You know, this is our third episode in the series now, and this is kind of the first win. for the paper. Yeah. Don't you feel like that? Yeah, for sure. I was happy for them too. And of course, when Cindy does eventually come back, they confront her.

They say we're from the truth teller doing a report on consumer protection. And she's like, I knew your mother wasn't sick. And then basically she's like, I'm not going to say anything. You have no proof. And then they point to the cameras. Yes. They say, actually, we do have proof. Here is one camera. Here's another camera. And they call out the camera person's name, Mandy. Mandy is their real B camera operator, Mandy Whitaker.

I thought so. I thought they were just looking right at their friend behind the camera. Mandy has also done camera operating on St. Dennis Medical, and it's always sunny in Philadelphia. Well, Cindy sees the cameras, and she's like, whatever, fine. I'll give it up. I thought Mary did such a great job in this moment as Cindy, and I want you guys to hear it. All right. Oh, no. I actually hate this job. Oh.

I hate this stupid polo. They make you pay for yourself. I was too scared to be a geologist and now it's too late. So, get your notepads out. Let's burn it all down. Let's get some water and then we can get into it. I'll help. Why don't we get some water? I'm going to write it too. We're all good. I'll write it.

Let's burn it all down, lady. Cindy would make a great guest on Office Ladies Burn It to the Ground. That's what I thought. She's ready to talk. I mean, she's just so good. I thought she was great. Yeah, she played it perfectly. And we were trading emails about it. And she said, Ang, I was reminded of a conversation we had at an Emmy party. And I was like, which one? And she said,

So it was the night before party in 2024. She said, I was headed to film the paper that week and you gave me some great advice. You said, quote, don't be the funny guy. And if you think you can make it even smaller, do. Oh, you kind of gave her the direction that Ken Kuapis gave you. Exactly. And she said, so I just told the story, and I'm so glad I did. She said, I thought it made me funnier.

And she said, it's a really big set. And in my nervous actor brain, I could have absolutely overshot and overplayed. So I was really grateful for that insight from one who would know. Anyway, I didn't even remember saying that to her, but I'm so glad.

that it helped her, but she crushed it. She crushed it. She was great. Well, listen, let's go back to this board meeting. They've been waiting for Ned. They decide, forget it. We're just going to go on without him. What's on the docket today? Well, what's on the docket is that they need money. They're over budget. And Esmeralda says, listen, getting these original stories is expensive. I think we need to go back to the way it was before Ned.

Yeah, basically she's like Ned's idea to do original stories was a bad idea. She's again trying to throw him under the bus. She says they should pay for the wire stories. But then Oscar brings up. a line item that he found in the budget that's a little curious. It's a storage unit that they've been renting for nine years that's actually an apartment. Yeah, so...

In the Peacock version, you guys, it's extended, and you sort of see Oscar really struggling because he knows Esmeralda and Ken are trying to sabotage Ned. Yeah. And you can also tell that Oscar maybe believes in Ned. And thinks he should stick around and not get fired. Yeah. So he decides to play this card to save the day. Yeah. To save Ned. We find out that this storage unit, quote unquote, that's actually an apartment.

is Ken's apartment. He has a talking head where he says, yeah, Enervate rented him a small furnished apartment for a few weeks when he first moved over from the UK. And somehow... It got filed as a warehouse. Ah, could you imagine? Mm-hmm. So he's been sneaky sneak, living rent-free, and billing it back to the company as a storage facility. So back in the meeting, Ken's like, you know what?

Let's get rid of this storage unit. No need to investigate what happened. That's a waste of money. But look at that. We'll have the money back in the budget and journalism wins.

And then we have just some wrap-up moments, you know. So basically, Esmeralda knows that she's been beat once again. And then we have this little moment with Nicole and Detrick. You know, he approaches her desk. And he says, I figured out the lie. It's that you dated a married guy. And she kind of goes, yeah, nailed it. And she just smiles to herself as he walks away because.

We realize that he's just there to protect her and help her save face, and she doesn't need to be embarrassed around him. Yeah, I mean, it was a very sweet gesture. Yeah. I think he sort of could see that she was— bummed. She was kind of shutting down. And so he went over and like gave her an out. Yeah, exactly. And then we have this mare talking head where...

She's made the decision to stay. She's not going to take the job at the hotel. She says, I'm young and the hospitality world will always be there. Yeah. And then she says bye to Ned. She says, all right, I'll see you tomorrow. And he's like, you will? He's like so happy. Yes. And they do this very awkward fist bump. And he's like, all right, buddy. And she's like, yeah, right, dude. And that's where we get the name of this episode, Buddy.

And the dude. Yeah. And that's the end of this paper episode. It's very sweet. Mare and Ned finished their first article, and it's a big win. I was very excited for them. Yeah. And we're starting to see a little budding romance maybe or friendship at least between Detrick and Nicole. And we're starting to see that Oscar might be invested in this idea of a successful. And there you have it. There you have it. Big thank yous to Greg Daniels, Creed Bratton, Chelsea Fry, and Patrick Kang.

Thank you guys so much for talking to us about this episode. We're really enjoying this. I can't wait for next week. Yes, and thank you to everyone that's gone to the website and to our little folders and written comments or questions. Keep them coming. We'll see you next week. See you then. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins.

Our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubaco. Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis. Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz. Our theme song is Ruppertree by Creed Bratton.