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Chapter 1: What is the main plot of The Duel episode?
Hello, everyone, and welcome to your second drink of The Duel. This might be one of my all-time favorite episodes of The Office. I know I say that so often. I also just really happen to like season five. Yeah, it's really solid. Well, there's just so many great moments in The Duel.
I love the Andy and Dwight duel over Angela, but there's also all the scenes with Michael and David Wallace in New York. I'm very curious to hear what the fan favorite moment of this episode was.
Well, we got this letter from Melissa Kay. Melissa says, And one of my absolute favorite scenes from the whole show is at 10 minutes and 53 seconds when Michael is talking about his philosophy to David Wallace and says, Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone for any reason. It goes on and on with this line.
I love this line so much, and it completely captures the moment when you're asked a question you don't know the answer to, and you have to make it up as you go. Was all of that improvised or was it fully scripted? Thanks, Melissa. Okay, so Melissa, we talked about this in our breakdown, how Steve improvised a lot of this, but we didn't play it.
And I pulled a clip from the Superfan version because there is an extra joke at the top and it really cracked us up. Let's hear it.
My philosophy is basically this. I like to sell paper for more than I bought the paper for. That's obviously obvious.
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Chapter 2: How did Michael expose Angela and Dwight's affair?
But here's the thing. And this is something that I live by. And I always have. And I always will. Don't ever... for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where or who or who you are with or where you are going or where you've been, ever, For any reason whatsoever. Sometimes I'll start a sentence and I don't even know where it's going.
I just hope I find it along the way. Like an improv conversation. An improvisation.
I mean, it's something he lives by and always will. For any reason. For any reason. So not only was this our fan favorite moment of the episode, we also got a letter that this scene is educational. Listen to this. Angela B. wrote in and said, more of a comment for this episode. I taught English 101 at a university which focused on college writing.
Every semester, whenever I did a lesson on needing to have a purpose for writing, I would show the clip from this episode where Michael starts to answer David Wallace's question and later says that he doesn't always know where his sentences are going to go. It's a great example about how if you don't know what the point of your argument or statement is, you'll end up with meandering thoughts.
That's so wonderful. Hey, you know what? Just get it down on paper. You'll find it, right?
Well, Angela, you might remember that I got really into the subject of dueling when we did this episode. Yes, I did a little deep dive on the rules of dueling. Well, we got some mail from folks that took my dive even deeper. And I'm going to read two letters that really tickled me. The first is from Laura H., who said, Hi, I really enjoyed the Duel podcast episode.
To add to your discussion of dueling, I wanted you to know that as an attorney in Kentucky, I had to be sworn in by the state Supreme Court.
As part of the swearing-in process, attorneys have to solemnly swear, quote, that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this state, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this state nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as a second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending.
Oh, my goodness. Laura said the discussion regarding dueling is nearly half of the entire oath. That's bonkers. It was really funny to say that during the ceremony. And then Nicole C. wrote in to say, I enjoyed hearing your history of dueling and wanted to let you know something else. I am a lawyer in the military, a JAG.
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Chapter 3: What insights does writer Ryan Koh share about the episode?
Yeah. So he must have known when Dean was directing.
He manipulated the schedule so that Dean would get this episode because when he read it, he thought Dean would be perfect to direct it.
Oh, my gosh. Randy, look at you working it.
Yeah. He said he really wanted Dean to get this one for his directorial debut. I mean, what a gift.
Wow. Well, this was a really big episode, you know, for the whole love triangle, the Dwight, Andy, Angela. It was all coming to a head. And I was nervous, actually, about this episode. I just knew that I wanted to play these moments right. And it was a tricky kind of scenario, Jenna, because, like, Angela is worried about both of them and feeling guilt. But also, I don't know, is she turned on?
I don't know. There's a lot happening. And I felt very safe knowing Dean was directing me this week. Because, like, we knew him. You know what I mean? Yes. And I could go up to him and be like, Dean, did I do that right? What do you think? Should I try something else?
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Chapter 4: What are the historical rules of dueling discussed?
So I felt very happy to have Dean there for the duel.
Well, shortly after this, he went over to do Parks and Rec. He was the editor over there. Yeah. He directed a bunch of episodes there. But then years later, I got to be reunited with him because he was the executive producer and director of my show over at ABC, Splitting Up Together.
Yes. And then I got to come and do a guest spot on your show. And I got to see Dean and our sound department. It was like a mini office reunion. I loved that day. It was a fun day. It was.
All right. Fast fact number three. The history of dueling.
What? What? Oh, no. What is your search history on your computer? Oh, no.
First of all, I would just like to say I am not a historian. I'm just a lady with Google. You're just a delightful lady that loves to Google. That's right. But I did read about four to five what seemed like reputable websites on the subject of dueling. Okay. And here is what I have pulled together.
Okay.
Dueling seems to have originated in medieval Europe. Nobles would defend their honor in man-to-man battles.
Well, listen, if you watch Outlander, you know that's true.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did the crew face while filming the duel scene?
I don't know. Because I'm not going to stand in one place. If you're pointing a pistol at me, I'm going to get moving.
Yeah. I think you're not allowed, Ange. Oh. The last duel of record in the United States was in 1859. Okay. Here's who it involved. Was it more white men shooting at each other? It sure was, lady. Not only that, it was a United States senator and a retired chief justice of the California Supreme Court. Oh. Way to go, guys.
No one died in this duel because, listen to this madness, one guy's gun jammed. Okay. And then the other guy fired his gun, but it hit the other guy in his gold pocket watch, and they called a truce.
There you go.
That was the last duel in America.
All right. Now, if Andrew Jackson was there, he would have unjammed his gun and shot at you again. Right.
Yeah.
Yeah. I would like to say, I don't know who Andrew Jackson's second was, but I think they did a real shitty job.
What about Dickinson's second? Dickinson's second tried to make a case that, you know, Andrew Jackson, I think, should be tried for murder, but no one wanted to hear about it.
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Chapter 6: How did the actors prepare for their roles in the duel?
I think we should. There's a lot to say about this episode, and I can't wait. All right. This episode opens with an amazing cold open. It was so much fun to shoot. I loved watching it again. Me too. The phone rings. Pam answers the phone. Someone for Michael, but Michael's not there. Where is Michael? Oh, Michael is down on the street. He's running. He's screaming.
There is a speed radar sign, and he keeps running past it, trying to see how fast he can go. That's what Michael's doing this morning.
That's what Michael's doing. And we're all wondering why. Well, Pam shares that Angela has apparently called 911 several times to report cars going too fast outside on the road. And so the police came and put up this sort of like that radar screen, right, that tells you your speed.
Yes. Well, I guess, though, this was a really hard scene to shoot. Really? Yeah. Dean told me that we had to shoot this in two different places. So anything that you see out the window of Michael running, we had to shoot that from Paul Lieberstein's office. Because that was the window that looked outside onto our parking lot and onto our street.
But of course, everything else that was indoors, we had to shoot inside Dunder Mifflin. And by the way, this is going to come up again later. Yeah. So Dean told me that for that opening moment where Pam is on the phone and then the camera pulls back into Michael's empty office and then it whips over to the window and you see Michael running. Yeah. He had to use one of those whip cuts.
So he shot Pam, pulled back into Michael's office, and then he whipped to a window that just had like a scrim behind it, right? Because that's what Michael's office really has.
Yeah, yeah. On our set, there's nothing behind his window.
Yeah. Then he went up to Paul Lieberstein's office. He did another whip and then had Steve run by outside. And he did that thing where he cut in the whip and put it together.
That's movie magic, guys. Movie magic. Now, I guess everyone has decided they want to know how fast they can run.
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Chapter 7: What comedic elements are highlighted in the duel scene?
Randy told me that, yeah, not only was it over 90 degrees that day, but we had to schedule this scene to shoot right after lunch.
Oh, gross. So we all had these full bellies and like the sun was right directly over us.
Yeah. But he said, luckily, it only took a couple of hours to shoot.
A couple of hours. I know. Lucky for us.
Yeah.
Oh, my. I always felt bad. This is the one moment I felt bad for the guys because we froze our butts off on the stage. The ladies did. We were always in less clothing. But then when we were in these parking lot scenes and they're in full suits and they're sweating their butts off.
And running with full stomachs of food. I have to imagine we were pretty comfortable out there in that 90 degree parking lot. I was probably fine.
We were great. So it is hot and they're running past this radar gun. You know, Dwight scored a 13 and Michael wants to beat it. And so he starts running again and a car goes by and all of a sudden Michael clocks 31. And he's like, yes. And everyone kind of calls BS on that.
Yes. Well, we got a lot of questions about how did we technically pull this off, right, with these speed numbers. Randy shared with us that the machine just worked. It was actually clocking people's real running speeds and the real car speed. But then he shared with us the reason we did this cold open was inspired by one of our writers, Real Life Experience.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the duel for Angela's character?
And then I got on the plane. And then when I arrived in Portland, I went into the drugstore and bought a ton of like nonstick gauze and stuff. And then I had seen that all the scabs had formed like in the bandage. Anyway, that's gross. So I stood in the shower for like an hour, just unwrapping my mummified arms and sort of yelling in pain. Oh, my God.
Right after I fell, I remember Randy immediately was like, all right, let's put this away. No one else. No one else. You know, they didn't want another idiot filing a lawsuit against the office. That was it. I hurt myself. I still have scars on all four of my limbs.
Oh, my gosh.
Sort of a decent story.
But you won. You won. You got the fastest speed. So there's that.
I don't think anyone would call me the winner, but sure, I do believe. I will definitely vouch for the fact that I got the fastest speed. I mean, I help by disqualifying everyone by getting it removed. Maybe that was my strategy. Get a high speed and then mangle myself so they get rid of the speedometer.
Ryan, thank you for coming on Office Ladies. You're welcome. And telling your story. We're going to hit you up for some trivia about heavy competition when we get to it, if you don't mind.
Okay.
Sounds great.
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