Sure, it may have been a semi-ripoff of the ending of Lost In Translation—albeit without the romantic chemistry—but it was still a very moving moment on The Office: Pam Beesly saying something off-mic to Michael Scott as he said farewell to Scranton and Dundler Mifflin for good. (Yes, he came back for the finale, but you get it.)
Well, almost seven years to the day after “Goodbye, Michael” aired, Jenna Fischer has revealed what Pam said to Michael during that 25-second sequence. Or rather, she basically revealed it: It’s all very vague and generalized, but it conveys the gist of what was said rather than leaving us all to speculate about whether she very sweetly whispered, “You will die in a poison gas attack on foreign soil.” As Mashable reports, Fischer was answering questions from fans during an Instagram live session on Tuesday when someone asked what Pam said to Michael during their final scene, after the former boss handed his mic back to the documentary crew and Pam stopped him on the airport walkway to exchange a few last words.
“That was me talking to Steve,” Fischer said, acknowledging that they broke character to let real-life feelings be expressed instead of a scripted bit. “I told him all the ways I was going to miss him when he left our show. Those were real tears and a real goodbye. That was a really emotional scene.” It’s a sweet anecdote, and a nice reminder of why the damn show was so good (most of the time, anyway). However, it doesn’t explain what the hell that damn note that Jim wrote to Pam said—you know, the one where he confessed his feelings but then chickened out on giving it to her along with the teapot during the secret santa episode, instead slipping it back into his pocket only to bust it out in the final season. He held onto it for years, damn it; surely we could’ve gotten a sampling of his prose?