Episode Four

"New Management"

The workers decide how to kill Tim.

### Writer

Briton Graber, Genevieve Howley, Evan Kagarise Bryan Ly, Jack Powell, Trevor Schoeny, Liza Shourds

### Director

Genevieve Howley

**Episode Four** is the fourth installation of *The Office Life*, filmed circa April of 2019.

## Summary

### Before the Work Day

Martha wakes up on her table in a darkened Office, yelling for **Kate**, who does not respond and is nowhere to be seen. Doug knocks on the door, but Martha does not let him in. Doug runs around the Office to the back door and enters, throwing Martha off her rhythm.

**Peter** enters and slaps the outlet with his jacket. Molly enters wearing her University of Virginia sweater, which she had just been accepted into, with the hood up and tucked behind her ears. She licks her index and middle finger and taps them on the outlet. **Tom** enters with a black cloth over his face, seemingly in mourning. He wipes a tear from his eye and touches it to the outlet.

The workers, awaiting **Tim**, form an arch in front of the door while doing small bounces on their heels while chanting, "Welcome Tim, welcome Tim, welcome Tim [...]" Tim enters, swiping his card over the outlet, and they applaud and inform him that they've been doing this for three hours. Martha sharpens a spear.

### During the Word Day

**Jacob** runs in late carrying a jar of the Lemon Fisch from Kentuckyville, which the workers are enamored by. Whenever they get the chance they surround it and tap their fingers on the glass. Tim takes the jar and says the next person who sells fifteen products will get it. They all go to work, though none of them know what they sell. Throughout the day, Martha watches, ominously, from afar while carrying a spear.

Later in the day, the workers lean over a round table and watch as Peter taps his fingers on the jar. Tim tries to interrupt and tell them about a meeting, but they shush him and return to watching the taps. At the meeting, Tim reveals that he wants to change the name of the **company** from *Company* to *JuiceCo.*, as the latter name seemed to poll well. The workers object throughout the meeting, but Tim continues on. As Tim tries to change the subject to marketing, Jacob suddenly realizes that the Lemon Fisch have disappeared from his hands. The workers panic and immediately accuse Tim, who says that he sent the jar to the taste testers. This is a final straw between Tim and the workers, and all of them individually show desire to murder Tim.

Throughout the day, Tim attempts to speak to the workers but they ignore him. Jacob slams his computer and turns away. Doug walks away from Tim and continues doing the Charleston. Jacob begins dramatically shaking, repeating "He has to go, he has to go..." while pointing at Tim, while Molly tries to comfort him. Tom, who is offered the position of representing the company, continues rubbing his face on a shirt. Martha calls Molly to the water fountain, who leaves to mid conversation to talk to her.

At the water fountain, Martha is the first to say that they must kill Tim. Molly and all of the other workers immediately agree and begin training to kill Tim. Molly and Martha practice marching with spears while the **substitute** monitors their form in the background. The workers bombard Tim with phone calls so that he is accustomed to being suddenly approached by all of them at once. Finally, the workers stand in a huddle and make their plan to kill Tim. Peter suggests that they play classical music by **Bach**, whom the fish loved. The workers begin chanting, "Bach will do it! Bach will do it! Bach will do it!"

While Tim writes on the **whiteboard**, the workers sit at the roundtable and begin to execute their plan. Peter plays a piece by Bach as the workers slowly rise from the table and begin to advance toward Tim. Tim asks what they are doing and what is happening, but they do not respond. As they close in on him, they raise their arms up and engulf him. When they clear away, Tim is gone and presumably dead.

### End of the Day

At the end of the day, the workers gather and join hand while Molly gives one of her end of the day pep-talks, saying, "We worked hard, we killed Tim." Suddenly, Tim's jacket is flung to the center of the circle from an unknown spot, Martha claiming that it's the ghost of Tim. Whether or not this is the case is unknown.

The workers do a conga line out of the Office, this being the first and only time they do not leave individually. Martha goes to lie down on her table, says "Goodnight, Kate," to a seemingly empty room, then goes to sleep. After the credits, there is a small clip of cats meowing outside someone's door.

## Production

Filming of Episode Four began on an unknown date in April of 2019 on a day that **Mr. Staggs** was absent. In a moment of improvisation, Nick Tortora grabbed up the jar of lemon water that were used for the Lemon Fisch from the hallway, it having been left there. The other actors went along with it, until during the meeting scene where Tim discusses changing the company's name, the owner of the jar entered the Office to see the actors crowded around their jar. Pretty sure they even offered to let the actors use it but they insisted they give it back cause it was really awkward. This is why the Lemon Fisch go missing- an objective gift of creativity for the the actors.

## Trivia

* When killing Tim, the Bach piece played is Prelude and Fugue in D minor, BWV 554
* Tim is dead.
* The Bach piece played when Tim was murdered was suggested by the substitute teacher that day.
* The words erased by Tim during a meeting that Doug had been studying were lyrics from "Parlor Songs" from *Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street* by Stephen Sondheim
* Pretty sure the workers left in a conga line because the bell had rung and they didn't have time to film everyone's exits.