Michael Scott’s final words deserved to be heard

Just for the record, I did not approve of the final moment between Pam Halpert and Michael Scott during Steve Carell’s final episode of The Office.

Like the final moment between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation, the writers chose to leave the final dialogue between the two characters a secret, which in my mind amounts to little more than cowardice on their parts.

Afraid of the momentous task of writing the final lines of dialogue for a character of such import as Michael Scott, the writers blinked and chose the easy way out.

An unheard conversation, shot at a distance, and later summarized by Pam.

And the scene didn’t even make sense. Though we saw Michael turn over his microphone before heading to the plane, there was no reason why Pam would not have been miced at that moment, and so the dialogue should have been available to the documentarians.

And if we were meant to believe that the filmmakers had captured toe dialogue between Michael and Pam but had chosen not to air it, why would they then ask Pam what had been said?

The audience deserved the last words of Michael Scott.