So yeah, well that's really the way to set up the angst we saw in S9. Pam thinking she's got her life basically under control especially with Nellie wanting her to paint the mural. Then all of a sudden Jim springs this on her and he's been keeping it from her for a bit. As hard as it is, it's a good way to set things up.

Putting everything in with Cathy to serve as a counter point, especially with Nellie acting like that was another good way to bring about a lot of those thoughts in her.

You know, it has not occurred to me before, but the conversation where Jim said he was going to pass on Athlead is actually another "first date/Jim's transfer/calling off the wedding" moment where something huge and decisively important to the plot happens totally offscreen. I can't decide if this is better or worse than if Jim had actually sat down and had a Conversation with Pam about it that he went back on, but it definitely seems in character that he didn't really push it in spite of its importance and Pam ignored the nagging sense in her mind that it was more important to him than he was letting on.

Did not think we'd get a Cathy flashback in this story! Definitely something that desperately called for some fleshing out, and I appreciate Pam needling him a little bit about not being the kind of guy who puts his foot down when it might upset people. I love the detail of the charged moment of figuring out where Philip is awake or not. And the calls-forward here sting - Pam telling him about something Cece said and him being excited? The "Beesly!" she never got? Oooof.

You did well humanizing Nellie's cartoonishness without sacrificing her essential Nellie-ness, here. "I'm still deciding/that's fair" was a great exchange.

I kinda wanna know who Pam thinks is affair quality for Jim now. But more importantly: I thought you handled her thought process here well. You root this moment in their history (which is one of my biggest beefs with the writing in Season 9) and who these folks are, and you properly position Pam as someone who is saying she's okay with it when she really, really doesn't mean it. The blow-up over the money comes across as sort of inevitable here - Jim having taken from this that Pam will go along, Pam containing rather than expressing her upset. And you can see how it sours her on the project in its entirety, putting her not wanting to move to Philadelphia and digging her heels in in a different light down the line. REALLY nice work.

Author's Response: Thank you! It’s interesting, I thought that convo could go a couple different ways, but at the end of the day, the idea everything started with a miscommunication felt right to me. I really don’t think Jim would have taken the job if he felt Pam was/ would be adamantly against it, but I do think he might take advantage of what he interpreted as ambivalence. They were both at fault for this miscommunication but also both being the worst/ weakest versions of themselves from the start, which just absolutely unraveled. Ugh.