The Office season 9 isn’t as highly regarded as its earlier installments, the sitcom still managed to have a powerful conclusion in its series finale. Every character had a fitting sendoff that reflected the primary conflicts of their journeys throughout the show’s nine seasons, with Pam’s The Office conclusion being particularly memorable.
At the end of The Office’s series finale, Pam says the show’s last lines as she reflects upon the years that were spent in Dunder Mifflin. Now regarded as one of the greatest closing lines in a sitcom, Pam muses that “there’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things” as The Office’s final shot flashes back to Michael hanging up her painting of Dunder Mifflin’s building. Just moments before, Pam poignantly walked out of Dunder Mifflin for the final time carrying an important relic – the watercolor painting that Steve Carell's Michael Scott had bought from her years before.
Pam’s ending in regards to the watercolor painting is one of the most emotionally rewarding moments in all of The Office, but a deleted scene from season 6 would have made this conclusion impossible. In The Office’s season 6 episode, “Mafia,” Pam and Jim were away on their honeymoon, so the writers ideated a plan to cause strife for the characters from afar. One scene would have featured Kelly and Erin ruining Pam’s watercolor painting while trying to clean it, meaning it would have been removed as Dunder Mifflin’s most prized decoration. Although the painting had already hung on Dunder Mifflin’s wall for three years, this deleted scene would have made it irrelevant to the remainder of the series, thus making The Office’s final scene with Pam impossible.
According to the Pam's relationship with Michael Scott and “the heartbeat of the show,” as he was the only character from The Office to come to her art show with complete and even buy her work. Pam hadn’t received much genuine encouragement in her artistic pursuits at this point, so Michael buying her painting legitimized her dreams and demonstrated that he believed in her wholeheartedly when nobody else would.
As a summary of the entire series, Fischer's argument stated that the painting represented hope in The Office, with her sentiment later being fulfilled in the series’ final scene and line. Considering the deleted scene with Kelly and Erin doesn't even serve as one of the show's better gags, The Office made the right decision to cut it. However, while Fischer’s persuasion worked to ultimately save the painting, several subsequent episodes in The Office season 6 still had it missing from the wall. Thankfully, the painting would subtly return and allow The Office to include Pam's touching scene at the show’s ending.
As Fischer emphasized, Pam’s watercolor painting was representative of every heartwarming moment in The Office amid a series filled with chaos, pranks, and hilariously wrong interactions with the characters. Pam bringing the painting home with her at the end of The Office was a sentimental moment that elicited every good memory of the laughs and love in the series, with Pam being just as nostalgic for these days as audiences would be after the finale. Had Fischer not been so adamant about deleting The Office’s season 6 scene, the finale’s most important moment would have been ruined in favor of a far more inconsequential gag.