One Scene That Was Cut From The Office Finale Would Have Confirmed A Popular Fan Theory

The two-part finale of "The Office" wrapped up nearly everyone's character arc happily: Dwight (Rainn Wilson) takes over his family's farm and marries Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey), Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) head to Austin so Jim can rejoin the company he co-founded, Stanley (Leslie David Baker) is happily and reclusively retired in Florida, Michael (Steve Carell) finally has the big family he always wanted, Andy (Ed Helms) has recovered from his embarrassing television meltdown and is now working in the Cornell admissions office, and Erin (Ellie Kemper) is finally reunited with her birth parents (Ed Begley Jr. and Joan Cusack). 

But not everyone's story ends on such a positive note. Creed (Creed Bratton) is led away in handcuffs (although it's unclear if he is being arrested as The Scranton Strangler, for trespassing, or for any of the other crimes that Dunder Mifflin's resident creep might have committed), and Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) has been fired from Dunder Mifflin and is now working as a bartender. 

However, a storyline was cut from the finale that would have confirmed a long-running fan theory about the former accountant, who was so notoriously bad at math that he had to make up a number –  "keleven" — to balance his books and made so many dirty online searches that, as Dwight tells him, "we had to throw away your computer."

In the finale, Jim brings the bachelor party to a local pub for a surprise reunion with Kevin, who is tending bar. Dwight assures him that his firing was nothing personal and was unavoidable because Kevin was objectively terrible at his job, and the two men hug and make up. 

But one long-held fan theory is that Kevin is really a genius and just plays dumb to get what he wants. In a recent episode of the "Pardon My Take" podcast (via YouTube), Brian Baumgartner tells of a storyline that was cut from the finale that would have confirmed this theory. "The idea is that once the documentary airs," Baumgartner explained, "Kevin Malone becomes the fan favorite." He added that this was partly based on his own experience as a celebrity getting offered free drinks whenever he'd walk into a bar. "There's a particular bar in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that he goes in all the time, and he has accumulated such a credit at that bar from people buying him drinks that he uses that as leverage to own the bar,' Baumgartner said. 

Although Kevin is portrayed as a dolt so effectively that Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) assumes he is developmentally disabled in Season 5, Kevin is sharp enough to hustle Darryl (Craig Robinson) and Andy in a high-stakes game of "Dallas" in Season 7 and earlier brags of winning a World Series of Poker tournament. So for him to parlay his local celebrity into ownership of a bar is certainly well within the realm of possibility within the universe of "The Office," and Baumgartner's revelation that the bar ownership storyline was shot but not aired confirms that Kevin is, in fact, secretly a genius.