Shonda is sitting at home, and still upset about the call from earlier. How dare Tom take it upon himself to change the way her shooting schedule was set up? If he thinks he's going to take over her production, he's lost his mind. No wonder he was willing to fill in for her, despite working for Peter's project. Tony probably put him up to this. And, he's listening to his bitterness he's likely spewing about her, because she cut his scenes.
That's probably why he's missing in action, and Tom is covering for him. She then wonders how Tony's few scenes will be covered if he didn't show for work today, and they're on break. Fueled by the thought of Tom, Kerry, and Tony working against her, and Tom trying to betray her, without her knowing. She decides to make a call. Despite the fact, judging by the half empty bottle of red wine sitting in front of her, she shouldn't be calling anybody. But, she wants to get her emotions out, and decides to make the call anyway.
As Tom drives home, he hits the highway and runs into steady traffic. His phone rings, and with the phone being on his Bluetooth. He hits answer before realizing he didn't check the caller id.
The moment he says hello, he then sees the screen and shakes his head, knowing what's coming next. The voice seems rather calm, to his surprise but there's no doubt who the voice belongs to.
"Hello Tom. Are you alone? It sounds like I am on speaker." He takes a breath and says, "Yes. I am alone, and yes you're on speaker Shonda. I'm driving. What can I do for you?" Hearing the jovial tone of his voice annoys her; she quickly switches her tone to a more assertive one. As she asks, "I need to talk to you. Are you on your way home?"
He replies, "Yes I am. We wrapped early because we got all of the shooting done. You can pull the shots I posted on the editing board, if you want to see them." Reconfirming, she asks, "So you got the scenes that were due, plus the reshoots done too?" He nods as he says, "Yeah. If you take a look at the board, you'll see them. You can even review them remotely. Do you remember how to get into the sound box software I installed on your lap top?"
Begrudgingly she says, "Yes. I do. "He nods as he replies, "Great. Then take a look at the footage, and send me your notes of any changes you want. When we return from break we can take care of it. We'll have to do Tony's scenes at that point anyway. He and I already set that up."
Realizing again, plans are being made about her production and she's none the wiser. Shonda lets out her frustrations as she sharp tonged asks, "Who do you think you are to change how I run things on my set Tom? I asked you to fill in for the reshooting and shooting schedule. I didn't ask you to change a damn thing, it was just fine the way it was. And you completely overstepped your bounds by making that move, let alone letting Tony disappear and reshoot his scenes at his convenience!"
He hears the misdirected anger in her voice, but decides to forge ahead anyway, and say what needs to be said. "Shonda, first of all, Tony didn't come in due to a family emergency situation. I didn't just arbitrarily give him an off day. He left you a voicemail about it, and if you have further questions, you can ask him those details. Second, who I think I am is someone who bailed you out, when the network asked, not you. And, while you didn't ask me to change anything. The network, via Dave asked my ideas for saving money in the budget around the shooting costs, and I shared my suggestions. The same ones I told you about previously, but you declined to implement."
She then realizes, she has a bevy of voicemails she hasn't listened too yet. She meant to listen to earlier. Her mind then clicks back into rage mode as she scoffs, "So you told them that you shared that information with me?" He sighs as he says, "No. Actually I didn't. Because it doesn't matter. The truth is I've been using that same strategy on Peter's set since we started shooting and it worked well. That's why the budget is in control for the show, and it made the execs start looking at how we were achieving the results we were getting. It had nothing to do with anybody telling the network anything negative about you. Nobody is plotting against you Shonda, no matter how much you'd like to think that's true."
She takes offense with his response as she says, "Don't put words in my mouth Tom." He laughs as he replies, "You literally just accused me of bad mouthing you to the execs. How exactly am I putting words in your mouth?" She pauses as she processes his response, realizing he's right; but not willing to admit it.
So she says, "Whatever. I don't appreciate you changing how my set is run, and in the future I would appreciate someone talking to me about it first. It's my name on the project and I am responsible for it. Is that too much to ask?"
He understands her point but says, "Shonda, it makes sense for you to be clued in on what's happening with the set. But, what you're missing is nothing changes if it's not network approved. So, if you have an issue with how things happened, you need to talk to Dave, not me. He came to me asking questions. I didn't go to him. What did you expect me to do? Tell him I can't help him."