Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "You must pay the rent!" "I can't pay the rent!"
By Miss Alli | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 02.18.2004
Troy just repeats, very calmly, "She got elevated, and she attacked me personally." Which is true. She is...really a huge embarrassment. Of all the dumb women, she might be the dumbest. Trump asks if she thinks Troy is dishonest. "He's extremely dishonest!" she hollers, completely out of proportion to the situation. "Business in New York is a tough deal," Trump tells her. "This is a lesson." Katrina, apparently thinking she's going to school Donald Trump -- not to mention totally failing to get the hint, which is "shut up" -- keeps whining, "Would you ever do business with somebody that performed unethically?" Trump -- totally awesome in this scene, I must say -- says, "Well, I would like to tell you the answer is no, but it doesn't always work out, 'cause you don't know." "It was so clear," Katrina says with a condescending shake of her head. "Well, it was clear, but he duped you," Trump says simply. "Nobody has ever duped me," Katrina says, shaking her head. "You've never, ever been duped?" Trump says. "Nope!" she snots. "I have," Trump says. "And I'm not going to give him credit for it," she says, accidentally giving away what her actual problem is, which is that it's not the ethics of the situation that are bothering her; it's the defeat. She just refuses to admit where she fucked up. "I've been duped," Trump says, as Carolyn smiles at the spectacle. Trump goes on to say that everyone gets duped, and she's been duped, too. The next thing we see is Tammy offering her opinion: "I think we got duped." Protégé laughs hysterically; VersaCorp looks mortified, because obviously, it was her responsibility to go along with a theory of what happened that everyone in the room knows is bullshit, even after her entire team treated her like a disease and did nothing but talk down to her for about a week running. Trump shuts down the duping discussion and says that it's over -- Protégé gets the win. So much for Katrina's terrifically compelling rule protest. "And congratulations!" Katrina sarcastically chirps. Can somebody just smack her for me? Seriously? It's her first loss in six episodes -- she couldn't be a little bit gracious?
Trump announces that the reward for Protégé will be a trip to his country house to enjoy a picnic. He promises that "it's the most beautiful house in New York state." Well, sure. If it weren't, he would have it mercilessly bulldozed and turned into condos, and then he would buy the house that was the most beautiful. As for you, VersaCorp? Prepare for the Boardroom. He dismisses everyone, but says that he wants to see Heidi for a minute. Protégé exchanges big hugs, and all except Heidi exit the room. Trump asks her how Mom's doing. He asks if she wants to go home to be with Mom. She says no. "I just don't want it being held against me," she says. Yeah. That was a big risk, that Trump would fire her because her mom has cancer. Trump asks her what Mom has to say about her schedule, and Heidi insists that Mom wants her to stay in the game. "I want to stay; it's not even an option, Mr. Trump," Heidi says forcefully as Trump is trying to talk to her. Boy, that's a polite way to treat somebody who expresses concern for you. She thanks him for talking to her, and then she interviews that talking to Donald Trump was just like talking to a friend. Which...whatever. I'm not slagging her for how she reacted when her mom was sick, but her reaction was certainly not so impressive to me that it altered my basic opinion of her. She reacted, I guess, about the way I would have expected. Even unpleasant people usually love their moms. Eh. She's basically the same as before, to me.