Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Lesson Four: Don't Use Your Words
By Jacob Clifton | Season 6 | Episode 4 | Aired on 01.27.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Decimated by what Trump and Heidi seem to think is a decade-long losing streak, Team "Arrow" is offered some Kinetic. Heidi, Marisa and Surya -- for various reasons of wanting to look awesome -- offer to come across; "Arrow" picks Surya and he goes all Furonda on them with a list of demands, which gives them all narcolepsy. Task: design and market a new "signature chicken bowl" for El Pavo Guapo -- which Aaron wins, due less to Surya's help or his own sudden management skills and more to Heidi's sudden inability to manage altogether. That British person with the face from last year serves as a Viceroy and adds little to nothing to the proceedings. Heidi sends the lovely Lady MacMarisa and Derek to deal with marketing, while Kristine comes up with a California fusion Paradise Bowl that combines rice, chicken, and the refreshing tastes of mango and pineapple. Trump correctly pronounces this concept as gross -- though you kind of have to wonder what he would say if it were served up by any of his visionary chef friends -- but mostly it's not commercial, which reflects directly on Heidi. Similarly, Marisa's mule-like disinterest in contributing in any meaningful way, combined with Derek's sick humor in watching her self-destruct, creates a marketing vacuum centered on their restaurant which is so intense that neighboring fast-food franchises go into orbit around it. (Her main ideas are renaming the Paradise Bowl to the Bravado Bowl and putting on chicken suits, but the amount that she suggests them might make you think there was more to it.) Heidi does nothing about this either, other than egging Marisa on with her Mean Girl clique tactics. Meanwhile, Aaron mobilizes selling machines Frank and Tim to go after bulk sales and decorates the entire place like the Queen's Jubilee. "Arrow" is delighted with their reward -- a seaside performance by Andrea Bocelli, followed by fireworks -- to the degree that each of them are tacky, and Tim and Nicole begin a gross romance. In the boardroom, Marisa talks her way right out the door, continuing to talk as it hits her on the ass. Given that the failure was completely Heidi's fault, she sits in the middle of this maelstrom silently laughing like the very devil she is, and then joins Kinetic in the yard. Stars this week include Aaron, Frank, Derek, Muna, and Aimee; losers are the usual, plus poor Heidi, who I hope rocks out next week. When apparently the Apprentices are attacked by killer bees? All I know is this: sometimes on a warm summer night in LA, when the Santa Ana dies down and all the tweakers are asleep, if you listen hard enough, you can still hear Marisa, yelling about bravado and chicken suits, and that fills me with wonder. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Last week Michelle quit and was a quitting quitter. Still not buying it. Back in the yard, James was in total shock and kept talking about how he was in shock, while Tim was preparing "to really be angry" and "split some infinitives." They all apparently forgot that the show has no rules this year, and that it's entirely up to Trump -- not Michelle -- what happens next. He could put them all in tutus, he could send them to the Playboy mansion, he could take them to the zoo and feed them to the yak. (Not that he would ever do any of those things.) But no, game show reality has a might hold on their little minds right now, so Trump's less a deciding decision-maker or figureheading producer-monkey, and more like a force of nature, so they're in pre-anger. Then Frankie Suits gets the call that the boardroom is cancelled and jumps around in a cape looking idiotic, and then Frankie Suits and Tim and Nicole dance around looking idiotic, and then they are in freezeframe looking idiotic, and this whole time, Michelle is walking away from Omelas and into a bright and sunshiny day.
Inside the mansion, Heidi was telling everybody about how you have to take timelines seriously, like Surya does, and you have to be awesome like this and like that, and everybody sips some delicious Kool-Aid and then leads Heidi around the mansion on a donkey, waving palm fronds at her and throwing down dummy brochures and toner cartridges in her path. Somebody talks about how we all have feelings and the entire world is like, "Kinetic! Has Feelings! Got It!" Heidi interviews about how her team has total spirit, but it's not the kind of spirit you can detect based on eyeballing them or seeing what they do or their behavior or the way they feel about their PM or teammates. It's a new kind of spirit that Heidi has discovered, and mainly that spirit has to do with obeying Heidi. She thinks it's awesome. She talks to us about Team "Arrow" and how trashy and loud and "boisterous" and gross they are, and how this conveys their spirit in a different way, and the way that this conveys their spirit is that they are disgusting.
Out in the yard, Team "Arrow" is drinking wine and yelling about Cheese Doodles drunkenly, and Stefani is informing Frankie Suits that he is "on crack" and that they are in LA, and inquiring as to "what language" he is speaking. It is SO awesome. People who look really hot in night vision are Stefani and other people you might not suspect, such as Surya and Frankie Suits, both of whom look much better in night vision. Science is still trying to crack the code on the optimal lighting for when you have to look at Nicole. I'm sure the beer is helping. Frank and Stefani have a drunk discussion about Cheese Doodles, and it's at least as interesting as watching stupid people get stoned, and Tim pulls the drawstrings on Nicole's hoodie. Tim is that scientist! "I can't see..." she says drunkenly, and the whole thing is just gross and shameful on every level. The smokers outside your freshman dormitory are like, "Please chill out, dude. It's just beer."