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
Protégé, 3rd Street. The team walks in, and Assorama immediately admires the icky yellow-orange color on the walls. Again with the bathroom, however -- it's nasty. There's actually a great moment where Kwame (I'm pretty sure) falsettos, "The bathroom is soooo crusty!" Hee. Heidi complains at length about how nasty it is as well, only she finishes with, "I am not going in that bathroom." Right. After all, one should be able to sort through tasks, pretty much, and do only the ones that one feels like doing. Cherry-picking: it's what teamwork is all about.
The sun goes down, and we watch Protégé working on painting. Well, that is, everyone is working except for Assorama, who is parked on the floor looking at notes. She calls everyone into the living room. Why does she get to call meetings? They should have ignored her. Also, she's wearing a stupid-looking hat, and...good God, I think everyone knows how I feel about that by now. Amy interviews that, indeed, it was very frustrating to be in the middle of actually doing something and then to have someone who isn't doing anything call them all in to discuss what remained to be done -- which were the things they were already in the middle of doing. Stupid meetings. I have a Demotivators calendar from these people, but they also make this little desk decoration that says, "Meetings: None Of Us Is As Dumb As All Of Us." Exactly. Actually, this entire show is kind of one big commercial for Despair.com, so go check it out if you never have.
So anyway, Assorama is The Queen of Useless Meetings, which Amy chalks up to Assorama's desire to avoid doing any real work. I agree. Back in S4, Kwame tells Amy he thinks that they had a good day. Elsewhere, Heidi is on the phone, apparently getting some bad news, because she's quickly in tears. Long story short, Heidi learns that her mom has Stage I colon cancer. Which is very sad. And of course, I feel bad for her, because it's kind of the entire point of humanity that you retain some measure of it even for people you don't like very much. Good things and bad things both happen to everyone, after all -- it's not like cancer only happens to people who have likeable children, or like it's only sad when that's the case. So, you know, it's a shame, even though it's her. We hear Heidi tell her mom (I assume) on the phone that if Mom wants her to leave the show, she'll leave. It sounds like Mom doesn't think that's necessary. Troy interviews, "Heidi's in a tough, tough boat. To make that decision, just...I wouldn't want to be in her shoes." And we see him, while she's on the phone, come over and take her head in his hands and kiss the top of her head, which makes me love him a little bit. "I feel bad for her," he interviews, "and I know she's an emotional lady." Heidi cries a lot on the phone.
Back from commercials, the title card says, "God Is In The Details." Trump explains that rich people always pay attention to details, which is why they keep asking him what's going on with his hair. No, no, he says that's why he always makes sure that all his buildings are made of nothing but porcelain and Swiss watch parts. He explains that you always make an effort to fix up details, and compares the failure to do so to selling a used car without washing it. For lack of a ten-dollar car wash, two hundred dollars falls off the price. Probably true. But, I mean, did you hear what he just said? He just basically said, "I can put tacky, flashy crap all over an apartment, and people will pay a lot more for it than the flashy crap is actually worth." He didn't quite say, "The people I sell apartments to are stupid," but he came very close. While touring his construction site, Trump is wearing his pink tie again, by the way. Or maybe he's wearing a different pink tie. Do you suppose he ever wears anything more than once? Or does he just take things off at the end of the day and have them used to fuel the most beautiful wood-burning stove in New York?