Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The [Pepsi] Edge of Reason
By Miss Alli | Season 2 | Episode 12 | Aired on 11.24.2004
The next morning (it appears), we are in S5, where Andy is lying in bed and Ivana is sitting adjacent and talking to him. She's cautioning him that while Jen is of no use in a task (which she says as if they all know it's true at this point), she's very good in the Boardroom. She also thinks that Sandy has proven herself in a couple of different tasks, and she thinks Andy has a better shot against Jen than against Sandy. And if this were a competition based on actual merit, I would agree, but it's not. Trump likes a certain kind of woman, and Jen is much closer to it than Sandy. Ivana also says that Jen has a way of sucking up to PMs and telling them about all the things she did, so that they won't take her to the final table. Andy interviews that he saw this as Ivana acting in her own interests to get rid of Jen, whom he believes Ivana sees as competition. Glad he's keeping up, there. Andy emphasizes that his goal is to help himself, not Ivana. Of course, like all of her PMs, he will ultimately decide that his goal is to help Jen, but I am getting ahead of myself.
Now, during a whispered conversation between Jen and Andy, you see just how different Jen, here just out of the shower with a towel on her head, looks before the extensive work she does on herself every day. Andy tells her that Ivana wants her out. Andy assures Jen that he thinks she was "much more creative" than Sandy, not that we saw her do one single creative thing except encourage the "bulbous" design as one they could actually sell. Andy is basically being suckered at this point in exactly the way Ivana said he would be, so in the end, it's very hard to feel sorry for him. Andy tells Jen she "outshined" Sandy at the presentation, and I'll agree with that. Of course, she wasn't given anything especially challenging to present, since she essentially repeated patter Andy had already rattled off about the two worlds of soft drinks and how Edge is in the middle, blah blah blah. So, Andy promises Jen, he'll be supporting her and attacking Sandy. But he tells her that Sandy shouldn't see them talking, lest she think they're "plotting." Which they are, but all right. Andy insists in an interview that he talked to Jen about the plan, and it's just about saying the truth, "nothing devious about it." Huh. Really? Then I wonder why he was whispering and telling Jen to make sure Sandy didn't find out they talked. That sounds kind of devious to me. Andy insists that he truly believes Jen did better than Sandy, and I would really feel sorry for him for being so completely wrong on that point, except that Ivana warned him that Jen was good at fooling PMs into sticking up for her, and he doesn't even see himself doing it, so...whatever. I hate to say "he should have listened to Ivana," but in this limited case, he should have. She's been on teams with Jen a hell of a lot more than he has, particularly when losing. His decision to ignore everything she said and treat Jen with no skepticism whatsoever? Not smart.
Jen and Sandy talk later, and Sandy asks Jen how she thinks Andy did in leading. Jen -- you're going to be shocked -- hedges and ass-covers, refusing again to say much of anything about anything except when she can suck up to PMs, which is what she always does, just as Ivana said. If you're not the PM, Jen has no interest in anything you have to say. Sandy says she wasn't crazy about the way Andy passed out money and so forth, but Jen just eats her pasta and doesn't say anything. Sandy repeats in an interview that she thinks Andy might not be mature enough in the end, and that she thinks he has some things to account for in the task.