Down To The Wire

Credits. I want to thank all of you, by the way, who came out this week as closet chair-dancers. I feel very supported by the community. I'm a little alarmed at the number of you who involve your pets. I just want to encourage you to respect the dignity of all of God's creatures, except for cats, because cats are really funny, especially when you put Halloween masks on them.

Night shots of Manhattan, and then we are with Kwame as he approaches S4, where the others are presumably enjoying the very last Aspiring Corporate Weasel Death Watch of all time. Sniffle! As Kwame enters, Bill is in the middle of discussing the Boardroom with Amy and Nick, but he stops when he hears the door open and close, and he leans to look. "There he is," Bill says simply as Kwame rounds the corner. "Everything I do from now on is dedicated to Troy," Kwame says as Bill semi-hugs him. Nick's like, "Why?", because Nick's brain chokes on the idea of dedicating anything to anyone other than yourself. Kwame tells him it's nothing in particular, it was just intense, and neither he nor Troy wanted to see the other one leave. Nick shakes his hand, and then Amy stands up and gives him a hug, hugging him extra-tight with this big grin on her face, because she is one hundred percent devoted to her role as Cute Girl Everyone Totally Loves, And Does Not Find Annoying At All, Even If It Sometimes Seems Like They Do. "At this point, I'm doing it for Troy," Kwame interviews. "I mean, that's my boy. And even though I've only known him for a short period of time, I know that there's a true friendship there. You know, I wanted to go into this final competition versus him, not without him." I love Kwame's gold tie, by the way. I'll say this about Kwame -- the kid can dress.

"So that's it," Kwame remarks as they sit around. "Final four," Bill adds. Indeed, Boyfriend Bill, that it is.

Traffic footage, the moon, and...morning. The phone rings, and Kwame answers it, as he so often does, providing the weekly Shot of Kwame's Rise-and-Shine Glorious Legs. Hey, I have nothing negative to say about that innovation except that it started too late. Robin tells Kwame that they need to meet Trump at the Esquire Suite in Trump World Tower. I suspect that Robin, in retrospect, is very sad that she didn't drop by to deliver the instructions to Kwame personally, because unfortunately, The Rise-and-Shine Glorious Legs do not really translate over the telephone. ["Ordo they?" -- Sars] We see the final four stroll into the building, as Bill comments that, indeed, as the episode title suggests, things are getting "down to the wire."

They get off the glinting gold elevator and enter a large room where not only Trump, George, and Carolyn, but the Four Horsemen of The Apprentice (tm franabanana) are waiting for them. Trump welcomes them to "the Esquire suite." Apparently, the entire suite was designed by Esquire magazine. It's pretty, but it does kind of look like an issue of Esquire exploded, actually. All it needs is some mature, talented actress sprawled on the couch to a big sign proclaiming that she's the one men really lust after, not the young, nubile, big-breasted types -- they swear. Trump congratulates those who remain on making it to the final four, and presents them with their challenge by introducing the Horsemen. Norma is Trump's executive assistant, and she has some serious dark glasses on. Allen is Trump's CFO, and he will not laugh at any mustache jokes. Charlie is the head of acquisitions, and he works simultaneously in every office building you have ever been in. Bullethead Tom is the head of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, and he has a head like...well, you know. These four will be interviewing the four candidates. Then, they'll be passing along recommendations to Trump about who to fire. After the interviews, not one but two of the remaining candidates will get the boot. "So you'd better do a good job with your interviews," he tells them. The Horsemen have a combined service of over 75 years working for Trump, he mentions. Golly. That's quite a history for four people. A little church chime goes "Dong!" in the background, like it's commemorating all of the important family ceremonies that the Horsemen have missed while toiling away to invent the Trump National Sparkly Building Company. Trump adds that the Horsemen's recommendations will be a yooge factor in whom he fires, because these are the kinds of people they'll have to work with if they actually get the job.

Nick interviews that he's happy to be on to real interviews rather than "lemonade stands." He says this is the point anyway -- "Can you hang and bang with the heavy hitters in the Trump organization?" Um, "hang and bang"? Okay, Nick. The first is kind of dorky and dated, and the second is really not a respectable way for a young man to get gainful employment, all right? Oh, and also, considering Nick's extremely high opinion of his own hanging-and-banging abilities, I would just like to say, getting slightly ahead of myself? Ha. Ha. Ha.

Atlantic City. We are back at the Taj Mahal, with its elephant sculptures and neon signs and other incredibly lifelike simulations of everyday life in India. Kwame is leading a meeting with a bunch of folks, including Secondary NotGeorge, who has returned for this special event. Kwame asks Secondary NotGeorge how he defines a successful event at the Taj Mahal. Ooh, great question. Secondary NotGeorge probably mentions several things, but the one we hear about is that the artist has to be taken care of from the time they arrive until the time they leave. You don't suppose that will come up, do you? The meeting breaks.

That night, Team Kwame eats dinner somewhere in the Taj Mahal. Kwame is running down a list of action items from a steno pad. As the team talks, Assorama receives a phone call at the table on the restaurant's cordless phone. She takes the phone away from the table, and as she paces, she talks to Diane, who is the entertainment coordinator. Diane explains that she called Assorama and "told her to make sure" that Jessica Simpson and the band were taken care of as far as their arrival. Assorama asks Diane on the phone whether she (Diane) can make the arrangements. Then Assorama says, "Unfortunately, we're sitting in the middle of, uh..." Her voice trails off so that she doesn't have to say "dinner." In an interview in her office, Diane says that Assorama's response was that she was having dinner, and could Diane take care of it, and so forth. "All righty, I'll see you tomorrow, bye bye," Assorama says. I'd point out that we didn't get video of Diane's side of that conversation at all. ["Possibly because it consisted almost entirely of curse words." -- Sars]

Troy interviews that when Assorama got the phone call, they all assumed it was something to do with the task. But when he asked her about the phone call, she refused to tell them what it was about. The problem is that it isn't clear that she even admitted that it was business-related, so if she's saying she received a phone call and won't talk about it, I'm not sure what you can do. I mean, if it were personal, you can't make her tell you about it just because you were sitting there when she received the call.

The morning, we are still in Atlantic City. Team Kwame is hanging out in his room, eating breakfast. (Ah, room service. LOVE room service. For those of you going to Vegas, have the continental breakfast at the Aladdin. It's the best thirty dollars you will ever spend on coffee, juice, and three pastries as big as your head.) Assorama tells the group that "Jessica" arrives at midnight, and she thinks they should all be there to greet her. Kwame says he agrees. The phone rings in the room, and Assorama answers it. "Kwame Jackson's room, how may I help you?" Assorama says broadly, laughing her ass off at the sheer idea that she might be working for Kwame. Because ha, ha, ha. It's Diane on the other end of the line, and she asks for Kwame. Instead of handing over the phone, Assorama just keeps up the conversation. Diane explains that the van is still at the airport, and doesn't have the correct information for the people it's supposed to be picking up. Kwame interviews that indeed, this call was about "some wrinkle in the travel." He takes the phone in the hotel room, and Diane explains that the travel wasn't properly taken care of, despite the fact that she got in touch with Assorama during dinner. During a break for Diane to go off and do something, Kwame leans away from the phone and says to Assorama, "She says she tried to get in touch with you last night." Assorama's face says it all, and by "all," I mean, "Busted." Diane explains that the van is at the airport, but the arrangements are wrong and it doesn't have the right information about the band's arrival. Kwame double-checks with Diane that she's saying she called Assorama last night about this. Kwame hands the phone back to Assorama, who says she doesn't understand what the "misunderstanding" is. A frustrated Diane says that Assorama needs to find out about the flights and when people are arriving, and she needs to make sure that the right information gets to the right people. "I'll call you right back," says a cornered Assorama, and she hangs up.

When they get off the phone, Kwame presses Assorama. "What was the call about? Was the call about logistics?" Assorama begins to dance: "No, I called her before we ever went to dinner." "No, I'm talking about at Mark Anthony [the restaurant where they ate]," Kwame comes back. She momentarily freezes. "What do you mean?" she says, as she tries to think of something to say. "You got a call at Mark Anthony, at the table, she says that's when she called you and talked to you about something." "But I didn't get her when they called me at Mark Anthony, they just told me I needed to call back the office. She had already left." Troy and Kwame press her on why, then, she didn't tell them last night what the call was about. "The call was just to call her," Assorama insists. Kwame picks up the phone and calls back Diane. In an interview, he says, "I'm just used to dealing with really competent people, so if you say you're going to do something, it gets handled. And it's rare that, you know, in my experience, folks just totally drop the ball." In the hotel room, Kwame is on the phone with Diane, telling her that he apologizes for the problems. He explains in an interview, "If I'm running the show, I would fire people who weren't competent, and get competent people. But I didn't have the luxury of doing that." Back on the phone, he apologizes to Diane again, says, "Take care," and hangs up. As he turns away from the phone, he says to no one in particular, "That's just silly." And my feeling about that line was that in real life, she is so fired. I think he knows she fucked up, I think he knows she's lying to him, and I think in a real world situation, he would have cut her dead. Kwame strikes me as one of those guys who could shake your hand, tell you it's nothing personal, and fire you on the spot.

There has been, of course, plentiful speculation about whether this was somehow planned, given that it's such an egregious, unambiguous, and demonstrable lie. There are those who believe that this was behavior she was somehow told to engage in -- that Assorama is a mole, or a plant, or represents a special kind of test as part of the final task. Most of this speculation arises, I guess, from the belief that no one would be shitty enough to just lie through her teeth about what happened in order to avoid being blamed, and that no one would be stupid enough to expect to get away with it in this setting. I don't believe the plant/mole theory for a minute, for several reasons.

First, if she were a mole engaging in planned sabotage, it would be better television if they told us that. It would be better television to watch her scheming to undermine him after being directed to do so. All you'd have to do is show her receiving a separate set of instructions and explaining them in an interview. Easy to do, and much more tension-creating, because you'd see every mistake Kwame was making in not dealing with her, and you'd know what the stakes were. Second, her lying to save her own ass isn't really sabotage of Kwame. By then, Diane had already told Kwame that she talked to Assorama, and there's no doubt in my mind that Kwame knew by the end of that scene that Assorama had screwed up -- witness his "I didn't have the luxury of firing her" speech. I can imagine Assorama screwing up the transportation to "test" Kwame, but lying about something like whether she talked to Diane? That does nothing but save her own ass. It doesn't hurt him any more than he's already been hurt by the screw-up itself. Third, they showed things that just don't make any sense if it's planned. Why would they show Diane explaining what she told Assorama to do? Why would Diane have called and yelled at Assorama about it instead of going right to Kwame? Is the theory that Diane wasn't in on it? They arranged to sabotage the transportation of the entertainer and the band, and they didn't tell the director of entertainment? I think that's impossible. These are real events, and I don't believe that the show would or could arrange to have them genuinely fucked up, and if it did, the very first thing it would do was tell everyone who needed to know, in order to make sure that no actual harmful screw-ups took place. And the first person you would tell? Would be Diane, meaning that the conversation between her and Assorama on the phone at Mark Anthony's would never have happened, because Kwame wasn't aware of it and it therefore wouldn't benefit the charade for them to go through the motions of having that chat.

And finally, I don't believe she's a plant because it's completely consistent with everything else Assorama does. Even putting aside the "n-word" story that I promised to never touch again, she has been nailed for lying about a whole pantload of stuff since she got off the show. It's very sad, but it appears that this is what she does. I don't see any reason to think this is some kind of planned sabotage rather than a continuation of her normal pattern, which quite frankly is getting pretty creepy. And the show can't really be exploiting that pattern, because they didn't know about it when they shot this. It's not like they knew that she was going to get off the show and immediately make up all kinds of shit about the show and everybody on it, so that seeing her lie would make sense. I really don't think she's a plant. I think she just sucks.

Heidi interviews that Kwame lets things slide too much to avoid conflict, which is probably true, but in this situation, it's hard to say what he could have done. He did press Assorama on the phone call, and on what Diane told him. Beyond that, it's hard to say what would have helped. In her office, Diane is making a phone call. "The band got their own transportation," she says unhappily. "Not good." She tells whoever it is on the phone that they can bring the van home, because the band set up their own transportation to the hotel. Again, if this was planned, what's the point of that?

Briarcliff Manor. People are playing golf. In the manager's office, some lady is bitching to Lesley and Carolyn, "Somebody's storing stuff in my garage." She complains that among other things, she "can't be responsible" for the stuff. Lesley takes her in to talk to Bill, who's behind a desk on the phone. He puts the person on the phone on hold. Lesley says that she just found out that the garage of the model home has the inventory for the goody bags in it. Katrina comes up during this part of the conversation, and she seems to have told Bill that there was already stuff in there, because Bill expresses his understanding that "this isn't the first time that was used for storage." When Lesley takes issue, he corrects himself, saying, "Oh, it is the first time." "Well," Lesley says, "it was the first time except for this event." What? Oh, stop being so persnickety, Lesley. Katrina explains that there was already stuff being stored in the garage and she just added some things. "That doesn't seem unreasonable to me," Bill tells Lesley. "But did you get approval?" Lesley asks Katrina. She tells her that it's more "considerate" to get approval from the manager before you use space. And I mean, I hate Katrina and everything, but I seriously doubt that she came up with the idea of storing the goody bag stuff in the garage of the model home, of all places, entirely by herself. (I'm not confident Katrina can make a grilled cheese sandwich entirely by herself.) It seems far more likely that what you had here were two people at the golf club with different understandings -- that somebody told Katrina it would be okay, but it wasn't the person she should have asked. And in that particular situation, Bill wasn't especially rude to Lesley -- he told her it was his understanding that stuff had been stored in there before, which turned out to be true, and I think he backed up Katrina's decision as "not unreasonable" when Lesley twitted at her. He could have been more diplomatic, but I have a feeling he had a difficult day with Lesley.