Dear Bren: I'm not so much pro-bow-tie or anti-bow-tie as I am convinced that if you're going to wear it, you need a way to keep it more horizontal, because when it's all wacky like that, it makes me want to wind it up and see if the propeller on your beanie spins. Smooches, Miss A.
The Magna love-fest breaks up after Erin tells Stephanie not to feel bad about crying, as she's already done it herself a number of times. I could slag her for being all girly, but if I had worn a green dress and Uggs, I would have cried, too.
Morning comes to the L-Pal. Angie grabs the Rhonaphone again, and learns that Trump will be waiting at the Sony PlayStation offices "this morning," and they have to be ready, because he's really busy today. So...show up whenever? Okay. Angie makes a note. I love Rhona's mint-green blouse/suit thing, by the way. And she has what appears to be a child's drawing behind her, right under the "Master Of The Universe" Trump headline, so that's a nice contrast between absolute power and childishness. Or...maybe not "contrast." Angie does a little happy dance in the L-Pal over the concept of the PlayStation, and wonders what time it is. Because she only has an entirely unspecified amount of time to get the team over to Sony, so she'd better hurry.
We swoop back to Manhattan and make our way to the PlayStation offices, where Trump is quizzing two Sony dudes (Glasses and No-Glasses) about how PlayStation is doing. Of course, they're not obligated to prove anything to Trump, for whom they technically do not work, after all, but they sort of suck up reflexively, promising that "business is great." Trump, George, NotCarolyn (sigh), and the two PlayStation suits head out to meet the candidates, who are helpfully gathered in their usual cantaloupe. Trump introduces the suits, and tells them that PlayStation is the world's largest videogame maker, and does over $6 billion a year in sales. Trump then says that there's "a new form of urban advertising," which he says is something that goes by the name "graffiti." What is this graffiti he speaks of? I do not understand it. Is it some electronic doodad? Trump does not stop to explain, but says that he's usually not happy about graffiti (whatever it may be), but "some of it is truly amazing." (Is it a kind of ice cream?) The task this week is to create a graffiti billboard for PlayStation's new product, which No-Glasses explains is Gran Turismo 4. WOOOOOOO! (Just seems like the thing to say. Sorry.) Trump says they'll have to choose an artist to create their billboard on a 20-foot wall in Harlem, and there will be a focus group from "that community" that will offer comments before the PlayStation suits ultimately decide which advertisement they're happier with. That team will be the big winners, and the other team will go to the Boardroom. Tana is exempt from last week. Aaaaand...go!
“ Not very much in the way of advice or management, there. You kind of have to say more than, 'Uh, noted' if you want to make people get along better. ”
The sun sets. Painting continues. At Net Worth, Tara tells Ernie to run his instructions through Craig, and says she'll have the rest of the team bug Craig, not Ernie, with questions, so that Ernie can concentrate. Audrey and Craig proceed to have a spat while she's painting some windows, in which Craig puts on his Bill Cosby voice (I believe that's what he's doing; it's not that good) and "jokingly" lectures her about how she's not doing what she's supposed to be doing and so forth. Audrey interviews that she's accustomed to taking care of herself, and that even if Craig has four kids, that doesn't mean he can talk to her as if she's one of them. Ooh, and...point to Audrey, I think. "He's not going to talk down to me," she says. The two of them have a little more of a bicker session, and Craig then has a talk with Tara about how he doesn't want to deal with children (see? Audrey was right about the attitude) and how he'll just sit people down and make them watch if they don't cooperate. Tara then has a powwow with Audrey in which Audrey explains that she understands that Craig is in charge, but when Ernie tells her specifically how to do something, she feels like she should listen. Tara tries to make this conflict go away by telling Audrey that she knows Craig can be abrasive, but she'd like Audrey to try to "work with him." Not very much in the way of advice or management, there. You kind of have to say more than, "Uh, noted" if you want to make people get along better. Audrey says that's fine and goes back to work. Tara gives an interview about how Audrey has lots of conflict with different people, and Tara believes this is "telling" about the fact that it's actually Audrey behind all the problems. Or else it means her team is being a little dickish to her, which certainly isn't outside the realm of possibility.
Over at Magna, Alex is lamenting how tough "urban graffiti" is. He should try bucolic graffiti. Now that shit is complicated, with the farm equipment and whatnot. Alex gives up the fact that they actually still lack a concept and are doing "background," but he thinks that they tend to overthink everything anyway, so it's just as well that they're...painting improvisationally? I don't know. Alex goes on to talk in an interview about being in Harlem with all these white people, including Erin, who looks like a "Barbie doll-slash-Hooters waitress," Bren, who is a lawyer and also currently smoking (which I thought was a no-no), Stephanie, whose family apparently has a Gulfstream jet (?), and Kendra, about whom Alex says something incoherent about Monologues for Dummies something something. Am I stupid? Because, like, half of those insults made no sense. Erin looks like a lot of weird things, including a reformed Goth accountant, but not really a Barbie doll. And I don't know what the Kendra thing was at all. Let's just move on; my head hurts. Maybe it's paint fumes. Alex explains that because the demographic is "guys," he went out looking for the neighborhood "guys." And when he finds the neighborhood "guys," he asks them to "come over" and "take a look" at the "ad." They agree. (Sorry. Fell into it again.)