New York. You see, we need some establishing shots, on account of the fact that New York is where the show takes place. It's kind of the nineteenth candidate, really. The forgotten character. You know, the one that looks really mean but actually is just busy. Trump voices over that "thousands and thousands of applicants" stood in line and sent in applications and videotaped themselves whistling with crackers in their mouths and whatnot, all in hopes of being The Apprentice, although from some of the videotapes you're about to see, it kind of seems like they were under the impression that the show was called The Hugely Irritating Wank. We see Angie stand in front of an easel where she has written the reasons she should be on the show. Because nothing says "Pick me; I'm a superstar!" like an easel. Then Brian looks into the camera and says, "See, you need me." Oh, I so do not. But you are so totally that guy who thinks I do. Michael earnestly calls himself a "sexy, moneymaking machine," without, apparently, any irony, and I kind of need an aspirin already. Crushed up and dissolved in a shot of tequila. Unsurprisingly, Danny's tape revolves around him wearing a peach suit and singing an overproduced "I want to be The Apprentice" song, accompanied by backing dork-als. As is often the case with Danny, his understanding of how many levels of irony are present is off by one. It's hard to say if he overshoots it or undershoots it, but he thinks that it ultimately comes off cool, which it doesn't. Trump talks about how he invited eighteen people to New York to "win the dream job of a lifetime," and halfway through, there are nine left. Are we really only halfway through? God. Threecap season is going to last until I'm a hundred years old.
New and somewhat unconventional factoids are highlighted as we review the candidates who are left. Erin is "a former beauty queen who has a fiancé in the Marines." Alex "grew up in an apple farm" and then he turned into a lobbyist. And, presumably, subjected himself to a lifetime of "spoiling the whole barrel" jokes. Tana is a mom, and she sells Mary Kay, not like you couldn't tell. I wonder if she has the pink car -- I'm assuming she does. Craig has a wife and four daughters, and he's a part-time firefighter. ["No mention of the shoeshine business his chyron keeps telling us he runs. Curious!" -- Wing Chun] Kendra has her own real estate company and her own '70s-retro running shorts. Bren's hair is actually better on the show than it is in his day-to-day life, which...I mean, think about it. Oh, and he prosecutes drug offenders, so he's presumably used to the futility, tail-chasing, and lack of perspective that are so common in the corporate world. Angie sold her house to start a Curves franchise. Heh. Maybe now she sleeps on the rowing machine. Chris is "a self-made millionaire," but if that's his house, he hasn't spent it on décor, that's for sure. Stephanie gets great mention for all her "supply-chain contracts" again, and she's wearing a headset, so she must be really serious. I'm so happy that headsets aren't just for Time-Life operators anymore. Anyway, one of these people will wind up as The Apprentice, and tonight, Trump will be showing you all sorts of things you haven't seen, and he will allegedly tell you what he thinks about the candidates who remain. (This will not actually happen, so file it under "Don't wait up.") He also promises us a peek at the remaining eight weeks, because yes, there are eight weeks left. The season is yooge.
We are reminded of how Trump introduced himself to the candidates, and how he divided them into college and high-school teams, perhaps the most useless gimmick since the Yield. The good news is that Trump gets to say "book smarts" and "street smarts" again, and you know how he loves that. He lights up every time. And then he tells us again that New York is beautiful, and he loves it, and he loves the fast pace. I'd like to blame him for the mundane nature of this speech, but it's not like he's up in the Trumpartment writing his own copy. Anyway, the fast pace of New York can't but remind him of the way he made the teams go and work at Burger King, once he learned what they were calling themselves. And the teams were put in the position of launching a new burger, remember? And someone was going to be fired! Because that's how it's done in Fake Employmentland.
New: We watch as Net Worth trains at Burger King, Brian looking at a video that teaches him how to make burgers. Chris claims that with their high intelligence, it will be easy for them to make burgers successfully. But then as he's working on a burger during the hands-on, no-video portion of the training, Brian says something about how they only put mustard on burgers in the south. I always find mustard on my burgers at BK, and I don't live in the south. At least I don't think they call Minnesota part of "the south." Of course, Brian doesn't have "book smarts." Brian's trainer tells him that he forgot the onions, and Brian -- predictably -- swears. Meanwhile, the ladies of Net Worth are also watching a video, only instead of being about burgers, it's about customer service. And the three rules offered to them are "See, Smile, and Speak." I can't believe none of them are get the damn order right, because I actually hate it when someone looks me in the eye (See!), smiles at me (Smile!), thanks me (Speak!), and hands me the wrong thing. No wonder I am constantly dissatisfied with the universe as represented by drive-through attendants. Angie says in this very sarcastic way that if things don't work out, she can always go into a career in fast food. Ha ha ha! Because it's beneath her, do you get it? ["Aw, she didn't seem terribly sarcastic to me, but maybe I'm cutting her extra slack because I feel sorry for her having to walk around with that hair." -- Wing Chun] Honking music of hijinks plays as Trump voices over that perhaps Angie's team needed more training before they got so happy with themselves. We watch as John tries to load a bunch of helium balloons into a truck. Tana goes to "help" him, and the long and the short of it is that they wind up letting the balloons float off into the sky. I'll tell you, it's no wonder John can't stand girls. They're so silly.
Remember how Todd blew off his entire team so he could sit around making burger-related flow charts? Trump says that Todd's approach resulted in Magna's being sort of swamped, which was no good for anybody. Alex, you will recall, thought Todd was of no use, due to his lack of training. And indeed, Net Worth won the task, in part because a good thing to do during the lunch rush is to staff all your cash registers. Of course, Todd doesn't have "street smarts." Magna came back to the Boardroom, and Todd was fired. Todd tells us in the first of the after-the-fact interviews in which candidates try to digest their many passive-aggressive feelings that being first out made him "so bummed." In an interview, he says that he didn't really do the worst, because at least he did better than all the losers who weren't even selected. That's certainly the positive approach, given that I suspect many of those who weren't selected would have put more than two people on the lunch registers, Todd.
The week, the teams each got $20,000 to renovate a motel on the Jersey shore, and that's just a lot of money to turn over to people who aren't that bright. Brian made himself manager of Net Worth, and he started by throwing out a bunch of perfectly good toilets, because the quality of the plumbing fixtures is the first thing hotel guests check. More than, like, beds. Everyone thought this was stupid, and it appeared as though Brian was hypnotized by the $20,000 figure into thinking they would never, ever run out of money. Trump says he doesn't know what Brian was thinking, and we watch Audrey make her five-dollar-ass joke, which is always worthwhile. She was nuts, but she was fun.
New: Verna and Erin have an argument at Magna when Verna tries to dole out money. Apparently, Erin thinks Verna's rules are a little too strict, but Verna insists that as the accountant, she has the right to make the rules. It's amazing the degree to which they really are playing Monopoly -- in this task more than ever. In that weird, Morticia-like interview she did, Erin tells us that Verna had "nothing positive to offer." Erin lectures Verna that Michael authorized her to take money, and she's taking it, and Verna doesn't have the right to withhold it from her, because Verna's not the project manager of Erin and so forth. Verna counters that Michael has to sign the money in, or something, and...I'm not sure. Verna has a system, and it's one that may be a little more involved than necessary at this stage. The upshot is that Verna and Erin don't like each other, which kind of goes back to why Erin was rather bitchy when Verna returned from her crazy jaunt.
Also new is a sequence in which Bren and Danny go out with a U-Haul to retrieve furniture from a place that Kendra apparently tracked down as a source of all the furniture for their fourteen rooms. The problem, as it turns out, is that the pickup is two hours away, so they're losing several hours of person-power in order to get the deal. Danny guitar-terviews that he and Bren knew that if they didn't get back with the furniture in time for the guests to arrive, there would be a lot of awkward pauses as the guests were told, "And this is where the bed...would be." At any rate, apparently, the fellas do a fair amount of driving aimlessly around various parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania as Bren observes that "these Yankees are crazy with how they design their roads." Hey, that's nothing, compared to Jesse Ventura's one-time proclamation that the roads in downtown St. Paul were designed by drunken Irishmen. Which in turn was not up there with the time he announced his desire to be reincarnated as a double-D bra, but still pretty impressive, headline-wise. (Oh, how I miss the Jesse days. NOT.) At any rate, Danny and Bren get running a little late, and interestingly enough, on the way back, they discuss the absurdity of exactly the situation that will eventually occur and become highly controversial, which is Michael getting immunity for a win when they both think he is a royally crap-ass project manager. "If we win, it will be in spite of Michael," Bren declares. Bren goes on to say that for another $3,000, they could have had all the furniture delivered, but apparently, Michael -- referred to here as "shit-for-brains" in a nicely retro insult befitting a prosecutor in a bow tie -- decided that it was too much to spend.
Anyway, Magna made friends with all the guests who stayed with them, and there was this awesome kegger, and Magna totally won. In the Boardroom, we return to the weird moment in which we first saw Chris's temper, after he flared up with Angie over not being experienced with construction. They at least make it look here like his later-buddy John is about to crawl under the table from fear as Chris yells that he's not a "hands-on" guy with building, and he never said he was. AAAAAIIIEEE! He is a live one, certainly. You can see why Trump thought it would be sort of funny to ask him if he's gay. But anyway, Brian said he himself should be fired, so he was. Which was oddly anticlimactic, and made it seem like he thought there was another step with a physical challenge or voting or something. Brian tells us in his after-the-fact justification-terview that he "was an all-star" at the motel task, despite the fact that everyone hated him, his team lost, he argued for his own departure, and his team never took the plastic off the mattresses. Brian also adds that Trump should hire him back. I don't want to say he shouldn't hold his breath, but...yeah.
New: It turns out that Angie was completely freaked out when Chris lost it all over her like that, and she actually cries while talking to the other women back in the suite about how "he needs to go." God. I am so relieved that this didn't degenerate into an "I don't feel safe!" situation where there had to be an intervention. Like with the fork. Chris comes to talk to Angie, and he starts out like he's going to be all calm, but almost immediately, you can see him battling not to start screaming again, and it is genuinely a little unsettling how he's already sort of tense and sputtering, all, "You don't want to listen?" He blames her, some more, and Kristen interviews that Chris was unhappy about the fact that Angie spoke against him in the Boardroom without warning him in advance or something. But then Kristen adds that Chris gave Angie "some eye-look that scared her." Oh, man. So relieved this didn't wind up like the fork, I'm telling you.
At any rate, I'm not sure Chris helps his case very much when, in trying to talk to Angie, he winds up backing her into a wall. Seemingly recovered later on, Angie tells us that Chris is only twenty-one, and that he has "an underlying anger." Which, boy, it is hard to argue with. "He loses it," she says simply. Also hard to argue with. Back in the suite, she and Chris have this great conversation in which they both declare themselves awesome -- not each other, mind you, but themselves. And on that basis, they make up, even though she says she's still scared of him, at which he laughs uncomfortably. Because...what else can you do?
Semi-new: Trump uses Verna's exit as an opportunity to discuss how you have to be able to perform under pressure and so forth. Because if you will remember, Verna did not so much have that ability, as Trump sees it. We are reminded of how Danny tried to commit the team to letting Verna have a free ride, but the rest of the team -- Erin, for instance -- wasn't all that hot on letting it slide. There is previously unseen footage of Erin snotting in an interview about how it's "the playoffs, baby" and all of that noise, and I don't think I'm buying her as a woman who can do sports metaphors. Maybe it's the hair. The team agrees that Verna is soft, and then we recall the way that Verna left the show voluntarily. Just for shits and giggles, we get a peek at a rather phony meeting that was apparently arranged between Verna and Trump to discuss her decision to leave. Verna tells him that even though she waited for this opportunity all her life, she's really tired. It sounds like it should be more complicated than that, but that's basically the idea. She claims to have gone forty-eight hours without sleeping, which I don't think I believe, but...all right. "I want you to have a good life," Trump says, and I'm sure that makes her feel better. Trump then says this totally awesome thing to her: "Never give up, Verna, ever...again." HA! Yeah. Because..."never give up" seems wrong indeed, doesn't it? Anyway, they shake hands, and his pink tie is all, "Let's get on with it," and now he's ready.
The third task was the Nescafe business that sent the teams on a hunt for "buzz." Other than the caffeine-related kind, I suppose. Magna suffered under Danny's vote-based leadership, and everyone found his decision-making depressingly pokey. When the event came up, both teams tried hard to give away various goodies. Which no one wanted, probably, because they revolve around instant coffee, and dude.
New: Danny tries to lift the spirits of Magna at the close of the Nescafe task. It looks like everyone really wants to sleep, but that's apparently not in the cards. And how does he try to make them all feel better? Oh, by singing. Obviously. You can imagine how well it works, because it's exactly as well as it should work. And the song includes the compelling lyric, "We just might win this crazy, crazy task." I have to say, I never trust a songwriter who relies on excessive use of the word "crazy" in non-Patsy Cline music, except in the case of Van Morrison. Danny definitely does not merit an exception. He insists in an interview that he did the right thing by singing for the team. There is some dancing with Erin, but I really think they all kind of hate him. Danny calls himself "truthful, optimistic, and positive," insisting that these are "traits that win out." He has apparently never stepped outside whatever plastic bubble he was raised in for medical reasons.
Anyway, Danny got himself fired, which he probably deserved. And which saved us a lot of uncomfortable guitar moments. Michael made some really good snotty remarks about Danny's wardrobe in the Boardroom, and Stephanie thought Danny needed to "take ownership," and voting is for baaaabies. Danny interviews (unsurprisingly) that he's decided to "take this experience and grow with it." By which he means "sing irritating songs about it." He apparently hasn't learned nearly enough, because he sings a song with his guitar that is about how he got fired "before a chick." Or "before a hot chick." Does it really matter? It's a matter of degree, I think.
In week four, it was time to work with Nipples Deutsch to make a Dove ad. Magna got sucked into this horrifying cucumber-porn situation, because they thought it was risky. "It was risky, but it was also stupid," Trump voices over. Heh. Yeah, somebody else wrote that, too.
New:: Magna tries to sell Carolyn on the cucumber porn idea while they're waiting at the studio to start production. Carolyn looks unamused, and Kendra interviews that as she actually got to the point of explaining the ad to Carolyn, she kind of...couldn't. I feel you, Kendra. Thus, Michael jumps in and explains the idea, because as much as he hates it, he doesn't hate the idea of explaining it to Carolyn, because sometimes a really lengthy exposition of a complete train wreck for which you think you won't be blamed is pretty funny. Carolyn doesn't even seem to think at first that she even gets it, but sadly, it turns out that she does. There's so little to get, really. Michael calls the whole thing "embarrassing," but I think he kind of got a charge out of it. You can't tell me that seeing Carolyn drop her teeth in appalled disgust didn't blow his skirt up just a little bit. Michael tells Carolyn he doesn't think the idea is really right for Dove, but he allows that the team is "trying to shock." Carolyn interviews that she finds the ad "an incredibly bad idea." Hee. Not just a bad idea. An incredibly bad idea.
So, yeah, over at Net Worth, Kristen made enemies everywhere with her "abrasive style." She also was kind of incompetent and weird, and even Audrey knew Kristen was screwing up, which is like having your singing cringed at by Phoebe Buffay. The teams screened their ads for Trump, who found the cucumber one "the worst commercial [he'd] ever seen...until [he] saw Net Worth's ad." Ha! I really think I have to hold out for the fact that Magna's is worse, but I'll buy the joke anyway, because I am the cheapest date ever. Nipples and Trump decided that both teams sucked, and both teams would have to come to the Boardroom. There, it was Kristen who ultimately took a walk. I love the part where Trump says that he was half-tempted to fire the entire group and get new candidates, by the way. Kristen tells us that she "did an incredibly awesome job," and she says that she wouldn't change anything. So to sum up, she'd go back and lose all over again, given the chance. And she wouldn't even have the guy in the ad wash his face.
New: task involved Airstream trailers. Remember? Well, you probably don't remember, because you didn't know, that they put Audrey in charge of holding the money on her team. No, they did. Audrey. The money. The money, and Audrey. Tana interviews that Audrey just "sat in the car and counted the money." Quite frankly, I suspect even that took a while. And while she was at it, Audrey apparently managed to lose some so she's kind of firing on...both cylinders. She lost $71, to be exact, and it's hard not to come up with something about her five-dollar ass, isn't it? ["I love the shot of her counting in the van with the door open and this little pile of cash beside her, suggesting that the missing cash just blew out the window. Which really could have been what happened. Paperweights, people. Or close the damn door." -- Wing Chun] Tana is also a little confused as to why Audrey was doing the math with pen and paper and long columns. "That's when I knew...the elevator wasn't goin' to the top." Hee. I love Tana, even tough the positioning of your elevator doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with your ability to do math. Ask many of your neighborhood mathematicians, when they climb down out of the rafters. It appears that Audrey just added wrong, and there perhaps isn't missing money -- she just thought there was more than there was. Or something? I don't know.
Michael, meanwhile, struggled to sell massages on the street. Erin says that Michael had a can't-do attitude, which...is fine, but I don't care for her much in this footage, either.
New: Trump says that we were deprived on the show of a look at "Stephanie's annoying technique." And indeed, her technique is annoying, based on the footage suggesting that she chose to employ derisive snotting of the "Oh, come ooooon, you want a massage" variety that I think appeals only to certain men. Many of whom are ignoring her anyway, but now they're all angry. And that kind of isn't what New York needs -- more people pissed off on the sidewalk. Michael refers to it as "begging" the customer, and says that he heard way too much "come ooooon." Stephanie, on the other hand, tells us, "I'm good at negotiation, not selling." Isn't negotiation really a form of selling? Do we need to tell her to think of it as negotiating a deal under which the person will enter the trailer and agree to a massage? Whatever, Stephanie. Bren tries to tell her just to talk to good-looking guys, which is gross, but not as gross as when Stephanie says there aren't any. Yeah. No good-looking guys on the whole street, ever. Bren tells us that while Stephanie is actively a complainer and a negative suck of energy, Michael just "doesn't do anything." Like, as Bren explains, the Swiss, who I'm sure are in all kinds of moods to hear us make fun, considering some of the nonsense we have going on.
Anyway, Magna lost. And as it turns out, Magna plotted up in the Love Palace to see that it was Stephanie who took the fall. "All Stephanie did was bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch," Erin says. You'll remember that Stephanie went on that wild thing about how she was unjustly diverted on cheeseburger duty or whatever. It seems like perhaps Erin wasn't quite with her on it, which seemed possible at the time. This is also where we learn, a little sadly, that after six years of not smoking, Bren has taken it up again. Gosh, that's not good. The show is now actively making the candidates, in addition to the audience, less healthy. He says you can tell how hard the whole thing is based on the fact that it has driven him to smoke again. And then rather shockingly, he compares the experience of being on The Apprentice to storming the beaches at Normandy. Wow. You have to admire that, because not everybody can put his foot in it quite that hard.
Anyway, in the Boardroom, Bren was asked to choose someone he would get rid of, and he chose Stephanie, based on her negative attitude. They bickered, but Michael jumped in, and it disrupted the flow, and Trump was looking for a reason to get rid of him anyway, so that was that. They don't show Michael offering Trump a place in his parking garage, which is kind of sad. As he's leaving, Michael tells us the reason he was fired was that "[his] entire team ganged up on [him]." Oh, I'm sure that was it. No, I'm sure it was. And also? Michael thinks he'd have been treated more fairly by the Mob. The real Mob. Is nicer than Magna. This certainly was a week in which people went with the hyperbole.
New: At any rate, week six brought the graffiti task in Harlem and the great love we all are trying to feel for Gran Turismo 4. Net Worth, working under Tara, had this issue with "reappropriating" graffiti, based on the fact that she had totally taken a little bit too much Sociology. Meanwhile, over at Magna, Bren was smoking and smoking and putting on a white suit, as Erin told him that he "look[ed] like an Oompa-Loompa." Well, a smoking Oompa-Loompa. He takes another drag and calls himself the "Sta-Puft Marshmallow man." They drag this joke a good distance past its prime, but then we finally get out of it. The Playstation executives watch Tara's presentation, which is even more high-handed in retrospect than it seemed at the time.
Anyway, Net Worth lost, and they were in the Boardroom, and Tara claimed that she went for a win-win situation. Hey, win-win, lose-lose...it's a really close call, you know. So of course, she went home. She interviews that she has areas in which she could have done better, but that she feels like she did what she intended to do. Too rational! No wonder she got fired!
Week seven led the teams to the creation of a miniature golf course. Net Worth PM Audrey was maybe the worst PM ever, because she started out with a lot of people on the team not liking her very much, and then she did a crappy job, and then her team lost, and then she got fired, and probably, she went to Sequesterville and swore a lot and didn't get along with anyone there, either...I'm just smelling disaster.
New: It seems that Erin wasn't so happy with Kendra, the "marketing partner" she had for this task. Erin explains to us that Kendra is making her crazy trying to get her to make marketing phone calls that Erin thinks are fruitless. Depends on whose call this ultimately is, I guess. Kendra tries to cheer Erin up, and Erin interviews, "I liked Kendra better when she didn't do anything." Heh. I don't really side with Erin in this battle, but I do think she might be more fun to have drinks with, because it's the bitches who know how to wrangle a margarita and talk shit about everyone.
Mini-golf day came, and the kids were pulled in by the safari theme, and ultimately, Magna made more money, and it was time for Net Worth to go again. Audrey does say in the Boardroom that the entire team biffed the tasks that she gave them, but Trump tells her that, as the PM, it's really her problem. As she's on her way out, she interviews that she looks up to Trump. He's a "mentor." She keeps insisting that she does have what it takes to work for Trump, but somehow, I think calling him a "mentor" has some kind of weird ironic effect where it means you lack the judgment required to work for him. I know; it seems unfair.
New: Week eight led to the corporate restructuring we are used to. What we are less used to is how they go about it. This time, Trump had Kendra send two people over to the other team, and Steph and Erin were the ones to go. Then, when they ask Chris which two he wants to get rid of, he first says he wants to give Stephanie back. Heh. Not smart, but I can understand why he seems so pleased with himself. I realize it sounds like a joke, but he does seem to have initially been serious in proposing that he be allowed to send Stephanie back. She must be feeling really good. It's like if your boyfriend dumped you for another guy and then you got kicked out of the book club you joined so you could meet a smarter guy this time. Trump doesn't let Chris give Stephanie back, though, although he takes note. Anyway, Chris sends Tana and Craig off with Magna.
New: Turns out that Tana wanted to move in with the Magna folks on their side of the suite, so she asked Erin and Stephanie if they were willing to vacate their room. Apparently, Tana and Craig have been roommates, so they want to both move over and just switch rooms with Erin and Stephanie. Erin hypothesizes in an interview that in fact, Tana is working to get rid of her and Stephanie on behalf of the original Magna members. "They don't have the audacity to speak up for themselves," she says. And that's really not what "audacity" means, as you probably know. And Erin probably doesn't. Ultimately, Erin refuses to move, which seems to be based on her determination to spite her former team. I like her less and less as this clip show progresses, I'll tell you that much. Tana promises, entirely falsely, that she knows Erin isn't trying to be difficult. Erin totally is trying to be difficult.
Oh, so John was a total asshole while he was arranging celebrity "experiences" with Erin and Stephanie, and this leads Stephanie the high-powered supply-chain whatever to interview that she and John and Erin "were 'upposed to be negotiating and selling the deal together." Yeah, she said "'upposed." Which kind of takes everything away from the credibility of her statement, as you can imagine. It's no wonder John usurped everything with his chain wallet of craziness and his bitchin' house parties.
New: You'll be glad to know there is additional Gene Simmons footage. Well, actually, you won't. It turns out that, at Fuse, Gene ran into the group before the shoot started. Everyone shakes hands, and Stephanie asks to see his giant tongue. He talks about how she'll "squeal like a twelve-year-old virgin" (lovely), and then he covers up his mouth from the cameras and shows it to her. She acts impressed. When did Gene Simmons get shy about his tongue? I am so out of the loop.
Anyway, Tana stole the show; Magna sold Moby; they won. John defended his way of negotiating, even though he was unlikable and creepy and kind of a sexist and DID I MENTION THE CHAIN WALLET? So Trump fired him. Bye! John, too, tells us that he would do nothing different, because he is all about his integrity. That's what caused him not to ask for better prizes to be auctioned off for charity, you know. It was his integrity. The charity doesn't need the money! It's time to stop asking celebrities for so darn much, don't you think?
We close with Trump running down the nine who are left. He says that more tasks are to come, and one of them will get the job with him. Who will succeed? Who will fail? Who will be The Apprentice? Boy, that was a really inspiring and awesome shot that...they've already used.
Get me out of here, seriously. I hate clip shows.
week: The words "Sass The Donald" are used. That can only be good.