Diane, I'm afraid that I have something unpleasant to report. Bob has struck again, this time possessing the body of one Kristi Apprentice, Trump Tower. It's the only explanation that makes sense. First there was Melissa: crazy, couldn't work with anybody, shrill, petty, interrupty. (There was also Markus, I don't think that has to do with Bob, and Jen W., but I don't remember who that is.) Then there was Toral: totally balls-out crazy, couldn't work with anybody, shrill, petty, interrupty, and horrible. And nowâ¦Kristi. Shrill, petty, negative, condescending, and can't work with anybody. Which we knew, yes, she's always been a headache and she's always been a bore, but...I'm not surprised, I'm just kinda sad. For the third week in a row Melissa speaks through a candidate about how the other women are just jealous, intimidated, et cetera. Argh.
The task this week: create a scale model parade float advertising Zathura, which is of course Jon Favreau's movie based on Chris Van Allsburg's Jumanji-sequel version of Scarlett. Wow, I hope Robin Williams can ruin the fuck out of this one too. The Project Managers are Wee Brian for Excel, and Jennifer for Capital Edge. But in actuality, the Project Managers are Marshawn and Randal for Capital Edge, and The Bob-Less Fact That Excel Works Well Together for Excel.
Markus bumbles around doing nothing for awhile, then wants to have a big whinefest with Brian, who's already not having it, but it gets way worse when Josh gets involved. Señor Droolcup has, shall we say, a mind that wanders, and how bad it is, is Josh's personal barometer for how tired and bitchy he's feeling at any given moment. It's just ugly, and stupid, and everything's seams are showing because these people haven't slept since September. E.g., Kristi! Where does this attitude of general unpleasantness come from? If you don't want two black eyes on a regular basis, I suggest you make some kind of peace with teamwork. From her initial attack on Jennifer minutes before their (bloodbath of a) presentation, through a complete lack of understanding of what her betters are trying to tell her (shut and up feature prominently), and ending in a hideous boardroom (and an even more hideous foyer moment), Kristi's class breakdown in the face of getting called on her shit would make your blood run cold, if it surprised you at all, which it didn't, because that's just me, that liked her. She goes from mad tough to bad tough in no time at all.
Where Jennifer's from, the birds sing a pretty song, and there's always music in the air, but they can't so muchâ¦read, particularly the word "Zathura," which is like the only thing she needed to remember, which has no silent letters or slippery diphthongs to confuse the tongue or swizzle the senses, but which she mangles so very many times, in so very many ways, that she actually cracks up Carolyn (and Bill Rancic, who's in for George this week, and just as fascinating and effervescent as ever).
I won't be telling you about the Excel team's reward just yet, because it was a nightmare for real, but I will say that Jennifer is so icked out by Kristi -- and egged on by James from Excel -- that she doesn't bother bringing anybody else back in, just five seconds of Kristi, you remind me today of a small Mexican chihuahua and then just straight-up Bob, eager for fun, wearing a smile, everybody run, and you can't even believe how nasty the viper under all that cuteness really is. (Well, you probably could. She didn't fool you. But I was shocked.) She and Jennifer freak out on each other in a totally undignified way, and just when you think you might die -- maybe of tension, probably of boredom -- Kristi's fired. Wrapped in plastic. It's done.
We begin with Mark, James, Adam, and Brian waiting up in the living room and gossiping. Mark, charmingly, characterizes the Toral ouster as "the blondes versus the brunettes," and Brian and James both feel that last week's PM, Felisha, is the one going home. Adam smiles and giggles like an infant throughout this conversation. Mark gets up on a high horse, like any good cowboy, explaining that it's "all about team dynamics," which explains why Excel keeps winning. Yeah, because their dynamic is all about crapping on Markus all the time. For which I blame them not at all, but Capital Edge has been unlucky in that each week their scapegoat gets sent home, and they (and the show's editors) spend like the entire episode figuring out who the new "problem" is. Right now, they say, the women are all "acting like sorority girls that got caught sleeping with each other's boyfriends." Well, I would say more like "eleven-year-old girls that got caught crushing on each other's chosen Hobbit" or whatever, but close enough.
Everybody returns to the suite and all the guys are excited to see them; the boys ask about what happened -- hoping, I'm sure, for more stories of Toral's insanity -- and Kristi's all, "Ladies, let's go back to the bedroom." She does this in a mildly off-putting way, but it definitely gets everybody on track and reminds the men of their place, which is not all up in Capital Edge's business. James is like, "That sounds fun, we'll be right there," and Felisha laughs.
Rebecca interviews that the team has decided to leave things in the Boardroom, having their team meetings in the evening, so that they can be "fresh and new" for the task. Kristi addresses the group in a pretty even tone, underscoring that they need to leave the past in the past: "Task number five is a new beginning -- bring what you have to the table and don't hold back." Marshawn adds that they might also try cutting out the "back-talking" and general nastiness behind people's backs. "At the end of the day, it hurts us in our task." Kristi leads the pack in agreeing with this concept, which leads me to believe she didn't hear a word Marshawn said, because Marshawn, of course, was talking about her.
In the morning, Alla stumbles out to answer the really odd phone they have. Rona explains to her that "Mr. Trump is very busy today, but he'd like to meet you at 7:30 AM at Grand Army Plaza...Fifth Avenue, on the way to a meeting." Nothing makes me feel special like my boss meeting me at an intersection on his way to something actually important.
Felisha's there with a giant bag, and the ladies are all wearing pink, and Trump is screaming. Bill Rancic is working with them instead of George this week. Trump yells about how Capital Edge is "dropping like flies" and gives them one minute to decide if they'd like to choose a team member from Excel. Immediately and as a group, they yell, "We're ready!" I wonder if they've talked about it -- losing fifteen members of your team at a pitch might nudge the conversation in that direction -- or what. Trump's like, "What does that mean?" Kristi yells, "That means we want Randal!" Josh screams, "Shit!" and all the guys look bummed and pissed. Trump's like, "You wanna Rhodes scholar!" and Randal kisses his new teammates hello. Felisha interviews that they chose Randal as both "an asset" to their own team, and in order to hurt Team Excel. Randal is incredibly gracious about all of this and you can clearly see him already scheming about how to get everybody into shape. I feel cheated because obviously he's demonstrated some kick-ass leadership skills that we didn't get to see, because the show decided to get us there by another route, namely his dead grandmother and one hundred academic honors, and I wish we could have just seen him being awesome from the beginning. Not that we haven't seen him rocking out, just that the reaction the other candidates always have to him is out of joint with what we've seen, and that sucks, because I just really like him due to what little I've seen, and the rest I'm taking on faith, and there's no good reason for that except for how I think he's going to be Final Two and we'll really see him pull it out then and we'll all feel super-great about how we were backing him this whole time.
Donald Trump screams, "WE'RE STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF NEW YORK CITY! THIS IS FIFTH! THERE'S TRUMP TOWER RIGHT BEHIND YOU!" AAAIIIIEEE! RIGHT BEHIND YOU! "FIFTH IS FAMOUS FOR ITS PARADES!" He explains that they're going to be working with Sony Pictures -- "ONE OF THE GREAT MOVIE PICTURE COMPANIES ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!" -- and Adam is highly pleased at this. Really, I'd enjoy working with any old "movie picture company," although after all of Trump's screaming, I think I'd like to avoid "talkies" for a while and just stick with silent "movie pictures."
The task: building a "prototype float." The teams will be judged on how they "advertise, promote, and visually incorporate the spirit of the movie" into their floats. I know I said the Dairy Queen thing would suck if you had to do it, but at least it didn't involve wood shop. The judges this week are Jon Favreau -- Clay and Brian laugh excitedly -- and Geoffrey Ammer, the President of Worldwide Marketing at Sony Pictures. Also, Clay is exempt, because everybody turned around on him after they totally rocked last week. (Please don't tell them how horrific the Genie was; I'm content to let them think they did a great job.)
Josh expresses great trepidation that Randal is gone, due to the fact that Randal has "our secret sauce" (which: ew) and knows "our process and protocol," but mostly I think he's worried about how he's going to constantly hug Randal if he's on another team. As if to rub it in, Felisha hugs Randal, and everybody hugs Randal, because everybody likes to hug Randal, okay?
Trump's Wisdom for this week is the best part of the entire episode: "Money Matters." Seriously, that's what he's going to share with us this week: "Generally, thumbs up on money." He seriously says that -- as backup for this claim -- "Money's important for a lot of reasons," and then fails to give any of them, only calling it a scorecard that tells you how you did. It also, he informs us, answers the question: "How much did I make?" While this bullshit is going on, Miss Universe (actual) and Linda Tripp (look-alike) watch him work and smile and are amazed by his virility as he yells into his speakerphone about nothing at all.
Brian tells us he's "stepping up to PM" and like, he's five-five, but super smoking hot, which makes it okay for him to be just as damn short as he likes, so no "step up" jokes. I'm looking at you, Trump. The Fav and Worldwide Marketing guy tell us about the movie, which is called Zathura, and it's basically a sequel to Jumanji only with spaceships instead of the jungle, but they don't tell us that. For some reason, I've noticed, the marketing's kind of ignoring the whole Jumanji aspect, especially of late, and I think that's weird, because even if you can't say Zathura, I bet you can say Jumanji. It's characterized by the execs as a "sci-fi family adventure," which means they can't just focus on marketing to kids, because it's a big movie the whole family can enjoy blah blah lies lies lies it's a dumb kids' movie and Jumanji sucked. Take an awesome kids' book, stir in a little Robin Williams, and then feel sorry for yourself about what you've just done.
Brian's like, "Tell us about the story of Zarutha," of course, and the Fav is all, "Uh, Zarutha?" Everybody laughs fakely as the Fav explains that "the elephant in the living room" (Jumanji who?) is that if you hear the name just one time you won't remember it, so you have to always say it right. "One of the main things is teaching people the name." Everybody's nervous now, which is a guarantee I'd keep saying it wrong like Tourette's guy, over and over. So if anybody happens to do that, in this episode, you'll understand why I'm a little more sympathetic than I should be. (But by that logic, does my turning a blind eye to Josh and Kristi's bullshit mean I'm...never mind, actually.) The execs explain that the trailer they're going to be seeing is basically just a short version of the beginning of the movie, and the Fav's like, "It's really about the relationship of this family" blah blah more lies, and Tim Robbins is the dad and I'm sure he's in it for five seconds, and during the trailer Josh is taking notes. About what? He tells us. "These two brothers find this board game, and their house becomes a spaceship."
After the trailer, all of Excel claps their hands -- seems idiotic, and the Fav's not buying it, but it's a corporate monkey thing, this automatic clapping, it's actually triggered not by the movie but by the lights coming back on -- so the Fav laughs at them for being kiss-asses. He has seen nothing yet.
Capital Edge, meanwhile, will be headed by Jennifer, who's "wanted to be PM from the start," and believes that she is here "to kick some major butt." She tells us she loves "managing," which is funny because she spends most of this episode in tears. She says, with 99% pride and 1% fear, that the other members of the team are "leaders." As they settle into the exec's presentation, Kristi's hair is all crazy with static, like she just put her sweater on backwards and then switched it around really quickly. Jennifer explains to us that the board game is "a focal part of the movie," and that the name of the movie "is the name of the game." Ironic, although she means the literal board game and not The Apprentice. The name of the movie is also the name of the planet the kids are headed to. The Fav again highlights the importance of the name, okay, are you on board? He explains how his agent almost failed to get him the job directing the movie after he misspoke and said the name wrong. If people don't know the name of the movie, he worries, they won't be able to go see it. And he won't make any money, and if we've learned anything this week, it's that Money Matters.
Segue: A parade. Parades. Yuck. The hyper Apprentice music goes along with the parade, and that was pretty clever. First thing on Brian's mind is to "brand the name as much as possible." Whoa, is he psychic? How did he know that's the most important thing? Brian wants to set up an audio track on the float that says the name over and over. James and his dimples think this will be great. There's an unending montage of the fellows doing lots of wood shop -- planing, lathing, painting, machining, what have you, those are the words I know -- and Josh makes this awesome shiny giant swirly ball that Brian truly loves. Brian wants us to "feel the experiences these boys will have" as we look at the float. There is a lot of spray-painting action and everybody's wearing hazmat suits so you can't tell who anybody is, except for Markus, because he's standing there staring into space. Brian calls him over once, and then louder, and Markus does that jackass-looking slow-walk over there. Brian's like, "Do you want to see if there's any paint help you can do?" Markus makes a totally angry face, like he's disgusted by this, and says, "Do what?" Brian's like, "Anything, um...painting-wise?" Markus just shakes his head and wanders away, terribly affronted at being asked to something other than stand and stare at nothing.
Brian interviews about how Markus is "a huge pain in the ass" and always has been, and I think after five tasks, he's qualified to make this call, the Frat Boys' abuse of him notwithstanding. "If he's wandering around doing nothing, he offers no service to the team," Brian explains, which makes it particularly hard on the PM. Later, Brian wants to order food for everybody. Clay wants Mexican, Markus wants to stand around staring at nothing. Brian's like, "Markus, you're good at this. Get us Chinese food." Josh and James are separately like, "Oh, boy," because they know Brian just started a conversation he's not going to be able to ever, ever finish. Markus, instead of doing anything, gets this intransigent look on his face: "How am I good at it?" Josh and Clay roll their eyes, because everything Markus does involves wasting the time of as many people as he can, and it's horribly irritating. Brian's all, "Uh, you're good at ordering...food?" Markus, stepping back from the shit he just indicated he was going to talk, goes into fnur fnur mode: "You're the PM. You tell me to do something, I'll do it." So why are you bitching? Just do it. Clay -- because he really has no sense of fine-tuned social dynamics like this -- yells, "I want sesame chicken!" Markus throws this very pissy finger into the air and yells, "What I do not do is...take orders verbally. I'll go get the menu." He wanders off at a snail's pace, in the wrong direction, wearing a clown suit, talking to himself, trying to fit his entire fist into his mouth, humming "Mmm-Bop," with a thumb in his ear. Everybody yells, "Markus!" He waves and continues galumphing off as slowly as a goddamn person can walk.
Interview: "I always feel somewhat marginalized. The people on the team constantly are thinking about how they're going to position me, should things go wrong, but they're going to find out that I'm definitely the Teflon player -- this team will never set me up." I love how he's like, "They are trying to use my sullen uselessness against me, but they will not prevail!" He takes their food orders, and makes more horrible faces.
Capital Edge also has lots of wood shop stuff happening -- where did they acquire these skills? Either team, I mean? That's great, really. Kristi explains that her concept is to have the house at the head of the float, and then "as it floats by you," the house is ripped away, revealing "the galaxy," and she characterizes this as an invitation to "come join this adventure." Jennifer is trying to get Kristi to RSVP that particular invite herself, as Kristi's fighting her on every little detail, including details that have not been mentioned, because she's too busy complaining and suggesting to actually hear what Jennifer's talking about. Jennifer gets that "well I guess I'll just shut up now" face that you sometimes get after interrupting a person one hundred times in a single sentence. Marshawn watches all this, and then interviews: "Kristi is extremely bossy, confrontational...disobedient...[and] makes the team miserable." Marshawn admits that Jennifer has her "weak areas," but is at least capable of improving, whereas it seems unlikely that "Kristi can improve her attitude." Cut to Kristi contradicting Jennifer about something and Jennifer finally just being like, "I wasn't even talking about that. Maybe you need to just listen before you put down the idea."
Markus interviews that there's a distinct "lack of respect" at play here, and that it's that respect which is "the key" to Excel's wins. Yeah, that's true. There's a lot of inequality on that team, but they don't go after the PM every week like Kristi and her Bloven do -- only Clay has pulled a Kristi, that we've seen, and he seems to have gotten over it and rejoined the team. Jennifer pulls Kristi aside and tries to reason with her: "Every time you don't like something, the way you say it is very...bossy." And then, with this defiant, kind of oblivious smile, Kristi goes, "Very bold?" And that was it for me and old Kristi. No, sweetheart. Because either you know what she's saying, and you're just being a jerk; or you honestly don't get what she's saying, and you're just nuts; or you're playing for the cameras, and actually coming off worse for it. And none of those are acceptable.
Jennifer's like, "Um, no. Bossy." Kristi's like, "Okay," but she says it a hundred times and it's the kind of "okay" that means "shut up." Jennifer continues, thinking we're dealing with a rational person here: "I'm really tired of it, and a lot of people are tired of your attitude -- you don't think you have one, [but actually] you do. You complain about little things...please, just try and roll up your sleeves, smile…" Kristi complains that she feels she's doing a lot for the team, and Jennifer agrees. "You're doing a ton, but [that] doesn't make it okay to complain and whine when I ask you to do something." Kristi then goes for strike two: "I don't think I'm...whining that much, and I'm sorry that you do." Which, actually that's strike three, because I hate it so much. "I don't feel that way, but I'm sorry that you do." Really? Because no matter what we're discussing, or what I think, you just automatically proved me right. It's the Godwin's Law of discussions like this, because it's content free: of course I feel this way, and of course you don't agree, so really you're just answering a question that nobody asked, because you're an asshole. I would have walked away right then.
Jennifer's still in there batting: "You are, you just don't know you are, because that's what you do." She interviews to us that Kristi "brings the team down," and seems quite at the end of her rope as she spits, "She needs to go, I'm sick of it." Back with Kristi, she's all, "Just stop it." Kristi continues to bitch and talk meaninglessly, and Jennifer is awesome. She goes, "Okay, thanks," turns around, and walks away, slamming the door behind her just as Kristi's walking toward it. You know she didn't do that part on purpose, but it was delightful. Now, I don't think Jennifer handled this perfectly -- I would have told her a couple of hours earlier to shut it until she stopped sounding like Melissa -- but she did better than I thought I would, and this pleases me, because now that I hate Kristi, and Rebecca's a ticking cobra bomb, I don't have that many people to like.
We see thousands of feet of Team Excel working, working, everybody working -- and then Markus yawning. Lots of shots of Markus sneaking around while everybody works. I hate him, you guys. Isn't this the big Omarosa problem? I know it was on Surreal Life, this inability to, like, do anything. You can't even characterize it as laziness, really, because of the amount of work he puts into not working, and justifying it to himself and everybody else, and trying to drag everybody else into it, but I don't know what else to call it. It's just...assholistic. Josh interviews that Markus stepped up from being merely "someone that you have to marginalize" to "a point of frustration" because of how Josh was working his ass off, which made Markus's loafing and lurking about all the more glaring. Not the best of reasons, but I like that he's upfront about it, like, if he weren't sweating and sweeping and all that, he'd just be condescending and disgusted, but since he's working so hard, Markus is aggressively annoying right now. "I want him to step up or step out because I cannot stand his bullshit anymore." Josh finally complains to someone on camera, instead of saving it for the interviews, but low-balls it, compared to how he usually talks to us. "I'm tired of carrying his weight...he's gotta start sweeping."
Brian -- this goes fast, so watch closely -- calls Markus over, seeing that Josh is really pissed, and basically agreeing with him about it. Markus comes schlumping up, okay, and goes, "Hey Brian, can we talk?" Brian's like, "Huh?" Because he was totally about to tell him to start working, and now Markus wants to have a sidebar about some kind of Markus crap. "What's going on?" he asks. "Just come here for a minute -- me and you." If Markus said that to me, I'd be like, absolutely not, because you know it's going to take a million years and be about something pointless and sucky. For this movie, I was thinking about the tagline, "Smooth As Silk." What do you think? Josh watches this and bitches about how Markus is just skating through the whole show. You know how some little kids are crafty and if they see you coming toward them with ire they'll try to engage you in a conversation about something completely different, in order to hit pause on getting in trouble? They're smooth as silk compared to this: Markus has chosen this precise moment -- the precise moment in which his active doing of nothing has gotten so intense that his manager is actually having to address it -- to bitch about how Brian told him he was good at ordering food. "I take offense to that." Brian can't even believe it. I think the roughest part of this is how far over Markus's head the irony actually is, here. Like, it's nearly brushing his stupid highlights, the low-flying irony, but he's not getting it. It was a joke about how lazy and useless and off-task you are, so you're going to call me to task on it in a way which is lazy and useless and off-task? And this while we're all in a time crunch? Check out my lack of sensitivity to your issue.
Brian's like, "Go ahead and take offense, then," and Markus goes, "I know you've got a problem with me," right, like it's personal, like the whole world as usual has a vendetta against Markus, "[but] I've been trying to do the best I can for you," right, like it's criminal, how Brian's overlooking his momentous contributions in the fields of nothing and obnoxious, "… this game you're playing with me." Brian's like, "Are you kidding me? Game I'm playing? Are you high?" And so Markus is like -- and this is the best, best part, because it's just ragged edges and weird seams and poorly done and so very Markus -- "Okay, we're done." Right? Like, he's said his piece, and Brian's just going to have to think about that for awhile, until he decides to apologize. Brian's all, "You're throwing a lot of hot air at me right now, and I don't want to hear it. If you're going to bring this up before a presentation, then -- you have some freaking balls."
Seriously. Now is not the time for any kind of emotional "you hurt me when you decided to use my uselessness to the team's advantage" conversation. If ever there is one. Catch the fuck up, Markus. Markus throws his hands out, all like he's trying to be the bigger man here, "Hey, I wanted to tell you what's on my mind...if you're not interested then that's fine." He's such a fool that I don't know, but I partly think this is his version of whatever he was accusing them of doing at the beginning, trying to "position" him to look like a jackass. Like Donald Trump is sitting up in a room somewhere watching the footage of every second and he's going to be all, "Oh my God, that's so true. He was trying to tell Brian what was on his mind...and Brian wasn't interested! And at such an appropriate time!" Brian's like, "Dude. I totally want to hear what you're thinking, just at, like, any other time." Markus shuts up and tries to slink off again, this time with a quickness, because Josh is coming.
Now on the level that this conversation is a legitimate one, Josh is an asshole for piling on. It's a conversation between an employee and his manager, and Josh should respect that. But -- far be it from me to be labeled a Josh apologist -- this is not a legitimate conversation. Josh has correctly identified it as a very creative kind of not doing a damn thing, and is responding to it on this level. He's not interrupting a management scenario, he's interrupting the usual Markus bullshit, which is now also taking a valuable member of the team, and the PM, out of commission. Josh just immediately starts yelling at Markus that it's time for him to pitch in, and Markus is like, "Me and him are having a talk," and Josh (who's kind of out of his mind at this point) is like, "I am psyched that you're having a talk, but I'm the one cleaning right now, so stop with the excuses and stop fucking around." Markus continues to yak at Brian. Josh goes into that weird faux-Brooklyn accent he only rarely attempts, interviewing on Markus: "Who is he, a prima donna?" And there's a cut to Markus running his hands through his thick, lustrous hair in slow motion. Ah, The Apprentice. You are too much!
Jennifer, Marshawn, Rebecca, and Randal are going to the store for some reason, even though there's like thirty seconds left before the presentation. Jennifer's trying to get everybody hyped about "going through the presentation mentally," but as Marshawn interviews, "I didn't want to go to the store, I wanted to practice the presentation and finish the float." Back at the float, the Bloven are all running around crazily and yelling about how they don't have time to talk to Jennifer on the walkie and they don't have time for anything and Blondes Always Have More Work to do and they are just the Cinderellas at home while the others are having a decadent and glamorous time at Home Depot or whatever. Felisha calls attention to the "piss-poor planning" and gives the compelling sum-up that "the Project Manager is gone with half the team." Yeah, when you put it that way, it does sound really bad.
Bill Rancic shows up, and the Bloven trip all over themselves to tattle. Kristi's like, "The PM is out shopping!" and Alla grins and Bill asks what they're shopping for and Kristi yells to Alla, "What did they go get?" and Alla trails off something about how part of the presentation is a "red carpet affair" and so they're, like, getting carpet, or something...Kristi yells, "Felisha, we've got ten minutes," causing Bill to check his watch. They all rush around and scurry like ants after you smash the anthill and for a brief second I wonder if there's not a tad extra drama here to make them look more PM-abandoned. Alla interviews, though, that they "saved the day," so I think they really were just working super-hard. ["Sucker." -- Sars]
Bill and Carolyn enter Excel's workspace with the execs, and Brian shakes their hands. He starts talking about how they wanted to "bring the board game and movie to life," and describes how the house on the float is on a track that takes it "from robots to a meteor shower to spaceships." He explains also that since the name is hard -- with a smartly-crafted reference to his fuck-up yesterday -- they've rigged speakers with an audio clip that plays the name over and over. The Fav likes. Then, Brian begins to be obnoxious, talking and talking about how one time he saw E.T. and he's very short and very young and very young-looking and also he likes Jumanji and on and on, and Bill Rancic just laughs, the Fav laughs...it's funny, how unable to shut up Brian is, all of a sudden.
The Fav finally breaks in with some praise about how he's been working on the very specific details of this stuff for a year, and the float is proving very true to all that. Brian busts in with more preset yakking about nostalgia, and the Fav gets a little shirty about how he's right at this second complimenting them, so Brian should shut up. Josh laughs and interviews that this was basically the feeling of everyone in the world, and posits that perhaps Brian had been "injected with Markus fluid or something." I love that. Cut to Markus laughing. Carolyn interviews that the float incorporated ideas from the movie, had the name everywhere, and in her opinion was "true to the spirit of the movie."
Meanwhile, Jennifer is laughing dorkily about "all of [her] helpers crawling around" under the float, and, like, this isn't kindergarten, they're not your "helpers," first of all, and then she continues with, "Bear with us as we prepare to take you through the incredible adventure of...Zenthura." This is utterly Jen, from start to finish, but it's the last word that the Fav starts grinning about. Zenthura is all about transitioning from the normal to the extraordinary, she explains, and Randal interviews about how she kept mispronouncing the name the entire time. Even Carolyn and Bill can't keep from laughing. "We wanted to include the game itself, Zenthura." She just keeps saying it, in this way where you know she's trying to get the marketing point across, which would be cute and a little twee if she were saying it right, but since she's saying it wrong, it's totally comedy. Bill and Carolyn and the Fav laugh; Kristi -- inside the float -- rolls her eyes in horror. Jenthura (tm londonfroglet on the forums) giggles and "admits" that they had to amputate one of the two little boy mannequin's limbs, and Carolyn laughs again, because that's just weird. Inside the float, Kristi and Alla are being a little obnoxious and a lot rightfully exasperated.
Alla interviews that the presentation was "a disaster," that Jen couldn't get her thoughts together and it was very fractured. "It was just a wreck." Jenthura continues: "We wanted to show your name -- Zenthura -- very large here, on the board game, and the planet." That's five, and now I'm drunk. She invites her "helpers" to crawl out from under the float for the wrap-up, and interviews that "sure, there were a couple of things we could have done better," but that she "spoke [from her] heart," and so I guess it's her heart that's illiterate, and the Fav is just kind of appalled. Act out on Jenthura putting her arm around the very fucking unimpressed Kristi.
Trump comes rushing out of his office all, "Hold all my calls, I'm going to Sony," and the Fav confides in the other exec that he "knew the first second" which team was going to win. Sony Guy Geoff tells the assembled teams that they both did an incredible job. Addressing Excel, he points out one more time that "One of the goals was to incorporate the title into the float," and notes how it's everywhere on there. The execs also liked how the house on the float looks like the actual house on the poster and in the movie, the way it looks small and vulnerable and how it's floating in space. As far as Capital Edge, Geoff explains, the name is only on the top and in the back, and he worries it's not branded enough. The Fav points out the numerous weird scale issues: the kids, the house, the planets, even the potted plants in front of the house all look weird and unintended. Mostly, though, the title was mispronounced four or five times -- Trump's like, "Better pronounce it right!" -- and that was a real issue. The Fav tells us that both teams hustled, but that ultimately there was a lot more potential in the Excel project -- this was basically a marketing project. (Just like every task this year, right?) The guys smile, and Jenthura looks pained, and Capital Edge looks like they might throw up. Brian wins his exemption without hesitation.
Reward: The float will be in "the Hollywood Holiday Parade," and Excel gets to write a song with Wyclef Jean. I love Wyclef Jean. He sings "Guantanamera," a song that I adore even though it makes me sad because of the movie Last Night, and he practices vodoun, which is another awesome thing about him, and the only other thing I know about him besides that he was in the Fugeez and I have an album of his around here somewhere. Kristi looks pissed, but I think that's just her lot these days -- it's not necessarily that she has a yearning to sing with Wyclef. Trump intimates that Wyclef is "good friends" with the Fav and Sony Guy Geoff, which is fascinating. Trump then says this: "Brian good job I'm a little impressed Brian." Punctuate it yourself, because he didn't bother to do so.
Kristi complains (I know, right?) to Randal, all, "I'm so sick of losing," and takes a moment to consider and immediately discard the idea that she brings negative energy to the team. She asks his opinion, and he's all class, so his response goes like this: "It was definitely...eye-opening. Often, somebody's talking and...nobody's listening." Kristi's willing to admit that she's guilty of that. Randal's like, "Yeah, sometimes." I don't know that his inability to actually call her out is a good thing in a manager, but what do I know? I like Kristi, I like that she's direct, and when she's on task, she's usually right, but maybe a little more Randal in my m.o. wouldn't go amiss. I would definitely have taken a firmer line with her in particular, here, because she's at least open to his suggestions, and I feel like he's soft-pedaling it a little bit. In interview, he tells us that there is "something wrong, something broken on this team," and it would seem that he knows it's mostly Kristi. This week. "Seek first to understand, and then to be understood," he counsels her. She looks at him like she's ready to understand what he's saying, but in like ten minutes. Like when a dog tilts its head at you: Okay?
Excel meets Wyclef, and Josh tells him that he calls Brian "Rubble," because the back of his head goes straight from head to back -- there's no neck indent. He describes this in kind of loving detail to us. Clay calls Brian the "rebel rhyme master" and Wyclef laughs at every single one of them, and then tells them the track will be called "Rubbleman." Mark plays the drums and interviews to us that they'd been up 36 hours at this point, making it "hard to be excited about anything," but that Wyclef is a musical genius and gave them each the perfect part to play. This is shown to be true by first Brian playing the timbales, each of which is equal to him in volume, and then Markus standing at a mic screaming, "YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS!" And I start to realize just where we're headed. The second I start wincing, of course, Adam shows up, singing all manner of dorky and hard-to-watch about "Ladies, if you see us in the club, freakin'…" and he says it just like you think, half boy-band and half band-geek and all "fuh-reek-in-ah!" and it hurts, it hurts, and everybody sings together and harmonizes, and they're not bad, it's just that I've told you before what this kind of thing does to me, it's excruciating, and Brian starts rapping, and it's horrible, it's like from the '80s, those karaoke booths that they would blast all over the place and you could hear all the ten-year-old girls singing "Kokomo" together with their reedy, nasal voices, and you just wanted to run and hide, and the words are, like, "I'm in the club watching girls twirl / Sound system thumping it" and Wyclef whips the boys into a froth about "Make it hot! Hot!" and Markus does his yell again, and Josh goes "yeah" a bunch of times and dances like an idiot, and he's making this face that I'm pretty sure is his Trump impression, which is awesome, but he's not dancing like Trump, he's dancing like himself, and it's awful, and Brian is not good at rapping, and they are all so goddamned excited about this that it's maddening and I'm blushing for them and all the words are retarded and then Brian does a ninja trick where he flies up into the air and does a flip and it's still not over, okay, and Markus goes "YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS!" and seriously, Markus is the best part, and I don't even mean that in a bitchy way. Then Josh explains to us that it's a beautiful metaphor for teamwork because Wyclef found their talents and put them to work in a beautiful orchestra of every single muscle in my body wound so tight I can barely see to write this recap.
Later, Jenthura and James are hanging in the kitchen, Jen bitching about how Kristi is a "pain in the neck," and right before the presentation was really "rotten" to Jen, which I wish we'd seen: "Jennifer, don't screw it up, don't miss the point, like, right in my face, like, totally trying to unnerve me." James points out that the loss wasn't about the presentation, but about the float, and he's right: the Excel float ruled all over the Capital Edge one. "I wish I could've done better," she says, and I feel really bad for her.
Jenthura weeps, a little, but as a former beauty queen, it does not affect her makeup in any way whatsoever. If women in business must cry, my dear, do it like that, indicting your own poor performance, like a champ. Like a champ in GreatLash. Interview: "I know that I made some mistakes as PM [true], but the reason we lost is that Kristi couldn't be managed. [Kind of true, but more like a Y.P.] Kristi needs to go home, because she's a negative person -- she whines all the time, she complains, she's bossy." To James, Jenthura is like, "She won't take a single order!" and James is like, "Okay, whatever, but you have to outsmart her, you know?" Yes. Jenthura kind of understands this.
Into the Boardroom comes Rebecca, hopping weirdly. Could somebody maybe grab her bag, please? As Capital Edge enters, Bill looks rueful, Jenthura looks hardcore, and Rebecca is of course totally intense. Trump immediately asks Kristi why they lost. "Branding is obviously a huge part…" Jenthura jumps right the hell in there. "Mr. Trump, I don't think Kristi is the person to be asking, because Kristi is a liability on this team." Kristi starts with the scoffing, and I find this whole jumping-in-swinging thing a little lacking in subtlety, but she's right. Jenthura turns to Kristi: "You're very hard to work with, I think everyone agrees." Felisha looks all wild, like "Oh snap!" and then she and Kristi both get matching OMG smiles, like she's just talking crazy. Alla speaks up that "at one point during the construction of the float, I did feel that Jen really had it together: she was decisive, she was resourceful, she was giving everybody direction…" Kristi's awesome, because she means both halves of the following equation as she's saying them: "I can agree with that -- it was a short time." Rebecca and Felisha nod slightly.
Carolyn asks Alla about the presentation, and Alla calls it "horrible." "In the final hours she just crumbled." Carolyn wonders aloud if that contributed to the loss, and then turns full blast on Jenthura. "You said [you] had to amputate the little boy's leg... You wanted to be PM, and this was your time to step up. And you blew it." Jenthura admits she was a little overwhelmed, but that's not cutting it with Carolyn: "You missed all the criteria of this task! Every single one!" Trump nudges, "As a team." Carolyn's like, "Yeah, as a team, but, like, you totally fucked up the title of the movie, for starters and that was all you." Randal looks worried; Bill looks silent. "And the scale was awful!" Trump's like, who was that? Jenthura goes, "It was Kristi's concept," and Kristi jumps in, "Which got tweaked a lot." Jenthura goes back to the original thing of how Kristi is impossible to work with and makes it hard to manage the team. Trump's like, "She's tough...but that doesn't mean bad." Jenthura goes, "She's bad tough," which made me laugh because of Sars's poll joke a couple of weeks ago.
Marshawn offers that it's "ridiculous for a PM to have to deal with someone being bossy…" and Jenthura kind of interrupts, and Trump gives her the same speech that the Fav gave Brian earlier tonight, about shutting up when people are on your side. Marshawn calls Kristi "pouty, bossy and controlling," and tells Trump how at one point she had to ask Jenthura, "Is this Kristi's float, or everybody else's float?" Which is a nice oblique reference to her awesomeness, and a good way to talk about herself without talking about herself, which generally is not something these guys do in a very subtle way. Trump asks Randal whom he should fire, and Randal says it depends on whether the loss is "ascribed to the time factor, or the team dynamic," which is a nice way of saying Jenthura's a bad manager, but Kristi's basically a bad person, and Trump says that he should be deciding this week based on the team dynamic. Kristi scowls, and Randal says it's of course Kristi, because "in terms of overall fit with the team, she causes disruption," and it's so freaky how this same exact thing happens every week. If they weren't due for a reshuffle, I'd be talking about how six weeks from now you'd just have Marshawn in that room going, "I can't take it anymore! I'm just such a bitch! I constantly interrupt myself, I don't listen to what I have to say, I'm hard to manage, I break the morale I have with myself...I honestly don't know who should be fired, Mr. Trump: me or me!"
Marshawn thinks that Kristi should go home, quote, "for the same reason as Melissa." WHOA! Kristi's eyes go wide and her skin goes white, because she just figured out that her behavior is comparable to Melissa's. "Negativity is Kryptonite," Marshawn finishes. Kristi's shocked by the comparison to Melissa, then quotes her almost fucking verbatim: "All I ever get is positive --" And Jenthura's like, I totally talked to you about it, and Kristi suddenly can't remember that. Things rapidly descend into chaos and ugliness as the naked appeals and begging start: "I admit I made mistakes, but I have the potential to be your Apprentice, Mr. Trump. Kristi does not," goes one side, and the other goes, "I'm a hard player, and I can sell anything," and the other side goes, "Nobody likes to work with you!" and Bill almost laughs but somehow they've just become virtually indistinguishable from each other. They'd both be better served by shutting up and letting the other woman write her ticket home, but they can't, so they turn it up to Factor 11: "Maybe you're intimidated," one or the other of them says, and Jenthura goes, "You're intimidated by me!" and aspersions are thrown about how maybe it's Kristi's insecurity that causes her to constantly talk over everybody, and Kristi says she's not at all intimidated by Jenthura and...I'm kind of over both of them, at this point, because it's all a show for Trump, and like, have we learned nothing? And apparently, we have not, because Jenthura only wants to bring Kristi back to the Boardroom, and Trump's okay with that and sends everybody else back to (I'm not kidding) "this magnificent suite in the sky on 57th and 5th...the famous Trump Tower." You know it's not actually your penis, right? It's just a building?
They leave, and Bill looks freaked. I don't know him well enough to know what he's thinking, but I'm guessing he's just amazed by the behavior here. Carolyn says that Kristi is headstrong, but not the reason that they lost this week, and that cumulatively, Jenthura has made way too many mistakes. Bill concurs, saying that Jenthura wasn't even around for the final prep before the presentation.
Kristi comes in looking hella pissed, and they sit, and Trump's like, "You guys don't really like each other," in a weird way like maybe they'll fight right there. Kristi straight up says that she wouldn't ever hire Jenthura -- she's not a straight shooter, she can't lead well, and her problems with time management should be obvious with this task. Jenthura responds that Kristi is "very outspoken," which I think she means positively, "but...in a bossy way," and that she cannot be managed. Bill, who totally thinks Jenthura's going home, is like, "Then why didn't you bench her?" Jenthura admits that she was pressed for time, and that Kristi got a lot done. Carolyn's like, "How do you manage one of his companies, if you can't manage one individual?" Kristi has the total lack of class and self-awareness to actually nod at this. Jenthura says that she managed Kristi as well as she could, and talks about how much her sales reps back home love her as a manager. Kristi answers that with the fact that she was hired to turn a company around for sale in three years, and got it done in one year, and that she did it with a team that "highly respected" her and her high standards. Jenthura's all, "This team doesn't respect you, though." It's pretty funny. Trump agrees that the team hates her all of a sudden, and Kristi agrees that she's "outspoken" and has "an edge."
Jenthura kind of gets to me a little bit: "I get results. Sometimes I get a little tongue-tied...I'm human. I can lead people, people like to follow me." That part I sympathized with, like, Yeah, I talk like an idiot a lot of the time, but I'm obviously not an idiot, and it makes me feel like a jerk when I do it. Carolyn again hammers the whole "this is not a popularity contest" angle, and I haven't seen her go after anybody this hard ever. Even Melissa, she mostly just let her twist. Jenthura's like, "Okay, but you have to respect the other team players," and Trump defends her again to Carolyn: "I agree with her on that." Trump describes them as "almost exact opposites," because Kristi's too hard to work with, while Jenthura is a good leader in theory, but has trouble with "concepts" and is maybe not so good under pressure. Which, to be fair, we don't know, because she wasn't there. She's like, "Oh, I am good under pressure," and Trump's like, "Maybe so, maybe not, but not on this task." Then he fires Kristi.
Jenthura's near tears, Bill's eyebrows go sky-high, and Carolyn looks grossed out. Outside, Jen approaches Kristi, mumbling, "I'm sorry about…" and Kristi puts the final, surprisingly violent nail in the coffin of my love for her: "Shut. Up. I don't even wanna hear it, Jen." So not necessary, that. Even Toral -- who wouldn't hire you as her administrative assistant in the magical headquarters of Religious Fanatics Against Milkshakes* -- showed more class at that point in the day. Good Lord.
(*Okay, the coolest part of that whole deal is that she later clarified the whole not wearing a costume thing as a personal non-religious belief, because she's a vegetarian, and it's disrespectful to dress up like animals.
Dear Toral: The milkshake is not an animal.)
Inside, Bill -- trying to adjust to what just happened -- is like, "Well, she made it out of here by the skin of her teeth." Trump defends his decision, saying that Capital Edge is not getting along, and Kristi was doing them "no favors in that arena." This is technically true, so Bill's like, "Whatevs." Trump gets contemplative: "I'm going to have to make some drastic changes to this team, it's not working." Cut to Carolyn, who has not spoken this whole time, fuming at what just happened. Oh, Jenthura. You are DEAD MEAT. ["Yeah, there's…something more to Carolyn's reaction, there, I think. She has really random bursts of hate sometimes that just kind of…don't track with what's going on." -- Sars]
Jenthura's slow return to the suite is accompanied by the "Rubble Man" song, which is more brilliant every time you view the episode -- it's really dumb, but if you keep watching it over and over, it gets hilarious -- and then in the Crazy Taxi, Kristi's complaining about how, "When Jen and I walked out of the boardroom, she gave me the most pitiful look and stuck out her hand...she's so fake, I don't care for her. I wish Alla and Felisha the best of luck." I didn't see it as fake, because half the time in the Boardroom she forgot to talk trash about you, and vice versa, but whatever. I cannot attest to Kristi's state of mind at any point in this episode, except that she makes me kind of bummed out, because she's super-strong and I like her a lot, and I'm sorry that she gave in to whatever lesser angels of her nature took over in Week 2.
week, Carolyn's in charge and she sits in the Leather Chair of the Hair, but a team falls apart, performing so badly that Trump has to actually come back and deal, and then apparently he's more angry than he ever has been, and there will be some kind of Boardroom first, and it's all dreadfully exciting.