It's the Great Reshuffle of 2005, as the chosen Project Managers are forced to dump their three worst team members on each other. The new Excel is PM Josh, last-week-exempt Brian, Mark, James, Marshawn, Jenthura, and Rebecca. The new Capital Edge is PM Alla, Felisha, Clay, Adam, Markus, and Randal. Their task is to create an interactive sales environment based on the sport of their choice within Dick's Sporting Goods. Alla is exactly as awesome as I was hoping, and her team -- Capital Edge -- picks golf, and creates a putting green, boosting the department's sales 74%. Excel's PM Josh picks baseball and builds a batting cage, which bring a huge crowd and lots of interest to the baseball area, but is not focused on revenue, and they end up actually lowering sales by 34%. Alla gets her exemption, and the reward is a private plane to Montauk for fishing and a clambake. I didn't know clambakes were real.
Trump -- who has been out of town for the whole episode -- comes back and immediately dismisses Brian, Marshawn, and Rebecca from the Boardroom, because they're good at their jobs. Of course, here, Marshawn is totally silent except when she's being awesome, and Rebecca is somewhat redeemed in terms of sales ability. Jenthura and Josh fight a lot, and then Jenthura and Donald fight about how she's really a great salesperson -- except how she didn't sell anything. One is left very confused about what she actually sold, and one is left with the additional feeling that she is, too. Josh tries to jump on the "silly old Jen" train, and Carolyn kicks his ass right off it, because he was terrible too.
Then comes the funniest Boardroom and the most awkward, silent, staring, hilarious taxi ride in the history of automotion as Jenthura and Josh, and James and Mark -- for no reason whatsoever -- are totally fired!
What a fantastic episode, you guys! The end has shock value, the Boardroom has mostly competent points, the middle has some pretty funny goobering around, and the beginning has a mind-blowingly excellent reshuffle. Let's start there, shall we?
It's rainy and contemplative now that Kristi is gone, as though the skies are heaving a sigh of relief now that she's back in Georgia and not talking shit behind its back. Felisha is retelling the whole "team dynamic" conversation from last week -- where Randal narrowly avoided indicting her as a crappy PM, so it makes sense that she would remember that part particularly well -- for Alla. She then interviews that she'll be "devastated" if Kristi doesn't walk through that door, because without Kristi's nightly programming she'll just start walking into walls and repeating useless phrases about how Melissa and Toral were clearly the problem, clearly the problem, clearly the problem like Kristy Swanson in Deadly Friend, all "I'm a very lucky girl very lucky girl very lucky girl."
James has a baseball bat over his shoulder -- did you guys know anything about him? Or, more to the point, did you know anything else about him? -- and looks snarkily surprised to see...Jenthura walking in! Marshawn totally hugs her like she's never been more fakely excited in her whole entire life, and Jenthura interviews that she "has more potential than Kristi" (not true, in my opinion, although she's better at most things involving people, being super-sweet, believing in things, or all the things that make her who she is). She has a huge bedsheet-sized pink scarf around her neck, during this interview, and looks wacky. Alla interviews that she hasn't been PM yet, and that they need to be "one cohesive unit" and she's going to "make that happen," so I guess we're done with Kristi and the whole thing from last week. Again, talk is talked about how we're leaving all that behind, but A) we're not, and B) Carolyn and Bill (but mostly Carolyn) sure as hell are not down with this plan. Carolyn does not forget, nor does she suffer big-haired fools lightly.
morning, we learn that Clay is really, really cute when he first wakes up, before he loads his head up with six pounds of L.A. Looks Extra Super Mega Hold. Rhona calls, and says to pick a PM and go to the Boardroom, which Clay finds "interesting." So does Josh, who interviews that when this happens -- picking a new PM in advance of the task -- something "funky" is going on.
Heading into the Boardroom, Felisha is dressed like an entire quinceañera only sleeveless, and in yellow, and Alla is of course dressed as a Vegas showgirl. Everybody sits around for a while, getting more and more uncomfortable and staring at Carolyn and Bill, waiting for Trump to come out of the dark depths of his secret entrance, and finally -- once they're all just pretty much shivering and looking around like the ceiling is about to start slowly inching downward -- Carolyn tells them that George and Trump are gone this week. Trump is on the west coast, inspecting the Trump National Golf Course L.A. She moves to his chair and they all laugh nervously, because the fear of death is not yet erased from their minds by this amusing switch-up of expectations. Bill says she looks good over there, and I think he means to woo her. I remember when I first saw that word in Elfquest when I was like five I thought it was something incredibly dirty that I didn't know about, so it always makes me giggle stupidly. What a weird word: "Woo." I can't agree with Bill, though, wooing-wise, because although you know I feel that she is ineffably beautiful, simply effulgent, in this particular Boardroom her hair looks a bit like she just woke up, like, under the conference table. She also talks in that stilted teleprompters-are-from-the-future way Trump normally does, and it's a little creepy.
Carolyn tells Alla that, given the fact that her team has lost at everything they've ever tried to accomplish, even negating the power of Randal, she needs to get rid of her three worst team members. Both Josh and Felisha, for opposite but equally apposite reasons, are like, Oh, girl. She first names Jenthura, of course, because she has the freshest amount of Boardroom on her, and then Rebecca, because being a part-time serial killer is not the best way to win friends and influence people. So far, so good -- I'm okay with this because it will put Josh and Rebecca on the same team, and then I can buy a shirt, right? And go see them in concert? Wait, wrong show. Then, she names...Marshawn. The hell you say? I mean, I'm super-happy to have her on my -- I mean, of course, Josh's team -- but it makes me wonder if Alla is maybe still drunk from last night. What do you think Alla drinks? Champagne cocktails. Pink ones. Or something bizarre and a tad bit mistakenly pretentious like absinthe. Pink absinthe. Girl is high. Explains the clothes. Josh and Carolyn are both like, "HUH?" And again, it's for opposite but apposite reasons, because Alla just gave Mr. Sephora quite the weighty gift, did she not? Now it's a POWER TEAM, right? Josh, Jenthura, Marshawn, Rebecca, Brian...it's a DREAM TEAM! Jacob's all-star fantasy Apprentice and shit. I love how they literally cannot fail! Hell, bring Kristi back! And Ivana, I loved her too, you guys. (Luckily you don't know that.)
She addresses Josh and he waves cutely (and like a total winner!), and then it gets even better as Josh gets the same order -- send three total losers over to be with Alla, Felisha, and Randal so that Randal can just be like, "Mr. Trump, look at what I'm dealing with. I win, right?" Josh picks Clay -- I think still metonymically smarting from the time Clay got weird with Randal, and all it implies -- then Adam, who is five and hasn't done a thing I can think of -- except for singing on two separate occasions, both of which I've blocked out -- and of course Markus. Markus doesn't even try to be scandalized by this, but Clay and Adam are.
So thus spake the new Excel: Jenthura, the unstoppable and objectively amazing PM Josh, burn-a-hole-through-you-with-my-mind-powers Rebecca, you-don't-need-to-know-what-I-think-about-you-but-I'm-right Marshawn, big-boobs-and-a-charming-smile Mark, big-dimples-and-a-squicky-smile James, and Brian, who is hot and smart and good at this, standing with a Martimmy behind Josh's big old head. And I know that things are moving fast, but I'd like to point out, in terms of what's going to happen here, that Marshawn and Rebecca on crutches are also standing. Meanwhile, Alla's team Capital Edge is her and Felisha, a laughing-with-despair Randal, and Clay and Markus. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to keep this straight, but now it's just hilarious. Ouch, Alla. Sorry you're totally going home.
Carolyn asks what they think, and Josh just giggles like a kid on Christmas -- especially since Excel did okay even without the Magic of Randal last week, and now he's got Marshawn in exchange for Clay and Markus, which is so awesome that Rebecca is just the angel on top of the tree -- while Alla is fakely happy about it. Seeing the big group of tools scattered around her competence and finery is kind of tough to take. Dude, I would have fired her ass just for getting rid of Marshawn, making this the shortest episode of this show ever. Felisha? Really? The Bethenny of this show? Over Marshawn? And you got Markus? The Dawn of this show? Over Marshawn? You're cobra'd so fast, babe. Clay looks super-excited about what a great team he is on now, and I can't tell if he's faking, but imagining the bullying he's had to put up with, maybe he's just thinking he'll finally get to put that whole "I'm gay so ladies love me" thing to the test, which...is the sadness of Clay, but it's nice to see him so happy.
Then Carolyn starts the paragraph about the task, and Clay's cute little smile falls clattering to the table, loud as a strike in an empty bowling alley, at the first sentence: "America loves sports." I'm right there with you, Clay. Sport is a $20M industry, and Dick's Sporting Goods is the most profitable purveyor in the country. Clay goes from yicked to bored in 2.5, and it's funny, because great. The task is to "create an interactive sales event based on the sport of your choice," and they'll have a team of contractors helping them, so it will be an awesome spectacle. The biggest increase in that particular sport's goods revenue wins. That sounds kind of fun. Of course Brian's exempt, thanks to his ability to avoid pissing off Randal and -- with a little practice -- say the word "Zathura" correctly. Carolyn gets very spooky-Halloweeny all, "Bill and I will...be...watching!" and then Carolyn and Bill watch them leave spookily.
In the shuttle, Markus is immediately all about how "Golf is number one! Number one choice! I don't play it, I don't like it, I just know how crazy people are about golf!" And Alla is so down with that, and me too, because the stuff costs a billion dollars, and because she and Markus are both well-acquainted with the lifestyles of the rich and famous and how they know what rich people like. Except she pulls it off, and he just looks like a living embodiment of a Thorsten Veblen diatribe, or like every New Yorker cartoon ever. Within five minutes, we knew this wouldn't be a good day at the driving range.
Alla then interviews hilariously, "I ended up with Randal and Felisha." Beat. "Aaaand then I got Clay, Markus and Adam." I believe in Adam, and even Clay in terms of sales -- the needy are sales geniuses, ask Jenthura -- and I think Markus has the perfect combination of aspiration ("I, too, love golf -- just like you, sir.") and crazy facts ("Did you know golf evolved from the Scottish belief in fairy mounds and hitting things with sticks? And did you know that this started in 905 B.C.? And did you know that I enjoy visiting the champagne areas of France when I'm not drinking box wine with Toral? And did you know that box wine in fact comes from the Boxxe region of southern France, where I summer completely alone? Where are you going?") to totally rock on this, but I see what she's saying. "I got my girl, and I got my Randal, and I got...a bunch of people." She then fully interviews about how nobody -- not one person on the team -- knows anything about sports at all, which I can believe, because it's clear Adam likes math and not dating girls, and maybe Latin declension -- so they're going to "wing it" and see "how much we can sell." They're so screwed, you guys.
Clay takes a certain hypercaffeinated lieutenant PM position at the job site, spacing out how they want the concept to go, and he votes "tunnel," and then interviews with us, calling it a "golf makeover." I kind of love Clay all of a sudden, because way to make it yours. I know what he's saying, and I would probably call it the same thing and then think, "What the fuck did I just say to the camera?" He then explains the concept, and it's perfect for the sport and the task: A full "experience" where they walk through first the clothing and accessories section, then into the clubs section where they can actually "touch some putters, some drivers, some woods" ("What the fuck did I just say to the camera?") and just do the whole thing. Basically, do a marketing blitz within the area itself where you're like, "I'd be cute in a whole golf outfit -- Look! Wristbands! -- and now I find myself in the heavy hitters area, so I better respond in kind and buy a lot of pointless golf shit."
This is brilliant and I give Clay a lot of credit here, even though later it comes off like that part of it was Alla's idea, which I'm sure it was. It's just a great concept, especially with a bunch of cameras and ADD Apprenti looking gorgeous and camera-ready pushing the shit on you. It's Do you have to ask permission? all over again. It's great. Not to mention -- I'm getting all my Clay love out right now, so don't think I got bonked by falling plaster or anything -- the fact that, as a real estate person, he knows fifty more tricks about this than you do. Real estate is this exact same game on a fiscally crazy scale: switching around the qualities of the space so you have to measure yourself against it and prove that you're worthy of it. So cool.
He goes into a whole spiel about where everything should be, this goes here and that goes there, and his basic point is that he wants a representative sample of all the different product available, confronting the people, and they can hide a lot of other stuff and really maximize the space. Fair enough. Alla cuts in on him and is like, "Got it, stop talking about concept and start talking about construction, because the contractors are standing around here," and he's like, "That's what I'm giving you." And I see where they're both going with this, and I don't know if it's the quality of the people left or the quality of the editing, but I can't remember feeling that way too many times this year. He interviews that she's "mean," which...this is where it starts, Clay. I was so with you. He continues that she doesn't think about logistics, just the big picture, and, like, she just told you to start thinking about logistics instead of the concept, but you were both talking about the same thing, in crazily different language, so whatever.
Clay advises that the fence enclosing the sales space is the main thing and should be all-inclusive, making the experience total, and Alla disagrees, because this is the first non-marketing task -- there's not going to be comment cards, there are going to be receipts, and I agree with what she's...WHOA WHOA she's dressed like the ambassador from The Upper Crazy Republics of Nutbar-Flountasia all of a sudden, interviewing. Okay, she's got this white jacket with yooge lapels and a gaudy gold insect (Goldbug!) broach with what are probably rubies on it, which is Big Mac-sized, a big reddish sash tied under her ribcage like an honorable sash, and under that a white stripper dress with criss-crossy straps. She looks like an insane foreign dignitary from the outer reaches of space! I wish I could give you a screen capture shot; it's that amazing. Imagine what Maya Rudolph would wear to the Senate from Star Wars, then do some drugs. It's like that.
Okay, sorry, she just blew my entire mind. So Alla interviews that this idea of fencing it all in is dumb, because you're cutting them off from the merchandise. Which, to be fair, it sounded more to me like the whole directed-selling, "everything is an impulse buy" strategy of like Central Market or IKEA, which is fine. But in terms of making cashola, why not make the whole thing accessible to buy buy buy. You don't wanna be like, "Oh, leather gloves with the holes that only go on one hand? Take a left at the green Astroturf deals, then a right at the little-kid putting green, then go past the dude selling hats, dodge crazy shrieking Felisha, Frogger yourself past Rebecca's wheelchair, then go about a half-mile down to where the Hand Accessories are kept. You're going to need this complimentary bottle of Fiji, and a map. You could fit a whole ecosystem in this Wal-Mart!" So yeah, she's right, and everyone agrees, but Clay's just kind of affronted because, as he says, "she doesn't really want your opinion," which I agree with, even as I think she made the right call -- and is the frigging PM and it's her call, and she took your idea into consideration whether or not you know it -- and that she is "cheesy," which is...I'm not going to argue with that. I'm still cool with him right now, I just think that considering his ideas and giving a better one is the same thing as thinking he's an idiot, as far as he can tell, which is just wrong. I actually like watching the team dynamics at play in this episode, as I said before: "Here's a good idea," "Great, here's a better one," so I am bugged by his not loving the same Borg-mind process I do. I don't mean to spoil you, Clay, but it's totally why you won: people working together and refining their ideas.
All right, so then we see Excel for the first time, and that's interesting because normally we don't even see the winning team in action, and I just spent like a thousand words on them. Knowing my predilection for talking about how much I enjoy smart people doing smart things, and how awesome everybody is when they do well, that's probably a big reason I enjoyed this episode so much. Well, that and the bloodbath. So over at Excel, Rebecca gets her one line of the night (if you're keeping score and thinking the same way I am, there's your Final "I haven't had an arc yet" Five: Marshawn, Rebecca, Adam, Brian, and eventual winner Randal), which is that soccer is a good choice of sport due to the fact that you're not eliminating half of the entire world right off the bat. I agree, and she works it. Is there a globally overwhelming sport where women have any kind of presence at all, besides soccer? I mean, I'm still in love with old Lobo and my girl Swoopes, but seriously? In terms of the bucks? Well yes, tennis, which is the only sport I like, but apparently the Apprenti don't know about tennis.
Then Rebecca gets as close to my nerves as I expect her to get this year (and all the people who told me and told me Kristi was obnoxious can write that down and show it to me later, to prove I said it) as she interviews the entirely irritating and ugly "I've been looking forward to working with intelligent people here," which, STFU, girl, because they couldn't care less about you and consider you a liability, so I suggest you take some antibiotics along with your analgesics, because you see to have a tiny case of the Torals, or some other disease that makes you sound like a jackhole. Please don't do this to me.
Meanwhile, James is all about baseball -- Did You Know? -- and he starts getting all conceptual about how it's a "day at the park," and how they'll have food, which somehow makes it a "family event," and already I'm thinking about the Best Buy task, where we learned that Food = Fun...unless it's crappy food, like, for example, baseball park food. ["And Sars, you can't even yell at me here about the constant potshots at the boringness of our national pastime throughout this recap, because you don't eat meat and can barely remember the horror of most baseball food. Not to mention that post-James, we won't be hearing about baseball after this episode anyhow and I won't have to constantly mention how much I hate it." -- Jacob] ["I have a really high tolerance for, and in fact attraction to, mediocre food. Don't forget: I am a connoisseuse of the circus peanut. So, I actually miss shit like Oscar Meyer bologna and, yes, wizened ballpark hot dogs. Thanks for reminding me I can't eat them anymore, FIRED GUY." -- Sars] James further interviews that he LOVES BASEBALL -- Have You Heard? -- and that "as soon as she said sports, I knew we had to go after baseball." Only actually, he says "they," which is telling considering that Bill was just sitting there the whole time and wasn't there as a Viceroy, but as a NotGeorge, which is a little different, but apparently Bill is an authority. Mostly I like it because James thought, "Of course! Baseball!" the way I would think "Of course!Buffy!" Or "Of course! Mary McDonnell!", because of the algorithm where you take your favorite thing and apply it to everything else.
Josh sketches out the idea, which I love: a baseball diamond with stations at all five places -- I dunno who came up with that -- and Marshawn and Josh are in total agreement and work well together, which makes me happy about the future...oh, hell, no it doesn't, because Josh is going home. But in any case I love that they work so well together, because they are the secret bitchers that only talk shit in interviews (or, in Josh's case, once a broom is involved), and with whom I think I've been 100% in agreement with the entire show, in terms of sentiment. James tells us that he is passionate about baseball -- Okay? -- and then calls this idea a "home run," which is charmingly queer, but he's also right, in terms of the actual idea. We'll talk later about execution. They vote on baseball (versus soccer and maybe other stuff we don't know about) and you see Marshawn and Adam very excited, and hear Jenthura give a strident "Aye!" as well.
Everybody works out the construction details, while the fucking brain trust of James, Mark, and Jenthura go back to the suite to...do something. In the shuttle, Jenthura gets all kinds of Markus Fluid on her pretty dark dress about How many radar guns are there? The fellas, who clearly consider her the equivalent of a giant pink cone of cotton candy after you've had five hot dogs with relish, are like, "Um, eight. Why?" She exclaims, "I could sell them all day! I need more than eight!" She's a pretty icky kind of stoned-slash-giggly with them, and it's ugly. They're turning her into what they think she is, which is a Big Dumb Girl, and she's playing it, when she should be counteracting, but instead she's buying into it. "I'm so cute, y'all! I'm fun and cute and look good in a bathing suit! I am such a go-getter!" It's not nice, considering how off it is from the very cool and on-point Jenthura we've seen her be before now. The boys aren't taking her seriously at all, because they've not really ever seen her work, she's on a new team, so she should assume they think she's a big dum-dum until she proves herself.
Instead, she's playing to it, and it's pretty obnoxious because they turn her into that thing everybody said she was, and if she can't handle men, being around them professionally, then all that "mr trump I can totally do this im super cool but krysti is a total bitch LOL" and doing pushups in front of old dudes stuff starts looking pretty different in my head, and it hurts my belief in her and in the progress of feminism in the last ten years and I find myself wondering how many men she had working under her in that staff that loves her so goddamned much, as opposed to girls that would be frightened by her gigantic hair and man-jaw and general charisma and intelligence and all this happens in my head super-fast, and I hate ALL OF IT. I feel gross inside my own head, but it's her doing it.
So they humor her some more with her whole "you totally hve to getme more thn8 rader gunz LOL bcauyse I rool!!!!!!!!1!! bo bice ho 4eva" and they're like, "Sell eight and we'll talk, Barbie," and she's like, "ROFL d00d nce I sel six you haveto get me more more bitch LOL" and James ignores her a whole lot, and then laughs at her. Mark interviews that if you "Talk like you rock, you better rock," and we act out on Jenthura, a shadow of her formerly womanly self, with this idle druggy chit-chat about "I love the...the radar gun." (Beat.) "Is that what it's called?"
I am so obsessed with the Dyson vacuum guy. I feel like he knows the secrets and he's not telling. Back from commercial, it's Trump Wisdom Time. "Take It To The Limit!" Trump yells at us that A SUCCESSFUL TEAM CHALLENGES EACH OTHER, and then we cut to him yelling at...somebody, about...something. Blueprints are involved. Apparently screaming over and over at the top of your stupid lungs, "What is this? What are you showing me? Show me what you're showing me! What is this that you're showing me!" is a total "challenge" and will make things run more efficiently. You can't see faces, but the body language around the table is like, "Again with this?" He continues: "Just keep pushing them! Pushing them! Not over the edge, but as far as you can!" Which explains a lot about me personally, but also makes Markus suddenly seem like my ideal business partner, which: God.
Back with Presumptive Josh, the baseball field looks seriously AMAZING. Really great. You don't get that same landscape orientation picture of the golf stuff, but the diamond (before they fuck it right up) looks gorgeous. Josh interviews that "fortunately, the contractors finished it that night," and, like, you shoulda loaned them to Matchstick last week. Josh and James have a seat and talk about how big the batting cage is, and it's 12 feet wide. Because I love Josh and he's giving me very very little work with this week, I want to state very strongly for the record that he is quite worried about this for a second. James is kind of Rebecca-intense about how "we need a cage," gotta have a cage, and then Josh is very, very Jenthura, leaning up against a wall in interview. And I love Josh, and looking at Josh, but he's...admittedly less sexy than Jenthura/Omarosa in the beauty-shot pose, I'll admit. You go, Jen!
Josh interviews that "it's okay, because…" Because blah blah blah, he's convincing himself, basically, in that earlier-this-season Excel way of "if I just say it enough times, it'll be true." James, getting the idea but not completing the thought, admits that the total crazy overwhelming hugeness of the batting cage he's obsessed with means they'll have to be "strategic." I don't know about the time constraints, but it's a big enough oversight that I'd probably Ivana myself here, delaying the whole polish until I could get a smaller one in here, because it screws the whole "five stations where we actually sell a goddamn thing, in this sales task" concept to hell. Josh and Brian move more, and more, and more things out of the way of the Batting Cage That Ate Dick's (I should totally title this recap "The Batting Cage That Ate Dick's," but I won't). You actually see them shoving things behind the five-foot (or whatever, Brian throws off all sense of proportion, which is how they made The Lord Of The Rings) boundary wall, completely the fuck out of sight.
Marshawn wheels Rebecca in from somewhere, and they're like, "Yeah, that's...some batting cage," and Marshawn interviews how the cage taking up "most of the diamond" changed the entire concept -- you can't have different stations at each base, which was the whole good idea for this task. Josh continues to push the products further and further out of the way until they're actually driving away in the Lamborghini from ten weeks ago.
Meanwhile at Capital Edge, there are these giant crossed golf clubs providing a Disney-esque gate into the Golf Wonderland our A Team has created. It looks awesome -- there's a fairway, which, as Alla VOs, divides the whole experience into three stations: "Fashion," with the very attractive/flattering/sexy golf clothes and accessories we all love to look at with our eyeballs; "Function," the actual clinic part; and "Family Fun," which is the point: a tiny putting green area for the kids that amounts to a very simple mini-golf course. (And with bowling, that's two "sports" I hate more than any other. ["You hate bowling? My God, man, who hired you?" -- Sars]) Clay bitches at Felisha about where he wants to place the products as Alla is standing there lecturing everybody about, you know, the task. He does that same matronly "Listen before you start talking…" stuff from before, trailing off like somebody's spinster aunt again, and the oboes of Markus begin to play. You know that shit bugs me. Have the courage of your convictions! Speak in the moment instead of doing everything for fucking effect! You're a smart, strong, powerful man! Stop acting like some episode of Designing Women you saw when I was five! I want to like you so badly! I've never recapped a show with a gay guy named Clay before! I want to know what that's like!
Randal interviews in a very Randal way about how he watched Felisha and Alla finally learn the deal with Clay, about how he's worked with him on two teams now, and that he's a "a difficult person to work with because he's always talking about what's wrong with an idea, what he doesn't like about the idea," which, that's exactly why Markus bugs me, Reason #235, but a major one, and I've discussed it before, because ultimately that can be a manager's best friend or his or her worst enemy, and nobody to this point has used either of their complaining asses correctly, which is to -- I don't want to freak you out -- use it instead of bitching about it, and let them bounce some shit off of you, instead of wandering aimlessly (in the second case) or skipping rope and jumping hopscotch (in the first), because they're obviously smart guys, with some limitations about teamwork, and that's your fucking job as PM. I know I'm hard on them both, but, like, it's mostly couch-quarterback frustration at them being so misused. Deductive reasoning and reductive thinking are the hallmarks of most industry, bitches! Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have your ass!
Then it all goes AAUUGH as Clay calls Alla over, daintily takes her wrists, and swings them about like they're playing fucking London Bridges, sing-songing to her about how "One of the things I'm really unhappy with you on is, you told me to come and do merchandising, and that y'all are going to do something else, and every time I set something up, someone else is changing it." Valid complaint. Sucky, horrific, ugly, stupid, weak, pointless, hideous, enraging execution. It's everything I ever thought about Clay in one package: totally fake and dramatic, passive-aggressive, fake-friendly, we're-just-girls-y, everybody-loves-a-harmless-faggot Jack McFarland bullshit. You can be gay, you can even be crazy gay, and I hope you are, but fucking own yourself. Is this a personal hot button for me? Have you figured that out yet? Don't complain about being infantilized if you do this shit, but please understand that, if you're the first gay dude Alla has run into, and I'm the second, she's going to assume I'm something like a retarded spelling-bee champion in the fifth grade wearing a pinafore and wanting to hold hands, and it's going to take me a half-hour to retrain her to take me seriously. This is just the exact same Jenthura thing as above, albeit in a very flattering $1500 suit, and it hurts to deal with it, because you wanna be harmless and slide in under the hate radar, but at the same time: are you helping or harming?
Alla then interviews that she has four kids, and that Clay acts like a five-year-old that constantly needs to pound his chest and contradict everything. He gets all shirty with her about something we don't get to really hear too much about, and she's like, "Clay, are you hearing what I'm saying? Or are you going to create problems that we don't need?" And we flip back to the personal ugliness of Alla, all about how verbatim "Clay is not a man, he is an insecure bitchy woman times a thousand," and how if they lose this task he's totally going in the Boardroom. And yeah, that's not pretty, but -- from what we can see here -- the actual problem she has here, no matter how stupidly she expresses it, is sound. He's leaned up against something, still on a rant that may or may not be valid, and finally she's just like, "Cut it." With a whole gesture and everything.
It's now raining again, and that "deedle-ee-deet-de-dee! SCORE!" thing is playing, with that damn carillon music. Mark and James on Excel are doing the ball-hitting thing, Josh is talking to the kids, everybody's teaching the kids to bat, Jenthura is selling cheap baseball food as insanely as any time she has to sell stuff, and Bill walks in and watches all this non-revenue stuff happening. Rebecca and Brian make sales, and are happy with themselves, and Brian is very groovy, and they note that the batting cage is actually drawing the people away from actual sales, because the kids all have to wait a million years and the whole time I'm sure they're like, "Are you watching? Are you watching me? I'm gonna hit the ball! It's going to be awesome! Stop walking away! Watch me hit the ball in an hour!" and they're both totally worried about actual receipts. Bill asks Mark what's going on, and Mark -- who's manning the ball machine the entire task -- makes a valiant effort at looking awesome for the Viceroy, all, "I've been so damned focused here I don't even know what's up!" Brian interviews about Jenthura selling her sales ability and then not selling anything, and we cut to Jenthura approaching some dudes about the radar guns, and their dead-serious response "I have no use for that." And that's kind of the deal with the radar guns -- which among these kinds is so bat-fantastic that they actually need one? It's more about hitting the ball, not rivaling their favorite juiced player in MPH. Bill continues to take notes and be amazed at the massive lack of focus, which is best embodied by James hitting the balls as hard as he can. Because nothing says "Buy me" like some slightly creepy grown dude hitting balls harder than you ever could.
Capital Edge, meanwhile, is kind of like the Six Flags Over Golf as Felisha attacks people insanely (and effectively) at the door, being very fun and cute about everything, and Adam getting gay with the golf clothes, and Alla looking adorable in her golfing outfit (just imagine), and Markus expertly bugging Carolyn to buy a set of irons. Carolyn is warmer than usual joking around with him about "You know where I work, right?" and they then chat about how nobody on the team knows anything about golf, or indeed any sport, but they're having a good professional time. I think Carolyn is worried about how the other team is doing, so she can't give them a signal that they're doing well, plus the Connecticut Lockjaw of her, so she's just charming, and Markus is charming, and they laugh about how they have no idea what they're doing except for the selling stuff, which is the point, because sports is not the point. Her body language is closed off but relaxed, like arms over the chest, but they're leaning against two halves of a doorframe. She seems to like Markus more than one might expect. She interviews to us that they're "winging it" but that they definitely "have a spirit," and she looks generally amused and judgmental in equal amounts, which is like her whole life.
Carolyn continues to charm the team, joking with Alla: "How about giving these kids a putter instead of a wedge?" and laughing a little condescendingly. I so cannot read her! Alla busts hell out of that whole deal, and in one short sentence whoops up on the whole web of self-hatred Carolyn naturally creates around her: "Look at this guy! He's only two years old, he's been here about an hour, and he's buying a set of golf clubs. 119 dollars!" GO ALLA! That ruled. You tell her. No fear, just succinctly dares to call you an asshole. "We're preoccupying the kids, and their parents are free to buy buy buy," she explains. Still Carolyn can't give in, because Excel is probably kicking ass. Right? RIGHT?
Clay keeps selling, selling, selling, and he's being pretty outrageously charming, and interviews basically that selling is the point of this sales task. Some old guy praises his ability, and then Alla interviews, kind of rudely, that in "Sales, he did well," and that maybe this is "one of the very, very few of Clay's talents," like, utilize and be proud, lady. If he's doing "one of the few things he's good at," that's a sign you made a good call. This is over footage of Clay totally ruling, by the way, and even teaming up with Felisha to be awesome at sales. Alla interviews that she was "surprisingly calm" at the end of the task, and everybody hugs and slaps hands, and it's nice.
Into the Boardroom! Clay's wearing a lovely bone suit and peachy tie and looks almost the best he's going to look this episode, but it's especially fun because, thanks to the tie, he's the only Cap Edge guy flying Cap Edge colors. Josh is not wearing his glasses, and is still easy-breezy-Josh-beautiful, and Carolyn's hair looks...better, but still weird, like fakely soft or something. She conferences Trump in on the phone, where he's fakely standing on the L.A. golf course and fakely talking on a fake cell phone, and screaming his stupid ass off. Carolyn's proud to announce that Capital Edge chose golf, and were smart about it, and boosted Golf Stuff sales by 74% -- Trump finds this yooge!, of course -- and then Bill sadly tells him what fuck-ups Excel were, and how they totally caused sales to drop 34% below average. Rebecca and Josh look bummed, while every single one of Alla's teeth go crazy. Trump asks about Alla's exemption, and it's unanimous, although Randal and Clay are both vocal about their support for her. The reward -- such as it is, which is the in a mighty big heap of stuff I wouldn't do if you paid my ass -- is taking a private jet to Montauk in East Hampton for a lobster bake and sport fishing. Trump points out that Montauk is the sport fishing capital of the world, like it's not awesome enough on its own, because it's Trump and everything is the best or the capital or the yoogest of something if you look at it right.
Jenthura, James, and Josh all make identical faces of how sad it will be when someone from their team goes home, although to be honest Jenthura seems to have a clue about how it's her ass on the line. Josh of course would never even think it, and James -- well, he hit all those balls, right? So he's safe, right? Because that was the point of the task, right? Hitting balls super-hard while a billion bored children watched and thought they'd die before they got their chance?
Capital Edge takes off in their private jet with crazy, like, Carmina Burana screaming, and raise weird mugs of champagne, and Felisha interviews with more of those awesome, crazy Amy Sedaris faces about how glad she was to be in on this victory and this reward, and when they exit Alla's carrying a Burberry blanket, which tells you everything you need to know. The guy on the boat tells them not to get sick, and Randal wobbles on the deck, then interviews that he does not fish, does not know how to fish, and hates fishing, in that order, and laughs pretty strikingly beautifully all of a sudden. Adam tells Montauk guy that he knows how to fish, and interviews that this task finally taught him something -- and that something was that deep sea fishing a reward unto itself.
Clay fishes and says that the reward was awesome and they kicked ass, and he looks really damn good in a baseball cap, and Markus yaks about something, and Alla agrees, and she looks super-cute in her fishing outfit, which is workout gear, and again I'm struck by the weirdness of seeing a team act like a team instead of a sitcom's idea about the Greek system, and then Clay slightly weirds me out about how this victory was great in many ways, but mostly because it's a big "In Your Face" to Josh, who was so "rude" for picking him as one of the three weakest players. Hey, could you share that abused victim perspective with fucking Marshawn? Because I'm sure she'd be sympathetic.
There's a bonfire, and Adam is additionally gay some more about how they "definitely were living it up Trump-style" and then Markus sabers a champagne bottle and I start laughing really bitterly, because one of my original descriptions of him in Week One or Two was how he's "the kind of jackass that does that lame-ass I'm so totally upper-middle lame thing with the big knife and the champagne bottle" and I didn't put it in and now I'm kicking myself, but of course he out-Markuses even my early opinion of him as he screws it up several times, and the whole time the team is yelling safety words at him, with two notable exceptions: Alla starts yelling, "We have faith in you!" because she's both drunk and sometimes sweet, and Adam fully turning physically away from him to talk to somebody else, which was the highlight of the night to me. Markus interviews over this classic douchebag footage with the immortal "I've studied champagnes, I've been to Bordeaux, I've spent time with Margeaux, and Mouton Rothschilde, sabering champagne bottles and just having an amazing time," which I've made fun of him for saying before, but also, he goes to the trouble of pronouncing these things, and doing it hamfistedly, and as the oboes go crazy once again, Alla sums up: "When he does something off the wall, you're like, 'Uh, what?' You know? It's ridiculous. He's ridiculous!" Which seems crude, but is actually a really sweet thing to say, because the word is incompetent. He finally gets the cork off, to the cheers of everyone, thanks to the fact that he'll finally stop yelling, "Look! Look! I learned this in Margeaux! Napoleon possibly did this! I'm totally classy!" and proceeds to triumphantly shake the open bottle crazily all over the place until like an ounce of champagne is left, and then toast, "Here's to Dick's, Donald, and everybody else!" Which is funnier if you say it aloud.
There's a really sexy shot down through the central arboretum of Trump Tower, all brass and warm lights, and suddenly I get why he's so happy about it, and then there's the equally fantastic-looking Trump Bar, which is empty except for Josh and Mark, who talk about how Mark thinks James was partially to blame for derailing the whole concept with his huge batting cage and huge batting obsession, and how Josh would like to brainwash Mark into blaming Jenthura. Which he then does impressively, and then they gaze at each other romantically and promise undying fealty.
Into the Boardroom! Part deux! And again with the crutch-hopping, Rebecca! Do they just despise you or what? Bill looks terrified, and Carolyn looks like a Star Trek priestess from a deeply religious planet in her blindingly white yet flattering toga. Jenthura's rocking a Trump-esque combover, all her body volume and manageability piled up starting at her right ear, and Trump himself is in a tux because he's going to dinner at MOMA -- "You'll do that someday," lest we forget his lifestyle is what we're all basing our shit on -- and he immediately bears down on them about how it's the worst defeat in the history of the show. There's not much they can say to that.
Josh tells him they lost for a "variety of reasons," but that Jenthura was the issue, and also maybe James. Trump calls James a good baseball player, according to the Mets, which brings out the dimples, but then CRUSH KILL DESTROY he's all, "But it didn't do you any good, so who cares!" Ouch. Rebecca offers that the batting cage was the issue, and again Trump fingers James, both for the cage itself and the batting expo he decided to put on. To team protestations that the line was long and interest were high, he responds, "In a way, [it's] worse, because you created something that should have been a winner, and you made it a loser." Bill chimes in that Mark was completely unhelpful, and Mark gives a silly answer about how he "understands" the ball-shooting machine and is some kind of Ball-Shooting Machine Whisperer, to which the answer is, "You, Josh, and James stayed in the diamond the entire time, so which of you is the asshole?"
Carolyn says they were all so preoccupied with the loss-leader clinic aspect that they were worthless, and demands an explanation for the pretzels. Jenthura's worthless explanation -- which is incomprehensible, but involves vendor mishaps, I think -- does not soothe, because, as Marshawn points out, taking time to sell $3 pretzels instead of high-ticket or even worthwhile-ticket merchandise is taking money out of the parents' pockets one bill at a time, and making them rethink the whole "spend a bunch of money" concept at, like, a basic level. Jenthura feels that this still drew people in, and Carolyn snaps that this wasn't the point -- for the first time, this wasn't a promotion task, it was a sales thing. Although, six tasks in, I can see why there's confusion.
Trump asks Jenthura how Josh did as PM, and I think she answers truthfully that everything got derailed at the Page-To-Screen phase when the giant batting cage arrived, but Bill interrupts about how high on herself Jenthura was the entire time about her sales ability. Jen protests, and I get it, that her projections depended on the original concept, which included ideas like not hiding the stuff out of sight and not devoting half the team to showing how hard a grown man can hit a ball, but she already knows she is screwed. ["And based on the footage we saw of her 'selling,' her patter is…not good. She seemed really awkward with people; I don't think she's great off-the-cuff, is the problem." -- Sars] Josh does a nice job of not blaming Jenthura while blaming her entirely -- and a little bit James -- going on and on about how she's supposedly the "Sales Queen" and how she sold nothing. Jenthura bleats that she's a good salesperson if everything is going perfectly, and Marshawn and Rebecca point out that they're not sales people, but still sold more than she did, and Josh is happy for the support. He and Bill agree that Rebecca and Marshawn did really well, in terms of sales.
But Jenthura maintains that the PM was disorganized and screwed it all up, and she's right too, and I don't know what to do. She says she specifically said that the idea of having it be a batting clinic was a bad one, which nobody believes, and Josh calls her a liar, and she repeats that she wasn't in charge of the horrible logistics, just sales, which she was prevented from doing by the dog-and-pony-and-no-merch situation of James batting and batting and batting. She claims to have sold "a handful of bats," and Rebecca intensely stares right into Trump's eyes and shakes her head slowly that this is a huge lie. Josh says that Rebecca -- and Brian and Marshawn in a close second -- sold the most, so they're safe. Carolyn totally says, "Well, at least three of you got the point."
Trump hits the WORST FAILURE EVER button a hundred times and says that Brian, Rebecca, and Marshawn can leave, but the rest of them -- Josh, James, Jenthura, and Mark -- will be returning to the Boardroom. Everybody leaves, and Bill says that the PM is to blame for this one. Trump thinks that Josh "choked when it came down to crunch time," and Carolyn, still hating Jenthura from last week's undeserved (some might say) survival last week, says that "By their own admission they had three sales people, and that was the whole point of this task! To sell!" Her delivery this whole shot is awesome, just so deeply incensed and insulted. "I can't pick one of them!"
Back inside, Trump incites a total riot between Josh and Jenthura, which takes a million years but basically resolves down to Jenthura saying over and over, "We were fucked from the beginning!" and Josh saying, "You were in charge of sales and sold nothing! You failed!" over and over until even Carolyn has to say, "But Josh, you totally failed too, loser." He doesn't have an answer. It goes on for one calendar year and Josh is a total pissant, at one point openly making monkey faces at Jenthura. Trump -- no matter how right she is here, which she is, at a decimal point just over 50% -- tells Jenthura that she's disappointed him. There is more incomprehensible, reiterative screaming from all quarters, and Trump finally says, "Josh, your decision-making was absolutely terrible. James, you took up all the space with your stupid batting cage, edging the product out. Mark, you didn't sell anything. And, again, we've never had a loss this bad ever. So...you're all fired. All four are fired."
Josh looks disappointed, then mostly disbelieving, then a little suicidal; Jen looks at Trump pleadingly and shakes her head; James looks like he's given up completely on life, and can't even make eye contact; and Mark stares freakily while he takes a while to process this. Finally Trump yells, "Go home. Go home!" They leave silently, and Bill swallows nervously. Mark is like, "I'm sorry we disappointed you. I'm better than that." For me personally, he does not say this in an annoying Markus way, even though he's doing a totally Markus, graceless thing, but I so love that it gives Trump the opportunity to say something pretty cool, that hands everybody in the room a little dignity: "I know you are. You're all better than that." They are!
They all pile silently onto the elevator and stare straight ahead, and back in the empty, scary Boardroom, Carolyn calls it one more time "the worst defeat we have ever seen," and Bill bloviates about how "none of them stepped up to the plate" -- making this the sixteenth time he's said that this episode, blowing all records out of the water as though he works for the Trumpanies -- and that "none of them hit the mark." He feels it "had to be done," but he's staring all puppy-dog at Trump as he says it, like, "Right? Had to be done?" Trump stares idiotically into the camera, looking more bloated and silly than ever -- you know that sick, satiated face he gets? Where he's like so at peace with everything because he's the boss of everything? That face -- and says, "Life continues." Like it's the most profound goddamn thing anyone's ever said.
Getting into the Crazy Taxi, James looks most likely to cry and Jenthura looks most likely to laugh and basically smiles weakly the whole time. I'd laugh too, if I had to share a fake cab with not one but three of my teammates. The music goes all nuts, you know how it does, and the pre-taxi credits roll, and then we are treated to several minutes of priceless, gorgeous, hilarious footage of the four of them staring at the camera, fidgeting slightly, silently staring ahead, not speaking or laughing or doing anything much except thinking, "This is my life. I've already accomplished so much, and here I am having to have this be my NBC legacy: sitting in a fake NYC cab while effing Markus sits up there all fnur fnur and making dumb jokes and being all smooth as silk. This is my life." We cut to the exterior as the sax goes crazy, the car turning around a corner, and just as you think we're done, the music crescendos and we cut to...the interior of the car again, hideously, wonderfully, as they stare and stare and stare, broken and humiliated and utterly without victory. Goodnight, sweet Josh. Goodnight, James, and Mark, and your variously palatable smiles. Goodnight, Jenthura, I'll always love you. Goodnight, sweet Apprenti, goodnight, goodnight. Dude, that was awesome, no?