The Clip Show Hour wasn't that great -- and certainly nothing compared to Martha's -- but we'll hit the highlights, such as they are, in the Extra on it. Chief among them, though: Marshawn and Felisha having a crying and hugging fight in the conference room, much to Toral's hilarious exasperation; Markus somehow thinking the men are pussies for getting up in the morning and not stopping for a gourmet breakfast when they're in a hurry; and Toral telling an old blind woman to get over herself and "accept the good and the bad in life" while attempting to sell her on the visual benefits of HDTV. Comedy gold. Anyway. For this task, the teams were asked to use "wrapping" (that vinyl advertising stuff that always looks cheap) in order to "brand" Shania Twain's new fragrance, Shania by Stetson. Each team has a 1-800 number that customers can call for a free sample, and the team that gets the most calls wins. Despite being told to "think big," both teams opt for sandwich-board advertising -- always classy! Capital Edge PM Alla is swayed by Adam to split the budget 60/40, advantage crappy-looking horse-drawn carriages. Hamstrung, budget-wise, Felisha does her best to hire as many sandwich-board temps as possible, but only hires fifteen to Excel's sixty. Even though this is obviously the reason they lost, Felisha never explains the very good, actual reason for this: Alla stupidly gave Adam too much money for his crappy carriage idea. Capital Edge calls in to Radio Shack for megaphones, and they start consolidating them at one store (17th & Broadway) -- only to have two-person Excel's Randal (the PM) and Rebecca accidentally find out about this, and scoop the lot. I'm not done thinking about this quite yet, but I know I'd be a lot more scandalized if Randal and Rebecca weren't so adorable giggling about "Operation: Sabotage!" and having so much fun sneaking around behind the other team's back. Things quickly degenerate: Excel's got a hysterically funny crazy man in a big pink van screaming at passersby, who dial out of fear, while Capital Edge mainly seems to be physically accosting people and forcing them to call -- even dialing for them on their own personal cell phones, and their carriage wraps look like total hell. It's all...somewhat less than dignified. Excel wins -- by only five calls, which I think is pretty nice for Cap Edge, frankly, considering they fucked it up from Go -- and Randal and Rebecca get to do some horseback-riding and dining with Shania Twain herself. As a registered Canada-fetishist, Shania puts me in something of a bind, but I can say that she is: very pretty, genius good at playing the game, very nice, and, one assumes, smelling lovely. Also good at: looking like a lunatic on vinyl advertising. Not so good at: looking like she wouldn't rather die than be there, taking her damn hat off at dinner, or giving Tyra-esque speeches about hard work and the fruits thereof. Alla plays Adam and Felisha off each other about double as well as she ever has before, leaving everyone in suspense as to whom she's going to force off the team. Girlfriend is terrifying, I love it. Down in the Boardroom, Trump immediately sends her away, so that Adam and Felisha can turn on each other like Jude and Sienna outside Balthazar. Which they do, and it's gorgeous, but Adam fails to make his case ("I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and plus, I'm a child with a childlike sense of curiosity and still-developing yen for learning!") and is ultimately fired, less than shocking, but still sad. And week's final four gives us the Slytherin/Gryffindor Grudge Match of the century! Tasty.
Previously, but secretly, on The Apprentice: Melissa was thirsty and horrible and couldn't shut up. Diagnosis: Rabies. Then Marshawn trampled on Felisha's brochure ideas, causing them both to cry -- which again, my dear, women in business simply should not do -- and Toral got hilarious about how lame they are. Chris preferred mark's functioning illiteracy to Markus's big bag of bullshit, and was fired, and I was sad, because I like him. Jennifer W. threw a party so lame even 80-year-olds and Carolyn were like, "This fiesta blows, bizzatch! Break out the hooch!" Then Toral explained HDTV to a blind woman, fantastic, and urged the old blind woman to "take the good with the bad." Then the old woman punched her right in her stupid face: "Find the good in that, you giant asshole!"
Markus slept in and made everyone late, then demanded breakfast, and Adam almost smacked him. Winning proved to be against Toral's fake religion, and she was cobra'd and it was awesome, and then Billy Corgan called to tell me he found Toral "a tad delusional." Jen M. said Zenthura one million times and it was still incredibly hilarious, and Kristi was fired for being mean to her. I still think she's cool, but in her exit interview she said "the difference between me and the rest of the world…" and no matter what follows, that phrase makes you a jackass. I hate that "say it to my face" bullcrap, because it exculpates you from grownup responsibilities like reading body language and knowing what the etiquette of a situation is. It just takes the whole thing off your shoulders. Hate it.
Alla thought about taking Markus out execution-stylee after he dicked around for four hours, calling him the new Toral, and failed to convince superstud77 (Google it, you'll thank me) that she wasn't his mommy, but won anyway. Josh made an enormous asshole of himself at happy hour, putting Brian on shout about his crush on Jen M. Marshawn tried to help out with the public speaking, making the most romantic and effective plea of all of them, but it was still a bloodbath, but Brian worked it out adorably: even if the perspective to Jen M. made him look like he had tiny T-Rex arms, they were sexy and yearning to hold you tenderly as only a T-Rex can. Randal and Marshawn fought about epistemology and expertise, and Brian and Rebecca were weird about this, but Markus is a total fuck-up, and superstud77 never met a person he couldn't offend, so it was fine. Adam and Alla had a sun-through-the-clouds moment about his virginity, which ended up being kind of sweet.
The Star Warstask was so boring I don't even remember the forgotten footage, and then Randal and Rebecca had a whole problem about Jidé's picture on his poster, which admittedly had more problems than just the picture. This is ironic because they caught one big aspect of the issue, and skipped the whole V-Chip issue altogether. Interestingly, she went to superstud77 to complain, which seems like a smart move in order to get him on her side -- he likes to bitch, and it would at least get him off her back for a few seconds. Superstud77 fixed the picture, and Rebecca was happy with him for a second, until the giant violin started.
I think that's actually what it's like in her head, you guys. I've talked about this before, like how when she wakes up in the morning she first laughs bitterly that the snooze button is for the weak, then lies there for a second planning her attack on the coffeemaker, then springs across the room in one mighty leap and defeats her clothes, then does the Times crossword with a switchblade and clotheslines her RSS feed, wrestling it to the floor and squeezing it blue for up-to-the-minute news and gossip, all within fifteen minutes. While timing herself. Maybe it's imaginary Rebecca I'm in love with. Clearly I want to be her, at least.
While they agree on getting even more hardcore and intense with each other, and it seems cool, Randal interviews once more that even though she apologized, there's still the issue that this misperception of his back-seating it is out in the ether. Which is a good outcome, for the situation: there may be lingering trouble, but I find there's a subtext here that he's shouldering the burden of disproof. Which, admittedly, can only happen once he's back in the Boardroom, but at least it's a lot better than some people might have reacted, Clay and Markus. They got to the point the second they got back to the suite, Rebecca opened the lines of communication about the comments, they cleared it out and she apologized, and both acknowledged that it's about moving forward. Even with just two of them that's still precisely the opposite of what Cap Edge did numerous times in this circumstance, not to mention the fact that Randal's concerns had legitimacy, and weren't merely based in "hurt feelings" crap. Not that the situation could have been reversed -- Randal's way too cool a cucumber to say something that unconsidered -- but still. Hopefully they're actually good about it, and can get moving. Randal gives a hoo-rah ("Let's do this tomorrow") and Rebecca gives it right back. Good deal.
How Do You Cope With Adversity? Your teammate has just, inadvertently or not, put you on blast as a lazy bitch in front of your boss. Do you:
A. Complain to your teammates.
B. Complain to your boss.
C. Complain to the camera.
D. Overcome any forthcoming obstacles in such a way that nobody can deny your power, and talk loudly about how powerful and amazing you are at every opportunity. Using as many overblown and ridiculous metaphors as you can, if possible.
Answer Key:
A. You are a "Kristi!" You sometimes appear disloyal, but it's only because you kind of are.
B. You are a "Felisha!" Quit your gritching and get behind your own case, please. Nobody likes a whiner.
C. You are a "Josh!" And I need you to quit it! You're making me look like an idiot.
D. Jim? Call me!
E. You are "Randal!" We all hope you enjoy being the Apprentice before you realize what a fucking sham this entire thing actually is. Love, Television Without Pity.com.
morning we're downstairs in the Trump Bar, with bartender Chris, who looks like bartenders do, and says a canned line about how Trump Bar is the yoogest and the best and will destroy all other bars on the East Coast with the immense power of its ambience and beverages. We've got Bill again, and he looks much better than he has previously: scared out of his wits, of course, but with a nice Mystic and a generally attractive air. Rebecca hobbles up at the front of the line, of course, and for some reason everyone's breathlessly tense. Felisha is wearing a ruffly Macy Gray shirt that makes her look like a light pink pirate at the Cardio Bar. Trump needles Randal about the whole "you're a loser" thing in the Boardroom, explaining why we spent so much time on that just now, and Randal looks like Avril just punched him in the box. Carolyn stands oddly in her pink suit, like Corporate Barbie, and gives the impression she wishes she were on a golf course somewhere. Trump segues to how this task is about "branding," but it's not.
Here's how you get there: Shania Twain is branching out from being a purveyor of horrible music to being a brand unto herself, and the relevant step for Shania Fucking Twain Omnimedia is her new Coty fragrance, Shania by Stetson. Despite Coty being a $2B company, their hundred sub-brands and labels have led me thus far in life to assume that Coty is solely responsible for those little-girl-indoctrination candy-flavored "lipstick and rouge" kits they sell to the cash register, so maybe they're not the best to go to for "branding" advice. I'm sure if you use or sell or market makeup, you'd know better, but speaking as a guy, Josh, I had no idea they were a real cosmetics company. Trump gets very excited about this new thing called "wrapping" that all the advertisers are doing, and even makes a demeaning "not like the music!" joke, although it's simply not laughably unlikely that Trump would think of rap music as some new thing developed to sell products and make revenue. Actually, it's not impossible that anyone would make that assumption, these days. No, this wrapping is when you wrap a "flexible vinyl adhesive" with ads on it around something in order to make it look tacky. Oh advertising, with your hermetic lingo. Trump's hilarious: "A car, a house...anything!" And a sudden camera angle suggests: Even Adam! The teams each get 1,000 square feet, a van pre-"wrapped," and $10,000 for expenses, and all they have to do is "figure out what to wrap." There's a 1-800 number on the ad that people can call for a free sample, one number per team, and the team with the most calls wins.
Excel first, Randal interviewing that they have to work both "smart" and "hard" because there are only two of them, and then a shot of the ad: Shania Twain looking like she's just been hit in the head by a cast-iron frying pan. While sojourning at a booby hatch. Randal, going off the fact that there are only two of them, immediately comes up with the idea of using the wrap on sandwich boards. Bad idea, right? He calls a bunch of staffing agencies and comes up with sixty people to carry them. Sixty. Randal's unbelievably, and adorably, pumped during this part of the task: when he hangs up with the second lady, he says to himself: "That's what I'm talking about!" Rebecca smiles absolutely gorgeously when he tells her this. Going off the $100/person estimate of Capital Edge, that's only $6000. People are cheap. I can understand this, though. You're at two people, and you've got a task of a certain enormity (as signaled by the budget), and one of you has a bum ankle -- you start thinking, "We can't handle this on our own," so you think, "Lots of people," and then you think, "But how to use them?" and that leads you to sandwich boards. I guess.
Excel's all about the sandwich boards and their army of low-income workers, and now looking for megaphones so that they can, per Rebecca, "blanket the city" and "scream and yell all day long." Randal finds it impossible to find any megaphones and they call a hundred places. Finally they reach a Radio Shack, and the guy asks if they are "the customers that ordered ten megaphones." That evil laughter you heard at about 9:23 Thursday night? That was me, you, everybody, but more than anybody it was Rebecca and Randal. Because this is the kind of shit you couldn't make up if you tried. On the basis of the comedy alone, I would jump at this, and based on the nefarious grins Randal and Rebecca flash at each other, that's the major draw here. I know it's underhanded and tacky and ugly, and I'd feel ambivalent about it after the fact, but having something like that tossed in your lap? Sometimes life becomes a movie, and when that happens it's only right to play along.
So yeah, all the metro Radio Shacks have been busily and sweetly consolidating their entire bullhorn stock to one store (the Union Square location) at Capital Edge's behest. And a shout-out to the editors for portraying it this way, so we got to experience this along with Excel instead of seeing the whole thing play out in real time, which would have been less fun. Randal and Rebecca giggle ("We weren't looking for info on Capital Edge, we stumbled upon it") and head their asses there posthaste. At the Radio Shack, Randal waits outside, I assume holding the taxi, but I'm also hoping it's because he thinks of this as a super-secret spy mission. He does! "Operation Sabotage," he calls it. Never did I think my actual dream would come true. So excellent. They buy nine of the ten available and leave the display model, the better to taunt and laugh cruelly, should Cap Edge actually get all the way to the store before realizing they've been Punk'd. They are wicked amped during this whole espionage moment, chewing gum like it's got coke in it. Outside -- more than likely a trick of editing, but gorgeous nonetheless for storytelling purposes -- the Capital Edge taxi has accidentally gone a block too far. Randal gets all C.L.A.W. about how they've gotten a hold of "every megaphone in the city!" while Capital Edge learns the awful truth.
"You...picked them up a while ago," mumbles the Radio Shack guy, and Alla laughs an incredible, beautiful, bitter laugh. "What did they look like?" she asks, even though she already knows. "One had crutches," says the guy, and it's so, so great. They all just sit there, stewing in the getting-fucked-over. Adam offers a half-hearted "…Can't blame them?" and Alla's not having it: "Yeah. You can." She always can. He agrees with her that he wouldn't do business that way, and I notice that nobody said Alla wouldn't do things that way, which is nice, because I wouldn't love her half as much if that were true. Alla interviews her disgust with the situation, and then in the Late Taxi tells her minions that, while it was "dirty," that will make it "even sweeter" when they are victorious.
Back with the temps, Capital Edge is treading the absolute okay side of the line. And this is going to take some thinking. First of all, why the hell did either team call Rando Temps R Us when what they needed was Any Old Talent Agency? Alla keeps talking about how she wants "clean-cut" people, and I don't wanna get into what she thinks that means, because you know how I hate mind-reading these people, but the bottom line is that if you're looking for a type, go where the types go. Not some employment agency where the people aren't unemployed by choice. Go to a talent agency, where the people are unemployed on purpose. Get me eight hot chicks and seven hot guys in cowboy hats and I will get you some fucking phone calls, megaphones or no. If you've got people that you have to ask if they know who Shania Twain is, or if they speak English, you've wasted my time, your time, and most importantly, these people's time, because they could clearly use a break. There's mildly humorous footage of people practicing the name "Shania," and Felisha deeming a guy okay despite his "thick accent," but things are getting very fucking American Idol right now and it hurts my heart, because I realize what Cap Edge needs to accomplish here, and I can't argue with the way they're dealing with things, but it's not exactly the coolest thing to be watching on TV.
Adam interviews that Alla has lost her grip on quality control, and the team has forgotten that this is about more than just "warm bodies," but there's an edge on his frustration because he was the carriage guy, and kind of thinks this whole thing is dumb and a time-waster anyway. Adam and the temps work together to wrap the carriages, and Shania looks crazy some more, and then there's a troubling moment where Adam interviews that in the end it looks "great," but this is intercut with images of Shania with her head slashed open, bubbling weirdly under the vinyl, with her arms ripped off, et cetera. I've seen this show before, and I always have the same question: why do things get more ghetto the more money they get? Every season it goes the same way. Why?
I kind of miss Marshawn as Randal exhorts his proles that their "goal today is to get people to order the sample" and that this will require the "gift of gab." This sounds like a recipe for disaster: set the unemployed on innocent passersby and make them call a number at any cost. But at least he's framing it properly: here's the goal, here's what you need to accomplish the goal. Over shots of rando proles, Rebecca voices over that these are "real New Yorkers" with "real appeal" to "other New Yorkers." Because one thing that's fresh and new for New Yorkers is having the unemployed and homeless harangue them about the non-essentials. I'm sure that's what Trump had in mind. At least Rebecca and Randal discuss deployment of their Spanish-speaking temps instead of tossing them out altogether, like Alla, and Rebecca notes insightfully that this is more than likely not something that Capital Edge would have thought of. Cut to a guy on a megaphone yelling in Spanish, and a chick getting on her cell immediately in response.
Boardroom is so, so awkward, due to the sabotage, but we get down to it. Carolyn reports that Excel "did fairly well" with their street-team-only campaign, coming through with 978 calls. As with every week, on both shows in the franchise, I wish we knew how long they actually spent doing the task itself: from the time the vans arrived and the temps were outfitted, to when they called it a day. Every single task would be improved if we knew the timeframe, and frankly, I think we'd all be a little more impressed if we knew. The whole songwriting thing, for example: from the time they started in on their musicians, through production, to when they said it was a wrap: how long? Because in some interviews, they act like they had an hour with their hands tied behind their backs, and other times the footage makes it seem like they had a full week during tourist season. Anyway, Bill explains about the Capital Edge supplementary "horse and carriage" strategy, and reveals that they got 973 calls. Five votes' difference. Wow.
Alla looks crushed, and Rebecca's eyes roll back in her head as Trump congratulates them. Their reward is to spend time with Shania, first doing some horseback riding -- special saddle for Rebecca! -- and then having a delicious and mind-activating dinner. Now, here's the thing with me and Shania: Between being Canadian, being gorgeous, having a very lovely voice, and being in I ♥ Huckabees, I have to love her. It's not her that I hate: it's her music, completely. Well, that and her weird penchant for punctuation marks.
Let the record show that People's Exhibit A is hereby entered into evidence: Her album Up!, which includes the following tracks:
"Up!"
"I'm Gonna Getcha Good!"
"Nah!"
"(Wanna Get To Know You) That Good!"
"Ka-Ching!"
"Thank You Baby! (For Makin' Someday Come So Soon)"
"Waiter! Bring Me Water!"
"What A Way To Wanna Be!"
"I'm Not In The Mood (To Say No!)"
"In My Car (I'll Be The Driver)"
Come on: that's some Flowers For Algernon shit right there. Let the record also show that each of these tracks was so devoid of any particular flavor that it lent itself equally to a "pop" and a "country" version, and that these 38 "songs" together comprised one double album. Now, if there's one thing I've learned writing about American Idol, it's that everybody likes something, and in corollary, every piece of music has somebody that likes it. And I don't care, and I am not saying you shouldn't love Shania Twain. All I'm saying is that looking at that shit hurts my eyes, and hearing that shit hurts my ears, and as a musician those two things are important, because your songs are your calling cards.
What's going on with Capital Edge while all this respect and accomplishment is toasting warmly? Well, they all love each other, right? So just more of the same, rallying in the face of their five-call failure? Not exactly. What's going on is, however, totally awesome. Alla's doing her nightly regime in the bathroom and talking Adam into quite a tizzy: "Every second matters! We left a half hour early! It wasn't just the workforce!" Adam, willing to be led, is like, "I remember you said all that, Queen Alla!" He interviews that Felisha didn't come through for them, because she only brought 15 sucky people and the street-team stuff didn't help at all. He fake-worries to Alla, "It was a labor issue...they're going to pick at that…" like he just hopes Felisha doesn't get fired for being such an idiot. "They got sixty people! Why not Felisha?" I guess we skipped the part where Alla slipped Khan-worms into his ear, because the answer is: your stupid worthless carriages took up all the budget. Whistling a private tune of self-satisfaction, knowing Alla's completely in his corner, Adam goes off to suck his thumb and play Game Boy DS, knowing his back is covered.
ACT TWO! Alla and Felisha are now both at the sinks, getting their late-night girly stuff done. Yet again, Felisha ignores the combination-skin moisturizer. Look, I'm telling you this because I love you: I think you're actually quite beautiful, just lovely, but you have got to take better care of your skin. Exfoliate and moisturize! That's all it would take! Not to get all Kyan skin-Nazi with you, but you're only a fucking year older than I. I know plenty of actual forty-year-old smokers, which is what you look like, and to a one they still have better skin than you. There's still time! In a week you could deal with this, given some competent advice. Why didn't Josh help you out here? Or in fact any of your buttery-soft, clear-skinned bitch teammates? Spend the money, girlfriend! I get kind of crazy about exfoliation, sorry. Alla floats that it was a time-management issue, as she did with Adam, but this time highlights the time taken wrapping those awful carriages. Again with the evil laughter echoing across America. Felisha posits that Adam will say, "But where were the people?" because that's how he thinks. It wasn't one thing, but it's Adam's "naïtivity" that will get in the way. Props for adjectiving a wordness that didn't necessible the helpation, but the sentiment is right, and she's smart for seeing it: not even as a lever in the Boardroom, just the issue qua the issue, Adam would see a strict while ($ sales= X-5){ issue there, even taking himself completely out of the code, it would still look like that to him. "What will you tell Trump? That's the hardest question," murmurs Felisha, and Alla nods, and nobody knows what the lady's planning. And that is beautiful. Here's the relevant line from my verbatim notes, at this point in the episode: dude this is goingto be so fking awesome.
Oh, and I was right. Down in the Boardroom, Trump gets there faster than ever: "Excel only had two people. One with a broken ankle. On a street task." That's the bottom line, and I love that Trump got to say it, because it's gorgeous; say it out loud and you'll see. Felisha immediately starts in about how there's "not one single reason," but Trump again is like, "Two people, three ankles between them, though." Felisha -- smartly -- retorts that one could -- certainly, in that situation -- hire "as much staff as possible, to make up for that difference." Trump asks why they didn't, and Felisha fumbles horribly: "It just wasn't something we considered, sir." And that is when I started lobbying for her to go home. She's better than Adam in every way -- not like that's hard, given the competition -- but that shit is unforgivable. And the sick part is, she didn't avoid it because she was trying to be nice to Adam; she did it because she's still permanently stuck to Alla's ass, and that's idiotic. At this point, saying that this was a problem with the campaign as a whole -- and something she was pretty vocal about -- would be more of a diss on Alla than Adam, and she knows this, so instead of going after it, she keeps quiet. Felisha! You are dead to me! Alla doesn't care about you! You have got to know better!
They leave, and Bill looks scared, while Carolyn looks put-upon even being there, again. There's not any kind of damn blowout in the lobby, sadly, although this is mostly due to Felisha fucking bookin' it into the elevator, which is fairly awesome to watch. Adam, alone, tall and skinny, needs a hug -- his cheeks are getting redder by the second as he boards the elevator. Aww. Inside, Bill talks more about the "fire in the belly," how Adam needed it "six weeks ago," that he just came on too late. Trump notes that Felisha and Alla will be a much stronger team, especially considering they will be going up against Randal and Rebecca. Which is a fair point, and more sense than he's made most of this season.
Crazy Taxi: Oh, hugging powers activate! Adam explains to us in painful detail that anyone who takes part in this travesty thinks they'll be the Apprentice, that they have "exactly what it takes." Obviously, he admits, he has "less experience," but his feeling that he brings "incredible value to the table," and a vital desire for learning, would probably have helped him in the Trumpanies, but now we'll never know. I can't wait to see what he does accomplish, because I think he's great.
So what have we learned? "Being A Gladiator" is worthless if you don't do it in front of your higher-ups, so you should never show any effort or question bad judgment unless you will get a pat on the head from somebody. Otherwise, let it ride, because it'll rest on your manager's head. Don't question any idea that seems or is portrayed as "fresh" or "new," because everyone's a moron that gets impressed with buzzwords, even if they involve a horse and buggy. Don't underestimate Shania Twain's equestrian abilities; she's a cowboy, as you can tell from her very fine hat. In terms of history, or "past events," gladiators were mostly known for their ability to snow Radio Shack employees, so we should emulate them. Nobody in the real estate business ever went to jail for misrepresenting him or herself to a vendor -- there's no law in the arena! And finally, nobody in the corporate world ever got ahead through actual innovation -- only by whining about their relative lack of experience as the thrill of a lifetime. As any busy manager can tell you, what successful business requires is as many inexperienced personnel as possible, because everybody likes to explain basic shit to somebody when they should be doing their own work.
Oh wait, that's just Trump.
Then the cool secret footage petered out, and we considered briefly our Final Five. Adam: a virgin, socially and utterly naïve, but really smart and a hard worker. Rebecca: more intense than an elevator ride in the company of Betty Applewhite, Irina Derevko, and Kit McGraw from Nip/Tuck, but smart and "sophisticated." Felisha: wallflower, majordomo, and intermittent folk singer/doormat with a gift for diplomacy and secret smarts. Alla: soul-eating and somewhat abrasive but charming self-made multi-millionaire with a future in demagoguery. And Randal: puppy-saver, water-walker, grandmother-mourner and peacemaker, kind of boring but with a degree in whatever the hell you'd like, and the people and business experience to back it up.
Tonight!
That awful Levi Kreiss song plays us up to the suite, which is annoying except for how Adam, Alla and Felisha are all stretched out on the couches, singing it to each other. It's like a very skinny, well-dressed Babysitter's Club. Even Felisha -- never one to self-edit the dorkiness -- is like, "Yeah, I wasn't over-invested in this task at all." So cute! And Adam: so sleepy and cuddly! And Alla, so proud-papa with her affectionate looks and applause all around. They watch Felisha dancing around in her shiny, shiny pants with the intense love of Chris, Mark, Josh, and James. I'd just hate it if they turned on each other. But they are the Three Amigos! The Musketeers! The Chipmunks! That could never happen...could it? Well, only if this show wants to maintain my interest. Alla hilariously mourns the foregone-conclusion of superstud77's firing, sweetly remembering how he made her breakfast every morning. Every morning, people. I want more unseen footage of Alla and superstud77, because they get more intensely Grey Gardens about each other every time it comes up.
Alla interviews that Rebecca and Randal will have to call upon their "so far nonexistent" creative abilities for this task, or else they're "done." Felisha sings The Apprentice end-of-episode Tension Theme as Adam welcomes Rebecca and Randal back to the suite, and they excuse themselves for a debrief. Rebecca intensely sort-of apologizes about calling Randal "uncreative" in the Boardroom, and Randal clarifies that there's a difference between questioning his judgment, and saying he didn't step up, and by conflating those two, she gave a much bigger smack to his performance than perhaps she intended. I'm not sold that she didn't actually mean to do just that, but it's how Randal talks, like how he told Kristi there were possibly assholes in this world, and they might be acting in a certain way, and if she was in fact acting that way, it was perhaps the case that she was an asshole. Rebecca knows what he's saying, which puts her one better than Kristi in this situation, and nods curtly. And intensely.
Randal interviews that "perception means a lot" in this game, and that all Trump has to go on is every single word he hears, because it all adds up to a mental picture of Randal's performance, so that in the end the Boardroom impression would be that Randal has slacked on the last two tasks. Which, he informs Rebecca, is the opposite of the case on this last task. Rebecca fully apologizes at this point, and then interviews that either way they have to work together and win, so why worry about it. She then gets very Rebecca with him, and it's glorious: "You push me as hard as you can possibly push me, and I will do the same thing for you." Randal's like, "Um, yeah. Let's do that."
I think that's actually what it's like in her head, you guys. I've talked about this before, like how when she wakes up in the morning she first laughs bitterly that the snooze button is for the weak, then lies there for a second planning her attack on the coffeemaker, then springs across the room in one mighty leap and defeats her clothes, then does the Times crossword with a switchblade and clotheslines her RSS feed, wrestling it to the floor and squeezing it blue for up-to-the-minute news and gossip, all within fifteen minutes. While timing herself. Maybe it's imaginary Rebecca I'm in love with. Clearly I want to be her, at least.
While they agree on getting even more hardcore and intense with each other, and it seems cool, Randal interviews once more that even though she apologized, there's still the issue that this misperception of his back-seating it is out in the ether. Which is a good outcome, for the situation: there may be lingering trouble, but I find there's a subtext here that he's shouldering the burden of disproof. Which, admittedly, can only happen once he's back in the Boardroom, but at least it's a lot better than some people might have reacted, Clay and Markus. They got to the point the second they got back to the suite, Rebecca opened the lines of communication about the comments, they cleared it out and she apologized, and both acknowledged that it's about moving forward. Even with just two of them that's still precisely the opposite of what Cap Edge did numerous times in this circumstance, not to mention the fact that Randal's concerns had legitimacy, and weren't merely based in "hurt feelings" crap. Not that the situation could have been reversed -- Randal's way too cool a cucumber to say something that unconsidered -- but still. Hopefully they're actually good about it, and can get moving. Randal gives a hoo-rah ("Let's do this tomorrow") and Rebecca gives it right back. Good deal.
How Do You Cope With Adversity? Your teammate has just, inadvertently or not, put you on blast as a lazy bitch in front of your boss. Do you:
A. Complain to your teammates.
B. Complain to your boss.
C. Complain to the camera.
D. Overcome any forthcoming obstacles in such a way that nobody can deny your power, and talk loudly about how powerful and amazing you are at every opportunity. Using as many overblown and ridiculous metaphors as you can, if possible.
Answer Key:
A. You are a "Kristi!" You sometimes appear disloyal, but it's only because you kind of are.
B. You are a "Felisha!" Quit your gritching and get behind your own case, please. Nobody likes a whiner.
C. You are a "Josh!" And I need you to quit it! You're making me look like an idiot.
D. Jim? Call me!
E. You are "Randal!" We all hope you enjoy being the Apprentice before you realize what a fucking sham this entire thing actually is. Love, Television Without Pity.com.
morning we're downstairs in the Trump Bar, with bartender Chris, who looks like bartenders do, and says a canned line about how Trump Bar is the yoogest and the best and will destroy all other bars on the East Coast with the immense power of its ambience and beverages. We've got Bill again, and he looks much better than he has previously: scared out of his wits, of course, but with a nice Mystic and a generally attractive air. Rebecca hobbles up at the front of the line, of course, and for some reason everyone's breathlessly tense. Felisha is wearing a ruffly Macy Gray shirt that makes her look like a light pink pirate at the Cardio Bar. Trump needles Randal about the whole "you're a loser" thing in the Boardroom, explaining why we spent so much time on that just now, and Randal looks like Avril just punched him in the box. Carolyn stands oddly in her pink suit, like Corporate Barbie, and gives the impression she wishes she were on a golf course somewhere. Trump segues to how this task is about "branding," but it's not.
Here's how you get there: Shania Twain is branching out from being a purveyor of horrible music to being a brand unto herself, and the relevant step for Shania Fucking Twain Omnimedia is her new Coty fragrance, Shania by Stetson. Despite Coty being a $2B company, their hundred sub-brands and labels have led me thus far in life to assume that Coty is solely responsible for those little-girl-indoctrination candy-flavored "lipstick and rouge" kits they sell to the cash register, so maybe they're not the best to go to for "branding" advice. I'm sure if you use or sell or market makeup, you'd know better, but speaking as a guy, Josh, I had no idea they were a real cosmetics company. Trump gets very excited about this new thing called "wrapping" that all the advertisers are doing, and even makes a demeaning "not like the music!" joke, although it's simply not laughably unlikely that Trump would think of rap music as some new thing developed to sell products and make revenue. Actually, it's not impossible that anyone would make that assumption, these days. No, this wrapping is when you wrap a "flexible vinyl adhesive" with ads on it around something in order to make it look tacky. Oh advertising, with your hermetic lingo. Trump's hilarious: "A car, a house...anything!" And a sudden camera angle suggests: Even Adam! The teams each get 1,000 square feet, a van pre-"wrapped," and $10,000 for expenses, and all they have to do is "figure out what to wrap." There's a 1-800 number on the ad that people can call for a free sample, one number per team, and the team with the most calls wins.
Excel first, Randal interviewing that they have to work both "smart" and "hard" because there are only two of them, and then a shot of the ad: Shania Twain looking like she's just been hit in the head by a cast-iron frying pan. While sojourning at a booby hatch. Randal, going off the fact that there are only two of them, immediately comes up with the idea of using the wrap on sandwich boards. Bad idea, right? He calls a bunch of staffing agencies and comes up with sixty people to carry them. Sixty. Randal's unbelievably, and adorably, pumped during this part of the task: when he hangs up with the second lady, he says to himself: "That's what I'm talking about!" Rebecca smiles absolutely gorgeously when he tells her this. Going off the $100/person estimate of Capital Edge, that's only $6000. People are cheap. I can understand this, though. You're at two people, and you've got a task of a certain enormity (as signaled by the budget), and one of you has a bum ankle -- you start thinking, "We can't handle this on our own," so you think, "Lots of people," and then you think, "But how to use them?" and that leads you to sandwich boards. I guess.
But what do I know? Because the folks over at Capital Edge come up with basically the same idea. Alla interviews that she "can lead with great...leadership skills," because she is -- and I'm not arguing -- "the leader on this team." Alla: She's not conceited! She's just honest! Love it. Adam puts the hard sell on immediately that they should use the "horse and carriage" marketing strategy so memorably and recently employed by...snake-oil salesmen of the Olden Days. It's a "spectacle" and will "get people's attention in the street!" And that's, I think, the problem with this whole task: you could tell by the rheumy gleam in Trump's eye that he was thinking viral, guerilla, street-team marketing, "wrapping" being this hot new advertising strategy that only the youngest and ballsiest of up-and-comers are using, something so whippersnapping new it smells like the internet, and the teams responded by...using techniques perfected somewhere between The New Deal and The Old West.
Adam brings up -- more than once -- the idea of "wrapping" the horses themselves, but this is ignored, especially after Shania shows up in her best PETA attire and buggy-whips him senseless. Alla's like, "Go for it, I guess," about the carriage thing, although Felisha protests (both in context and during an interview) that it's more important to have actual warm bodies, that actual sales people sell a lot more than a mobile billboard, horseless carriages being a not-seldom occurrence these days. She runs into some issues immediately, having been tasked with finding temps to do the sandwich-board thing, but not given enough budget to actually do it. Adam, pissy, asks Alla how much money she gave Felisha "and why," and Alla says she gave her $1500 and she'd just have to make it work. Felisha interviews that having no money to spend on the more important part of the task was a huge problem, and I guess I agree, but what we don't see is Felisha going to the mat for it -- she complains and talks about how "logistically, it's a freaking nightmare" and all the things she should say, but the measurable goal in something like this is selling your point of view, and she doesn't, which means she should have tried harder and thought faster. She's right, but unlike Markus in the Lamborghini task, there are no real obstacles to her getting it across, other than her own fear of confrontation.
Which sort of brings us to the Weekly Wisdom, which is -- and I'm not making this up -- "Be A Gladiator." The fuck is Trump's universe actually like? "There are times when the only choice is confrontation," he tells us, and we see some footage of him screaming at someone on the telephone and finally hanging up on the bastard. "Confrontation is never really popular, but sometimes it's needed: go to it with gusto." Back to the thrilling phone attack, he's saying snootily, "Yes, I hung up. You didn't get disconnected," and I'm wondering where the line is between "confrontation" and "acting like a dick," but apparently I'm an asshole for even wondering about it. "I'm fucking finished, okay?" he screams, and -- just like every episode -- you have to wonder if there's ever anybody on the other end of the line when he does these little snippets. If not, that's the saddest, funniest thing I've ever seen, and so on-the-nose as a metaphor for Donald Trump that I'm willing to assume I'm right.
Excel's all about the sandwich boards and their army of low-income workers, and now looking for megaphones so that they can, per Rebecca, "blanket the city" and "scream and yell all day long." Randal finds it impossible to find any megaphones and they call a hundred places. Finally they reach a Radio Shack, and the guy asks if they are "the customers that ordered ten megaphones." That evil laughter you heard at about 9:23 Thursday night? That was me, you, everybody, but more than anybody it was Rebecca and Randal. Because this is the kind of shit you couldn't make up if you tried. On the basis of the comedy alone, I would jump at this, and based on the nefarious grins Randal and Rebecca flash at each other, that's the major draw here. I know it's underhanded and tacky and ugly, and I'd feel ambivalent about it after the fact, but having something like that tossed in your lap? Sometimes life becomes a movie, and when that happens it's only right to play along.
So yeah, all the metro Radio Shacks have been busily and sweetly consolidating their entire bullhorn stock to one store (the Union Square location) at Capital Edge's behest. And a shout-out to the editors for portraying it this way, so we got to experience this along with Excel instead of seeing the whole thing play out in real time, which would have been less fun. Randal and Rebecca giggle ("We weren't looking for info on Capital Edge, we stumbled upon it") and head their asses there posthaste. At the Radio Shack, Randal waits outside, I assume holding the taxi, but I'm also hoping it's because he thinks of this as a super-secret spy mission. He does! "Operation Sabotage," he calls it. Never did I think my actual dream would come true. So excellent. They buy nine of the ten available and leave the display model, the better to taunt and laugh cruelly, should Cap Edge actually get all the way to the store before realizing they've been Punk'd. They are wicked amped during this whole espionage moment, chewing gum like it's got coke in it. Outside -- more than likely a trick of editing, but gorgeous nonetheless for storytelling purposes -- the Capital Edge taxi has accidentally gone a block too far. Randal gets all C.L.A.W. about how they've gotten a hold of "every megaphone in the city!" while Capital Edge learns the awful truth.
"You...picked them up a while ago," mumbles the Radio Shack guy, and Alla laughs an incredible, beautiful, bitter laugh. "What did they look like?" she asks, even though she already knows. "One had crutches," says the guy, and it's so, so great. They all just sit there, stewing in the getting-fucked-over. Adam offers a half-hearted "…Can't blame them?" and Alla's not having it: "Yeah. You can." She always can. He agrees with her that he wouldn't do business that way, and I notice that nobody said Alla wouldn't do things that way, which is nice, because I wouldn't love her half as much if that were true. Alla interviews her disgust with the situation, and then in the Late Taxi tells her minions that, while it was "dirty," that will make it "even sweeter" when they are victorious.
Back with the temps, Capital Edge is treading the absolute okay side of the line. And this is going to take some thinking. First of all, why the hell did either team call Rando Temps R Us when what they needed was Any Old Talent Agency? Alla keeps talking about how she wants "clean-cut" people, and I don't wanna get into what she thinks that means, because you know how I hate mind-reading these people, but the bottom line is that if you're looking for a type, go where the types go. Not some employment agency where the people aren't unemployed by choice. Go to a talent agency, where the people are unemployed on purpose. Get me eight hot chicks and seven hot guys in cowboy hats and I will get you some fucking phone calls, megaphones or no. If you've got people that you have to ask if they know who Shania Twain is, or if they speak English, you've wasted my time, your time, and most importantly, these people's time, because they could clearly use a break. There's mildly humorous footage of people practicing the name "Shania," and Felisha deeming a guy okay despite his "thick accent," but things are getting very fucking American Idol right now and it hurts my heart, because I realize what Cap Edge needs to accomplish here, and I can't argue with the way they're dealing with things, but it's not exactly the coolest thing to be watching on TV.
Adam interviews that Alla has lost her grip on quality control, and the team has forgotten that this is about more than just "warm bodies," but there's an edge on his frustration because he was the carriage guy, and kind of thinks this whole thing is dumb and a time-waster anyway. Adam and the temps work together to wrap the carriages, and Shania looks crazy some more, and then there's a troubling moment where Adam interviews that in the end it looks "great," but this is intercut with images of Shania with her head slashed open, bubbling weirdly under the vinyl, with her arms ripped off, et cetera. I've seen this show before, and I always have the same question: why do things get more ghetto the more money they get? Every season it goes the same way. Why?
I kind of miss Marshawn as Randal exhorts his proles that their "goal today is to get people to order the sample" and that this will require the "gift of gab." This sounds like a recipe for disaster: set the unemployed on innocent passersby and make them call a number at any cost. But at least he's framing it properly: here's the goal, here's what you need to accomplish the goal. Over shots of rando proles, Rebecca voices over that these are "real New Yorkers" with "real appeal" to "other New Yorkers." Because one thing that's fresh and new for New Yorkers is having the unemployed and homeless harangue them about the non-essentials. I'm sure that's what Trump had in mind. At least Rebecca and Randal discuss deployment of their Spanish-speaking temps instead of tossing them out altogether, like Alla, and Rebecca notes insightfully that this is more than likely not something that Capital Edge would have thought of. Cut to a guy on a megaphone yelling in Spanish, and a chick getting on her cell immediately in response.
There's also a crazy man, absolutely awesome, screaming from the van about "No shipping and handling costs, no credit card costs, nothing! Keep your paycheck in your pocket!" Randal tells us about him: "One particular brother had a lot of charisma, a lot of energy," and how it made sense to have him screaming at passersby from the van itself. "Dial that! Got it, bro?" he screams, and a fellow obliges. "My man!" And later: "Make your woman feel like a woman, and make yourself be happy!" I'm kind of in love with Crazy Van Guy. Good call, Randal: You know you'd dial any number this guy asked you to.
Rebecca interviews that the megaphone screaming was "a great idea" because it provided vocal reinforcement to the posters themselves. Bill -- still taking Trump's incorrect tack on how Randal has been slacking of late -- mentions how Randal's "stepped it up" and now has that "fire in the belly." This is a phrase I used to love, but by the end of the episode I'll be kind of over it. Not Bill, though. But also: it's not entirely Rebecca's fault that they suddenly think Randal's a slacker, considering most people wondered what his purpose really was -- beyond being really intensely likeable and smart -- until the Zathura task, and even then he didn't really do anything, that we saw. It's not entirely that he's gotten bad press all of a sudden, but it's that he's a silent backbone type that has added -- as we can infer from the other candidates' remarks -- value to every task, without trumpeting it. Or doing any of it on camera. However, it was only last week that Trump used this as a slight negative, setting Randal to a higher standard, which just adds fuel to the whole Viceroy belief that he's somehow not pulling his weight.
Capital Edge, since they don't have the proles to "blanket the city" like Excel, decides per Alla to just basically drop trou at Union Square and belligerently wiggle their placards at passersby, hoping to intimidate them into calling the number. Felisha spins this as an appeal to the truism that you have to appeal to the masses and "work with people one-on-one." They take a while to get it together, wandering around and talking about the sandwich boards in a very "outside Tassimo Café" kind of way, and with Alla yelling at them. Felisha says that, megaphones gone, they just had to suck it up and "roll with the punches, selling selling selling," and there's more footage of Alla commanding people to call the number. Felisha and Adam get flirty, Felisha begging one fellow to call the number while Adam cutes, "It's delicious." Alla drops one more rung down the ladder of what's okay, actually dialing her cell for people so that they can call it "themselves" and interviewing that they're "not taking no for an answer." If this were American Idol, I'd invalidate every fucking call from her phone, but it's not, and I love her, and without megaphones, I mean…what choice did they really have? Beyond sticking to the task and getting it done, I mean. Felisha begs a dude to "just do this" and Adam gets involved with a disturbing purple woman -- she's entirely purple! -- and Alla yells at another lady to "Dial this number!" We get more interview footage from Felisha about how one person can get the word out, "like, better than a sign," because you can hard-sell them -- remember, she's the real estate one -- on how they have to "Act now!" All three of them now look like cult members. They got them crazy eyes.
Carolyn interviews that Capital Edge "has hired 15 temps to walk around with posters on their bodies" and decided to "wrap horse-drawn carriages, which...really didn't look so great." She sums up: "If I was Shania Twain, I'd be embarrassed." For the record, she does not link this statement to the campaign itself, but we'll infer. Felisha interviews that Adam is "amazing" and Alla's "amazing" and they did "great," and the three of them walk adorably off arm-in-arm. I really, really hope this triumphant trio doesn't go to shit, you guys. That would be unexpected to the point of being painful.
Boardroom is so, so awkward, due to the sabotage, but we get down to it. Carolyn reports that Excel "did fairly well" with their street-team-only campaign, coming through with 978 calls. As with every week, on both shows in the franchise, I wish we knew how long they actually spent doing the task itself: from the time the vans arrived and the temps were outfitted, to when they called it a day. Every single task would be improved if we knew the timeframe, and frankly, I think we'd all be a little more impressed if we knew. The whole songwriting thing, for example: from the time they started in on their musicians, through production, to when they said it was a wrap: how long? Because in some interviews, they act like they had an hour with their hands tied behind their backs, and other times the footage makes it seem like they had a full week during tourist season. Anyway, Bill explains about the Capital Edge supplementary "horse and carriage" strategy, and reveals that they got 973 calls. Five votes' difference. Wow.
Alla looks crushed, and Rebecca's eyes roll back in her head as Trump congratulates them. Their reward is to spend time with Shania, first doing some horseback riding -- special saddle for Rebecca! -- and then having a delicious and mind-activating dinner. Now, here's the thing with me and Shania: Between being Canadian, being gorgeous, having a very lovely voice, and being in I ♥ Huckabees, I have to love her. It's not her that I hate: it's her music, completely. Well, that and her weird penchant for punctuation marks.
Let the record show that People's Exhibit A is hereby entered into evidence: Her album Up!, which includes the following tracks:
"Up!"
"I'm Gonna Getcha Good!"
"Nah!"
"(Wanna Get To Know You) That Good!"
"Ka-Ching!"
"Thank You Baby! (For Makin' Someday Come So Soon)"
"Waiter! Bring Me Water!"
"What A Way To Wanna Be!"
"I'm Not In The Mood (To Say No!)"
"In My Car (I'll Be The Driver)"
Come on: that's some Flowers For Algernon shit right there. Let the record also show that each of these tracks was so devoid of any particular flavor that it lent itself equally to a "pop" and a "country" version, and that these 38 "songs" together comprised one double album. Now, if there's one thing I've learned writing about American Idol, it's that everybody likes something, and in corollary, every piece of music has somebody that likes it. And I don't care, and I am not saying you shouldn't love Shania Twain. All I'm saying is that looking at that shit hurts my eyes, and hearing that shit hurts my ears, and as a musician those two things are important, because your songs are your calling cards.
On the other hand, I've heard that Shania fully admits that her stuff is fluff, and that she saves the good stuff, what you call "songs," for people that she loves, like her family, and we don't deserve to hear them. And I respect that -- kind of love it, to be honest -- but I kind of agree with her, given her success with stuff like that. I wouldn't put too much effort into it either, if I could make that much money whispering coquettishly about Brad Pitt's looks for five seconds over a Casio preset, go back home, and rest assured I was going to make a bajillion dollars. And on the other other hand, the most atrocious song has just come on my iTunes to remind me that this shit is relative: "Hats" from the very Amy Grant album I referenced last week in the Veronica Marsrecap. NOW! That's what I call a shitty song, and I am not cool for having it on my computer, and I am addressing that issue as we speak. I cannot explain what happened there. Most importantly though, to me anyway, is the fact that Shania has had a really fucked-up life, like to the degree that you either become awesome or become crazy, and she chose the former, and all kidding aside I do admire her for that, for her strength and continued grace.
Anyway, Randal and Rebecca walk up to Shania, already havin' her a party on horseback, for their reward -- Randal cutes, "Looks like a celebrity!" -- and Shania, a princess on her horse, smiles down at them beautifully. "Congratulations! (I Guess It Was) A Good Day!" She's utterly charming, although she has a little bit of the milk-voiced throat-frogs happening today. God, she's pretty. Randal interviews that he can't remember the last time he rode a horse, and then things get awesome as Randal puts on that ridiculous-looking equestrian bowl-hat. He cannot deal with his horse at all, and Shania's trying to be helpful -- "Pull Back! (On The Left Rein, Son!)" -- but as Rebecca explains wonderfully, "Randal's horse would not get with the program! It just wanted to roam around in circles…" and we see Randal heading the exact opposite direction as Twinkie-twins Rebecca and Shania head off into the sunset.
Later, Excel and Shania head to Oceana for VIP dinner in the wine cellar -- I wonder if it's all winery-creepy down there, muggy and cold and icky -- and I regret to inform you that Shania -- possibly this is a nod to the crispy Ontario weather -- keeps the cowboy hat on all through dinner. She intones that they are "Heading Off (Into Real Careers)!" and about to face "(Many) Challenges!" and Rebecca -- a two-degree honors grad from the University of Chicago and founder of a near-million non-profit -- whispers on behalf of herself and her teammate -- a five-degree Rhodes grad from Rutgers, Oxford, and MIT, who has won a thousand awards and was one of Ebony's Thirty Leaders Of The Future -- whether there's "a trick" to success. Shania -- who, like it or not, has earned the Order Of Canada, five Grammies, three ACM awards, one CMA, seven Junos, six AMAs, two Billboards, and at least 22 BMI Songwriting awards -- offers that "Any Real Success Comes With Nothing (Short Of The Hardest Work)" and that when you "(Think You Can Take) No More!" you have to "Try! (Even Harder!) " This "resonated" with Rebecca, because after all, she and Randal "pushed" each other just as much as they promised they would. She toasts Randal beautifully, for "leading us to victory with honor and respect." Believing yourself to be a Viking has its upshot, such as giving really good toasts. Even Shania's impressed: "(Very) Nice!" Aw, I love Shania Twain. I wish she would make a song with all that talent.
What's going on with Capital Edge while all this respect and accomplishment is toasting warmly? Well, they all love each other, right? So just more of the same, rallying in the face of their five-call failure? Not exactly. What's going on is, however, totally awesome. Alla's doing her nightly regime in the bathroom and talking Adam into quite a tizzy: "Every second matters! We left a half hour early! It wasn't just the workforce!" Adam, willing to be led, is like, "I remember you said all that, Queen Alla!" He interviews that Felisha didn't come through for them, because she only brought 15 sucky people and the street-team stuff didn't help at all. He fake-worries to Alla, "It was a labor issue...they're going to pick at that…" like he just hopes Felisha doesn't get fired for being such an idiot. "They got sixty people! Why not Felisha?" I guess we skipped the part where Alla slipped Khan-worms into his ear, because the answer is: your stupid worthless carriages took up all the budget. Whistling a private tune of self-satisfaction, knowing Alla's completely in his corner, Adam goes off to suck his thumb and play Game Boy DS, knowing his back is covered.
ACT TWO! Alla and Felisha are now both at the sinks, getting their late-night girly stuff done. Yet again, Felisha ignores the combination-skin moisturizer. Look, I'm telling you this because I love you: I think you're actually quite beautiful, just lovely, but you have got to take better care of your skin. Exfoliate and moisturize! That's all it would take! Not to get all Kyan skin-Nazi with you, but you're only a fucking year older than I. I know plenty of actual forty-year-old smokers, which is what you look like, and to a one they still have better skin than you. There's still time! In a week you could deal with this, given some competent advice. Why didn't Josh help you out here? Or in fact any of your buttery-soft, clear-skinned bitch teammates? Spend the money, girlfriend! I get kind of crazy about exfoliation, sorry. Alla floats that it was a time-management issue, as she did with Adam, but this time highlights the time taken wrapping those awful carriages. Again with the evil laughter echoing across America. Felisha posits that Adam will say, "But where were the people?" because that's how he thinks. It wasn't one thing, but it's Adam's "naïtivity" that will get in the way. Props for adjectiving a wordness that didn't necessible the helpation, but the sentiment is right, and she's smart for seeing it: not even as a lever in the Boardroom, just the issue qua the issue, Adam would see a strict while ($ sales= X-5){ issue there, even taking himself completely out of the code, it would still look like that to him. "What will you tell Trump? That's the hardest question," murmurs Felisha, and Alla nods, and nobody knows what the lady's planning. And that is beautiful. Here's the relevant line from my verbatim notes, at this point in the episode: dude this is goingto be so fking awesome.
Oh, and I was right. Down in the Boardroom, Trump gets there faster than ever: "Excel only had two people. One with a broken ankle. On a street task." That's the bottom line, and I love that Trump got to say it, because it's gorgeous; say it out loud and you'll see. Felisha immediately starts in about how there's "not one single reason," but Trump again is like, "Two people, three ankles between them, though." Felisha -- smartly -- retorts that one could -- certainly, in that situation -- hire "as much staff as possible, to make up for that difference." Trump asks why they didn't, and Felisha fumbles horribly: "It just wasn't something we considered, sir." And that is when I started lobbying for her to go home. She's better than Adam in every way -- not like that's hard, given the competition -- but that shit is unforgivable. And the sick part is, she didn't avoid it because she was trying to be nice to Adam; she did it because she's still permanently stuck to Alla's ass, and that's idiotic. At this point, saying that this was a problem with the campaign as a whole -- and something she was pretty vocal about -- would be more of a diss on Alla than Adam, and she knows this, so instead of going after it, she keeps quiet. Felisha! You are dead to me! Alla doesn't care about you! You have got to know better!
Trump asks Alla about the whole budget issue (one assumes there are as many edits in this scene as possible, because the conversation only makes sense to us, the viewer, and not as a thing in itself in any way) and she replies that "One thing Adam brought to the table was to get as many carriages as possible," but that at that point, "we only had a certain amount left." Which is the only thing she can now say, so at least Felisha got her into that corner, if nothing else. Trump says they spent "too much money" on the carriages, and Adam looks worried. Carolyn -- who's quite rapacious in this Boardroom, to be honest, although mostly I like it -- asks how many carriages there were. Adam replies that there were 14 carriages. Plus only 15 people walking around equals a very unimpressed Carolyn: "Horses can't talk!" She rants (well, it's Carolyn, so it counts as a rant for her, at least) that Excel had 60 people, all of whom could communicate reasonably well. Only if New York had a Horse Harlem, she seems to imply, would this have been a good idea. Bill, refusing to break his zero out of infinity record for original thought, explains that they didn't "think big," didn't "throw the net out far enough," considering how the other team managed to canvas the entire city. And with only three ankles!
Alla goes to that place you hate to see them go: "But we only lost by five calls!" And Carolyn gives the only response you can, once things have gotten to this state: "But you lost." Alla about-faces that she delegated the hiring to Felisha, and asked for twenty people, and again Felisha soft-sells it: "We didn't get the people we anticipated…" Seeing that this is worthless, Alla jumps in about the sneaky bullhorn business, and it's over: Bill and Trump both giggle helplessly and agree that the bullhorn maneuver was absolutely wonderful. They should have at least given lip service to the fact that this was a serious disadvantage, even if it was fair play by the rules, but, like, sometimes boys have cooties, so all we get is: "They fucked you good, huh?" Which is admittedly my reaction, but I have cooties too. Just ask Markus.
Carolyn, out of nowhere, asks Felisha what the hell she did contribute. I could almost see this as a tenth-inning invitation to air her grievances against Adam and his damned horses, but she again fumbles, giving that same speech about how "people" are the best sales tool they had. Carolyn's like, "Better than horses, yeah?" But instead of nodding wryly, she's already gone: "I had a certain amount of time…" And Carolyn's done with her ass: "So they just did it better than you." Ouch. Further proving her inability to read this Boardroom at all, or pay attention to Boardroom history (n. : commonly indicating past events), whines that Excel "got lucky." Which they didn't; they got smart and didn't let old Dowager Horse & Carriage fuck it up, but Trump's just put off by the whole "lucky" concept. "All you needed was five more votes, so there must be a reason you lost." Alla steps right up: "[Labor] is the reason we lost." Felisha loses 33% of her composure here: "No, no, no, no, no, no -- that's not true!" She is somewhat emphatic. Alla turns to her, triumphant and scary and done with this: "Look at the numbers, Felisha. I asked you for twenty people…" Felisha protests that she got every person she could, and goes into a song-and-dance about how she went through the phone book begging for people, and Alla points out that the same thing is true for Excel. Wow. She'll go to bat for Felisha in a sec, out of the two, but this was pretty harsh.
Trump says it sounds like they could have been okay with more personnel, which is obviously true, and then asks Felisha who she'd fire, of the three. She says Adam, because he was so focused on the carriages, and they did not bring in the sales. Which she's been saying all episode, just not where Trump could hear her, and that sucks. It's like when Marshawn refused to say, on the Sith task, "I thought the whole thing was ugly and stupid, Mr. Trump, and I didn't feel like talking about it in front of people." Alla advises that Trump evaluate based on performance from the beginning, meaning Felisha is a better candidate, and Adam freaks out about how that's an uninformed opinion because they've only done four tasks together and in all of them he's been very strong. Which is up for debate, considering he apparently contributed only his hot Padawan self on the Jedi one, was admittedly neck-and-neck with Felisha for gawky enthusiasm at the songwriting, was not that professional with the Learning Annex task, and was completely and loudly wrong-headed on this one.
Trump suddenly sends Alla upstairs, supposedly because she was clearly not the reason, but more likely because he wants to see Adam and Felisha fight like dogs. Adam looks freaked, Felisha looks like crying, and then Trump makes Adam move over and fill the spot so they are sitting together. So sad. I can't wait!
Trump and Carolyn agree that this is super-tough, and Carolyn says straight up: "There are five people left right now. You two are by far the weakest." Whoa. Felisha's eyes bug out and she gasps, "Oh my gosh. You really do." It's not a scream, exactly, but a "my whole life is a lie" kind of freakout. Carolyn: "I truly do." Felisha breathes, "Wow." But honestly, what do you do then? It's all there on the table, suddenly, and you're naked. Trump asks who Carolyn would fire, and she says Felisha, who, despite her record, "still can't handle it." Bill, on the other hand -- like we'd even go through this if he agreed -- calls it a "tough call," but thinks that Adam hasn't really stepped up. Trump asks why on earth he should keep Adam over Felisha, and Adam says some weird thing about how he has "creative ideas" and "new ideas" and "innovative ideas" and can execute plans, and that he's curious, a veritable "sponge" full of "curiosity" and "energy" and "passion." Carolyn eyebrows at Trump during this word salad, and Trump gets weird in response to it: "You don't think Felisha's that curious?" Like this is going to decide it. Obliviously, Adam continues: "No, and I think that's why I'm so successful, at this point." Was it that you were curious about Alla's ass, Adam, and crawled up there to investigate? Because that's what's kept you alive: the original men's team has exactly one other member left, and you do not exactly constitute its other shining star. Felisha makes a hilarious Felisha face, both jubilant at the craziness here and also scornful at how laughable Adam's case actually is.
Felisha gets assertive: "He says inexperience is not an issue -- it's a huge issue!" She talks about how she manages people every day, and that the way Adam handles things is "definitely from an inexperienced point of view." As though to prove her wrong, Adam whines, "That's not true!" Trump mentions that Alla also thinks Felisha is stronger than Adam -- "He's not!" exclaims Felisha -- and that one would properly consider that statement Alla's "parting shot." Felisha chills, because Trump just said who's getting fired, but Adam's still in there fighting, going back to the whole "Alla doesn't know how wonderful I am, because I've only been on her team for almost half the season" diatribe. Felisha's all, "It's so obvious, you can just tell! Adam has a problem and it is that he is a little baby!" Trump asks her whether you can't "circumvent that with a little time," and Felisha gets my respect right back: "A lot of time, sir." She should have been this forthcoming and pert from the beginning. Adam makes a stinky face, because he's known the whole season that this would be his downfall. Just like us.
What's Your Hip Quotient? Multiple choice: Rules? Or Drools?
1. Horse-And-Carriage Advertising
2. Crazy Diplomat-From-Outer-Spacia Outfits
3. Letting Your PM Take The Fall For Somebody's Crappy Ideas
4. Having Crappy Ideas
5. Virginity
6. Stealing Megaphones
7. Letting Crazy Homeless People Do Your Work For You
8. Clay Being Gone
9. "Wrapping"
10. Carolyn Letting 'Er Rip On Your Doomed Ass
Answer Key:
1. Drools! Even on Deadwood that shit is played.
2. Rules! One for every day, preferably!
3. Rules! She's gunning for you anyway!
4. Drools! Leave that for the chuckers!
5. Rules! I'm so totally sure it's by choice, which makes you edgy and alternative!
6. Rules! Kind of!
7. Totally rules: they get paid, you get things done.
8. Kind of drools! …No, it in fact rules.
9. Drools! It always looks like durable, all-weather crap!
10. Totally rules in every way, even if you like the person.
Bill asks how Adam's assertion that he's "more qualified" can be backed up. Adam brings up his "strong analytical skills" and "ability to problem-solve," both of which one would think are huge assets "in the Trump organization," and Felisha is just hitting her stride: "Whatever, bitch. Name some things I don't have." It's awesome. Adam admits that he's claiming things they both have -- strong communication skills, strong sales skills -- on the way to discovering where they differ. He has a "hunger to learn" and "very strong critical skills." Again, she meets the challenge: "Every single person in that suite has great analytical skills, great problem-solving skills." Even Trump is embarrassed. "Let's talk about this task." And Adam gets to precisely half the point: that Felisha's sole duty was "labor" on this task -- and Trump overrides Felisha's not-entirely-valid objection -- but Felisha has a fresh rejoinder ready that in terms of budget, "the number of people was clear from the beginning." She mentions how "these two over here," meaning Alla and Adam, spent the whole time on the carriage deal, and gave her a clear max of twenty people.
Carolyn asks if Felisha made any kind of giant, task-sinking issue of it -- I know, right? -- and Felisha admits that no, because Alla "said this is it, that's what you have." Adam fights her for not negotiating, and then they get into a tiff because she thinks he means period and he actually means with the temp agency, and Felisha basically complains that the budget was broken from moment one. Trump criticizes Felisha's negotiation on the second front, but then turns on Adam: "You spent over half the budget on the carriages...which looked horrible and were ineffective...therefore, Adam: You're fired." It's like watching him kick a puppy, in slow-motion, on the big silver screen, over and over, in a constant loop, and the puppy has a tendency to wiggle awesomely, big wet eyes, big floppy ears, and only three legs. Adam stares at him, confused to the bottom of his soul, and Felisha breathes slowly, carefully, and with fear in her heart.