Lest we forget the real star and the only true winner here, we begin with Trump exiting his titular Tower, Viceroys in tow, to instant screaming from whatever the hell kind of people hang around outside Trump Tower, waiting to scream their stupid asses off in the frozen cold for a toadlike man whose multimillionaire status is somewhat belied by the fact that he commits ritual bankruptcy more times per fiscal year than you just tried to diagram this sentence. To be fair, he has a lovely Mystic happening in his maxillofacial area, and looks nearly presentable. He tells us how excited he -- and by extension we -- are, and reminds us that he -- and by extension we -- thinks Rebecca is smart, tough and loyal, while Randal is "just Randal," meaning that he's "just exceptional." That awful face he makes issues commands to the limo driver like the guy's never been to Lincoln Center, orders Carolyn and George to "Come on, folks, let's go," and walks with that damned swagger he has, like he's in a movie with a totally kick-ass soundtrack, the foot from the curb, then stands at the door ushering his Viceroys into the building, somehow standing with a swagger, and we're off to a very fucking irritating start. Yes?
In Lincoln Center, everybody is screaming, and we look at thousands of uninteresting people, wearing fewer shrugs but more coats than you might think, and Trump jumps up on stage and does this way dorky move with his arms out -- the main event has arrived, and he's yooge! -- and people kind of scream. It's a polite kind of scream. Everybody looks pretty bored. Trump introduces "the lovely Robin," then throws his big fluffy coat directly in her face, and she fucking giggles, and runs offstage, covered and I mean smothered in overcoat, and I...sort of don't like Robin anymore. The three cross stage left to the ghetto fake Boardroom and we see in the audience Ms. Singer from Autism Speaks, sans daughter. The Hair, it looks nice. It's got that ham-fisted finger-combed look it gets, but it's going straight back and is less unruly than normal. The only troubling thing is that you can't really tell where his hairline is, because his hair kind of matches his face.
Trump blathers on at the tippity-top of his amphibious lungs about shit you already know -- Randal is "threatened" by rain, Rebecca is threatened by Piscopine flakery -- and the camera refuses to see anyone cheering for Randal except for black people. Don't email, there's a point to noting that beyond the fact that it's weird. Cheering for Rebecca are...old people. And an Indian family. "Believe it or not," intones Trump, "I haven't made up my mind yet. Hit the lights! Let's get going!"
Credits. That's the exact swagger! He imagines himself in these very credits now when he walks, I think. I'm going to do the same thing from now on. And I do love watching that opening walk, it's quite purposeful. The brain, knowing this is the last time I'll see Rebecca Jarvis really, gets hyperfocused on her swagger: she looks beautiful (if weird, with the two legs), she's got one hand in her pocket, and the other one's...clenched with purpose, determination, and the will to be the best. And in the interests of equal time, Randal's beautiful smile is blinding.
“ Answer Number Three sounded a lot less shitty in his head, because in his head Trump didn't call Randal the winner and then take it away, and nobody got hurt because Rebecca had a job unrelated to the contest, like Andy from that other season. ”
But the thing about nerds is that they can't read a room. Randal's better than most, but -- even in the hero edit at the auction, half the crowd shots were of terrible boredom -- he's still a nerd. And there may be something to ignoring the eyebrows and the nudging of Trump, who wants to somehow get credit for hiring a black Apprentice while still blowing minds with a double-hire to go with his multiple-firings all season, or forcing Randal into an impossible situation, or whatever the hell he's trying to do, which Randal's not really picking up on. Because Trump's clearly got a story in his head where if Randal okays the double-hiring, it doesn't take away from the progressive precedent, it'll be yooge, nobody loses, because Trump's weltanschauung is tingling now, wakeful, some might say tumescent, and extends not quite past his belly button, because he is ego personified, and his universe is Trump-sized.
So you've got Trump wiggling his weltanschauung at you like some kind of playground creep, begging you to implicate yourself, you've got Jentethno and Mark cheering crazily, Adam clapping spasmotically and adorably because he likes Rebecca, Toral clapping from the nosebleed seats where she's not even in the frame, Alla and Felisha screaming "No!" for no reason other than that they are disgusting, not because they've rationally decided Rebecca hasn't earned it, but that ship sailed weeks ago, months ago, and you've got Josh yelling something, positive or negative undecipherable, giggling with Brian and somebody in the crowd, Brian trying to catch Jenthura's eye while screaming like a hooligan, Rebecca smiling over at you affectionately, Clay looking pissy, Brian and Jenthura and Mark laughing and feeling weirded out, Markus with no idea what's going on at all, not sure if he's supposed to stand up again or clap or yell or what, and the camera swings on you, Randal, looking gobsmacked, because this is moving really, really fast, and nobody can believe Trump's doing this.
So Randal falls back to Answer Number Three, which he's been practicing ever since that last Boardroom when they kept calling them equally stars and all that bullshit, which sounded a lot less shitty in his head, because in his head Trump didn't call Randal the winner and then take it away, and nobody got hurt because Rebecca had a job unrelated to the contest, like Andy from that other season, but now, with this atmosphere that he can't entirely read, it sounds weirder than he thinks: "Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump, I firmly believe that this is the Apprentice, that there is one and only one apprentice," and the crowd starts getting upset, and Felisha yells at them to shut up, and Brian's still trying to hit on Jenthura, and Markus still has no idea, and Toral gets weird, and Josh and Clay start clapping, "and if you're going to hire someone tonight, it should be one. It's not the Apprenti, it's the Apprentice." The candidates laugh, everybody laughs, there's a small awww from the audience. Alla goes nuts. Trump: "Okay, all right, I'm going to leave it at that then. I think I could have been convinced, but you feel that's the way it should be?" Which is Bad Daddery, in my house: "Well, folks, we were going to have ice cream, I myself was very excited, but somebody isn't going to cooperate, soooo"
“ Maybe we'd be wise to check out the rich white guy holding the strings, the one who just managed to screw them both out of being the Apprentice, just for the kicks of trying something he'd never done before. ”
Felisha laughs nastily and claps her hands as Randal agrees that this is how it should be, and Trump agrees to leave it that way. This is not Randal-love, this is something else entirely, on facial expression alone, this is...really missing the fucking point, I know that much. Rebecca shakes her head tinily, and Alla cheers and whoops, and Josh claps, and we get real close on Rebecca, nodding sadly: "Wow."
Because let's talk about Rebecca for a second: there's no agenda here. There's no subterfuge. She knew what she could and could not go up against him with, and chose to reroute the questions so that she deflected the stuff she didn't want to talk about, and did this skillfully, because her by far largest asset in this game has been her Boardroom magic skills, and at no time was this a black/white thing for her; because that's her side of white privilege, she didn't really have to worry about that, but she's got her own alphabet that's actually very, very close to Randal's, if you trade some words out, like "Donald Trump thinks you're hot" is just an anagram of "affirmative action got you here." And she's just as fucked, and just as let down, by this bullshit. This is a woman with honor, who knew going in she was going to lose to Randal, and gave it her best, and kept focus on her potential and her talent and off her experience, for the most part, and only got scary a couple of times, but come on. She knew. And then to get dicked around, one more time, by Trump. I like to think she's not just realizing that Randal just screwed her, that she realizes how Byzantine this shit just got, but I can't say that for sure. I just really, really like her.
What we've learned: People aren't metaphors. They're people, and we know that. But Trump's tried to create some kind of living theatre art here for us, and maybe we'd be wise to check out the rich white guy holding the strings, the one who just managed to screw them both out of being the Apprentice, just for the kicks of trying something he'd never done before.
Brian finally catches Jenthura's eye, and they bond over a hot cup of OMG, and Markus invents a new kind of clapping where he pokes the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other, over and over and over. Randal is again congratulated, and Adam looks perturbed, and Rebecca murmurs, "That's unfortunate," and who would disagree with that, and her mic goes dead, they both shake the hands of the Viceroys and stuff and sit there awkwardly until the lights go crazy and Randal heads out into the crowd, and Toral hugs Rebecca and Melissa acts weird and Adam is still perturbed and Jentethno is so happy to be there and Alla is screaming something, with no idea how over her I really am. I can't see Rebecca anywhere, but I keep looking.
Trump's mic is still live. It picks up his voice: "Did you like that?"
There's not an answer.