The hell that is Brent -- though he does his best to ruin the focus of the entire group throughout the task -- is somehow lionized for being a freak, while the other members of the team are edited into Mean Girls without souls. The back flips and yoga twists that the show puts itself through to justify keeping him, while firing not one but two of the more promising candidates, is mind-boggling.
The task: to harass passersby and get them to text-message Gillette so that they can get those crappy "updates" about how amazing their new "razor system" is. While Gold Rush stakes out the bored, captive audience in the TKTS line in Times Square, Synergy deals with fifteen different kinds of Brent bullshit and then takes the morning off. Synergy eventually shows up -- after Gold Rush has already pulled a hundred messages -- wearing bathrobes, and then Brent makes like an insane clown, robot-dancing with an open robe and his fucked-up hair, scaring most of the natives and all of the tourists into thinking the old Times Square is back.
After Gold Rush wins the task by over 50%, winning the award of dressing the homeless, Synergy goes after Brent with a quickness, using a dust-up between Brent and his chosen marginalizing monster of the week, criminal defender Stacy, as their Stacy J "he's simply insane" reasoning. This, rather than the fact that he's actually a priori a huge freak with no chance in this competition. When Stacy tries to throw them off that track, because it's bullshit, the witch hunt continues without her, but she earns additional resentment from the team for "waffling." Project Manager Pepi brings Michael (who came up with the stupid bathrobes), Stacy (whose choice of location didn't really work out), and Brent back into the BR.
Against Stacy's wishes, Michael brings up the confrontation with Brent, putting Stacy on the spot and enraging Guest Viceroy Bill. Really Incredible Guest Viceroy Ivanka Trump, who frankly deserves her own television show, thinks they're all idiots. Ultimately, thanks to the mistaken assumption that anyone is tuning in to see Brent, Trump sends two others home: Pepi, who did nothing to stanch the fifteen kinds of hemorrhage the team sprung within the first ten seconds; and Stacy, for reasons unknown but Michael-approved.
Tarek heads into the suite sighing and grateful for the reprieve, as the entire group collectively gets weird and culty and relieved. They've got palm fronds waving and he's riding the ass of his own specialness and they're singing hosannas and throwing down rose petals on the berber and Bryce grabs him and holds him up to the sun, like Simba or a pre-rhino Jennifer Grey. Brent runs around in shorts looking gross, looking for someone to hug, and Tarek is just trying to keep it together in the face of this madness. Tarek tries to explain that he was "this close" and that the only think that saved him was Summer's idiocy, but they're like, "What? Can't hear you. Blinded by the greatness." It's telling that this display somehow makes Tarek the most sympathetic person in the suite: "I'm not going to tell Trump he was wrong for calling me out. Second place is first in a long line of losers, right?" Well, he's still kind of a dick, because I really hate it when they're like, "I'm not gonna tell Trump how to do his job, but..." and also because: What a winning attitude, my friend! I think you get further by trying to win, not by trying not to lose. If you take my meaning. Which is basically what he's saying, but I think he's standing on the wrong side of it. Credits, which Stacy seems to think are hilarious. "I think I like her a lot," say my notes. This should be interesting.
Hanging out on some street corner, as they do, the group welcomes Trump, Bill, and Trump's daughter Ivanka. Bill's hair: What color is it? It's so mysterious. Trump calls Ivanka "a true apprentice," and Tarek smiles, because what better way to prove how classy and smart and successful you are than by hitting on Donald Trump's daughter? As long as somebody sees you do it, it means something. Ivanka went to Wharton, so insert the usual Trumping about Wharton, and then...Ivanka's a funny little thing. She doesn't look smart, or all that pretty, at rest. She has the Paris Hilton face where it's just this tiny mouth on a dumb-looking mask of nothing. But then when she speaks, everything changes, and she becomes beautiful and sexy and smart and cool. Well, that sounds mean, and I don't mean to be rude, because I think she's really cool. Like Miu Von Furstenburg levels of cool. I just mean -- you know Trump's face when he's not talking? How it shuts off and he looks like a cadaver, or a stuffed toad on a bookshelf? She has that problem too, only when he talks, he turns into Trump, and when Ivanka talks, she turns into awesome.
Listen up, because I think Trump's having a paradigm shift: "Even though we're outside, people are still getting their work done...by Text Messaging." You can hear the capital letters. We cut through a bunch of suits tapping away on their Sidekicks. Everyone involved smiles indulgently as Trump explains -- in fucking depth -- how text messaging works. He ends the ridiculous speech by admitting that everybody on earth is familiar with the concept, except for him, who has never heard of it before. It's very cute, or maybe I just miss George this week. But also, I can see him not knowing that, because can you imagine him actually doing work? Without a huge oak desk and Miss Universe all slatternly in the corner and a ten-line phone he can pretend to yell at people on? So then we learn about Gillette, who has been making razors for a hundred years, and of course Trump uses them, like every second of the day, and of course Trump loves them, like he's actually married to one. Other things Trump has never heard of: multiple-blade razor "systems," women shaving, or cell phones. He makes a weird, nonsensical "joke" about how men and women can use the five-blade razor "system," but women can only use it on their legs, but not their faces, but maybe their faces, because who knows what women do, or something. As if women exist when you're not looking at them. But then, it's not like you bring your trick to watch you get the Brazil, you know -- although I assume there are cases -- so why should he know anything? His women probably arrive in those dry-cleaner bags. "I had no idea grown women had pubic hair and used text messaging out in the open like that. I have not seen that before. It kind of makes me want to throw up, if I'm being honest." Each team will choose one keyword, so that people can text those to a number, and then receive annoying, stupid messages to their phones all the time about what's going on with Gillette. Whichever team's keyword is texted to Gillette the most times wins.
Showtime, Synergy. Pepi has volunteered as PM and thinks "it's going to be a great task," but I don't know why that would be. It sounds like a shit task. Everything sucky about sales, none of the fun marketing stuff: just harassing people on the street in New York City and asking them to text message somebody they don't care about to get useless updates on a product they don't care about either. Didn't they have a lemonade stand one, once? This is like that, only instead of a lemonade stand, it's a vinegar smell-test. "Which is more irritating a scent?" He asks his team what they think might make people stop, and I think the answer is: outright lying. "Text Gillette and enter this contest." Michael makes the very good point that there are two demographics at play, the ones that use text messaging and the ones that don't, so they have to be smart about location and harassees. Brent tries to tell them all something stupid, but Stacy rudely interrupts him, trying to finish the sentence she was in the middle of when he had his brilliant fucking brainstorm. What a bitch. The team attempts to discuss the task, and Brent continues to yell about "I have a couple of ideas, I have a couple of ideas," but doesn't have the basics necessary to wait for an opening and just say them. Basic reading-the-room skills kind of come with the territory. Stacy interviews us that she "can't imagine how somebody gets anywhere with zero skills, zero ability to make a decision, and who constantly has to be the center of attention." I cannot disagree with any of that. All we've seen from Brent is a real willingness to tell us, and the team, over and over how awesome he is without backing it up at all, because how could he find the time to do that, when he's so busy telling us what he's going to tell us one day that is so amazing? Everybody's getting annoyed, and yeah, he has a point that they're ignoring him, but they're ignoring him because he's not saying anything, and he's not playing by the rules, so it's kind of a zero sum.
Quick Quiz: Nobody will listen to your great idea! Do you:
A. Preface it over and over into the space over the table, interrupting everyone else without actually saying anything worthwhile?
B. Address one person by name with the gist of your idea?
C. Continually stray from the topic and say over and over again how great your idea is and how rude everyone is to not listen to your idea, which you have still not mentioned?
D. Take note of how nobody else seems to have this problem, because they're all getting along just fine in life, and wonder why this is the case?
E. Take note of how nobody else seems to have this problem, because they're all getting along just fine, and assume that, yet again, the entire world is against you, because you're just such a fucking victim, so you better start screaming about nothing, repetitively?
F. Choose one person at random, decide that they have it out for you, and then attempt to dress them down publicly even though the whole group hates you and is doing the same thing? And then switch to somebody else? And then somebody else?
Answer Key: Optimally, D followed by B. If you're Brent, everything but.
As Brent interrupts the entire process over and over, rambling about some "guy with shaving cream on his face," everyone laughs openly at him. Due to his weird focus on Stacy, Roxanne puts her arms around her, and we're back to last week's team-building exercise, with Brent as the self-selected scapegoat. Brent attempts badly to kiss Pepi's ass, throws pens around, refuses to stop even though Stacy asks him politely, and interviews, sickeningly, hands aflutter: "My team doesn't know how to handle me! I stand out from the crowd! That's the way it's been my whole life!"
Hold It Right The Fuck There Quiz! How old are you?
A. Five years or younger.
B. Other.
Answer Key: That's what I thought. Nonconformity is one thing, but being conscious of the fact that at no point has anybody put up with your bullshit? In your entire life? And somehow that's not your problem, but in fact the problem of everyone else in the world? That's the definition of actually crazy. That's "everybody else is a robot" thinking at its finest. He has no business being here anyway, except as an object lesson in the fact that no matter who you are, in the corporate world, your boss is going to be a Brent-Omarosa-Michael Scott-Gervais with no concept of time or space or social interaction. Which is good TV, so it's good for us, but it's really, really sad for Brent.
Brent officiously takes Stacy out of the room into the hall, and yells at her about how she has to stop interrupting him, because he's brilliant and she's nothing. She, of course, tries to get back into the room so she can get to work, instead of getting the finger in the face and the crazy unloading of a bunch of shit that really has nothing to do with her, and he won't let her back into the room. She finally ducks under his arm and asks for "some team support." On the one hand, this is a nice way of using the rest of the team's exasperation to get him out of her face, and it's kind of bitchy, because I'm sure he's had at least one good idea and hasn't been able to get it out, because they are kind of ignoring him out of habit at this point. But on the other hand: the fuck you're going to take me out of the room and lecture me about my interpersonal skills when you smell like cheese and everybody hates you. You want us all to play the roles in this thing you've set up where the whole world is against you because you're just this secretly wonderful Harry Potter wizard that requires only the magical touch of Donald Trump so everybody will recognize and bow down to your brilliance? I'll do the first part, motherfucker, but the rest is up to you. She tells them about the finger in the face and the fact that he got all up in her personal space, and then interviews that she wants him "out of here," totally pissed.
And I think a lot of us tuned out, at this point, because it's an old, old story. We've seen it on Big Brother and we've seen it on Real World a fucking billion times, and I think we've seen it on this show: "I was minding my own business and boom, I felt attacked, because I'm just a little girl and he's a big strong man, and he should get thrown out the house." But I don't see this as being part of that reality TV tradition, because it's a vastly different situation. Pepi, looking for a reason, asks her to confirm that they had a "confrontation." "I was confronted by Brent, and I feel threatened, yes."
Which is the heart of the division here, on how you read this episode. Is she saying "I will lever the fact that he has no social skills to our group advantage by playing the easy 'threatened' card, tossing drama and getting him benched"? Or is she saying, "What I don't need is a finger in my face and a giant guy screeching at me about nothing in the hallway, because we're supposedly all professionals here"? I tend to go with mostly the second one, because Threat Matrix drama or not: what part of that shit is okay, in business? He did invade her space, he did start with the finger, he did squeal impotently about nothing while blocking her exit, and he did single her out as a persecutor instead of analyzing the situation rationally, and took out his rage on her personally for no reason. There's a very strong vibe of "Stacy always treats me like this" going on here, and the fact is there is no "always," they just met last episode. The "always" is always a cliché of stuff getting attached to people that has nothing to do with them and everything to do with a painful history in a not-so-attractive set of luggage. It's not the sacred chivalry line he crossed, it's just the basic etiquette of business, and it's a neon sign he has no business being here. So semantically, I have concerns with this, but the spirit of it -- and this is where I think Stacy and I agree, and we'll see her having the ongoing battle with the semantics her own self -- is completely correct. Somebody who acts like that deserves to go home, without regard to the rest of it, the boy/girl of it, the physical intimidation of it. To the point where I almost feel like it's an any-means-necessary kind of deal. I wouldn't actually throw a fit if he got fired based on the lie of "threatening behavior," because it's shorthand for the fact that he doesn't know where the line is. I wouldn't personally do anything like that, because it's a pussy move, but as a viewer, I think it would cut through a lot of bullshit.
"What I said," he begins, and already: "what you said" is not at issue, it's the way you said it, or didn't in this case -- that's the issue. But if Brent knew thing one about body language, nonverbal communication, personal space, hygiene, things of this nature, he'd not be in this pickle, and I get that, so he's judging it by what he said, which was apparently very meaningful for him personally. Even though maybe not even Markus would even get what he was talking about. "There was no assault, there was no battery." Okay, got it. Have we so quickly fallen to the "since I don't actually understand what I'm being accused of, I'll take it ad absurdum and hope that works" so quickly, Brent? She said I got in her face? Well, I wasn't carrying a gun, so what's the problem? "As an attorney, Stacy should be embarrassed and ashamed of herself." Wait, what? He says this sixteen hundred times in the episode and I still don't know what that means, except that being a lawyer is Brent's own personal Mensa certificate.
"If you're going to treat me like a piece of crap, you better be prepared to get a response! If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen!" Okay, I don't know what that means exactly either, but I think he thinks that "business" is about yelling and interrupting and fighting and making trouble, which if you watch this show, you might be confused about that, I guess. I think he thinks she needs to step up and face the fact that grown adults will sometimes bitch and scream and act like kids, and if she can't handle that, she should just go home. That's what it seems to suggest. Which is: crazy talk. "It wasn't harassment! There was nothing there! Stacy is making something out of nothing!" No, she's making something out of something, but you've replaced her something with a something that makes no sense to anybody but you. By his rules, yes, she's overreacting, but only because he would never understand the actual problem in a million years, because the actual problem is him, like, the way he is, and nobody could reasonably expect him to get that. Obviously he sees no problem with his own behavior, or else he, you know, wouldn't behave that way, so the issue is clearly hers. Which would be okay if A) he were correct, or B) it were just her. But it's not just her. Pepi elicits from Stacy: "I'm not going to be physically confronted by somebody for [no reason]." That's the score at halftime: Stacy doesn't like getting screamed at, Brent's satisfied with the fact that he didn't actually hit her. No bruise, no foul. This is idiotic.
Funny music plays over the Weekly Wisdom: "People Are Strange." Trump tells us that "Life is full of different people." Some of them are well dressed and attractive, but are losers. Some other people are ugly, don't have "the right clothing" or "face." In fact, there's nothing right about them, but maybe they turn out to be winners. This is a heinous back flip to help justify the whole issue with keeping Brent around at the end of the episode, because the show knows as well as we do that Brent's demeanor and persona and general lack of attractive physical qualities are burdens, but that they're not insurmountable. What is insurmountable is the fact that he is a douchebag. But the show's going to keep him, and here's how: "You never can judge a book by its cover." Which is true, but if you then open the book, and the first page is nonsense and curse words and a picture of a woman doing physiologically inadvisable and unhygienic things in a bathtub, you are allowed to assume the book is not for you. You don't have to read the whole book to figure that out. And plus, the other level on which this is a lie anyhow, because anybody worthwhile knows that the book of them does get judged by its cover, all the time, and they do what they have to do to make their covers better. And that's the level on which not doing so proves that you're what everybody thought in the first place. It's the whole Simon Cowell thing: if I tell you you're not commercial, I'm not being mean. I don't even know what this word "mean" actually connotes, because this is not a fucking playground and I couldn't care less about your feelings and how you cry at night, because we're talking about a business. I'm stating facts. And the facts are something that most successful people at least acknowledge, because that's the key to success in the real world: reality.
Over at Gold Rush, Lee's the PM and he's handing out the razors. They brainstorm -- without really any fucking trouble at all, because they're adults -- about how the five-blade razor "system" allows a closer shave, and the campaign could be about "getting five times closer" and maybe, like, "Get Closer" would be good. That's Tarek, and he's right, but since it's Tarek it's kind of Game Over at that point. Tarek interviews that "Everybody selected Lee as the PM." He kind of scoffs, because Lee's a "twenty-two-year-old kid," and Tarek's concern is that Lee's "going to be overwhelmed." I'm willing to give Tarek the benefit of the doubt, because ever since Trump called him an asshole he's been acting more human, so instead of assuming that he's bitching about Lee's inexperience based on the bitterness of not getting to be PM on every single task -- which is how I would have read it last week, admittedly -- he might be right. Not to mention he seems to bear zero ill will for the whole contretemps with Lee last week, which I think reflects well on them both. The episode bears it out, regardless of his motivation here. Lee takes a poll on the keyword, "Closer," and makes sure everybody's on board, everybody's confident, nobody has anything else to add, et cetera. Which is moderately annoying, because the word itself is nothing compared to how good they are going to be at getting in faces, but at least it shows a management strategy, which Pepi has yet to demonstrate in any way. Everybody else kind of finds it irritating, but Lee is pretty cool so they don't do anything about it, just nod and nod until he's comfortable. Lenny interviews: "Lee spent so much time on the keyword...I don't care what word they're typing! Who cares, really?" Charmaine and Lee continue to process the parliamentary acceptance of the key word. "This could not be a simpler part," continues Lenny. "Get a guy to dial it for you. What could be simpler?" I know, right? He gets more and more excited and starts getting jumpy about how they need to leave and get started doing it. Lenny, Charmaine, and Leslie are going to Times Square. Lee looks pretty freaked as Lenny voices over that the task is to get as many text messages as possible. In case we, like most of both teams, forgot that altogether.
Stacy, in her position of Head Inquisitor for this witch hunt: "It's distracting. Totally out of control." Tammy admits that Brent's wasting everybody's time, and then Pepi fucking loses me for good. "Trump suggested somebody be fired, with Omarosa in the final task." I can't even tell you how stupid that is, or on how many levels, but suffice it to say: Trump doesn't fucking remember what happened ten minutes ago, and is completely capricious and chaotic with his decisions, so basing your strategy on what happened long ago is a sign not of leadership, but of watching too much TV. If that's how Pepi was planning on playing this game, he doesn't need to stick around: the decisions are made based on what happens in the task, not on precedent -- right or wrong, that's how the decision is going to be made. "What about Omarosa?" is not a valid Boardroom defense, because the correct reply is: "Oh, was she there?"
Tammy interviews that Pepi was so "worried about pleasing everybody," not to mention his invisible Trump mental image, "that the whole team got mad." Andrea mentions how bad it "sucks" that they have to deal with this, period, which is exactly what I'm feeling. My love for Andrea grows every week. It does suck that they have to deal with it, because isn't it enough that they have this task to deal with? Do they really need the extra "challenge" of Brent ruining every discussion? Tammy and Andrea are on board with firing him today. So of course, Pepi's going to…clear this with Brent? "A suggestion has been made to send you home." And Brent gets superlative on his ass: "Anyone who says that is absolutely insane and that is totally not acceptable." At the same time as Pepi is stupidly asking him not to "make a huge issue" about it, which: anybody would, Brent completely loses track of his shit. "You know who decides who goes home? Not you, not Andrea, not all eight of you! [None of you] have a vote to say to send me home! You guys have no authority to say that!" He sticks his finger in Pepi's face, shining righteously with a glandular problem and his own incompetence. Basically, then, what you're saying, what you're demanding, is that they'll have to bench you, in lieu of tossing you out altogether. Choad. I would also point out that the Stacy thing is not a part of this conversation, on either side: it's about the fact that he's a jackass, nothing else. And now he's got his fingers in Pepi's face? Send him home in a fucking cast, dude. Pepi's continuing to play the game, instead of attending to the task. "Brent, you wanna go straight to marketing?" I don't actually know what flipped him here, except maybe Brent scaring Pepi with the idea that Trump wouldn't approve of benching him. Which is true this week, sort of, because People Are Strange. Michael interviews that he's "pissed about wasting time with Brent," and then in the interview tells everyone his moderately crappy idea about all of them wearing bathrobes and wandering through Times Square in their bathrobes. "People will ask why," he says, which is wrong, because people will ignore you, because you look crazy. But the tag line is deceptively cool: "You'll find out if you text message this word." I can see selling the team based on that script, but it ignores the fact that there are already people all over New York City wandering about in their bathrobes, and nobody ever asks them why, because they already know why. And the people that do ask, are just looking to end up on Overheard In New York, anyway. Everybody in the van is like, "I love it! Love it! Great idea!"
Night. The part of Gold Rush that didn't feel like doing the actual task is sitting around upstairs, still brainstorming about variations on the theme and what they're going to do, immediately after the task starts, which it already has. Tarek, punchy, is like, "Get yourself closer...wanna rub cheeks?" and Dan, also punchy, comes out with the pretty hilarious "You don't wanna rub cheeks with these people. That's potentially disastrous." I love Dan. Charmaine calls up to Lee asking if the rest of the team is going to be joining them for, you know, the actual task, and Lee just starts naming off clubs and places where there are people, and their street addresses. Which literally could not be less helpful. Lenny finally walkies, "Cut the bullshit, we need you here." Lee stares into space. Theresa, with Lenny, is disgusted by all nothing that's currently happening. "Tell him we're meeting them," he says, but Lenny continues to shout into the walkie, kind of too taken with this "I am Lenny, I cut through the bullshit" idea he's got about himself to really be very helpful, because it just gets repetitive and weird as he screams again and again that Lee and the boys need to shut up and come to them immediately. Leslie eventually tells him to cut it out because the batteries are running out and he's not saying anything, but Lenny continues to scream into the walkie. Leslie interviews that "We're not going to get the most texts going back to the suite, or driving around town. We get the most texts by getting out there and making people text in." Which is the smartest thing anybody's said in a while. Lenny screams louder and louder at Lee, then abruptly hangs up. Heartbreakingly, Lee stares at the phone, shakes it, getting more and more weirded out: "Hello? Hello? Hello? ...Hello?"
Morning. Gold Rush leaves at like 6:30 AM (it's a Sunday, by the way; the time and date cues here are usually so fastidiously lacking that it's always confusing to me, especially when they do these population density tasks), looking very attractive in their matching white sweatshirts. Roxanne sweetly goes from room to room, gently waking up her team. Pepi thanks her, Stacy looks insane and cute when she wakes up, and everybody else, it would seem, Roxanne scares the shit out of. It's a fun little set of jumps from room to room. Roxanne interviews that Pepi is completely out of control of the team, and we cut to him and Sean eating cereal leisurely in the kitchen, as the minutes tick by. Stacy is in charge of location, being that she's from New York, and she tells us her plan is to put them "in the area with highest foot traffic per hour," which seems like a bad idea in many ways, because doesn't "foot traffic" connote people with something to do? It's been an hour since the other team left, Roxanne tells Synergy, but they don't seem to grasp how this fact is killing her inside, or how there's got to be a reason that Gold Rush left so early.
Gold Rush. Tarek and Lee watch everybody yakking about where they should be, and Lee's just agreeing with everything that anybody says, especially Lenny, who I think intimidated him sufficiently last night that he feels the need to get him back on his side. Stupid. "I like it, I love it, we're doing it," Lee says in a fashion intended to seem decisive and commanding, but actually gives the opposite impression. He interviews that he'd "realized Lenny was right," and Lenny comforts him with hugs and noogies. Yuck. Not that hugs and noogies aren't great fun for everyone, but way to overcome the disadvantage of your age, dude. They'll get over thinking you're the little brother right quick if you keep doing that shit. I guess Lee's cool with being the team mascot. "It's very simple: the people with the most text messages wins. I learned my lesson. I'm learning it the whole time, as I go along." Nothing wrong with that, I guess, except it does give us a window on the way he views himself here, which is again: Don't be the little brother and they won't treat you like the little brother. And maybe we forgot to mention, but: You are the fucking Project Manager. Lenny and Lee are buddies again, for good or ill, and everybody's got signs about texting "CLOSER" to some number, and Tarek points out exactly how they're going to be winning the task to us: "Everybody's moving, everybody's got somewhere to be. But in the TKTS line, they're stuck. They have to play along with our antics." Which is exactly, exactly right, as long as you're going to plant yourself in a high-traffic public area. He tells Bill -- well, more precisely, Bill's ass -- that they were "up and out before the other team even woke up."
Scary music plays us into the freakshow of Synergy, also in Times Square. Sean is Britishing into a bullhorn as Andrea does cute, funny stuff in her bathrobe. Michael interviews that the people in Times Square are "on the move," they want to "get to their destination," and completes the thought like Tarek did, with a little strategery on top: "Stacy was in charge of location on this task...should have let [Pepi] know [they] needed to do something different." Michael's obvious intelligence, plus this willingness to blame Stacy for making the exact same location decision as the winning team, puts a different spin on his Boardroom activities, for me. I would think it would be just as easy for Pepi to make the call to move to a higher-density, lower-movement area as it was for Tarek and Lee to do so. Perhaps Michael could have offered a suggestion or two? They all look insane on a street corner in their bathrobes for a while. I would think at some point at least one of them would notice at least the fact that the rest of them look like idiots, and make the jump to the fact that this is a good idea but a terrible strategy. Ivanka shows up looking like the Lance Corporal of Awesome Company, Intimidation Regiment, and they all get worried. Roxanne says that "Advertising doesn't matter at this point -- we need bodies," and I love how the moment of epiphany keeps happening with both teams, where they keep remembering the point of the task. It's neat for them that they get to keep figuring out the basics. I imagine there's a sense of enormous well-being that goes along with that.
Okay. Does Brent own pants? Can we get Brent some pants? Is there maybe a foundation where Trump could set Brent up with some slacks or something? Because I am so sick of seeing his pasty fucking self without pants. He's farting around in his shorts again, bathrobe hanging open, fucked-up hair all askew, fairly chasing people across the street with his aggression and grossness. All that's missing is, like, dribbled food down his shirtfront. Or a IV stand attached to him, that he could pull around on little wheels. He actually has the nerve to interview: "As far as I'm concerned, we have to go full-force ahead. I actually have another technique to attract people." And oh, does he ever. He starts dancing around like a freak, yelling at Sean, laughing weirdly, doing the Truffle Shuffle, dancing to no music at all, yelling and hooting and hollering. (Am I getting confused? Is this Taylor Hicks all of a sudden? TiVo, I swear to God.) Get this shit off my screen. Brent does the robot and dances like a fuckface. People laugh at him cruelly. He has no idea. He never does. This is worse than karaoke. I want to die. Roxanne's not impressed, Stacy's staring like she's about to barf, passersby tear up with embarrassment. Stacy interviews: "I'm a criminal defense attorney. I've met the strangest people you can possibly imagine. I have never seen a creation like this." Word, lady. I can't...at least criminals do their crimes to other people. That's so much more satisfying than this. Ivanka offers slight praise: "Well. He's hard to miss." The whole team, plus Ivanka, laugh at him. "Brent is an anomaly. I've never saw somebody operate this way." Some people text the number, presumably so that he'll step away, and Brent interviews, "If Synergy didn't have Brent on this task, they wouldn't have gotten the attention. I was able to use the sign and my other creative talents" -- such as dance, robotics, and being a nutcase -- "to attract people. And I'm good at it. Maybe the team is starting to realize that I am a talented individual." I think they already knew you were good at this, Brent. But what you're never apparently going to understand is that what you're demonstrating is not a business skill, but in fact behaving like a fool. A disgusting, shameless, dickheaded nuisance of a fool. "Listen to me, and we will win this task." No they won't, but anyway how about: "Get some self respect, and you'll deserve it."
Flash Quiz! This task requires getting the attention of others! Do you:
A. Drop your panties and show off your ass to sell candy?
B. Shake your fat ass in an open bathrobe in the hopes of making people so nervous that they'll do anything to get away from you -- so they can go home and cry?
C. Assume that when your buddies at the factory get you drunk, and then make you demonstrate your janitorial duties while drunk, and then make you dance with a prostitute so that you get a hilarious erection, and then send you out for a left-handed newspaper and ditch you altogether, and then later on mug you and steal your cash and leave you on the street, it's because you're their friend?
D. Take it as a sign that you're a fantastic team member-slash-thought leader when the other girls knock you down in the shower and throw tampons in your face, screaming, "Plug it up! Plug it up!"
E. Believe in your heart of hearts that ending up ass-to-ass on a double-headed sex toy with another girl while fat men laugh and throw money and yell, "Come! Come! Come!" is just the inevitable step in your journey to fulfillment?
F. Put the Brit on a megaphone and demonstrate the class, usefulness, and aspirational value of the product by looking as sexy and put together as possible?
Answer Key: If you answered ...
A, you are an "Ivana." I used to like you, but you got ahead of yourself disastrously.
B, you are a "Brent." Please get off my fucking television.
C, you are a "Charlie Gordon," and you need to understand that those people aren't your friends. I'll put a flower on Algernon's grave for you.
D, you are a "Carrie White." Don't let the Greatest American Hero take you to the prom, because all he cares about is Amy Irving, not text messages. Pig's blood looms large in your future.
E, you are a "Marion Silver." Even the Kronos Quartet thinks you're an asshole, and they have the balls to call themselves the "Kronos Quartet." Also: date Jared Leto, you get what's coming to you. Gross.
F, you might just deserve to be the Apprentice -- it's fair to say you might just be an "Ivanka Trump" -- but I don't see you competing anywhere on this show.
Bottom line: If you don't vote for yourself, first and last and any time you can, you don't deserve to win. Anything.
Into the Boardroom for the task results. Ivanka calls the teams, I think Synergy specifically, a "very interesting group of people," "a lot of fun," and "a very impressive group," none of which are lies exactly. Gold Rush is deemed by Bill to be "very smart and very impressive," which is also true. Gold Rush came up with 683 texts, which sounds like a lot to both Trump and yours truly. Bill says that Synergy got "a late start" and never really "found a location," and ended up with 458. Gold Rush cheers as Bill clarifies that this means Synergy lost by "almost a 50% margin," and notes that this is a "pretty rough beating." Trump tells Pepi he's going to be going home, indirectly: "It's easier for me when a team loses so badly." Pepi knows his time is up, and he and Andrea make sad faces. Gold Rush's reward is to "work with a non-profit" to give disadvantaged men clothes and stuff. That's awesome. The team is pretty happy about it, because who doesn't love dress-up. Trump says they'll be fitting three guy for suits and helping them pick out ties and watches and cufflinks, the whole deal. That actually does sound very fun, if you're into that, which they all are. Trump leads the witness: "It's not the typical reward, where you get a diamond ring or whatever..." and Dan and Tarek fall all over each other to complete the obvious thought: "It's better!" "It's more important, sir!" Synergy is very sad about the upcoming Boardroom.
Leslie's hair looks like crazy ass for the rest of the episode. Dan steps forward at the Gold Rush reward and shakes hands with the head of the non-profit, first thing. I really think he's going to do well. The guy introduces them to the concept of John, Robert, and Vaughn, who have had "a little bit of hardship in their lives," and tells them that this exercise is about motivating them to "get back out into the workforce." This is so cool. There's a comparable non-profit for women that gets a lot more attention (and maybe for just a titch bigger reason), but it's a very, very cool concept regardless. I'm glad they both exist. John used to be on Wall Street, but kind of lost his mind after 9/11. It took two years for the downward spiral to fully land him on public assistance. I doubt very much that he's the sole case. Dan works with him and dresses him and is so cute and interviews about the importance of helping these men get to a place where they can "take care of themselves and their families." Robert's been in sales for five years, but "one thing" lead to "another" and out of nowhere he lost his job and now he has no idea what to do. At some point he made the counterintuitive step of growing a soul patch. I'm not unsympathetic, God knows, but I do want to offer what help I can. Lenny tells him he's the "king of the hour," and it's touching. They get all the guys dressed and then they come out looking great and shaking everybody's hands and they all applaud them and it's lovely.
Trump comes in and looks at all of them, and all my happy turns to hate, because you're gonna take these guys with stuff going on that is so bad we don't even know what it is, and then show them Trump? In a post-Oprah world? That's completely uncalled for. He shakes their hands, these men in full and long-term survival mode, smelling like money and like the chance of being saved, and they prevaricate about how Trump is "an icon" and they're now inspired to be just like him, and Trump offers the most that he can, which is: well-wishes and a clap on the back. "I just loved seeing those three young men dressed up. I gave them a hand. Trouble...problems... You know what? They felt like a million bucks! A billion bucks! They just felt good!" But only Trump knows what a billion bucks feels like, because only Trump has a billion bucks. It's not his responsibility to give these guys any money or jobs or anything, I don't personally think he owes them anything in particular, but I think it's singularly tacky showing up like that when he knows full well that he's a media icon of sorts, that he's bigger than he seems. I hope somebody took them aside beforehand and said, "Don't get excited, he's not going to give you anything," but even if they did, you'd still kind of think it, wouldn't you? Like if you showed up to Oprah the day after one of those times she goes crazy with the giveaways, cars and crepes and dental surgery for your impacted roots and sleigh beds and split-level houses and fabulous vacations and unwanted children or whatever, all of these things under your chair in the studio audience, and then she was like, "Oh, um, here's a copy of A Million Little Pieces and a Starbucks card," you'd feel kind of fucked, I think. My favorite part of American Psycho is when Patrick and the guys light hundred-dollar bills on fire and wave them under the noses of the homeless. I think about that and laugh at least once a week, but it's only funny because it's a satire and a piece of fiction and it's a brilliant objective correlative on the mental place those characters are in. Turns out it's a lot less fucking funny in real life. "Enjoy your bespoke suits, and remember: hang them up in your cardboard boxes, fellas. You can't steam them flat if you don't own a bathroom. I have to go dive into my money vault now and swim around in all the money now, so later!"
Synergy goes up against that misfit Brent again, bitching in a round table as he's standing around the corner eavesdropping in some slovenly sweatpants. "We've tried, we've sat him down," says one, and that's true. "He's not mentally stable," says Allie, and that's true. "He has an awkwardness with women," says Pepi, which is actually more interesting and deserves more attention than they give it. "He has a potential to snap...and he has done it!" somebody says dramatically. Michael interviews, "When Brent snaps there will be serious problems," and I almost pass out from thoughts of pleasure watching that go down. "The aggressiveness with Stacy, I felt so bad." Allie thinks that part of it should not be minimized, and I agree, but as a plank, not the focus. They all talk about his abnormal behavior and Sean brings up how Brent acts like an escapee from a mental ward, and Pepi talks about how Brent will indeed be losing it at some point, in case you didn't know, and interviews that Brent's not so much "trying to be funny," but nevertheless "might has well be wearing a big red nose and big-ass shoes." And yes, I hate clowns and I hate Brent, but not all birds are irrefutably blackbirds: I hate Brent not because he is clownish, I hate him because he is a dipshit.
Stacy tries to rein them in from using her Brent experience as the main deal: "If I thought I was in a dangerous situation, I would have voiced it. I was uncomfortable for a moment, but I wouldn't characterize it as a threat...[just] inappropriate and confrontational." Which, again, she's coming up against the semantics, which is that she did use the word "threat," and since trying to back off this is at cross-purposes to the witch-hunt mentality, she's going to get burned for that, when her actual take on the situation has been clear from start to finish. If they weren't so invested in the idea of scapegoating him on this particular drama-queen issue, they'd know to portray it as a symptom of the issue, and not the issue itself, but this way Stacy's just handing them the stupidest way of dealing with it that they could possibly use. So of course Pepi's all over it and not hearing her at all. Roxanne, especially, is disappointing this regard, interviewing that Stacy's being "wishy-washy" and that apparently the question is not whether Brent's actions were appropriate, so much as whether Stacy actually used the word "threat" or not. Which kind of makes me dislike Roxanne, because that's a really ridiculous lateral move for these people. Allie's not happy, because her whole persona that we've seen so far is about how they're all such great friends and it's all based on a mutual hatred of Brent. Stacy tries again: "I was unnerved when I came in, and..." "You made it seem like you wanted something done right then," Roxanne interrupts, even though that's not a contradiction of anything really. She did. She wanted him out of her face. "If she was consistent about her story, I think I would have felt differently about it, ultimately," snits Roxanne, who clearly is not interested in the complexities of this, and would rather hyperfocus on what she imagines Stacy thought happened than what she saw with her own eyes.
So Stacy tries again, saying that she "wouldn't have continued with the project" if that was the issue, because she "wouldn't have felt comfortable." She isn't expressing this very well, because it takes prohibitively too many words to reverse the assumptions the rest of the team is only to happy to be working with, here. They're getting pissed because, in their oversimplified take, she handed them a fairly blunt object -- "Brent physically threatened me" -- and now she's trying to take it away, by explaining what they failed to pick up on originally. People like things simple, and this isn't simple, and trying to explain that is impossible. Especially when it runs counter to something that makes them feel good about themselves -- this is a no-fault ejection of Brent, and the only person who might take heat for it is Stacy, so they all win -- you can't do that. People cannot physically hear your words once they've leveraged things like this. You might as well -- and I don't say this often -- not even try. Find another way. Brent: "Synergy looks at me and says, 'There's a nutcase, over there, who has no ideas, and no sense of what's going on around him, and is a complete moron.'" Yes. But it's not just Synergy. And even if it was, you don't think that's a problem? Lazy motherfucker. Pepi and Brent get dressed on either side of a wall, so the camera takes them both in, like they're mirror images of each other, or like Duck Soup, except I'm so over Pepi at this point they might as well be the same fucking person. "That's all right," Brent voices over, as he takes an amazing amount of time making sure his hair looks just perfectly, precisely as moronic and embarrassing as possible, "I'm smarter than them."
Flash Quiz! True or False?
1. You're used to being a big fish in a small pond, whether or not that has ever been the case. True or False?
2. Your mother thinks you're the smartest, bestest boy in the world. True or False?
3. Over the course of your entire life, people have taken one look at you and written you off. True or False?
4. This is due to stuff beyond your control. True or False?
5. Therefore, there's no need to ever take a look in the mirror, or even consider trying on their moccasins, at all. True or False?
6. Constant rejection and bullying is just your lot in life. It hurts, but that's just the way it is. True or False?
Ivanka's in white and looking fly. Trump asks Pepi what the hell happened, losing at a 50% margin. Pepi: "We were heavily distracted by Brent through the whole process." True. Andrea nods, Brent interrupts. As they are both wont to do. "That is unbelievable that they lost a lot of time due to my distraction! Because! First of all, I was a star on this task!" Trump's like, "Say what?" Allie's shaking her head. Brent's still going. Pepi: "Brent was a big part of the reason we lost. A lot of people made mistakes. If they could concentrate..." Which, back to the Summer thing from last week: if all it takes to bring down eight multimillionaires with track records like theirs is a neurotic toolbox who is clearly not in possession of his faculties...shut up, Pepi. "By the time you started, they had a hundred already! They were better!" That was a very Carolyn thing to say, Trump. I liked it. Michael pipes up, again with the strategery, but still correct: "He wasn't able to manage Brent." Trump asks if Michael could have done better, managing Brent, although I would ask: then why didn't he? Why sit back and watch Pepi fuck up? Because you came up with that Smooth As Silk bathrobe crap? Your job was done? Michael non-answers, because he's smart enough to know that's the followup question: "I've thought about that question a lot, Mr. Trump." Trump asks whether Michael doesn't, at least, find Brent to be "a smart guy," and his strangled and disbelieving "BRENT?" makes Pepi laugh. It also sets up a good precedent for down the road. Trump looks at Brent, who starts talking.
"They don't know what they're talking about, Mr. Trump! I am a very smart guy!" Trump asks him whether he was responsible for the loss ("Absolutely not!"), and so then who was: "Pepi! I wouldn't hire Pepi to organize my nephew's first birthday party!" You know how Brent's questionnaire answers were weirdly focused on Chevy Chase? How Chevy Chase is this master of comedy and if he could compare himself to anybody in the movies, it would be Chevy Chase, and how his "friends" constantly compare him to Chevy Chase? You need to know that, and to really have digested that, to understand the repulsive self-satisfaction that crosses his face at the witty and mordant "nephew's first birthday" bon mot bomb he just dropped. He nearly cracks himself up. "...And if Pepi were working for one of your companies, you wouldn't get one night's sleep! Because he doesn't know what he's doing!" Bill's like, WTF? Hold up! And Trump cracks one of his three jokes, about "Other than that, though, you love him?" Brent, who shares Trump's lack of any sense of humor, laughs creakily.
Trump moves on. "Who picked the location?" Pepi is right there with the answer, Stacy, and Bill says that "location" was their "downfall." Stacy points out that both teams were in the same location, so that's a weird call to make. Trump confirms that both teams were in Times Square, and Ivanka explains the difference, which to my mind indicts Pepi vastly more than Stacy: "They were there earlier, they'd staked it out. You had the herding mentality. I don't know who came up with bathrobes, but it didn't speak to the quality of this brand." Trump goes down the line, asking who should be fired. Sean says Brent, Allie says Brent, and Roxanne answers truthfully: "The reason we lost this task was because we didn't get all the manpower out on the floor until noon. That's Pepi's fault." Too true. Andrea says that Brent "usurped" too much of their time, and Bill calls bullshit: "If he took up that much of the time..." Andrea's just like, "He's fucking embarrassing. We wanted to fire him."
This Boardroom is so weirdly edited. Trump jumps from that to some bullshit comment about having only the women in bathrobes, which everyone kindly ignores. I think the all-time record for Trump's asshatted comments, in terms at least of quantity, gets raised in this episode. I love Ivanka, but I miss Carolyn. Andrea tells him that the bathrobes were Michael's idea, and he pusses out majorly: "I'm not the one that has final approval." Trump explains pretty cogently how just saying that means that Michael sucks, so Michael jumps sideways into asshole territory: "You are looking for the Apprentice. A member of the team has threatened a female member of the team." Stacy goes: "Oh, fuck," using just her face. Trump asks who, and Michael pauses -- "Am I actually going to pull this shit?" -- before naming Stacy. So now Michael's off the hotseat, and Stacy's on it. And Michael did that, knowing full well that Stacy didn't want this in the Boardroom. And here I was liking Michael. Too bad. ["You really see the divide, right here, between the show's stated objective -- finding an executive -- and the fact that the show is a contest. If there aren't cameras in the room, I don't think Michael's touching that shit with a ten-foot pole. Maybe I'm wrong; let's caucus." -- Sars]
"His words, and the conduct accompanying those words...I felt threatened." Which is the best way to say it, I guess, once you're painted into this corner. But Trump goes weird: "You're a criminal defense attorney, you've seen worse." Which would be bad enough, because the answer is not from the other fucking attorneys, I haven't, and not in a professional capacity, but he follows it up with the painfully obvious and not-at-all relevant "I think you scare Brent!" Who then...fucking...laughs. Like that's a point in his goddamn favor. Like Trump didn't just insult him worse than either of them know. "Ha, ha, I'm scared of women and that makes me aggressive and scary and awkward and pathetic! Ha!" Stacy says the very awesomest thing she'll ever say: "I wish I did scare Brent." She tries again to explain the story: she was trying to get back into to the meeting room, and he rushed her because she wasn't listening to his rant. Ivanka asks what he was saying, and Trump still wants to know if he "really" scared her, and Ivanka rolls her eyes, although whether she's just given up on Stacy or her own father is ambiguous.
"He stuck his finger in my face, and was screaming inches from my face." Which -- is not okay, would not have been okay if he'd done it to Pepi, or Bryce, or giant Chris from last season. Grow the fuck up and get your finger out of my face. Whether it's "scary" is not material, and I think Stacy gets that distinction. Trump asks if Brent "threatened" her, and Brent "responds": "Absolutely not! And shame on Stacy as an attorney, to make such an accusation! She was constantly ... being extremely rude and disrespectful to me while I was putting forth ideas!" Which is...too stupid to comment on. I've already said my piece on why each bit of this is stupid. Trump's great, though: "Isn't everybody disrespectful to you? Everybody on this team, they don't respect you, Brent, right?" Brent just goes on blabbering about nothing, which anyone would do if somebody said that shit to them, and Trump gets bored. "Doesn't matter. This has been such a disastrous team, and the job you did was so bad, you can bring in three people. Because frankly, I see numerous reasons." Pepi wants to bring in Brent, Stacy, and Michael. Yep. "You know what, the loss was so bad I'm going to fire two people. Everybody else go up to the suite." Eyes wide all over the place. I think Pepi and Brent should go home, because Pepi is a failure as a manager, and Brent is a failure as a person. Well, that's mean. He's a fixer-upper that will never, ever get fixed up.
Back inside, Bill's all over getting rid of Stacy. Trump's bemused. "She didn't take any responsibility for her actions!" I think Bill's a good guy, a smart guy, and a competent man. So I concede that he may well be right. But I have no idea what he's talking about. He is also very, very upset, and not in his usual agoraphobic way. He's pissed at Stacy and I don't know why. Is he saying the location thing was her fault? Because she chose the same location as the winning team. It was Pepi's and the team's responsibility to reevaluate once they got there where they should actually stake their claim. Including Stacy, sure. Maybe we didn't see the footage where Stacy said, "This corner, where nobody is: this is where we should be standing." Or maybe Bill thinks she should have held up her hand and said, "I take responsibility for Times Square. Call Giuliani." I have no idea. Is he talking about the Brent thing? Because she did the best she could, with the rest of the team trying to warp it out of her hands. What's he so mad about? Wasn't he...not there? Wouldn't Ivanka be the one to mention whether or not the location was on Stacy's shoulders? I don't know. It's unpleasant to watch, I'll tell you that much. I like my Bill vacant and shivering and emotionless, not weirdly rageful. ["I think he thinks Stacy is trying to get all Title IX about the situation, when in fact she's the only one in the room who isn't doing that. He's not the only one who missed this point but it's a bit surprising coming from Bill." -- Sars] Ivanka says that while Brent is a liability, and won't be around much longer, this one falls on Pepi. "At any point he could have controlled any of these things that were out of control." Which I would agree with, on the condition that Brent just leave now anyway, but because of the way she and Bill have split the double-firing between them, it seems like it will be Pepi and Stacy. I don't believe it. I also don't believe nobody has mentioned the fact that Brent did a thousand times the damage to the "brand" that the bathrobes did. I'm scared of Gillette now, and I wasn't even there.
Into the Boardroom. Trump asks Pepi how he's feeling, and Pepi is feeling that "Brent was a negative force that we couldn't contain," or in other words: Pepi is feeling like going home, because you never, ever say that. "He's imposing, doesn't listen, doesn't provide insight," says Brent, all true and not bullshit like the rest of what just happened, and Brent's screaming and screaming -- and looking over at Trump between every word in the shiftiest, wormiest possible way -- the whole time. Stacy rolls her eyes as Brent screams at Pepi (and names the recap): "You are chaos! And disorganization!" All of a sudden it's Pepi who is the only problem in the world, first birthday parties and five-blade razor "systems" falling and crumbling due to the waves of entropy shooting out of Pepi's person in every direction. Pepi's just like, "See?" And Brent's off again. "Pepi! If you're going to say things that aren't true..." He's getting shriller and weirder. Trump tells him to chill, and he looks to Bill for some reason, I'm guessing because he picked up at some point on Bill's rage-on for Stacy. Ivanka: "How did you guide the team?" Pepi bites the bullet: "I was a consistent leader and a good manager," he says, which I guess he has to believe, or at least say. "You were a disaster," says Trump. Word. Brent interrupts, of course: "When I was out in New York City! I created the buzz! And was a star!" Trump asks Stacy if she would characterize Brent as "a star." She says that "in a clown role," sure he was. Which is diplomatic, if backhanded, because the answer is: "Of his own movie, entitled I Am Surrounded By Meanies And May Have Just Crapped Myself." Brent shrieks about how "disrespectful!" of her teammates Stacy constantly is, and how she didn't show him "respect!" Stacy's like, "Finger in the face much, dick?"
Trump asks whether that hasn't happened to her before -- which is, again, not the point, because The Apprentice is not about how good you'd be as a security guard on the fucking lockdown ward, it's about how good you'd be as a successful business person dealing with other mature, successful business people -- and she goes to an iffy place. "I saw a moment of Brent that nobody else saw here." Which sounds like she's saying it's a he said/she said, basic reality drama issue, but I think is more intended to be like, "The rest of my team, as well as everyone in this room, doesn't know what I'm talking about, because you weren't there." As a viewer, I saw the footage, and I wasn't worried about her safety, but I did think he was acting like a jackass about fifteen different ways, and needed a refresher on personal space.
Of course, Bill never met a cliché he didn't want to rub himself all over: "You have one side, he has another, we're never going to get to the truth!" Which I guess is technically true, except that A) the footage exists, which I know because I've seen it, we all have; and B) you have the fucking "truth" sitting in front of you, which is that Brent has nearly crawled on top of the table six times during this conversation, while Stacy has calmly avoided making any kind of freaky spastic movements whatsoever, and C) it's so not the point, and the only person still arguing about the Brent/Stacy Threat Matrix is...Bill. Who just admitted he wasn't there, and basically also admitted that it wasn't material. And who just seems to like yelling at Stacy for some reason.
Trump wraps it up. "The other team clobbered you. It wasn't close. The leadership [Pepi] wasn't good, the location wasn't good [Stacy], it was probably a mistake with the bathrobes [Michael]. Brent, you're a total disaster. Okay. That's the way it looks to me. I have to start by saying that location is very important. Stacy, you picked the wrong location, and if you can't handle Brent you can't handle my business." True enough, although it doesn't exactly reflect well on your "business." She's fired, and fucking Brent fucking grins so shit-eating wide you can actually see the paste he ate in grade school, back when people first started making fun of him. "Michael, you have great potential. You did a terrible job, [and] if you do it again you'll be fired so fast your head will spin." He deserves to stay, even though I'm very iffy about whether or not he's a good guy. "I won't disappoint you again," Michael says. Of course. "Brent, you're going very quickly, but the PM... You didn't lead, and you are fired." I'm so super-fine with that, because Pepi was a fucking disaster, and I fully admit that I would have been sad that Brent didn't get tossed in a much more amazing way if he'd gone tonight. Like Clay or Markus last year, you gotta save those "You are fired because you are hateful and lame and will never work within my company" firings until you really need them. Ivanka drops her gaze and Michael sighs. Pepi sweetly says goodbye to Ivanka, and then outside, he apologizes to Stacy. She tells him not to worry about it. In the other elevator is something so fucking gross and scary it's like a horror movie: Brent, half in the shadows, smiling exactly like an Other, like you know that one Henry guy is going to smile some day real soon. I mean it. It has nothing to do with my frustration with Brent, or anything in particular between us, it could be anybody, but it's just so scary, the visual. I keep going back to it and getting the shivers, all week. It's like he's got a crawlspace, this smile.
Donald's cute: "Wasn't easy, Ivanka. Good people, nice...smart...but they weren't Apprentices." He thinks. "Okay. I'm satisfied." Yeah, me too. I really liked Stacy, and I think she could've gone far, but with that kind of Threat Matrix bullshit on her record, she wouldn't have lasted, because that's TV poison. But also, she'd have Michael gunning for her, and the rest of the team would have blamed her for Brent staying anyway, if that had happened, and if not, would have blamed her for Pepi or Michael leaving, so she was probably screwed either way. It's funny because after all that "I'm just too damn smart" stuff, it's kind of why she left: she was too smart to explain the difference between being scared and threatened, and being appalled and harassed, in a way the rest of the team could swallow. But, like, that's her failure, but also her triumph, because she doesn't have to deal with Brent anymore, and they do. Out in the cab, Pepi explains that he "put his best forth," and then immediately contradicts himself: "There were circumstances beyond my control." Whatever, I'm so bored. I get where the screaming about "stepping up" comes from, when they say shit like that. "I allowed the mere fact of Brent's existence to make me a bad manager who didn't make a single fucking decision or in fact manage anybody. Isn't that so sad?" Stacy is hilarious: "Our team is destined for failure because Mr. Trump sent Brent back to join them. There's no way somebody like Brent would ever work for Mr. Trump." And yeah, she's right, but it's a nice little window on the fact that, misdirected or not, Brent was...pretty right about Stacy all along. Doesn't make her wrong, but that's what being a big fake liar is for!
Success!
Lessons learned: No matter who's PM, it's your responsibility to actually contribute to the team in some way. If your ideas -- about location, about bathrobes, about "threat" -- start to go south, cowboy up and work with the rest of your team to get things going again. Your job isn't over once you've come up with something. If nothing else, devote yourself to distracting Brent long enough for everybody else to get the job done. They'll thank you for it on a level they won't even maybe be aware of. The best possible reaction, again, to even a person like Brent: Figure out what they are for. Something Synergy has still not even attempted to do, because they're so focused on the absolute horror of him. He has a purpose, and he'll keep bringing down the team, and the tasks, until somebody is smart enough, and brave enough, to actually think about what that might be. You lose nothing, and you gain more than a teammate, because you gain also the negative value he takes away from the group. Failing that, at least try to hide the eye-rolling and outright ignoring of the Brent of the group, because that's some second-grade shit right there. And especially do not pull a Pepi/Tarek and do a half-assed job, on the off chance that you can blame the loss on Brent/Summer. That's the sickest fucking thing I've seen yet, and now it's happened twice in a row. (Think they'll shift somebody to Synergy right away? Or just let them dangle in the Brent-infested waters until they're picked clean?) I liked Stacy. Don't let this happen again. Or if you do, could you transfer him to Gold Rush first? Because GR is clearly the better team, but there are still people I like -- Andrea, maybe Allie, maybe Tammy -- on Synergy, to whom I must once more point out, collectively: It's showtime, bitches. Get it together.