In memory of the firee this week, no quizzes. Upstairs in Suite Eight, the Corporate Weasel Death Watch takes part in that well-known tradition of sitting down to a delicious dinner with no thought to the other team. The reasoning for this is that Brent is there, and he cannot shut up, and thus will keep it going forever. Lee, then Tarek and Charmaine, light candles for Brent, hoping he'll stick around until the shuffle and continue to hand Gold Rush wins well into mid-season. They are now my enemies -- don't wish that shit on your humble recapper! Not even in jest. Synergy returns at all once, which confuses those among the Rushees who can actually count, since there doesn't seem to be anybody left for the final Boardroom, but they quickly are made to understand that Brent was cobra'd out of hand. Tarek, Lee, and Bryce all have a big man-cry about Brent's firing. Well, more precisely, Tarek and Bryce have an intimate moment of manly sorrow, while Lee stands on the sidelines, praying for body hair. Lenny and Tammy hug and jump up and down about Brent's firing, how much they hate Brent, and how much they hope Synergy will crush Gold Rush, because nobody hates his team quite the way Lenny does. Tammy interviews -- still as flavorless as meltwater from the Swiss Alps -- that she is looking forward to seeing what actual Synergy will do, as opposed to Synergy plus Brent's ineffectual meandering, and there's a stupid, meaningful cut to a lonely bag of sweaty, sucky bagels he left behind, as she breathes about working without the "added weight on our shoulders." Like any of them would wear bagels on their shoulders. Maybe Carolyn. Ivanka could work that shit.
Andrea bitches out Roxanne about the unfavorable comparisons to Tammy in the Boardroom, and again Roxanne tries to defend it using the, um, truth -- but Andrea's still not having it. Roxanne says she was trying to indicate Tammy's "way of lifting people up," and Andrea passive-aggressives that Roxanne "brought it up unnecessarily, but that's all right," and that's all I needed to hear. Andrea took the long way around to becoming exactly what we thought she was from the very first Downward Dog. Too bad. I stand by the magic of her fakeness, and all that it implies, but I can't support that kind of shitty snippishness. Roxanne's like, "Remember how he totally flat-out asked me to compare the two of you, bitch?" And strangely, Andrea cannot. Roxanne interviews that everybody on the team agrees that Andrea is a cruddy, bossy know-it-all, but congratulates herself on being the only one to step up and say something. Which kind of means that all the mealy-mouthed "Tammy has a sincerity and a way of lifting people up" stuff was exactly as double-thinky and catty as it seemed, which makes Roxanne pretty great. She and Allie could take some bitches on. Just...not in bed, and not with any Brits around, thank you. Andrea snits at Roxanne, and us, that anyone who thinks they're up to this competition, but can't handle "directness" and needs to be "coddled," is fooling him or herself. Andrea interviews that Roxanne is the weaker player, and not a strong leader but a strong follower, and we cut to her again being a total bitch to Roxanne: "That's all right...I'm sure it's not the last time I'll be surprised." What? She couches it in terms I can agree with: Stop whining and get to the point, get the step down, move from task to task with a minimum of bitching. But that's not an excuse. I think I like her brainworks, but her heartlight is not so turned on. That's like the two things I love most: efficiency and etiquette, and she is missing one of them, which explains my wishy-washiness with her, but I do think after the age of like 25 you should have figured out that you need both.
Very exciting music takes us to the high seas, specifically to the Norwegian Cruise Lines ship the Norwegian Jewel, and Donald Trump is bugging her captain meaninglessly ("How many propellers? Two? They must be big!") and the captain just looks on, hoping Trump won't reach out and push a bunch of buttons like a hyperactive preadolescent in a limo for the first time. Which is what Trump is, and will always be.
The teams meet up in a large gallery, and Bill and Carolyn accompany Trump down a glamorous staircase. Dude will make an entrance, like it or not, but it's more fun when it's not leaping out behind them on a street corner and screaming. He introduces them to the Jewel and says that cruise lines are a $10B in-dust-ry, and gives them their task in record time. They have to make a thirty-second TV spot advertising the NCL "freestyle cruising program," which we'll learn about later. He makes the execs say their own names again, because one of them is German and Trump doesn't have time for a name that is German, and gives the teams their crews and editors, and a deadline: the Jewel is leaving port at 3 PM on the dot, and they might just end up going on a cruise instead of a game show if they don't leave in time.
We have three hours to deadline. The Rushee PM is Dan, and what he is doing is screaming his head off like he's on the angel dust, shooting out tasks and orders and requests and lots of lists of things with the precision and slightly scary mania of a submachine gun in the hands of the inexperienced. Everybody jumps when he yells. He points so many fingers in so many directions and delegates so much stuff, he's like the octopus version of Roy Cohn. Lenny and Lee, useless as usual, sit in the middle of the chaos cracking on Dan about how he needs to "relax" and how he's going to have a "heart attack." They're right, but that's like all they ever do, whisper shit about the PM, and it's getting old. Dan tells Charmaine to make a list of something, then flips into overdrive and starts dictating list items at a dizzying rate. Lenny interviews, quite humorously, about how scary Dan is. "So hectic!" He explains to the screeching face of Dan how the "freestyle" thing works: basically, that on a regular cruise, you have a schedule -- dinner with the Sommelier in the Shrimp Face room, Moonlight Disco in the Danse Macabre Suite, shuffleboard with the centenarians on the Waiting For Death Deck -- but with the NCL freestyle concept, you just do what you want. Which is better, but I mean, it's still a cruise. The completely boring and stupid and tacky shit you're doing when you are on a cruise, I don't want to do it either way. I'd like to not be told when I had to do the crap, but I'd prefer just to not do any of the crap.
Dan spookily rat-a-tat-tats at the top of his pristine lungs about making a "montage" of all the stupid crap you can do, and using the actual sad people already on the ship to make the point. Lee and Lenny are of course chatting and having a laugh during the entire meeting, forcing Dan to commit the egregious "Are we all listening?" teacher-voice (with bonus screaming and dispatch). Lee trumpets Lenny's idea for the commercial, and Lenny explains that it would be cool to have a guy in a little raft, on the edge of death, being picked up by a NCL ship and then treated like a king, because NCL is so very fun to be on, and the last thing you need when you're shipwrecked is slavery to the clock. Tarek likes it, which is of course good enough for everybody else on the team, little Orlando Bloom-shaped stars in their eyes, and by "everybody else" I mean Dan and Bryce, because they're all assured that the others are worthless.
Dan likes it because he can incorporate his idea about moving from location to location and showing this hapless fellow all over the ship, and he says that they are ready to start filming and they should go get their locations together and set-ups and then start shooting because they are under the gun and they only have a little time left and they should really be moving faster faster because Dan has a wife and two kids and a lovely smile and everybody is moving so very very slow and why aren't they all on the same page as him and why aren't the cameras moving because at the rate his mouth and brain are working right now they should already have this in the can and be sunning themselves schedule-free on a beach somewhere in the Virgin Islands because that's how ready to do this he is and if you're not on board with him then you're just overboard because he doesn't have time for that kind of screwing around not when his brain is working faster and more clearly than it ever has before like a pipeline to God from the top of his head to his wiggling fingertips because are you listening Daddy because he's getting it done and his brain shining brilliantly like a lighthouse on the shores of the making of commercials so bright like a diamond that could cut you with its razor-sharp precision like a knife or a razor or the speed of light from a distant sun that can do anything anything at all in the anteroom of all Trump's angels singing like a chorus and his thoughts in the middle there with their own gravity shining and spinning like a Norwegian Jewel.
Synergy at nearly two hours to go. Allie discusses the idea of comparing the usual cruise schedule with the freestyle schedule, and Andrea talks about how they're shooting all these scenes, and giving all kinds of unasked-for and contradictory input. The director asks her a question, and Andrea says he'll "have to talk to Roxanne," who is the PM, and who is wandering around the ship for some reason. I'm sure that was cut in from somewhere, because she seems to be doing a good job, but I do like that we get at least a sense of Andrea's point of view here, given what is going to happen. The director of the crew tries to get Andrea to involve herself in the scene and tell the actors what to do, and she interviews to us that Roxanne did not delegate, did not manage timelines, could not get it together, was not a good leader. But I'm still not seeing where Andrea gets off. It's sad when you fall out of love, but even sadder when you realize the person was never going to live up to your fucked-up ideal. I said to the baby: "This is why no motorcycle jackets, ever. You think you can reform them, only to find out that they have mommy issues out to here and the whole thing was a huge lie all the time and really they just want you to make a run for the border while they bitch and whine, and the thing you know, they want you to yell at them and make them clean the oven or whatever, because they're such bad, naughty boys. People with an actual dark side, whom you should also avoid, spend a fair amount of time hiding that fact." Anna's like, "Stop telling my daughter about deviants. It's bad enough that she ever saw Brent."
Andrea and Sean do what they do, respectively: Andrea bitches about the PM's lack of qualifications, and Sean repeats whatever the last words were in his earhole at top volume. He's like the personification of echoes. Andrea's like, "This could be going so much faster," and Sean shrieks, "Who's directing this?!" Another ignorance cut of Roxanne: "Are they filming right now?" Sean "directs" the family at the Benihana-type grill, meaning that he Brits at them with outrageous volume and unbelievably cheesy sincerity about how much "fun" they're having and it's so "wow" and so great and so soul-killingly, desperately uncool, and he's making it worse. Roxanne tells him to shut up and that they're moving along to the location. Tammy interviews that time is not so much becoming an issue, as the issue that it already was is now growing fangs. The director advises Roxanne that there's a time crunch occurring and that there really needs to be "one voice." Which can only mean that Andrea is about to blow the doors off the asshole bunker, I guarantee it. Our love was short, but it meant something to me. Everybody was telling me it was a bad idea and I'd just get burned in the end, but did I listen? Hell no. I love the smell of a motorcycle jacket, even if it belongs to someone who's so precious she doesn't even own a fucking TV because she's too busy doing yoga and being better than everybody.
This week's Trump Wisdom is interesting, because it's a double-edged sword: "Listen To Your People." Right then I was like, "Here's what's going down: Gold Rush is going to lose, because the crack is making Dan unable to hear anyone but the angels, but Andrea's getting smacked for sticking her finger too much in the soup. I think Dan will maybe get fired, unless one of the L-named people really fucks up. Which makes me sad, but nobody else will mind, because nobody seems to understand that he is smoking hot and the perfect kind of boring to win this show." Honestly, that's almost verbatim. I'm not saying I believed it, because I do believe in Dan hardcore and because Donald Trump makes less than zero sense to me, ever, but that's what I said aloud. Trump kisses Kendra on the cheek while voice-over-referring to her as his "subordinate," which I guess she is but still always sounds weird, and she tells him that they should be attacking the international market, and he tells her "that will work out great," not illustrating a damn thing, about the Wisdom or otherwise, but proving to us that Kendra is still alive, and still talking about the most boring shit she can think of.
Forty-two minutes to go. Dan screams at us about the task in an interview, and how he sent Bryce and Tarek to set up the theater shot, but doesn't mention that they will be getting gay married once they're in international waters. He euphemizes that he thought they would "work best, if it were just the two of them," and he stays in "the villa" to do the scenes there. From up Carolyn's ass, Lee explains things that are glaringly obvious to her. He does some complaining and "being firmly proactive" for her benefit, but takes a second to talk with Lenny some more about how "Danny Boy" doesn't "know what he's doing." What a fucking useless individual. Lee interviews that Dan has taken it upon himself to do the entire task, leaving Charmaine, Lenny, Lee, and Leslie unutilized and sitting around. Which is true, and is stupid of Dan, but also: they don't need a shitty comedienne, they don't need defensive screaming about how nothing is Lenny's responsibility, and they don't need any colonoscopy, currently, and that's all the first three seem capable of bringing. Meanwhile, nobody even knows that Leslie is associated with this show.
Charmaine strikes up a conversation with a nice blonde woman in the restroom, and the classiness that is a hallmark of this show requires that we get a good, long static shot of their pants around their ankles. They bitch and moan and take their time about Dan, how he's not delegating, how he's "running around like a freaking maniac right now," and it's all true, but why is Charmaine sharing this info with some blonde stranger in the loo?
Lee takes his head out of Carolyn's ass, then Bill's shows up. Dan interviews that Lee contributed nothing beyond -- without being asked -- courting favor with Bill and Carolyn and cornering them and making himself look all knowledgeable. Dan, and then Tarek behind him, smelling his hair, bitch at people for being in the shot. Leslie -- oh, right, she was the blonde in the restroom -- mentions her background in broadcast journalism and how excited she was to use her "creativity" and the "attributes [she] got from college." Sadly, there's a cut on "attributes" to Leslie (I think) talking in front of a camera wearing a boobish top. It's not Theresa-obvious, and I could be making shit up, but after the bagel thing earlier, it's interesting. Leslie's funny talking about how by the end of the setups, she was over the idea of helping and was thinking maybe the people not in the three-man frat of Bryce, Tarek, and Dan could have hit some bars or a club or something, and that she had no idea what the point of them being there even was. We see a bit of the commercial, the shipwreck guy being brought on board with seaweed in his hair, a wristwatch being dropped in the trash bin.
Showtime, Synergy. Twenty-three minutes left. Roxanne tells a couple to sit at a table in a dining room and not enjoy themselves, just look "very, very bored" and twiddle their thumbs, and interviews again that they wanted to differentiate the excitement of a NCL cruise with a normal one. To the director: "If you can make it look drab and disgusting, that would be good." Hilarious! Andrea watches, chewing on the inside of her mouth. They start shooting the couple, and Roxanne gets a walkie from Michael and steps away to talk to him. Andrea looks on for three seconds, then wades in, in a very irritating fashion. "Let's do it again, and have a little more fun." Bill -- who HATES Andrea, of course -- wrinkles his face. Roxanne comes back and Andrea advises her of how she's told the couple to do something entirely different, and doesn't really explain herself well. Basically, she's decided, on her own and in the last three seconds, that they don't want to convey that the other cruise is "terrible," just that it's standard. There is no spice in this woman's tofu. I love how she's like, "God forbid we insult the made-up cruise line for the sake of a silly comparison." Roxanne explains to her the more pressing of the two major problems with this, which is that they've...already done a bunch of shots that fall in line with the agreed concept, and are running short on time, so now's not really the best moment to rethink the concept of the commercial. Especially for this one, solitary shot. Roxanne interviews that Andrea is really good at "being bossy and taking over," but is bad at playing "in the sandbox." I would also say her creativity is poor, at best, which means she should not be jumping in with the fine-tuning, because she overthinks and her notes are bad. Bill shakes his head directly at the camera as Andrea continues to attempt to get a thumb in the soup, and is soundly ignored. Andrea finally tells Roxanne they have to wrap it up, because didn't Roxanne know? They're on a deadline!
Andrea interviews something boring and self-righteous, although there's a very endearing moment where the foghorn on another ship blasts and she jumps and takes a second to get it together. She's being very awful, like, "I just hope we're creative enough as a team to put the footage that we did manage to get together into a beautiful commercial...but, if we lose this task because of the footage that we didn't get, it will be Roxanne's fault." Which is not exactly true, because time stops and starts at Andrea's command, but only for Andrea herself. How obnoxious she has become.
Showtime, Synergy: Tammy does a quick and simple voice-over about how NLC is all freestyley and all that, and then they experiment with having the drab couple-shot in black and white, and Andrea complains in a way that makes no sense. She says that the shot, which has been corrected for her interference, has nothing to do with the cruise or the concept, and is just confusing. I don't really see what she means. The whole team is very annoyed. Even Roxanne, usually calm, is hissing through her teeth at this point, asking Andrea whether it's really that complex to have five tiny seconds of people having no fun, followed by twenty-five of all the awesome fun you would have on a NCL cruise. Andrea says that doing this will have the side effect of "making the product look crappy," and I could hazard a guess that she means it'll be confusing to watch and the viewer will end up thinking that the black-and-white shot will just look like more shots of the same boat. Which...is the point of making it black-and-white. Roxanne is now kind of yelling about how she doesn't see the problem in trying the black-and-white shot, when they have all kinds of time, and when her concept has been roundly supported the whole time. Andrea: "No way! That's totally untrue, Roxanne. I've been saying...you know my opinion, you know I don't think it's a good idea. But you're the PM, period..." blah blah blah blame-shifting and fake subordination. Roxanne interviews -- awesomely -- that "there comes a time and a place" when and where if one doesn't "stick up" for oneself, "you might as well just go home." She then puts that into practice, yelling at both Andrea and Tammy that she's been completely honest with her thoughts and process all day long, and that neither of them has really been interested in listening, and calls attention to the fact of how helpful she was when they were both Project Managers, and that she respected their calls even when she didn't exactly agree with them. Silence. Profound silence, except for the ice crackling all over Andrea and Tammy, who don't even understand that she's right, and they wrote her off before they even got started -- because her competence and willingness to accept delegation make her look weak to them, which is unfair.
Dan's still all sparkly, lit up like a swiftly tilting Christmas tree, as they edit the commercial together, screaming random words along the lines of "Euphoria!" Babe, we know. Your kids could be watching this, okay? Tarek proudly tells us his fucking stupid idea of having "nothing but text flashing, leaving the viewer wanting more." Wanting more...Dramamine? More voice-over? More what, exactly? He says something about how you can accomplish this through esoteric "wording techniques," but the finished product is, I guess, so subtly "worded" that it just looks dumb as shit. I'll probably find myself on a cruise week and be like, "Damn you, Tarek! You have reprogrammed my mind with your 'wording techniques'! Your 'wording techniques' are unstoppable!" Bryce and Tarek make out with tongue about how great they all are, and Lenny mentions how, with constant "wording techniques" flying at you, in thirty seconds you are not going to absorb both that and the actual visuals they spent all day on. He asks them to consider voice-over instead, and then Tarek goes balls-out, whining and crying and making childish faces and getting really super-pissed at Lenny for questioning him.
Dan worries as the whole thing escalates because Tarek says that Lenny's not "listening" to him, meaning of course that he's not obeying, and Lenny says the usual, that Tarek's mother fucks donkeys in Tijuana, but this fact is not Lenny's responsibility or problem. Tarek says that you can eventually absorb the whole thing because commercials come on TV so often, and Lenny points out that they are not anywhere near the real world, and that they are not sitting the NCL people down in front of the TV for 24 hours, but instead for 30 seconds. Which is so very valid that it should have shut Tarek up and the whole team should have nodded quietly and fixed the problem, but of course Tarek's too busy pissing his pants with rage. He tells Lenny to "defend himself" in the Boardroom with that too, like Lenny's fucking with him or something, like every disagreement is a personal attack. Which -- it is, when you're Tarek, which is why the smarter people give in to him, and the smartest people of all just ignore him altogether. Lenny calls the whole fiasco "Craziness. Madness, really." It's hilarious. Flash back to Tarek being incredibly shitty to Lenny, and then Lenny and Lee looking hangdog as Dan approaches being "firm" and "managerial" and "Tarek's prancing bitch w/r/t the onscreen text."
NCL checks out Synergy first, and they all look adorable in their very Norwegian heavy-wool light blue scarves. Roxanne has two voices, and the second one, which she sometimes uses in interview and always with a client, sounds like she's just been slapped by a well-meaning person. They show the commercial, which is busy and whizzy and jumpy and hyper and effective. Andrea watches the smiling faces of the executives with dread, and Michael is so intense that even the unused conference table behind the table moves a little closer to the wall away from him. The tag line is "It's all about you," and I swear I almost blew my own mind trying to figure out who came up with it, because...it's less prominent on this team than the other, but there are still a bunch of suspects. Roxanne explains how the first four seconds were this huge risk, but that huge risks pay off sometimes, and maybe this will be one of the times. The first four seconds were in a scratchy old-timey sepia tone, and I wonder if that wasn't more effective than the "black-and-white" they all keep calling it, because when you're a cruise line, I imagine anything that makes you look fresh and young is heaven sent, so even if the sepia stuff was just by accident, it works better at portraying the lie that NCL is more fun than any other stupid cruise than anything else. They are told they did a good job and bounce, and Michael bows intensely as he closes the door, like a weird little North Pole elf. Admittedly, one who is in a cult -- don't go thinking "elf" connotes any kind of cuteness or snuggletude in this context: he'll still cut you.
GR come in wearing black, the men in yellow ties, which is funny because they're like the only people that make the Hives look humble. An exec mentions how great they look, and without even thinking about it, Tarek thanks him. Dan talks an amazing amount of salesman shit about how the commercial is a metaphor for something, and then the whole team behind him flips up glossy pictures of various locations onboard, and you know that kind of presentation makes me nervous, but he finally starts it up. All you see is words. "Freedom." "Welcome anytime [sic]." "Dine anytime [sic]." "Entertainment anytime [sic]." "Indulge anytime [sic]." Whatever. "Billiards anytime [sic]." "Cocktails anytime [sic]." "Strokes anytime [sic]." "Buying drugs for off-label use in port cities anytime [sic]." "Getting retarded cornrows anytime [sic]." "Awful and inescapable black-hole conversations with addled elderly people anytime [sic]." "Eat yourself sick on shrimp cocktail like a disgusting glutton anytime [sic]." "The hot steward on Blue Deck will not fuck you at anytime [sic]." "The disgusting pee-smell of rancid ocean water in Anyport, [sic], anytime [sic]." "Glittery bedazzled sweatshirts with horses on them anytime [sic]." "Embarrassed fourteen-year-old anorexics with braces at the table to you anytime [sic]." "Closet doors constantly sliding open anytime [sic]." It ends on: "Go your own way anytime [sic]." Which is fine.
The execs are completely bemused by the guy with the seaweed on his head, and they have to explain the whole commercial, hilariously, because Dan ramps up to almost his psychotic-break talking about how it's a shipwrecked raft, but that the shipwrecked raft represents, like, his life, or his stupid job, or whatever. Put your stuff away, Dan. If you're really that wigged about your life, I'll be your Norwegian Jewel. They usher the Rushees out and then the execs talk about how the GR beginning was "surreal" -- they have no idea, I wish they'd met PCP Dan! -- and especially humorously, they missed the entire connection between the guy in the raft and the guy on the boat. Awesome. Meanwhile, they thought the Synergy ad was cool, because while the black-and-white sliver was "negative," like the shipwreck guy, it was also "jarring," I guess in a good way, and that it "picked up momentum" and was "original." Oh, Dan. I will miss you so, so much. The teams return, and Trump enters in a fuchsia silk tie telling them that the execs were "impressed" and "pleased" with both ads, but that it comes down to -- as one exec explains -- the voice-over vs. the subtitles, because the text assumes everybody's watching, but not everybody watches commercials with their mouths hanging open like Tarek apparently does. Or maybe he is too good for TV as well, and just assumes that's what is going on. The execs mention the interesting point that both spots "started with a bang," but one of them was just confusing, while the other was intriguing and then made itself clear. So of course, the "winnergy is Synergy," the exec misspeaks adorably, and then Tarek and Lenny are very sad hearing about how they'll go to the Boardroom. So is Lee, but he's beneath my notice so you didn't hear it from me.
Get this reward transition: "You've just dealt with a great ship called the Norwegian Jewel, and now...the most precious jewels of all. Diamonds!" Here's something personal you might find interesting: I hate diamonds. I know it's weird and doesn't jibe with consensual reality, and that everybody has them, and I agree that shiny and sparkly things are very delightful, but for some reason diamonds gross me out. It's not even in a Kanye political way. I've just reacted negatively to them since I was a little kid. There's more basis for my personal hatred of limos we've discussed before, that they're the tackiest thing in the world, but there's a connection somewhere between the two things and I don't know where it comes from. I read a Danielle Steele novel when I was like six and since then I've found so very many things tacky and trashy: diamonds, limousines, heterosexuality. Horse-owning. Watching the Oscars. It's not judgmental, because I realize it's not normal, like I'm the one out of key, and I don't really think I'm better than anybody else. It's more like...OCD. They know that not everybody has to stare at the kitchen light for twenty minutes, but that doesn't mean they can just get off scot-free. Tarek starts crying, predictably, as Trump explains to the other team that they're going with the Brinks guys to "a secret vault" containing "over a hundred million dollars in diamonds" and that in the end they will take home "thirty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds." Dan and Lee are kinda bummed because they're going to the Boardroom, but Tarek's like openly weeping, because the only thing more ghetto than a diamond is Tarek.
The Brinks Experience is crazy, all blue lights and guns and long corridors. Going to see diamonds is like Gattaca, which is the first of two Gattaca references I'll be making this week, which is funny because I can barely even remember that movie. Tammy squeees in an interview about the reward, adorably, and they all get metal-detector wanded before they go in. Roxanne is wearing gaucho pants, it's true, but I still don't think she looks suspicious. This is already, like, the best show, but if one of them took out the entire security crew and heisted a bunch of gold bars and diamonds at this point, I don't know what I would do. Freak out, first thing, and then it's kind of open on my schedule. They meet the execs of the place, the secret diamond place, whose name I forgot to write down, because I will have nothing to do with them. One of the armed gunmen opens a big vault and there's embarrassing shimmery fantasy fairytale music as they walk in. It's like Aladdin And The Lamp in there, for real. There are stacks of gold bars up to the ceiling, diamonds in huge piles, a magic lamp. There's a dragon. I'm not kidding you. The guy puts these golf-ball-sized diamonds in between the fingers of Roxanne's hand, and then they all spend twenty minutes trying to pick up the diamonds with tweezers and dropping them all over creation and having to find them and telling each other "You're fired!" whenever they drop the diamonds, and the execs at the place are quietly shitting themselves and saying things like, "We do not lose the diamonds here," and at one point -- this was so cool -- somebody drops one, and the guy catches it in midair, faster than the human eye, and they all marvel because they don't yet know he's magic and is actually Robin Williams as a gay wisp of smoke. Which is redundant in every way. Sean interviews funnily about how every time somebody dropped a diamond it was like, "Oops! There goes a million dollars!" That part of it, diamonds aside, is very interesting to me, in that "everybody wants to roll around in a billion dollars one day and the paper cuts can go fuck themselves" kind of way.
They start to pick out their diamonds, because nothing says "I now have money and prestige" better than loose diamonds. Allie jokes with the guy that "size matters" but he's just like, "Actually, there are four criteria by which..." because he's humorless and gets strip-searched twice daily by big men with guns. He pulls out a custom (and HIDEOUS) tiara, with a distinct Nike-logoness to it, these swoopy diagonal loops containing puce diamonds bigger than a housecat, and intones djinn-like that the diamonds are each between 30 and 50 CARATS, okay, and that the whole thing is worth around 40 or 50 million DOLLARS. I've never hated an object before. You know, conspicuous consumption doesn't bother me. I love Laguna Beach and all that. But does it have to be nasty-looking? Does Donatella really have to put gold-leaf angel heads sticking out of everything, looking at you like The House On Haunted Hill? Do you really need stuff written on your butt? Why does couture translate every time as "unlikely"? As the lady said, "I don't want more choices: I want better things," and never does that resonate with me as well as it does when I'm looking at a 50-pound tiara covered in diamonds the color of urine. The dude puts it on Roxanne's head, because she was Project Manager, and her smile at this point -- who doesn't want to be a pretty princess once or twice -- is when I really just put my faith in her for good. It's nice to rest and not be so paranoid about these jerks so much. She interviews some frippery about how their win was about "taking risks" and I guess since she's wearing the tiara we'll just let her think that. She vamps around and giggles. I like her a lot. Everybody on the team does too.
Night falls on Manhattan as Tarek -- with frankly huge arms, fratty casual wear, and floppy, un-gelled hair -- sits on a bed across the narrow space between him and Dan on the other side, wearing a tie. I'm fairly certain I...have seen this movie before. They talk about how Lenny and Lee are going to kill Dan dead in the Boardroom, and Dan brings up Lee's awful ass-kissing, and Tarek is like, "Doesn't he do that every time?" And they chat. Tarek interviews that the best approach would be to bring in Lenny and Lee, because it would be good to "release some of that dead weight," and he says that Dan's got a "big ally" in him, and that he will do "everything" to protect him in there. Instead of then making out, which is...I mean, one of them is obviously going home, which makes this whole loungy scene kind of a goodbye valentine to those who are into it, and why not just...whatever. I cannot make a decent case for it right now. Which makes me Dan's better, as we'll see in the BR. Tarek uses some very poor "wording techniques" at this juncture: "Keep in mind that you have zero friends," he says, and Dan is shocked. Should have just shut up and made out, dudes. Woulda saved us all a lot of heartache.
Into the Boardroom! Dan says hi to Robin without even thinking, because he's like that: friendly and salesy. Carolyn is...wearing a lizard...flak jacket. White. It's amazing. Trump asks Dan what happened, and Dan replies that it was a close call. That's one. When asked, Charmaine says that as PM, "There's room for improvement with Dan," and that there are "things he could've done differently." Trump turns his attention to some blonde woman, calling her "Leslie," and mentioning that she always flies under the radar. I'll say. Charmaine says that the blonde woman "definitely wanted to be involved" in the task, that she has the background, and that over any one of them, she should have been involved. The blonde says she tried to get involved numerous times, and then she and Dan and Lee (for some ass-kissy reason) get into a screaming match over whether or not she made clear that intention, or her background, vocally enough, and Tarek jumps in, and then it's a four-way shamefest that doesn't even involve Lenny or Bryce. It goes on and on and on, endlessly, as Carolyn smirks, and finally, when Dan raises his voice, says, "Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now?" They all totally agree...that the other participants are being assholes. So hilarious. "[Because] you kinda sound like you're ten years old," she says with just an amazing amount of animus. Trump says that at least they got some "energy" out of Leslie, and then the blonde woman responds that she has plenty, but is never heard by the team. She overstatedly and Brentishly tells Trump she'd "never again" want to work under Dan, because it was "utter chaos," and that she wanted to "[Brent] off the boat the second the task began." Carolyn is like, "Whoa!"
Trump tries to get the deal on the shipwreck storyline one more time, because it's still confusing, and he bitches that the one thing that makes a cruise less appealing is the thought of dying at sea. Which is a very good point, and good on "Trump," by which I mean, "Whoever." I don't think it's a deal-breaker necessarily, and it's not what killed them, but I honestly hadn't thought about that. There was a great Melrose Place, in fact, where Amanda tricked Allison into pitching some kind of bridal suicide scenario to a cruise line, and it turned out of course that the top exec for the cruise line's daughter had...committed suicide by jumping off a ship in her wedding dress. Or something along those lines. So what I'm saying is, I should have been prepared, but there was too much Dan and too much Dan talking to really think critically. Trump tells Lenny that the idea stank, and gets really stuck on this point, which is not minor, but is not the problem. Dan is the problem, and Dan is why they lost. Lenny puts forth the best possible defense, which is that the team moved forward with it, and honestly, that's the only answer he need give. Trump says NCL didn't like it, but he means, "I or somebody else noticed that it was a bad idea, and I'm so proud of that realization that you are going to be fired." Which Dan should have fucking picked up on. Whenever you come up with something that makes you feel smart, if you're not very introspective, it becomes the only real thing, and Dan could have sent Lenny home with one finger.
Carolyn asks Dan what makes NCL better, and he tries to explain some shit, and she's very condescending and interrupty, and then -- it doesn't matter what he says, to us or to her, or really to him -- yells at him about how it's all meaningless because there was no voice-over, which was her whole point. Bill agrees and says that this was the fatal blow, and Lenny nods vigorously. And he's right to, but I kind of wish he'd jumped in here, because it would make him less shady to just openly say this instead of the weird and creepy potshots.
Tarek gives an absolutely idiotic speech about the nature of things including the media and commercials, and how commercials can have voice-overs or not, and draws a comparison to art, which can be Impressionist or not, and sounds like a fucking moron, on top of being actually wrong. Lee laughs in a very obvious, silly, stupid way, and Trump goes on a long rant that basically resolves down to: "The wrath of a man like me is never quite so harsh as when my man-crush is disappointed. Which will always happen, because underneath the love is outrageous hatred, and that's the ground my precious house of love is built upon, because I am as jealous of you, Tarek, as I am enamored. Frankly, it was a relief in the first week to fall out of love with you, because handing over that much of my personal shit to you simply because you're beautiful and in Mensa was kind of exhausting, and now that I have that power back, I am embarrassed and ashamed of how fawning and silly I acted toward you, and now all I can see is rage, because you seemed to be everything I want to be, which is angrifying enough, but now that I can see you're not, all I have is disgust all the way down, and I'm counting the days until I have you killed, so nobody will ever know I secretly wanted to be in Mensa and look like Orlando Bloom. Your priorities are even more fucked up than my own, which gives me a sense of inordinate well-being."
As this goes on and on and fucking on, Lee laughs with a little something brown on his nose, and Lenny says, under his breath, that Mensa is not what Trump thinks because "it's only 18 dollars" and because "you can do it online." It's hilarious, which makes up for the sadness of Tarek finally figuring out (for like the third time) how efficiently Trump has fucked him over in this "interview" and that the only way he's getting out of here is in a bodybag, because if you've ever been the subject of corporate obsession, elevating or obsessing, either direction, you know how horribly inescapable it is. And it always starts with that, with "you're so smart" or "you're so pretty," and before you know it, you're responsible for all kinds of their personal shit and sabotaging them in ways you'll never even be privy to and generally making their lives hell without even trying, because that's what that kind of energy-exchange always turns into. It's the undertow that exemplifies stalled-out middle management. Tarek half-blames the team, and this blonde woman says there was no one leader, because Dan and Tarek split everything down the middle because they are just like that, and Trump asks Lee what he thinks of Dan.
Lee thinks that Dan made a lot of bad decisions, and this is more than Dan can handle, so he explains about the ass-kissing, which is actually totally valid and a great reason to hate and possibly fire Lee, but think about it: if Trump understood the concept of slimy ass-kissing or personal agenda in his underlings, he'd fucking fire every single person in the world, twice. So this is not how Lee's going down. They talk about it for a billion years, but that's the whole point: if Trump admits the existence of brown-nosing, the whole house of cards comes crashing down, because it calls into question every single interaction he's ever had, including his marriage. Other people don't rate high enough to have agendas of their own, or else he will literally drop dead with fear.
Charmaine says that "Tarek's inability to listen impedes our creative process," and talks about how weirdly and pointlessly mean he was about the text -- but doesn't mention the text itself, in this edit, so Tarek's not going home. Because if it was going to happen, it would be there, because even Trump would turn around on Lenny at that point. He begs and begs Dan to bring in Lenny, but Dan admits he's too scared, because Lenny and Lee will be "even stronger," strategically, and he's gotta bring in Lee, because he's useless. And he's bringing Tarek. Dumb. They all leave, and Bill looks terrified, of course.
Carolyn says, "The whole concept was bad, and that Dan made a mistake in choosing it, but it was Lenny's concept...and he's not here." Trump agrees it was a mistake not bringing in Lenny, and Bill agrees with them both, but thinks that the actual issue was the lack of a voice-over. He's right, but apparently he can't openly disagree with either of them. They bring the boys back in, Dan and Tarek and Lee, and Trump reams Dan for bringing in Tarek because of their brotherhood, and Dan says about how in the bedroom, Tarek forgot to say that he was going to help him in the Boardroom, and just said the part about how he had "no friends" in there. Trump asks Tarek why he didn't say the other part, and Tarek says he did, just not right then. I don't know what the fuck any of them are doing talking about this, because it's a bunch of stupid junior-high shit right here, and Dan's dumb for admitting it. Dan's whole Code of Ethics is really poorly thought out. He's like, "Tarek is in here because he didn't kiss my boo-boo, even though he did, but just not right then when I wanted -- but Lenny is not here, because I am honorable and we're a team and I am a strong and shockingly beautiful man and I take it on the chin."
Trump lectures Dan on the fact that Lee, by doing nothing whatsoever but kissing ass, fairly exemplifies the duties of the One True Apprentice, because apparently Dan didn't get that memo, and needed to be apprised of that fact, and then...fires Dan for not bringing in Lenny. There's a break where fucking Lee volunteers in the most sickening, poorly-delivered, oily giggle that this is Tarek's "third time [in the Boardroom], heh, [he'll] answer that, he heh, three's a charm, hoh hee heh, I mean..." Like Trump's going to grab for him and with Lee on his lap call Dan and Tarek and Bryce in and make them do pushups and really he was just waiting for a toady to say something, and Carolyn and Bill were too slow this time, so Lee gets the fucking prize, but really, it's just honestly that quick. Carolyn gives Dan shit because she believes in the ethics of no man, and Trump yammers about unrelated and stupid as shit things, and Bill is too busy making quick love to Trump's tie-tack to really pay attention, but the basics are: we wanted to fire Lenny, so you are fired. Even though it's Tarek's fault -- who tries, in vain although correctly, to say that the team has members who "step up" and members who do not, and that the steppers-up are the tall poppies, and fucked both ways, because they shoulder the work and then get attacked. Which, correcting for the megalomania, is pretty accurate. But again, Trump is not hearing that, for obvious reasons. Ah well, I knew I was losing one of them, and I didn't really care, because once I saw Dan on all cylinders he lost a lot of that allure, that mystery that's so important, because the last time I fell for a crackhead, I ended up sold to a Saudi goat farmer, and like: never again. My Dockers still smell like hay and patchouli.
They leave, Lee spewing ass-kisses all over the place as Trump asks them to tell Lenny his days are numbered. Outside, Tarek and Dan embrace, and Dan's awesome red luggage makes its final appearance, and I will miss Dan a whole, whole lot, and then inside, Trump says it came down to a lack of leadership, with which I fully agree, and Carolyn says it was an easy call, with which I only wish I could agree, because it was sooo sad! They rush to assure Trump he made the right call with a vast quickness, and upstairs, Tarek returns to the suite with Lee eating his dust. Crazy Taxi is not so crazy this week, the highlights being that Dan "couldn't implicate Lenny" because the bottom line is that they "all agreed" on the concept, that both he and Tarek also made errors, but that you have to "take ownership as a team," which is nice in the real world, but basically means he was the only possible cobra-ee this week, according to his rules, because nobody else was singly responsible except for him. He smiles this one particular smile, and my cell phone lights up with a million calls from everyone I've ever met, going, "OH! I get it now! I see what you were saying about Dan being hot! I don't know how I missed that! You are vindicated!" I mean it, like six people called within ten minutes of each other. I'm glad his hotness got its spot blown. He says he's "excited about getting back to [his] family," and that -- get ready for this -- "Daddy's coming home! And I'm going to be eating you up!" Okay, if that's not the cutest thing ever said in the Crazy Taxi, clearly your heart was chipped out of pure Andrea.
Lessons learned: "Lazy Jew" does not trump "Ass-Kissing Infant." Sometimes Lenny is right, because he has that naysaying gift they always have. Andrea is actually an asshole after all. Don't listen to Tarek's art appreciation talk, because the smartest people are the ones able to take the few facts and snippets they remember about a subject and construct an illusion that they know what they are talking about. It's scary and you must be on guard against it all year round. Um, cruises are stupid like I thought, and diamonds are apparently magical or bestow eternal youth, because that's the only thing that explains the jiggery-pokery surrounding them. Wait, no, it's the fact that they are covered in the blood of innocents! My bad.