King Of The Jingle

Last week, remember, Trump's hate-on for Tarek was impressive in its tumescence, but ultimately the problem was Lenny's concept -- a minor quibble that even the NCL executives didn't really care about, but which loomed large in Trump's mind, which is how these decisions happen -- which, in the absence of Lenny, got Dan fired. That is still as stupid as it was last week, even though it obtained the correct result. Upstairs while this crap is going on, Charmaine and the other Weasels are talking about how ouija-weird it will be if Tarek comes back from the Boardroom for an eighteenth time. Of course, this is what happens, in a cloud of eyebrows and glitter, and Lenny greets Lee as "brother," and Leslie and Charmaine are just sick about Dan leaving. Maybe they only hate him when they're in the bathroom. Really, though, it's about hating Tarek: Charmaine interviews that he "doesn't play well with others," and that as a team, they'd be stronger with him gone. I know that she's right, but it weirds me out when the whole fucking team comes down to one person being an issue. I'd think if anything, Charmaine was more right in preceding weeks when she observed that it's the Dan-Tarek-Bryce Axis of Fratty that was the actual problem. Tarek can't suck in a vacuum, he needs hooligans to make his strange magic work. Without that, he's just...kind of a dick, and he doesn't have the performance record to make up for that.

Bryce tells Tarek to work on not pissing these girls off, because that will put him on a nonstop express to the Boardroom, where Trump's waiting to punish him with smoke coming out his nostrils. Bryce interviews intensely about how he just wants to "put it behind us tonight, before our task." He says this in a very exasperated way, like why can't the team just get it together and be perfect grown-ups like him, and there's a general feeling of disrespect for people with personalities, seeing as how he's got along fine all these years without one. They sit down together, and he informs them that he is going to be the Project Manager this task. Lenny, Lee, and Charmaine -- also known as the people who aren't Tarek, less Leslie, who doesn't technically exist -- wonder at what's wrong with Bryce today. He orders them to get it "all" out on the table, and demands that they work it out within fifteen minutes.

Flash Quiz: You've inherited a somewhat contentious group of Type-A pretty people who all want to be the boss of everybody. First order of business:

A. Accuse them of being immature children with emotional problems and demand that they work them out within fifteen minutes because you can't be bothered.
B. Take a second to analyze the team dynamics -- including your part in them -- and figure out which issues need to be addressed tonight, post-Boardroom.
C. Write off the women, because they're just silly anyway and don't have any concerns worth worrying about.
D. Write off the Jews because they're either going to be gone or worthless, because one time the Russian one looked at you funny and then you screamed at him in the Boardroom, proving you right for all time.
E. Jump immediately to figuring out how you and Tarek are going to cope now that Dan, the only other member of your team, is gone.
F. Emulate Dan in every way -- micromanaging tasks, refusing to delegate, and only trusting Tarek with anything important -- because he's got such a great fucking track record.

Answer Key: If you didn't answer B automatically, the board assumes that you instead answered A and C through F, inclusive, and therefore doesn't have the time to worry about your trifling ass one second longer.

Tarek, at this point, shows his ass mightily: "It doesn't matter if I do a good or bad job, I am going to get called out in the Boardroom." Which is true, for what it's worth, but I don't recall him having ever done anything besides play Dan's hall monitor, act very fussy and whiny, and come up with bad ideas, or no ideas whatsoever. I like him okay, but come on. Don't put yourself on shout like that. He floats that, instead, the reason for his targeting has less to do with his negative team value and more to do with...the jealousy, hatred, envy, and fear that he inspires in everyone in this world. Oh, fuck. Seriously? Tarek, where did you go? Why is Asshole Tarek back? I honestly thought he had adjusted in some way. Stupid me. Lee rolls his eyes, and Leslie and Charmaine laugh openly. He interviews that he's "honored" that they keep "coming after" him, because clearly it's not because he sucks -- it's because he rules so very much that the torches and pitchforks just kinda supply themselves. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I do think the key to living well is being able to consider both sides of the equation at all times, and think about poking your own balloon every couple of minutes. Leslie explains to him that this is "highly insulting," both to the team and to the team members as individuals. I don't think he recognizes her, to be honest, but it's not like he'd listen anyway. He Hateful Jims that they are "a bunch of crazed coyotes" that are "going after the buffalo." I don't know what that means. You, sir, are no Hateful Jim.

Charmaine tries the tactic of performing a one-act play entitled "Why Does Tarek Always Act Like A Spoiled Little Girl In A Pinafore," which contains a spot-on impression of Tarek's usual bitching-out, but he's not buying it. In fact, he performs a sequel, entitled "Tarek Then Acts Like A Spoiled Little Girl In A Pinafore For Real," in which he does an impression of her impression, but since he doesn't know he's doing it, it's more like he just...bitches out. As he is wont to do. He answers her eye-rolling, sighing, painfully stupid faces and whining by...rolling his eyes, sighing, pulling painfully stupid faces, and whining. "Charmaine, you got it -- you got it. I don't listen enough, I'm a detriment to the team, right, but I'll change my ways moving forward. You got it." He's going for, like, macho or something here, but he's operating from such an ugly anima-possession place that he sounds like the internal mother-in-law of all people. ["I for one resent being put in the position of siding with freakin' Charmaine. Eat a bee, Tarek." -- Sars] His eyes are like little mean slits. I love how he's disagreeing with her by sarcastically agreeing with her, in such a way that he's additionally proving her right. That's so sickeningly oblivious. And we were getting on so well! Never again. The fact that Andrea is only in this episode for ten seconds of ugly faces does not mean I'm getting back on her motorcycle. I've learned my lesson. Charmaine's eyes are wildly impressed with this display, all, "You little fucking bitch! What is wrong with you?" She's so good in so many arenas. I wish she'd beat his ass. I am so over Tarek. I miss Dan. Now it's just fucking egg-sucking Lee, and creepy angry Lenny, and Tarek being a little bitch... What is that? And fucking vile Andrea now. And...Leslie who? And Bryce with his dead, soulless eyes. I realize that Dan never actually did anything to earn my respect, because he Leslie'd for the first four tasks and then abruptly went on a crack-fueled rampage, but still. He seemed nice, and not like a card-carrying member of whatever Asshole Union to which most of the remainder seem to proudly belong.

It's raining as Lee gets dressed and heads to Temple for Yom Kippur, the "most holiest day of the entire Jewish calendar," he [sic]s. Lenny laughs but not meanly, and hangs out with Leslie and Bryce in the kitchen -- for a second I get scared we're going to play another round of the Lazy Jew game, but we don't (yet) -- and at least there's no fucking klezmer this time around. Which, I would be interested in thanking the show for that, but like -- this is still so stupid and on purpose and creepy. It's not like Judaism fucking sprung this on you. You've had almost six thousand years to get your daybook in order, motherfuckers.

Downstairs, Trump Tower -- everybody but Lee shows up for Trump's more-embarrassing-than-usual screaming fit. Andrea, and I guess other people but Andrea most dramatically, is wearing her gigantic baby-blue scarf from last week. What's with the giant scarves? Did I miss that trend last fall? Trump tells them that "building a brand" is a "very, very wonderful thing," and we pan across a sad, shitty cabinet full of ugly Trump and Apprentice merchandise. It's so ghetto. It looks like a Showcase Showdown. Like if there was a Milton-Bradley counter at Tiffany. There are light-up signs that say "You're Fired!" It's...it's just sad, man. "Behind me I have my entire Signature Collection [his caps, not mine] on display -- the fragrance" Okay the list continues (the ties, the shirts, the watches, whatever) but: the fragrance? I imagine it's woodsy, with some saddle leather accents. Like what he thinks men smell like, that's what Trump Fragrance is going to be like. Today, though, we're talking about "another" great brand: Arby's. Trump: "I happen to love their roast beef sandwiches!" I've never wanted to be Trump's personal assistant, but just now? "Yes, Mr. Trump. Five sandwiches at fifty dollars each comes to...$250. I'll just grab that out of petty cash, shall I?" In the interests of full disclosure, I need to tell you a little bit about me and Arby's. The place smells like an armpit, due to the food they serve. A literal armpit. The food tastes like dead armpit, and makes me feel sick inside just thinking about it. Roast beef is not supposed to be chewy. Bread is not supposed to drip. And the fact that they incorporate not only au jus, which is like eating in the bathroom to me anyway, but something called "Horsey Sauce" is not helping. God, I'm getting sick just thinking about it. It's cheap food, served cheaply, which means that the overhead is lower, which means that the stores are not typically staffed by the most heartening persons one might find in customer service. There is no fast food I hate more than Arby's, and I'm being completely serious. I'll go hungry instead, even if I were driving across the country without stopping I would rather starve than eat fucking disgusting Arby's. Jack In The Box fancies itself organic and healthful compared to that shit. So of course, Trump loves it the best.

So Arby's is creating an "all-natural" chicken sandwich, which God knows what that actually means. Actually, I bet Google does. Hang on. Awesome. Okay, the press release reads, "Other leading fast food companies offer chicken breast sandwiches with up to 29.3 percent of solutions made of various elements including water, seasoning (salt, spices and spice extract), oil, modified food starch, sodium phosphates." I would think that "other leading fast food companies" would also include "Arby's, until lately," or else this isn't a change. But reading from the Fast Food Facts blog, there are some other notable things: for example, that list is lifted directly from the McDonald's chicken breast fillet ingredients list. And Arby's own ingredients list? "Arby's Natural Chicken Tenders: Seasoned with salt, hydrolyzed corn and soy protein, flavor contains less than 2% (autolyzed yeast extract, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, enzyme modified egg yolk, thiamine hydrochloride)." So natural you think you grew it behind your very own nuclear reactor! Also, sometimes the ingredients also include human skin, but that's rare and intriguing. I also learned that "chicken of all types" is the fast food growth market right now, which means lots more terrible chicken abuse we get to hear about in a few years as great leaps in abuse efficiency debut, and that the term "natural" can only be used if there are "no artificial ingredients or colors; no chemical preservatives, antibiotics or hormones; and ingredients that are not more than minimally processed." "Organic" is a little harder, which is why all the fast food places are focusing on "natural": poultry for slaughter must be raised under organic management from the second day of life; they have to be fed agricultural feed products that are 100% organic (they are allowed vitamin and mineral supplements, which seems like something you could gerrymander pretty easily); no hormones or antibiotics, but vaccines are okay, and the sick and injured must be treated, but can't be sold as "organic" if they require prohibited meds; and they must have "access to the outdoors." Oh, and the going rate for "natural" fast-food chicken is an additional 25 cents per dish. That's 25 cents for a campaign that basically implies you'll get cancer and heart attacks unless you switch to Arby's All-Chicken Chicken, but since it's Arby's, they're probably right, because their food is all-around disgusting. And for the record, yes, I read Fast Food Nation too, but this is mostly interesting because now I want to write a song about this paragraph and make Hootie and Carmen Electra sing it.

Ahem. The task: Create a jingle with "lyrics that people will remember," using an assigned studio, band, and singers. The Arby's people introduce themselves, and they're both middle-America WASP types ("Debbie" and "Doug") so I guess the whole "The Trump doesn't care what your name is" stuff the last couple weeks wasn't racist after all. We cut to Lenny twice as much as everybody else, here, for some reason, and I wonder why after all these weeks, I never noticed the fact that Bryce is soulless and scary. I don't guess he's done interview filler much, since he's so uninteresting, but as PM on this task we're getting a lot of one-on-one time with his eyeballs, and they have the depth and human soul of Formica, and it's creepy.

Charmaine -- wearing a huge, silly, cute beaded ring -- sets up a meeting with Debbie. Tarek and Bryce are too busy with the mutual masturbation to listen when she tells them this ("You're probably better at this than even I am!"), so Charmaine has to do a lot to motivate them to get their asses going. Bryce interviews about how disappointing it was that they didn't all resolve their interpersonal conflicts in the fifteen minutes he demanded last night. Any time you start talking about group dynamics as "[your] emotional goal," you've pretty much lost the plot. "Stop having problems with each other! In which I am implicated! Because I'm the Project Manager!" He tells Tarek that if they lose, he's going home. Stupid Statement #1. "So, everybody needs to be doing this for me." Stupid Statement #2, and ugly besides. Starting from first principles with the sucking, I see.

Synergy drives through the rain toward the Arby's HQ, and of course Seanthusiasm is smarming it up with a thousand exclamation points. He's Felisha. That's all he is: a Felisha without an Alla. "It's going to be a really exciting task!" "We have the perfect team for it!" "You are the life force!" I don't know who he's yelling the last at, I think it's Roxanne but it would be funnier if it were Michael, because I'm pretty sure he's actually a generation-N Teddy Ruxpin doll. They arrive, and Sean wigs out some more: "YEAH! WE'RE HERE!" I love how he skips the middle man of having something to be excited about, and goes right into objectless enthusiasm. "Hooray!" How come? "Because it's fantastic!" What is? "Good question! You are the life force! Because it is Tuesday!" He interviews that he hears voices, and one of them today is saying, "[You] can definitely do this, [you] can definitely do this" and "[you] know the team well enough that you can adapt" and "manage with a style" to "get the best out of everybody!" I hate his voices; they're as creepy and delusional as he is. "My first decision as PM was to bring the whole team to meet the execs." You mean your accent wasn't the point of this task? That's a first.

Inside, Doug cracks a sad little joke about "Welcome to Arby's, how may we help you?" And they all laugh dumb little corporate etiquette laughs, except for Sean, who snorts and chortles so madly he almost chokes. Tammy asks for "the one thing" that will get the task done, which I like, and Debbie tells her that there are "no competitors that have a competing all-natural chicken product." It sounds so organic and no-fooling when you describe it that way, Debbie. The all-natural Allie product takes notes about something or another and the all-natural Doug product reminds them that Arby's is thought of as a "roast beef restaurant," with a little all-natural annoyance at this that makes me think he's been doubling up on the all-natural Kool-Aid. Whenever they discuss branding at the beginning of the episode, I have to sit on my hands, because I love Corporate Communications stuff so, so much, and the task is inevitably nothing to do with actual branding. Like this, taking the roast beef brand and watering it down with chicken using a stupid song. Doug's all-natural eyeballs bug out as he shrieks about "letting people know" that "we have the best chicken!" Sean kisses outrageous ass, not any particular all-natural ass, just gerundial ass-kissing, as is his predilection; even Debbie and crazy-ass Doug are bored by him.

Then on to the Rushees' meeting with Doug and Debbie. In the van, Tarek repeats their names over and over in a way that would be charming if it weren't 10:39 AM. Upstairs, Doug and Debbie wait, already bored and extremely over Gold Rush. Lenny needs to know what a "jingle" is, because that's the one thing he's not an expert on. Doug and Debbie look at their watches fakely, and smile, and shake their heads at each other. Finally, a half-hour late, the team slouches in sheepishly, and Bryce attempts to turn on the firm smiling Project Manager charm that is completely inappropriate at the moment. The execs ask why the hell they're so late, and everybody starts fidgeting silently. They direct the question at Bryce, who grins vapidly and doesn't answer. Remember that NOT ME thing from Family Circus? It's like that. The best way to take an awkward situation and turn it into a funny joke is...not to act like your parents just caught you going down on the gardener while smoking a joint. Charmaine shakes her head, totally over Bryce and the little-boy boringness of him. Doug is like, "Twenty-five minutes late? Really? If this were the real world you wouldn't get in the front door." Bryce equivocates and mumbles and kicks the floor and acts like a cowhand about how NYC is just so crazy and they didn't know what time they were supposed to blah blah blah. Tarek acts us out, interviewing that you "don't piss off the executives. That's the role of the PM" -- and that part of that job is to get there on time. I don't have anything in particular against Bryce -- well, I do think that when Donald Trump displays more emotional maturity than you, on a bad day, it's time to rethink -- but: Word. Bryce needs to fucking go home this week, and it's not even 11 AM. I pronounce thee cobra'd.

"Command Respect" is the Weekly Wisdom, but it's awesome because there's a voice-over/footage juxtaposition that tells me there's an editor somewhere with a very awesome sense of humor about old Trumpy. He's going on and on about how "a leader" must have "the respect of his or her employees," or else "it's over," because "you need the respect of your people," and if you're "not going to lead" or "have their respect" then "it's over, get out and go get a job." And then he sits back with one of the grosser toad-satisfaction faces we've seen this season. But visually, what we've got is Trump bugging the shit out of some Trump Tower escalator repairmen, just bugging them and bothering them like a little kid, to the point where they are irritated, but also...kind of sad for him. And that, my friend, is a beautiful sight.

Showtime, Synergy. Roxanne sings to Tammy that "when [she's] thinking natural, [she's] thinking...Arby's," in a lovely voice, and Tammy sings back something that makes no sense whatsoever, but resolves down to tasty all-natural chicken being available only at Arby's. Allie, who's becoming the bobble-headed girl version of Seanthusiasm with the pantsing around, talks in mystical terms about how "different people came up with different lines" and they all "just merged so well" and as usual, Allie puts way too much of a premium on a conflict-free environment for me to feel really comfortable with her. Yes, adults should be able to work together without dicking it up, but the way she reacts so unthinkingly to those dynamics is kinda all-natural Squeaky Fromme at times. They sing, and sing, and sing, but at least: they do not rap, they do not have to produce the finished product themselves, and there is no Markus. Andrea makes strange, sour faces, and is nervous, like she's about to go behind Sean's back and change everything like last week. I start to think maybe she was the little sick girl in elementary, the one who always hugged the lunch ladies and snotted all over the teacher and wanted to be the Anything Monitor and was a tattletale just for the joy of it. We'll see, because the Asshole Flow is pointed back towards the low-pressure Tarek system at the moment, but that's what the faces right now are telling me. Sean screams at us about how they had the vocalists and musicians and they harmonized. All the singers we see are either boring or weird or both. Michael quibbles about something or another, and interviews that he "wants more responsibility" and then pisses around, I know not about what. I don't know about that whole moment. I felt previously that Michael was FUTR on purpose, and the week of Seanthusiasm is not the week to screw around.

Gold Rush is screwing around and wasting a lot of time, because jingling is hard, and kind of gay, and Tarek and Bryce don't want to call that bluff. Bryce has no ideas, he admits, and Lenny...thinks that maybe because it's a "jingle," there should be jingle bells. I don't know what to say about Lenny this week except that either this is all an elaborate faade, or somebody actually on-purpose refused to tell him what a jingle was. I am sympathetic either way, of course. Tarek sings something dorky, something that says, "I'm trying so hard, but I'm just not queer enough," but really means, "I'm not actually trying because singing in front of people is weird." And I agree with both. He's not a creative person. Lenny...thinks that maybe it should sound like a cell phone. Bill is very, very impressed by how not-at-all they're all working. It's hilarious. Lenny interviews that this process is "rocket science actually" to him, and that I do believe. He continues to make weird suggestions ("scrape a pizza cutter along some bricks, then pretend to be schoolyard lesbians," "put a sheep in a cowboy hat with a marimba covered in cheddar and horseradish," "contrast with Chernobyl chicken, which glows") as Charmaine ignores him, getting steamed, and Leslie kind of waves his away like a gnat: "I'm trying to...think." Charmaine doesn't really crack on Lenny, but she gives voice to her irritation that he just does not get this. "So far he's thought of a sound of a chicken." She's adorable in her exasperation. Lenny sings horribly, hilariously. "That could be a problem."

Then Leslie and Charmaine sit down at the piano and write the song and get it done really easily. Bryce interviews that a true leader finds someone "as good or better" than himself at a given task, and then you just "let them go." Hang on, I have to write that down. Okay, sorry. So he names Tarek the Creative Director, because that has worked so well every other week, and somewhere, batty old Theresa rolls over in her Center For Intra-Spection. Tarek gets the singers going and orders the musicians around and has a great time being the boss of everybody. They get the song going, and Charmaine and Leslie bop around and Tarek dances like a tool, which Charmaine finds cute for like one second. It is. Bryce interviews, preciously: "I'm proud of that. They came together. I think we nailed the task." Awww. But you were a half-hour late, to a meeting that you will never understand was ten times the useless lame handjob for Doug and Debbie than it was to you, because to them, it was just taking time out of their day to play in the sandbox with some game show contestants, and then go back to their real life jobs, which they earned and worked for. Think about that for a second, would you? And also: "At least they didn't have a fist fight" is not a claim to fame, douchebag. Especially when you are always one of the ones implicated in the fighting. The arrogance of becoming PM and thinking, "Finally, someone that can make them behave: Me!" is its own thing, but it's redoubled when you're one of the big babies in question.

A woman whom I am told is named Tina, although I heard "Tweety the Asian Secretary," is informed by Trump that he's going to "go out and see the kids about the jingle," and asks her if that sounds "exciting" to her, and then before she can even begin to kiss ass, he fairly screams, "IT BETTER BE!" She's like, "Have fun, dude." I like it when you're a dick, but it's okay because it's a joke, but really it's not a joke at all. He's trying to Andrea up his control issues -- "Isn't it funny that I'm seen as this controlling, effete freak of a overcompensating mess?" -- but, as with Andrea, all you can see is the tender pink skin underneath, and how gross he is.

At the Knitting Factory, Charmaine is assuring Lee he's going to love the song. Can we take a minute to meditate on the All-Chicken Chicken Songs making their debut at the Knitting Factory? Can't you just taste the cred? I would caution CBGB's to take note: This is how you stay in the black. Just bend right over for Arby's. Leslie interviews that Lee was gone for Yom Kippur, but he's an asset, but she hates him for not being there, but she and the group love his principles, but they're really inconvenient, but they were happy to see him, when he finally showed up, because being Jewish is not only making demands on Lee, but also on the white girls, and that is crappy, but she has a lot of respect for his religion, but she wishes he were there, because he is an asset. She does a good job of getting all those in there pretty simply and nicely -- not like Bryce eight days ago with Rosh Hashanah. (And think about that little fact for a sec: it's been four tasks since Rosh Hashanah, but only eight days, which means the cycle on this shit is even crazier than I -- at least -- thought, which means I'm going to give them even more latitude for their craziness and emotional volatility, unless I don't like them anyway, and then I'm going to ignore it and talk shit about them and their families, including pets.)

Sean smarms it up and makes them all put their hands in and do cult-like things because that's all he's fucking good for, and he yells at us with strange emphasis on certain syllables about how they are "being judged solely on the quality of this 30-second jingle!" Onstage in some stupid ugly jeans, he smarms into the mic and promises the crowd that the "most important thing" is for the crowd to "have fun." Because what is more fun than watching a band setting up for twenty minutes so you can hear two 30-second jingles about chicken sandwiches, followed by six hours of slam poetry? They play the song, which is catchy and sounds like "Wild Night" with the Cougar and the n'DroganelshecisritualofCHUDOcello woman, only on a five-bar loop and about all-natural chicken, but live music is always super-fun, so Tammy raises the roof and the all-natural crowd rocks out to the chicken song and Doug and Debbie smile and Trump does a thing. It's a dancing kind of thing? But like, if I asked you to draw a cow and you'd never seen a cow before and had to rely on verbal narratives about cowness, you'd end up with something like the Stay-Puft guy crossed with Billy Zane crossed with a Buick LeSabre and a lamppost, and Trump is doing basically the locomotive equivalent of that, with a stupid fucking idiotic smile on his smug little face. ["Actually, I think if you asked him, 'Were you totally copying the Uncle-Junior-looking dude from the Six Flags ads?' he would have to say yes." -- Sars]

Bryce interviews that "their sound was great," and he's "nervous as all get-out" because theirs was more like a song, and his is more like -- he "went" more "radio jingle." He goes to the mic and Doug and Debbie immediately lose interest, hilariously, and start checking out the Knitting Factory like they're trying to make a connection, and then the song starts, which is a very Andrews Sisters, boring kind of jug-band sound, just eye-poppingly repetitive and silly, but the very proud Charmaine and Leslie dance about excitedly, singing in the audience, and at the end there's a Jimi Hendrix moment on the guitar as they bring it home: "I'm thinking Arby's!" Yeah!

Doug and Debbie take the stage and corp-speak about how they need to bring onstage "the biggest Arby's fan in the entire world," Trump, and again, I will never understand Sales because I don't know how a whole room of people can repeat a silly lie and get excited about the silly lie even though they all know it is a) a lie and b) silly, and say the silly lie to each other over and over, and make silly improvements to the silly lie, and congratulate each other on making the silly lie both sillier and more of a lie, without anybody needing to lie down for a sec. So whatever, Trump's the biggest Arby's fan, and everyone in the Knitting Factor cheers for him as he gets onstage. Why? Why would you clap for Donald Trump anywhere, at any time? Especially if Arby's is involved? Are they stoned? I bet they're stoned. Trump asks for a vote by cheering, and the Synergy cheer is very loud, which makes Tarek sad, and the Gold Rush cheer is lukewarm at best, and then Trump asks the PMs how they did, according to themselves. Seanthusiasm amounts to: the song was "unique!" and "raised the bar!" and "took a risk!" but ultimately prevailed; Bryce thinks that his team "worked together so well" that it is literally "unbelievable." If I were Trump, I would have repeated the question: "Son, I asked how you did on the task." The execs weigh in. Debbie says that the Rushees did a good job talking about the menu, but didn't hit the main point, which is that you can only get the all-natural Arby's chicken sandwich at Arby's. "You said it was better," she explains, but not that you have to go to Arby's. "Very important," she says. Doug says that Synergy, by contrast, was great. "Loved it!" He says. They "hit every element," and their jingle "did a great job." They win.

Sean does that fucking "Yessss!" thing I so fucking hate, and then he, Michael, and Roxanne make out. I mean down and dirty make out, in the balcony of the Knitting Factory, and I don't get it. I think it's because Synergy is kind of dorky and lame, altogether, so it's like how the band dorks were the most sexually active, because all they had was each other, and there was the one guy who was just marginally more attractive for whatever reason, and he got all the ass, even though in Gen Pop he would be despised, and in one way it's sad because they honestly thought they were doing the "dating" thing that everybody was doing in Gen Pop, but in reality, it was the incestuous dating ghetto of band and nobody else cared whatsoever, except perchance to shudder. And some of them later got married, and probably right this second "World Of Warcraft" is setting fire to their happy and often polygamous and unshaven homes. I know this because I studied them for three years like a scientist, because I loved it so, so much, and I still do. The overwrought breakups, the yearning weeping triangles, the keepsakes tossed asunder, the soap operas going on that nobody else paid attention to, like how entire colonies of bugs and beasties live under your lawn and you might never know. If you could harness the sheer angst and power and rage and passion of a single high school band class, you could power the sun. I love it. Not that things were any cooler, objectively speaking, in the art fag/lit mag/Gaiman and Tartt corner of the world, but at least there the drama created itself; nobody had to strive to emulate the upper echelon due to feeling superior to everyone else, which meant more time to go all Dian Fossey on interpenetrating and parallel groups like the band. Why does The Apprentice always jog loose memories of high school? Hmmmm.

Reward: to have white truffle dishes at Alain Ducasse, with the focal fungi being flown in from Alba, which I always confuse with Elba due to my obsession with dictatorships. "Without question," Trump says like it fucking matters, "the most expensive meal that you will ever have." He says it's "more expensive than Arby's, but personally," he prefers Arby's. I'm telling you: $250 easy. I would tell Trump that a gallon of milk cost $20. It would be awesome. He tells them to have "an amazing truffle meal." Sean leads the way, kissing all-natural ass from the coat check girl to the maitre d'. Michael interviews robotically that Alain Ducasse is "very exclusive" and "very expensive" and "the type of restaurant you don't go to every day." Sean's Seanthusiasm, I have decided, hides something very dark, like if you were to see it you might go insane. Every single person in this world has their own creepy little surprise parties waiting for you to know them well enough, but don't you get the feeling Sean's are particularly hairy? "The ladies," he says to nobody in particular, "look wonderful tonight, and are just enhancing the whole experience." Don't you wish Sean would hit on you at a bar? Wouldn't that be hilarious? Allie says that Michael and Seanthusiasm "couldn't look more dapper," and it becomes immediately apparent that they are all at least two sheets in. Roxanne lets him be all ridiculous and flirty, and it's hilarious, and now that I have gone to the BQ place with them, I can't stop thinking about it. Like they're all playing these wind-up "I believe this is how Gold Rush acts" kind of games. "Aren't we all just so worldly and sophisticated now? Truffle?" "Don't mind if I do, would you like some wine?" "I don't know if I should! Things could get ssssexual!" "Oh, you're so bad!"

Roxanne interviews that Sean "loves women and can relate to women well, so[total band sigh]he makes the rounds and we all know it and don't care: it's Sean." What that says to me is, "I'm pretty sure he's gay, but I do like the accent." The dude shaves the truffles over their plates, and Allie adorably, tipsily, groggily says she wants to take a picture of the food instead of eating it, because it's "too pretty." Sean digs right in, of course taking some time to shriek about truffles and food and fucking truffles and whatever. Allie and Roxanne climb all over each other to get Sean to do his "American accent" and it's stupid. Then Allie does that one thing that I love so, so much where she says something absolutely devastating and never indicates if she meant it, gabbing about his awful stupid fake accent and how "it could be a really dumb comment, and you still sound so sexy!" Michael smiles hugely at this one. I love it so much. I love Synergy like a big silly bear at the zoo. Like that one fat kid at the mall that's really good at Dance Dance Revolution and you just want to watch him take the skinny kids' money and hand them their asses, all day long. Sean interviews that there's a "certain humility" that comes from winning, and that you "take a moment to yourself" after a victory" to...I guess pat yourself on the back or wank yourself to sleep or something, "whilst everyone is celebrating." He and Allie smack cheeks, and it's so, so funny because of the unavoidable chardonnay fumble that results, and I really wish she'd take his eye out or something with a well-intended but very sudden move.

Even though Synergy is all out, Bryce calls the Rushees back into a bedroom, because he's about to try something stupid, and it involves Charmaine having a bed to faint on while weeping to beat the band. He gives them a speech about how he's "so impressed with how they all worked together," which is French for "Look at the sparkly thing in my left hand! Don't look at how my right hand fucked everything up without trying! Nothing up my sleeves but bratty rage!" He tips his hand with his examples: testimony to his superior management skills includes Tarek not feeling like he has to do anything, because he's the most talented boy in the world and always takes on too much responsibility, and nobody (Tarek, Bryce) complaining that "the girls won't step up." Even Tarek's eyeballs bug out at this, but everybody's too tired and screwed up to really care. They all sit around, bored, as Bryce repeats over and over -- both to them and in interview -- about how amazingly well they all worked together, thanks to him. I don't begrudge him this, because it's all he's got, but it does freak me out that he's sipping liberally from the Kool-Aid his own self. He puts on a whole show about "the way that he was raised" in "some certain way" to be perfect and wonderful and awesome. It's so fucking ugly and it makes no sense and it goes on and on. Charmaine loses all sense of herself and again starts weeping and crying about how, just this once, nobody should be fired, because even though Bryce is a terrible fuck-up, he's talking her sorority pass-the-candle language and she wants to join his cult. With one hand in the air and the other on her temple, he blesses her about how sweet she is and how perfect he himself is, and how if only her wish could come true. It's exceedingly discomfiting. Charmaine interviews about how Bryce isn't "out to stab people in the back" or "make up lies" and how "he's here to have the integrity he's had throughout his life," and everything else he's been yakking about, like verbatim. Except that he seems to have backed himself into a burrow and is about five seconds from snapping like a rabid wolverine at anyone in authority, I guess she's right. He's exactly what he seems to be, and he was raised to be that way, and it's pretty awesome until some tiny thing pulls the mask back and he starts growling.

Quick Quiz!

1. Team time is best managed by going on at length about a magical fantasy land in which you have cleansed the world of all inconvenience and strife: True or False?
2. Probably, if your Project Manager tells you outright that he is a loving and benevolent God that will never fail you, he's telling the truth: True or False?
3. It's not at all presumptuous for the most volatile member of the team to demand that you get your shit together before the egg timer goes off, because nothing is ever his fault: True or False?
4. People who take the time to tell you the "kind of person" they are, or "how they were raised," never have an agenda. You can tell by what they're saying that they aren't fooling themselves, and that they have absolutely no interest in their own propaganda! True or False?
5. The best way to tell if a former meanderer has really committed to focusing on the details of the task is if they immediately start throwing around nebulous, ill-defined, and self-aggrandizing "team dynamics" speeches: True or False?
6. Bryce is right! Without Dan, our only hope is...Tarek! No really, he has a skill! True or False?
7. Writing songs is girl stuff! The boys would be better off...doing nothing whatsoever, since the task is about writing a song: True or False?
8. Jews are evil: True or False?
9. You can't trust a foreigner: True or False?
10. Leslie exists: True or False?

Answer Key: For questions 1 through 5 and 7 through 9, score one point for each answer of False. For questions 6 and 10, give yourself a half-point for each answer of False. For final disposition of these questions, and thus your final score, see Professor Schrdinger, because nothing at press time seems to give a firm answer either way.

Taken up by the sudden foxhole mentality -- I love the part on a reality show where they all start declaring what fantastic people they are and volunteering to throw themselves on grenades for each other and just generally feeling like the whole world comes down to whatever room they're locked in -- Lenny says he'd prefer to get cobra'd over Lee, who protests that he never wanted a "freebie." Bryce assures him that, in his ultimate grace and mercy, he knows that, and that nevertheless, they're not going anywhere. Lenny takes full responsibility for the fact that his language gaps were a detriment to the task, and Leslie interviews that she can't see herself making that point, because it's kind of hideous, although it only really applies if Bryce's total failure is somehow a non-issue. Was there nothing logistic that Lenny could have done? Tarek gets to be this mysterious "creative director" every week and seems to do nothing but bitch and run around yelling at strangers. I bet Lenny could do that like gangbusters. Instead, he's been put in this position where the only thing he was asked to do is...something they all know he can't do. Bryce comes back to his main point, which is that they are a cult and he is their cult daddy: "I want us all to remember how we felt during the task. That's all I can ask." He's gaming them so hard. Does he even know? Does he even know that his entire appeal as a failed PM is: "Please keep in mind how you felt during the task, and remember that what you felt was not disappointment in me, or completely underutilized, but in fact grateful that I didn't start any fights this week." Either he's going home today, or he's winning this bitch. That's what I'm hearing.

Bryce's dead eyes welcome Trump to the Boardroom, and tell Trump that they lost simply because their music wasn't as "compelling" to the executives as the Synergy tune. True enough, Pizzazz. So if the music's the problem, then that indicts Charmaine, Leslie, and Tarek? No: "Tarek came up with the melody, and I approved it." Trump: "But it was Charmaine's idea?" Charmaine and Leslie wrote the lyrics, but there was just one lyrical misstep, says Bryce, leaving out how the lyrics were so silly and repetitive that Tarek was basically asked to put lipstick on the pig of their song about chicken. Trump reminds him that the missing lyric, referencing the fact that there is no chicken in this world except that which comes from Arby's, was a pretty big part of the task. The actual task, really. Trump asks if that means, having eliminated all possible firees, Bryce means to suggest that he himself should be fired. And the mask slips: "If you're looking to hire a jingle writer, you should fire me," Bryce hisses, and while I admit it's a good line, you don't say that to Trump, and you don't do it with the hooded eyes and smoke coming out of your ears. Trump begs him, then, to explain who should be fired. Bryce says that Lenny should go, because it "comes down to who was able to contribute the least." I still -- and let me say that Lenny did a shitload to redeem himself for me in this episode, and I might kind of love him -- I still feel like the issue with managing Lenny is the same as anybody else: don't ask him to do something he cannot do, and admits that he cannot do, because it's guaranteed that there's something he can do. That's just shit management.

Lenny admits that this is a crappy feeling, and Trump asks him about which jingle was better. Lenny says he has no idea, because still nobody has explained "jingle" to him, and cracks that he is "the first Russian jingle writer" in history. Bill jumps up his ass about that, calling it a "crutch" because he's lived in America for fifteen years or whatever, and I originally agreed with Bill, both because I find Lenny to be lazy and defensive, but going back over the episode, I think it's pretty clear that Lenny actually didn't have any idea what the fuck he was doing. "We should have jingle bells"? "We should make it sound like a cell phone ringtone"? "How about the sound of a chicken?" These are not the remarks of a person who should be involved in jingle-writing. Either he's just that lazy that he was willing to go the distance and pretend the entire time, or he actually was in over his head, and I believe the latter. Trump agrees with Bill that Lenny should be more familiar with simple advertising stuff by now, and tells Lenny he's on "thin ice."

Trump talks to Charmaine about the lyrics, and unbeknownst to her, he's looking for the thing they are looking for from Charmaine: a hands-down declaration of responsibility for part of the failure. They've been building this case for awhile, Trump and Bill, and she has no way of knowing that, so she just double-talks about nothing instead of giving it up. It sucks, because she can't know that this is what they want, because Trump -- this season even more than usual -- has just the one idea about each candidate ("Lenny, he's a comedian," "Lee, he's the politician," "Charmaine, she doesn't take responsibility") that he can't fucking let go, and by which slender thread each of them hangs regardless of the true applicability. It's part of what made Rebecca good in the Boardroom last year: the ankle and the "integrity" and that was all of Rebecca that Trump could see, so she pushed it constantly, and Randal too, with his degrees. Or Tarek now, he was "Mensa Guy," and when that didn't work out, Trump re-named him "Overrated Guy," and at least Tarek seems to have figured that out. At least in the BR. So maybe in some ways it's best that Charmaine not attack her symbolic value directly, because he'd have to dub her something else, and if that happened this week, she'd become "Creative Failure Guy," and since that's kind of true -- she's great at a lot of things, but not the things that sexism says she's good at, like writing poems and fantasizing about horses -- it's kind of up to Bryce to keep her out of the BR this week. Which he does, explaining patiently and nonsensically that she -- and invisible No-Girl Leslie -- were absolutely not responsible for the only thing for which they were responsible.

But speaking of Charmaine, Bill wonders how come they were 25 minutes late to the meeting with Doug and Debbie, and...it's nasty, because Trump didn't know about that, so it becomes the most important thing in the universe. "IS THAT LEADERSHIP?" screams Trump from his diaphragm, and Bryce, even stupider, "explains" that he "wasn't aware" they were late until they arrived. Carolyn's eyes go wide. This is where DVR comes in handy, because I remembered that there was weirdness surrounding the circumstances, but it was only upon review that I was able to reconstruct what happened, which is that Bryce ignored Charmaine outright when she explained the appointment time, because he was too busy telling Tarek how pretty they both were. Bill asks who's responsible for that one, and Bryce says that Charmaine was the one that made the appointment, but Carolyn redirects this whole line of questioning: "He doesn't even know!" Trump tells them what every successful executive should already know, which is that you are never, ever late to a client meeting. "They were angry before they heard your song!"

Trump asks Lenny who he'd fire, and Lenny responds: Bryce was on top of nothing, micromanaged everything, and didn't delegate anything to Lenny. Which sounds like a tune Lenny's performed before, but this time it's definitely, ridiculously true, which reframes past tasks, in retrospect, if you're the kind of person willing to admit you might have been wrong. Which is the kind of person I aspire to be. "I wish I had more input -- I can't write rhymes in English." He tells a sad story about how he was trying to write rhymes in Russian and then translate them, but no matter what he did, it was complete crap. Carolyn seems to be not buying this, but like: write a song? Fuck that! I think of myself as fairly fluent in English, and I would have taken a giant-ass pass on this part of the task, and if Bryce had tried to delegate it to me anyway, I would have...wait, that's exactly what Tarek did, and I said it was some kind of male posturing, so never mind. Forget I said anything! Lenny is a Commie!

Trump moves on to the rest of the team: Tarek admits that Bryce performed some "regrettable decision-making," and Lee points out that he has no business offering an opinion of any kind because he was at Temple the whole time. Then there's another regrettable instance of the Trump-To-Human translation error. What happens is that Trump asks over and over, both of Lee and other team members, whether it's fair that Lee has gotten a bye the last two tasks. What he means is, "I am going to make a self-important point here about how shit happens and every employee has a religious or familial or other obligation sometimes, and you should work around it instead of blaming it for your failures." But because he delivers this in the form of a question repeated eighteen times, followed by a seemingly unrelated pronouncement ("Is it fair?" "Is it fair?" "Is it fair?" "LIFE'S NOT FAIR!"), nobody ever figures this out. Even Carolyn and Bill seem kind of confused by the turn he takes. The drama of this fool! But that's not the unfortunate part; the unfortunate part is that, since nobody in the room realizes that we're on a Trump Wisdom Object Lesson kick, they all just assume they're still in a heated Boardroom battle, and a lot of factors get confused as a result. For example, I think that this is the point where Bryce really just jumps the rails completely, at least in part, as far as his overall "plan." So Lee's like, "I don't care if you send me home for being Orthodox, because it's how I roll," and Trump's response is, "Fine, but life is not fair. It never is. Life sucks, you know that?" Carolyn smiles at this, because Trump is embarrassing, but never more so than when he's explaining basic shit to smart young people.

Leslie says that Lenny should be fired, because he didn't "input" as much as the rest of them, and Bryce reiterates that Lenny is good at a lot of things, but couldn't contribute. On a completely fucking unrelated note, Trump makes a connection between this and his 2D version of Lenny, and shares it like it's fucking Solomon's word: "I think Lenny masks his own talent by being a comedian." See what he did there? The one thing you knew he was going to say, linked up with the one thing that he should get a pass on, just because Trump wanted to seem insightful -- which causes Bryce to think that there's going to be a benefit in trying to screw Lenny. I'm not saying Bryce isn't about to descend into pants-wetting mania, but I do think he is getting some help from the outsize crazy of Trump. Bryce is asked to choose his two team members for cobra, and he...chooses Lenny and Lee. Things get weird.

Essay Questions: Choose two or more of the following candidates from Team Gold Rush and write a 500-word essay on why they should be brought back to the Boardroom for possible cobra, paying attention to the notes and special assignments below:

Tarek: Make special mention of any skills he may have used, his relationship with the Project Manager, and the pros and cons on the received wisdom that he is perfect in every way.
Charmaine: This is a rhetoric task. Use the skills you've learned to make an emotional appeal calculated to make her lose her shit in front of the Viceroys and Trump, with a bonus weight added for any references to her inability to take responsibility for failures, whether or not that applies or has ever applied.
Lenny: Be prepared to defend the accusation that you mismanaged him by assigning him the task of writing songs in a foreign language for a purpose nobody explained to him. Bonus points assigned for encoding xenophobic and capitalist stereotypes of "hostile foreigners" and "lazy socialists," and please be sure to somehow twist the concept that he is a funny dancing clown into the argument somehow for full credit.
Lee: This task is designed to test your will to be strained, but the higher level of difficulty will be rewarded. Make this appeal without mentioning the following terms: "Judaism," "Orthodox," or "Jewish"; "Yom Kippur," "Synagogue," or "Temple"; "religious discrimination"; or "obsequious young sniveling ass-kisser of the highest degree." Extra points if you are able to work the "Lee is a politician" angle into your argument, even though it has nothing to do with this or any other task.
Leslie: Be prepared to defend Leslie's existence in the pursuit of naming her as a weakness to the team -- you might have to sketch her face and discuss her entirely in the subjunctive mood, since Trump seems unable to see or recognize her at any time.

"Because of the Jewish holiday?" probes Trump, as Bill looks on, his gorge rising a bit at how nuts Bryce's brain is going. "No. We lost on creative input," Bryce "explains." He says that he respects everything Lee has contributed in the past, but that for this task, Bryce "really could have used his head." So -- because of the Jewish holiday, then? Trump asks if it isn't a bit "hard" to bring somebody in to be fired because he had the bad taste to observe a religious holiday, and this is fucking Bryce's response: "It's terrible!" I would have done an electric Kool-Aid acid test on a hair sample the second he said that. What!? ("Aren't you being kind of a dick?" "Well, the kind of person who would do what I'm doing is terrible, but..." But what, numbnuts? "But I have to, because I am that kind of person.") He then chooses Lenny, and the same tragicomedy unfolds, only with immigration language barriers instead of religious holidays. Bill almost falls off his chair and/or pukes. The fear that always lives in his eyes has gone crazy now that nothing makes sense anymore. At least Bill has the knowledge that Trump is God, right? So he'll not completely lose it? Trump sends Tarek, Charmaine, and Leslie upstairs, and reads off the teleprompter, "One of you will be fired." As he does every fucking week. But since Bryce is heading into Crazytown, he snits in response, "I'm aware of that, yes, sir." Is he...did he just go crazy? What is going on? He just called back the two people that Trump and both Viceroys told him not to, explicitly for the reasons he was told specifically not to do so, and now he's trying to punk Trump out?

Commercials, and then Carolyn's hair looks...not so good. Bryce is asked why, since Charmaine and Tarek (Leslie is going to end up winning, isn't she?) were responsible for the lyrics and music of their loser song, they are not back in the Boardroom. Bryce gives the counterintuitive explanation that without Charmaine there would be no lyrics at all, and without Tarek, there would be no music. That makes no sense. The song lost the task, but thank God for the song? "It was a team effort -- we lost because we didn't have any more creative ideas." He says "team effort" and its synonyms so many times in this conversation, and I don't know about Bryce (because I do not understand Bryce at all, because I am not nuts) but to me that connotes a certain amount of PM-related trauma. Like, you would only use the semiotics of "we lost as a team" if you're trying to get the PM fired. So either he's crazy, or he's trying to fire himself, which implies that he is crazy. Trump's like, "So, Lee?" Bryce tells Trump not to fire Lee. Which...implies that he is crazy. Trump asks why the fuck you would bring a person into the Boardroom and then politely ask that Trump not fire them, and my friend Andrea points out that it's obviously a pawn situation, that Bryce knows that Lee cannot get fired the week of Yom Kippur, so really it's just to get Lenny out. Which I buy, except that Lenny-as-scapegoat doesn't make a heap of sense either, and it makes you look dumb bringing in such an obvious cipher. Especially when you effectively blocked Lenny from doing anything constructive at all, which makes it seem like it was your plan all along, which is a stupid plan, because you only have to talk to Lenny for a few minutes before you understand that he is not ever going to be a great writer of songs in English. "You said to bring two!" is Bryce's explanation.

Trump asks Bryce to clarify why the hell he would think that Trump would fire Lee for observing a Jewish holiday, and Bryce tells him sincerely that he hopes he won't. It sounds so crazy every time he says this that I have to forgive myself for thinking he was just nuts and not seeing that Lenny was his best hope of staying in the game. Given, of course, that the actual culprits are part of the Bryce-Is-Pretty Club and would never be brought back anyway. Bored and uncomfortable Bill watches Bryce snap at Trump some more. Every time Bryce gives a snotty "You know what?" at the beginning of his tirade, take a drink. Trump points out that Lenny did absolutely nothing wrong, but before he can point out the total mismanagement of Lenny, Bryce cocks and fires: "You know what, though, Lenny didn't do anything." I'm not denying that Bryce has the gift of gab. He is good with dialogue in the moment, and plays with words pretty elegantly. But you know who's not going to be impressed with sarcastic wordplay? Especially when it's pointed at him like a machine gun of clever rage? Even if he gets the jokes?

Carolyn: "No, but the other two missed the mark. They might have worked hard, but they missed the mark!"
Bryce: "You know what, though? So did I!"
Jacob: "[...?]"
Carolyn: "I ... don't get your logic."
Bryce: "Apparently not!"
Trump: "That's not the away the world works!"
Jacob: "Wait, what are we talking about?"
Bryce: "You know what? Maybe it should be!"
Trump: "The world should work that way? Where you fire someone for observing a Jewish holiday?"
Bryce: "Yeah, that's exactly what I said [you motherfucking moron]."
Jacob: "OH SNAP!"
Bill: "[I may vomit.]"
Trump: "[There are flames on the side of my face, but I cannot feel them, because that did not just happen.]"
Bryce: "[Fire me, fire me, fire me fire me fire me fire me fire me.]"

Carolyn and Lenny lock eyes during the wonderment of this display, and then Trump attempts to complete the following speech: "You lost to a better jingle. Your song wasn't that good." Meanwhile, Bryce is screaming at him, trying to interrupt, and getting yelled down by Trump. Sensing a momentary break in the wisdom, Bryce screams, "I was raised in a certain way!" He starts bitching weirdly about how he's "not going to throw people under the bus," but...just looks more and more crazy. All this integrity talk gets you exactly one place: Trump says "bring back two people," you say "no," he fires you on the spot. Instead of what Bryce did, which is bring back a Jew and an immigrant for being Jewish and Russian, respectively. Which is impressively crazy and in aggressively poor taste, but not all that "integrity" usually would imply.

Trump: "I think it is terrible that you brought Lee back."
Bryce: "You can [fucking] send him home right now [because I told you to]."
Trump: "Excuse me? Maybe I will [, pissant]."
Bryce: "[Whatever, asshole.]"
Carolyn: "[This is the best thing that has ever happened in my life.]"
Trump: "I think it's terrible that you brought back Lee and Lenny, instead of Charmaine and Tarek. I think it's terrible that you were late to the meeting. Bryce, you're fired."

He dismisses them after a few gulping seconds of adrenaline, and Bryce thanks him. Trump tells him that he has "great potential," and I agree, and not just in the "...to take out a family of six in a Luby's" way either. He's got lots of strengths. Kissing ass is not one. Making a plan is not one. Acting like an adult in the face of adversity, not so much. Reading a room is not at all a strength of Bryce's. But he's a good salesguy, he plays boy games really well, he's a smart talker and probably a good writer, and that's 80% of what it takes for somebody like him to succeed. Bryce and his motherfucking integrity hold the door open for Lee and Lenny, and they both pat his belly on their way out, giggling about what a chucker Bryce has always been, to pile into the elevator back up.

Trump tells his Viceroys that the Lenny part is one thing, but Bryce really shouldn't have brought Lee back. Which is admirable, because Bryce was going to be fired from the second they were late to the meeting -- neither Charmaine nor Tarek were in any danger this week, at any point, because in the BR either one would have roasted him with the truth of his incompetence -- but the reason it was so satisfying for Trump has nothing to do with religious sensitivity. Carolyn and Bill agree that this was a simple decision -- which was made for them by Bryce's crazy ass -- almost as an afterthought, because: duh. "Okay!" intones the Trump, and then...does a strange, mystical movement with his arms, like Endora or Halfrek, as though he's cleansing the space of negative vibes. It's really the perfect, maybe only possible, ending to the gorgeous, exciting, hilarious Boardroom of this episode.

Crazy Taxi, Verbatim Edition: "Trump doesn't scare me! Neither does Carolyn! Neither does Bill!" CASE CLOSED, you little bitch. How old are you? "Ugh! Gah! The best candidate for Mr. Trump is sitting in this cab right now! Pssh, driving home! In terms of running one of his companies in terms of real estate, building development [more Napoleon Dynamite noises]... Nobody in that suite can do a better job than I can! And I think even Mr. Trump's going to figure that out! Real quick!" Crazy Taxi does that [beat] thing I love so, so much, where the music wraps it up and we cut to the exterior...and then back inside for a final shot: "It wouldn't hurt Trump to listen, once in a while." Which...I get where you're coming from, that seeing Bryce do this is cathartic or that Trump "needs to hear it" or whatever. But there was no net benefit, nothing changed as a result of the tantrum; the rage was -- as usual -- ineffectual. Which means that Bryce didn't do anything particularly heroic or cool, just something hilarious. Which is...this is a game, with an objective, and you have to be a pretty small person with a pretty tiny fuse and a pretty big lack of maturity to behave this way. If the ump's being a dick and you've got bases loaded, you try to hit the ball. You don't spit on the ump and walk off. You don't get into an argument with the umpire about how great you are at baseball, or what a good person you are, or how the umpire can better perform his job. Because I'm telling you: he's not listening, and he already thinks you suck. Just hit the fucking ball.