The Good: Sean, sitting with Omarosa, chanting "TRUMP! TRUMP!" That made my day. Kristine and Heidi telling Trump to suck their ovaries and getting applause for it. James getting smacked down for being a sleazy suck-up. Angela, Stefani, Heidi and Kristine looking twice as hot as ever; Tim and Aaron looking exactly as hot as ever, only with a little bloat; Surya (!) and Nicole having had total hotness makeovers. James's cute family. Ivanka and Don being totally awesome throughout. Stefani offering Trump the opportunity to hire her, so that she can hire James in turn, then telling Trump off for being rude in the sweetest way imaginable.
The Bad: The criminally Claude Raines amount of Derek and Jenn. Wheeling George out for no reason and barely letting him talk. ...And that's it.
It was fairly good, actually: after a whirlwind through the season, and a promotion of this year's two jobs (Cap Cana in the Dominican Republic and Trump Towers Atlanta), Trump fires Frankie and Nicole without much pain or fanfare, inciting her family to a scary riot. Then we see video biographies of the Final Two (Stefani does karate and defends against liability torts and worker's comp claimants; James still can't explain what the fuck he does for a living beyond "be creative" and has daughters), and then Ivanka and Don spend a while asking really interesting and incisive questions of them. Stefani manages to turn every response into a new spotlight on one more awesome thing about herself, while James continues to explain nothing while using the word "creative" every two seconds. The cobra'd are not called upon nearly as often as we'd like, but their answers are disrespectful to the process in the extreme, which is fantastic. Then Trump praises Stefani for being awesome and James for being nebulously fabulous, and he chooses Stefani! Because James is creepy! It's like the ultimate finale, given the cruddy crappy nature of the season, and everybody actually -- no drama, no lost minds, no Frankie Screaming -- comes off nice and professional for once. What a way to end things.
And we're live at the Hollywood Bowl, which is an outdoor theater, even though the forecast for rain couldn't be more sure of itself. There's a really troubling number of people and they're all shouting, "TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!" Which would be like totally off-putting, to the point that maybe they've each been paid $50 in methadone or the cash equivalent, except for there's Sean! Sitting with Omarosa! Who's chanting! This night just got awesome. Trump and his children come out onto the stage with smoke everywhere, but I bet it's not as scary when they're so tiny and far away. Ivanka's looking totally cute, with a weird science-fiction-adjacent Alla collar, and then there are fireworks -- what's with the fireworks this year? -- and some fist pumps from the man himself. The boardroom table on the fake boardroom stage is about sixteen yards long. The cheering is unending and ridiculous; it's like late afternoon in LA while this crap is going down. I wish it were like the other seasons and there was something to be excited about. Not only was the scale of the final task completely thrown off, but also: we already know what's going on, because we've already seen the final product. It's like, there's no cliffhanger about how it's going to rain, even, because look up: it's raining. And you don't have to worry about whether or not the Z-List Joe Piscopo celebrity is going to show, because he's not, because there was no final task. And so instead, a rock concert, starring Donald Trump, with some lady out in the audience holding a sign intended to show support for Frankie Suits. I ask you.
"How great is this?" Trump states/asks, unconsciously signaling his final choice in an hour. He's talking about the Hollywood Bowl, the fireworks, horrible Sinatra sang here a million years ago, the Beatles sang here once, and now he's on this same stage. Which is all very weird, because the whole point of LA is how the past doesn't exist, so like, who cares who sang on this stage? It didn't count. This isn't the Ed Sullivan show, it's some crappy outdoor theatre, built by the corrupt, for the exhausted. It was built in 1922, for Pete's sake. George already had grandchildren in 1922. No history, no future. Since 2003 it's been a visual mashup of every style ever applied to it: Allied Architects, Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry. "I love it!" he says, and for a second it's kind of heartwarming, until you remember how last week he totally bought Rosie's bondage underwear from Exit To Eden in order to prove some kind of point, and then your heart once again goes dead. Ivanka, though, is wearing a totally gorgeous smile, and Don's dressed better than he ever has. Six months in fast-forward has been wildly kind to them both.
"We ⥠New York," Trump obligatories, "But... here are some meaningless clips of LA, because bad ideas were all we had this season." We remember how thirteen weeks ago, 18 candidates came to LA because they thought they were on that show The Apprentice, and not this misshapen beast. Well, most of them were already from LA, and most of them were lawyers, because the show has ADD. Derek looked particularly scrumptious at this time. They stayed on a graciously overbearing property in Beverly Hills, while Donald Trump fooled them into thinking that he was staying in the house door, when we know he was there for five minutes every four days, and often crawled around in the mansion's airducts listening in on their conversations. The better to fire them nonsensically at this season's brilliant conclusion. Remember when Heidi and Frank were Project Managers for no reason except that Frank yelled because he was out of his depth and weird about it, and Heidi took control because she knew how serious a disadvantage it was going to be, being prettier than everybody else, and wanted to make sure they understood she was a contender. Unfortunately, she got no credit for this, or the fifteen thousand wins that followed, because nobody will ever understand that being hot, and smart, and a girl is like the worst deal God can hand you, and it always will be until everybody stops holding it against you. Take out any one of those three, and you're Turning Gold, but all three at once? Get ready to have people talk super slow at you.
Heidi was adorable washing some cars herself, in the first task, and Derek also, particularly in the credits. It was close, but Kinetic won, because Martin is too weird for life. The winning team -- remember? -- moved into the mansion, and their PM sat in the BR watching Trump scream for awhile; the losers lived in tents across the hedge. They acted like they were in a concentration camp even though people pay good money to go camping in California, where the weather is like ours all year round. Of course, those people aren't auditioning on a reality show that demands you dress really hot and emulating paranoid schizophrenia 24/7, so we can kind of cut them a break. There were sprinklers in case they got hot, and in case anybody ever got inside the gates to see the acres of perfectly kept grass. It was "a classic battle of the Haves versus the Have Nots," says Trump, I guess forgetting his history. A real "classic" battle of the Haves v. the Have Nots would have involved Frankie taking up a machete in the middle of the night, Stefani marching Kinetic to the guillotine one by one, or possibly Tim handing out leaflets. A printing press in the attic, lots of clove cigarettes, or a full-on riot. Those are examples of the reality of Have v. Have Not. This is more like a classic battle of the Haves v. the Towel-Dried. The Air-Conditioned v. the Balmy. The Gas-Guzzling Minivans v. the Abercrombie & Fitch-branded Sport Utility Vehicles. Dormitory v. Campsite. The Reserved Table v. The Twenty-Minute Wait. Beluga v. Sevruga. The Whiners v. the Other Whiners.
Frankie Suits told us at length about the fire he had in himself (the crowd goes wild; apparently methadone patients are big Frank fans) and then, Trump tells us for the eighteenth time, Frank's "tenacity," as he "fought for his life," was impressive. Saying it doesn't make it true, first of all, but more important, what the hell has that to do with the job? "That lifeguard let a lot of kids die, but man was he a dick when I fired him. So I gave him a promotion." Frankie Bronxed up some kind of declarative statement about how the carwash task would have been one way if quote "I got blew away by a landslide," but that it was actually quite close, that killed him. If you'll remember, Frank went gaily hopping through the streets of LA for most of that task, leaving Tim in charge of Martin, and that's why they lost at all, because the power sales people were all on Arrow, and even at this point we knew that. And Frank, the best salesman on this show, was nowhere to be seen, because he was playing at being a manager instead of managing. So in a way, he got "blew away" by a landslide called this show and his insecurity about it, and still hasn't realized it. Martin had no "fire" and couldn't answer a question, which annoyed Ivanka, but the real big issue was his lack of acquaintance with what we call "the nitty-gritty." There's a saying in Zimbabwe that I can't render on this keyboard -- due to all the "!" and such -- but basically it goes, "To him who is given much, please stop dressing like a goddamn leprechaun." Anyway: cobra.
Task Two screeched to a halt due to a syndrome called Black Man's Dick. The crowd at the Hollywood Bowl cheers forever and ever. Heidi and Trump agreed that only Carey and his five gay friends had the body and the shamelessness to pull off that suit, and the edit is very gracious to Trump here, as he basically shakes his head sagely and -- to even larger anticipatory applause from the crowd -- makes the awful thing Carey's parting gift. So that was both the black guys, gone.
Then there was the celebrity sightseeing tour, where James "scored" with the creative idea of boobs, and then screamed for one hundred years in his horrible voice. Michelle was kind of out of her mind, as was Tim, so their team lost. Then Michelle abruptly told Trump to not only take the job, but also to shove it. This created a rip in the timespace continuum of Trump's self-image (stalwart masculine manqué swinging prodigious lead pipe) that it took him like three boardrooms at least to get those big-girl panties off and resume being disgusting. With Michelle gone and Trump carrying a purse, Arrow won their task, which resulted in loving looks of love from Nicole toward Tim, in addition to gross food on the beach and some sexy piano playing. Sometime later, they made out drunkenly and couldn't really tell you why, but it got [spoiler!] fired.
Then over the four weeks: a mall in Central America, Derek being hot, some bees, Derek being scorching hot, honey everywhere, Derek slightly less hot in a beekeeper suit, Frank and Tim screwing around, Nicole acting foolish, one thousand firings, a chicken bowl with like Grape-Nuts and pine needles in it, a wondrous car that was also a witch, Marisa sloping back to the Hinterlands to once more forage with her insanely tall kind, Aaron lounging around in his underwear in your imagination, Aimee getting a little scary, Derek being crazy hot, Jenn being awesome and getting in your face, the psycho freakout thrillride of vitamin supplements. Then came the "webisode" episode, which is memorable here because of how it was the same task as they just completed. Nicole and Tim, as though by fake, played a BF and GF and BFD, and then James was not loving their hugs of loving love, and James was dickish all the time his whole life. Nicole invented multi-camera television, and the resulting "moving pictures" were so realistic that James nearly had a heart attack, thinking it was real life. But in real life they don't propose to you near a toilet. And if they do, you tell them to go home to Momma.
As the final weeks progressed, Trump's "choices became more difficult," but it was easy and obvious from where we were sitting. Surya got fired and cried like a bitch, Muna added Christianity to the list of things that made her this year's crazy black lady, Angela processed her feelings of culpability, Tim had one bad idea out of a hundred good ones, but was dating. Heidi called Trump stupid and dared him to fire her, but nobody understands her when she talks so she got fired, meaning that Trump agreed with her that it was retarded, and thus the right thing to do. The crowd laughs about something at this point but Lord knows which of the many funny things about that they're laughing about, probably that same old schadenfreude thing of seeing Heidi go down for being "smug," which is another word for "proud" -- or "correct" -- if you're talking about a pretty girl. Then Kristine got fired for literally no reason. Then -- the crowd shits itself with joy -- The Final Four were revealed, and they were Arrow. Stefani looked beautiful as they toasted themselves and each other, Nicole was getting better all the time, Frankie was getting worse, and James, I guess, never had a chance at being a good person.
Then they had to make a commercial with the same tools and concepts as the webisode task, only instead of being on the internet, it was shown at a movie theatre before a movie. That was literally the only difference between the tasks. Even the teams were basically the same. James and Stefani chose Aaron and Angela, good stand-ins for Tim's charismatic level-headedness and Nicole's intelligence/quickness/je ne sais quois that made her so imminently expendable yet terribly necessary the last time James went on a "building the perfect Prom date" rampage. Frank and Nick brought along Tim and Surya, who are basically the less- and more-insane versions, respectively, of James and Stefani. Actually, what an awesome concept. Like, James is what would happen if you turned up Tim's volume and ethical grayness to 100 while turning down his creativity and charm to like 5, and Surya is like what would happen if you gave Stefani a lobotomy, a persecution complex, borderline narcissistic disorder, and a raging case of OCD.
Meanwhile, Aaron's like the Bizarro version of Tim in that he is a really nice guy who's not as invested, relatively, in being on TV, who dated Aimee (the Bizarro Nicole?) after the show, and kicks Tim's looks up a few Aryan notches. And Angela is a workhorse who gets no credit for it, like Nicole, but the Bizarro part is that she doesn't constantly trumpet this fact; is as fixated on her Olympic status as Trump, just like Nicole with her overwhelming sexy hotness; she looks one jillion times better in a suit than a dress, just like Nicole; and tonight, just like Nicole, Angela will be made up to look exceedingly like Jon-Benet Ramsey.
It wasn't as interesting as they want us to think, but then it got real interesting as Frankie came up with several bad ideas, spurred on by Tim, then realized that they were bad ideas, also spurred on by Tim. Or so the show would have us believe. Random Hitchcockian first act, sick kid, humor at the expense of the odoriferous disenfranchised. Which is not funny, which Tim and Frank slowly figure out, then apparently disregard. Meanwhile, Stefani watched James get "creative" for a billion years, and told him to get his act together a bunch of times, but he is just too damned "creative" to listen to a woman. In the end, the crowd in the theatre "[were edited to appear to] like both commercials," quoth Trump, which makes the decision even tougher still. Which is pretty impressive, considering the stacked deck and cobra-bait sitting on the right-hand side of the table. "Tonight, the Final Four will face me in the boardroom, but only one will win the dream job of a lifetime... THE APPRENTICE." Rebecca Jarvis will sleep easy tonight. Who are we kidding? Like of all of us she's the one that's got time to think about this stupid show.
This is the last time I'll ever hear this music or see these credits. That makes me sad, but also like it's Christmas. The crowd cheers along with the song. Which is called "For The Love Of Money," okay, in case we haven't thought about that in a while, and which is basically a parable about how money turns people into vile automatons. Some people have got to have it, some people really need it, some do bad things with it, others do good things with it. Remember like season one when there was a gentle, loving, Carolyn kind of irony there? For the love of money, people will steal from their mother and rob their own brother, and for the love of money, people can't even walk the street because you never know when somebody's going to kill you for it. People will lie, and cheat, and don't care who they hurt, and sell their precious bodies for a small piece of paper: it carries a lot of weight. Money can drive some people out of their minds. And the people just sing and sing and sing: "You're fired! You're fired! You're fired!"
Kinetic. The point of Kinetic was this, in the words of the Trumpster: "If you want to buy something, it's obviously in your best interest to convince the seller that what he's got isn't worth very much." It started with Muna, who was edited out of all reality and we never really got to know her. Kristine, she didn't even get the footage for us to know if we liked her, but I know I did. Derek, he was the best ever, and I will marry him in a gay way one day real soon, in real life, and you'll be like, "We thought you were kidding, like with the Blake thing!" and I'll be like, "I never joke about gay marriage," and what I will mean by that is, "California is a community property state." Marisa: the girl liked chicken suits. Angela we already talked about. Surya deserves nothing. Jenn Hoffman is awesome and hilarious and was on this show for five seconds, but one day I hope to pour honey all over her. Aimee was painted as a drug abuser, but I think maybe she was just sleepy. Heidi was handed the raw deal of all time and still thought she could convince Trump not to hate her. She was wrong. Kinetic was awesome, and funny, and didn't drink until they vomited, and used their inside voices, and I can't think of one of them that was fired for the right reasons, except possibly Marisa and maybe Aimee, but I'm not convinced about either of those. For these things and more, I salute them.
Arrow. The fallen include Martin, who has a thing or two to tell you about a thing or two, but effectively begged to be cobra'd from minute one. Michelle, who needed some circuits replaced but also did the coolest thing I've ever seen anybody do on this show. Carey, who represented and paid the price. Tim was teased and egged on and bugged and questioned about his relationship with Nicole, then fired for thinking that was on the table. Aaron, I don't even remember what he got fired for, but he's intensely likeable. The unfallen include the Final Four: Nicole, about whom I've never really had much to say; Frank, ditto; Stefani, who deserves to win; and James, who deserves to be slapped ten times across the face with a week-old trout. It's nothing personal, it's just business.
He goes after Angela instead, his "champion," and notes that she's worked with all four of the Arrow folks at this point. Which is funny, because that totally applies to over half of them, but you know what he means: she jumped from Kinetic and dealt with The Things About Arrow in the final task. Her makeup's, as I said, totally weird-looking, her hair is kind of weird too, but that smile, you can't paint over that gorgeous smile. So she tells Trump that working with the Final Four at different points has been "interesting," but that beyond James and Stefani, i.e., "the actual contenders here," she won't bother to choose. Just as long as there's no Nicole or Frank left standing. And she smiles that gorgeous smile again. And actually, her hair's totally working for me now.
You know, many theories have been advanced as to why I constantly talk about how good or bad everybody looks on this show, as I've always done. There are several reasons. The first is that the importance of image in business, Martin, cannot be overstated. Pretending this is a job interview means looking at them as potential employees, and first impressions are all you have, so calling attention to what works and doesn't in this context is more important for this show than even on American Idol. The second is that the only thing I've ever found interesting in this show is personal dynamic and body language, and that's something that comes up throughout the process. Your initial social position in the group -- and sometimes, like this year, your perceived leadership ability -- is determined by the image we project, and that's a sum total of whatever God gave you, and however you compensate for it. Throughout the competition, you judge your fellows by how well they weather the process, how closely they adhere to the possibility of perfection, and not only that, but remember that what took three or four months for us to see took them six weeks to film, so it's not like they had time to notice Nicole's pretty doll-eyes, or Kristine's witty mouth, or Derek's lovely ears and brow, like you do after months of knowing somebody. I'm sure even Brent and Markus had things, though we never ever saw them, that made them less awful to look at.
So in that cramped timeline, I'm saying those impressions stick around for them too, and it affects the process itself, because it relies on trust. Also, that "put together" as an attribute trumps absolutely everything else, because of the strength, intelligence and confidence it implies. Nicole's hotness is totally variable depending on what she's wearing, because a well-crafted appearance can do anything; the reason Kristine's skin issue gets little to no comment from me or anybody else is because the girl knows how to work it. (While the reason she's posing for Playboy is because she's awesome.) The last reason is that, as much as we joke about these recaps being didactic or instructional, I do think that you can base a lot of intuition about people based on reading their appearance and body language, and it's my belief that you can train yourself in this ability, and I feel like I've got a pretty good track record with my assumptions about most of the contestants, so it interests me on that level, because somebody's objective physicality doesn't really factor in once you get keyed into what they're all about, and often the contents of books, as you read them, changes what the cover looks like. Sometimes dramatically. Also interesting to me. But mostly and finally, the reason I talk about everybody's hotness quotient all the time like it's some kind of Sexy Wall Street journalism is because this show is for shit, and it's not like they hand out prizes for watching it, so lots of times eye candy is all you get.
Trump asks Stefani whom he should fire, and she tells him to hire her and shut up. This is awesome and they talk about this at length, but whatever, he starts in on the videos again, and we have to watch the bollicksy things again, but I'll be damned if I'm recapping those things. Here's a link for Nikki and Frank, aka Arrow, in which the crowd is wisely warned not to clap or laugh at the homeless dude, but they go crazy when the kid says, "Wow! The odor is eliminated!" I always kind of thought that the only people still watching this show were doing so because my recaps make no sense. Perhaps this is the final proof. There's a greenscreen behind Frank and Nikki, I don't know what that's all about, but the crowd that's behind them is instead projected onto a screen between them and the crowd that's between them, is how it looks. That's too weird, I'm not investigating it. I used up my detective skills on the Vegas task. But so now here's a link for James and Stefani, aka Kinetic in all but name. The last shot, of the couple manically grasping at each other while smiling dead-eyed into the camera, is not so much Lynchian, actually: it's more John Waters. (First of all: yikes, but second of all: have you seen that crazy John Waters show on Court TV with the murderous couple reenactments? It's the best thing in the world. We should recap that instead of this crap. I would totally move to LA or Vancouver or wherever and become an actor, if I could but once be on that show. That show : Jacob :: Broadway : Rosie O'Donnell. Here's my audition: "Visualize, Execute, and Enjoy! Visualize, Execute, and Enjoy! Visualize, Execute, and Enjoy!")
The boardroom music totally starts coming out of the sound system of the concert hall as Trump decides to get down to business. "Stefani, did James hold up his end?" Cut to Frank and Nikki making scared faces, for some reason, and Stefani's like, "He was a great partner." I bet he was. Trump kind of jumps the gun with his pre-rehearsed point, all, "You're really talking James up, Stefani, maybe I should hire him! I should choose him, that's what you're telling me!" She offers that Trump might return to reality if he so chooses, but does this with her eyebrows, and Trump can't read faces, so finally he quiets down on his own and asks why he should choose Stefani instead. "Behind every great director is a great producer... that's me." With about a hundred Awesome Stefani Things in there during the ellipses. Cheering, good answer, Stefani was born for the boardroom. Trump tells James he's "creative" (not) and "always has been" (opposite of true), but that sometimes, "something seems to be missing." Is it the creative part of the fuckin' "creativity"? Soooo tired of that, I don't know if I mentioned that a hundred times already. James disagrees: fake creativity is not all that he's about. OMG is he about to say something concrete? Evince or claim to possess an identifiable skill of any sort? HA! Of course not. "I don't agree," he disagrees. "I'm creative, but I can plan and be strategic! I did that in business!" He put people into their proper places, as a leader -- which I love whenever he says this, and he always says this, because it's like: your skill is kindergarten crossing guard? Your life is the credits of Mission: Impossible? -- and then makes a BULLSHIT misstep about how that's what happened on this task. To review: he put Stefani -- his partner, not his employee -- on the task of not letting him fuck up. That's how he strategically delegated this final task. Telling somebody of whom you are not the boss that their job is to be the boss of you doesn't make you a leader, it makes you a douchebag. And thinking anything other than that is really creative, but not in a good way.
Trump asks Frank whose concept their terrible video was, "in actuality," and Frank talks pretty, which I always love. Just the sheer concentration to avoid spitting or saying racist things, while speaking in a low, even, classy tone. Used to make me sad and kind of adoring, now it makes me chuckle nastily. Frank prettily says that it was a team effort, with Frank directing and Nicole editing, and that the concept was worked out with Nicole while... something. He lost it. All the pretty verbiage. Nicole says that Frank did a great job directing and inspiring the people, which we know she thinks is a good skill to have, because she's talked about it before. She says Frank "knows how to get things done," which I've always believed. Except for perhaps the respect of his teammates. He never really did nail that one down. Jenn and Derek laugh and clap indiscriminately, because the idea of dignity being something you gain or lose having to do with this game in any way is frankly hilarious. Trump grills Tim about the showmance and Tim whines and acknowledges that he has zero credibility about anything having to do with this contest, and is just immensely charming as usual, and Trump giggles about Tim's negative cred, and Tim says that objectively, of the four, Nicole's the only one to step up as PM, and that in real life she deals with huge amounts of money without blinking. Trump's like, "Actually, those things are correct." He takes it one gratifying extra step, saying like the one statement that puts me on everybody's side at the same time: "She's very capable. And so are you." My heart melted and I bought a t-shirt that said TEAM TIM & NIKKI, but I only wore it for that brief moment, because I'm like allergic to polyblends?
Trump asks Surya whether his opinion of Frank has changed. And let me tell you, the intervening months have not only been kind to Surya, they've been downright saintly. He looks like a million bucks, for real. I'm really proud of him for training his hair to do the tricks his face can't do. I mean he looks really cute, like a cute guy, like you'd see a guy out somewhere at the mall or a bar and you'd think, "Cute guy," like that. And here I thought the Wolverine hair was the thing he was doing right. I wonder if this new haircut came with a clue. Surya laughs and asks Trump whatever the hell he means by that. Frank is a good guy -- technically true, in that he is not a murderer, and that he does the best he can with what he's got to work with -- and worked hard in this process. Which is certainly true, but here's a thing: you know who I have no respect for? People that stay at work until 7PM. Work smarter, not harder. All you're demonstrating is that you're unable to get your job accomplished in a standard work day, and where you got the idea that you deserved a hug or a medal for that is unfathomably beyond my ability to understand. What I'm saying is, I have no doubt that Frank worked twice as hard, a hundred times, prodigiously harder than everyone else, but that's not really a point in his favor. That's like having a special curve just for the mainstreamed kids.
It's like inevitable in some way I can't define that Aaron's mic screws up for a second. That's like Aimee tripping over something in the risers, or Nicole accidentally backhanding somebody: it just makes sense. So he says that Stefani and James are not only a good team -- which doesn't really speak to the larger issues in play here -- but that in order to take the Trumporg global, James's tech background will come in handy. And yeah: global means B2B and internet, and three-quarters of the internet is a deficit-spending short-sell bubble, and James is king of bubble talk, so his brand of bullshit would actually be excellent for them. People cheer because Aaron said something. God, he's a treat. Trump tells us that he's really going to fire two people, one day.
You know how if you get a song stuck in your head in like one specific location, you will get that song stuck in your head forever when you're there? Whenever I have to make copies of something, I always get that New Edition "Tender Roni" song stuck in my head, the one that goes, "Only tender Ronies can give a special love/ A special kind of love that makes you feel good inside," or how when my friend Other Joe gets out of the shower, he sings Outkast's "So Fresh, So Clean," without even knowing he's doing it. Point being, I gave myself another task-related one of those last week and I think it's going to kill me because I can't chase it away with any song I can think of. Every time I take the Brita filter out of the fridge to fill the espresso maker, I start singing "Do You Really Want Me" by Salt N Pepa -- apparently I'm really into '90s urban pop, in my more lackadaisical moments -- but that's not the killer, because Salt N Pepa rule. The really awful part is that it's all the breakdowns, only those talking bits, so it's like: grab the water pitcher and ask if it's going to love my mind and not just my body, baby, and then like firmly notify the espresso that this is my life, not just a song. Which is why I will live alone for my entire life, because I don't need anybody knowing this shit -- besides you, I mean, because we're friends -- or for fuck's sake seeing me do it. Especially Derek. That'll kill the whole vibe.
Everybody's giggly onstage when we come back, and Trump does the whole "In my hands I hold two beautiful high-paid positions, but only one Apprentice" thing he does that I've never understood unless it's some kind of interview thing, or like, business porn where just thinking about the badassery of the job is what's exciting. I am accustomed to this show having attractive features I do not understand, and this one's always really confused me. It's like, either way you're not going to be really doing that thing, because you and I both know he keeps them in a cardboard box on Madison Avenue and only pulls them out of cold storage for ribbon-cuttings at like Trump Mall Paramus. The salary, if you care, is $250K. I don't know if that compares to years because I don't care. The first job is having to do with the construction of a resort in the Caribbean. Yes please. In the Dominican Republic, on 47 square miles, an area of beautiful land twice as big as Manhattan, to be destroyed for Trump's golf-coursed, villa'd, estated Cap Cana glory. The second is Trump Tower Atlanta, complete with twangy Grand Ole Opry music happening, a metal and glass masterpiece, over a thousand workers, a parking lot, giant condos. The picture of it looks pretty hot, actually, and then there's a dramatic reenactment of people looking at the blueprints and nodding vigorously. They don't start sleeping in separate beds and then try to murder each other, so John Waters doesn't show up. The condos are "scheduled to be sold out" and the project should be done by 2010.
Nicole: "Um, we wanted to show that you could use it all those ways, on the floor and fabric and as an air freshener, and we did a good job getting that across. Now, watching it after having slept, there are some choppy areas. A 90-second commercial would have been great, but 60 seconds was really hard. It was a great idea, and if we'd been able to follow through with it, you'd be more impressed. For example, there's a third act in which the person from the first unrelated part turns out to be the person that ran over the kid in the second act, so in the third act she kills the guy and covers up his stink with the air freshener, and get this: it's the homeless guy. She's like a hero."
Don: "Yeah, the homeless guy? That was fucking offensive. In other news, picking Tim to be on your team made you look like an idiot, Nicole, and picking Surya after you abused him made you look stupid too, Frank. You're both weak and deserve to be sabotaged."
Frank: "A leader leads. Surya was in marketing at Proctor & Gamble, along with having had every other job in the universe, in his imagination. I chose him to do that, not to sabotage us. We did not have a spot for a saboteur in our delegation procedure. Then also Jim... "
Nicole: "-- Tim. His name is Tim. Why do you always do that?"
Frank: "Sorry, Tim, we can trust. He's a guy? He's got needs? ... Not to mention the fact that, I don't know if you noticed this, but Surya won't fucking shut up about his integrity and how he's got integrity pouring out his ass, so like, since he's decided that's his whole personality, wouldn't he kind of be a dick to screw with us?"
Nicole: "That's... "
Donald: "-- Okay bored now. Tell me who to fire."
Stefani: "FRANK AND NICOLE. GOD."
Trump: "Heh. Why?"
Stefani: "James is better than them, and I'm better than James. It's called math?"
Trump: "Once again you're saying I should hire James?"
Stefani: "Um, no. How about you hire me and then I'll hire James to work under me."
Nicole and Frank: [visibly uncomfortable not only with the idea of a woman being in charge, but freaked by the ease with which Stefani said this and, by extension, the way she's ripping this boardroom apart while they can only stare]
Trump: "A lady as a boss! That's hilarious."
James: "No, you know what, you should hire me, and then I can hire Stefani to work under me."
Stefani: "I totally just said that."
James: "See how creative I am?"
Trump: "Seriously, why should I fire Frank and Nicole."
James: "The plan was always to fight out the Final Two like gentlemen, with me and Stefani. We'd be loyal to each other, and then turn on each other at the end, for cash. Remember? Our alliance was totally obvious? And it worked?"
Frank and Nicole: [Shudder with realization and terror, because the dead guy in the middle of the room while they were sawing their legs off and all that was actually the Jigsaw Killer all along]
Nicole: "Okay, but if that's true, then we have no idea whether they're independently worth anything at all. Stefani's got the power to turn invisible, and James has the power to suck the life force out of her like a remora, and together they do great work, but if you split them up? Useless invisible lady, starving remora."
Trump: "Not bad, again. Nicole, why weren't you this awesome on the show?"
Nicole: "Because your show is edited by jerks bigger than both of us combined and decided to make me the girlfriend edit, duh."
Trump: "Do you think Frank has the sophistication to work with me?"
Nicole: "Like, could he pull off classy stunts like cheating on his wife in public and getting into fistfights with beloved TV lesbians for no reason whatsoever? I have my doubts that he could do that in a classy way. I think he'd be good on a construction site, like Don said that time after we left the room. He's got the heart to be a great... Dane, a Great Dane, one of these days. Good with kids. Fetching. Like that."
Frank: "In addition to my ability to fetch, and hardly ever crapping on the carpet, I repeat nearly verbatim what Nicole said a moment ago about Stefani and James being codependent Apprenti."
Trump: "Are you better than Nicole?"
Frank: "If... yes."
Nicole: [laughs]
Trump: "Weak answer. I hate that word 'yes.' You didn't talk about how she's just a girl, or had a boyfriend, or anything. You're a weak sister, that's what I think. You got a boyfriend, Frank?"
Frank: "Um, remember how I was the first PM? Remember just that part, not where I lost that round."
Trump: "By screaming, you got that job by screaming."
Frank: [babbles at length]
Trump: "Frank Frank Frank Frank Frank we're taking a break, Frank."
Frank: [giggles]
Scary boardroom music, scary pronouncements from Trump: "I've heard you, now you hear me."
Trump: "Frank, you hired Surya even though he's a douchebag that ruined Arrow for like five weeks running, and abused him into hating you besides. Now, Surya is not the problem here, because there is no problem here, and I want to be very clear about that. You didn't get along with Surya because he was objectively annoying and an obstruction to your duties, and that's now your problem. Your mini-movie wasn't good, you were almost fired in the first week, and the second, and so on, and though you have drive, plus other things we haven't been able to pin down, the truth is that you have liabilities, like functional illiteracy and a raging overbite. You're fired."
Everybody, excluding Frank: "Duh."
Trump: "Nicole, the whole time I was bugging you and fucking with you and egging you on and pretending to care and saying that I would give Tim money if he banged you and told you that you were a precious flower and basically acted like I was gonna pay for the wedding, I was fucking with you. In fact there's nothing worse than office romance. That was my little test, to see if you'd keep doing something after I not only didn't discourage it, but actively elicited it. You can't have a boyfriend in this job, because [verbatim] you have to love me more. And I mean that literally: actual fellatio. I want to be clear about this. I don't like you dating Tim, because I'm now openly admitting I'm a creepy old fuck, and because [verbatim] I gotta be the boss."
Nicole: "I cannot heave my heart to say I love you all, and leave no love for a husband."
Trump: "Nicole, you're fired."
Everybody, including Nicole: "Duh."
Nicole's scary brother: [Shouting death threats, making obscene gestures, and pulling a knife out of his boot which he has cunningly fashioned from a toothbrush and some leftover plastic wrap from lunch]
Trump: "Go hug everybody else. Except you and Tim, Nicole. I don't wanna see that shit. Creepy old fuck, represent."
Nicole and Frank go dancing over to the other candidates. I don't know if this is a non-shock because they already know because this show is so fake, or if it's obvious because they've now been watching the same show we have for 15 weeks or whatever, but they're not surprised at all. Makes their little performances just now even cooler. It makes me surprisingly sad. I still think it means the most to Nicole. Trump sits in a dark place with strange lights and looks twice as toady as normal. He's like a mysterious toad sitting in a swamp. When everybody settles down -- and I mean it doesn't take long, this is Frank and Nicole, with the exception of her scary relative there's not a lot of rending of clothing and flagellation at this unsurprising news -- Trump addresses the real finalists.
Trump: "You know, millions of people applied to be on this show, which given the usual applicable inflation in everything I say, means ten. Ten people applied for this show. Most of the others were recruited because of the lawyer v. non-lawyer idea that would have actually made this show cool. And out of those several individuals who could not see the way the sharkward wind was blowing, there are two of you left. Neither of you are losers, at least not in these terms. Stefani, here's a tape of you and your beautiful family. Or not."
There's a short video of: Stefani looking glamorous driving along the coast, Stefani looking gorgeous driving in a car, Stefani looking lovely on the phone, Stefani being scrumptious being a lawyer about things on the phone, Stefani getting very scary hardcore about how defense attorney doesn't always mean what you think it means. She defends corporate interests against worker's comp and liability claims. WHOA! Wish we'd known that all along. Of course she's the hire. Trump is like her spiritual home! Now, don't think for a second that I have a problem with that, the law is my religion and the entire point of counsel is to do their best for their client, but MAN does that paint a different picture of Stefani than we've been fed. I wonder if that wasn't intentional, calling her a "defense attorney" all over the place. I think I said that meant she was a big old girl, at some point. I was wrong. She's like, "You cannot let people push you around, doing this job. She informs some claimants that they will be destroyed and tells us that she is used to dealing with a-holes. For example, people in construction are often a-holes, especially foremen. Of course, being a totally hot chick with giant fake boobs is both blessing and curse with these fellas, but I take her point. She looks totally amazing talking to some foreman type on a site, then totally amazing in a gi at karate being destructive and awesome. No beautiful family to speak of; Donald Trump is even more over this show than we are, but he doesn't know it, so he thinks he's talking sense.
Stefani: "Donald Trump's getting the entire package; he's getting a fighter, he's getting a person that will destroy anything I'm allowed to destroy, in the right way, with class, and a catlike grace. And then I will be gone before you even notice, melting away into the shadows."
So if we didn't even know Stefani was like this, doesn't that... kind of make her Rebecca 2.0? All the scary awesomeness of Rebecca in a non-intimidating Erin Brockovich-looking, Thank You For Smoking-acting package, with giant fake boobs? Is she the strange synthesis of Erin Brockovich and the anti-Erin Brockovich in one courteous and lovely form? Am I in TRUE LOVE with Stefanie Schaeffer? I'm not saying these things are true, but I admit that they are possible, and it only occurred to me right this second. That's like the ultimate. The crowd goes wild and Trump's like, "Very nice, Stefani. No family though, so I'm disappointed. Now James!"
Toolin' it up in Seattle, where we see the Space Needle of course, because all we know about Seattle in all our minds has to do with needles of one kind or another. But more importantly: James Sun, what is it that you actually do? Well, before, he was in sales and marketing, making six figures at a big company. But he wanted to become an entrepreneur.
QUICK QUIZ!
1. Of the two things named below, which is more like the job in the Trump Organization for which we've all been striving for fourteen weeks now?
A) A six-figure job in marketing at a big company.
B) Working for oneself as an entrepreneur.
2. So James is?
A. Creative, duh!
B. Wanting to be on TV, basically.
C. Just as dumb as he was a second ago.
D. Wishy-washy.
I suppose that he might have gotten tired of being an entrepreneur, now that his company -- which he manages to name about sixty times in the half-hour, which is good, because nobody's ever heard of it, which I maintain is because James sucks -- is doing well. But then like why would your "purchase me" video be all about how directly you are opposed to this whole process? "You should hire me to work for your giant company because I hate giant companies, but am also greedy. As you can see, my independence will gall you, and my lack of skills or creative thought are my best qualities!" Everything about James is really confused and annoying. He goes on at length about how "risk" and "problem-solving" are the keys to his success, because if there's one thing we know about corporate real estate it's that it's so much about flying by the seat of one's creative pants. That's why there are always such interesting people involved. God knows what he's thinking. Anyway, there's that totally fake cheesy sad moment where he walks into the foyer of his little company and the receptionist is like, "Mr. Sun, go right in, they're waiting for you. Specifically for your creativity and business acumen and giant swingin' dick." He's like, "Thanks!"
More talk about how wonderful it was to leave his "comfortable salary" and go start this company and again, like, did you know this was for this show? This isn't some kind of weird fetish video you made for your own perverse enjoyment that they somehow got ahold of? Because this has less than nothing to do with your stated and intended purpose in being on this show. I don't understand that at all. "I'm a great hire for the Trump brand, as you can see by my demonstrated disloyalty." Then the hero music starts as he tells lie after lie after lie: How he came to this country as an immigrant with nothing, and how he wants to achieve the highest level of success. First of all, he didn't "come to this country as an immigrant with nothing" in anything but the strictest sense, and it's deliberately misleading and gross to represent yourself in that way. Again: that means your parents are awesome, not you, and also that's not true either, because you are the living proof of how they did at being parents. Second of all, "the highest level of success" is a really fucking creepy phrase because it has nothing to do with happiness or personal pride in a job well done, and a whole lot about having something to prove. Which can get you far in life, and is a certain kind of hunger, but there's nothing particularly heroic about it. And thirdly: how the fuck you gonna sell yourself as a rogue individualist to Donald J. Trump? I'm sorry, I cannot let this go. It's just so stupid!
James: "Working for Donald Trump brings the whole story to a close, in that I was born, grew up, had children of my own, and always under the thumb of white privilege. What I mean to say is that I -- at three months of age -- worked hard to provide for myself when I arrived at this country, making many sacrifices at that time to ensure that I was able to give myself the life that I was never able to have."
James: "By working for Donald Trump, I am coming 'full circle' by admitting that I am not strong or creative enough for the life of an entrepreneur, but am quite willing to sell myself as a bootstrapping individual who never got nothing from nobody, which is a total lie. BUT it is the same lie my hero often implies about himself, so you see, this is fate. And that man's name? Donald J. Trump."
James: "I've been married for four and a half years, and I demand that my wife and two daughters greet me at the door each day when I come home from my fake job. The level of 'human satisfaction' and 'emotion' I presume I'm meant to receive from these things makes me assume that I feel 'complete.' That's my story and I am sticking to it."
James: "You can tell how 'complete' and 'humanly satisfied' -- whatever the flaming fuck that means -- I am by how the gaping hole in my spirit and persona needed so desperately to be filled that I applied to be on a TV game show all about how awesome I am, constantly take credit for everyone else's ideas, and don't have the self-sufficiency or introspective ability necessary to admit that I have no marketable skills beyond marketing my nonexistent skills. Which is not only sad, but also kind of post-modernly retarded of me. You will of course have already noted that 'post-modernly retarded' is kind of my whole shtick."
James reads to his adorable daughter and they are adorable but what's really adorable is whoring your children to get famous, because you're sick inside.
James: "I want to be a story to inspire people. Not just because I am awesome, in and of myself, although it is very inspiring for example how creative I am, but also because I have done so many things to get where I am today, which is -- again -- so satisfactory that I am going on television to beg a stupid, classless old fuck for a job. Don't you think that's inspiring? That's what I want people to remember about me: not my inability to cover for my nebulous skills, not my paranoid and creepy way of ass-covering and self-dealing at every opportunity, not for the fact that I have zero ethics, not the way I constantly talked shit about other capable adults as though they were pack mules, in the deluded belief that it made me look better and not worse, not for the fact that my only selling point was that I was good at everything, while other people were good at filing and carrying heavy stuff, but simply for this: I did 'things' of an unspecified sort in order to attain 'success' of an unspecified sort so that I could give it all up for 'reasons' of an unspecified but no-doubt yucky quality, on national television, and then get turned down and called grody all over the internet. ... Remember me."
Crowd: [Licking. It. Up.]
Jacob: "Nasty, he's totally going to win. What's the opposite of Christmas?"
James: [Grinning unctuously like he just accomplished something, or deserves anything, or signifies anything, or has a point.]
Trump: "Yeah, that was real cute. You've got a nice life, a great life. One with the freedom of entrepreneurship and the feeling of responsibility that comes with providing -- and providing well -- for your family. What can I offer you that is better than that? Some crap covered in fake gold, fake tits, maybe some blow. Definitely some people to abuse at your will, if that floats your boat. Bring me the big fat lesbian head of Rosie O'Donnell, and we'll talk."
Rosie: "donald trump is like
something on your shoe
today I made hasselbeck cry just for fun
wrote this blog
remembered that trump is nothing
after lunch i quit the view
then raised a million dollars
for a random charity
because it was a tuesday
and i hadn't raised a million dollars for charity
since last saturday
donald trump can suck my dick"
This is seriously the best Stefani has ever looked in her entire life. She looks like a movie about the Life Of Stefani. Anyway, sorry. So Trump talks about how there's a surprise guest and then the final boardroom after the break, and you can spend the break thinking about trading on your parents' immigrant status and how after the fifth time or so, it just comes naturally to you and you don't even think of it as a lie before too long -- after all, it's factually true. The only thing maybe/possibly/probably not wrong with it is how that has very little to do with you, as a selling point. And my problem there is the same problem I always have with this show, and with this particular guy -- remember the RoboCop task? -- which is that factually true is not fucking good enough. That's like saying it's okay to do something shitty as long as you don't get caught, or finding the wallet and then only calling like half the numbers inside, and telling yourself you did all you could. It's endemic to the country and the show and the fellow, and it drives me absolutely bats, because there is literally nothing simpler than doing the right thing. You already know what that right thing is, you have an inborn sense -- unless you were raised by wolves, or are a child of Satan, or a goddamn sociopath -- of what that right thing is, and you make the choice not to do it. You diminish yourself, and you do it willingly, and maybe you're so estranged from your essential, authentic self that you don't even notice you're doing it. And there's not an outside force or consensus or authority to which you can possibly appeal that could ever make that less of a failure to the only person that really matters here: you. This show's cartoonish, but that doesn't mean it's funny. Trump takes anything he's scared of and decides that it's worthless; he turns fear into ridicule. We watch these people and we do the exact same thing. Who wants to know this stuff? How far are you really, from going all Magic Eight Ball Salem Crucible on somebody, to get ahead? How far are you from pulling the race card, if it would help you get your way? How far are you really, from selling out the other gay guy? How far are you from playing into Trump's fantasies that women can't get along, in order to push somebody else under the bus? I don't want to know this stuff. It's not that the show got unrealistic; it's that it got too real.
Donald wheels out good old George, who is looking really, really good. There is a thunderous standing ovation for George, which warms my heart. In other news, it's now blatantly raining at the Hollywood Bowl. Off-camera there are probably beanbag snipers all, "Don't indicate through gestures or facial expressions that it's literally raining on Trump's literal parade, or we're taking you out." Trump asks George for advice, and George is like, "You're... great? Certainly. You're both extremely talented. James, though, you also kinda suck because you don't know what you're doing. Stefani, I think also either you are a whiny girl wallflower, or else a killer assassin. I'm thinking assassin though." He tells Donald it's a tough choice, offers no help for him at all, and abruptly vanishes. Trump goes on some kind of weird thing about how "isn't that voice familiar?" and "I've heard that voice before," and whatever, he's killing time, and he's like, "Okay, let's do this. The thing we were already doing until I interrupted to show Carolyn that I still like George? Let's go back to doing that. But like decisively." Ivanka fully snaps to and stares them down, the second she's off the leash. "QUESTION," she says.
Ivanka: "So the criticism is that you're codependent, like, Stefani, you do things that are quantifiable but you don't put your neck out, and James, you have no skills but screaming like Rachel Ray for no reason. Put the two of you together, you're like George and Lenny. So then, right, you go off all 'Oh, let's hire each other and braid each other's hair,' which at first seemed aggressive and a little sexy, but then James did it, and he only did it because he's a moron, but it ended up undercutting the whole awesome thing you'd just said. So now I don't know: Are you in fact BFFs? Stefani, does James LYLAS? Can you function independently from each other? Because for example, see Tim and Nicole over there? Right this second, drinking out of the same root beer float and slurping on the same piece of spaghetti like dogs in love. This is a problem for me. Have you ever read that book The Missing Piece? I highly recommend it."
Stefani: "I want to be very clear here. I don't give a fuck about anybody else and I never have. I am terrifyingly adept at this game. Think of James as a human shield, or the newspaper I might hold over my incredibly fluffy, bouncy hair, if it were raining."
Trump: "Which it is not."
Stefani: "Of course. Let me level with you: if I'm codependent, it's with my calling. I fucking love my job. Not just as an officer of the court, but as a person whose mental agility and considerable charm are all that stand between the injured and deprived and the life-saving funds that they deserve by law. Do you understand the pressure there? Simply keeping the poor and ignorant from grasping at what they need to survive with their grubby little hands, twenty-four seven. And you have the nerve to ask me if I give a fuck about James? Let me tell you something: I've been working on getting his parents deported since before this show fucking started. There are not... English does not have the words for the scary I am capable of being. I have a gun, Ivanka. Right here, strapped to my shapely thigh. I have also baked you a cake, which is cunningly hidden under this enormous boardroom table. Audience, if you'll look under your seats, you'll find small lemon tarts in watersafe containers. Take them home and share them with your families. I have also conspired to give Los Angeles the fragrance of fresh-baked bread this evening. Smell that? It's like a hug from your momma. Now close your eyes and imagine that your momma is a ninja. That's me."
Trump: "But you never stepped up as a leader!"
Stefani: "Um, does mind control count? Because I am a hypnotist. Frankie was eating shoelaces when I found him, Mr. Trump. Look at him now, talking pretty. Nicole had never heard of a thong before I took over -- it was all 100%-cotton panty lines, all the time -- now look at her. Vastly hotter. I did things to these people it'll take years to unravel. I'm the glue that stuck them to my terrifying will. Whenever anybody says the word 'equipage,' for the rest of his life, Tim Urban is going to perform sixty squat-thrusts, ten reps per, and crave the taste of cauliflower for the rest of the day. I did that, Mr. Trump. And why? Because I can."
Trump: "So James: LYLAS?"
James: "See, Stefani and I are two different types of leaders. I'm the kind of leader that crams everybody into their separate boxes marked IDIOT, then claims all their ideas for myself. I make it happen; I use the resources I've got, such as other people's ideas and efforts, while applauding myself at every opportunity. Like you, sir, if I can presume. Alternately, Stefani's more 'behind the scenes.' She makes sure things happen, on the correct timelines, and that all the details are perfect, and then she gives a presentation that could make you cry, without ever bringing her gender -- beyond the obvious -- into the equation. I'm an immigrant, Mr. Trump, with a lot of creativity at my disposal. I'm a creativigrant. It's just a different sort of role."
Don: "James, have you like ever done anything? I've seen you freak out about all kinds of things, and talk an egregious amount of smack, but this is a family business. We've got a lot of shit going on."
James: "The company that I started because I hate working for giant corporations such as yours, young Trump, has many details, situated in a larger picture. As the CEO of [Whatever.com], I worked it from start to finish, from the concept to the final product, [Whatever.com]. I alienated one thousand people in the process, Trumps, by taking credit for their ideas and insulting them in front of clients. That takes attention to detail, to be this much of a douche."
Don: "Mmmkay. How about this. Describe yourself using a noun. Something real, like you could see it with your eyes and touch it with your fingers. Something you could put on this table, that will explain what value you add to your ventures."
James: "I'm a visionary, I'm a strategist, I align people to do the details -- like Andrea, I don't burn trash, I hire it, is what I like to say -- and in this way I do both the details and the bigger picture."
Don: "Holy fucking A. In what 'way'? These are not difficult questions, Gonzales."
James: "In the way that I delegate all responsibilities to anyone within reach, talk down to them and refer to them in the negative whenever I can, then reap the benefits of their effort before sacrificing them for no reason. I can do that for your company too!"
Don: "That's not management, that's... I don't even know what that is."
James: "It's creativigrity!"
Trump: "Bored now. Stefani! Are you flying under the radar? Or totally scary? I've never seen anybody play this game so cold-bloodedly as you. Unless you were in a coma, in which case that's probably not a strategy per se. Although it's how I like my women."
Stefani: "Here's the thing. Watch, when I move my arm like this, see how all 16 fired candidates stand up without even noticing they're doing it? It's like voodoo I got. So when I say that everyone involved here respects and loves -- not to say worships -- me, I'm not talking crazy. I mean they actually do, and always will. They have no choice. In addition, I baked them some cookies, which should be arriving in the beaks of doves sometime in the commercial break. I covered their asses, even when the mistakes were being made on the other team, using my minions. I can do anything. I'm the lizard king, Mr. Trump. I made them look good, like a fashionable army of fascists, under my complete control: that's what leaders do, Mr. Trump. I'm not a visionary, and I'm not a creativigrant, but I am willing to commit murder to protect your brand. The invisible hand of the market? It's right here. How many fingers is it holding up, Mr. Trump? Just one, and it's pointing at me. Follow my finger. Look into my eyes. Not around my eyes, directly into my eyes. Now, sleep. And ask yourself: is it worth it to choose James? Could you sleep at night, knowing I was still out there?"
Trump: "... Whoa. Where was I? Where's my superstar? We'll bless and forgive each other, and laugh. Heidi? Heidi, whom would you choose, if your opinion mattered at all? Strive to be interested: what can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters? Speak."
Heidi: "Nothing, my lord."
Trump: "Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again."
Heidi: "Stefani is the epitome of a strong woman. ... Hmm, curious. When I say 'strong woman,' you seem to flinch, Mr. Trump. Is that like 'Bloody Mary'?
Trump: "Oh, that way madness lies... " "Strong woman. Strong woman. Strong woman. Strong woman. Strong woman."
Trump: "STOP! IT BURNS!"
Stefani: "Fuckin' thanks, Androl."
Heidi: "I'll see you in hell."
Trump: "Kristine? Is that your name?"
Kristine: "Yes, sir. You fired me for no reason whatso... "
Trump: "-- You're FIRED!"
Kristine: "Very droll."
Trump: "Whom should I hire?"
Kristine: "It's the Year of the Woman, Mr. Trump. You can't hold out much longer. Your show is in tatters, your dignity -- always dubious -- is pretty much nonexistent, and you can't even get your candidates to play along anymore. You're standing on an island that's getting smaller by the day, and this is the year that your toupee finally floats to the surface."
Trump: "-- Frankie?"
Kristine: "Not done. I've seen you keep screamers over the smart ones over and over again: you don't have to scream the loudest to be the strongest. I've been watching the show, along with America, as it slowly unraveled around you. She led silently and well, and kept the frat boys like Nicole under control. You can't even do that with your own personal frat boys, in your soul."
Crowd: [Ambiguous cheering; darting glances at the beanbag snipers]
Trump: "Frankie?"
Frank: "You have two individuals up here."
Trump: "Yes."
Frank: "I counted them. One, two. There are two of them."
Trump: "Frankie... "
Frank: "James stepped up throughout the process, pretending to lead, sir. Stefani took the easier course of actually leading, behind the scenes. There's no risk in that, especially if you don't fuck up, sir. Seems lame to me."
Everybody: [Kind of nods]
Trump: "I'm confused. Come not between the dragon and his wrath! Back to the peanut gallery."
Surya: "Fnur, fnur, you should hire Sanjaya! Har har!"
Jacob's Hand: "Ow! You can't bitchslap a television set, genius!"
Trump, nearly verbatim: "Fuck you, Surya. Just... fuck you."
Trump: "I think I know who's going to win, and by that I mean this was all decided months ago, but since I'm convinced you people think TV is real, I'm going to pretend to ruminate for awhile, because it gives me a feeling of control to have 'several million' imaginary people hanging on my every word, in the unmentionable rain. So I'm just going to keep dicking around like I've been doing."
Ivanka: "Quite frankly, you guys, I'm proud of you. You work well as a team. The downside of that is that we still don't know if you're in a coma or a hired killer, Stefani. You keep demonstrating that you're playing on a level above even the game itself, but I don't know that the audience will really get it, so like... could you explain better? Like, talk to America, but pretend that you're talking to Frank. Not as counterintuitive as it may at first seem."
Stefani: "Okay... "
Trump: "Psych! , I'll name the Apprentice!"
Stefani: "... The fuck?"
Commercial, during which somebody explains to Donald Trump what "rude old wrinkled-nutsack pig face" means.
Trump: "Stefani, would you like to finish your answer?"
Stefani: "Fuckin' like to start my answer, sir."
Trump: "By all means."
Stefani: "I've been fearless and silent from day one. I volunteered to be Project Manager every chance I got, even going so far as to engineer Nicole's attack by a trained jellyfish. I roofied Tim to make him think macking on Nicole was a good idea, eliminating both of them. I dosed Surya with Ritalin every chance I got, turning him into a jittery halfwit with OCD and a serious personality disorder. I injured the frontal lobe of Frankie's brain, sir. He used to be a mathematician, now he can barely stand up unaided. My only competition this whole time has been James, who is an underhanded snake in ways you could barely comprehend. He hogged the PM role continuously in order to give his life a semblance of meaning, and he will pay, Mr. Trump. Meanwhile, I was never brought back to the boardroom, I never once came under fire despite holding a prominent role in nearly every task, and nobody ever said a negative word about me on camera, throughout this process."
Trump: "That's largely true."
Stefani: "If it were largely true, I would have given the kill order on that cameraman's family, sir. Trust me when I say that it is completely true."
Trump: "I believe you. I haven't really been paying attention, so I didn't want to declare anything too forcefully."
Stefani: "AMEN."
Don: "So you've gone this far, and that's great. But my dad is great too, and by 'great' I mean, erratic and narcissistic. We're developers first and foremost, because in our family we think of 'love' as something vaguely disgusting. An affront to the senses. Instead, we give each other handouts listing our various good and bad business decisions from the last week, and then go over them. The highest score -- assigned by third-party accountants from Price-Waterhouse -- each week gets a sundae and an air hug. We can also 'bank' our points, and redeem them for prizes of greater value. I've never had a hug from my father in my entire life, but I'm only six points away from a mail-order bride of my very own. Virginity is weakness, Dad always says. I'm thinking Japanese, or possibly Russian. Whoever will let me pee on her."
Stefani: "I'm prepared to do... that, whatever you just said. Not the peeing thing, the other thing. About weaknesses or whatever. I dare you to find one weakness that I can't spin as a strength. It will give me a laugh."
Trump: "Oooooh, you're both so great! I just had to say that! Stefani, you're invisible but deadly, and you went to college forever! I commend you on that, and your enormous fake boobs. You are really something. I do worry about how you possibly didn't scream like a moron enough. I really like that. And James, you're creative. You've done great with that. I love creative people."
Jacob: "Spell creative. Define creative. Use it in a sentence. Provide the etymology. Write it on an index card. Get a tattoo. Eat my entire ass."
Trump: [Something really fucked up so I had to rewind it.]
Trump: "But... certain things, and dialogue you gave, that -- you know what I'm talking about -- bothered me very much. You're an outstanding guy and you'll be a really big success, but for now, James. You're fired. Stefani, you're hired."
He then tells James Good Luck a thousand times and shakes hands indiscriminately. Wow, I was not seeing that. Stefani's just dying from the excitement at this point. But wait, what? What the hell was that? I don't know. Well, that's not exactly true. I have a bit more of a clue than James does, because James's entire pathology is based on not knowing what he's talking about. Or what anybody's talking about. So while I cannot say that I have any clue, that's already more clue than James, and I'm not -- you may have noticed -- not the kind of writer that is often willing to throw up my hands and admit I don't know something. Except song titles, of course. If anything, I will throw some brain waves at the thing until I've satisfied myself that I know what I'm talking about, and move on. So here's what I think: "Dialogue you gave" can apply to two things: either it's the stuff in his interviews, which was never any more disgusting than the things he said in front of people (as opposed to my favorite candidates, who always get fifty times nastier in interview than real life), or it's the stuff on the stage, tonight, including the video, which I say is key. And I say this dispassionately, because I've been thinking about this all week.
James Sun thinks it was because he mentioned his company a thousand times, therefore somehow cock-blocking Trumporg on a live show, but I don't think that's exactly it. I think it's what I was saying before, actually, about the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and how it lives on in James Sun. When everybody knows that it lives only in Donald Trump, whatever and ever amen. So you have a guy who DARES to say, in front of the person behind whom lies the ass you've got to kiss, that he is not a fan of the kissing of asses: Mistake number one. Also a guy who DARES to say, in front of the leader of the corporation he's had to crawl through glass to even get this close to, that A) he doesn't care for monolithic corporations, B) he doesn't really see himself as a 'worker' so much as a person who thinks hard all day and is hit with the lightning of inspiration sometimes, and C) he'll desert your ass for his own quality of life, like if health or personal satisfaction became an issue. That kind of a chump -- you know the kind: thoughts, and a life, and a family, and dignity of a sort.
Trump asked for the kind of guy that would start crying when they sang the company song, and ended up with a fifteen-year-old boy. (Putting Trump in the position of being the Fiona Apple-listening fifteen-year-old girl with body image issues waiting for him to stop playing Zelda and kiss her. Mistake! MISTAKE!) You can't be in love with anybody but Trump, he actually said it out loud this time. The only thing that matters is Trump's on top, and James just let the cat out of the bag, that he's got a little bit of Michelle in there. A little bit of sensitivity to the Emperor's New Clothes, to the sand on which Trump and all the bastards just like him built their castles a long time ago. Maybe that Trump racism, in fact, set him up for disappointment, like with Heidi or the incredible beauty and Mensa-ness of Tarek, and this is just rage: you are not who I thought you were. So I blame the video on the James-con side, and Stefani's towering boardroom performance on the pro-Stefani side. Plus, you know, the Law Of Averages, or the million monkey typewriter scenario, or something, states that Trump had to pick the right person eventually. So there's a sax that sounds like a banjo, and the Year of the Woman having a big old hug onstage, and the cameras run from that like they're on fire, over to her parents weeping, and Frank hugging her, and Ivanka and Don leaning against the back of their dad's chair. That shot was awesome, just hanging with the Trump like that. Nice. Stefani kisses a scary man and Trump smiles sweetly at us and says goodnight; he thanks us with his thumbs in the air, indecisive: up, down, up, down, like an emperor. The fireworks go absolutely nuts, fanning out in a rainbow, in the rain. The crush of people onstage is impressive, until we pan back, and see how small the whole affair really is, and how sad. Angela's beautiful, and Ivanka's legs are lovely, and she stands heel-toe-cross, like a model, and he waves goodbye again. All the candidates hug each other, except for Michelle and Derek and Jenn, who the cameras must've been like sanctioned from showing, because this show holds a grudge. Because they were the first ones to start laughing. Which kind of makes them the heroes of this piece, doesn't it?
So. I'm sad. Final Exam. Thanks for everything, and all your kind notes over the years; I'm very fond of you and I hope you've had half the amount of fun I have. I certainly didn't expect to be sad right now; the second I got the assignment I wondered what the hell I would find to talk about. I dealt with it, clearly: we've got pages upon pages as proof. But something we haven't talked about in a while is why. The appeal of this show has always been really simple: Everybody thinks they can do better. I love writing about this show, because it gives me an opportunity to show that I could do better, by analyzing what they did wrong, and increasingly by demonstrating what pricks they all are. For a person whose break with the corporate world came dramatically, that's a serious balm: I could lead better than you, if given the chance. Anybody that ever watched this show and enjoyed it, once upon a time, lived off this: Everybody thinks they can do better. Better business, better manipulation, better boardroom, better clothes, better hair, better body, better ass-kissing, better focus. Whatever that thing is, that separates winners from losers, you could pull it out of this show somehow, and improve on it, if you just paid attention.
And if you were there, on the show, you know you'd do better. They're not the first who, with best meaning, have incurred the worst; I'm of the opinion and always have been that Trump's more sinned against than sinner -- it's not his fault either. The curious destructive, terrified fault in the American male wouldn't touch you, if you're a white male, because you'd do it better. The curious hatred of the other couldn't hurt you, if you're not a white male -- you'd turn it into something else, like Stefani, or like Nicole, or Derek, or anybody that didn't immediately get dismissed out of hand. You'd walk that tightrope like a champion. You'd learn from them, all of them, six seasons of the hungry, and do them one better, and you'd succeed. And maybe you wouldn't have to give anything up, like they did, like they always end up doing: maybe you'd find the perfect combination of confidence and beauty and image and skill and education and common sense and charisma, and beat the system. You wouldn't have to sell yourself out, to get ahead. You wouldn't have to watch yourself up on that screen, and blush, because you wouldn't do anything stupid or silly or mean-spirited or cheap: just work the system, play the game, knuckle under and keep quiet when called for, step up and lead when it was time. You wouldn't be "smug" and you wouldn't FUTR and you wouldn't be a disloyal, bad team member, but you wouldn't be such a good team member that you could be accused of codependence either. Just the right alchemy, you think, and you could take this thing. You'd do it better. Everybody thinks they could do better.
A: You can.