Omarosa and Carol Alt reenter the suite, where both teams are waiting. Omarosa talks about leaving it in the boardroom, and Piers Morgan says he doesn't think so. They saw it all on the monitor, you recall. Omarosa jumps all over him in that quiet/bitchy way of hers, turning the glass of champagne in his hand into an indicator of full-blown alcoholism. Which, if he's not an alcoholic now, prolonged exposure to Omarosa certainly puts him at risk.
After the credits, Stephen Baldwin has someone drag his cancer-survivor mom over to Trump Tower so he can give her the check for 69 grand and change. Suck on that, Alec.
Trump, Ivanka, a marketing guy named Terry from Macy's, and a dude named Rob from the Pedigree pet food company meet the assembled Apprenti in the Trump Tower lobby to give them their assignment. Which is this. The teams will make 30-second TV spots for the Pedigree Pet Adoption drive, with the guy from Pedigree judging and with Donald, Ivanka, and Terry from Macy's overseeing. Trump tells them to pick their PMs on the spot, acting like this is such an exciting departure from standard procedure. The women of Empresario pick Nely Galan, and the men of Hydra pick Gene Simmons. Gene interviews that he'll fire anyone, including Trump himself. Good luck with that. Trump says that the winning PM gets $20,000 for his or her charity. That's all? That's, like, four hot dogs' worth.
With 12 hours to go, Nely starts things out by leading a little meditation session, which Omarosa ostentatiously sits out. Then they go meet with the client, Rob from Pedigree. He says that what he's really looking for is emotional stories about animals. Ooh, how about one about some dogs and cats crossing the country to reunite with their humans? I love those.
Gene, on the other hand, has decided to go straight to the production studio rather than waste any time on preplanning, let alone meditation. The guys start brainstorming about concepts, and Stephen draws on his 20-year career "in film" to define his vision of Lennox Lewis holding a puppy. He asks Gene, as PM, who the director is, and Gene taps Stephen for the job. They're still talking logistics when Ivanka enters, looking like a million bucks in a way that immediately throws horndog Gene off-task. When she's unimpressed with the way he gets his schwerve on, he grows impatient and basically asks her to leave. But then he stops her, making a gross comment about Ivanka being "a female of the species" and whether that means she's going to be reporting back to Empresario. Ivanka, irritated, tells Gene she has no plans to do so, and tells us that that wasn't such a smart comment on Gene's part. I think we may have discovered Gene's Achilles heel, and it's in his pants.
With eight hours left, Stephen directs some footage of Lennox in the studio, cuddling and playing with a bulldog. Since the dog is a girl, Gene can't even stop himself from flirting with her. Once they get some footage, Piers suggests a location shot at the shelter, which Stephen immediately shoots down on the grounds of time. Instead, he wants an exterior shot out on the sidewalk. Stephen has Gene and Vincent Pastore try to close off foot traffic on the sidewalk, but when that doesn't work right away, Gene takes over and moves everything back inside, to Stephen's irritation. I would be irritated too, if I had assigned Big Pussy to deflect pedestrians and he couldn't pull it off.
Empresario, seven and a half hours to go. Nely is shooting her ad, which appears to feature random people cuddling animals in various faux-domestic settings. Again, Omarosa is staying out of the way, although she defeats the purpose by telling us about it. Nely takes a break from shooting to give some orders to Nadia Comaneci, who is serving the shoot in the capacity of piss-boy. She's not doing so great at it, though, and Nely interviews that she would have fired her in the real world. Meanwhile, Marilu Henner is directing the actors by trying to get them to not act. That's not going well either. If she wanted people to not act, why hire actors? Although given the fact that Hydra has Stephen Baldwin, Marilu's team is at a distinct disadvantage in terms of having non-actors.
Stephen and Gene direct Trace Adkins, who is a wise choice to provide the voice-over for their ad. Dude's got this deep, smooth delivery that's very soothing. He should be a singer. After that's done, the rest of the guys ask if they can see the finished product. Gene's like, nope, everyone out, Stephen and I will be finishing this on our own. Piers is wary of leaving, saying that if things go pear-shaped, Gene and Stephen can always accuse the rest of them of abandoning them. Has Piers played this game before? Oh, right, he has.
With two hours and 20 minutes to go, Empresario is busy in the editing suite. There's some controversy about a close-up of a drooling Saint Bernard, but Nely points out that they don't have time to do anything but plow through. A bigger problem is when the when they go to splice in the conclusion they shot, which is Marilu talking to the camera. Her delivery turns out to be a poor match for the rest of the spot in terms of tone, but since there's no time to reshoot, they decide to scrap it and just record a new Marilu. Omarosa points out that they have two hours to go. Aside from generally staying out of the way, we appear to have just seen Omarosa's entire contribution to this task.
Terry from Macy's shows up to see how things are going, and to ask what the client wanted. Nely goes down the list: strong messaging, creativity and originality, and authenticity. Thus Empresario's emotional approach. It does not bode well that Terry fails to start crying.
With 1:15 left on the clock, Gene and Stephen are riding herd over an unhappy editor. "I have...been given a gift," Stephen says in response to a compliment from Gene. And the rest of the guys have returned, and they charge into the editing room. With 40 minutes to go, they've decided that they want to be in on this after all. So I guess they want to spend the last forty minutes of the task arguing about it. I feel them, but the time to protest was probably before they all went back to the hotel. Gene and Stephen manage to kick the other five guys back out, and Gene is still pissed. Stephen tells him to let it go.
Back in some conference room/office kitchen/whatever, Tito Ortiz is pissed about getting shut out, and is complaining to the other guys about being treated this way when he runs his own company. "I don't trust Gene, I don't trust Stephen, and I've had enough," Tito interviews. Hmm, you think Tito could take Stephen Baldwin?
A giant limo disgorges a blue-tied Trump outside the building where the presentations are to be made. Empresario is first, all dressed in yellow and black. I realize those are the Pedigree colors, but they look like a Stryper cover band. Nely kicks things off by telling Rob about how much they listened to him. She spews some buzzwords and blathers about a multi-platform campaign until Trump basically tells her to shut up and play the commercial already. We see about eight seconds, which is just enough to realize that the concept is actors speaking in voice-over as the dogs being shown on the screen, telling their stories. Mercifully, it cuts to the end, which is a shot of a bag of Pedigree food under a URL that includes the words "dogs rule." That ad? Did not rule. Trump congratulates and dismisses them.
Enter Hydra. Rob expresses his concern about not having had a chance to talk to the guys yesterday. Without taking off his sunglasses, Gene toolishly invokes Sun Tzu's Art of War (getting corrected on the pronunciation by Piers in the process), saying the war room is the battlefield. If I were Trump, I would be firing Gene now for that bullshit right there. Art of War, Jesus. Trump simply maintains that Rob isn't happy, and Gene tells them, as politely as he possibly can, to shut up and watch the ad. Keep in mind that this is the first time any of the other guys have seen it as well. It ends up impressing Tito, at least, which is saying something after his noisy doubts of the night before. Hydra is done.
Rob and Trump are left alone to discuss the ads. Rob thought they were both good, but one of them was great enough that Rob has decided on the spot to run it during the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show this year. On the spot, he decides this! That must have been some ad.
In the Empresario war room, they're congratulating themselves on a job well done. Nadia's only doubt is that if they lose, it'll be only because they didn't cram half a dozen celebrities into their thirty-second spot. As if they would have been able to find that many celebrities on such short notice. Hydra is also confident, and Gene is still maintaining that win or lose, they made the right choice in skipping the meet & greet. Wise move, inoculating himself against the biggest vulnerability he has if he ends up in the board room. That must be in The Art of War too.
Board room. The Apprenti join Ivanka and Terry. When Trump comes in, he basically repeats what Rob said earlier, and reiterates that the client felt slighted. Ivanka adds that Rob considered Gene quite abrasive, and based on her own experience with him, she feels Rob there. She tells the board room what Gene said yesterday about Ivanka going and tattling to the women's team, much to Empresario's amusement. "Gene, did you insult my daughter?" Trump says mock-angrily, leaning across the table. Everyone laughs except Ivanka, who's still annoyed that Gene also said of Ivanka, "She'll wait." Trump asks what Omarosa thinks of that, and Omarosa deploys her sucking-up superpower: "It wasn't just the disrespect; he questioned your integrity," she says to Ivanka. "Oh, nice," Gene says. Inside his head, the ghost of Sun Tzu tells him, "Stay down, Demon. You lost this one." Gene actually removes his sunglasses to apologize to Ivanka, so you know he really really means it. With that out of the way, Trump wants to see each ad one more time.
We start with Empresario's ad, which, again, is dogs telling their stories about how they were dumped in shelters through no fault of their own. "I'm a good dog," they all insist. Then Marilu's voice-over gets played over shots of other random dogs, followed by the closing shot of the food bag and the URL. During the playback, Gene and Stephen have shared a quiet, slimy little high-five. Trump asks Gene if his ad was better, and Gene is convinced of it. Cue Hydra's ad, with Lennox playing with the bulldog (even Omarosa is touched, or maybe she's just laughing cruelly at the way the dog skitters and slips on the hardwood floor) while Trace does his sonorous voice-over. "It takes a big heart to be a champion," Trace concludes. "Have you got one?" Shot of the food bag and the words, "The Pedigree Adoption Drive." That's probably better than a dogssuck.com URL.
Trump asks Nely what she thought, and while Nely thought it was good, she thinks hers is better. Ivanka asks Omarosa why she laughed, and Omarosa describes her reaction to big, tough Lennox Lewis with a cute puppy. Which Lennox says was exactly their intention. Omarosa flirts with him a bit. Lennox wisely looks worried. Trump asks Empresario why they didn't use their star power, and Terry from Macy's adds that Marilu's face is very recognizable. Nely doesn't make any excuses. By the same token, Terry adds that not everyone knows who Lennox Lewis is, and maybe a caption would have been helpful. Piers disagrees, and Terry flatly contradicts him. Trump takes a long pause before saying that Pedigree decided that the better ad was from...Hydra. Nely disagrees, but Trump doesn't, giving Hydra props for using Trace's voice. That's two wins in a row for Hydra, who gloat all the way back to their war room.
That leaves Empresario to get smacked down in the board room. Again. Trump says they had too many dogs, and Terry says they spent too much time preparing and not enough executing. Trump adds (correctly) that all of the voice-overs except Marilu's were awful, and asks who directed them. Marilu takes responsibility for that, and Trump busts on the celebrities for not using their own voices. He also complains about the extra stuff they threw at Rob in the presentation. But in the end, Hydra's ad was just way better, and Lennox gave a great performance. In the Hydra war room, Lennox modestly accepts the props from his teammates. Ivanka asks Nely as PM to speak up, and Nely takes responsibility without saying much else. Trump asks Jennie Finch who she would fire in his place, and after a long pause, Jennie names either Nadia or Carol. Carol? She didn't even do anything. Trump asks Carol the same question, and Carol also blames Nadia for not getting people there on time. Trump also floats the idea of blaming Marilu for her poor voice-over direction. Then he tells them to leave, and asks Nely who she's bringing back. Nely names Nadia and Carol. Exit Empresario.
Trump turns to his viceroys. Ivanka doesn't get why Carol is being put on the line, but as for who should get fired, she can't decide between Nely and Nadia. Terry wonders where Nadia's "competitive spirit" is. It was thirty years ago, Terry. Out in the lobby, Carol speechifies to Nadia and Nely about how they're all leaders, but "the guy who wants the biggest light has to take the biggest responsibility."
Back in the board room, Trump asks if Nely isn't embarrassed about failing at a task that's totally her day job. Nely admits to being too ambitious, and Ivanka says that's not a very good reason not to fire her. Trump also asks why Carol was brought back, saying Marilu would have been a better choice. Carol's looking pretty calm and confident already, even before Trump tells he she won't be fired, "unless something really crazy happens." Alas, nothing really crazy is going to happen. Nadia speaks up to say they went the wrong direction. Trump gets her to blame Nely explicitly for that. So then Ivanka asks if Carol thinks Nadia could lead. Carol thinks not. Nadia's on the ropes, saying she didn't know what to do, and brings up the missed celebrity angle again. Trump asks about that, and Nely explains about the footage they shot of Marilu not being usable. Which just gets Trump more frustrated all over again that Marilu isn't on the line here. Nadia points out that she said if they lose, it's because they didn't use celebrities. "After we shot," Nely says. Trump agrees that that isn't much help. He again turns the spotlight on Nadia, and asks why he should keep Nadia instead of Nely. He says that Nadia's athletic victories prove that she is a great leader of herself, whatever that means, but that despite all the times he's watched her win competitions, she's fired.
"That was tough," Trump tells his viceroys after the ladies leave. Ivanka agrees, "That was as tough as it gets, but you made the right decision." Ivanka gets a new car.
Nadia climbs into her limo, and tells us that she could have been a good asset. Her charity? Special Olympics International. Which makes me think of any number of jokes, absolutely none of which is usable. Thanks a lump, Nadia.