Piers, Trace, and Lennox return to the suite after Vinnie's resignation, but Stephen's still hanging out in the hallway with his shirt untucked. Lucky Stephen, because he gets to miss the argument between Omarosa and Piers that ends with Omarosa pouring her glass of champagne over Piers's head. And how British is he, that not a single hair moves? Piers gets up and leaves, but when he encounters a ready-to-quit Stephen out in the hallway, he heads right back in to tell the rest of the gang that it looks like Stephen is also resigning, over being called a hypocrite by Piers. Yeah, that would do it.
Stephen tucks his shirt back in and buttons his jacket to return to the board room, where to all appearances the Trumps have just been sitting and waiting since the end of last week's episode. I hope their dad let them get up to pee at least once. Trump isn't impressed that Stephen wants to quit, and tells him, "Don't go home a loser!" As though there's an option. Stephen says he can't work with Piers any more than Vinnie could, so Trump puts Stephen on Empresario to give him a chance to beat Piers. Stephen's all over that
And when Stephen returns to the suite, nobody's exactly excited about this new development. Not only do the women not welcome him with open arms -- even as he offers to just "shut up and make coffee" for them if that's what they want -- but Piers and Lennox call it "pathetic" as they leave. And it gets worse, because Stephen tells the ladies of Empresario -- sitting on the couch across from him all four-against-one -- that he's sitting out the day anyway to fulfill a obligation to speak at a church. Omarosa's irritated, but not as much as that congregation is going to be.
The Apprenti (sans Stephen) meet up with Trump, Don, Jr., George (George!) and a couple of randoms in some office waiting room somewhere. Trump brings Tito up to speed on all the shit that went down during his absence last week: Vinnie's defection and resignation, and now Stephen's switch to Empresario. Omarosa tries to "respectfully decline" to take Stephen, but Trump reminds everyone that he's the boss, and introduces the guests. One of those randoms turns out to be Vera Wang (which is why I don't recap Project Runway), and the other is Bob something, the president of Serta Mattresses. Apparently Vera Wang designed a mattress for Serta, and she tells the Apprenti that they'll be making "living window displays," to be judged on "creativity, brand imaging, and entertainment value." The winning PM gets $20,000 for their charity. And with that, Trump cuts the groups loose to get to work.
At Empresario's war room, Omarosa nominates herself as PM. In an interview in which she sports a striking new ensemble from the Chip Six collection, she tells us about her charity, Positive Vibrations. See, you can't tell me she doesn't get on people's nerves on purpose. Even the name of her charity is annoying. Omarosa puts Carol in charge of creative and talent management, Nely on marketing and accounting, and Marilu on dealing with the construction crews. Omarosa comes up with the idea of "a perfect marriage," playing off of Vera Wang's bridal market. And they even start thinking of uses for Stephen, now that they're resigned to having him on the team. I think one of those uses might be "doorstop."
Meanwhile, Lennox is the Hydra PM, working for the Muhammad Ali Center. The guys gather around a laptop to try to educate themselves about the whole Vera Wang thing. Best of luck to them.
I'm not recapping this Lipstick Jungle red carpet nonsense they're airing during the breaks, and you can't make me. I recap enough commercials just doing this show as it is.
Hydra meets with Vera Wang and Bob from Serta to ask if they need to go in the bridal direction. Vera goes on about that for a bit, and when Lennox asks her what she does for fun, she says she reads and watches TV. "I spend most of my free time on my bed." Okay, that could either be TMI, or a sad commentary on the size of Vera Wang's apartment. Once the clients have left, Trace floats an idea built around Vera Wang's "romance" theme and the Serta slogan, "The world's best mattress," and from that somehow gets to a concept centered around Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Dude did not watch Rome, clearly. But the team likes it, so there we are.
For the Empresario meeting the morning, Omarosa asks Vera Wang if they can loot her collections, and finds out from her that creativity is the most important criterion in this competition. Remember that.
While Hydra meets with their designer, Lennox is being a little high-handed, asking everyone to raise their hands if they want to speak. Piers complains about how Lennox "turned into a monster." But then the thing Lennox does is call for a vote on something, and then Piers argues about that, saying that's not leadership. "Talk to the hand," Lennox says. Surprisingly, Piers does not also object to being addressed in early-90s slang, which was the thing that bugged me the most about that scene.
Empresario is at the site, discussing the window space. A highly caffeinated Marilu seems to have trouble making herself clear to their construction guy, and everyone notices. No one more so than Omarosa, who gave her this job in the first place.
But when Hydra gets to their space, things seem to go more smoothly. Lennox interviews about the importance of Cleopatra to their whole thing. Alas, this does will not turn out to foreshadow some obstacle involving copyright issues.
Things are still progressing slowly at Empresario, where they're expecting Stephen back by 6:00 that evening. Marilu describes her vision, which involves a bride entering the living window space with her groom in her Vera Wang gown and then stripping down to her Vera Wang underwear. I seem to remember Miss Alli telling me about a task years ago in which a woman doing part of a task in her underwear ended up getting fired, so I would probably advise them against that. It seems a bit much for everyone else on the team as well. Omarosa decides to "hone in" Marilu's "energy, which seems to mean "tell Marilu to shut up." And then she turns to Nely to step in to take over Marilu's job. Marilu interviews that Omarosa will stab you in the back if your not careful, then adds, "The front, the side, the temples, whichever way she wants." Thanks for that image, Marilu. You can just rock me to sleep tonight.
At Hydra, their walls are up for the display window, but they're still finalizing the stuff they'll need to finish it tomorrow morning. Lennox is still deferring all decisions to the group, and the rest of the guys call him on it, saying he's avoiding responsibility for everything in case they lose. But at least they're all laughing about it, which is how you know Stephen and Vinnie are gone.
Stephen returns to Empresario, and starts throwing out his own ideas, even though they're pretty much locked into their vision. And then he refers to himself as "Stevie B.," and I don't care how many churches he speaks at, he's going to Hell for that shit.
Lennox and Tito do some early-morning shopping, because you know how nothing in New York City is ever open late at night. As a result, it's crunch time when they return to the site to help get their Antony and Cleopatra models ready. George arrives and interviews that the rush might hurt them. And they've got five minutes, scrambling around for things like scissors and staple guns. Things are hectic at Empresario too, not least because in their display, Carol and Stephen are going to be appearing as the bride and groom (respectively, I feel compelled to add).
Vera Wang and Bob from Serta arrive outside the Empresario window, and Marilu directs a little scene in which Stephen and Carol are preceded into the blinding white room by bridesmaids tossing flower petals. Stephen picks up Carol and turns around with her, and Vera is uncritically thrilled with the entire thing. Which is probably why she's not on Project Runway more.
Then Vera and Bob are off to Hydra's window. Piers stands outside with them describing the display, in which the Antony and Cleopatra models are lounging on their mattress in a room that also has a plasma TV, a laptop, a camera, and a cell phone, for some reason. Vera gushes about this one, too. But since Bob from Serta also likes it enough to actually form words to that effect, Hydra would appear to have the lead.
Board room. The teams enter, and Stephen is still in his groom's tuxedo, complete with fresh boutonnière. I know I'm new to this show, but I think a good rule would be to never wear something into the board room that you could be buried in. Anyway, Trump's first question is to Stephen, regarding how he liked working with Empresario. Stephen says it was great. As for Hydra, Piers doesn't miss the "New York quitters." He and Omarosa snipe at each other a bit. I consider writing a macro. Trump asks Hydra how Lennox was as PM. Trace reluctantly tells on Lennox for the hand-raising thing. Trump thinks it might not be a bad idea. Surprisingly, neither Don, Jr. nor George raises a hand to disagree. Trump asks Nely how Omarosa was as PM, and Nely calls her a "rock star." Don says Empresario worked well as a team, but George thought Hydra's window display was a lot more creative and unexpected. And Trump announces that Hydra won the task. So that's $20,000 for the Muhammad Ali Center on behalf of Lennox, but only if the Muhammad Ali Center raises its hand. Hydra leaves, with Piers rather snottily saying to Omarosa, "Bad luck. Better luck time, eh?" They do their little "1-2-3 Hydra!" cheer in the hallway to make sure Empresario can hear. "Losing is not good," Trump tells the 1-5 Empresario, as if they're new to it or something.
Back from the ads, Don and George give Empresario a hard time for not being creative or going outside the Vera Wang wedding box in any way. Or being entertaining, for that matter. Trump asks whose idea that was, and Omarosa doesn't say anything until Don reminds her that she said it was her idea. Don asks Stephen what he would do, as though it's just us guys figuring out what to do about these broads over here. After trying to dodge a bit, Stephen says that Marilu didn't come through. Omarosa backs Stephen up on this, saying Marilu is hard to communicate with. Omarosa says she has to bring Stephen back, since he was gone for half of the task. Don, Jr. makes the point that Stephen also wasn't there for what turned out to be the losing decision, so he probably shouldn't be blamed for it. Trump agrees that Stephen shouldn't have to come back in. Instead of picking two people, Omarosa wants to face the firing "as a team" rather than having to pick two people (read: "I want four human shields instead of just two"), but George says that's too bad. So Omarosa asks for a moment. Meanwhile, Hydra agrees that Omarosa has to go. Finally Omarosa says that she's bringing back Marilu and Nely, and Stephen and Carol are safe.
Once they're gone, Don consults his viceroys. Don, Jr. doesn't have much to say beyond the fact that Empresario lost. Trump can't argue with that. Way to keep that limb from creaking, Don, Jr. George thinks that as a TV producer, Nely should have known that they were blowing it. And out in the lobby, Omarosa tells Marilu and Nely that she did her best. Well, nobody's arguing that.
When the three of them return to the board room, Omarosa says she didn't get the "creative feedback" from Nely that she needed, and Marilu was a liability as a poor communicator. Omarosa calls Marilu a bad listener, and gets rightfully piled on for that. George again criticizes the lack of creativity in Empresario's concept. Omarosa throws Nely under that bus, and Nely's like, "Oh, going uptown?" George questions Nely for not using her strengths, and Trump more than agrees with him. He also thinks that Nely should have been fired before, at least once. Nely protests, saying that Gene Simmons didn't bring her back three weeks ago because he thought she did a good job. And she adds, "You keep bringing it up, and I don't know why you haven't gotten over that." Burn! Omarosa's eyebrows twitch as she realizes she might survive this after all, thanks to Nely's little outburst. Trump still thinks that was a mistake on Gene's part, and Nely points out that she's never been brought back in to the board room before. Which, after all, is the reason she's still on the show. Which Trump now proves. He doesn't care what Nely says; he's had a hard-on to fire her for weeks, and now that he's got his chance, he's doing it. Nely's gone.
He kicks them out, and as they leave, he tells Omarosa to step it up. Omarosa barely turns back to look at him, retreating with her tail between her legs. They leave Trump sitting there scowling and nodding. And Don, Jr. and George look at Trump, not saying a word, but clearly wondering why their side of the table is slowly tipping upwards.
In the limo, Nely says that Trump fired her for pervious failures, and tells us about her charity, Count Me In, which raises money for women entrepreneurs. Nely is on their board, and says she'll continue to raise money for them. With her on their board, they'll need it.