"Yes!" bellows Piers after watching Omarosa get fired over the suite's video monitor. He goes so far as to compares the moment to other great moments in his life, such as meeting Nelson Mandela and the Queen of England and the births of his three children (even though, according to Omarosa, they hate him). Lennox warns Piers to apologize to Trace for the kiss as soon as Trace returns. Piers does so, explaining the joke to the confused cowboy. "It's just Brokeback Boardroom," Lennox assures Trace, which is a pretty good line. The worst seems to be over, but Piers's protracted gloating begins to get on Trace's nerves, especially when Stephen invites Piers to imagine competing against Trace if the task is a country songwriting competition. Piers is just cocky enough right now to get into it, crooning something in a twangy baritone that, for all I know, is already a number one hit. Stephen interviews that ever since switching over to Empresario he's been praying for Piers, lost soul that he is.
The five remaining Apprenti -- Stephen, Piers, Carol, Trace, and Lennox -- meet in the lobby of a building. Trump congratulates Piers on beating Omarosa last night. Piers deadpans about what a sad occasion it is, fooling no one. Trump introduces tonight's viceroys, Ivanka and Broadway producer Daryl Roth. Have you heard of Daryl Roth before? I hadn't heard of her before tonight either, which is why I thought it might be a good idea to sneak a gender-specific pronoun in there. Feel free to stand aghast at my subtlety. The task for tonight: they're going to be inventing and selling a new sandwich at Quiznos, and they'll have to do it without using their celebrity contacts. The team that sells the most sandwiches wins. And they've only got two hours to create their sandwiches and two hours to sell them, so get going. In unrelated news, Trump appears to have gotten a haircut. He still looks like an idiot, but now he looks more like one of those Trump impersonators who never get the hair quite right, instead of looking like the actual Trump. So it's an improvement.
The remains of Empresario, Stephen and Trace (note the complete lack of original Empresario members on Empresario), bond in the van and agree that Trace will be Project Manager. His idea: the "Cowboy Club" "That's a great idea!" Stephen says. "I know," Trace mildly agrees, cracking up Stephen and me. With that out of the way, they predict that Piers will come up with some idea exploiting Lennox. "The heavyweight sandwich that'll knock you out," says Stephen with his piss-poor fake British accent.
Sure enough, in the Hydra van, Piers pitches to PM Lennox his "Champ Sandwich" idea. As Piers continues to spill his ideas all over everyone in a marginally bossy fashion, Carol tries to stir up some shit over who's the PM, but Lennox interviews that Piers had good ideas. When they get to the sandwich place, one of the Quiznos guys shows them their particular shop's most popular sandwich, which they'll then tweak somehow and call it their own. And over at Empresario, Trace is worried about getting a cowboy hat couriered over for Stephen so they can pose in them together, until Hollywood player Stephen gets the brainwave of using movie magic -- viz., having them both pose separately in Trace's hat and then have it Photoshopped together. Which works pretty well. Surprisingly, Stephen doesn't take advantage of the opportunity to make himself look noticeably taller to Trace.
Daryl Roth shows up at Empresario's shop and give Trace a chance to talk about his charity, severe food allergies. As you may recall from episodes, Trace has a six-year-old daughter who suffers from such allergies. I'm certainly not about to belittle what is surely a serious issue such as this, but I'm thinking Trace isn't pushing it hard enough. Like, if he held up a Cowboy Club to Daryl's face and said, "This would kill my daughter dead," it might help him in the board room later on. Just saying.
Piers and Lennox stand outside their shop, trying to hook in passersby. Lennox is frustrated by the poor response they're getting, but Piers says this is all they can do until the flyers arrive. Which turns into a problem, because Carol is having trouble getting said flyers from the printers. She goes out to explain the situation to Piers and Lennox, and Piers is unimpressed by her excuses. In other words, he's already looking forward to blaming her in the board room if they lose.
Stephen and Trace, meanwhile, are already handing out flyers for their sandwich, courtesy of a printer Trace found that's three blocks away. So much for Carol's home field advantage (again). Stephen tries to get through to the people who are actively ignoring him, saying to the camera that they think he's crazy. And then he admits, "I am crazy. For JAYSUS!" Does he really think he's fooling anyone?
Hydra's flyers have finally arrived, and Piers is trying to get people's attention by waving them in their faces. And, when that doesn't work, doing the rude-barker shtick that served him so well during the Broadway task. "You like Lennox Lewis?" he asks. A couple of tourists chicks say no. "Nor do I," Piers says, and promises never to talk about Lennox Lewis again after this. I'll believe it when I see it.
Stephen talks about how great it's going with his and Trace's combined celebrity. And over at Hydra, Carol is behind the counter, giving the "Champ Sandwich" the hard sell while Lennox works the crowds outside and in the store. Lennox claims to be the ultimate marketing machine: just put him to anything and have him smile. Piers, you've created a monster. Or should I say another monster? ["How dare you assail Piers's children like that!" -- Joe R]
Ivanka shows up and says hi to Lennox, who points out Piers flailing helplessly with the flyers on the far corner. Inside the sandwich shop, Carol hands Ivanka a sandwich, and although she tries to politely decline in favor of the long line of waiting customers, she agrees to take a bite. She likes it, and interviews that she thinks Hydra might have another win on their hands. And then she hurries out of the camera shot to throw it up.
Stephen and Trace really seem to be moving the Cowboy Clubs, which at $2 per in Manhattan, can't be all that hard. Even if they are open-faced concoctions on flatbread circles the size of your palm. In fact, they sell out and have to make more. There are lots of porny close-ups of the sandwiches going into the grill, making me hungry. But then I remember that those sandwiches had Stephen Baldwin's fingers all over every individual part of them, and that helps.
Back from ads with ten minutes left in the task, Piers continues to marvel over Lennox's crowd-drawing ability. You'd think he'd be used to it by now. Indeed, he's come up with a little comedy routine about it, where he offers an imaginary passerby the chance to be beaten to death by Lennox Lewis, and then demonstrates how that passerby would instantly divert course to walk eagerly to his fate. Across town. Stephen and Trace celebrate the conclusion of the task with their shop's crew.
Board room. Trump addresses Lennox first, and Lennox thinks they won. Carol says Lennox was a good PM, and that she enjoyed working with Piers as well. For Empresario's part, Trace says he doesn't see how they could have done any better, and adds that Stephen did very well. Daryl agrees from what she saw, Trace's and Stephen's very different energies meant that the two of them made a good "yin and yang" team. I assume she means that Trace was the yin and Stephen was the fucking tool. Ivanka adds that Hydra also worked well as a team. But of course what matters are the results, which are as follows: Hydra sold 313 sandwiches, and Empresario sold 253. So that's a win for Hydra, and $20,000 for Lennox's charity, the Muhammad Ali center. Trace, Carol, and Piers return to the suite, as Carol interviews about how proud she is to be in the Final Four. Presumably Piers and Lennox never expected less for themselves, because we don't get to hear from them.
Trace and Stephen are left facing Trump, Daryl, and Ivanka. Trace talks about all the things they did right, but Trump points out that they did lose, so whose fault was it? Trace refuses to blame Stephen, and Stephen in turn agrees that he and Trace got along well together. He'll only say that having one extra person helped Hydra, especially since one of them was the heavyweight champion of the world. Watching on the suite's monitor, Piers mocks Stephen for constantly bringing that up. Except I think Piers might actually be making fun of himself, which would mean he's mock-mocking Stephen. Which is tricky, but he pulls it off. Trump asks Stephen why he's on the decline after doing so well earlier in the season, and Stephen admits that the team is like a sinking ship he was brought aboard to repair. "Empresario is a disease," Trace agrees, and everyone agrees that they hate the name. No one more so than Trump, who says he hates saying it. Probably because it makes him think of Nely, whose existence he would prefer to forget. Ivanka wonders if Hydra succeeded by creating a turkey sandwich with more universal appeal than Empresario's prime rib-based recipe. Trace doesn't think so, and says that everyone liked the sandwich. I would also point out that he couldn't exactly have sold something called a "Cowboy Club" and not put any cow on it.
Trace also admits that he didn't draw the crowds on the street that he could have in Nashville. Trump asks Trace whose fault the loss ultimately is, and Trace takes responsibility. Ivanka, looking for a way to keep Trace, asks which of the two of them can bring in the most money from this point forward, and Trace says himself. Back in the suite, Piers agrees with Trace, saying they should go by the last two challenges, since part of the reason they lost was due to Stephen not raising any money in the art challenge and leaving the team down by one player. Yeah, if Stephen had done less flirting and more selling $160,000 worth of art last episode, they wouldn't be in this position in the first place. And here I am defending Baldwin again. I hate when that happens. When Trump asks Stephen what to do, Stephen says it's down to the PM. The Trumps agree in general, but going into the finals makes it a bit trickier, they claim. Trump dismisses them, since they've got a tough decision ahead of them. Hydra talks about how they would prefer to have Trace still around than Stephen, and in the lobby, Stephen guesses that they "liked" Trace better. "That's got nothin' to do with it," Trace says. You think Stephen should point out that he's won twice as PM, whereas Trace has yet to win once?