Previously: The show proved it has no resemblance to the real business world when a cheater (Anand) didn't prosper. And during a Kim Kardashian fragrance-themed task, despite Brandy's failed feminine intuition, Octane eeked out a win. Even with a girl fight between Liza and Stephanie of Fortitude, it was PM Poppy who got the boot. That stinks (har har).
Trump Towers. While Octane waits for the returning members of Fortitude, Brandy acknowledges the alliance Clint and Steuart have formed and admits her guard is up, especially after Clint threw her under the bus in the boardroom. Liza and Stephanie return and immediately get back to squabbling, taking no pleasure in the fact that they escaped the ax. Stephanie accuses Liza of defaming her character. She interviews that she doesn't trust Liza and will "get dirty" in order to win, then throw her under the bus anyway. Credits.
Trump Bar. Clint's reward for winning the last task is a meeting with Barry Sternlicht, CEO of Starwood Property Trust. Barry tells Clint his motto: "Genius is perseverance in disguise" and advises him to set high goals. He delivers an envelope from Trump that tells Clint he's won a $5,000 gift card to Pier 1 Imports. Clint says his wife will be happy since they sold nearly everything when the economy went bust.
Later, the teams meet on the rooftop, where Trump introduces Ted Woodbury, Director of AT&T, and FLO TV Chief Marketing Officer Jane Hancock. Ted tells the teams they are charged with creating a 30-second ad that gets people excited about mobile TV and inspires them to try it. Jane tells them the three criteria -- creativity, how well they represent the brand, and presenting a clear and concise message. Stephanie volunteers herself as Fortitude's PM so she can show Trump she's serious. Steuart steps up for Octane, saying he will bring creativity and organization. Trump tells the teams that Don and Ivanka will be his advisors, then wishes them good luck and sends them on their way.
Fortitude. Stephanie calls on her past experience with filming commercial ads and suggests they tell multiple different stories. She wants to shoot in a sports arena and an office, incorporating emotions to show that people use mobile TV to escape situations they don't want to be in. Liza suggests some possible story lines, which Stephanie shoots down immediately. She relegates Liza to accounting and casting, interviewing that Liza is unreliable and will essentially be fulfilling the role of her secretary.
Octane. Steuart takes the editing task while delegating the presentation to Brandy and the creative elements to Clint. They settle on the theme of "families on the go," which Creative Clint immediately scuttles by coming up with an office peer pressure scenario that has nothing to do with either families or being on the go. Despite Clint's excitement, Steuart looks perplexed. He pushes for more ideas, but Clint shuts down the brainstorming.
Fortitude. Liza and Stephanie meet their Director of Photography, and Stephanie gets territorial when Liza tries to convey their concept to him. Liza makes several location scouting calls with no success, so they make an impromptu office out of the photographer studio. The photographer gets testier by the minute as Stephanie tries to cobble together something resembling a professional commercial shoot.
Octane begins shooting its commercial, with Clint in the starring role. He plays the odd man out at his office because he doesn't have FLO TV. Things don't go as quickly as everyone hopes, and panic grows as the team moves from the studio to the location at an AT&T store. Clint takes the reins of directing the actors and crew on the shoot, and he feels like he's taking on as much of the PM role as Steuart is. Brandy easily admits in an interview that she feels marginalized and isn't really giving it her all. As a scene wraps, Ivanka shows up. Clint gives her the rundown, and she notices that Steuart is taking a more passive role than he should as PM.
Fortitude. Since Liza failed to secure the sporting location, Stephanie has to make do with backdrops that she deems cheesy. She tries to communicate her ideas to the DP, but he thinks she's all over the place. "This is literally the high school version of film school," he interviews. As Stephanie throws out ideas, the DP gives her "bitch, please" looks aplenty, and she's too frazzled to grasp the irony that this is exactly how Liza must feel at any given moment with her. The DP admits his patience is wearing thin, and the clocks' ticking down, so they move forward with the shoot. Stephanie knows her butt is on the line.
Don walks in as Stephanie gives the actors vague directions and tells them dubiously that "hopefully" they have props on the way. As Stephanie tells Don how their locations haven't panned out, Liza walks in with a couple of athletic garments and basically no problems. Don says Stephanie is taking a huge gamble by repeating old patterns and relegating Liza to inessential tasks -- if they win, she'll get all the credit, but if they lose, it's her head.
Cut to some more eye rolling from the DP as Stephanie makes a sad attempt at directing the actors. For about the millionth time today, the DP starts the take by commanding, "All right, stop playing." That can't be a good sign. And the dialogue is indeed as cheesy and unrealistic as the blue sky set behind the actors. Liza cups her face in her hands dejectedly.
Octane is facing a time crunch as they head into the editing suite. Actor extraordinaire Clint and Steuart waste the already limited amount of time they have when they butt heads about how the ad should play. Eventually they're out of time, and they pretty much concede that their ad sucks, all, "Oh well..."
The ladies of Fortitude also realize how bad their ad is once they hit the editing room. They decide to totally drop the fake-looking sports scene and use only the office scenario for their ad. Stephanie steels herself to blame Liza entirely since she failed to secure the outdoor location. Stephanie tries to make lemonade from this lemon of a commercial, but Liza is too mortified to actively participate. She admits that she couldn't stay focused and would laugh if she saw this commercial in real life. Stephanie says Liza has dissociated herself from the task so that she can claim no blame or credit when they go down in flames. To wit, as we go to commercial, Stephanie is screaming out, "Love it!" while Liza looks like she wants to die right then and there. It's a look not unlike the DP's earlier that day, in fact.
Later, the ladies of Fortitude make their presentation. In their commercial, the office boss comments on his employees' lack of enthusiasm and energy. Somehow, he thinks giving his underlings mobile TVs so they can not do work all day will increase their productivity. Yeah, that's logical. Also? There's cheesy dancing! Stephanie explains that their commercial is about missing "the finer moments" in life because you're at work. Wow, what a winning strategy when you're on a multi-week job interview. Talk about how much work sucks and takes you away from the good parts of life. She tries to claim that having mobile TV makes people more productive both professionally and personally, but the faulty logic is so glaring it's laughable. Oh Stephanie, you are so right! This project's major flaw was Liza's failure to book a sports stadium location -- not your concept's utter lack of making sense and it's fundamentally offensive nature to employers. Trump gives a lackluster, "Very good." He dismisses them, and Stephanie gloats that she's finally been able to show her real self to him. "I have so much more than potential," she gushes, "I have talent!" To alienate and contradict yourself!
Octane enters the room, and Steuart reads his intro off a piece of paper, which basically states that they made a commercial and which brands they showcased. Did you really need a script for that, Steuart? Their commercial has several different shots and a storyline that actually makes sense. It's miles better than Fortitude's, even after you take Clint's Silent Film Villain acting into account. The executives and Trump look much more impressed. Brandy also reads out her part of the presentation, stumbling over several easy words. Trump interjects to ask why she didn't memorize her lines, which probably numbered about two in total. To Steuart's credit, he jumps in to defend her and says they were all working down to the wire. Brandy knows she'll be in the hot seat if they don't win the challenge. And so she should be. This presentation was literally all she did the whole task, and she couldn't remember the most obvious, common sense features of mobile TV. The ones they've spent an entire day illustrating with words and images. Awesome. Trump dismisses the teammates, and Steuart leaves with an optimistic outlook.
Trump asks the executives for feedback. They agree that Fortitude's commercial had good production value and energy. She thinks the product and where to buy it were well conveyed in Octane's commercial.
Boardroom. Trump asks Steuart how he thinks his team did. He maintains a positive veneer until Trump presses about Brandy's presentation. Brandy admits she had an off day, especially in light of her performance in the modeling presentation. Trump compliments Stephanie's presentation, then asks her how things went on Fortitude. Stephanie says she wanted to disprove Liza's claims from last week and that she and Liza got along well. Trump asks Liza for confirmation, and she dances around the question. He probes further, asking who should be fired if they lose. She avoids answering again, saying they would first have to determine why they lost.
Trump launches into the blatant problem with their ad: He doesn't want his employers watching TV at work. Stephanie starts into her prepared defense about their lack of another setting, but Trump interrupts to ask who had the stupid "Watch TV at work!" idea in the first place. Stephanie admits it was her idea. Trump says it could have been a better idea if they had used the table for another purpose -- as a dinner table, say. Stephanie says pointedly, "We had no props."
Trump turns to Don for an assessment of the pros and cons of Fortitude's ad. Don reiterates that the production value and energy were good and says they had good energy. For cons, he says that the idea was flawed and didn't go with the executives' metrics or, and I quote, "well, frankly... common sense." The commercial also took too long to get to the brand. Ivanka lists the pros and cons of Octane's commercial. Pros: Brand prominence, creativity, energy, helpful purchasing info, and broad, multi-demographic appeal. Cons: Campiness and inconsistent brand messaging. With that, Trump announces the winner: Octane. As PM, Steuart has won a meeting with Cathie Black, Chairwoman of Hearst Magazines.
Trump dismisses Octane and begins his inquisition of Fortitude. Trump asks Stephanie why he shouldn't fire her. She claims her resilience is growing and claims she's been able to temper her personal feelings. Trump disagrees, but Stephanie claims she wouldn't have been able to complete the task at all if she'd given in to her instincts about Liza, whom she claims is difficult. Liza insists she's not difficult but has "different ideas." Trump points out her confrontational demeanor, but she insists it's a defense mechanism because she's "always under attack." Stephanie tells her "That's life." Liza calls Stephanie out for being two-faced by claiming they got along at the beginning of this boardroom, then doing a 180 the minute she found out they lost. Stephanie says Liza didn't contribute, and Ivanka agrees that it's not the first time Liza has taken an ancillary role. She notes that it doesn't match up with how vocal Liza is in the boardroom and the fact that she's never won a task. Liza mentions how Stephanie was completed closed off to her ideas. Trump says that's not always a bad quality in a leader.
In the apartment, Steuart yells at Liza through the TV not to let Stephanie escape the boardroom.
Back in the boardroom, Liza forcefully argues that the entire reason they lost the challenge was because of Stephanie moronic concept. Trump asks Stephanie why she thinks location was so important. She turns to the lack of props. Ivanka argues that the props have to be built around the concept, so Stephanie runs around in circles until Ivanka returns to the original point that Stephanie developed a flawed concept. Don asks why the ballgame concept didn't come to fruition. Stephanie says it looked too fake but misses the chance to remind them they had to shoot it inside with the cheesy backdrop because Liza dropped the ball.
Liza jumps at the chance to point out how Stephanie directed the office scene at odds with what they mapped out earlier in the day. She says she was shocked by the changes when they got in the editing room. Trump asks if she noticed the weirdness of a person watching TV in an office meeting. She says she did and mentioned it to Stephanie. Stephanie reaches for a justification that these characters work in a "casual" office. Ivanka wonders why Stephanie didn't communicate the change in direction to Liza when she was out getting props. Stephanie insists that her changes didn't impact what props they needed and tries to bring it back to the location issue. I won't even go into the fact that you really don't need to be "on location" in an office. It's not Niagara Falls, for criminy's sake. To wit: The Office. Outsourced. Mad Men. All shows that take place in offices. I suspect they are not actually going to Scranton, Bangalore, or 1950s New York to film these shows. Stephanie, your logic sucks.
Trump asks Don if Liza contributed. Don says that Liza did the role she was assigned but acknowledges that Stephanie was the entire creative force on this project. He thinks Liza flies under the radar. Liza says Don visited when she was mostly out getting props. He comments on the scant amount of props she brought back to set, even saying that clothes aren't really props. Stephanie agrees, spitting out, "I had nothing!" Trump gets riled up at that comment, insisting she had a blank canvas on which she could have projected many scenarios if she had just directed Liza correctly. At this point, the boardroom has essentially dissolved into a three-way screaming match between the two ladies and Trump.
Trump asks Liza why the sports scene failed. Liza goes back to Stephanie changing the concept, at which point Stephanie claps her fingers together, gesturing for Liza to shut her mouth. The guys upstairs let out a shocked, "Ooooooooh!" Stephanie claims she envisioned a married couple at the baseball game. Liza asks why they didn't film that. Stephanie maintains it was because of the lack of props. So you added more people to the scene? That makes sense.
Ivanka chimes in. She notes that Stephanie owns her fundamentally bad concept but says it also bothers her that Liza hasn't seemed to contribute to the concept at all. Liza explains that Stephanie shut down all her concept, such as her "mom on the go" idea. Stephanie asks curtly, "And why didn't we do that?" Liza says Stephanie didn't want it. Ivanka thinks Liza must be bad at pitching her ideas because none of them have ever been used. Liza retroactively mentions how great her idea would have been and how it would have mentioned the product name immediately. Trump picks up on this and asks why it took so long to get to the brand name. Liza agrees with his indictment but doesn't answer the question, and Stephanie basically says nothing until she implicitly takes the blame by saying she directed the commercial.
Trump finally cuts off this conversation to nowhere. He restates that, even though he has problems with Liza, Stephanie was in complete control of the project and that's why she's getting fired. The ladies leave as quickly as possible. Trump catches her on the way out, saying, "Liza, I was not happy with you one bit. You better get your act together." She promises she will. The two ladies get into their respective elevators with nary a word between them.
Stephanie leaves the building -- in a completely different outfit. Nice job, continuity editors! -- and gets into the cab. She sympathizes with other people who have worked with incompetent colleagues who can't pull their weight. She says Trump made the wrong decision, that Liza didn't follow instructions, and says there was nothing more she could have done -- "unless I could have drawn her a picture... maybe in crayon."
And what's Stephanie up to now? Rendering tonight's show utterly useless apparently! After filming finished, Stephanie became a spokesperson for the Trump Organization, which has been a dream come true.
week: The teams are divided by the sexes again as they work at QVC. Without Brandy to scapegoat, Clint dismisses any loyalty to Steuart, though he keeps up the buddy-buddy act to his face. And it's an 11th-hour double elimination!