Walking and Talking

S12E07

Previously: The guys' team won again and Patricia was eliminated, and given that the scenes focus on Teresa's interpersonal issues and Clay and Penn's feud, look for that to crop up in this episode.

Post-Pinkslip Aftermath:
Aubrey comes back to the apartment weeping, and everybody else kind of indulges her dramatics with smirks on their faces. Penn whispers his support to Dayana quietly, which is such a perfectly Penn thing to do. Dayana is shaken to have lost her girl, and Debbie is worried that the women's team angst is going to continue to hobble them.

Later, Clay delivers a check to National Inclusion Project, and I guess these things never stop looking incredibly contrived, then? At least Crystal Light got their product placement on the check.

The Task:
The teams will both design and sell a New York City "celebrity guidebook." The best book will get a $35,000 bonus added to their sales, and the most sales overall will win. Don Jr. and Ivanka will be on the judging panel, and a special "guest celebrity" (Regis, duh, we've all seen the promos) will decide who did the best book. Teresa and Dee step up to be project managers.

Team Forte:
As we all know, Teresa is an idiot who says things like, "We need to raise a lot of money," as if it's a directive. Meanwhile, Dayana tries to get out front with "creative ideas," none of which we actually see. Basically, Dayana has decided to step up her telling everybody how much she's stepping up. Debbie and Lisa go out to photograph their sites, while Dayana, Teresa and Aubrey go out in another group. The Debbie/Lisa group appear to be rather efficient, while Aubrey bitches (and makes fun of Dayana's accent) about how Teresa and Dayana don't have their shit together and are taking a billion shots in order to make sure they look good. This manifests itself into a huge fight back in the workspace, as not only are Dayana, Teresa and Aubrey late in getting back (where they only have a graphic designer booked for a finite amount of time), but their shots aren't that great. Lisa takes it upon herself to write all the copy and basically put the whole book together, and she's insanely annoyed whenever Dayana breathes, much less suggests they toss in subway directions to each destination, which Lisa sees as an eleventh-hour distraction. Lisa finally flips out, both in the workroom and in her interview, about how much she's doing and how stupid everyone else is.

By Joe R

Meanwhile, Teresa has failed to establish a design concept for their sales display until the last minute, at which point Debbie's like, "Um, do we have design for our kiosk?" and Teresa responds with an annoyed, "Yes, Debbie, we do signs every week." Like the mere fact that every week they make signs is enough for signs to magically appear. Debbie hardcore hates Teresa, and vice versa.

When it comes to selling the books, the women take to Union Square, where Aubrey is hustling to sell $5 books to average schmoes while everybody else works their own contacts for big-money donations. Poor Aubrey. I guess this is the downside to pissing off Diddy so severely. Dayana pulls in some big dollars, Lisa gets Jeff Foxworthy to plunk down five grand, Joe Giudice shows up with $20,000 from the Republic of New Jersey. How gross to have to accept charitable donations from Juicy Joe, possibly the worst person in the world?

Team Unanimous:
Penn has an idea to photograph the team members from top of Trump Tower, pointing to various areas of the city. Clay thinks it's a bad idea, but Dee goes for it. Each team member represents a certain area (including Paul repping for the Upper East Side, which Clay points out is patently ridiculous). Clay and Arsenio get into a jokey/romantic fight over Clay's writing, while Penn lines up the Blue Man Group (who he calls "one of the greatest performance arts groups of all time") to show up tomorrow with a big donation. Everybody's calling their famous friends, in fact, but Arsenio doesn't seem to have a whole lot of luck in that area. Finally, he gets Jay Leno on the phone. Jay has decided to go for the good (network-mandated) publicity and promises to send Arsenio a blank check.

The day, at Madison Square Park, Lou and Penn are also quoting $5 per book which, per the theme of the day, irks Clay. Dee says it all will depend on the big money donors anyway. Disgraced castoff Michael Andretti comes by and drops $20,000 on a book, which is a mighty generous thing to do. Arsenio still has no donors, and Leno's check got stuck in traffic. But at least Penn got Teller to pony up $20k. Then the Blue Man Group shows up. As is their wont, they create a huge spectacle, including popping a giant balloon full of money. The resulting explosion of cash causes utter chaos in the area, with everybody grabbing for dollars and not everybody handing those dollars over to the team. Clay is the most vocal about what a shitshow this all is, telling Dee that they'll be lucky if they got half the money that was in the balloon and calling it a "mob scene." Naturally, Clay places the blame squarely on Penn. Arsenio finally gets the bad news that the Leno check is stuck in traffic as the clock runs out. So Arsenio raised a grand total of $0. Oof.

The Boardroom:
Regis consults with Trump about the guidebooks. He likes the women's team cover (the guys' cover looks hideous, all overexposed and blurry and gross). He also likes that the women personalized their destinations. But he also likes that the men went region-by-region around the city.

Inside the boardroom, Dayana is really settling into this aggrieved, defensive posture in front of Trump, and Trump is more than willing to take up for her. Aubrey says Dayana derailed the team, basically blaming her for the fight with Lisa. Lisa says she took the whole task upon herself (also with Aubrey and Debbie), and basically sells the "vanity" narrative re: Dayana and Teresa's photos. Debbie puts the blame on Teresa, and Teresa continues to rely on the "we have signs every week" argument. The bickering gets severe enough that Aubrey and Teresa volunteer to jump teams (the men want neither one of them). Teresa says Debbie is unprofessional for having her tits hanging out of her dress, which is at least a new complaint. Trump LIVES for this shit. Turns out, Regis liked the women's book better, so they get the $35k added to their sales.

Trump immediately asks the guys about the Blue Man balloon, and Penn explains that "They will not, because of their characters, deal with money." Um, WHAT? Did everybody know the Blue Man Group were that pretentious? No wonder Penn loves them. Clay says once again that it was a terrible idea and thinks they didn't get half of that money, which Dee vehemently denies. The Trumps are on Clay's side here, though. Penn says they were never going to get all that they were promised -- that essentially the $8,000 was a spectacle figure and that, I guess, whatever the team ended up with was the intended donation? It's an insane notion and I'm shocked the Trumps weren't all over him. Clay at least manages to call that notion out as "stupid." Trump then touches on the issue of Arsenio's missing check, but not nearly as much as you'd think. Which makes me think the men won. And indeed, even though the margin was a mere $14, the men win the challenge. So good for the March of Dimes.

So the women are now on the hot seat. Lisa raised most money, while Teresa was second. Trump says Dayana's total was "pretty good," which is code for "I will not be firing her tonight." Teresa volunteers that Lisa was her "right hand" on the task. With the least money brought in, Aubrey gets called out by Trump as a bigmouth.

Teresa calls Debbie out for the printing: "I told [Debbie] to take care of the printing." Debbie: "I don't think she knows what that means." Girl, people who call out Teresa's stupidity on TV get tables flipped on them, be careful. Basically, Teresa had no vision for the display, and Debbie knows it. Trump wants Teresa to blame Aubrey but she won't. These people never learn. Aubrey sticks up for herself for her low sales. Debbie says fire Teresa, but she admits that overall, Dayana is their weakest link. Dayana sticks up for herself, but the issue remains: every week, her team seems to want to do away with her. Dayana says the least money (Aubrey) should go. Ultimately, Teresa chooses Debbie and Dayana. It's a bad call, I think, though I also think Teresa is safe, for the drama alone.

The You're-Fired-ing:
Teresa thinks Debbie was trying to set her up with the printing issue, and when asked if Debbie is talented, she allows that "maybe" she's talented in singing. Ivanka is tickled at the audacity of that. Debbie says Dayana shouldn't have been brought back. If it's about a deficit in sales (which it is, since their book was superior), it should be her and Aubrey up for elimination. Don Jr. thinks that's not smart strategy, but she's in a catch-22, because if she denies the truth of that, she's a weasel. Teresa says Debbie tries to fly under the radar, though Debbie says that, "Being the best player sometimes means getting out of the way." Trump says that's what Dayana does, because he's got a major boner for that one. Trump likes her and says she raised a lot of money. Trump basically says Aubrey would have been fired had she been brought back, but instead, it's Debbie who gets fired.

Debbie is PISSED afterward, which makes sense, as she's the Melissa Rivers of this season. She refuses to hug Teresa (good call), and then signs off with this impeccable exit line: "Mr. Trump can't fire me from being Debbie Gibson." Boom.

TASK #2

Post-Pinkslip Aftermath:
Dee says he thinks Teresa will get fired for not bringing Aubrey back, which is a statement that is blinding in its obvious, gleaming truth, but Aubrey knows a spotlight when she sees it, so she makes a big ol' production about how Dee and the boys just want to see her gone and they should just admit it. God, this one. What a nightmare. Again, she should totally win this season. Arsenio interviews to my point, saying Aubrey plays the game well, but it's clear none of the guys have any use for Aubrey. When the boardroom survivor return, Aubrey squeals like an idiot when she sees Teresa, then takes like eight seconds to realize that it's Debbie, not Dayana, who is gone. Lisa is chagrined that these two complete idiots are who have returned to her team. Dayana confirms to the group that Aubrey would have gone had she been chosen, then slams Teresa for not making a good boardroom decision. Dayana is smug as hell, and I guess it's partly deserved so whatever.

By Joe R

TASK #2

The Task:
Trump gathers the teams at E 54th St. rec center. The women have been on a losing streak, so he's mixing up the teams: Teresa and Aubrey join the men, while Lou, Penn and Dee join the women. So, for reference sake:

New Forte: Lisa, Dayana, Penn, Dee, Lou
New Unanimous: Aubrey, Teresa, Arsenio, Clay, Paul

Arsenio dreads having Aubrey on his team, while Lou pledges to "tolerate" the new women on his team, which seems to be more of a Lou-ism than a statement of actual malice. Poor Lisa is still stuck with Dayana, and now she's got useless Lou added to the package, so she's not thrilled.

On to the task, presented by the fine folks at Walgreens: They want the teams to promote their "better marketing through disingenuous promotion of health" initiative "Walk with Walgreens." Blah, blah, encourage people to walk 30 minutes a day, log on to the web site, get rewards points, et cetera. The teams have to create a live interactive health segment to promote to a live audience, and also redesign the membership kit. They'll be judged by the Walgreens folks as well as Biggest Loser (and Days of our Lives, though that's less pertinent to the task) star Alison Sweeney. Also, Eric Trump is a judge this week instead of Ivanka. Which means that in addition to the reptilian grin of Don Jr., we're going to be subject to ol' Kool-Aid Mouth Trump as well. The genetic dispersal of the Trump progeny is so fascinating. Ivanka really just got everything and left scraps and recessive traits for her brothers. And those qualities will get passed on to the generation, because the Trump bros have money and are thus guaranteed to procreate. This is all going into my book Occupy Wall-Eyed Street: How America's Obscene Wealthy Class Is Making Us an Uglier Nation. Anyway, Lou and Arsenio step up as project managers, and Trump asks Lou to do some push-up for fitness. And since it's been at least three minutes since anyone paid attention to her, Aubrey volunteers to do some as well.

Penn's absence is felt, particularly by Lisa, who starts to get more and more frustrated, as is her wont. Dee's job is to oversee the membership kit redesign, and he's going a bit safe. Don Jr. shows up and underlines that the boys like Dayana much better than her old teammates did (indeed, Dee can't say enough nice things about her, scoring an across-the-room eye roll from Lisa every time). The team's slogan ("Walk and Do It All") is pretty terrible, and their design of listing all the gerundial words you could do while talking ("talking...joking...working...") gets a bit crude and unpleasant ("itching...scratching...yelling"), but no one objects all that strenuously to it (though, to her credit, Dayana does try to bring it up).

Lisa finds herself in the position of being Lou-wrangler, and she's all too happy to send him out with Dayana on a late-night mission to find their Miss Universe a one-piece bathing suit to wear to the presentation, as the poor little bird only owns thongs. Once they're gone, Lisa talks mad shit to Dee re: Dayana, but Dee won't sign on, which makes Lisa even angrier.

At the presentation the day, Penn returns and doesn't miss a beat. Well, one beat, but we'll get to that. Lou is a double edged sword as a spokesman: he's the personal perspective the team needs, but he can't talk worth a damn. The Walgreens people and Alison Sweeney eat it up, though. Lisa's just happy he stuck to the script. So the team members do all the "-ing" stuff you can do while walking (Penn juggles; Dayana...is a giggly, dumb pageant queen, I guess; Lisa goes on a "date" with an audience member and cracks jokes at him). It all seems fun enough. There is the moment when Penn says "Wal-Mart" instead of Walgreens which, I have to admit, is totally a mistake I would make. Alison Sweeney actually gasps, which I love, partially because that's how I envision her Days character Sami Brady will react when her son comes out to her on the show. (You guys should maybe be watching Days. Lisa Rinna is back on it!) Anyway, Dayana makes the save by doing some goofy ditzy pageant shtick, which is to totally up Trump's alley. I wonder if I'm overrating Aubrey's chances and underrating Dayana's, because Trump is all about the kind of stuff she does. After the presentation, Allison points out the weird gerunds behind the signage (itching and such). And I just want to reiterate, even if the judges won't, that "Walk and Do It All" is just the worst slogan.

Team Unanimous:
"Your reputation precedes you as the creative one, Aubrey." Clay drawls as he sashays past Aubrey. I don't universally love him, but these are the moments when I really appreciate him. Me-YOW! Anyway, all you really need to know about Team Unanimous is that Aubrey is a total nightmare from start to finish, taking over the task, ordering people around in her Kim K voice, generally being in love with herself and driving Arsenio in particular further and further off the deep end, in a way we won't even be able to measure until the boardroom.

The concept is to do a game-show for their presentation, with Arsenio as the host. Their design idea for the box is to use headshots of themselves, all taken at the local Walgreens. Arsenio hates the photo Aubrey takes of him and wants to use a different one (albeit one that would kind of throw off the uniformity of the other photos, so it's not like Aubrey doesn't have a point, but Aubrey having a point almost always takes a back seat to Aubrey's squeaking obnoxiousness, not to mention her gratuitously nasty interviews where she talks about the wrinkles on Arsenio's face). "She's a narcissistic piece of work," Arsenio says, and that's not even the half of it. On the box, the head shots will be accompanied by testimonials of why they walk: Paul walks to stay healthy, Teresa walks to keep up with her kids, Aubrey walks "to stay hot" (siiiigh), and Arsenio, according to Aubrey ... "is the guy who walked away from show business." So that's the mood she's setting. Clay's hair is DISTRESSED by this Aubrey business.

Their presentation is fun enough, preceded as it is with giant-phony Aubrey huddling everybody for a prayer. During the "game show," Paul gives a personal testimonial about his weight loss, Aubrey does her flirty thing, and Arsenio does a good hosting job. The execs and Allison wonder if the presentation was too heavy on presenting dry facts and figures.

The Boardroom:
Lisa says Lou was "all right" but not great as PM. The responsibility for most of the task fell on the rest of them, and she doesn't think he's "tough" enough. (Trump, unable to grasp that a word might have multiple connotations, can't buy that Lou isn't "tough.") He wonders if maybe he should fire Penn because he wasn't there, but both Lisa and Dee enthuse about his contributions before he left.

Meanwhile, Clay bright-sides his team's spirits, focusing on Arsenio's great leadership. He then says that, of the women, Teresa is "by far" the better team player. Eric Trump is like, "Yeah, I was there; Aubrey is crazy overbearing." Arsenio attempts to be diplomatic, saying you "customize" your style for her, and Clay's all, "She's so full of ideas!" That's one way to put it. Arsenio, in a gratuitous move, for sure, is all, "Sorry, Clay, I didn't hear anything after 'full of...'" So here we go. Trump asks each team to examine each other's box. Aubrey dismisses Forte's "boring" box almost immediately, while Lisa enthuses about Unanimous's packaging, particularly the testimonial quotes. Aubrey brags that she wrote all the quotes, which is what sets Arsenio off for good. He was just looking for a reason, and this was as good as any. He calls her a liar for saying she wrote all the quotes, since he wrote his own, and calls her out for being self-obsessed to the point of destructive. He's relentless.

By Joe R

When asked by Trump who came up with the game show idea, Aubrey says it was "one of the guys, I can't remember which," which sets off Arsenio yet again, saying it's another symptom of her self-centeredness that she seemingly can't differentiate one Non-Aubrey from another Non-Aubrey. Aubrey cries and appeals to Teresa alone: "Aren't I a good teammate? Didn't I teach you things?" Now Trump gets irked by Aubrey, more than I would have expected, saying it's pretty bullshit to presume that she taught Teresa anything. Trump means because Teresa is a grown woman, but the truth is because Teresa can't ever learn anything. All three boys say they'd fire Aubrey, obviously.

The Walgreens execs say they liked Forte's presentation, especially Lou's testimonial, but they didn't like Penn saying "Wal-Mart," nor did they like the negative words on the box. And for those reasons, Arsenio's team WINS. Amazing. All that agita for naught! If there's one brilliant thing about this dumb show, it's that they can wrangle Arsenio vs. Aubrey from a winning team. Arsenio breaks into tears, for a number of reasons; the Aubrey fight already had him on edge, and his charity (the Magic Johnson Foundation) has a personal connection to him, as he's both friends with Magic and had a cousin recently die of AIDS. On the team's way out, Aubrey is also shaken and takes the elevator down into parts unknown, teasing that she'll leave the show. That chick knows how to wrestle a spotlight back onto her, doesn't she?

Back in the penthouse, Arsenio shouts out to his cousin Sharon while Teresa looks on awkwardly. But that's not nearly the extent of it. He goes on a completely unhinged rant about what a terrible person Aubrey is, how hollow, how evil, how manipulative and self-centered. He looks like a total crazy person. He looks like a total crazy person to TERESA GIUDICE. Yikes.

Back in the boardroom, Lou is on the hot seat now; but he's the one Walgreens liked in the presentation, so my sense is he's fine. Lou keeps saying he gave 110 percent like that's an objective metric and surprisingly says Dee should be fired for the box mishap. Meanwhile, everyone else seems to think Lou should be fired. Dayana even says Lou didn't lead them well. Lisa would again bring Dayana back in addition to Lou, which isn't the huge scandal Trump is making it out to be. Penn and Dee are clearly stronger teammates to want around. Lou ultimately picks Dayana and Dee to bring back.

By Joe R

The You're-Fired-ing:
My guess is it's Dee, which I unfortunate but justified, since he created that terrible box design. Trump is surprised the MEN brought Dayana back for elimination. Hey, can't blame THAT on catty female jealousy. Dee sticks up for Dayana/kisses her ass like he has been, while saying Lou was not creating much for the team. He let Lisa and Penn do everything for the presentation, and Dee did the box. Dee also makes the bold claim that he gave 120 percent on the task. 120 percent! Even more percents! Dee talks about the "The Lou Whisperers" (him, Clay, Arsenio) on the old men's team and how they compensated and handled Lou.

Trump says explicitly that he's not getting rid of Dayana, so it's down to Lou vs. Dee. Walgreens loved Lou's testimonial, so that's an advantage. Trump is so orange today, you guys, I feel like I should mention that before proceeding. He's incredibly chagrined to have to fire anybody from this threesome, but his hands are tied! He cites the bad box design in his ultimate decision to fire Dee.

Limo talk: Dee implores the rest of the celebrities to stop propping up Lou. The Trumps can't see him for what he is. That's actually...the truth. Sing it, Twisted Sister.

week: Is Aubrey gone for good?? Um, hi, obviously not. Also, it's Lisa vs. Arsenio, followed by Lisa vs. Dayana. Lotsa yelling and anti-South America insults!

Joe R was so sure this three-hour-episode thing was an April Fool's gag. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com, and you can listen to him yammer on to his heart's content on the Extra Hot Great podcast.