Previously on Numbskull Fracture: Protégé apprentice-napped Amy away from VersaCorp to even the numbers. The building everyone was standing in when the task was assigned had had just about enough of Assorama, and flung a chunk of drywall at her head. The other buildings raised their roofs in approval. Assorama proceeded to spend the rest of the hour putting the "hype" in "hypochondriac." For those not suffering from life-threatening paperboard injuries, the task was to renovate and rent out an apartment, and when it came time to battle for the best location, Katrina had her Miami Heat handed to her by a plucky Idaho spud. She almost -- but not quite -- called the police to report that he had stolen her apartment, but at the last minute, she realized that the police probably don't believe in "firsties." Thanks in part to Troy's mad scheming, Protégé took the prize, and VersaCorp went to the Boardroom under the "leadership" of Katrina. She took Boyfriend Bill and Tammy with her, and when Tammy made the mistake of truthfully stating that her team was "duped," Donald found her disloyalty so "obnoxious" that he fired her. It was totally disloyalty, and not at all the fact that she's a total loony with fewer social skills than a poorly-trained Great Dane. And in news that I just didn't know what to do with, Heidi's mom got cancer. Who will be fired this week?
Credits. Wait, you're telling me Donald Trump is on this show? Why didn't they say something?
S4. Aspiring Corporate Weasel Death Watch. Troy is wearing a gray zip-up sweat-jacket and his big black cowboy hat, and that's just not working for me. It's a little too "git along, little joggers" for me, I think. The group reviews who's among the threatened -- Katrina, Tammy, and Boyfriend Bill. "I was surprised that it got so heated," Nick comments. "It was bad for the team." Ereka interviews that she was just so nervous, because she was really afraid that her white quilted shirt (she bought it for the Chanel label, only to find out it actually said "Charmin") would turn out to be a joke someone played on her. No, not really -- she was nervous because she badly wanted Tammy to be Trumped and her bestest friend Katrina to stay forever and ever so they could shop for prom dresses and have their nails done and try out their first names with their boyfriends' last names and EEEEEEEE! When Boyfriend Bill and Katrina come in at last, no one is remotely surprised, but Ereka is still all happy and fist-pumping and "yaaaay!" about it. She literally squeaks. "Rrrreeeeeeeeeeek!" She's the cheerleader at the first annual Social Caste System Super-Mega-Smackdown. There are hugs all around. "Down to nine," Troy says to a passing Kwame. "Game time right here."
VersaCorp has a meeting upstairs in the bedroom. Katrina blathers meaninglessly that she feels "like a guest." I don't know where to begin. Uh, in the room? In the suite? On the show? On the planet? Oddly, the last one is the only one where she seems not to fit in...is that a paradox? Boyfriend Bill says that he was "fighting for [his] life," and Ereka tries to get out of the situation, saying, "There was never any intent to put you on the hot seat." Not buying her crap, he says, "But it -- it happened." She has nothing to say to this, because other than crap, she has nothing else for sale. Well, nothing but her dignity, I suppose. Bill interviews that in the Boardroom, Ereka and Katrina ganged up on him -- and from the rest of this episode, I have to think there was more of that than we saw, because we didn't see all that much of Ereka doing anything to him, but it seems like she did. He goes on to say that the ganging up "was unnecessary, and [he] didn't do anything to deserve it." There are some pleasantries back in the bedroom meeting, but things are very tense, because we're getting down to the point where you need to establish yourself a little more and not try to be all "team player" about it, lest you find that you are the last rat off of the sinking ship of fools. "They did it to me once," Bill says in his interview, "and I'm not going to let it happen to me twice -- I mean, screw me once, shame on you, screw me twice, shame on me." You know, Boyfriend Bill, if the people really love each other, there doesn't have to be any shame. Just saying.
There is a Protégé meeting, minus Assorama, in which Amy says that they will need to be going hard tomorrow in order to win. Troy mentions that this is something Heidi will want to keep in mind -- apparently, they've decided that finally, now that every other person has done it, it's time for Heidi to be PM. Amy also says they should dedicate the task to Heidi's mother, which...I mean, it's a lovely thought, but how do you dedicate a sales pitch to someone's mother? "Buy something; my mother is sick." It sounds sweet in theory, but kind of weird in actual practice. Heidi appreciates it, though, or says she does. She reminds us, in case we've forgotten, that her mom is in the hospital. I, for one, did not forget. Assorama, on the other hand, just generally sucks, and is busy settling into bed while everyone else is meeting. Heidi points out that if Assorama's head really hurts, then she feels bad for her, but the head has a way of hurting whenever there's work to be done. As we watch Assorama get into bed, the meeting downstairs is adjourned. Not that these events are related, because Assorama is certainly not necessary.
The morning, everybody is getting up and brushing teeth when Assorama runs in wearing some kind of pink modified halter muumuu to answer the silver phone. They're told to be out in front of Trump Tower at 8:45. We then get to watch her -- fully dressed now -- eating breakfast. She actually manages to eat smugly, which...I don't even know how you do that, but she does it. "How's your noggin?" Boyfriend Bill asks her. Heeee hee. "Noggin" is always funny. She says noncommittally that the lump is lessening. She interviews that she was "popped on the head with a piece of SEE-ment [sic]," but she's not complaining about it constantly. Right; she's just not working. She claims that she's been "a trouper." The International Association of Troupers issues an immediate public disclaimer. Amy eyes Assorama with burning, rapidly expanding hate, and then interviews that the entire thing has been blown completely out of proportion, and that Assorama thinks it makes her "look like this poor victim," when in fact, everyone else there is laughing at her behind her back. "She is a scheming, conniving bitch." Wow, is Assorama really "scheming"? I don't think of her as smart enough for scheming. But anyway.
Out on the sidewalk in front of Trump Tower, the whole passel of them meets up with Donald and the Viceroys. Yay, George! You're home from your business trip! Did you bring me a snow globe? "Today, I'm going to show you something really cool," Trump says to them. He walks them down toward the corner. As they approach, regal music plays, and a large truck appears with the logo on the side for "Trump Ice" spring water. You should have known when Trump said it was "really cool" that it would have his ginormous face on it. Trump explains that he's going into the water distribution business, and he's producing Trump Ice, "the purest, best-tasting water you can imagine." I'm imagining that the best-tasting water I can imagine will still taste like...water, but maybe I'm failing to get into the spirit. The winning team will be the team that distributes the most Trump Ice over the two days. You can sell it by the case, by the pallet (that's 72 cases), or you can sell it by the truckload if you can manage it. The winning PM will get to take two teammates on a helicopter tour of Manhattan. Losing team? Yeah. Same as it ever was -- Boardroom for you. Trump wanders off, and the teams adjourn to S4.
Protégé meets in the suite to perfect their pitch. Troy wants to say something like, "We're here to represent the latest and greatest product that's coming out. Jump onto this tidal wave or get washed out with the rest of them." If I were someone receiving that pitch, I think the first thing I'd say would be, "Wait...it's water, right?" Troy interviews that all of these people with their advanced degrees decided that he and his high school diploma should be "the closer." Obviously, he is very proud. He speaks a little too soon, though. Heidi says that she's playing "devil's advocate," and I have a feeling she may almost be role-playing the objections she anticipates Troy's pitch will bring, because she goes on to say that it tastes like normal water as far as she's concerned. Troy says that he's "so glad" she made that point, because he hates people who sip water and then pronounce that it doesn't taste like water. Does that happen a lot? Anyway, she says, "I like my Poland Springs." "Absolutely," Troy says reassuringly, "I understand you like that Poland Springs, but now you're involved with a product that's not from Poland...you're involved with a product that's from New York." HA! Ahem. Heidi blinks at Troy like, "Oh, this is going to be a barrel of laughs." Not just any barrel, either. A barrel from Poland.
VersaCorp is also meeting, and Nick is reading water specs, like the fact that the water has very low mineral content. Ereka pronounces this a "really, really big deal." In an interview, she interviews that she's the PM, and she's really looking forward to it. "If I fail, I fuckin' fail!" she says happily, because she is such a gosh-darn good sport. In the meeting, Bill makes the point to her that he doesn't think they want to stress stuff like the mineral content, because they're "not selling to the end user." He makes the point that the business guys don't really care how good the water is, they want to know whether people will buy it. I'm very proud of myself, because I don't know anything about business or selling, and that's exactly what I thought when she said that. Bill interviews that Ereka is "a very emotional girl" (blech), and that she has a tendency to lose her cool, but that "if she can remain calm, [they'll] be okay." In the meeting, he explains to her that when he did the Cigar of the Month club, he would do things like offer a deal where you'd order six months and get the seventh month free. She basically blows him off, saying that they need to just "get calling." Bill interviews that he has some expertise in what they're trying to do here, and she isn't listening to a word he says. A random shot of Trump Ice sits here unnecessarily at the end of this sequence, yelling, "I have no artistic or storytelling function! I am here by contract!"
The day, Boyfriend Bill and Ereka head into Wolf's to try to make a sale. Ereka tells the guy that their job with regard to the water is to "buzz it up." Bill looks up like, "Wha-huh?" At their appointment, Ereka announces that it's their job to "create buzz." The guy stops and says, "And that's the pitch?" I'm pretty sure that when people say, "And that's the pitch?", it almost never means, "Because if it is, it is a humdinger!" At the stop, she again announces that it's their job to "create a buzz." Bill finally interviews in frustration: "What are you doing to create this tremendous 'buzz'?" He expresses his opinion that you can't just announce a buzz. And boy, do I agree. You can't really tell people, "I know you've never heard of this product, but there's a real buzz surrounding it." Boyfriend Bill decides to take a different approach with these last people, and he just tells them that he can get them a good price on water. Imagine that! In fact, he says, "We're appealing to your financial senses here." Wait...financial senses? Instead of buzz? What is this rationality you speak of? The customers at this point are like, "Oh. Okay, we'll take two pallets." Heh. "In business, it's about numbers," Bill voices over. "It's about how much you bring in to the bottom line at the end of the year, rather than 'you should just buy this product...because I'm cute.'" Especially not when you dress like Ereka does; I'm just saying.
"Beggars Can't Be Choosers," announces the title card at the opening of the piece. Trump says with a chuckle that "you'll never sell through the begging route," so you might as well do your best and take your lumps as necessary. There are some very cute New York shots here, and...why are all those people waving yellow baseball hats? Is that a thing? I am so out of it. Troy, Heidi, and Kwame start making sales calls. Heidi sprains her shoulder patting herself on the back in her interview about how they had a positive attitude and high energy and all that. Troy tells the first guy that if he buys by the pallet, he's getting it for just about eight bucks a case. The guy's problem is that he has no room for seventy-two cases of water. Heidi interviews that this was a big problem for a lot of places that they visited. Another guy tells them the same thing, and Troy offers to help him move the cases in and make room if he'll go for half a pallet. "You've got it outside, don't you?" the guy asks with a laugh, and right there is the friendly vibe that others who shall remain nameless (like Nick) will fail to create later.
Funny Honking Music of Hijinks plays as Amy and Assorama stroll along together. Heidi voices over that she put Assorama and Amy together because Amy is the closest to being someone who can tolerate Assorama's presence without spontaneously combusting. We now see Assorama and Amy making a sales pitch at a restaurant of some sort, where a woman is swirling Trump Ice in a glass. You can't judge water unless you swish it around, you know. "We're talking about a very unique [sic] American premium water," Assorama intones seriously. "And it is really one of the better-tasting really sweet waters that is offered." In an interview, Amy says that she and Assorama had a strategic agreement that Amy could kick Assorama if Assorama needed to shut up. "She got kicked quite a bit," Amy says. Oh, not enough, Amy. Not enough. "I'm a big, big connoisseur of waters," Assorama says self-importantly -- not like there's really any other way to call yourself a "connoisseur of waters." Assorama goes on about how good the water is, and again, she's really missing the point that Boyfriend Bill was making before -- these people don't care how sweet the water is. They only care whether people will order it, and the flowery talk is largely unnecessary.
Amy explains that she and Assorama agreed in advance that Assorama would do the sales pitch (a/k/a bullshit), and then Amy would move in to talk numbers. As the restaurant lady brings up again the problem of storing a pallet of water somewhere, Assorama immediately offers her the option of "just a couple of cases," and the lady says she'll take five cases. Five cases! College dorm rooms have five cases of drinks in the corner, for God's sake. "Five would be perfect," Assorama says with a self-satisfied grin. Amy explains that Assorama had this way of offering the people a tiny number of cases that they would then just accept to end the discussion, and you just don't do that. I think I would even know not to do that, and the last thing I sold was candles to support my sixth-grade softball team. On the way out, she tells Assorama not to talk numbers, and Assorama promises she won't anymore.
At the place, we see Amy discussing pallet prices. Suddenly, Assorama offers "a couple of cases." Then, we see Assorama promising again not to do numbers ever again -- but this is clearly out of sequence, because Amy's hair is up at the first place and down at the second place, and it's up again during this clip, so I think this purported second conversation about not doing numbers actually is just an extension of the conversation from right after the restaurant. But the point remains the same -- Amy has clearly told Assorama to knock it off a couple of times now. , they head for a third place. Wait...Amy's hair is back up, so maybe I'm wrong. I am thinking too hard. Anyway, she starts to try to convince them to make a commitment, and Assorama jumps in and offers to sell them...one case. One. Case. They probably spent twice that much in taxi fare just to get where they were going. Amy interviews that she was astonished. "I was like, 'Holy shit. Surely I am not hearing this again!' That was when she got her third kick." Assorama laughs in an interview about Amy kicking her under the table. "She's lucky I didn't kick her ass back," she chortles with unwarranted confidence. Amy explains in her interview that she finds it an embarrassing waste of time to walk out of a meeting having sold fifteen dollars worth of water. Yeah, no kidding. "We are a damn good team together," Assorama says on their way out of the restaurant, demonstrating that in addition to a complete inability to read customers, she has a complete inability to read Amy. I mean, I guess if you ever need anyone to sell one can of Dr. Pepper on your behalf, Assorama may be your girl, but I have yet to see the slightest evidence that she has any business sense whatsoever. Or any regular sense, either.
That night, Protégé gets together to gather their numbers. Troy voices over that he was worried about the numbers, because he figured they needed to shoot for 1500 cases or so, and they weren't looking like they were going to get there. To wit, we see Assorama reading off the totals from some of the places they sold to. Five cases...fifteen cases...zero...yeah. That's not getting you toward 1500. Amy talks about the fact that they have an 8:00 AM appointment at a place called "Value in Volume," which appears to be a distributor. Maybe Assorama can get them to buy a bottle. Heidi interviews that she, Troy, and Amy are going to do the selling, because Amy can't stand Assorama anymore. Hee. And as for Assorama, Heidi says she "can't sell herself out of a paper bag." And if anyone would know about selling yourself out of a paper bag...well, never mind. You get the picture.
At 2:45 AM, Ereka is on the computer and Nick is awake at the desk behind her. They discuss the fact that he's meeting with "ABC Distribution" at 10:00 AM. It took some poking around, but they're actually talking about ABC Office Essentials, a company that provides food and beverages and a bunch of other stuff to offices. I have to say, I checked out their site myself, and I failed to find a "yooge" quantity of extremely useful information, and it did take me about five minutes to read the whole thing. But anyway, Ereka asks Nick to read the site, and he doesn't want to. She says, "Are you telling me you don't try to understand your customer?" "Do you really want to enter into a discussion like this for twenty minutes about theories in sales?" Oh, God, no. Please. "Theories in sales"? That is the cocktail party of my nightmares. She says no, no theories, she just wants him to look at the site. He doesn't want to. "She's trying to tell me how to sell!" he says in disbelief in an interview. "It's absurd! It's like trying to tell the Pope how to pray!" That's right, you know. Nick is the spiritual leader of all the world's salespeople, and every year on Memorial Day, the highest of sales holy days, they gather in the city of his birth to hear him make an address from a high balcony. Nick goes off to bed, leaving Ereka high and dry and devoid of religious instruction.
High energy wakes us up for the morning's antics. The first thing we see is Assorama and Kwame (oh, poor Kwame, all with the babysitting duties all of a sudden) visiting some salon or something where they're theoretically trying to sell water. When they get inside, though, Assorama decides to break the ice by asking how her makeup is. This leads to a consultation in which she brags that she got gloss put on her lips, highlight color on her brows, and extra "rouge." Rouge? Wow, remember to put it back in grandma's purse when you're done with it. In her post-meeting interview, she crows, "As you can see, he gave me a new look, and we sold two cases of water!" Two cases. Again with the fifteen bucks. I'm not sure how much business Assorama knows, but it's not very good productivity to send two people for an hour to get a fifteen-dollar sale. Not even if the fifteen dollars was pure profit.
Elsewhere, Troy, Heidi, and Amy are in a cab together when he suddenly says, "Oh my God, we're missing the boat." He goes on to explain to her that they don't have to just sell one bunch of cases. They can sell a series of cases over a period of time -- so many cases a week for several weeks, for instance. He calls this his "moment of clarity" in an interview. Eh, "moment of clarity," "end of stupidity"...it's a fine line. At the place, Troy talks the guy into twenty-five cases a week for four weeks to give it a try. "That works out," the guy says. The guy will take four pallets, but he wants them at the truckload price. Troy says that it will have to be five pallets. "That is givin' a little bit both ways," he says. Amy admits here that Troy is "a much smarter guy" than she had originally suspected, and then we see the customer go with the five pallets. "Sure, I don't want to appear completely inflexible," and the guy laughs, and Troy laughs, and this, again, is the quality that Troy has that makes him a good sales guy. And, I would add, makes me fear him profusely. Amy goes on to say that Troy can "adapt," and that he "reads people well." "I commend him for it," she says, "because I think he's doing a damn good job."
Elsewhere, Nick and Katrina can't get a signal on the Space Communicator. Hmm, I think that's a sign, perhaps. "This is showtime," Nick voices over as they approach the appointment. "This is what I do for a living. This is my knitting, if you will. I sell things. I'm phenomenal at it." Oh, God. Nick is Random Uses Of "If You Will" Make Me Sound Appealingly Quirky Guy! I hate That Guy! ["So do I -- and his cousin, Random Uses Of '…And Whatnot' Guy." -- Sars] He goes on to say that "most of the people" involved in all of this have underestimated him. Yes, yes, Nick, you're underappreciated. "I said, 'Hop on this back,'" Nick interviews, "'I'm taking us to the promised land.'" Mm-hmm. It appears to me that the guy he's talking to is indeed the ABC Office Essentials guy, and when he asks how you buy the product, Nick tells him that they'd like to sell him a truckload of it. The guy's face says exactly the following: "Uh." Nick shows the guy the truckload special, but it's pretty clear the guy can't take a truckload. Katrina snots that when clients notice that you're interested in making money and not in their best interests, you lose the deal. Oh, come on. As if a business person thinks that your reason for selling them something is as a favor to them? Please. Nick is off-putting, but that is totally not why. Nick asks the guy if he'll buy a pallet. Nope. A case? Nope. Not interested. And kind of an ass about it, too. You know, one thing I did read on the ABC Office Essentials site is that they've worked with Burnett before on The Restaurant, and I'll tell you this: I think the guy's being an asshole just to be an asshole, because he wants to be good television. It struck me when I watched it that he was being a little too gratuitously rude, and that's what I now suspect. He's just too snotty to them. I think it's something of a put-on. Or else a little bit of Rocco rubbed off on him.
up are Nick and Katrina at a nightclub. Ereka and Boyfriend Bill are present for this one as well. Nick gives the guy this big fat pitch about how the water is bottled far away from civilization (yeah, Pennsylvania!) and so forth, and then the nightclub guy just cuts him off. "Okay, this is a nightclub. It's not rocket science, it's just water." In other words, he's a price shopper. He doesn't care if the water has legs. "You just want to know a price," Bill says. "What are you guys comin' in at?" the guy asks them. Boyfriend Bill says, "What if we can cut your price almost in half?" the guy winds up with a pallet. Gee, thanks, Boyfriend Bill! Bill interviews that Nick did have a problem not wanting to pause and learn about the customers. "He's a hardcore salesman," Bill says, "but Nick's a guy who oftentimes will jump out of the plane without learning how to operate the parachute." I'm not sure Nick pauses to make sure he has the parachute.
We return to S4, where Amy is reviewing paperwork. Heidi explains that at the end of the day, they had all the paperwork in order, and everything was ready for George. Bunch of goodie-goodies. They are the yearbook staff of S4. Carolyn, meanwhile, gets stuck going to see VersaCorp, which doesn't have its ducks in any sort of row. Bill interviews that Ereka had a problem keeping the paperwork together, and while she's trying to take care of this, she's on the Space Communicator. Who is she talking to? Bill and Nick are right there. Is this a Katrina problem? She blames Nick in an interview (unsurprisingly), saying that he wasn't filling out the paperwork correctly along the way so that it could be approved. On all those sales he...didn't make, I guess? Furthermore, I love how this is apparently the first opportunity Ereka had to address this issue, even though they've been working on this for two days. Besides, couldn't Katrina have done the paperwork, since she was teamed with Nick? Why oh why do I keep seeking logical answers to all my questions? Ereka continues to freak out as she tries to put the paperwork together. Bill interviews that Ereka was "extremely flustered" and "making excuses for why we didn't have our papers in order." Moreover, he points out, she freaked in front of Carolyn. Not cool. Never freak out in front of Carolyn. Carolyn finally clears out, as Katrina wears her pouty face. Her pouty face has a lot of miles on it.
As it gets to be evening, Kwame and Troy put on their sneaks and head for the gym. The rest of the team watches them go, as Ereka roots around in the fridge and Katrina peevishly nibbles on something. They all discuss the fact that the wait for the results of the task is going to be excruciating. "Sitting here trying to guess is going to make us go crazy," Katrina says. Ereka says she needs to drink. She wants to run, but needs to drink. "This is what it drives me to," she says, "I just want to be baaaaad tonight!" Well, sure. And, you know, nothing says "genuine bad girl" like talking about it a lot. They all go out of the suite in various stages of undress. Ereka is sort of trying to sashay humorously, but when they head for the cab, you can see that she just kinda walks like a truck to begin with.
At the club, there is drinking. There is dancing, there is merriment. Among other things, Ereka is at one point hanging quite pointedly all over Boyfriend Bill, which does seem to add a bit of a tinge to her later attitude. I'm not sure she wasn't trying for the symmetrical hookup to go with the Amy-Nick vibe. I mean, there's a lot of hugging, but she's got her face buried right in his neck, and it's very...well, it appears to have a definite purpose to it, if you ask me. And you know...I'm not sure what kind of "club" this is, but I think I see a cook in a paper hat behind the toasting that's going on. I really kind of don't understand where they are. It's like they're at a very bad bar at an airport or something. There are hardly any other people there. Oh, and Assorama came along, so you know it's not that much fun.
In the development of The Plot I Don't Care About, Bill teases Amy with the line, "Amy Warnock." Wow, that's...lame, Boyfriend Bill. She throws back her head and cackles anyway. Bill interviews that Nick asked him at one point whether he thought Amy really liked him, and as Bill puts it, he "fed the fire" and told him yes. He doesn't exactly say whether he really believed this or not; he just says that he "enhanced [Nick's] confidence level slightly...he's full throttle." Hee. I have to say, Boyfriend Bill is sexier talking about Nick coming on to Amy than Nick is actually doing it. Nick and Amy chat, and dance, and boogie, and wiggle. I will say that Nick is a more competent dancer than I would have anticipated. The light feet of copier salesmen -- who knew? Katrina blathers about how Nick is never this animated, and so forth. "His downfall is Amy," she says, like she's revealing a big state secret. Amy bubbles in an interview that she indeed thinks Nick has a crush on her, but she hasn't yet stopped to think about how she feels about Nick. It seems to me that if that's how she feels, she might stop with the sex eyes every five minutes until she figures it out, because that's not that nice. "Hey, Nick," she says to him. "You could have kids that look like him -- he's the spitting image of my little brother," she says, pointing to a dark-haired young man. Are we supposed to be surprised by the appearance of that guy? Were you automatically assuming Amy was a natural blonde? Because I certainly wasn't. Bill comments that everyone was kissing and dancing and having a great time, despite the fact that in a short few hours, it would be "full-on war."
A few short hours later, the teams file into the Boardroom, where George and Carolyn await. Then Trump comes strolling in. George is first to give Protégé's results. He thinks they "did very well." They sold $6283 worth of water. That's about eleven pallets, give or take one, I think. You can account for a good bit of it very easily -- five went to the guy who didn't want to be unreasonable, one went to the guy who took the twenty a week for four weeks, I think one went to the guy who Troy offered to help move stuff to make room for it, and probably one or two went to the amalgamation of little bars and restaurants they hit. VersaCorp, on the other hand, brought in about $4015. That's roughly seven pallets. You know Boyfriend Bill sold three of them just about single-handedly -- the one to the nightclub guy and the two to the "buzz" people Ereka was in the middle of turning off. Trump turns to Ereka and asks what happened. "We pushed it, we really did," she insists. George explains that Protégé won the task with two sales to distributors, which accounted for more than half their sales -- about $3400. That's only about six pallets, so it appears that the majority of the money came from the one guy Troy did so well with who bought the five pallets at the truckload price. Though I guess they were worth a little less than five regular ones, come to think of it, so there are...maybe two or three other ones? Anyway, Troy made the majority of the Protégé money, and he made a lot of it with that one sale. That one five-pallet guy gave them easily a third of their take for the entire three days, I think. George tries to call Troy the "hero" of the distributor sales, and Troy carefully redistributes the credit among himself, Amy, and Heidi. That's one of the really nice qualities in Troy, I think -- he does have a huge ego, but he's confident enough that he doesn't have to have all the credit all the time. He shares credit very easily and very comfortably, and that's what makes it more credible when he calls people out for doing poorly, as he did with Jessie, or for acting ridiculous, like Katrina last week when she was all mad as a wet ham.
At just this point in the Boardroom, Trump notes that there's hammering from one of his tenants who's having some work done, and he dispatches someone to put a stop to it. Just kind of a funny little aside, the way you still have to send the army to crush a troublesome nuisance from time to time, no matter how rich you get. Trump then turns to Heidi and tells her that she needs to choose which two people will be going on the helicopter ride with her. She chooses Amy and Troy, and deservedly so. I felt for Kwame, but there wasn't much else Heidi could do, because Amy and Troy were with her when she closed the big deals, and Amy is generally very helpful, I think, with organizing and managing tasks. When Heidi chooses Troy, Trump says, "You're doing a great job for Idaho, you know that, don't you? They're going to give you a parade." Troy manages a sheepish smile and a humble "Thank you, sir." The cowboys of Boise are proud indeed. Trump then tells VersaCorp to "sweat it out in the suite" until it's time to come to the Boardroom.
S4. As soft, encouraging music plays, Heidi sends good wishes to Mom back home. She interviews tearily about how they devoted all the water-selling to Mom, which...I still don't get, but whatever.
And now, it's helicopter time. Troy calls the Trumpcopter "so classy...a limo with propellers on it." Troy and Amy make an oh-so-cute joke about how Heidi -- seated between them -- should turn the other way if she's going to throw up. That's one of the most Mary-Kate and Ashley jokes I've ever seen on this show, and I think they learned it under the watchful eye of Bob Saget, so that is some pedigree, cheese-comedy-wise. They fly around Manhattan in the helicopter, and Troy has Heidi and Amy show him all the stuff he's been missing, like the Empire State Building, which he apparently didn't notice until now. It's easy to miss when you're running around selling water and dreaming about ways to make money from dirt. Troy is particularly elated that they take him past "the most beautiful woman in the world," the Statue of Liberty. Well, the most beautiful besides his wife, who isn't, after all, green or hundreds of feet tall (I assume). He stares dumbfounded at the statue. Yawwwwn. I mean, it's nice, and I love New York too, but that's not why I'm watching the show. Enough travelogue! Enough music! Less happiness! More agony! "I'm going to have to say this ranks as the best prize yet," Amy says happily. And at home, when I heard that line, I swear to God, I said out loud, "Better than the picnic? On the lawn?"
When we return to S4 after the commercials, we come directly to a close-up of Boyfriend Bill's eyes. Gift for me! Happily, he has hard-to-manage eyebrows, just like I do. He's working at the computer when Ereka comes out to see him. "Hey, dude," she says. "I need to talk to you." Yeah, she called him "dude," because that will wash away all the pain. He voices over, as they head for the living room to chat, that as they prepare for the Boardroom, there's a lot of maneuvering going on. When he and Ereka are situated, she tells him that Nick is going to the final table, partly because "Kat" (bleh) said that Nick didn't give his all while they were selling. And "Kat" would be, after all, a totally unbiased source for that piece of information. Ereka then announces that Bill will "kill" her, but she's taking him in as well. Well, I'm sure that comes as a huge surprise. She says that she needs Bill with her when she deals with Nick (bleh), and she promises that if she's asked why Bill is there, she's going to say that the only reason she brought him is that he was with her when she closed some of the bigger deals. What kind of sense does that make? "He was with me for some of our few successes, so I figured, 'Fuck him.'" Great logic. She says, "Okay?" in this patronizing way, and then she voices over that she's taking Bill to the final table because George was stuck on how they did with the distributors, but she has also told Bill how she feels about Nick. "He's in the loop," she says, because apparently, she sets the loop, and then others just dance in and out of it on command.
Back in their chat, Bill clarifies that the reason he's being taken in is that he was with her. She adds, just so there's no misunderstanding or anything, that the only reason she's not taking Katrina is basically that Katrina did nothing, so there's no reason to take her. HA HA HA! Yeah, brilliant thinking, there, genius. That'll win him over! Boyfriend Bill interviews that Ereka was lobbying hard for his support so she could get rid of Nick. He points out, however, that last week, Ereka pounded him once she got into the room with Trump and the Viceroys. So he doesn't trust her any farther than he can throw her -- which I'm sure is actually a long, long distance, so the symbolism is probably wrong, but I have to say it's something I would really enjoy seeing scientifically tested. "Trust me," she tells him in S4, "it's not personal." He shoots her a look, and then he says, "Well, just because you preface something and say it's not personal...doesn't necessarily mean it isn't." Oh, thank God. I think I've been waiting for somebody to call out that stupid reality show chestnut for about a zillion years. Even more than in real life, "it's not personal" means, in reality-land, "I would wrap you in oily rags and throw matches at you if I thought I wouldn't get caught." When he says that he may take it personally whether she disclaims it or not, she shrugs and snots, "Yeah, you can." I'm sure he appreciates the permission. She rubs her eyes and says, "I hate this shit so much," but all of a sudden, her hair is up, so they apparently talked about something else while she put her hair up. Probably how much she lurves Katrina and hates Nick. Bad Nick! Nick is not her girlfriend! Bill stands up to leave and gives her a semi-medium-five as he goes.
At some other point in history, Ereka, in a black strapless dress, pulls Nick aside and tells him that he and Bill are the ones going to the Boardroom. She says that she has to, after all, because George thinks the distributors were the ones who "broke or made" the team. Of course, it's obvious that it's impossible for that to dictate Nick and Bill, because to the degree Nick met with distributors, Katrina did too, so...she's utterly talking out of her ass, which is fine, I guess, and to be expected. "If she slings mud in this direction," Nick interviews, "that won't be a good move." He explains that if Ereka makes that decision, he will crucify her with her own words. "She'll effectively self-implode [sic]."
Later that evening, they all file into the Boardroom. Carolyn eyes them with particular disdain, which I love. Enter the Trump. "So, what happened?" Trump says. "We lost by $2000," Ereka says in a way that she means to be smooth and unruffled -- unlike most of her shirts. (Rimshot!) She stresses that although this is a bad loss, they did really well with restaurants and bars -- they just totally struck out with the distributors. Trump asks Nick what he thinks. "We lost and it stinks, and I'm tired of it." You know, you can get away with spitting out that kind of no-nonsense answer when you're not the main guy who fucked up the task, but when you are? Yeah, that's a tough road to travel. Trump says that Nick has lost quite a bit. Yeah, Nick acknowledges, he's lost the last two. Trump points out that before that, he lost four in a row with the men. "We've made six trips in here together," Boyfriend Bill says wearily. "Carolyn," Trump asks, "what do you think?" "I think you did poorly," Carolyn says. She declines to single anyone out, but she says that she thinks the entire group performed poorly. Trump asks George what he'd like to add. "Oh, boy, I got a lot," George says. Heh. He says that he's shocked at how little they've learned, and specifically mentions the failure to learn about the customers. Ereka is thrilled that he brought this up, because she thinks that this is how she's going to skewer Nick. She points out that she asked Nick to peruse the ABC web site, and he wouldn't. Nick, to her surprise, says that he did, actually -- he looked at it the morning, and didn't find it too valuable. On the one hand, I suspect he's lying. On the other hand, I didn't find their site incredibly illuminating either, so who knows? Furthermore, when you ask people to do things at 2:45 AM on the night before they have an appointment at 10:00, you're not exactly showing exemplary leadership under the ideal conditions. Good leadership should not involve amphetamines, I always say, although there are certainly late-night radio stations that would tell you otherwise.
George then moves on to the bigger problem, which is that Nick had absolutely no rapport with any of the people he was trying to sell to. That surprised me, too, I have to say -- if he's really such a good sales guy, I have to think he's normally better at relating to customers than that. He had absolutely none of Troy's, or even Bill's, ability to get people to smile, or get them on his side, or get them interested in what he was saying. Nick, rather than accepting this obviously true criticism, says that he disagrees "wholeheartedly." He talks about how much charisma he has, and Trump puts in, "If you do say so yourself." Heh. Asked who he thinks did the worst job, Nick says it was Ereka. He specifically talks about how she lost it when they were trying to put the paperwork together. "For her to behave like that at the end of the day, at crunch time, is in my opinion unacceptable." Ereka turns to him, very nearly trembling with rage. "I was fixing your mistakes," she spits. Nick says that even so, "once you unnerve the troops, who are we to believe in?" It took me a long time to figure out what Nick's weirdly affected speech patterns remind me of, and then it came to me -- Damon Runyon. He talks like he just got here from Guys and Dolls, and just lost all his money in the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York. Trump asks Ereka if she was frantic, and then she says -- apropos of absolutely nothing -- that "numbers speak for themselves," and she pushes a sheet of data at Trump, insisting that it shows Nick's poor performance.
"Bill, who did the worst?" Trump asks. Bill says he thinks none of them are proud of how it went. Yeah, especially anyone who was there during the horrifying "buzz" pitches. He acknowledges that there was poor planning and poor execution. "It was a mess," Trump offers. Asked again who did the worst job, Bill hesitates, saying that the only person he worked with was Ereka. Trump asks if Bill thinks she was good, and he says noncommittally that she "held her own out there." Ereka nods, as if this is some big compliment. Yeah. "Held her own." He's practically holding a parade in your honor, sweetheart. For some reason, Katrina very foolishly gets involved here, and snots that Ereka isn't being given enough credit for how awesome she was. "I think you're very smart," Trump says to Katrina, "because you don't want to be picked, and you're probably going to be the one..." "Guaranteed," Boyfriend Bill puts in. "Oh, you think it's already done?" Trump says. Ereka, as if she's got the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders, says, "They asked me to tell them who I'd bring in, and I upheld my word." Nick laughs heartily. "Nobody asked you anything! In fact, I prefer to be surprised!" Hee. Trump asks her whether she told them what she was going to do, and she confirms that she did. "I'm not a chicken; I'm a leader," she says. I am totally putting that on a t-shirt. Wouldn't you wear that? "I'm not a chicken. I'm a leader." And it would have a picture of a chicken on one side with a red circle and line through it, and Trump on the other side, and the word "LEADER" under his name would be underlined in what looked like a red scrawl. I'm going to get rich off that shirt. Katrina, having already failed her required course in reading the room, decides to go for a negative score by leaning forward and indignantly saying, "I don't want her to take blame for not choosing me. Because they are going to try to turn this as our friendship." Ereka puts a hand out, as she does whenever she needs to briefly control the universe, and says to Katrina that "it's not going to happen that way, don't worry." Trump asks if they're friends. Katrina says that they are, but that's got nothing to do with it. Really! Nothing! Trump says, "You played it very smart. You said she's a genius, she's unbelievable, she's great -- making it almost impossible for her to pick you." Katrina emphasizes that "Ereka is one of the best women here." And boy, that's saying a lot. She's better than...Omarosa? You mean she sold sixteen dollars worth of water?
Trump is getting bored. He tells Ereka that as project manager, she's partially responsible for the loss, and she has to pick who's coming with her. To Trump's obvious disgust, she takes Bill and Nick to the final table. "Katrina," Trump says contemptuously, turning to her, "go back to the suite. Your girlfriend Ereka gave you a break." He sends Ereka, Bill, and Nick out into the lobby to wait. "Enjoy your evening," he says to Katrina, "there's no place like Trump Tower." And what makes the moment so brilliant, as Katrina decides not to say anything and just leave the table, is that she pauses for just a moment, and that's when she realizes that it is completely, utterly over for her. Between last week and this week, Trump has made it clear that he has absolutely no use for her whatsoever, and whether she goes this week or week or whenever, it is over for her, and she knows it. And she'd like to say something, but she knows it's too late. And all of that flashes on her face in the two seconds before she gets up from the table and leaves. And you know who else realizes it? Boyfriend Bill, who is grinning from ear to ear as Katrina gets up from her chair. It's beautiful. She's fucked, and she can do nothing, because officially, she's off the hook. It's hilarious. As they all walk out, Boyfriend Bill says, "This is gettin' rough." As they sit on the couch, Ereka says, "Sorry, Bill." So apparently, she's not mad at him yet.
When we return, it is night in Manhattan, as usual. As the candidates wait outside, Trump asks the Viceroys for thoughts. Carolyn says that nobody impressed her. George says that it's pretty clearly a decision between Nick and Ereka, as he sees it. And while it's a close call given Nick's total lack of personality or connection with the customers, George thinks that Ereka's inability to control her emotions makes her a very risky proposition as the leader of a company. We see Ereka out on the yellow couch whining to Bill that she's "not unfair." And she isn't insecure! And she doesn't need approval! She really really doesn't! Before long, Robin sends them in to the Boardroom.
Nick has something he would like to say before they get started. He goes on a bit about how he goes all-out to make sales. Ereka starts to bicker with him, and Trump turns to Bill and asks him if he's just going to be quiet while they fight. Bill's like, "Uh, basically." Trump tells Bill he's probably in pretty good shape, and is wise to keep his mouth shut. I don't think Bill needs to be told that twice. Ereka stresses that "Bill did a great job." Trump turns it on Bill, though, and asks him who he would choose. Bill groans. George, who I think obviously likes Bill and is dying to have Bill step up and prove that he really does have the goods, tells him that sometimes as a businessman, you have to make hard choices. "But you don't have to live with the people," Bill says, reasonably enough. Trump says, "Sometimes you do have to live with the people." Yeah, he remembers all the wives he's fired. Asked again, Bill says, "My only problem with Ereka is that was that many of my ideas were dismissed." "Would I be right in making the statement that between Nick and Ereka, you think Ereka should be the one that would be fired?" Bill's like, "Well -- well --" And George cuts him off with that little "bup-bup-bup" noise people make when they want you to stop talking. Is George right? Bill finally says, "Yes, that's correct." ["That annoyed me, I have to say. George asked you a direct question. Pick a pony and bet it already." -- Sars] Ereka mutters that she's "disappointed." Yes, Bill has cut her deeply. Didn't he listen when she said it wasn't personal? Nick goes back to insisting that he's awesome, and can make a great operator of a Trump organization. Can Ereka handle it? "No," Nick says. Trump wants to know why. "Yeah, this is interesting to me," Ereka snots. "If I can manage fixing all of your screw-ups, I hope that I can manage being president of a company." And here, there is an awesome shot of Carolyn looking at Ereka like, "Is she fucking serious? SHE IS!" Carolyn is gobsmacked by Ereka's petty little display, but she can't help being a little bit amused. Love her.
Trump asks Boyfriend Bill, just looking at the dollars, who generated more business. He says that he and Ereka did. Carolyn points out to Ereka that if she's going to get on Nick for lack of sales, she ought to also get on Katrina, right? In the same vein, Trump asks Ereka why, actually, Katrina got to leave. "Do you like her 'cause she's your girlfriend?" A delighted Nick leans back and laughs, happy to see that Trump is totally onto Ereka's bullshit. "I mean," Carolyn says, indicating Bill, "you keep saying he did a phenomenal job, he was on your team..." Ereka says, as if she's making any sense, "Carolyn, if she'd taken more of a leadership role, I would have put her in that hot seat." Wait, what? Of all the lame arguments I've ever heard, that's the least capable of limping across the room to save its life. "I think that's an excuse," Carolyn says. Trump is like, "Wait, so because she did nothing, that's why she's off the hook?" "That was one reason," Ereka says. "Another reason is that she brought in the most dollars." Huh? Bill single-handedly closed half their sales! What is she yapping about? Carolyn: "Wait, she did, or she and Nick did?" Ereka explains, believe it or not, that she happens to know that Katrina took the lead on all the sales that were successful...because Katrina told her so. HA HA HA! Again. Yeah, there's some business savvy for you. George reprimands her not to make pronouncements about who took the lead when she wasn't there.
Trump calls it all to a halt. He tells Nick he's not sure where he gets the idea that he's a great salesman. "Your performance was terrible," he says. But now the focus goes to Ereka. "You never had a strong game plan," he tells her. "You were frantic under pressure. But worst of all, you let your emotions dictate who came into the Boardroom. Ereka." She breaks in. "Don't say it, Mr. Trump." "You're fired." Woooooo! Did you know that they booted Ereka and Richard Hatch on the same damn night? Someone was really looking out for me in Burnett-land. Nick smiles. But not too much. Bill smiles. But not too much. Ereka is booted from the Boardroom.
Out in the lobby, Bill tries to shake her hand, and she won't. And that puts her just about at the bottom of the totem pole, class-wise. What, because he didn't go along with her plan to gang up on Nick? When he never said he would? What did he owe her, anyway? Not a damn thing. "You sold me out, Bill," she says, judgmental to the power of fifty. "Short-term memory," he says, recalling how she and Katrina tried to screw him last week. As she leaves, Trump voices over that he likes Ereka, but she's "way too emotional." Trump says, "That was a tough one." Carolyn: "I didn't think so tough." Ohhhh, BURN. Hee. I adore Carolyn so much. I want to adopt her as my personal motivational coach, who won't say anything until I really fuck up, at which point she will call me on the phone and just say, "I think you're doing poorly." And I will wither and immediately commit to improving myself posthaste.
In her taxicab confession, Ereka insists that she still did the right thing not to bring Katrina, and Trump just got it wrong. You keep it up, babe. No point in learning anything, when you can just be bitter. She also claims that Nick is the real loser in this round, anyway. Pay no attention to the fact that she's the one in the cab.
week: Heidi and Assorama have a confrontation. Hopefully, something bad happens to at least one of them. There is fighting. There is crying. Hey, maybe this will be the Best. Boardroom. Ever. Though it will have quite a lot to live up to, because Ereka's booting was indeed the most satisfying yet. Oh, yeah, one other thing -- week? Katrina finds out that Bill and Nick stomped Ereka. And I, personally, cannot wait for that.