Previously on Now SHE Is An Ice Cream Headache: The boys were bursting with carb-errific energy selling donut ice cream on the street, while the women flailed around like the wheatgrass-juice-drinking, no-fun-having, pallid-complexion-developing nothings that they are, remaining dull and lifeless even while pushing something called Red Velvet. Ivana's leadership skills were enough to make you pine for the kings of Enron, but when Baldford thoughtlessly decided to toss away his exemption like he didn't need it anymore, it annoyed Trump, who believes you only do that with wives. In fact, so annoyed was Trump that ultimately the Hair decided to kick the Lack Thereof right out of the suite and into the street. Adios, Baldford. I hope you bag a few honeys, aw, yeah, buddy!
Credits. I like Pamela's little eyebrow-pop. It's a brilliant communication of how much she hates all the other women already. I'll have to keep practicing.
Night. New York street scene porn. Manholes and such. And up in S5, we are in the midst of the Aspiring Corporate Weasel Death Watch. The rest of the women of Apex remind the members of Mosaic that it's Ivana, Baldford, Jennifer C., and Stacie left in the Boardroom. Stacy takes great pleasure in announcing that Baldford waived his exemption. John thinks that's a fairly entertaining story of bravado. "He was bouncing off the walls today, I love it!" John laughs. Someone calls it "a stroke of crazy non-genius," which is a pretty good line to come out of a room full of people who probably grew up on the comedy stylings of Lee Iacocca. Andy interviews that he found Baldford's decision a jaw-dropper: "It's basically like saying you're the world's safest driver, so you don't need to wear a seatbelt anymore." And someday, when he has a driver's license, he's totally not going to take that unsafe attitude.
The three women return to S5. At the sight of all of them, Pamela and John are shocked, and John heads off to tell the others. "No! No, no no!" Maria says. And, I mean...yes, actually, so shut up. Sandy interviews that she's "sad" for Baldford, because the team needs him and will be weak without him. Both of which make her actually sad for herself and not anyone else, not that I would expect her to notice the difference. I have decided that Sandy has the most generic I Am Made Up And Decked Out To Look Like An Attractive Girl, But I Am, If You Look Closely, Kind Of Not face ever. She claims that the moral of the story is that you're never safe. I would say the moral of the story is that you don't act like a reckless and overconfident moron, but that's why I don't own a bridal salon.
The Apex women get together for a meeting. Oh, this should be fun. Stacy invites anyone to "vent," by which she means "baa along with the rest of the sheep." She says she wants to "get it out all in the open." Stacie points out that if anyone needs to vent, it should be her, considering that they all just tried to flay her alive in front of Trump. Stacie argues to the rest of the women that she "was selling [her] ass off" during the ice cream task, and that there's no way they should all have ganged up on her. Maria blinks about 40,000 times, and then does this condescending bit where she sticks her hand out and says, "I'm gonna stop you right there." Oh, are you? By all means, let me know when I can go on again, Maria the Conversational Referee, because I certainly wouldn't want to be moving when you've already thrown a flag. Maria goes on to recall the "freaking out" during the first task, which she claims made everyone upset and nervous. Stacie allows that it may have been a moment of weakness, but instead of letting her finish her sentence, Stacy jumps in and says that it showed "an inability to cope in a situation that's stressful." And of course, that's quite different from "I think you're clinically insane," so you might hang on to it. Stacie interviews that the Apexiennes all seem to have seen this as a weakness she will now have to overcome, and then we see Maria literally waggle her finger at Stacie and say, "That can never happen again." Maria haughtily goes on to say that it's all about whether they're all going to be generous enough to give Stacie another chance. You know, with the finger-waggling and the "stop you right there," she could be any nightmarish mother-in-law in the history of the hackneyed vaudevillian Theater of Misogyny. ["I have to say, at this point, if I were Stacie, I'd have quit, but because this venting session is ridiculous, they're all bitches, and I'd want them to go fuck themselves without me." -- Wing Chun]
The morning, the phone rings and Kevin runs to answer it. Rhona (whose name I have been misspelling, it turns out) tells him that Trump will meet them in the lobby at 8:00 AM. They all converge on the lobby, dressed as usual. Jennifer C. is working her naughty-librarian-from-1956 thing, Raj has a polka-dot bowtie...you get the picture. They're icons, except that they're traced in chalk and will be washed off the pavement of America's mental cul-de-sac in the first drizzle of Hey, It's January And Something Else Is On. The overly dramatic trumpets sound once again as Trump and the Viceroys descend the Trump Tower escalator like the Evil Billionaires of Ancient Egypt. They meet the candidates in the lobby, and Trump praises the lobby. Look, the lobby! Once he's gotten this crucial task out of the way, he introduces a couple of spare people who are with him, who turn out to be two Procter and Gamble executives. As it turns out, P&G is launching a new product: Crest Vanilla Mint Toothpaste. Wow. There's a combination for which I've been holding my breath. That, and Salmon-Yogurt Popsicles. P&G will provide a $50,000 budget with which the candidates will have to create "buzz" about this truly foul-sounding product. But preferably, not the kind of "buzz" where people talk about how completely foul it sounds, which I think will be best achieved by avoiding use of the words "Vanilla" and "Mint" as much as possible. The executives will be judging the teams' success, so it's going to be a little subjective, as opposed to a money-counting task. And George and Carolyn will be watching. I love Carolyn's cream-colored suit, by the way. I could never wear that color, because I would look like I was made of mashed potatoes, but she can. Oh, and if you lose, your team goes to the Boardroom and somebody gets fired. In case you forgot that part.
Up in S5, we learn that Mosaic drew names out of a hat last night for PM, and this week's PM will be Kevin. Yay, Kevin! He's one of the less sucky ones! Mosaic is sort of getting all its non-crazy non-morons to be PM all in a row, which at least saves them some early disasters, perhaps. John -- wearing a Trumpalicious pink tie and clearly thinking entirely too much of himself -- explains that he thinks the picking of Kevin was good, because the team needs strong leadership, and he thinks Kevin will provide it. And it seems like strong leadership is indeed what they get, because Kevin sets a thirty-minute limit for brainstorming, and that's it. Ah, see? That's how you do brainstorming. It has to be a short storm. A passing storm. A summer storm. Not a Minnesota Halloween snowstorm where you wind up digging your Corolla out from under seven feet of densely-packed snow with icicles hanging off your hair. Kevin explains that the team knew they needed to do something big with their $50K, but they also knew that the timeline was short, so they needed to get their ideas moving. It's a good thing this isn't a long brainstorming session, I must say, because the ideas are not, as the music in the background agrees, particularly confidence inspiring. John suggests foam in the river ("if it's legal," hee) to make the river "the color of toothpaste." (Boing!) Kelly suggests that they give people a dollar to try the toothpaste, and they'll all dress up like...teeth. (Boing-oing-oing!) Pamela suggests that they pump the odor of vanilla into the subway systems. (Boing!) "We could get a blimp in the air," says Raj. And then, with impeccable comic timing, he adds, "That's a good idea." I could learn to like him, if not for the cane. And the pleated pants. And the fact that I predict he watches The O'Reilly Factor without irony.
Andy has a different idea. He suggests that they put on a million-dollar giveaway. As he explains it, you don't actually have to have a million dollars. What you have to do is buy an insurance policy to insure against the possibility that someone will actually win, when in fact, probably no one will. The group thinks it over. To the degree that, you know, thinking is among their "skill set."
The black screen logo this week says "A Penny Saved Is A Penny Saved." And that's not a typo, either. That's exactly what it means. Trump explains that he hates it when people don't adhere to a budget. We see him on the phone, obviously negotiating the same deal we saw him closing at the opening of the first episode. (Don't try to slip anything past me, sneaky footage-recycling people.) Trump would not like the way I shop for clothes.
The Apexiennes, in their van, discuss the "buzz" matter with the PM of the week, who is Elizabeth. Elizabeth tells them that her management style is to delegate things to everybody else, and then everybody else is responsible for producing their part of the work. Which is convenient for her, if you think about it, because it's unlikely that the delegating itself will go horribly awry, unless she forgets the names of the women on the team. ("You delegated that task to Kirsten." "So?" "There isn't anyone on the team named Kirsten. Good guess, though.") Elizabeth interviews that, in fact, she had previously worked for P&G in her actual life, so she thinks that if she hadn't volunteered to lead, it would have looked bad. (May I say, without unnecessarily spoiling the episode, that she seems to have neglected to note that if she did lead and sucked, it would look even worse?)
In the van, the Apexiennes start talking celebrity endorsers. "How about 'Come brush your teeth with P. Diddy'?" Sandy asks. ["Great idea! Now get out of your time machine and come back to 2004 with the rest of us." -- Wing Chun] Elizabeth tells us that the team had found an agency called Alliance that does promotions with celebrities, and that the agency was going to help them out. They go into an office to meet with The Oiliest Man Ever, who is apparently one of the agent guys. He gets on the phone with someone and talks about how he needs a celebrity for half an hour to an hour, just "to create a stir." Like, just a stir? I would think any celebrity who could be paid to swear drunkenly would work for "a stir." Paging Courtney Love! Ah, but Elizabeth says to the OME that "it has to be someone mainstream." The OME suggests LL Cool J, to which the other women respond positively. Elizabeth, however, warily says, "I don't feel like LL Cool J's mainstream." Ugh. ["Yeah. He was reeeeal edgy in Deep Blue Sea." -- Wing Chun] Sandy and Jennifer C., who are with Elizabeth at the meeting, try to correct this misapprehension, because seriously? LL Cool J is Will Smith, only less so. LL Cool J is totally mainstream. He's pop-hip-hop-rap, and that's a very, very wide cultural swath, not that Elizabeth seems to know this. There were people on the forums who believed that Elizabeth meant that the person had to be white when she said "mainstream," and I don't think it's that -- especially not consciously. What I do think is that pop-hip-hop-rap is not Elizabeth's own cultural niche, so she subconsciously under-measures its celebrities. It's not surprising, nor does it necessarily make her a racist. It just means she doesn't know pop culture all that broadly. I don't think she meant white -- to return to my example, there's no way she would have said no to Will Smith. Or Queen Latifah, or somebody else who is a big enough star. I just think that she uses her own frame of reference, so somebody who's Famous but not Superduperfamous right at the moment, such as LL Cool J, is downgraded in her rating system because she's not as familiar with what he does. People who are equally famous in areas of culture you don't follow don't feel like they're that famous to you, and you don't have to be a bad person to react that way. I would do the same thing with country musicians. You could give me one with an actual Fame Quotient of 8, and I'd grade him a 6, because I don't listen to country music. But of course, my family used to have a cat named Marmalade, whom we called "Marma," and my sister used to sing, "Marma said knock you oooouuut" to him, so that's the only thing I think of when I think about LL Cool J. So what do I know?
Anyway, Elizabeth goes on about how they have to get someone who appeals to everyone 18-49, blah dee blah, "Gum-N-Nuts," blah dee blah. Jennifer C. says in an interview that Elizabeth equivocates way too much about everything, and that she can't make up her mind. Although right now, she just seems to be saying no to LL Cool J, which is not quite the same thing as indecisiveness. Back in the meeting, Elizabeth is going on and on about P&G and bad press, and...yeah, this is less okay. Not all guys in rap have rap sheets, you know, Elizabeth. As Elizabeth heads off to arrange radio promotions, Sandy and Jennifer C. get all excited at the prospect, proposed by the OME, that he can get Mike Piazza. Jennifer C. rambles on and on about how much she loves Mike Piazza, which would be lovely, except that she can't pronounce "Piazza." She pronounces it like it has the same ending as "Yowza." You know, I fucking hate women who pretend to care about sports because they think men think it's adorable. Every time a woman who thinks she's cute makes a comment about baseball, I wind up wanting to ask her if she can name a single American League pitcher. No, not that one. Not Pedro Martinez. Name a single American League pitcher other than Pedro Martinez. If you can't, then shut up, because you're embarrassing the rest of us. ["Even I knew how his name is pronounced and I hate sports." -- Wing Chun]
Well, whatever, Jennifer just loves Mike Pi-yowza, and the only hitch comes when they learn that Pi-yowza wants $20,000 to show up instead of the $10,000 they have in the budget. Jennifer says that when she heard that, she knew it was going to hurt, but that she thought he was worth it. That's certainly a quick dropping of $10,000 for somebody who's going to get so bitchy about a lot less later on, no? As Sandy complains that they've got about five minutes to decide, she and Jennifer go to consult with PM Elizabeth. Elizabeth thinks it's too much money, but is willing to hear arguments. Sandy promises that Pi-yowza will draw "men and women." I'm just not even going there. She also says that he's "an A-list athlete." (Which...of course. On the other hand? As of this writing, hitting .276. I'm just saying.) Elizabeth wonders if Pi-yowza would throw in a kiss for someone. OME is skeptical on the kissing. Their other idea is to just ask -- to just see -- if they can get him to brush his teeth. I love how they're paying him $20,000 for a half-hour's work, and they think they have to make an offering on an altar to try to convince him to brush his teeth. Fame is amusing.
Anyway, Pi-yowza's guy thinks that yes, Pi-yowza will brush his teeth. They make the deal. "Pardon the pun," Jennifer says, "but it's a home run, getting Mike [Pi-yowza]!" And, really, that's not a pun, so much as it is a particularly cutesy metaphor. So shut up.
Here goes Mosaic, off to pursue sweepstakes insurance through a public relations firm P&G works with. When they get there, Andy tells the lovely woman at the agency that he wants to meet with her, the legal department, and Wes (whom Andy claims has "underwriting experience") about the possibility of buying insurance on a possible million-dollar giveaway. Kevin asks her whether it's possible to put it together in that time frame, and she says that she's sure parts of it can be. Surprisingly, Madeleine (that's her name) gets her very own interview, in which she repeats the information that Mosaic asked about her company being the guarantor on the insurance policy. I'm not sure why they bothered with the Madeleinterview if that was all we were going to get. Anyway, she tells Mosaic that what they need to do is check everything out through the vaguely imposing-sounding "Legal." When Madeleine has gone off to get in touch with Mr. Legal, Pamela tells the rest of Mosaic that her sense has been that whenever anybody goes off to check with Mr. Legal, it never goes well. Heh. Andy ultimately winds up on the speaker phone with Mr. Legal, and Mr. Legal tells Andy that he feels initially comfortable with Andy's plan. Andy tells the group that it's not a "hundred percent guarantee," but that things are looking up. Pamela, meanwhile, interviews that as far as the centerpiece of the promotion, the team decided to bank on this option, to the exclusion of any particular backup plan. Well, sure. One basket really ought to be enough, no matter how many eggs you have. ["And going with Andy's great idea worked out so well for them with Crustacean Nation. Shut up, Andy, and go mow my lawn." -- Wing Chun]
Stacie and Jennifer C. go out that evening in the van to retrieve the toothpaste they're going to take to the event. As Stacie explains in an interview, she was thinking that the 20,000 tubes of toothpaste they were being given to hand out at the promotion were the little tubes, but apparently not. When they get to the storage facility, they learn that there are 834 cases of toothpaste that they need to transport. In the elevator to the place where the toothpaste is being stored, Stacie asks how big the cases are, and the woman points out that they were given the dimensions. "Yeah, I didn't even look at the dimensions," Stacie says. And...good one. Because why would you consider the quantity of cargo when transporting that cargo is literally your one job? Indeed, when they arrive at Toothpaste Storage Warehouse, Stacie and Jennifer discover that this is not a quantity of toothpaste that anyone is going to be loading into the back of a van. What will be required is a truck, and likely some more people who can help load, because this is not a Stack-o-Paste. This is a Room-o-Paste. Jennifer immediately says she's only there to help, and that it's Stacie's problem to solve, at which point the storage lady reminds them that they have three minutes until the place closes. In an interview, Jennifer C. smirks that Stacie has become "dead weight," and that apparently, she didn't think getting the toothpaste to the event was particularly important. "It's not happening tonight," Jennifer C. smiles. And honestly, if she has time to be quite that smug, Jennifer C. apparently doesn't think it's very important either. But anyway, presumably, they got it moved in the morning, probably with the help of a rental truck or some such. It's a legitimately bad showing by Stacie. You don't hear "20,000 tubes of toothpaste" and just assume you can take that much in a van without even reviewing the dimensions. That is indeed not a great example of executive-level performance, and it's certainly not meeting the exacting, obsessive-compulsive standards of Boyfriend Bill.
Maria and Elizabeth are at the Alliance Agency, finalizing the flyers that they will be handing out. The flyers feature a sort of tabloid layout, building up Vanilla and Mint as the latest "celebrity couple" to hook up. I guess they don't realize that the usual reaction to that kind of headline in a real tabloid is "I don't like them separately, and I'll like them even less when they're together." Of course, Vanilla will probably not make Mint sign a prenup. As Maria explains, Elizabeth insisted on the high-end flyers, which is apparently why this scene does not take place at Kinko's, as you would think it would. Fools. Even Jerry Maguire knew enough to print his mission statement at a Kinko's. Maria also explains that they were setting these flyers up at 1:00 in the morning, after everyone was closed, so the only vendor that was available was the one Alliance had set up for them. Maria talks to the printer on the phone, and asks what the price will be. "I don't have the price for you right now," he tells her. He explains that the folks who will work on it aren't even there right now, so there's not much he can tell her. "You won't know till 7:00 AM," the agency woman watching over this transaction says to Maria. Maria circles "7:00 AM" on her little note sheet. And then promptly forgets, apparently, that "7:00 AM" was ever mentioned or had any significance. Poor little note sheet, with its meaningless doodles.
Back at the suite, Ivana (who's heading up budget after her stellar showing last week) asks Maria about the flyers, and whether they're going to be $1850. "Probably not anymore," Maria says. Maria tells the others that she's going to have to find out, because the price just isn't clear at this point. Ivana interviews that this part right here was not her fault, because Maria should have had a clearer number. "I can't be responsible for that," Ivana says. If the Apexiennes had a motto, that would be it, I think. "Apexiennes: Not Responsible For That Since 2004."
At 2:30 in the morning, Andy is talking to Mosaic about their awesome million-dollar giveaway. In an interview, he smirks and finger-quotes about the "opportunity" to win a million dollars. He talks about how this was his idea, and "a major risk," so if it pays off, he'll look great. If not? Not. Just then, Mosaic receives a call from Madeleine, who tells them that she's very sorry to inform them that they'll have to go with something else. Wes tries to tell her that they've planned the entire event around the giveaway, but she isn't able to budge from what she heard from -- you know it -- Mr. Legal. Madeleine wishes them luck as Pamela and the boys stare miserably at the floor. Lawyers always have that effect on me, too.
When the morning comes, however, we find that certain elements of Mosaic's plan have remained in place. They're at Washington Square Park, where Raj is announcing the opportunity to win $5000 in cash. Pamela explains that they wound up going with three $5000 drawings, which are presumably the backup plan they came up with at some point as they waited endlessly to hear back from Mr. Legal. They clearly had at least some lead time on this plan, because they've got big flyers that list these giveaways. As Pamela explains, the $5000 is a lot easier to pull off, because it doesn't get you into state filing requirements. (Ah. If you can't beat Mr. Legal, sidestep him.) Mosaic has also rented some clowns and guys on stilts and such. Kevin explains that, originally, the circus theme was supposed to support the million-dollar giveaway, but when the million bucks went bad, they shifted more of the attention onto the circus aspect. There are fire eaters and jugglers and an acrobatic guy and some girls with feathers. It's a nice little show, and one that probably would catch my attention if I were walking down the street, even if it were only to ask the girls with feathers if they're cold. We also get to see one of their $5000 giveaways, and Kevin tells us that he thinks the circus is creating about as much "buzz" as P&G could ask for.
Now, in a very cool shot, we pull up over the circus in Washington Square Park, and swing directly over to Apex, which is in Union Square, gathering what looks like a crowd of similar size as they announce the presence of Mike Pi-yowza. Elizabeth gives the guy a very half-assed introduction, and he steps up, looking scruffy, unwashed, bored, and sort of horrified. Jennifer C., still not knowing how to pronounce the guy's name, insists in an interview that everyone loves him -- even Yankee fans. Uh, not. Elizabeth awkwardly asks Mike whether he's ever tried Vanilla Mint Crest, and he tells her that although he's never tried this variety, he's been using Crest "since [he] can remember," and he's never had a cavity. Wow, brilliant. Jennifer C. then interviews about how "flawless" he is, and blah blah blah. The crowd cheers as Pi-yowza brushes his teeth. He actually grimaces a little, which I like to think is because the toothpaste is kind of gross, and...I mean, Vanilla Mint? I would believe it. Anyway, he insists that it tastes delicious, and then Jennifer tells the crowd that he may sign some autographs for a few people. They report, however, that he will only sign an autograph if you have a Crest flyer, and they use that to get people to take the flyers. Fairly smart, although...Vanilla Mint? Okay, I'll try to get over it. Elizabeth -- wearing a very unfortunate teal bucket hat that she stole from some winsome nineteen-year-old art student -- tells us that she was thrilled that Pi-yowza signed the Crest boxes and the flyers, because now people will never throw them away.
Later, after the promotion is over, Maria, Ivana, and Stacy gather at the Alliance Agency to go over numbers. The flyers have come back at $6950. "Not even close," Maria says tightly. OME agrees to call up the printer, which he does on the speaker phone as the women sit and stew. Maria argues to the printer that he agreed to honor a price of $1800, and he reminds her that he warned her that it would change and he wouldn't have a final number until morning, and that this final number includes overtime charges. Ivana jumps in, telling him that she's got a budget, and that charging her $6950 is "raping" her. That is not only disturbing, but also incredibly idiotic. I mean, I don't care if you think it's common -- you never know who you're dealing with. Ivana says that this one situation caused them to be over budget by $5000, and it happened because there wasn't "clarity" in the discussions with the printer. It also happened because you spent $20,000 on Mike "Flawless" Pi-yowza, but...whatever.
The teams go back to meet with P&G and get the results from the task. Trump enters and joins them. First, Mr. P&G reviews what Mosaic did, and he gives them high marks for their "fun, engaging event." And then Ms. P&G reviews what Apex did, and says she thinks their Pi-yowza event was "great." However, they've just learned that the women are $5000 over budget. "That's a big thing," Trump remarks somewhat meaninglessly, using small words and still constructing a clunky sentence. "So when did this happen?" Elizabeth reports that she just found out about it practically this minute, which doesn't make Trump happy at all. "You should know, as the project manager," he tells her. She has no choice but to agree. Trump turns the matter back to the P&G executives, who report that although they liked the women's campaign a little bit more (at least Ms. P&G did), the budget issue pushes it the other way, so the winners of the task will be Mosaic. Trump praises both campaigns, and tells Mosaic that they will have dinner on the Queen Mary 2 (it's yooge!) as it's leaving New York Harbor (also yooge!). Also, Kevin will have an exemption week, and also, Apex will be in the Boardroom again. The women look around nervously.
Queen Mary 2. The men board, and are introduced to the crew and staff. Wes interviews that he thinks the reward is "unbeatable," given the yooge nature of the ship. Yooge! (Sorry. Really, once you get going, it's very hard to stop.) (Yooge!) (See?) They enter the dining room, where they are all frankly quite underdressed. You put on ties to sell ice cream, fellas -- you couldn't comb your hair for dinner? They eat lobster and steak, they drink wine and champagne, and Raj toasts to "the continuous defeat of the ladies." Except for Pamela, who doesn't seem to mind the temporary constructive removal of her girl parts. Out on deck later, several team members look drunkenly over the railing and try to appreciate the view. When they see the Statue of Liberty, they are moved -- unfortunately -- to sing "America the Beautiful." Memo to future contestants: Do not sing. At all. Even patriotic songs. Especially patriotic songs. If you absolutely must, you may hum. Quietly.
Back at the suite, Stacy -- and if you're paying attention, she's going to turn out to be the nastiest and most treacherous of this very nasty and treacherous team, so keep your eye on her -- has a conversation with Elizabeth in which she tries to focus the blame for the failed task on, shockingly enough, Stacie. Who had absolutely nothing to do with the budget and therefore absolutely nothing to do with the reason why they lost, ultimately. Stacy's strained argument that the entire team functions poorly because of Stacie's influence is completely absurd, especially once you consider how brutally some of the rest of these women are about to turn on each other. It's not like once you get Stacie out, it's going to be one big slumber party with slam books and doing each other's nails. ["Well, there might be slam books." -- Wing Chun] Elizabeth says, however, that she doesn't particularly want to put herself in the Boardroom with Stacie, because she really has no argument that Stacie should be fired. Elizabeth admits in an interview that while she still thinks Stacie is the worst performer on the team, she's certainly not the reason they blew this particular task. That honor, Elizabeth believes, goes to Maria and her midnight negotiations with the printer.
Now, in another part of the suite, Elizabeth and Maria have it out over the printing cost, Elizabeth insisting that Maria should have gotten a clear number, and Maria insisting that she did get a clear number. Maria blinks...and blinks...and blinks, as Elizabeth points out that if it had been a clear negotiation, they would never have found themselves in the position of having a $7000 bill for something they expected to cost $1850. Maria spits that she knows Elizabeth is trying to "cover [her] ass," and that Maria is "the easiest scapegoat." Man, it sucks how making a huge $5000 mistake suddenly starts making everybody think you're an easy mark. Maria twitchingly insists in an interview that it's "too late" for Elizabeth to try to recover and make herself look good, and we return to S5 to watch the two of them continue to snipe at each other. We then cut to Stacie, sitting in a hallway by herself, not participating. She's making lanyards or macaroni bead jewelry or something. She interviews that she's happy to let the rest of them fight, because she's not part of that. Stacie goes back to her "sorority" theme, and she really does at least need a new metaphor. I don't think even most sororities eat their own with this much relish. She says that she anticipates being brought to the Boardroom by Elizabeth, who will be likely be trying to "keep her group together." Interesting point, that.
The elevator doors open, and the women walk into the Boardroom. They are soon joined by -- yes, in a pink tie again -- Trump. He recaps the fact that they essentially were defeated on budget alone, because Pi-yowza would have won them the task. He further points out that ten percent is a big margin to be over budget. He adds that on a $500 million building, ten percent would be $50 million. ("Dear Mr. and Mrs. Trump: Young Donald is almost ready for square roots.") Elizabeth says that she was "surprised" to find that they were over budget like that, particularly since she had reserved a "pad" in the budget to protect against overruns. Trump asks Elizabeth whether blame lies with Ivana as budget director, but Elizabeth shifts it back to Maria as the printer liaison. Elizabeth says that Maria negotiated a price that obviously wasn't clear, or wasn't firm, because it came back so much higher. Asked to respond, Maria says that the only contact she had with the vendor was a 2:30 AM phone call in which she told them that $1850 was what was in the budget, and that they'd have to honor that. Now, she may or may not be telling what she believes to be the truth, but the vendor clearly told her that she wouldn't get a final price until 7:00 AM, so that's not really fair. We even saw that part. Not only that, but she told the other women it was no longer going to be $1850, so Maria definitely did not walk away from her one phone call with the vendor believing that she had a firm price at $1850. On the other hand, neither did the rest of the women, all of whom were given quite a bit of advance warning that the price was shaky on what appeared to be the night before the event.
Elizabeth jumps in and says that Maria has tried to blame everyone else for this problem. This is the week of weird eye issues, because something about Elizabeth's eyebrows bothers me, but man, Maria blinks more than any person I have ever seen in my life. Anyway, as Elizabeth makes her case against Maria, Maria coldly says, "She's doing a really good sales job right now, is what she's doing." "But you're not, so go ahead," Trump says. Heh. Yeah, I'm not sure Trump sees "really good sales job" as an insult. Maria tries to say that she hasn't been sticking up for herself because she's not the kind of person to "butt in." Oh, come on, Maria! Now is no time for manners! Don't you want any screen time? Maria insists that the invoice from the printer was "wrong," and I don't see how that's possible, when she herself didn't know what the price was supposed to be. What's interesting to contemplate is whether anybody ever got back to the vendor at 7:00 AM, like they were supposed to, to find out the final price. Maria wrote down "7:00 AM" on her sheet. Why didn't she call them at 7:00 AM? Clearly unhappy with everyone, George rips into Elizabeth about this one item accounting for a $5000 budget overrun, and Elizabeth seems unsure of exactly what to say.
Stacie is asked whom she would fire if it were up to her, and she names Elizabeth. She claims that the task was very disorganized, and that the way the whole thing was handled was "embarrassing." Trump then turns to Stacy, who talks about disorganization and whatnot, but moves in for the kill, saying that "the weakest link is Stacie J." She goes on to claim that part of the chaos is the result of "Elizabeth having to put out fires." Not that she names, describes, or itemizes any of these fires. Asked whom she would fire, Ivana says that she would fire Stacie also. Remarkably, Ivana can't even come up with her own stupid literary device, and borrows the stupid literary device of the person before her, referring to the need to manage Stacie by "putting out her fires." Not that she names, describes, or itemizes any of these fires, either. Ivana claims -- and doesn't she hear that voice, and doesn't she know how snide it sounds? -- that Elizabeth could have been more effective without Stacie to deal with. Even though, as has been established, that has nothing to do with why they lost, and even though Elizabeth herself hasn't attributed any problems she may have had to the time she spent working with Stacie. I also love how Ivana refers to Stacie as "this particular resource." I would have fired her just for that marble-mouthed piece of consultant claptrap.
Anyway, it's time for Elizabeth to bring people to the Boardroom. And whom will she bring? Maria, for justifiable reasons, and Stacie, for social and depressing ones. Trump sends the rest of the women up to the suite. When they're all gone, Trump asks Carolyn for thoughts. What you saw on Saturday night but not on Thursday night was that Carolyn opened this speech by saying she thinks they're all horrible, which I loved. But anyway, she tells Trump that she thinks Elizabeth is an awful leader and that Maria blew the task. George is concerned that he couldn't trust Maria with money. Trump brings them back.
Trump opens by asking Elizabeth why Stacie is here. The truth, which is, "Because I believed that she's the only person Maria might gang up on with me" won't do, so Elizabeth claims that Stacie is the other person who performed worst on the task. But Elizabeth returns quickly to Maria, who is the one she genuinely thinks is responsible. "Doesn't anything fall on you? You're the leader," Trump says. "Nothing has fallen on her so far," Maria says in her clipped, pinchy little way. Elizabeth allows that some of the disorganization in the task is her responsibility. Trump asks Elizabeth whether it isn't true that Ivana really belongs in the room instead of Stacie. Elizabeth says no, and Trump turns to Stacie to point out how she's being picked on.
"I can tell you the real reason," Maria says. She goes on to say that Stacie's behavior during the toy task led them to think that she had multiple personalities. Literally. No, I'm not kidding -- that's what she says. Maria goes on to describe Stacie's antics with the Magic 8-Ball, and she and Elizabeth insist that they've "never seen anything like it." And...they need to get out more. Seriously. Not just in the wackier parts of New York, but in, like, suburban grocery stores. Stacie tries to argue that the entire thing is being blown out of proportion. "I'm not crazy," she says. Trump points out, though, that this is coming from two people who don't like each other. The dumb thing about that observation is that although Maria and Elizabeth don't like each other, they have an obvious reason in this case to put that aside; they have a common interest in this particular situation, and that's getting the blame off of themselves and on to anyone else. Stacie makes a comment about how the 8-Ball said something even though she didn't ask it a question, and...that did sound a little off. Trump asks her if she "believe[s] in that," and she says she doesn't, but Maria immediately points at her, all, "She does, too," and in a sense, Stacie's own comment about the 8-Ball answering when she never asked a question kind of made it feel like she at least concluded that it was noteworthy in some way, which...is unusual thinking. Trump asks who else saw this behavior, and they say everyone did.
At this point, Trump declares that he wants all the women on the team back in the Boardroom, because "this is too important of [sic] a subject." Maria takes off for the suite as fast as her heeled feet will carry her.
Up in the suite, Maria bursts in excitedly and tells the Apexiennes they have to go back to the Boardroom. No one is happy with this news in the slightest, and Maria isn't able to tell them why they're going. Meanwhile, up in the Boardroom, Trump is telling Stacie that if she has "a problem," he doesn't want her to run a company for him. She tells him she understands: "I wouldn't want a crazy person working for me, either."
The women re-enter the Boardroom. Trump tells them that Elizabeth and Maria have reported "disconcerting" behavior from Stacie, and that he wants to hear from the rest of them, even though he makes it clear that he thinks that Elizabeth was a horrible leader and that Maria sucks. But there's bad, and then there's "scares people," and he's trying to get to the bottom of it. Jennifer C. reports that Stacie's behavior was "very odd." Ivana, flying right up the hate list, both ignorantly and bitchily calls the behavior "borderline schizophrenic." Thanks, Doctor Ivana. Ivana claims to have been "scared." Stacy -- pretty much at the very top of the hate list -- says that she is "sad," because she doesn't know if it's "something clinical." And she wants to be "sensitive to that." Bitch. Bitch, bitch, bitch. HATE. She goes on to say, "It was one of the most scary moments of my life." Meaning that she really, genuinely needs to have a few more scary things happen to her, and I would be more than happy to arrange for some at this point. Jennifer M. says that she thought the behavior was strange, but "it was a confined period of time and [she hasn't] seen it since." Trump does not seem so reassured by this. Jennifer M. resists going overboard, but allows that she was "nervous." Sandy -- who is almost too dumb and obvious for me to bother hating very much -- snots that she totally agrees, totally horrified, blah dee blah, fire Stacie, I AM PRETTY!
Stacie puts up a halfhearted defense of herself, saying that people who know her know that she's not crazy. Trump, however, focuses on the fact that her entire team is expressing concern about the behavior. His bottom line is that he doesn't think he can have somebody working for him when everybody else is that unsettled: "When it's unanimous like this, all I can say is there's got to be some reason." He fires Stacie, instantly becoming a billionaire who has been snowed by a bunch of women barely bright enough to figure out a 20% tip on a $100 lunch check.
Stacie is sent down to the street, while the other nasty women head up.
Trump says that he had no choice, and Carolyn makes a comment that people disagree about, as far as whether she was agreeing or disagreeing, interestingly. George, however, seems to agree.
Stacie hits her cab. If it's any consolation, she looks fabulous in that coat. But it probably isn't.
In her cab ride home, Stacie talks a little too much about how she clearly isn't crazy, because she pays her taxes. I like to think the standards are a little higher than that.
week: Restaurant openings. Arguing. Boyfriend Bill!