Previously on Vanilla Mint Left Me Crestfallen: Asked to create toothpaste "buzz," Mosaic capitalized on the age-old connection between juggling and fresh breath, while Apex invited Mike Pi-yowza to rinse and spit in Union Square. And after all, there's nothing that distinguishes professional athletes like their naturally perfect teeth, which is why you never see hockey players getting dental work. Jennifer C. thought Mike Pi-yowza was "just flawless." He thought she was just okay. While the Apex event was buzzier, it was also about $5000 over budget, so the women found themselves heading to the Boardroom again. In the great "The Buck Stops Here Briefly, But Then I Quickly Toss It Over There" tradition of the team, the failure was primarily the fault of Elizabeth, Maria, and/or Ivana, so the decision was made to gang up on Stacie. Maria, using the medical expertise she has gleaned from her years of experience wearing expensive shoes, diagnosed Stacie with multiple personality disorder, and Elizabeth (board-certified physician and addiction medicine specialist) agreed. Trump dragged the Apexiennes down from the suite to get to the bottom of this, and when they all agreed that Stacie was a great big kook, he knew it had to be true. Because why would they lie? It's not like they had anything to gain by getting her in trouble. They were just speaking truth to power, y'all. The Hair threw Stacie and her gorgeous coat to the wolves, the better to prove the true merit of the Apexiennes when they are relieved of her disruptive influence. I bet they're going to do much better now. Fifteen left -- who will go ?
Credits. Grab the cat and chair-dance, chair-dance, chair-dance!
Trump Tower, night scene porn, S5, Aspiring Corporate Weasel Death Watch. Raj is working up a stir-fry and wiggling a little. (It's very dangerous to cook and dance, as you know if you've ever ruined a risotto because "Oye Como Va" came on the radio and forced you to salsa around the kitchen instead of stirring constantly.) (Not that this has ever happened to me.) Chris chops a tomato and asks John whom he thinks will be fired, and John offers up Elizabeth. The other guys agree. Raj tells us that he, too, suspects Elizabeth might find herself under "the guillotine." This comment is brilliantly punctuated by a close-up of the merciless dismembering of a chicken part with a cleaver. CHOP! We'll call that Reason Number One Why The Editors Of The Amazing Race, Survivor, and The Apprentice All Being Denied An Obviously Well-Deserved Emmy In Favor Of A Fucking Judy Garland Special Is A Bunch Of Jealous, Pompous, Resentful Bullshit Perpetrated By Snobs Who Need To Get The Hell Over It Because Good Reality Television Is Not The Reason No One Cares About Bad Scripted Television. Ahem.
Anyway. The Apexiennes (all of whom, you'll remember, were there with Trump at the end to share their psychiatric expertise at the Stacie J. Borderline Personality Symposium) drag their suitcases and their judgmental asses back into the suite, and Stacy smirks with satisfaction as Jennifer C. explains that Stacie was fired after "it came out" (accidentally! There was nothing they could do!) that she behaved strangely during the first task. "And who said she had an episode?" Raj asks, moving directly to the nitty-gritty. We cut to Ivana pointing to Maria, just as Maria points to Elizabeth. You can see how that's Reason Number Two, I'm sure, and we're not even five minutes into the show. But, you know, I guess it's no "this would be a great time to show a still of Judy singing 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' at Caesar's Palace." Maria retells the story of the Terrifying Night of the Living Magic 8-Ball, as Kevin leans back and tosses someone a skeptical look. I begin to compose love poetry for Kevin in my head. Maria explains how Trump went with the "if two people who hate each other agree that you're nuts, you must be" theory. Under which Trump himself would have been locked up years ago, because I'm betting the original Ivana 1.0 and I would not get along at all.
Kevin is irked, as he does not remember seeing any relevant diplomas on the walls of the Apexienne bedrooms and doesn't believe he heard that he's supposed to be calling any of them "Doctor Snotty-Ass Bitch." "None of you guys are equipped to know whether or not she's actually psychologically unstable," he says sharply. Sandy leans forward and demands to know whether any of his teammates have ever made him feel "threatened." Jennifer M. jumps in on Kevin's side, agreeing that they all felt a little wigged when it happened, but pointing out that the time they brought it up was in the Boardroom. "Nobody ponied up," she says, "and went and did anything in between." Kevin is more blunt: "The fact that it's even on the table pisses me off." He looks around, asking whether anyone on the team has any experience that would equip her to judge someone else's mental health. And no, being pathologically self-absorbed doesn't count, as it's not really a "learn by doing" kind of situation. Jennifer M. adds that if they were going to make such a huge deal out of Stacie's behavior, they should have brought it up sooner. "It came out because all of you were threatened about being fired," Kevin points out. "And so you used that against her." In an interview, Jennifer M. reiterates that Stacie was not the reason for the failure in the toothpaste task, and that she was made into a scapegoat for the team. Specifically, Elizabeth was a terrible PM, and the setting up of Stacie meant that Elizabeth "dodged a bullet." Elizabeth, back in the S5 discussion, defends herself by insisting that Stacie screwed up the stuff she was supposed to do on the task, persisting in the face of Jennifer M.'s reminder that even Trump and Carolyn specifically pointed out that whatever Stacie did or didn't do, those things weren't the reasons why the team lost.
Elizabeth tube-top-terviews that there was a "huge misunderstanding" (by which she means "calling out of me") about the reasons Stacie ended up in the Boardroom. Apparently, she would like you to think she took Stacie for purely task-related reasons having nothing to do with the Boardroom pile-on. This might be credible, except for the conversation she had with Stacy last week in which Elizabeth admitted that she didn't have much of an argument after the task as to why Stacie should be fired. She only took Stacie after Stacy cranked up the firefighter analogies and started acting terrified for her own well-being. Back in S5, Raj puts aside his undoubtedly preoccupying thoughts about which bow tie he will wear tomorrow and tries to show Elizabeth a little sympathy. "You must have had an unpleasant day today, huh?" Sigh. You'd think that if the women were going to be backstabbing, gossipy, sharp-clawed stereotypes, they could at least play both sides of the coin and not be utterly shown up in the sensitivity and sympathy departments by a guy who wanted to name the team "Dreadnaught." Elizabeth wearily says she's not even really up to talking about just how crappy her day really was. She interviews that it was like being "kicked in the stomach." And she wasn't sure if she was getting up. Maybe for the rest of the show, she'll just lie around. I hope it's not a spoiler if I say that I'm not sure it would make her any less effective or any less likely to win.
In one of the bedrooms, the arguing continues, as Jennifer M. and Elizabeth continue to display the acute mutual dislike that has only bubbled lightly during the regular shows but bloomed like a clump of spring crocuses in last week's Extra! Boardroom! Footage! Jennifer complains about the lack of leadership, Elizabeth remains frustrated...and at one point, Maria snaps at Jennifer C., who is sitting on the bed, "Get off my designer suit!" I just want to say that no one who has ever said, "Get off my designer suit" -- and actually, no one who has ever said "my designer suit" -- is anyone you would find particularly worth talking to. In an interview, Maria complains that Elizabeth acted like she'd "never had anyone not like her before." I hate it when Maria is sort of right, because I feel a strange momentary compulsion to wear praying-mantis green and blink like I have sawdust in my eye. In the suite, there is more bickering, and Elizabeth thinks they're all out to get her, and the scarf (shirt? Prada sling?) around Maria's neck looks weird, and Elizabeth has "never felt more uncomfortable in [her] entire life." Boy, I heard that, sister. Jennifer M. snaps at her, "I'm not getting in the sandbox with you, Elizabeth. Grow up." And...yeah, I heard that, too. We fade out on a shot of a bed with some hangers and some papers on it. Because when these women have failed at everything else, they will cling, as do useless businesspeople the world over, to wardrobe and paperwork. See? It's a show that makes you think.
The morning, the phone rings, and a boxer-wearing Raj makes his bleary-eyed way to the phone. Not really something I needed to see. He looks better in the pleated pants. Also, you'd think they could muster up someone to answer the phone who had combed his hair, because Raj has more than bed-head. He has, like, wind-tunnel-head. Rhona, lucky as usual not to be on a videophone, tells Raj that Trump is at Jean Georges restaurant, and they're to meet him there at 9:00 AM.
At the restaurant, Trump, Carolyn, and -- Boyfriend Bill! -- are meeting with Jean-Georges himself. Trump mentions that Bill is "working" on his Chicago building, and they're hoping to have Jean-Georges as part of that project as well. The candidates arrive at the restaurant, and Trump heads out to meet with them. I love Jennifer M.'s color-block top. Trump's tie could take a lesson from her strategic deployment of pink. Trump explains that Boyfriend Bill is the current NotGeorge while George is "away on business." Daddy still loves you, though. Trump further claims that Jean Georges is "the finest restaurant in the country," not that you would expect anything less. It is certainly the most head-scratching, judging from its current menu, which boasts "Millbrook venison wrapped in cabbage; kumquat-pineapple chutney." You know I'm not making that up, either. Trump tells the group that "the Bible of rating restaurants is the Zagat survey," which does not, as you might expect from that description, tell the epic tale of Moses parting the red snapper, but instead publishes evaluations based on food, décor, and service. For this task, each team will get a chef and an empty restaurant space, and by tomorrow night, they'll have to be ready to open and serve people who will fill out surveys and evaluate the restaurant. (You can imagine Rocco watching this at home, sucking down Budweiser, all, "Dude, if anything like that were remotely possible, do you think I would have come off like such an incompetent, useless tool?") The winning team will be the one that gets the best ratings on the three areas combined. Trump also reminds everyone that, on account of the toothpaste win, Kevin is safe this week even if his team should lose the task. I notice that Maria is wearing bright green near her face again. Someone clearly told her at some point that that particular green really flatters her, because she seems very nearly addicted to it. "Enjoy the restaurant business," Trump says.
We land back in S5, where Jennifer C. is explaining that, in performing well in tasks, the team has had a theme -- "simple creative thinking." Which is easy to fake when you're kind of stupid and desperate, I find. In fact, fortunes have been won and lost on the tiny margin between "simple creative thinking" and "talking out of your ass." Jennifer M. explains that they picked their PM by drawing names out of a hat, and rather fatefully, the "winner" was Jenn C. As Jenn C. tries to run the meeting all petty-tyrant, with her "I am adamant" and so forth, Stacy is waggling her hand, like, "Call on me! Call on me!" They seem to be arguing over what kind of food to serve, which makes no sense if they were given a chef, but mine is not to reason why. Mine is but to...well, weep openly for my kind, I suppose. Jenn C. is determined to go with "Asian fusion," while Stacy favors Italian. "It's Asian fusion, period, executive decision," Jenn C. says, as the music descends along a "boop-boop-boop-boop-boop" Track of Amusingly Inauspicious Beginnings. It's so sad when the music guy is mocking you. Stacy leans forward, lecturing about how they need to "establish [them]selves quickly," and then we see Jenn C. interview that Stacy is "one of the most irritating people [she has] maybe ever met." And I agree. Although it kind of makes me want to offer some introductions, along the lines of, "Jenn, yourself. Yourself, Jenn."
We move to Mosaic's House Of Pancakes Or Whatever, which is located at 99 Bank Street. Raj interviews that the men's team also used the "random drawing" method of choosing a PM, and this time, he came up as the big boss. We watch the team wander the space, which seems to be plain, but nice. Chris interviews that he sort of wishes he were the PM, because he "worked in restaurants [his] whole life" as a waiter and so forth. The team decides to capitalize on this expertise, and at a meeting in the restaurant space, Chris trains the rest of the guys in waiting tables. He tells us that in the training, he covered the basics of "schmoozing that client." Chris tells the guys, specifically, to "start a bullshit conversation," as Andy chuckles at the bluntness of the advice. Chris goes on to give quite the lesson in pretending people interest you, including the obligatory "ask them where they're from" strategy. "They're going to say, 'Well, I'm from the Village,' 'I'm from Bumblefuck, New York,' it doesn't matter." Poor Bumblefuck. It really needs a Chamber of Commerce to work on its image. (I generally say "East Bumblefuck" in the same situation, so I'm not making things harder for Bumblefuck proper.) The guys laugh as Chris explains that you then wait for "What do you fuckin' recommend?" (heh again), and Wes winds up with his head down on the table, laughing. "I fucking hate the public," Chris says with a frank grin. "I fucking hate them with a passion, but I know how to play the game." And I don't want to say Chris hacked into my emails, but...it's possible. "[Chris] has a great spirit for being the person in charge of customer service," someone chuckles. I wish I knew who it was, because it's really funny, and the way the guys all crack up tells you exactly what it is that they have at this point in the competition that the women don't have at all. Raj then gives an interview -- also really funny -- in which he says, "I had faith that he could...[here, Raj stops and makes a grand, expectant, sweeping arm gesture somewhere between "throwing up" and "presenting a gift to the Queen"]...swallow his disgust and make nice." Well, Raj definitely hasn't hacked into my emails. At least not the ones in the "Sent Items" folder.
The Apexiennes check out their space at 7 West 20th. Jenn interviews that she liked their location, the long and narrow layout, and so forth. In a strange sequence, Jenn breaks the news to Ivana that she's realizing paperwork and stuff really should be done back at the suite, so the team should head back there to work. Ivana, incidentally, is wearing a "Feelin' Lucky In Kentucky" T-shirt, so you know that underneath her snide, cosmopolitan jackass exterior beats the heart of a defiantly tacky backwater hick. Ivana complains that Jenn C.'s relocating of the team in mid-task smacked of a lack of planning, with which I agree. Of course, so does randomly rolling ice cream carts around Times Square like you're waiting for lightning to strike and make you smarter, but who am I to argue? "Hey, ladies," Jenn C. says as she heads out the door. "Where's the little munchkin?" she asks. Cut to Stacy, looking around. Reason Number Three.
Skyline porn, day turning to evening. Mosaic, at its restaurant, is having professionals clean the space while the team eats pizza and talks strategy. The team, dressed quite nicely for something I suspect we missed, heads home. When they arrive at the suite, some of the women are sitting around chatting. When the guys break the news that the cleaning at their place is all taken care of, Jenn informs her team that they still have to go back and clean. And that's going to happen...tonight.
Reason Number Four is the shots of slumbering Mosaic members Wes and Kevin, followed by night shots that show all the cars vanishing (heh) as it gets to be the middle of the night. At 4:00 in the morning, we find ourselves at the 20th Street location, where the women are cleaning the entire space themselves. (Stacie? Temps? Busywork? Well, enough said.) They clean like they're afraid of dirt, too. Jenn says to her team, somewhat unhappily, that she now realizes how smart it was for Raj and Mosaic to hire cleaners so they wouldn't wind up in this situation. Ivana bitches in a voice-over, and I would like to point out that while it's true Jenn was the PM, it's not like anyone else thought of it, either. There have been lots of instances, especially last season, of non-PM people coming up with a helpful suggestion, so the fact that they all sit on their asses and blame Jenn exclusively for the failure to hire cleaners...it's on her, but it doesn't reflect well on anyone on the team. Ivana goes on to complain that Jenn "doesn't get it," "it" being that in order to open, they need to "be in tip-top shape," and now they won't be, because they didn't get any sleep. "If we pull it off, it's not going to be because of her leadership skills, I can tell you that right now," Ivana bitches.
"Be Respected," says this week's black screen motto. Trump tells us that leadership is "hard to define." For some reason, we see him walk out of a building and greet overeager strangers, and I'm not sure what that has to do with leadership, but okay. He says that the common trait in good leaders, however, is "respect." So make a note -- the way you earn respect is by being famous so that people you don't know will want to have their picture taken with you.
The Apex alarm clocks go off at 6:00, or so it appears. "Half an hour, we're out the door," Jenn says as she rouses her troops. As she recaps the Zagat aspect of the task, Wes...is still sleeping. The women are stumbling around in a stupor, including Ivana, who really doesn't need to show off quite that much of her black underwear at the top of her pajama bottoms. I mean, truly. I see London, France, and a good swath of the Iberian peninsula, so pull up your damn pants, sister. Sandy complains in an interview about seeing the guys get decent sleep when she doesn't. As Kelly relaxes with his gel and his hair at the mirror, the women are already snapping at each other like exotic fighting turtles on their way out the door. Maria is dragging a suitcase, probably containing her Vest of Disdain, her Kicky Skirt of Blame-Shifting, her Mink Stole of Eye-Rolling Impatience, and her Slingbacks of Being Dead Meat With A Really Limited Shelf Life And Not Realizing It.
At the Apex restaurant, Ivana and Stacy go outside to meet up with a truck, to which they call out, "Are you this meat vendor?" Don't know why, but I thought that was a great line. It just reeks of that wonderfully moronic, oxymoronic, disdainful incompetence that they so often display. The Apexiennes take in and set up all their tables and place settings and stuff. And Sandy manhandles a tree. As Elizabeth talks about having a disk with the menu on it, Ivana mutters, "This is redonkulous." Wait...she just said "redonkulous." Do you suppose she's being funny? She's kind of talking to herself, so maybe she's being funny. She has to be, doesn't she? I mean...I know the Survivor people often can't spell each other's names, but I cannot believe anyone could..."redonkulous"...wow, if you were here with me right now, you'd learn what I just learned, which is that despair over the state of humanity, literacy, and sanity smells kind of like burnt popcorn.
Over at Mosaic, John is setting up outside the restaurant to paint some canvasses, much to Chris's amusement. "My mother's an artist," John says. "My father's a mechanic," Chris answers. "I know how to change the gas in my car." Um, change the gas? You don't actually have to change the gas, Chris, so I think your father was kind of a rip-off mechanic, if you get my drift. ("Look, this is your disgusting air filter. Of course, if you don't want to replace it, I'll just put it back...what do you mean, 'How did it get cigarette butts in it'? Do you know how much pollution your engine produces?") John interviews that volunteering to work on the décor potentially made him a target if it went bad, and we watch some of the other guys kibitzing him as he works. His art, though, turns out pretty well -- certainly respectably enough to hang in a restaurant without attracting attention for its wretchedness. Hooray for low standards! Chris credits John in an interview, saying that the paintings turned out well. In fact, he likes them well enough to offer John a free gas change.
Apexiennes. Elizabeth is heading out to do some promotion, and she tells Jenn that she wants to take Maria, Stacy, and Jenn M. with her. "I don't know...I can't give you Jenn M.," Jenn C. says in her bossy, self-important way. Elizabeth reminds Jenn that the less (by which she means "fewer") people she has, the less (by which she means "fewer") flyers she can distribute. Elizabeth interviews that if they don't get people in the door, they won't get surveys done, and they won't win. And she is sure that if that happens, the blame will fall on her. No, no -- the Apex rule is that if the team fails in a particular area (say, spending too much money on printing flyers), you specifically avoid pinning it on the person whose fault it was. Hasn't Elizabeth learned anything? She should only hope for the exemption from blame that comes from actually being at fault.
Back inside, Elizabeth meets up with some of the Apexiennes around the bar, and she starts to fall apart in a heap of sniffles. Maria's all, "Oh, what happened?", faking like she gives a damn, and Elizabeth sniffles that she feels like she's being set up to fail. Like, honestly? Toughen up. I'm sorry, but if that's what it takes to make you cry and break down, you're not ready to be a CEO. Or play Parcheesi. The other women are all, "Oh, that's happened to all of us," because no matter how unhappy someone else is, you can always turn it back to a pity party about yourself and the ways that you have been done wrong. Elizabeth cries again in her interview as she explains that she thinks she'll be made to look incompetent...which she totally isn't. At all. As the other women fuss over Elizabeth, Jenn M. rolls her eyes. Heh. Jenn then notes in an interview, "Flyer Girl is all upset because she hasn't had time to pass out these pamphlets advertising the restaurant, and...you know, I mean, in my opinion, she needs to get over it." Hee, "Flyer Girl." Someone takes Elizabeth under an expensively-clad wing and they get her pulled together. Well, that was a productive investment of time and energy, the hand-holding. Because they do have a whole day to open the restaurant.
Sandy works on twee little place settings based around a red and black theme. Chef guys work in the back kitchen. Out at the bar, Jenn C. tells Stacy something about going to get changed, and there's some back and forth talk, and then Jenn says, "See? You just rolled your eyes at that." Stacy eye-rollingly insists she did not either roll her eyes. She then interviews that Jenn is "extremely emotional and irrational." She also calls out Jenn's "explosive, argumentative personality." Hey, I think they're both lovely people. Finally, back at the restaurant, Jenn orders Stacy to go get dressed. And I do mean "orders." She then says to someone else, pointing to Stacy, "This one won't listen." What's great is that there's a finger jabbing into the frame pointing at her, also. There certainly is a lot of finger-poi -- ohhhhh! I get it. That's no coincidence; that's Reason Number Five. Stacy interviews that she informed Jenn that to have her respect, Jenn would have to earn it. Which is a fine attitude to have, I find, but not so much a great attitude to go around declaring. Because it sort of goes without saying, so when you declare it, you're...yeah. Being a little bitchy, usually. The two of them argue and gripe and complain and yadda yadda yadda, as other people look on, bored.
Later, it's showtime. Maria -- dressed in, you guessed it, a set of bright green necklaces with her black dress -- invites customers into the restaurant. All of the customers, you'll notice, are dressed casual. All the women, however, are in black dresses. Jenn M. claims that "there are still disputes brewing" within Apex. She says that they all focused, though, on their "common goal" of winning the task. Maria happy-talks an entering couple as she shows them to a table, and Sandy...uh, looks on. There's a lot of "looking on" going around, actually. Sandy explains that she was in charge of the décor, and she thinks she did a great job. The décor is all very linear and blocky and minimalist, which...is all right, if not entirely my thing. "I really think it came out ten times better than anybody expected!" she gushes. And then her lips go numb from the tooting of her own horn, and she can't talk anymore. Oh, how I wish that weren't just a figure of disgusted speech.
Jenn C. has a conversation with two older women sitting at one of the tables. Who are, I would mention...not fat. Just for future reference. I mean, they're really not fat, either of them. Jenn asks them what they think of the décor, and they pause before answering. "For me, it's a little too stark," one finally says. In an interview, Jenn cites the fact that she had "two old ladies complain about how bad the décor was." Well, when you ask, you know, sometimes people will tell you the answer to your question. Jenn interviews that this "would point to the job Sandy did." One of the women comments that she's surprised there would be red in an Asian theme, and...okay, that's pretty goofy, because when I think of Asian décor, red is kind of the first thing I think of. Am I crazy? Because...I would certainly entertain the possibility that I am. But Jenn really needs to stop hovering over them, because at a restaurant, I hate that. It's like shopping for clothes -- more than one "are you finding everything okay?" makes me feel like my shopping skills are being questioned. Do I look disoriented? Am I trying on pants by pulling them over my head? No? Then leave me alone.
Over at Mosaic Restaurant, the Zagat people are setting up a survey box outside. Inside, Chris seats a table of four guys. He asks them how the appetizers were, and one of them describes the salad as "limp," and not "chilled." They also give a mediocre review to something involving goat cheese, as Bill and Carolyn watch, slightly amused. Raj, surprisingly non-dandy in his black T-shirt and cream-colored blazer (?), wrings his hands. Chris promises to pass the reports about the food along to the chef. Chris gives an interview pulled out of a time capsule buried in 1988, in which he says that there were "four gay guys on the way to the theater," and that "there's nothing wrong with it," but you have to expect gay guys to be more critical, because they're into "fashion" and "stuff like that." Dear Chris: You know how we all think it's a blessing that not all straight guys are Carson Daly? Not all gay guys are Carson Kressley. Love, Miss A. Back by the kitchen, he corners Wes and tells him that they're having an issue with the gay guys, who are "critiquing." Wes leans in, and Chris says, "I want John to maybe give them a blowjob." They both crack up.
Now, that is crude, I agree. But if it were a group of young women, would Chris have said, "I want John to maybe screw them in the coat closet"? I certainly think it's possible. It's hard to say, because it's not like there's not a straight-guy issue of covering discomfort with hilarity, but I didn't really see it as a slam on the gay guys. God knows the women sexed it up for straight boys last year. We watch Chris tell John to go out and flirt with the table. He claims in his interview to have told John to go over and bend over to tie his shoe in such a way that he shows his nice ass to the gay men, but really, I think the message was, "Pour it on." Which, interestingly, didn't bother me at all, that part of it. If you combine this with Chris's "I hate the public" speech earlier, I think he believes there are formulas for getting the public on your side, and a tried and true one is flirting. And since Chris believes the guys to be gay, he sends the best-looking guy to do it. It's not personal, it's just business. While it's possible to read it as sort of demeaningly mocking, it's also possible to read it as a guy who doesn't give a good goddamn if you're gay or straight -- he just wants you to write down that you loved the service. In other words, there's a way to view it that makes Chris look pretty gay-friendly, as much as there's a way to view it that makes him look like a dick. But mere flirtation in the context of waiting tables, in and of itself, doesn't strike me as demeaning to the customer. God knows waiters flirt with me in pursuit of tips, and it's not like I sit there going, "How dare you think I would be that easy!" It would be difficult to do so, after all, while I'm busy trying to calculate 40 percent in my head.
And John does do the flirting, as some Latin music called "Mambo Reason Number Six" kicks up. And John isn't crude, and he isn't gross, he's just smiling and flirty. He interviews that he doesn't even think they were using sex, exactly, just "whatever advantages [they] had." He goes on: "Why, if you've got something that people like, would you not use it?" And see, this is where I think the boys actually looked kind of good. (There's been some curiosity floating around as to whether John is gay and, if so, whether the guys know, but I'm saying even if he's not.) Because for a lot of genuinely homophobic men, the answer to that question would be, "Because I would rather be shot in the chest than flirt with men, particularly if I knew it was going to be on TV." I'm not saying that avoidance of that dynamic is the highest level of tolerance to which men should aspire, but...the fact that the guys flirted with a table of men much as I think they would with a table of women reflects well on them, to me, rather than poorly. Now, the stereotyping about "more interested in fashion," that's...on the one hand, overbroad bullshit, but on the other hand...if you're a brutal pragmatist about the public as Chris is, might you not believe the statistics were with you? You might.
Aaaaanyway, John comes back out to the table and offers the guys a "limited-run" shirt (which I think is just their uniform shirt), and he says to the guy, "I don't know if you can squeeze into a medium." Snerk. FLIRT! He takes the shirt, and Chris confirms that the guys seemed much happier once John was finished with them. Ah, sigh. Boys are cute.
Sunset skyline porn. At Apex Restaurant, people drop surveys into the box as Carolyn and Boyfriend Bill approach. Inside, Jenn C. says "good, good, good" about four hundred times to a table of women who are looking at her like, "Back off, Scary Black Dress Lady." And I'd like to point out? She's totally looming, and we know how I feel about looming. We see a couple of shots of the women standing around in pairs, just kind of doing nothing. Ivana refers to this in an interview as "clumping of the girls," which for some reason sounded really funny to me. "Stop clumping!", I imagine her hissing. "You clumpers, stop clumping! You're all clumpy!" She says she was trying to "disperse the girls a little bit more." Yeah, I think they're having a little too much fun with the mass supervising. It was revealed in the Extra! Boardroom! Footage!, by the way, that Jenn decided not to have the team work as servers (as the men did), but to hire servers, because she didn't think the Apexiennes could get along if they had to cover tables and so forth. So they just...stood around.
Mosaic. Pamela almost, but not quite, spills a drink on someone. She's like, "Just kidding!" Heh. In the back, Andy swears as he voices over that he had a multitude of tasks as a waiter guy, and he's really not very good as a waiter guy. He mixes up a couple of orders, but manages to reverse them with just the right kind of smooth, apologetic good humor that renders the mistake pretty much meaningless to the women he's serving. I'm not a fan, but he handled that well. He explains that the customers and the Mosaic folks, in the end, had fun together, and that was what mattered. And then a woman calls him back to the table to ask for something she doesn't have. What is it? Oh, it's a knife. Well, you can understand how unimportant details of that nature might be overlooked. That's an awesome way to go out of that sequence -- Reason Number Seven.
Mosaic ushers out its last customer and locks up. Genuine team-type applause ensues. Back at Apex, the women appear to be eating up the leftovers after closing. "It's falling off the booone, it's so good," Ivana gushes. Jenn C. says that going into the project, she knew that she needed to put a stop to "the cattiness and the backstabbing," of the type that she has participated in so enthusiastically in the past. And aside from the stuff that she herself participated in this time, it looks as if she largely avoided that problem. "One of the things I'm great at is bringing people together!" she happily chirps in her interview. Well...she's going to be bringing Trump, Carolyn, Boyfriend Bill, and much of the viewing audience together pretty soon, so I guess we could count that. Jenn M. says, however, that she thinks they did well "in spite of" Jenn C., not because of her, although she agrees that they maintained a pretty positive, team-type attitude.
New York porn. Boardroom. Time for the results. The teams file in, led by Jenn M. in a cream-colored pantsuit that not a lot of people could pull off, but that looks pretty good on her. Trump enters, wearing the Purple Tie of Results rather than the Pink Tie of Practically Everything Else. Eventually, he's just going to start dressing like The Joker, which I think will be awesome. Trump recaps the task requirements, and Boyfriend Bill announces Apex's results. Their reviews cited the "creative pan-Asian cooking" (not the team's accomplishment), but panned the "stark modern setting," the "uncomfortable chairs and tables," "slow, uneasy service from beginner staff," and -- most painfully -- "too many women in black milling around like a bunch of uptight stewardesses." I'm not sure what milling around in black has to do with stewardesses, but in any event, the hovering Black Dress Brigade doesn't seem to have made a very good impression. Maria's eyes at this moment? Are huge. Hee. Still, the reviews praise the "delightful newcomer" and give it "an A for effort." Ouch. "A for effort" generally means "F for Fucking Sucks." Their food score was 22, décor score was 16, and service score was 19. The total is 57.
Carolyn has the Mosaic reviews. They're "off to a good start," and can thank the "delicious contemporary American food," the "creative, stylish décor," and not so much the "itchy, fur-covered chairs." Heh. This makes Andy guffaw. There is also praise for the "hot, eye-candy waiters." Chris makes a "Thanks, gay guys!" face. Fans of the place say that the Mosaic restaurant is potentially a "star restaurant." Food score is 22, décor is 18, and service is 21. Mosaic has a total of 61, and the victory. And one thing I really liked is that the team immediately starts to congratulate Raj. In victory, they're willing to give the back-patting to the PM, and that's nice. Jenn C. sort of rolls her eyes, and Stacy looks at the boys enviously. Trump congratulates the team, and Raj says that they're "now moving up to higher-octane fuel." Trump turns back to Apex and asks them how they feel about it, and Jenn C. pronounces herself "very surprised." She says it was "the tightest [their] team has ever been," and she's "shocked." Trump informs Mosaic that as their reward for the victory, they'll be going to meet "one of the greatest leaders in the country, Rudy Giuliani." Eh. Trump promises that Rudy will talk to them about leadership. And, undoubtedly, why they should pull that lever and vote Republican in the fall. Apex, Trump will see back in the Boardroom.
Mosaic goes to meet Rudy. Oh, and Mrs. Rudy, also. John explains all of Rudy's great accomplishments, and Rudy shows them in the office his plaque that says, "I'M RESPONSIBLE." Not exactly a witticism, but...all right. ["I actually have a picture of that plaque on my bulletin board." -- Sars] A discussion of leadership follows, in which Rudy tells them that real leaders know what they believe, blah dee blah. John finds Rudy inspirational. No compromising on moral issues and so forth. I find the reward the most boring part of the show, as usual. Unless it's going to be incredibly tacky like the Trumpartment so that I can relish the hideousness, it's just killing time.
Jenn C. and Sandy chat on the terrace of the suite. Interestingly, it sounds like it's Jenn C. who says, "I think it was a question of leadership," which...hm? Sandy says, "This [meaning Jenn C., so I don't know why she didn't say 'you'] is my favorite project manager I've had so far." Jenn C. is feeling embittered: "I've never met a bunch of witches that I wish I could fire more," she says. She goes on to talk about how Stacy annoys her, and Sandy snidely snots that Elizabeth is just not the person she was in the early going. Inside, Elizabeth is talking to Ivana (and, incidentally, wearing a dingy green T-shirt over a blue long-sleeved shirt in a way that's just...not right). "She's not going to bring Sandy in, is she?" Elizabeth asks unhappily. "Nope," Ivana says. "You were right." "It's unfair," Elizabeth says. "Don't worry," Ivana assures her. "You've got people who've got your back. I mean, you have me." Wow. Could anything be more comforting than knowing Ivana had your back? I mean, aside from knowing a tiger was guarding your roast beef sandwich?
In her bedroom, Maria, as usual, is fussing with her clothes. What is with that? She is managing wardrobe practically every time we see her. It's like she's got some kind of hanger-specific compulsion. Jenn C. and Sandy, however, are kicking back in a bedroom, holding exactly the wrong part of their conversation inside for other people to hear. "What else did they say in that damn review?" she asks. Literally changing her life without realizing it, Jenn C. says, "It was those two old Jewish fat ladies." (It may, in fact, be "bat ladies," to tell you the truth...I'm not sure.) "Really," she continues, "they were, like, the pinnacle of the New York jaded old bags." And then, here's what my episode shows: other women relaxing in the bedroom as Jenn C.'s voice is heard saying, "Old [silence, like a deleted word] who talk that [bleep] about the décor can kiss my ass." But here's what other people got on their feeds: "Old JAPs who talk that [bleep] about the décor can kiss my ass." Seriously. It was shown differently in different places, and when I first heard it, it was without that word. I did think it was odd that there was both a "bleep" deletion and a "silence" deletion, but there you go. And indeed, two uses of stupid stereotypes (one of which doesn't even make a lot of sense) instead of one is worse. In her interview, Jenn C. insists that "if you had a different bunch of folks in that night rating it, they would have loved it." And then we see Jenn telling Sandy that the women were "cheap old bags."
And then we cut to Stacy saying, "Jenn C. said, 'Those two Jewish women ruined our survey.'" And then she stares sadly. Which...yeah, not quite. That's exactly as accurate as if she had said Jenn C. said, "Those two old women ruined our survey," which is to say, not very. It's always suspicious when, in recounting someone else's offensive remark, you materially change it. I would also say that I think you have to strongly suspect Stacy of hunting for reasons to blow other people's behavior entirely out of proportion, based on her decision last week to ratchet up "Stacie made us uncomfortable" to the "scariest moment of my life." I think Stacy is a great fan of finding a way to imply that she doesn't feel safe, or respected, or whole, unless you fire the person whom, as it just happens, she already dislikes. I think she relishes opportunities to elevate the competition to a moral level, and Jennifer just put her foot in it so spectacularly that she offered an excellent opening.
At any rate, back in the bedroom, Jennifer says that the women in question told her that she really didn't want them writing a review. And then Stacy is back in an interview solemnly saying, "I'm Jewish. And I'd like to understand Jenn's motives behind saying this." And...seriously? Bullshit. If you're offended by what you legitimately perceive as a bigoted statement, you don't say, "I want to understand her motives." That's exactly what she pulled last week with "I'm sensitive to that." If you're going to call her out, call her out. If you're not, don't. This whole thing stinks to high heaven, and that's in spite of the fact that Jennifer acted like a tin-eared, stereotype-toting moron in shooting her mouth off in that particular fashion. It's behavior I don't like being bitched about by a person I don't believe. A weird situation, indeed.
Aaaaanyway, Jenn now says to Ivana, "They hated it. They just hated it. They were what they were." Stacy claims in an interview that Jenn said the thing about the women being Jewish "to the entire group," which, whatever. Maybe so, maybe not. I certainly don't take Stacy's word for this or anything else. At any rate, we now see Ivana getting changed with Pamela sitting on the bed. And that's when it strikes me really funny that Pamela is in her black uniform shirt and her khakis, which she wasn't wearing during the results reveal, and which I find it hard to believe she put back on the day. And in fact...the women's clothes change constantly through this sequence. Ivana is in a pink sweater and jeans when she talks to blue-shirt/green-shirt Elizabeth about who Jennifer C. will bring. And Stacy is in a blue camisole and black pants while Jenn is talking about the "old bags" and wearing the same black dress she wore at the results reveal, and Ivana is in her pink sweater. And then Stacy is "listening" in her blue top with her hair down and Ivana is still in her pink sleeveless top and black skirt. But Pamela? She's in the uniform shirt and khakis. And then Elizabeth is allegedly "listening" in a pink shirt and Stacy is allegedly "listening" in a black long-sleeved jacket and blue pants with her hair in a ponytail. And then Jenn is in a black suit (which she will be wearing in the Boardroom) and Ivana is in the pink sweater and jeans. And then we're back in the room where Ivana is "listening" in her sleeveless pink top and black skirt, and Pamela is in the khakis and black top. And when Stacy busts in to complain to them about what Jenn said, Stacy is in yet another outfit -- a light blue long-sleeved top and light-colored pants. And Jenn is in that Boardroom black suit. I realize we're into Zaprudering territory, so I won't go further, but the fact that Stacy is in so many different outfits just confuses me as to what the hell went on. The one I don't get is Pamela, and why she's in her waiting-tables uniform while Jenn is in the suit she's going to wear to the Boardroom. Just...strange.
Oh, but anyway, Jenn is listening around the corner as Stacy complains to Ivana and Pamela, first about, I guess, the Jewish comment, which Ivana opines was not meant "in a derogatory way," and then about "mismanagement." Jenn first flips off Stacy from behind the wall (wow, gutsy!), and then comes up behind her and says, "Would you stop causing controversy?" Interestingly, when confronted, Stacy's comment is, "Jenn, I don't want to talk to you." Now, that's not going to help you "understand [her] motives," is it? See what I mean? She doesn't want to understand motives; she is, in fact, "causing controversy." Which is fine, and perhaps deserved, but then...just say that. "Stop running around here like you always do, wreaking havoc," Jenn says. Stacy, somewhat correct to be irritated but also utterly busted for her own behavior, walks off. As busted people have been doing since time began. "Want to know why we lose?" Jenn says. "It's the havoc-wreakers." And in what is perhaps the stupidest, most juvenile, most idiotic comment of this season or any other, Jenn then says, "You know what's funny? Is that you think you're popular and liked." And really, the last time I heard that level of repartee, I was in the cafeteria drinking Sunny Delight. Good Lord. "Well, at least you've made it obvious that this is a personal problem!" Stacy shouts back. Did we not know that before? Because I think I knew right around "munchkin." Jenn counters that "personal" is calling her a bigot or a racist. Which...yes, but different. They argue, they fight, they hate each other, which...all right, enough. Jenn is all, "You contaminate the living quarters," and Stacy interviews about how much trouble she'll give Jenn if Jenn brings her into the Boardroom, and blah dee blah, vengeance, offense, conflict...and so forth.
Just for the record, I'm not convinced Jenn is any sort of anti-Semite. Stereotyping is a good thing to be aware of, but it doesn't automatically imply hatred. I do think, however, that Jenn is a despicable snob. I don't think she was judging those women for being Jewish. I think that in reality, she was resentful of them for being unsophisticated fools who ruined her ratings because they weren't hip enough to appreciate her genius. I'm not as troubled by her plopping them into a fairly pedestrian New York "type" as I am by her willingness to dismiss as unimportant nobodies anyone she doesn't see as part of the upscale, tuned-in, frou-frou, haute cuis-mean world she is so eager to inhabit. Whether she needs a lesson in cultural sensitivity or not, she certainly could use a few lessons in not pumping herself up to such a dizzying and disorienting degree that she starts to write off entire segments of humanity because they don't look the way she thinks they should, or eat the things she thinks they should, or admire the kind of décor she considers to beautiful. Life is much less rich if you grind your teeth with boredom whenever you speak to old women or little kids or men in cowboy boots, choking back your utter conviction that people who can't tell a real Kate Spade bag from a knockoff can't possibly have anything interesting to say.
Boardroom. Elevator doors. The women enter and sit, and then here comes Trump, in his red tie. He sits down. The first thing he brings up is the emphasis Giuliani put on leadership, and he wants to know how the leadership was on the team. Ivana opines that "there was some serious leadership lacking." Not like in the ice cream task, when the leadership flowed like sweet honey. Or like blood in the marketplace. Ivana blames the team's poor performance on lack of sleep, which I guess is totally what made them dress up and mill around. Jenn is asked about the sleep schedule, and she claims that her father used to tell her that any time you spend sleeping is time you could have been working if you really needed to. Her father is not very bright. Trump points out that Mosaic hired cleaners so that they didn't have to stay up all night.
And now Carolyn takes over, which is always my favorite part. "I'll tell you where I think you went wrong," she says. She explains that they were just not dressed appropriately for the situation. She says that while what they created was beautiful, it didn't fit the neighborhood at all. Like, at all. And, no kidding. As I've said, I'm not even really a New York person, but it's not my experience walking along Fifth Avenue that it becomes more full of chic women in little black dresses as you walk downtown. Indeed, fair to say it's the opposite of that. ["If you get far enough downtown, you'll see more little black dresses again, but in that neighborhood…I mean, it's a weird location anyway, but they didn't read it well at all." -- Sars]
Trump asks who was in charge of décor, and Sandy says that she was. Jennifer C. cuts her off, insisting that the décor was beautiful, period. Carolyn, frustrated, says, "You have to get this in your head." And she goes on to very eloquently explain that it isn't about them looking beautiful or not. "You all looked gorgeous," she agrees. "The restaurant looked gorgeous. It was wrong." Oh, Carolyn. The line between "gorgeous" and "appropriate" is probably far too sophisticated for the audience to whom you're addressing the clarification. Boyfriend Bill puts in that the other issue he saw was energy. Or, more specifically, the lack thereof. "You guys were tense, you were peering over the people as they ate...." (And in the E!B!F!, he noted that when he eats dinner, he doesn't like to be hovered over. We are in agreement, as usual, about the looming, Boyfriend Bill and I.) Trump notices Jenn C. nodding her head, and asks her why she's acting like she agrees with everything critical that's being said. She says that she "had to do a lot of thinking about what went wrong." She begins to set up her effort to get rid of Stacy by saying that the team went in "lacking camaraderie." Ivana butts in, asking where Jenn thinks the lack of camaraderie comes from. "You talk the talk, but you don't walk the walk," Ivana says, as Jenn makes the very interesting remark, "There were alliances set up." Ivana says, "You say that your grandfather told you to work hard?" "No, my father," Jenn snots. "Get it straight." Ivana goes on to say that whether it was her father or her grandfather who said it, Ivana doesn't think Jenn actually does it. "I have yet to see you bust your butt as much as these six girls right here."
Now, for the most part, as we've said, we're ignoring the E!B!F!, but you simply must know that at this point in the E!B!F!, they showed a looooong clip -- literally thirty seconds -- of the women just talking all at the same time, arguing, yelling, and bitching, as Bill, Trump, and Carolyn watch in horror. Awesome. It's also the part where Ivana praises herself for keeping the team "hydrated." No, really. Without her, there would have been no hostessing, because of the swollen tongues.
Anyway, in my favorite moment of all, Stacy cuts in, "Mr. Trump? She's a finger-pointer!" And right then, we spin around to see Stacy, literally pointing her finger at Jennifer C. Heh, Reason Number Eight. "And she never points the finger at herself," Stacy finishes. Carolyn, now rather disgusted, says, "Why can't you women get along?" She's still talking, but Jenn jumps in and keeps talking over her. "Jenn, can you stop interrupting?" Carolyn asks. "Jenn, Jenn." Finally, Jenn stops digging. Er, talking. "Easy," Carolyn says. Jenn leans forward with this "What's your problem, Carolyn?" little eye-pop that's ridiculously rude, and we then see Bill flash-frown like, "Did you just MAKE A FACE at Carolyn?" (Reason Number Nine, for those of you still keeping score at home.) "There are seven women here," Carolyn says. "Seven women can't work together. I'm embarrassed to be a businesswoman right now." "Me, too," Jenn jumps in, still not getting it. At all. "Jenn, can't you stay quiet for one second?" Carolyn asks.
Trump turns to Sandy and asks who she'd fire. Sandy does the stammering hedge-dance. (E!B!F! Bill: "You're dancing. You're dancing, I've been there." Hee.) "Do me a favor," Trump says. "Just give me a name. Who would you fire?" "Jennifer," Sandy says. A cymbal rolls as Jenn looks up, mortified. Trump asks Maria what she thinks of Jennifer's leadership. "I think the leadership has talked the talk but [not] walked the walk," she says, as if she really regrets having to say it, which she completely doesn't. And honestly, again with the parroting! Unbelievable! They can't even come up with their own bitchy remarks, which is just sad. Have a little pride, ladies. Jennifer shakes her head. "I made decisions and I stuck to them," she says. She says that she didn't want the team to fall victim to changing their minds and "doubting [themselves]." Yeah, she wanted to just forge ahead with her ideas, no matter how crappy they turned out to be. It's a good way to run a country, too, I keep hearing. Trump asks Jennifer to choose either two or three people to come to the final table. Jenn says she'll choose two. She'll bring Elizabeth and Stacy. "Sounds personal," Carolyn says. "It's personal," Stacy says dismissively, as if she's above that sort of thing. Which, as we know, she's not.
Jennifer explains that she took Elizabeth by the shoulders and told her that they were heading into the task and Elizabeth couldn't act like that, and Elizabeth is completely confused, insisting Jennifer did nothing of the kind, and it's fairly obvious that she's telling the truth. At least to me. Stacy, bringing up something that's not her business in a way that might not backfire at the moment but I guarantee you is not making a good impression, says that she doesn't understand why Sandy, who was in charge of décor, wasn't brought, and maybe Jennifer should "address that." I'm telling you, if I'm Carolyn or Trump, I'm sitting there thinking, "Hi, do I look like I need help?" But anyway, Jenn goes into all the ways in which Sandy did lots of work, and Carolyn looks at Jenn with great exhaustion. "She failed," Carolyn says. "You just can't get it. You failed. You failed, you failed. Because of the décor and the service." Jenn says that that's fine, she'll take the blame for the décor, because she approved it. "Because they're friends," Stacy snots, and she's lucky she didn't get a Trump National "Shut Up," because she should.
Boyfriend Bill asks if he can make a suggestion to them. "Sure you can, Bill," Jenn says with inappropriate familiarity. "First and foremost, this is not a game," he says. Well, it is, but...he's still cute, so whatever. "And if you think that aligning yourselves with each other or pulling people into the Boardroom for the wrong reason...that's the quickest way to go home, I'm telling you right now. So you'd better make very certain --" Jenn breaks in, of course. "No, I am very certain..." "Don't interrupt me, please," Bill says. "Make very certain of why you're bringing these people into the Boardroom with you." And then, Bill and Carolyn strip naked, jump up on the table, and do an interpretive dance called, "Bring Sandy; she's the one who did the assy décor and made you dress like morons, plus WE HATE HER!" But Jenn doesn't. She's sticking to her decision, no "flip-flopper" she, probably remembering how indecisiveness has sometimes also been ridiculed in the past. Trump sends the safe women up to the suite, and sends Stacy, Elizabeth, and Jennifer C. to wait in the lobby.
Trump, Carolyn, and Boyfriend Bill discuss the candidates waiting outside. Carolyn can't imagine why Jennifer didn't bring Sandy. "Instead she picked Elizabeth and Stacy? Completely personal, completely personal." Asked for his opinion, Bill says, "I think Jenn needs to lead more by example, and not just stand in the corner delegating. She didn't do anything," he adds. Heh. Trump has Robin send the women back in. And they're all carrying notes, meaning they really have learned nothing. When they return, Trump asks Jennifer why she brought Stacy in, when Stacy didn't do anything wrong. Jennifer says that Stacy is "a living thorn in [her] side." Well, that will help reassure them that it's not personal. ["If they can even figure out what it means. 'Living thorn'?" -- Sars] She insists that everything she tried to do, Stacy tried to undermine. She goes back to how Stacy "wreaked havoc," at which point Stacy uncorks a head-rolling, eye-rolling, practically entire-body-rolling look that almost makes you think she should get fired after all. Stacy's says, "She has me here for personal reasons, whatever," and Trump asks Stacy if she also doesn't like Jennifer. Stacy does the exasperated side-laugh, and then flips her head back around and spits, "I would not want to work with her." Trump turns to Elizabeth to ask her what's going on, but Jenn jumps in again all, "It's nothing personal," blah blah blah. Trump asks Elizabeth why she was brought in, and Elizabeth says in an extremely whiny, weak way that Jenn spent all day trying to find people she could pin the responsibility on so that she wouldn't get fired. Jenn aims for a remix of the Psycho Shuffle of last week, saying that something has gone haywire in Elizabeth's personality from the tasks to this one. "She's on the verge of a little breakdown," she says. I really don't think that's going to work two weeks in a row. Elizabeth goes through how she was responsible for promotion, and how Jenn "deprioritized" (ugh) promotion, and that she felt Jenn was setting promotion up for failure, which made her "emotional." By which she means "weepy."
"Jennifer," Trump says, "you chose not to be a leader. Your entire team hated you. And when you had a chance to bring one person in who really did mess up, it was Sandy, and you chose not to do that." "I regret it," Jenn says. "And you regret it. Jennifer, this is really easy. You're fired." Hee. "This is really easy." That's gotta hurt. Jennifer nods. Stacy gives a self-satisfied little smirk. Haaaate her. "Go ahead," Trump says, tossing them out of the room. When they're gone, Trump isn't troubled. "That was easy," he says. "Way too easy. It was a no-brainer," Carolyn says. Asked for his opinion, Bill says, "I think she had to see that one coming." Trump nods. "I feel good about it," he says gruffly.
We watch Jennifer C. head for her Cab to Nowhere. It drives off. Stacy and Elizabeth return to the suite. Bum-bum-bum-ba-bum!
In her cab ride home, Jenn says she'll be happier in the end being fired, because she's not cut out to play dirty. Or something. She manages to finger quote twice in ten seconds, totally making her the Chris Farley "I don't 'bathe regularly' or 'wash my toes'" guy. She laments how Sandy betrayed her, which is great, considering she didn't even bring Sandy into the Boardroom when she had the chance. "I find that quite ironic," she says of the betrayal, because she doesn't know what "ironic" means. I think her future as a jaded old bag may qualify. She promises that she will remain trusting in the future. What a relief. I'd hate to think she was going to change and become unpleasant.
week: Pamela leaves the warm embrace of Mosaic for the terrifying scowl of the Apexiennes. Poor dear. The women try to sell a "31 Piece Water Activated Cleaning Block Set" for $27.23 on QVC, while the boys try to push a "DeLonghi Retro Nonstick Panini Grill With Cookbook" for $71.25. And...Anna Kournikova? I assume she's the reward. Maria wonders if she's stupid. (I know, I know! Call on me!)