Previously on House of Lames: Raj and Sandy were the PMs for a real estate task that tested the candidates' expertise in house demolition. I mean, "remodeling." Raj experimented with a "less is more" philosophy that he took a little too much to heart, while Sandy actually kept her team on task. Stacie came back just long enough to cause more problems for Ivana, while Jennifer C. came back just long enough to really enjoy everything bad that was happening to everyone else. Denise Rich was...rich. Although her house would be easier to enjoy if Kenneth Starr didn't live in her trashcans. When Raj couldn't deflect the attention from himself to Ivana, he wound up taking a walk, and didn't even get a date on his way out of the building, although it wasn't for lack of trying. But he shouldn't feel bad; even a guy with a fondness for military memorabilia takes a bayonet to the figurative romantic ass every now and then. Nine people left. Who will be scapegoated ?
Credits. Dollar bills, y'all.
This evening's skyline porn opens alongside the Chrysler Building (I think), as we stare at a few lights and taxis before learning that the lobby of Trump Tower is open to the public from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM. After that, it's only for self-centered megalomaniacs, which explains why Trump and all of the contestants are welcome. We see the door of S5 ("RESIDENT ACCESS ONLY!"), and then we head inside for the ACWDW, where Wes is napping and Chris is...grinding pepper onto a pan of asparagus, I believe. He wouldn't be the first guy to drown his sorrows in green vegetables. Jen M. is tippy-tapping away on the computer, while Maria scrounges in the fridge for something without any calories or taste. And what's in the fridge? Orange juice, beer, asparagus (hey, out of sequence!), olives, chocolate syrup...and Maria just doesn't seem to know what she wants. She strikes me as the kind of girl who would want her beer served in a glass, unless there were a guy around who she believed would find it charmingly tomboyish of her to drink from a bottle, not that she could achieve "tomboyish" with Band-Aids on her knees and pockets full of frogs, despite her haircut. Andy and Jen M. have a chat in which he asks her whether Trump seemed to be leaning in any direction as of when she left. She says that she thinks it's going to be a tough call, because it kept coming back to Raj being the project manager. Which I'm not sure makes it a tough call unless you think "tough" means "not the way I want it to go," which she probably does. Ultimately, when Andy asks who Jen thinks will go home, she names Ivana, meaning that if you've been thinking Jen was really sharp and perceptive, you can think again, because that was never, ever going to happen. In an interview seemingly taking place in the bathroom in order to get that unique echo and the look of unscrubbed tile, Jen informs us that because Ivana doesn't offer very much and is "disruptive," she hopes Ivana won't be back.
The suite door opens. Ivana enters, followed by Kevin. "Ivana's back?" Jen says quietly to Andy, who's peeking around the corner. "Yep," he says. Jen makes a face, because she didn't get her way, and she hates that. A little later in the bedroom, though, Andy greets Ivana with a low-five, tells her it's good to see her back, and says, "There's no doubt. You can't build half a house and have the project manager not go. It's not even a question." And I agree with him, basically. Ivana complains in an interview that as of the team's return, they felt very divided, given (among other things) Chris's pronouncement that he thinks the team totally sucks. Oh, and by the way, in this interview, Ivana is wearing a lime green tank top that reads, "I am the BOSS," because she hasn't inspired enough public animosity yet. She reminds us that Chris, the King of Negativity, who is currently eating his chicken and asparagus in the kitchen, is set to be their project manager for the upcoming task. The rest of the group gathers around the kitchen table as Chris explains how he was made project manager after complaining to Trump about the way the team "has not gelled." "Sink or swim," Andy says with a small smile. "Sink or swim," Chris agrees. Somewhere, Swim looks around like, "Don't look at me, man, I'm going to the movies."
Chris interviews that he knew Trump would make him the PM and might be ticked off when he made his little I Hate My Team speech, but of course, as reality show contestants have since time began, Chris has an excuse. And like most of them, his excuse can be roughly translated as the odious I Gotta Be Me, And I Am Just Totally Awesome. Apex has a team meeting in which Chris says that obviously, this is a time when he has to prove he can lead, so he wants to get all the bullshit out of the way. Which is nice, but...when you started the bullshit, you can't really haul it out of the main thoroughfare by yourself. Ivana and her melon-colored shirt look dubious. She would look a lot more authoritative if her shirt said, "I am the BOSS." Chris also falls back on the by now very boring "we're not here to make friends" defense, adding, "This is fucking business." I swear, if I were as obsessed as these people are with the notion that displaying common courtesy makes everyone want to be your friend, I would never get any work done, as I would be eternally snarling at passersby out of fear that I would otherwise be deluged with unwanted gifts. Jen goes on to say that she respects and likes everyone on the team, which is an obvious and conspicuous lie based on her speech to Ivana, but she insists that they can all do a great job working together. I bet that at her school, Jen was the yearbook editor who stole the newspaper editor's boyfriend, monopolized him long enough to ruin the newspaper editor's prom, and then dumped him for a peace activist when she got to college. ["If by 'peace activist' you mean 'lacrosse player.'" -- Sars] Ivana, never one to miss an opportunity to take a cheap shot at someone else and simultaneously agree with Trump, contents herself dually by complaining that if you're going to complain -- just anyone, generically, not anyone in particular, of course -- then you should come up with an idea of what the solution might be. Ivana would like it known, I'm sure, that she always suggests a solution. And you know what her solution usually is? Shunning. She learned it from the Amish, she deploys it in business. And look how well it's worked for her so far! Nine episodes; three wins. Because she's a problem-solver.
Jen tells us that she thought the tone of this discussion was fairly good, but she was skeptical that Chris could be effective in leading them when they already know that he thinks the team sucks. Hey, I think the team sucks, too, and...okay, I'm not leading them, but I like to think I'm their friendly older sister who offers wise counsel, pimple medicine, and the occasional kick in the head. Anyway, Jen has obviously never heard of being motivated by the desire to stick it to someone who underestimates you, which is really sad, because it's a lot of fun. Also, Jen's lips are just too damn shiny. Chris tells the team they need to "put up or shut up," and that will do it for that inspirational speech.
At Mosaic, the discussion over being the PM has become contentious, because Kelly isn't thrilled that the rest of the team won't just roll over when he says he wants to do it. Coming as it does with the free exemption week if you win, Kelly really shouldn't expect other people to just go along, but he does. Andy is the one most resistant, saying that he wants it, too, so they can either give it to him or they can draw for it. "We're not handing it over to you," Maria snots, and Andy shrugs that that's fine; they can draw for it, then. Yeah, seriously. Why would you hand the reins to Andy when last time, all he did was bring you a decisive victory based almost entirely on his ability to outthink the rest of you? Please, that would be much too obvious. Maria makes this annoyed little head-shaking face like she can't believe Andy won't just give it up so that Kelly can lead them, and she shakes the names in her hand to be drawn. Andy voices over that for whatever reason, the team tried to run over him, and he didn't allow it. He reiterates that the exemptions get more important every week, and he feels like he's perfectly capable of getting the win. See? That's a kid who's willing to bet on himself, and that's why I think he's going to do well at whatever he winds up doing, once he files down a few of his more annoying quirks. Sandy picks Kelly's name, and Kelly gloats, all, "Good pick." I hate him. A lot. Andy nods.
More skyline porn as night turns to morning. The phone rings and Kelly answers it in a towel, which is...eh, fine, but nothing to write home about. Rhona tells him that they're to meet Trump at Tavern on the Green at 9:00. Generic rich-snob music plays as we take in the pastoral setting of the location, and then the contestants gather on the little terrace. Trump, Carolyn, and George file in, and Trump greets the group. He welcomes George back (George!) and tells the group that one of the special things about Tavern on the Green is that it hosts a wedding at least once a week. "I know something about weddings, unfortunately," Trump says, making a desperate and unsuccessful attempt at self-deprecating humor, something he is about as well-suited for as he is for street hockey. He says the wedding industry is worth $30 billion a year, and he calls on Sandy -- the bridal shop owner -- to confirm the figure, which she happily does. Trump explains that in the task this week, they'll take an empty space and create a bridal shop. Chris looks instantly ill. "You hear that, Sandy?" Trump says, and she grins. Trump acknowledges that she has a big advantage in the task, which is of course a double-edged sword, because...well, imagine if they lost. (NOT LIKELY!) Anyway, they'll have four hours, from 5:00 to 9:00, to hold a sale in their space, and whichever team gets the most profit out of those four hours will win. Losers to the Boardroom, or didn't you guess that part?
Trump and the Viceroys take off. "You have got to be kidding," Sandy giggles to her team. Kelly tells us that he has a "ringer" on his team, because this is Sandy's business. Apex looks, in the post-reveal moments, just as unhappy as Mosaic looks happy. Chris interviews all about Sandy's "huge advantage" coming from the industry at issue, and how this makes his team the little underdogs angling for the big victory. They're like the Mighty Ducks of bridal boutique ownership, only without Emilio Estevez, and preferably with an older Joshua Jackson, since I always feel kinda skeevy when I can already see how cute he is in a movie made when he was, like, twelve. (I know, I know, keep your Miss Alli LeTourneau jokes to yourselves.)
Apex arrives at its location, and Ivana explains that this was their first order of business after being told what the task was. As they go inside, she marvels at the size of the space. "We could tooootally do something with this," she coos. Chris says that he wants to just pack the space with vendors the day, and he plans to offer to split the profits with the vendors. As he explains it to the team, he'll just offer the vendors a situation where for no rent or anything up front, they can come and sell their dresses. Jen nods thoughtfully, like this is totally brilliant. Kevin points out that they'll need the vendors, then, before they do anything else. Why any of them believe that vendors will eagerly go in on a deal to give away half of their profits in return for an opportunity to sell dresses in a large, unfurnished warehouse space run by unknowns is kind of a mystery to me, but...whatever.
Back at S5, Mosaic is hard at work around the table listening to Sandy tell them exactly what they need to do. She says that they need to go around to these various salons and try to negotiate what dresses they're going to have to sell. Kelly adds that they'll need "a marketing message." Yeah, thanks, G.I. Joe. Kelly clues us in that the team is broken into two groups -- he, Sandy, and Andy are going to go look at the space, while Maria and Wes are going to work on the marketing. They'll need a message! What will they do without a message! I hate business-speak. Sandy, meanwhile, tells Wes and Maria to get in touch with someone at theknot.com, which should have a list of all the New York City brides, and can probably sell the right to send a giant spam to all of them. Andy points out quite correctly that Kelly's role here was to delegate everything important to Sandy and then "ride Sandy to his exemption." Heh, "ride Sandy." Ew. Wes and Kelly, meanwhile, chuckle over the idea of Chris trying to figure out how to sell wedding dresses.
And here Chris is indeed, cold-calling vendors and offering them an opportunity to participate in this "bridal expo" he's supposedly setting up. Unfortunately, none of the people he's calling are interested, probably because it isn't clear what the hell is in it for them. Like, at all. In an interview, Ivana marvels at how Chris, who's supposed to be this great sales guy (she actually drags out the hoary old "sell ice to Eskimos" thing, which...did she get that from a really, really old uncle who sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door?), was totally unable to get anywhere with the bridal folks. Jen sits along the wall all stiff-backed, already transparently pleased that it's obvious whom she can blame if the task doesn't work out. You begin to get an idea of why Chris can't get into this project when he hangs up from one uninterested vendor and casually spits, "Motherfuckin' bitch." Yeah, you know what? Chris is not so fond of women. Doesn't like having to ask them for anything, doesn't like having to pretend to care about anything specifically made for them, doesn't want to figure out how to market for them, doesn't want to schmooze them on the phone...he just doesn't like women, at least in business settings. You can tell that his vision of "the business world" does not involve very many boobs, unless he's "entertaining clients" at a secret location. Anyway, Kevin and Jen flip through magazines as Chris continues to have no luck on the phone, and ultimately tells the team that the task is actually "almost impossible." Chris says that there's just no way you can set something up and get dresses, advertise them, and sell them in the time available. Chris is married, folks, and he doesn't know dick. Wedding dresses are expensive, you nut. People are willing to have them altered, and they're willing to hunt through a lot of them in order to save a significant amount of money. Ivana says that this throwing up of the hands was "pathetic," not that she seems to be stepping up with a lot of great ideas of her own. Wait, what ever happened to always providing a solution? Oh, that's right. Shunning. And she's already doing it. Real good, then!
This week's black-and-white Trump motto is "Believe in Yourself." Hilariously, Trump praises his own positive attitude as we watch him in the back of a limo telling some guy about how he loves naming buildings after his own glorious ass. Awesome. We take another quick look at New York, and then return to Mosaic, where Sandy is walking with Andy and Kelly, explaining to them that discontinued wedding dresses actually go for less than cost. See? This is a great idea. I mean, I can't stand her, and I think she's incredibly irritating, but this is how you do this task, and had Chris approached it differently, there isn't any reason he couldn't have done the same thing. Sandy explains to us that they had a few appointments to go and see folks at bridal salons to negotiate a little. A few little shots of wedding cake couples do a great job of transitioning us into the discussion portion of our show. Sandy tells the owner of the first place that they'd like to take discontinued gowns "off [her] hands" and sell them for her. "How many gowns are you willing to give up?" Sandy asks. "How many can you take?" the lady comes back. Heh. Yeah, if I had to stare at froofy dresses all day, I believe I'd be ready to see a whole bunch of them leave at once, too. Andy explains that watching Sandy work with all this stuff that she knows so well was actually fairly impressive. And I agree. It's like watching monkeys ski. Andy tries his hand at doing part of the pitch and talking about how one vendor's dresses are like a Ferrari, but Carolyn winds up teasing him later, all, "You've never done this before, have you, Andy?" Hee. For a minute there, I thought she might seduce him, all The Graduate and everything. But tragically, she just means he's not a great talker.
Back at the suite, Wes and Maria get the call from the rest of the team about the dresses they have, and the fact that they'll need to pick the dresses up later in a cargo van. Wes hits the nail on the head in an interview in which he explains that Kelly carefully covered himself by going off with Sandy to "supervise" her part of things, while leaving Wes and Maria alone so that if anything went wrong with marketing, he could blame them. Maria now takes us through her conversation with theknot.com, in which she gets the scoop that the email will go out to about 23,000 people. She says that the women on the email list are "absolutely [their] target market." She says she thinks that's a very good way to spend $1000 of their money, which is what it's costing to send the email. We then see Maria reviewing the email on the computer, and not to go all Zapruder on your asses, but you'll notice that she's looking at it in Explorer, not in Word or anything like that like you would expect if she were working on creating it, and there's an email open underneath the ad she's looking for. And the Explorer document she has open is one of those long ones that looks like she's looking at an attachment sent to her by theknot.com. And then Maria says, "Thank you so much; it's approved." And it has no phone number on it. So...I'm just saying, it looks to me like the site sent her back the ad to approve, and she opened it, and she approved it, and it had no phone number on it. Or at least that they were sending her versions to look at, whether or not this was the final-final. Anyway, Wes says that he and Maria have a lot of responsibility, because if nobody comes to the sale, nobody is going to buy anything. He is so smart. It's no wonder Private Wealthy People hire him to be their Private Wealth Manager.
At Apex, things are bleak. They're actually all sitting around on the floor reading magazines, and Chris is the most miserable of all. They've gone from the Mighty Ducks to...the Washington Generals. And that is just too bad. Jen suggests that if they actually visited with vendors instead of just calling them, they might get more help. Ivana says, in her inimitable way, that they need to "map out a game plan." Chris is like, "Oh, all RIGHT," and he grudgingly agrees to do some work, just in case sitting around on his ass doesn't do the trick. Jen says that, in part because Chris was in such a mood, they decided to split up and go see some vendors. The team leaves, as Chris reiterates that he finds the task "friggin' ridiculous." Jen and Chris go and meet with some dress vendors, and she explains that she was trying to be positive, and that Chris had absolutely no interest in doing anything with this task, and no interest at all in the bridal industry. She says that they managed to set up about six vendors, so they had managed to get that part on track.
Elsewhere, Ivana and Kevin meet with a lovely woman named Bernadette, who has her own bridal queendom, apparently. Ivana says that she and Kevin tossed in little questions for Bernadette along the way so that they could learn something about the business. Kevin asks Bernadette how she would go about promoting it if she were in their shoes, and then after explaining what the space is like, he invites Bernadette over to the space to have a look. She agrees.
Evening. As Chris and Jen are apparently lounging around doing nothing in the sale space, Ivana and Kevin drop by with Bernadette. Ivana says that they used Bernadette as their expert -- "our Sandy," as she puts it. Now there's a piece of terminology I wouldn't have seen coming: "Sandy" for "expert." Soon, "Maria" will mean "composed." Bernadette takes the team around, offering advice about how to set the space up to make the brides comfortable and happy. Chris praises Bernadette for all the guidance she was able to offer them, and says that he's now "pretty confident." She takes off, and agrees that she'll see them tomorrow. I don't think they deserve Bernadette, those slackers.
That night, the rest of Mosaic returns to the suite with its load of dresses, as Sandy interviews that they were "on a roll." However, when she got a look at the marketing piece, it wasn't quite what she wanted. Now, the printout she looks at is indeed slightly different from what Maria was looking at earlier, in that it has a different line about the "Special Offer" of a free veil for the first 20 people. I'm sure that'll be a hell of a great veil. There's a fine line between the regular kind of "filmy" and the kind that's good for keeping out mosquitoes, you know. Furthermore, you'll note that Mosaic has this advertised as a "sample sale," not just an "expo" or whatever. Sandy laments that on the email that went out, there is no phone number to make appointments. Kelly calls Maria about this, and Maria says that there was a phone number on the one she approved. "She took it out without any approval," Maria claims. Considering that on no version of this that we've seen has there ever appeared to be a phone number, I am so not buying that. Kelly, as usual, already knows who he'll be blaming, and says that if things go badly tomorrow, it will be largely on Maria for failing to get the phone number on there. Not that you really need a phone number to advertise a sample sale, so...whatever. As I've said before, these teams love nothing more than finding the goat of the week.
Mosaic loads its dresses into a rental truck, and as Wes and Kelly drive through the streets of New York in the truck, Kelly complains in an interview about Wes being a lousy driver. On one hand, it does appear that Wes makes some mistakes, but on the other hand, every time I'm in New York, I find myself incredibly glad that I never try to drive there ever, because everything is so narrow and nasty and intimidating, so I feel for Wes as well. And that's not even mentioning my general fear of parallel parking. Anyway, Wes does eventually wind up scraping the side of a pickup truck, so I suppose Kelly's complaints aren't totally unfounded. I hope they left a note. Kelly interviews that now he realized that Wes might also be able to be blamed, because what if they outsell the competition but Wes blows all their money fixing cars he's hit? Oh, blah dee blah, whatever. Shut up and do the task and stop thinking constantly about whom you're going to put on the hook. The truck pulls up at the store space, and they even have a little trouble getting the back of the truck open, and when they do, they find that the dresses have tipped over. Fortunately, it appears to be a "no harm, no foul" situation, as the dresses are all right, and the guys think it's fine as long as Sandy doesn't find out. Heh.
It is evening inside Mosaic-Mart, and people are getting punchy. Wes and Maria are fooling around with the dresses, Kelly is laughing, Maria is putting one over her head and fantasizing about marrying someone incredibly boring who will buy her presents and not mind that she's not a great conversationalist, and Sandy is looking stressed, because it's Sandy who's going to look like the biggest buffoon ever if they lose. Sandy asks to talk to Kelly outside, and he follows her out. She tells him that she feels like everybody else is just standing around expecting her to do everything, and it's kind of bumming her out. She's also very frustrated that she handed off to Maria and Wes what should have been a great marketing strategy, and she feels like they booted it by failing to include any contact information. She snots in an interview that all she can do is set up the store, and if nobody shows up, the team just won't win. Kelly tells her a lot of bland crap about how it will all be fine, and he and Sandy go back inside. In other news, Sandy uses the words "rock it out" to describe the team's performance in other tasks, and that must stop immediately.
Day. Apex Corporation, believe it or not, has chosen to come to Grand Central Station to hand out flyers for their sale. That's their idea of marketing. And they really are just standing there with arms full of pink flyers, handing them out indiscriminately to whomever is walking by. Because nothing gets your attention in New York like someone trying to hand you something on the street. (By the way, the best tip I picked up when I was in New York most recently: the Messiah is coming. I learned this from a guy on the subway, so it must be true. Just thought I'd let you know, in case you have anything planned.) Chris explains that he and Kevin hit Grand Central while Jen and Ivana went to Penn Station. Apparently, they are doing this under the impression that they will hit the Venn diagram in the tiny crossover between people who are about to get married, people who are in the train station, and people who will accept a flyer while seeking public transportation in New York. That last one alone will basically narrow it down to people who arrived in town less than ten minutes ago, because everyone else already knows to ignore people who try to hand you stuff. "This is definitely going to get people down [to the sale]," Chris says confidently. The editors show us what they think of this idea by cutting directly to a pink flyer sitting in the trash. And then we watch Jen and Ivana for a minute, as Jen tells us she thinks they did "a really good job" with marketing. And God bless the camera guy who gets the shot that immediately follows of a muddy sneaker stomping a pink flyer in a puddle of dirty water. Because...exactly. If you've ever observed things being handed out on the street, you know that ten feet down from the hander-outer, you'll see the giant wad of discarded ones. That's why the sidewalks of Vegas are littered with those hooker trading cards. Because nobody wants to say an outright "No" to the guy standing there smacking the cards on his hand and going, "She can be in your room in TEN MINUTES!"
The morning of the sale finds Mosaic splitting up again, as Maria, Sandy, and Andy go to try to fix the problem with the email, while he goes out with Wes to pick up the rest of the dresses. At the offices of theknot.com, Maria snots to the rep that she remembers talking to them about the phone number, but the final email didn't include it. Sandy asks if it's possible that they could send a new email with the contact information. The rep says she will send another email, but you never know if anybody will get it before the sale, and she wants to say on her own behalf that she thinks they had plenty of approval on the ad. I think the bottom line is that she'll redo it for them as a favor, but she's not eating the blame for getting it wrong, because I think she had the final version approved by Maria, and she's not interested in being this week's blame target. Sandy says in an interview that, indeed, it appeared that Maria was caught lying, because she swore that she had given the woman the cell phone number, and the woman was quite confident she'd had the final copy approved. Sandy hates it when people don't -- you guessed it -- "take accountability." Which is not a phrase. Geeee-yod.
Apex sets up its sad little store. They're arranging their dresses, bridesmaid stuff, accessories...and Jen is still handing out flyers out on the sidewalk. But...oh, it's George who's approaching. Inside, he asks them what they did to advertise besides hand out pink flyers. The only thing they have to offer is that they're having the front windows painted. No, really. That's it. Indeed, we observe the window-painting, and it's...nice, for window-painting. I think George has hit the nail on the head that advertising through handing out crappy little flyers is not a great way to motivate consumers unless you're trying to get them to join the Workers' Party. Kevin interviews that he thinks they have a shot, because they have some good vendors. Not that anyone will be present to buy anything.
Over at Mosaic...oh, look. There are probably 40 women waiting outside when the sale is getting ready to start. "The marketing produced very strong results," Wes says. Hard to argue with. Sandy heads outside to open the doors, and welcomes all of the brides to the sale. Inside, one woman tells Wes she hates sleeves. "Who likes sleeves?" he says agreeably. Uh, okay. Wes is later seen mingling with the women in line, apparently slotted to enter in groups, and it's probably a good idea to send your hottie out there to hang out. Wait, is that Sars, pretending to be a bride and talking up Wes in line? I'm almost certain I see her tattoo in that shot. I was wondering why she was wearing that tiara the last time I saw her. ["It's not 'pretending' if I'm going to be Wes's bride, is it?" -- Yeah, yeah, Sars knows he's already married…FOR NOW]
Meanwhile at Apex, there is music that comes to a horn-dominated climax as Ivana opens the doors, and...there are two people waiting outside. Two. Not only that, but they may be together, and thus they may only really represent one bride. Ivana orients the "crowd" to the way the store is arranged. The poor little shoppers, Orange Tank Top and Gray Tank Top, wander around, undoubtedly feeling a lot of pressure since there are more people working at this sale than shopping at it. A few more folks show up over the course of the sale, one of whom is trying on a tiara. Jen, in what looks like her old "we did a good job papering an ordinarily indifferent New York" interview, says that if they have dresses but no customers, it's all for nothing. Which...exactly.
At Mosaic, Wes is flirting with a bride (AHEM) and sending her in with Andy to shop. "Enough talking, let's go!" Andy says, taking her in. Heh. They're pretty good at that routine, those two guys. Inside, one of the sellers is explaining that one of the dresses is normally a $3200 dress, now on sale for $500. Which really is pretty good. A girl in glasses picks out a dress, and the seller even gives a little boogie move of triumph. If I'm the bride, that move makes me think she just unloaded something on me that she has worked hard to get rid of, but perhaps I would be so happy that I would be all bleary-eyed with tears. Wes tells another one she looks like "a little princess." Uh, yeah. Not so much with that, except that he's so dorky and awkward that it might come around to being cute again out of pure cluelessness. Kelly tells us that they're up to 16 or 17 dresses sold. Somebody's mom (I believe) actually does cry, looking at her daughter in the dress. Heh. They close up the store, and Wes interviews that, honestly, Sandy was a great help, but you never know. The other team could have set themselves up with an expert who would have helped them as well. He's not at all convinced that their win is secure yet. And good for him.
Later, the teams enter the Boardroom to learn the results. Trump enters, saying "Helloooo" in a way that, believe it or not, strongly recalls M. Giant, and asks Carolyn how Mosaic did. She says she thinks they did "very well." They sold 27 dresses, for total profit of $12,788.94. Average profit per dress of $473.66, meaning that they still weren't exactly giving those dresses away. Chris looks ill, ill, and more ill. George is asked how Apex did, and says they sold two dresses. Two. And they made $1060.47. Sandy can't keep her mouth from dropping open at the remarkably ass performance of her opponents. Seriously, Mosaic was moving dresses at better than one every ten minutes, and Apex moved two in the entire evening. It's really no less than a situation in which Mosaic was extremely successful, and Apex did nothing. Trump can't believe one team smashed the other by a factor of 12. Sandy looks like she can't either, and she's darn happy she's the smasher and not the smashee. Trump reminds Kelly that he'll be immune week, which seems extraordinarily unfair, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose. Trump now explains the reward, which is to go to the jewelry store where he bought Melania's ring. Melania will even meet them there, and they'll each get $10,000 to blow on diamonds. Holy crap. Oh, and Apex will be coming back to see someone fired. No jewelry, just bitterness.
Later, Apex sits around the suite, dejected. Chris, among other things, has actually fallen asleep reading Trump's book -- how's that for a visual metaphor? Kevin calls their loss "an old-fashioned butt-kicking." He says he's disgusted. Disgusted! In fact, he says he's "literally disgusted." It's like the opposite of the usual misuse of "literally," because..."disgusted" usually is "literally." Whatever. Anyway, Ivana jumps in: "We got outbeat in every single category." Outbeat? My God, she is a freak. Freak! Freak! Freak! Jen reminds her unhappy teammates that on top of the thrashing they took, the other team is currently picking up $50,000 in jewelry.
Speaking of which, here we are at the jewelry store. Melania welcomes the teams to the store, and Andy interviews that she's even prettier than her pictures. Mm-hmm. Inside, the guy shows them a very gaudy giant diamond necklace which he slips around Sandy's neck, then displays a very gaudy giant diamond ring. They tell Sandy that her necklace -- well, "her" necklace -- is worth $6 million, so she's not going to be taking that home. She tells us the necklace was "blinging all over the place." Yeah. That's not actually a good thing, sweetheart. And you want to be careful about "bling" as a verb. Andy tells the jewelry guy that because he's not married, he's shopping for his mom. Aw. Anyway, in the end, Wes gets his wife a necklace, Maria gets a ring, Sandy gets a necklace, and...Kelly buys himself a big old watch. Which makes Andy chuckle, I think mostly just because it's different from what the other guys did. Wes talks about how cool it was to get an inside look at this snazzy jeweler, as we watch Melania try on a big necklace she can probably pay for with the change in her purse.
Apex prepares for the Boardroom, and Chris tells us that he's "a straight shoot-ah." Again, he's just gotta be himself. He's not a jackass, he's just really, really genuine. Kevin informs us that Chris ought to be fired, because he was the project manager and it all went wrong. Kevin holds open the possibility, though, that they'll all be fired en masse, considering how badly it went and how much they suck. I would support that. Ivana, just in case, wants to make sure she has done the traditional Choosing of the Scapegoat, so she checks in with Jen about how it was all Chris's fault, and the rest of them all tried to do everything they could to pick up the slack, blah dee blah. She and Jen agree that Chris gave up within the first ten minutes. Chris assures us that if he goes down, he'll go down fighting. They all take off for the Boardroom.
The elevator doors open. The team gets off the elevator and makes its way into the Boardroom. Carolyn and George already await, and are soon joined by Trump, in a red tie this week. "Chris, what happened?" he says. Chris admits that it was "a beating," and tries to basically say that it happened just like he told Trump it would. In other words, "I told you we'd lose, and we did! See how good and smart I am?" Yeah, son, good luck with that. But he also sort of tries to come out saying that they ultimately "gelled" on this task, and Trump is like, "Well...not very much, you didn't." Ivana, too, insists that "the team definitely rallied," but she thinks that "Chris gave up easily." Look, someone's fault! And not hers! It's really shocking. Trump says Chris doesn't look like a quitter, and Ivana's kind of like, "Yeah, go figure." Which was kind of funny, because she's right in this one particular case. Through a tight, phony smile, she talks about how when she sees the PM quitting early, it makes her feel bad. And it makes her, apparently, feel so terrifically driven to do anything for victory that she just has to...sit down and read a magazine. ["I just do not understand, at all, why she is still on this show. Do not understand it. I could see keeping her on for villainous entertainment value, but she's not even good at being a bitch." -- Sars]
Asked about Ivana's accusation, Chris owns up to having felt like the task was nearly insurmountable early on. Trump asks him why, and Chris basically blames the fact that Sandy was on the other team. Carolyn calls bullshit, saying that the stores had equal space, similar inventories of dresses, and similar experts, in that Bernadette basically helped them all the way through the process. George argues that the customer in this task is so obvious that all you have to do is reach the customers you know are out there. "Why wasn't there a marketing plan?" he demands to know. "There's a market." Chris...nods. Trump asks Jen how the other team did so well, and Jen knows enough to credit their early marketing efforts and their deployment of unsolicited commercial email. Trump asks about the stupid idea of handing out flyers at the train stations. Ivana is asked whether she liked the idea of Penn Station, and because she can't instantly figure out whether there's a way to answer the question in a way that shifts responsibility to someone else, she doesn't answer. Carolyn jumps in saying that it's an absolutely terrible idea, which is true. Trump, too, thinks the train station handbilling idea sucked. I mean, even if people read something like that, they're going to think you're the kind of people who sell wedding dresses by handing out flyers in the train station, and nobody wants to buy a wedding dress in a way that feels disreputable. They want to buy one in a way that feels like they're getting away with something, that's fine. But if they think you're potentially going to sell them something that was obtained during a burglary? Not so excited.
Trump now asks Kevin how Chris did as a leader after all of his complaining last week. Kevin says that Chris works hard, but he tends to think writing down your plans is boring, so he doesn't like to come up with plans in advance. It doesn't sound like Kevin found this sense of whimsy refreshing. Trump asks how Chris did delegating, and Kevin says there was no delegating -- everyone did everything. Jen is asked whether she was disappointed in Chris, and she says Chris "lacked energy and focus." Trump says he loves Chris's accent, sort of apropos of nothing. Trump asks Chris whether he'll bring two or three -- in other words, bring the whole team, or release someone. Chris says he wants to bring Kevin and Ivana, releasing Jen. Why? I have no idea. Before he lets her go, Trump asks Jen who should be fired. Unsurprisingly, she names Chris. And this is where you know Jen is full of shit, because if Ivana deserved to go last week for generally not being worth anything -- even though Raj had egregiously screwed up that task -- then Ivana would still deserve to go this week as well. Jen picked on Ivana last week because she saw Raj as an ally in a way she doesn't see Chris as an ally, or else she sees Chris as more of a threat. Because Ivana didn't do much on this task either, so it's not like Ivana could have redeemed herself. Jen goes up to the suite, and Chris, Ivana, and Kevin go out in the lobby to wait.
Out in the lobby, Chris tries to tell Kevin and Ivana that the whole thing is business, not personal. "You know that I like you guys better than her," he tells them. They don't understand, then, why Jen was allowed to skate. He argues that Jen did the best, and they ask him why he thinks so. Remarkably, he basically says it's because that's the impression he got from talking to Jen about the work she did. Kevin laughs bitterly, because...what else is there to do?
In the Boardroom, Trump asks Carolyn and George for impressions. Carolyn agrees with Trump that none of them really did anything, or even really claimed to have done anything.
Back out in the lobby, Ivana comments, "She always skates by." Chris smiles ruefully and says he was thinking the same thing. There is a little more back and forth, and ultimately Kevin says, "She duped you, man. She got you, that's fine." And as assy as that comment is, it's also kind of true, and Chris pretty much has it coming.
George tells Trump that he "didn't see any fire from any of them." They all agree that nobody has any oomph at all, basically. "Send 'em home," Carolyn says, in a remark that has been variously interpreted to be "Send him home," referring to Chris, "Send them home," referring to an adventurous mass firing, or what I think it is, which is a general "I kind of don't care, because none of these people deserve to work for you" comment. I think Carolyn is thoroughly bored with this round of contestants.
Kevin, Ivana, and Chris are sent back into the Boardroom. Trump immediately asks Chris why in the hell he sent Jen back upstairs, when the entire team sucked equally. Chris says now that he let Jen go because two of the vendors praised her to him. Which is fine, but...they only sold two damn dresses. Nobody succeeded at any level, dude. She may be the best snowjob artist, but she didn't move dresses. This is basically what Carolyn says to him. Ivana is then asked what she thought of Chris as a leader, and she says, "I think Chris is very good at identifying problems, and when I say that, I mean he's really good at complaining." Trump comments on Ivana's endless supply of backhanded, obnoxious remarks about other people ["and, for the record, that remark was not 'backhanded,' Donald -- it was openly snotty and mean" -- Sars], and Chris tries to get a little traction by pointing out that it's because she's got experience, having been here constantly. Carolyn would like to know why Ivana thinks she finds herself in the Boardroom all the time, and Ivana insists -- no kidding -- that it's because she works so hard. She sticks out because she takes on so much responsibility, so when she inevitably, you know, fucks it up, she winds up in the Boardroom. That is really, really not as good an argument as she thinks. "I'm so good, they always bring me!" It really doesn't work that way.
Chris is thrown a ray of hope when Trump asks him whether he ought to fire Ivana. "Instead of me? Absolutely," Chris says, swimming against the current as hard as he can. "I'm an asset." Yeah. You let that sentence go on for two letters too long, chump. Chris and Ivana begin to bicker, and Kevin stupidly jumps in on Ivana's side, saying that people always go after whoever does the most work, which...shut up, Kevin. When you're not imperiled, don't imperil yourself. Trump asks Kevin whom he would fire. "I would fire Chris," he says. Ivana snorts and says, "I would fire Chris as well." Trump points out that they seem to care more about this phase than they ever did about the actual task while they were supposed to be working on it, which...is true. And sad.
Now, we enter the endgame. Trump points out how last week, Chris complained about the team, and how weak it was, and how he could straighten it out. Which isn't exactly what he said -- it was really just the complaining part. Chris points out that what he was advocating was mixing up the teams. Trump says that he also screwed up by letting Jennifer go, which is stupid, because you never know whether he might have fired her. "I can't believe you let her go," he says. "And I can't believe you led the team so badly. And Chris, you're fired." Chris sort of...takes it under advisement. Everybody gets up and leaves. In the lobby, there are no pleasant goodbyes, just people getting on the elevator. Because none of these people have friendships, which is exactly the complaint I was tossing out last week. Chris heads down.
We see Chris leaving, climbing into his cab. Ivana goes back to the suite.
And in the end, in his taxi interview, Chris has no regrets, because he's impervious to learning anything. Like a lot of people.
week: Eight left. Ivana doesn't appreciate Jennifer's "hypnotic fembot spell." Heh. Maria yells at (I believe) Kelly. Kevin is randomly shirtless. There appears to be modeling. Kelly and Jen appear to be on the same team. Billy Joel. Man, I used to love Billy Joel; this will make me cry. And...a great Boardroom. They "guarantee it."