Previously on Blink Blink Blink: Blink blink blink blink blink, blink blink blink blink blink blink. Blink blink blink -- blink blink (blink blink blink blink). Blink blink "blink blink blink" blink blink blink blink. Blink. Blink blink blink, blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink. Blink blink, blink, blink blink blink blink blink blink blink. Blink blink blink blink blink blink, blink blink blink, "Blink, blink blink!" BLINK! Blink blink, blink blink, "Blink, blink blink blink." Blink. Blink blink blink blink blink?
Credits. It occurs to me that a good way to wind up with a final six I don't give a rip about is to start with an opening eighteen I don't give a rip about.
New York, night. Buildings. And up in S5, the ACWDW. Ivana is frying something for dinner in the sizzling skillet representing the position she will one day occupy beside her dark master, and Kelly asks her why they're waiting around for three people, when they outnumber them anyway. Hell, yeah, eat the food. It's not like you have to make some kind of pretense of giving a good goddamn about anyone other than yourself. It's just not that kind of season. Ivana chuckles and walks off, wearing pink pants and a black jacket that just...well, really, there's no need for pink pants, practically ever. Especially if they have horizontal black pinstripes. As the group discusses dinner, there is much careful attention to the way Kelly is setting the table for the seven who will remain after three return from the Boardroom. After, you know, one person is fired. Get it? GET IT? Ivana continues to fuss over dinner. Jen makes a bold prediction to us that Andy, Sandy, and Maria will come back, and that Wes will be fired. With a little smile, she acknowledges that "the Boardroom can be unpredictable." Her hair is carefully arranged over her shoulder at all times.
Sandy glides through the door, with Andy behind her. As Andy strides into the kitchen, he says, "He fired two people." The rest of the folks look stunned. There is even gasping. Sandy says that when she and Andy got back, everyone realized that there were six of them, and they were the final six. I keep hearing how smart they are; I guess that's your proof. Sandy goes on to inform us that now that there are six left, it's time to "break from the pack." There is the obligatory "and then there were six" toast around the table, because it's always nice to pretend you don't hate everyone, even when you totally do. Sandy decides to pick at a scab by asking the rest of them whether they anticipated that she would make it this far. Ivana admits that she wouldn't have thought so. AWKWARD. Sandy interviews that she's the only one there who doesn't have a college degree, "technically." What it means to have "technically" no degree, I'm not sure, as I felt like I went from having no degree to having a degree during a ceremony where they handed me a paper thingy that was all, "You have a degree," so I'm not sure how one "technically" lacks one, but I suppose it's one of those qualifiers that is sometimes employed for no particular good reason. Sandy points out, though, that her lack of education hasn't hurt her none; she can read the writing on the wall. Or something. She thinks her educational status won't "play a toll." Among the classes she did not "technically" take, it would seem: English. Kevin assures Sandy around the dinner table that Trump wants leaders, and they're all leaders. Even, apparently, Ivana, who, in my opinion, couldn't lead a pack of wild dogs with a steak tied to her ass.
And now, Apex has a team meeting about who's going to be the PM. Ivana thinks that she somehow "earned" it, based on her performance in the jeans task, but Jen wants to be considered, too. Ivana argues that for "stepping up" on the last task, she's got the right to the position. But Jen says no, Ivana can't just have it because she wants it. Which is true, but of course, Ivana is in full indignation mode after Jen's stepping on her glory in the Levi's meeting, so she's in a mood to feel usurped. If Ivana were confident, what she should have done was let Jen take it, because Jen? Sucks. And if you expose her suck a little bit, she's going to eventually display it flagrantly. But then Kelly, the bullying asshole who has already led twice -- including two tasks ago, and was exempt from the Boardroom that just happened -- insists that he also wants PM. What bullshit. I think the team should have put its foot down here and said no, they would draw names between Jen and Ivana, but they would not accept Kelly. Because he had his opportunity to lead, and he climbed on Sandy's back and let her carry him to an exemption that, if life were fair, would have been hers. Furthermore, overly enthusiastic exemption-chasing strikes me as a little unseemly and weak. Boyfriend Bill had no exemptions. Kwame had no exemptions. They lived or died every week according to whatever happened that particular week, and how they had performed overall. What is Kelly so afraid of? I think it's ridiculously dick of him to even suggest himself, and ridiculously wussy of the rest of the team to agree to even put him in the draw. But they do. Not only do they let him in the draw, but he wins, meaning that he has a chance at his second exemption in three tasks, which I'm just not sure is as good of a thing as Kelly thinks. I think in the end, never being in jeopardy actually hurt Amy last season, because she never had a chance to build up her confidence, and the first couple of times she actually had to defend herself, she looked sweaty and terrified. But anyway. "Everybody okay?" Kelly asks. And then he smarms, "Group hug?" Because it's not enough for him to screw you -- you have to tell him you don't mind. I hate that. Jen gives a wonderfully phony nasal laugh, and I suspect that she, actually, is perfectly fine with not being PM. The last thing she wants is to be found out as a do-nothing lump of polish with no substance. I think she didn't want Ivana to have it because she didn't want Ivana to get the exemption, and she wanted to go in for it so that it wouldn't look like she was dodging it, but I don't think Jen wants to lead. She's done pretty well at avoiding it so far.
Ivana, of course, blames Jen for obstructing her path to PM, and feels the need to tell us again, in a balcony interview, that Jen is all boobs and face. And then, rather tastelessly, we cut to...Jen's boobs. Now, was that really necessary? I would argue that it was not. I mean, really. What camera guy got that close-up, and how do you explain it to her? "Just a second, I'm shooting your chest"? Of course, Ivana's remark wasn't necessary to begin with, either. Shut up, Ivana.
Later, as Jen works on the computer, Kevin chats with Kelly and Ivana, and tells them that if they remain together as a team and don't lose, they might be able to be the final four together, at which point they can "deal with it," meaning, I think, they can deal with Jen, the reigning Queen of Skating By. Kelly tells us that in fact, he didn't enjoy working with Jen on the Levi's task, because she "rubbed [him] the wrong way," and he kind of thinks it would be nifty if they had the opportunity to ship her off to the other team. "I'm so used to not dealing with people that stupid, I don't even know what to say," Kelly tells Ivana, and then he stops and clarifies, "Not you." HA HA HA! Because...otherwise, Ivana would wonder. That was brilliant, and I don't think Kelly even knew he did it. Jen interviews that she was aware that there were conversations going on in which she wasn't included, and she knew they were talking about her. She says she has no allies, and is just here to work hard and to win. Just a hint, dear: when you're working on a team with a bunch of people and no one likes you, that's actually not a good thing. It's fine to be independent, but what's going on here is that all of your colleagues think you don't do any work. The fact that these people don't like you is one thing; the fact that they don't think you have much of a work ethic is something else.
The morning, Kelly answers the Rhonaphone in his black boxers. I do believe I could do without the shiny panties, Kelly. She tells him to meet Trump at the new Trump Place property, which is apparently a new project, because Trump found some money in the pocket of last year's winter coat, and he used it for a big shiny building. Kevin takes a shower. Ivana employs her electric toothbrush. Ew, for brushing her teeth! Man, you people. Andy gels his hair as he tells us that it's going to be him against Kelly. "He's 37, or 70...he's old." Hee hee. Andy goes on to say that he's going to try to make the case for "youth and creativity." It's ironic that in the close-ups of the gelled hair, I think I got a glimpse of Andy thinning on top.
We arrive at Trump Place, where my least favorite part of the show -- the "Trump hangs out before they arrive" segment -- follows. Trump is yammering about the great success of the building and chatting with the head of Pepsi, who would like you to know that his company is launching something called Pepsi Edge. You might hear a few more mentions of it in the 45 minutes or so, but he thought he'd tell you now, in case you miss it. Trump promises that Pepsi Edge will be "very successful," because he personally will have anyone who refuses to drink it bankrupted and driven out of decent society. Or at least the part where Trump lives, so...no more beauty pageants. Trump, the Viceroys, and Captain Pepsi go to meet the candidates, who are just arriving. Trump tells Apex that they have one too many people, and they need to send somebody over to Mosaic. Hey, just like Kelly wanted! Apparently without discussion, PM Kelly says that they'll be sending over Jen. Trump asks why, and Kelly says, "Because, ew." Not really. He actually says that they want to keep the strongest possible team together. So, Trump infers, Kelly thinks Jen isn't the strongest. "I do not think Jen is the strongest," he says. Trump reminds Kevin of his exemption, and then it's time to explain the task.
I don't know if you've heard of Pepsi, but it's this big soft-drink company, and the teams will be traveling to its West Chester headquarters to design a new bottle and a marketing campaign for it. The new product? Oh, it's that Pepsi Edge thing. Have you heard of it? And Captain Pepsi, it turns out, is the chief marketing officer for the company. The team that creates the best new design will win. The other team? Boardroom. Firing. Despair. Horror.
Mosaic welcomes Jen with handshakes, not that they have much of a choice. Apex looks over happily, relieved to be rid of her. Ivana chippers in an interview that she was no longer "carrying this blonde Barbie on [her] back," so she felt much better. Yeah, you're a real martyr, there, Ivana. Ivana then manages to refer to Jen as a "tumor," demonstrating that she really doesn't know when to cut her losses, rhetoric-wise. I love the part where both Sandy and Jen are brushing their hair in the car on the way to Pepsi. And with big honking brushes, too. No purse-sized minis for them. ["Well, really. I don't think I've had as much hair total in my life to date as Sandy has right now." -- Sars] Jen tells Mosaic how happy she is to be on the team, and how much she was hoping to be brought over, because her team is so bad. That would be Jen's Suck-Up Moment Number One. You'll remember that Jen professed only happiness over the presence of Kelly last week, and that Ivana is on Apex only because Jen kept her and chose not to keep Sandy, so her "Gee, I like you guys so much better!" routine is just a trifle hard to believe at this point. Jen interviews that she'll enjoy "stick[ing] Apex with a loss." Wow, I bet she'll work really hard and come up with lots of ideas.
The Trump motto of the week is "Form Your Own Opinion," illustrated by Trump conducting a meeting in which he contradicts someone about something. Brave! It must be hard to stand up to people when you own their asses like that. Then, he tells us that people who are in charge and need to be popular generally are not going to make it. And I cannot tell you how much I agree with that.
We look down at an idyllic river running through a world of trees, and then the sun happily shines, because we are no longer in Manhattan. Mosaic is in fact pulling up at the Pepsi headquarters, as Jen continues sucking up by telling Andy and Sandy how much she looks forward to working with both of them. Jen recaps the task for us, and then we watch as Mosaic enters its workroom. The workroom is stocked with all sorts of food and, especially, Pepsi products. Wow, there's Slice. I didn't know they still made Slice. And there's Pepsi Twist, which isn't nearly as good as Diet Coke with Lime. (But then, what is?) And then Sandy explains to us what, exactly, Pepsi Edge is. You see, there's Diet Pepsi, which is made with artificial sweetener. There's regular Pepsi, which is made with sugar. Pepsi Edge -- like C2, if you're aware of that, which you might not be, considering that the world has responded with a collective shrug, as far as I know -- is in between, and is made partially with sugar and partly with sweetener. (Incidentally, my personal view is that they should also mention the fact that it's not just "in between," it's also made with Splenda, which is a sweetener I consider far superior in taste to NutraSweet, which is what's in Diet Pepsi. I know there are people who believe the opposite, but I secretly suspect that they're all NutraSweet employees.)
As Mosaic chats about the "in between" concept, Sandy and Andy come up with the concept that Pepsi Edge is "on the edge of both worlds," or, as Sandy writes on the white board, "the best of both worlds." Sandy rattles off ideas for a promotional game where you would collect caps, and the caps would have the name of a country. When you collected all the countries on a continent, you'd get a trip to that continent. It's not a completely horrible idea, although it has some major flaws. Andy figures out what Sandy is suggesting, and notes happily that Antarctica is an instant winner, but...is Pepsi going to send a winner to Antarctica? I'm not sure they want a frozen corpse on the cover of the quarterly report. Sandy tells us that Andy was getting pretty hyped up while they were working, and among other things, he was bolting Pepsi every time she turned around. Well, that'll do it. We then see a montage of Andy fast-talking, improvising, brainstorming, walking around the room...your basic design-a-bottle-in-one-day stuff, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not sure I see anything out of the ordinary there. The team is working on an "Are you going to the edge?" tagline, which isn't entirely without promise. Sandy interviews that she thinks Andy might lack a little bit of maturity and experience that might have been relevant to his spazzed-out performance during this stage of the task. You can see on the white board that they're already planning a bottle in the shape of a globe, so that idea seems to have emerged early.
Rays of light come down from the sky in a rather majestic manner as, behind an obviously ironic sign reading "Think Tank In Use," Apex discusses its options. Ivana proposes her most favorite thing -- brainstorming! Board up the windows, bolt the doors, and lay in a buttload of bottled water, people. Ivana is brainstorming! Honking music that is not at all a good omen starts up in the background as Ivana suggests a bottle in the shape of an Oscar, which they could photograph movie stars holding. Yeah, I'm sure the Oscars wouldn't mind. It's not like they guard that trademark. Kelly thinks the idea is dopey (unsurprisingly), but Ivana persists, saying that women and gay men watch the Academy Awards, after all. Oh, Ivana. Not all guys who watch the Academy Awards are gay. Some of them like movies, and some of them like the part at the beginning where Billy Crystal sings. Kelly tells Ivana, in the same irritating voice he used to blow off the notion of Andy working on the presentation, that he just got through saying he doesn't like that idea. So how can people still be talking about it?
Kelly moves on to his brilliant idea, which is to build the bottle out of a vertical E-D-G-E arrangement, and put a hole in the D. In other words, there will be a hole in the middle of the bottle, like the hole in a donut. That's not an entirely stupid idea, in terms of being eye-catching, but when he starts to claim that you could put stuff in the hole, like free movie tickets, that is indeed stupid. What are you going to do, put them on the shelves with rolled-up movie tickets sticking out of them and just hope nobody steals them? It makes zero sense. And when Ivana adds that you could put a hot dog in it? Even stupider. A montage follows in which Ivana rattles off a list of things that could go in the hole, including a gold-capped tooth, a woman, and "a piece of a boob." I'm sorry...a piece of a boob? God, I am really tempted to make a very horrifyingly tacky "at least she's thinking outside the box" joke, but I'm not sure I would ever recover my dignity. You can imagine I made it, all right? Kelly interviews that Ivana was sort of all over the place, but mostly in the area of sexual innuendo, which appears to be her favorite thing. He goes on to tell us that when working on a tight deadline, his feeling about sexy thoughts is, "Shelve that." Well, sure. Otherwise, who would ever get any recaps -- I mean, "work" -- done? We fade out on Kelly's white-board sketches of what the bottle might look like, and they all look fairly stupid to me. Of course, I am not a highly placed advertising professional.
Over at Mosaic, however, things look even stupider. They've decided to proceed with a globe-based design, and Sandy thinks that making it the first round Pepsi bottle ever will have some appeal. And I oddly agree, although it would be an inefficient shape for shipping and storage, which I have to think would enter into the equation somewhere. Andy explains that Sandy's idea had to be modified, because a regular round globe would not be able to be held in your hands. Huh? People hold Big Gulps; they're as big around as a round Pepsi bottle would be. I mean, you wouldn't make it perfectly round, obviously -- you'd give it a flat bottom. But could you do a generally roundish bottle? Obviously, you could. This notion that you couldn't hold it is stupid. Jen jumps in to describe what the bottle should look like, and in doing so, she appears to be the one who's talking about a narrow middle and two "more bulbous" ends, which you'll note is the basic design that is going to wind up going so badly. Jen, incidentally, gestures to the design they ultimately go with, calling it "more something we could actually sell" than a rounder bottle. Sandy, however, winds up feeling ignored, and interviews that her "voice was not heard," which is of course Apprentice for "I didn't get my way." Sandy tries to bring them back to the round globe idea, but Andy wants to go with the bulbous-ended design on the theory that he "[doesn't] want to be embarrassed." And there's some irony for you. Because I don't think there is a design they could come up with that would be more embarrassing than the one Jen is pushing, unless there were some way to design a bottle that farted.
Over at Apex, a guy is working on a computer image of a design where the middle of the bottle contains a "D" and a "G." Kelly is still advocating a hole in the bottle, which the design guy clearly has reservations about. Kelly insists it's a "'wow' factor." Eh. Maybe an "oh" factor, the first time you see it, but not a "wow" factor, to me. The design guy says that they'll do the best they can to deliver that for him. Ivana interviews that Kelly's military background leads him to "try to rule with an iron fist," and as we know, Ivana believes in leadership through puppy-hugging. Ivana suggests that Kelly's iron fist may "bite him in the butt," and that is something I would really like to see, because I've always believed that the great leap for mankind was hands that had teeth. It would put an end to public-transportation groping forever, I think. Apex goes to the lab to watch its bottle being constructed. In a weird, red-herring moment, Ivana tells the team as it leaves the Pepsi grounds that they're not rushing, so she feels like they must be missing something. I totally expected this all to come to something, but it doesn't. I have a feeling they were fairly desperate for material this week, because...what?
As evening stretches on, however, Mosaic is still hard at work. The design guy is telling Andy that they're still working on the graphic for the upper part of the bottle. Andy interviews that he believed the design team was moving a little too slowly for his liking. And before you know it, he's murmuring to Sandy that he thinks hundred-dollar handouts to the design folks would speed things up. Sandy looks shocked. "Isn't that bribery?" she asks. Bribery? Uh, no. It's not bribery. It's tacky, but it's not bribery, which is more about paying off judges and less about greasing the maitre d'. Andy refers to it as a "tip," and then he goes over and tells the guys who are working that there are going to be "hundred-dollar bonuses for everyone." The guys look a little flummoxed. Carolyn looks on as Andy just goes around and hands out the cash. Sandy interviews that some of the folks seemed to find the graft a little offensive, and she herself finds it too "used-car salesman" for the corporate world. I don't think that's the right analogy; it's just that professional people don't always like to be tipped like bellboys at a hotel. It tends to imply that they're not already doing the best they can for you, and that's a sort of skunky thing to imply to people on whom you're making a lot of demands as it is. I think everybody likes a hundred bucks, but it's a very risky maneuver, in terms of how you come off.
Andy continues to employ unconventional management techniques when he refuses to allow the design guys to eat when the food arrives. I absolutely guarantee you that any goodwill he might have accumulated through the cash payments vanished when he didn't let these people eat, considering that when this all happens, it's 9:00 at night. People do not like being denied their breaks; that is the fastest way to make enemies, as a boss. Give them fifteen minutes to have a slice of pizza, and they'll work better for the hour. Andy intercepts the pizzas and takes them out into the hallway, interviewing that he withheld the food until the deadline was met. "If you relax on this design team," he says, "they will not meet these deadlines." See? He doesn't have any respect for them. And people can always tell. This vibe he has that they're a bunch of undermotivated assholes who need to be goosed with money and deprived of food because they aren't capable of just being professional because they're professionals? They're not dumb, and Andy's not that subtle; they're going to feel that. As if things weren't bad enough already, when somebody mentions being starved, Andy reminds everyone that he gave them all money. I normally have liked Andy the last couple of weeks, but he handled this atrociously from a managing-people perspective. Sandy tells us that she finds Andy's whip-cracking rather ridiculous, and in case you can't tell yet? I agree.
It is soon the day, and faster music than usual welcomes us back to Pepsi, where Kelly is picking up and admiring his bottle, which indeed has a small hole through the middle. Kevin tells us that he thinks the bottle will "stand out," and that this again shows that Kelly is "a proven winner." They all admire the bottle, and then Ivana interviews that "it literally brought a tear to [her] eye," the bottle was so awesome. And then we see the part where she cried over the plastic bottle, and can somebody get rid of her already, seriously? She's crying over plastic. God.
At Mosaic, Andy is working on the computer and telling Jen how badly he wants to beat Kelly. She agrees. "Good will triumph," Andy says, and I would find it a little funny if he hadn't been such a schmuck last night. I'm not sure he can claim to represent the forces of good when he's kind of being a suck manager and also has Jen on his team. Andy explains, in an interview that appears to take place in the reedy area of the Pepsico campus located in the Everglades, that he wants to win by a lot just to show that he can defeat Kelly. "This win is...it's everything to me," he says.
In the Apex room, Ivana, Kevin, and Kelly are all pacing, apparently speaking their various portions of the presentation. Again, is this what passes for excitement this week? Pacing? Furthermore, as they fondle their bottle, it occurs to me that the way they have the "D" and the "G," the word "EDGE" is supposed to read down vertically, using the white Es in "PEPSI" at the top and bottom. But those letters are in such different presentation styles -- the horizontal words are white, not raised, printed on a label, and smaller -- that they don't at all visually connect to the D or the G, in my opinion. I would never see the word "EDGE" in that bottle, and I'm thinking not being able to make out the product name is sort of a bad thing. Anyway, Kelly interviews about how they were all pacing and talking, and it's just not that funny.
Apex makes its way to the room where it is to present its bottle, and when Kelly opens the door, it turns out to be the door to a large auditorium where a whole gaggle of Pepsi marketing people are hanging out. Hilariously overblown music of fear accompanies the team's entrance. Ivana explains that they were expecting a conference room, and they didn't get one. Instead, they got "a stadium in Gladiator." It's so appropriate that Ivana would name a totally overrated movie, by the way. She then says that her "heart was beating out of [her] chest." Unfortunately, she is being figurative. Apex is welcomed and invited to start its presentation. The blinds are closed. Go! Kelly starts things off, leading with "you asked us to think outside the box," and seriously, can there be anyone in marketing who believes that phrase has any meaning whatsoever anymore? Does that mean anything other than "come up with an idea," at this point? Kelly tries to stretch this into something where there's some relationship between the hole in the bottle, which is apparently square, and thinking outside the box, so they put the box in the product or something, and...really, what? Ivana goes to show off the hole in the bottle, but after pushing a pencil through the hole, even she laughs nervously like, "Yeah, I know, it's not really that exciting." If you're going to do this, you can't laugh like you feel dorky, or people will know your idea isn't really cool. Again, Ivana returns to the stupid idea of putting promotional materials inside the hole, which is so tiny that this whole idea is completely absurd. Kevin stands up and hollers about how they can make a whole campaign around the box, and the box is so awesome, and put anything you want in the box! At least he's not sweating. You know what their big slogan is? "Check the box." Do you know how boring the expression "check the box" is? People associate that with, like, doing their taxes. That's like making your hip-ass slogan "Your Name Here." The Pepsi marketing geniuses dismiss the nitwits of Apex and invite in the nitwits of Mosaic.
When Andy opens the door to the large presentation room, he gives an entirely too dorky grin, in which he looks exactly like someone I went to high school with, but I can't think of who it is. Andy opens with a grand speech about how the entire soft-drink world is split between diet and regular, and there are 60 million "dual users" who drink both diet and regular pop. (Yeah, I'm from the Midwest. Shut up, with your "soda.") Andy claims that these "dual users" are people "who have been forgotten about." Uh...I don't feel all that forgotten, and I drink both, at least sometimes. Besides, if you're going after an existing market that's already drinking diet and regular, what do you gain by moving them to half-and-half? Just wondering. Anyway, Andy unveils their bottle, which is accompanied by a cymbal crash and then a honking bassoon, and you know those are not positive soundtrack cues. Hmm, how to describe the Mosaic Pepsi bottle...okay. Imagine you take a regular 20-ounce plastic Pepsi bottle, and you give the bottom and the top some condition that makes them become distended like a diseased belly. So they're just kind of round and ugly -- but the middle part is still nice and straight. You've got to make the ends big in your head to get the effect -- they're like half-grapefruits, about. And if you can make the ends that swollen, I don't see how it's possible to argue you couldn't have just made a round damn bottle. Andy calls the product "the best of both worlds," as planned, but it just doesn't have the same gravity when accompanied by a bassoon. Furthermore, this "worlds" theme has been extended to the labeling of the bottle, and the fact that both the bottom grapefruit half and the top one are covered in labels that make them look like half-globes. As you can imagine, a bottle built this way -- with a half-sphere as a bottom -- won't even stand up, so it's got...no, really...a little stand on the bottom that it can rest on. Are you joking? The round globe idea was too inconvenient, but you can tack a plastic stand to the bottom of a pop bottle? Now that is embarrassing.
Oh, and the topper is that the cap is a "navigational cap," which has a real compass in it. Because you know how the kids are into all that orienteering.
Sandy goes up to explain about the game they're going to offer, and she tells about how people can win "trips to the Edge," but she stumbles over about every fourth word. She's just nervous, I think, but it's pretty uncomfortable. Andy complains in an interview that Sandy was unable to get the wording quite right on the game, and it hurt the presentation. Jen then explains an in-store promotion that will involve a Pepsi globe display filled with Pepsi Edge. Mercifully, this very bad presentation comes to an end, and Mosaic is allowed to leave. I think the marketing people just rolled their collective eyes so hard they affected nearby tides.
Now, Captain Pepsi asks his people for feedback on the presentations they just saw. The first guy jumps in, kind of like that Friends episode where Ross volunteers to be the first one to say something rude about Monica's boyfriend. He calls the Mosaic bottle "two blobs of badly-colored tennis balls." Yeah, I don't think that's a compliment. "It's ugly," he says, to the nervous chuckles of his colleagues. The guy says, "I don't remember the last time geography was cool." I think that's actually a pretty fool-ass comment, because there isn't any doubt that you could do good globe-centered marketing. This didn't happen to be it, but that's not a great piece of criticism. Another guy fills in the obvious hole by saying, without great enthusiasm, that he likes the Apex bottle and thinks it has more to "work with." Meaning, "You put some people who know what they're doing on that hole thing, and you might come up with a product that sucks a lot les than the other one, which is hopeless!" Indeed, the consensus is that Apex was far less incompetent than Mosaic.
Captain Pepsi brings the teams back into the room, and Trump is summoned by phone to hear the results. He tells Trump about Apex's nice, contemporary bottle. Mosaic? They were, uh, consistent. Consistently bad, unfortunately. On the basis of the bottle design itself, Apex takes the prize. And, revoltingly, Kelly spits out, "Check the box!" when their win is announced. Ewwwww. That is so gross. Trump, allegedly sitting in his office talking to them live (yeah, RIGHT), tells them that he was impressed with the speed with which they put their presentation together and whatnot. He goes on to tell them that therefore, their reward will be all about speed. They're going up to the Poconos to race Lamborghinis. I know, you are jealous. Trump tells Kelly that he's going to be exempt week, and thus in the final four, and yaaaawwwwwn. Losers? Trump will see you in the Boardroom.
Trump helipad. Ivana, Kevin, and Kelly pile into the Trumpicopter, which lifts up over Manhattan. Shortly, they land at the racetrack, to the strains of loud music. Because everyone knows that what this show needs is more stuff to buy, we are treated to lingering, admiring shots of the (in my opinion) really ugly little Lamborghinis they'll be driving. Ivana, explaining a lot about herself without meaning to, tells us that she's never driven one of these -- she wrecked the Porsche her father gave her when she was 16. I personally believe that anyone who gives a 16-year-old a Porsche should be locked up, because really, how better to encourage the kind of show-off, too-fast, BS driving in which everyone else on the roads would rather your spoiled brat did not engage? The All-New Co-Ed Apexiennes zip up into yellow racing suits. And again, they are ugly. Just saying. Kevin explains to us that when he was a kid, he had a picture of a Lamborghini in his room. So this is his "dream car." Mine, incidentally, was a jeep, because I was moderately tomboyish and probably inadequately ambitious. ["Mine was an Alfa Romeo, because I was pretentious." -- Sars] Unnecessary guitar music whangs in the background as they all take off to tear around the track. There is fast driving. No one dies. Ivana compares it to sex, and some disgusted editor throws in a quasi-orgasm from her while she's driving, because it's a boring week and she's a buffoon, and you have to take your dirty jokes where you find them. Isn't that really all you needed to know? Yeah, I thought so.
The morning (it appears), we are in S5, where Andy is lying in bed and Ivana is sitting adjacent and talking to him. She's cautioning him that while Jen is of no use in a task (which she says as if they all know it's true at this point), she's very good in the Boardroom. She also thinks that Sandy has proven herself in a couple of different tasks, and she thinks Andy has a better shot against Jen than against Sandy. And if this were a competition based on actual merit, I would agree, but it's not. Trump likes a certain kind of woman, and Jen is much closer to it than Sandy. Ivana also says that Jen has a way of sucking up to PMs and telling them about all the things she did, so that they won't take her to the final table. Andy interviews that he saw this as Ivana acting in her own interests to get rid of Jen, whom he believes Ivana sees as competition. Glad he's keeping up, there. Andy emphasizes that his goal is to help himself, not Ivana. Of course, like all of her PMs, he will ultimately decide that his goal is to help Jen, but I am getting ahead of myself.
Now, during a whispered conversation between Jen and Andy, you see just how different Jen, here just out of the shower with a towel on her head, looks before the extensive work she does on herself every day. Andy tells her that Ivana wants her out. Andy assures Jen that he thinks she was "much more creative" than Sandy, not that we saw her do one single creative thing except encourage the "bulbous" design as one they could actually sell. Andy is basically being suckered at this point in exactly the way Ivana said he would be, so in the end, it's very hard to feel sorry for him. Andy tells Jen she "outshined" Sandy at the presentation, and I'll agree with that. Of course, she wasn't given anything especially challenging to present, since she essentially repeated patter Andy had already rattled off about the two worlds of soft drinks and how Edge is in the middle, blah blah blah. So, Andy promises Jen, he'll be supporting her and attacking Sandy. But he tells her that Sandy shouldn't see them talking, lest she think they're "plotting." Which they are, but all right. Andy insists in an interview that he talked to Jen about the plan, and it's just about saying the truth, "nothing devious about it." Huh. Really? Then I wonder why he was whispering and telling Jen to make sure Sandy didn't find out they talked. That sounds kind of devious to me. Andy insists that he truly believes Jen did better than Sandy, and I would really feel sorry for him for being so completely wrong on that point, except that Ivana warned him that Jen was good at fooling PMs into sticking up for her, and he doesn't even see himself doing it, so...whatever. I hate to say "he should have listened to Ivana," but in this limited case, he should have. She's been on teams with Jen a hell of a lot more than he has, particularly when losing. His decision to ignore everything she said and treat Jen with no skepticism whatsoever? Not smart.
Jen and Sandy talk later, and Sandy asks Jen how she thinks Andy did in leading. Jen -- you're going to be shocked -- hedges and ass-covers, refusing again to say much of anything about anything except when she can suck up to PMs, which is what she always does, just as Ivana said. If you're not the PM, Jen has no interest in anything you have to say. Sandy says she wasn't crazy about the way Andy passed out money and so forth, but Jen just eats her pasta and doesn't say anything. Sandy repeats in an interview that she thinks Andy might not be mature enough in the end, and that she thinks he has some things to account for in the task.
The sun sets. Now, we join this week's Boardroom, about to be in progress. Trump comes in. "Who came up with the overall concept for this?" Trump asks, indicating the nasty-looking bottle. Andy says that in a narrow sense, the "best of both worlds" thing was his. Trump asks Andy, "Do you really like that?" And he says it like he's gesturing toward a pile of dog poo, which is what makes it so funny. Andy says that he does really like the concept. "I do. I like that bottle a lot," he says, not having learned anything from...well, never mind. You'd have to say "birth," really. George challenges the team on whether they can really imagine those bottles selling in large numbers when they don't even fit in, for instance, your car's cup holder. ["And this is why I love George, because that was my first thought too -- that I would have to try to wedge the bottle between the seat and the emergency brake." -- Sars] Andy starts to talk about "if the base were removed," which is...huh? If you take off the base, it won't even stand up, and it still won't fit in a normal cup holder. Give up, Andy! Trump mocks the bottle by pretending to use it like a barbell, and that's gotta hurt. Trump making your product look like fitness equipment is not a good thing. It makes Carolyn laugh, at least. Asked if he disagrees with the Pepsi decision, Andy maintains that indeed, their bottle is better. Oh, that crazy kid.
George now tears into the whole complicated geography idea. "It should be simple," he says emphatically. Asked who came up with the shape of the bottle, Sandy says that Jen was in charge of the bottle, while she was in charge of the label and coming up with the game. Asked who was least creative on the team, Andy says that it would be Sandy. Sandy looks shocked, and protests that she came up with the game, to which Andy says, "That's incorrect," which it clearly isn't, because we saw the footage of her explaining about collecting the bottle caps and how you would get the whole continent and get a trip there. Sandy clearly came up with that game, or at least with the way to execute it; Andy's efforts to say otherwise are flat-out false, and that's the first time you know for sure he's allied with Jen, just trying to take out Sandy by any means necessary. Sandy is having none of this, insisting that she showed "a lot of creative talent" and saying, without quite saying, that all of Andy's doublespeak is bullshit. Trump asks Andy whether he's claiming Sandy is taking credit for something somebody else did, and Andy says yes. So now, I'm ready for Andy to be fired. Because, really, what a shitty thing to say about somebody when it isn't true. That kid needs to go back and take Ethics a few more times until he passes, because that does not fly, and the first time he gets caught lying about somebody like he is right now, he's going to get thumped. Jen proceeds to pile on the distortions by claiming credit for "the idea of trips to the Edge," and whether that's true or not, it was eminently obvious from the footage we actually saw that the idea was fleshed out by Sandy, and it's really not that big of a damn deal to say "trips to the Edge" if you have no clue how to make that into something concrete.
Trump really seems to be just trying to humiliate Sandy, it seems to me, when he stops Andy and says, "Who's smarter between the two?" That is such a fucked-up question. He never used to ask that kind of shit except on very, very rare occasions, and now every week he pulls one of these questions that are just intended to foment ugliness, and that serve no other purpose. Anyway, Andy -- knowing the answer that Trump, with his hard-on for college degrees, is looking for -- says that Jen is smarter. Asked who was harder to manage -- do we really need to go on? -- Andy basically just piles on Sandy, refusing to say anything even remotely even-handed that would imply Jen was anything less than perfect in this process in which, given that the team completely failed, she was apparently not that brilliant.
Now, Sandy is asked what she thinks of Andy as a leader. She says he was "immature," and proceeds to call out the bit where he wouldn't allow hard-working people to eat, calling the experience "embarrassing." Not only that, but as Andy tries to take the floor back, Sandy just keeps on talking, not letting him back her down, considering that he's obviously determined to pound her, so it's not like she has anything to lose. She goes on, all the way up to and including "we were treating them like slaves." Hee. Carolyn then asks Andy, quite calmly, how he motivated the design team if he wasn't even letting them eat. Andy first talks about how he thanked them lots and lots. And watching over them to make sure they were working. "And?" Carolyn says, with great distaste. "Cash incentives," Andy says. "Cash," Carolyn repeats, as if it were the word "Hookers."
Asked how Andy did as a leader, Jen takes her usual route of laying the foundation for the argument that he is of course not as good as she would be, but not as bad as the person Jen has decided to blame for the week, by saying that Andy "did a fair job." Really? "Fair"? Gee, don't be too effusive. Jen waffles and dances, saying that Andy "has strengths and weaknesses." Wow, that's some very skilled weaseling, not that I expect anything less. She says that, on the one hand, he was frantic, but on the other hand, that can be viewed as enthusiasm. Well, sure. And dandruff can be viewed as snow, but that doesn't make it melt. When Jen is all done with the endless weaseling, Carolyn smiles and says, "That's a safe answer." Because it is. Asked by Trump again whether she thought Andy was a good leader or just okay, Jen says that he "did a solid job," thus avoiding the question again. Asked about Sandy, Jen is more open, because Sandy is the blame-ee of the week in Jenworld, so she says that Sandy didn't make much of a contribution. That would be in spite of all the times we saw Sandy up at the board, contributing ideas they ended up using, while Jen, we saw...doing what, exactly?
Trump reads the team out for not getting along once they lose, which is kind of ridiculous considering that he basically drags people in and forces them to insult each other personally with comments like "Who's smarter?" Sandy says that all she wants is credit where credit is due. Trump affirms that the team is giving her absolutely no credit for anything. She's like, "Yeah, I noticed." Andy jumps in, saying that he has a reputation for always sharing the glory. "Who gave you that reputation, Andy?" Sandy asks incredulously. And...exactly. You can't really talk about your own good reputation for anything without looking a little silly. Trump says that all this just shows that "losing's a bitch." Guess what? Jen repeats it right after him, almost like she's an accomplished sycophant when it comes to Trump. Go figure that.
Trump forces the issue by asking whether Sandy did anything, surprised to hear Andy basically claiming that Jen did everything. Andy gives Sandy credit for the label only, in spite of the fact that -- as we saw -- she developed the specifics of the game, which was just about the only thing I liked about their entire campaign.
When did I start wanting to defend Sandy? Cripes.
Trump tells Andy everybody's coming back to the final table, so everybody should shut up and wait outside. As they all pace, Trump asks George what he thought, and George says he "liked the way Sandy defended herself." George says Andy has to be considered, since he "wasn't strong enough to have a winning concept." Carolyn says she's very curious about the fact that every PM they get in here winds up defending Jen, whether or not it's in their own interests to do so. "Maybe she's smart," Trump says. "Maybe she's smart," Carolyn agrees, "but let's try to figure that one out."
Out in the lobby, Sandy rips into Andy and Jen for telling the fib that she didn't do anything. Andy stammers that all he did was answer who was more creative, which is not true. Asked what Sandy did, he credited her only for the label, which was bullshit, and he's not going to get out from under that comment. Even worse, he specifically claimed she took credit for other people's work by claiming to have worked on the game, which? Also not true. Trump ultimately gets Robin to send them all back in, and really, it's none too soon, because the lobby fight is not my favorite thing.
Take note of the fact that on the way back into the Boardroom, Jen is arranging her hair. Not just brushing it out of her eyes or anything, but rearranging the hair that's lying on her shoulder, so that just the right amount is in front of her and just the right amount is behind her. Yeah. You know the girl you thought she might be when she put the lip gloss on? She totally is. When they're back in the Boardroom, Trump asks her why she's always "sliding by." "How am I sliding by?" she asks rudely, in a tone that would be reprimanded -- and has been -- in male contestants in the past, but is allowed for Jen, for the same reason many things are allowed for Jen, which is, I suspect, her looks. Sad, but really, way of the world, especially with a guy like Trump. "Each week you slide by," Trump responds. "You mean I'm staying out of your final boardroom?" she asks. HA! Yeah. That's awesome, because that is so not what "sliding by" means. It means "you are still here, even though by all accounts, you DO NOT DO DICK." The idea that it means not going to the final table is something Jen raises unconsciously, in my opinion, because that's her strategy. Her strategy is centered around politicking with the PMs to avoid the final table, so when Trump asks her how she slides by, she thinks, "Oh, like how I avoid the final table?" Anyway, Trump, interested in this bit that she has volunteered, just says, "Maybe." Unsurprisingly, she claims that the sliding by happens because she's so awesome that PMs just never want to take her. Andy, enjoying his stroll through the Enchanted Forest of Jen, nods and says, "I agree with that," like he needs to hand Jen any more of his allotment of testicles than she's already holding.
Trump asks Sandy who did the worst job, and Sandy says it was Jen, for "going under the radar." "You know I've worked hard with you, Sandy," Jen says in her disapproving tone. Sandy's like, "Yeah, bitch, that's why I'm not crazy about you getting here and saying I don't do anything." Only it takes her longer than that to say it. Jen cranks up her routine a few more notches, ultimately saying, "I didn't see any contribution out of you." As Jen and Andy scowl, Sandy points out that she was in charge of the label, which Pepsi liked, and the game, which Pepsi liked. What Pepsi didn't like was the bottle, and who was in charge of the bottle? Oh, that's right. That was Jen. Jen asks the totally irrelevant and weird question of why Sandy has never said anything before about Jen flying under the radar. Uh, because...why would she? Sandy responds by asking Jen why she thinks her team made the decision to get rid of her (Sandy, that is). Jen comes back by saying that Andy tattled to her that Ivana wanted her (Jen, that is) gone, which...why would that shed light on what Sandy asked? Putting Jen on the other team wouldn't be a good way of getting her fired. It would be far better to keep her on the team and gang up on her, so Ivana trying to get Jen fired doesn't seem to be the reason she was kicked off her own team. What Sandy takes away from this, entirely correctly, is that Jen and Andy coordinated their attack on her ahead of time, which Andy falsely states is "not true." Sandy asks why Andy, if he just intended to tell the truth in the Boardroom and had nothing to hide, didn't tell her what his plan was. "Because I wanted to tell Jen that she was stronger!" Andy says, looking perhaps as stupid as he has at any time in the entire show. "So she can come in here and back you up, Andy?" Sandy says, and she's...right again.
Trump jumps in. "You know what, Andy? For the United States debating champion, you're being beaten pretty badly by Sandy." Which is exactly the case. George asks Andy why he didn't tell Sandy he had concluded she was weaker, if he was just kind of letting everybody know where they stood. Sandy, having some fun now, is like, "Yeah, why?" Heh. I have no idea how it happened, but the second time I watched this, I totally started enjoying her. "Because I didn't feel it was relevant," Andy says preposterously. Not relevant? Oh, Andy. You can do better than that. You must be able to do better than that.
And now, everybody starts talking at the same time. "The truth is, she had all day to think about how she was going to defend you," Sandy says firmly. Jen and Andy dispute this, but Sandy makes not one single move to back down, and Trump makes not one single move to break up the fight. He lets them go on for quite some time, and then he finally thumps his hand on the table three times. They all turn and look. "Andy," he says, "You're just being pounded on. You're being outdebated. I just don't want somebody running one of my companies that's going to get beaten up so badly. You're fired." And he kind of snarls "fired," too, in a way he usually doesn't.
Well, that firing is bullshit, because there's no way Andy deserved to be fired because Jen and Sandy were screaming. They weren't even screaming at him, for the most part -- they were screaming at each other. Moreover, that's not Andy's room -- it's Trump's room, and if Trump wants civility, he's the boss who needs to impose it. Andy doesn't have any authority to make the women shut up.
On the other hand, it's hard to feel bad for Andy, because everything he said was crap, and had he told the truth and stuck with Sandy as he should have, finally taking Carolyn up on her repeated invitations to note that yes, indeed, Jen does not do anything of value during tasks, it might have gone very differently. At any rate, Jen and Sandy get up and leave. Andy remains at the table. We see Jen and Sandy go out and get on the elevator...still fighting about whether Andy and Jen had an alliance, and fighting until the doors close. Back in the Boardroom, Trump calls the women "two tough hombres," although really, in that conversation, Jen got run over by Sandy just about as badly as Andy did. Andy thanks Trump for the opportunity, and then he finally gets up and leaves. When he's on the elevator, Trump tells George and Carolyn that he had actually expected to get rid of Sandy, but she showed so much "spunk" that he decided not to. Yeah, you keep men because they're strong; you keep women because they're "spunky." Spee-yack. Downstairs, we see Andy leave and get into his taxi. Bye, Andy! You were cute at times, but you deserved that one. Jen and Sandy return to S5.