Thanks and props to this guy.
Previously on Skirting the Issue: Jen and Sandy returned from the Boardroom without Li'l Andy, and debate geeks across the country were like, "Daaaaamn, man, that was totally not P.I.M.P." Jen and Sandy were stuck working together, and agreed that they could never again give Trump the satisfaction of seeing them cat-fighting. Girl power! Charged with selling M&M candy bars, Ivana thought it would be a good idea to just kind of schlep around in ratty clothes and baseball hats, while Jen and Sandy thought that Lust might make a better deadly sin on which to capitalize than Sloth, marketing-wise. When she discovered that Jen and Sandy were making big bucks to strut their stuff, Ivana figured that if a little leg is good, an entire ass must better, so she tried for the two-thousand-percent markup over Sixteen Candles prices for underwear snoopage, which didn't seem like the most savory way to sell a handheld snack, but, okay. When Trump found out, he was like, "I don't hire strippers. I marry them," and he sent Ivana packing. Finally. So the final four are Jen, Kelly, Sandy, and Kevin. It's time to dump two of them and get down to the two who are most qualified, which is kind of like narrowing a list of giraffes to the really shrimpy ones.
Credits. And they're the only ones in Trump's ledger book these days, I would venture to say.
Up in the suite, it's the ACWDW, only there's not much W-ing (watching, that is; there's always plenty of weaseling), because Jen and Sandy are more worried about dinner. Sandy is offering to make chicken parm, which is a great dish for concealing poison. Unfortunately, this does not mean that Sandy knows how to make this particular dish, because she needs Jen to dig up a recipe online. Dude. You either have spaghetti sauce and slices of cheese or you don't. Dredge the chicken in something and you're about halfway done. You'd think somebody would have a sense of adventure, the way I did when I recently invented It's A Good Thing It Tastes Extra-Good Because It's More Beige Than I Prefer Soup To Be Soup. It's packed with fiber and will make you realize that looks really aren't important. Well, with regard to soup. Anyway, as Sandy pounds the chicken breasts on a naked wooden board, the better to foment any bacterial growth by lodging it in the wood grain forever, she explains that Ivana has two losses as PM, so she's "more vulnerable to be fired." She does not add, "And there was the thing with her ass," the way I would.
Fast forward a little while to Sandy's cutlets being almost done, at which point she looks up to see Kelly and Kevin return from the Boardroom. "You all right?" Jen says to Kevin, pretending to care. "I'm sure it was tough." Sandy interviews that the final four is the time to "start sprinting." Well, of course. They don't call the show The Casual Ambler, now, do they? As Jen does something or other on the computer -- maybe she's looking up a recipe for ice cream sundaes for dessert -- Kelly and Sandy have a conversation about ten feet away from her that they somehow seem to think she's not going to hear. Sandy is, among other things, bitching about Jen's reticence to be PM on the last task. "Jen constantly shirks responsibility," Kelly quite rightly observes in an interview, managing to come off like a complete prick, even while being substantively correct. As Sandy says to Kelly that if Jen had wanted to be PM, it would have happened, Jen pipes up with, "Sandy, that's not true." Jen goes on to protest that she did not either step back from being PM. But the point is, I think, that ultimately, Jen wound up not the PM...again. I, frankly, think the entire PM debate is a little beside the point, because it's not so much whether you're the PM in name as it is whether you freaking do anything. Last year's heavy hitters -- Bill, Troy, and Amy, especially -- would come up with something to add to their team's performance on a task, whether they were PM or not. Jen's problem isn't how many times she's PM as much as it is that when she isn't PM, she takes absolutely zero interest in winning the task, and especially in coming up with anything that might help the team win. She's a shirker because she doesn't seem to take losing personally, and if I were Trump, I would want somebody who took losing personally, and took it hard, you know?
Of course, Jen pulls out the old saw about how the guy who's critical of her when she's not in the room must be "a coward," as opposed to "a gossip," which is what Kelly was actually being in that particular moment. It's not as if Kelly is shit-talking her behind her back because he's afraid of her wrath. He's shit-talking her because that's what people do. Jen needs to hang out with Tyra Banks, who will teach her that everybody talks about everybody. And does Jen throw out "be a man"? Oh, yes. She does. Sometimes, I can see how guys decide we're all f'd-up weirdos. Even though we're not, I swear. Anyway, back in the suite, Jen insists to Kelly and Sandy that she wasn't waffling about being PM. And again? Not really the point.
The moon hangs, and the saxophone of Sex That Never Was wails on the soundtrack. For whatever reason, the unmistakable sex music accompanies the seductive footage of a guy buffing the lobby floor. And no, that is not a euphemism, though it would be a good one, wouldn't it? Admit it; it would. There are also people cleaning the escalators, but that would be a gross euphemism. It is such a fine line, seriously. Up in S5, it is now the day, and Kelly -- AGAIN -- answers the Rhonaphone. Kevin's chest appears behind Kelly, so I kind of don't hear the details of the call, but Rhona apparently tells them to meet Trump at 9:00 at the top of Kevin's exposed back. I mean, at the top of Trump World Tower. Heh heh, sorry.
The candidates stroll purposefully toward the tower, as if they have somewhere really important to be, which, if you think about it, they must not, or they wouldn't be here. Upstairs, they enter an office where Trump, in his powerful pink tie of triumph, awaits. He's sort of standing awkwardly and meaninglessly, which seems fitting. Trump raves about the great office they're standing in, and how they may eventually make it into such an office if they "do well in life." Note that he didn't say, "If you get this job." Because if you get this job, all you're getting is the couch at the Today show and the back of a limo with some dipwad from Big Brother. Trump tells them that they're the final four candidates, which he just realized through the complex process of counting, and he goes on to tell them how proud of themselves they should be for getting to the point where all concern for teamwork and cooperation is gone, and you're free to let your hatred of your fellows fly free. This year, Trump has chosen executives from "the world" to serve as the Four Horsemen of the Interviewocalypse. And they are: Alan Jope, chief operating officer at Unilever (I've always wondered what kind of a device they make there that only needs one lever); Dawn Hudson, the president of Pepsi-Cola North America and "one of the most dynamic female executives anywhere in the world," currently figuring out how to defend the lawsuits over the shattered Edge bottles and the shards of plastic from the busted holes ["and rolling her eyes at the inclusion of the adjective 'female,' as if boobs have any bearing on personal dynamism; sorry, but that kind of patronizing mention of gender bugs the shit out of me" -- Sars]; Ace "Franklin William Studevant Thurston III" Greenberg, a hotshot at Bear Stearns; and Bob Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, currently pissed as all hell that the pressure is on again, thanks to the fucking Red Sox. Impressively, the Horsemen run roughshod over a total of half a million employees. Some of whom are football players. And they gross over $80 billion a year, not counting what Pepsi pays for Michael Jackson's ongoing scalp reconstructions. They'll be conducting the interviews, and then they'll be reporting back to Trump with their impressions, which they will deliver while Trump drinks a glass of water. And then, in the Boardroom, two of the candidates will get the boot, leaving two behind. And they'll be the final two. Hey, you do the math; you'll get the same answer.
In an interview, Kevin calls this "game day," and says that as much as he enjoys being in the final four, it's all about the win, for him. He meets with Ace, who asks him about his education at Wharton and now law school, and asks if he wants to be a lawyer. "No," Kevin laughs, "I don't, actually." Hey, me neither! Help! Help! Meanwhile, Kraft is asking Kelly about the series of startups he's had, and whether that might mean he can't commit to anything. Kelly says that there are good explanations for some of them, and in fact, with some of them, he stayed too long. Well la-dee-dah. Jope asks Jen about "the biggest obstacle [she's] had to overcome in [her] life to get this far." She gives the incredibly shitty answer, "Convincing someone that I really can get the job done." Sucks! He tells her it's too general, and she talks about being a new associate at her law firm, which, again, is...it's not as bad as her first one, but it's totally generic. Hudson asks Sandy why she's doing this, and Sandy says she's "at the top of [her] industry," but she's "ready for another challenge." Hudson asks her whether she has corporate experience, and Sandy admits that she doesn't. In an interview, Sandy says that on a scale of one to ten, the stress level is 150. And the hyperbole quotient is even higher. Ace has an exchange with Sandy in which he (rather dimly, in my opinion) acts like he doubts that getting a paycheck is "safer" than running your own business. Ace is either being kind of obtuse on purpose, or he's clueless, because Sandy is right, without question. ["Yeah…why don't you come on down and start a website, and then talk to me about how 'safe' it is, ACE." -- Sars] Kelly is asked about his weaknesses, and gives the BS answer about how he can't stand quitters. Similarly, Kevin says that he needs to "pick [his] battles," and Jope thinks that's a strength. Kraft asks Sandy which of the other three candidates she would choose if not herself. Sandy: "Uhhhhh." Although, heh, it's possible that she had a really good answer and they just didn't show it, making it appear that she went, "Uhhhhh." Which, presumably, would haunt her ass for years.
Much fast-talking ensues, including Kelly being asked whether, as a leader, he'd rather be "feared or liked." Hey, I've been asked that! The montage speeds up until it crashes in a mad pile of rhetoric and confused faces, and then it's all over. Later, as the candidates "relax" in some kind of a seating area, Sandy says that the Boardroom will be very intense, because they're all vulnerable. "I want this so bad; I've worked so hard," she says. She prays that Trump won't send her home. Pray on, little one.
And now, we retire to the Boardroom, where Trump and the viceroys are meeting with the Horsemen. Dawn is asked what she thinks first, and she says that she "really liked Kelly." She gives some love to the military and West Point, and says that although Kelly was "stiff" and not all that "personable," he seems to know what he's doing. "Kelly would have to do something real wrong for me not to hire him," Jope says simply. He calls Kelly "extremely mature," and says that he has a "broader view of the world" than the rest of them. "To me," says Kraft, "he is the ultimate team guy." Ace piles on that Kelly has both led and been led, so you know that he can be bossy or subservient, depending on what you need. Handy! Asked what they think of Kevin, everyone seems to like him as a person, but they have a lot of concerns that he's just wandering around for something to do. Dawn thinks he's "course-correcting," which is...I mean, I hear what she's saying, but it's not like he's a shiftless hobo. And moreover, people do get better as they course-correct, and in some cases, it means that they've actually thought about what it is that they want, which is more than I can say for a lot of people who putter around in graduate school until they're almost 30 or so which, contrary to the horrified way these people all react, is really not all that uncommon. Jope finds Kevin "intense to the point of aggressiveness." They all throw some more dirt on Kevin's pointless decision to keep learning stuff, and Trump says with some puzzlement, "He's the most educated person I've ever seen." Why, because he has a business degree and a law degree? Dude. Not exactly unheard of. Although I suppose most people with that kind of background don't need Donald Trump's friendship. Or even a wedding invitation.
We weirdly drop out of the Boardroom and visit S5, where everyone is hugging. Even Jen. She loooooves hugging. And then she interviews that they all want the same thing, blah blah blah, so she doesn't care about her friendships. Which will be a big concern, I'm sure, considering how socially connected she is. "It's about me at this point; it's about winning at this point," she says. And I, for one, applaud her pluck. I mean, she can't be a selfless altruist forever.
Back up in the Boardroom, Dawn is asked about Jennifer, and calls her "bright and focused." But -- surprise, surprise -- Dawn's BS detectors are going off, because she saw Jen "saying all the right things," but having a hard time expressing anything particularly compelling in her own words. Jope adds that he thinks Jennifer might be all academic brain and no hard work. Asked about Sandy, Kraft says he really dug her entrepreneurial side. Alan thinks Sandy is very likable, but short on "pure business experience." Dawn isn't sure Sandy has thought enough about what a corporate job would be like. Except, probably, to think about how Trump's desk would look with three tiers and a little plastic executive on top of it. Trump thanks all of the Horsemen and sends them off. When they're gone, Robin sends in the candidates.
In the Boardroom, Trump leads off with some flattery, saying that the Horsemen were really impressed with all of them. He then goes directly to the "I can only have one boy" elimination round, asking Kelly why he should be kept over Kevin. Kelly cites his business experience and leadership training, as well as the fact that he's "more creative" than Kevin. Kevin defends himself by saying that Kelly is a big fat blowhard, which he gently phrases in terms of Kelly being less receptive as a listener than Kevin is. But we can all read between the lines, can't we? Basically, Kevin argues that he is actually capable of listening to other human beings, and Kelly isn't. But Trump, remarkably, looks at the most educated person he has ever met and accuses Kevin of not having "done anything." Kevin tries to defend himself as having made the choice already to leave school and come and do this, but you can kind of see Kevin circling the drain at this point. And indeed, after a couple more comments about how the Horsemen feared that Kevin didn't have "direction," Trump tosses Kevin over, but doesn't let him leave without assurances that he will be a great big success someday. I'm sure that really cushions the blow, asshole. As he gets into the cab, Kevin insists that he does consider himself one of the two strongest, but apparently, Trump didn't agree. So now, he'll have to go back to working hard. Bummer.
Trump now tells Jen and Sandy that basically, Kelly is already in, so it's one of them that's not going to make it. Jen jumps right in, claiming that if Trump is looking for a person to work for him, she has "the intellectual horsepower to do this job." Kelly makes a face like, "Bitch, what did you just say?" Jen brags a little more about her great experience, so when Sandy is asked for her opinion, she says, "Jennifer knows how to be a lawyer, and that's pretty much it, and --" Jen cuts Sandy off in the middle of her sentence and says, "Okay, Mr. Trump?" But Sandy keeps talking, saying that being an entrepreneur and having a business is something you learn from experience, not just from a book. "How would you know, Sandy?" Jen nearly spits. "You dropped out of school, how would you know?" "Because you've never run your own company," Sandy says simply. "Have you ever taken a risk?" Jen makes, I'm sorry, one of the shittiest arguments I've ever heard when she claims that "going to Princeton and going to Harvard and competing with the finest in the country" is a risk. Okay, is she serious? Going into the Ivy League is a risky decision now? And the reason is that the people you're in school with are so smart? Good grief, if you're so threatened by other smart people that you consider it risky just to be in the same environment they're in -- a risk on par with owning a business that could fail as a result of forces largely outside your control -- then that says a great deal about you right there. I'm sorry, Princeton and Harvard are great schools and they say a lot about your academic abilities, but that is not a risk. ["I could go on at some length here, but I'll confine myself to remarking that it's people like Jen who make people like myself pretend we went to Rutgers." -- Sars] And then, even worse, Jen claims that "moving across the country" is a risk, even when you do it in order to take a gazillion-dollar law firm job. Wow, I am a lot riskier than I thought. I've moved a couple of times already! And sometimes, I haven't even had a job yet! I'm lucky to be alive.
Sandy counters this stupid "my law firm job was practically the spiritual equivalent of walking a plank hanging off of Mount Everest while breaking a mirror and chugging undiluted gasoline" argument by saying that for Jen to take a law firm job right out of college making six figures wasn't really something she would classify as "risky." Trump, missing the point completely and utterly misrepresenting what Sandy just said, tells Sandy she can't "put [Jen] down because she went to a great college, then another great college, and made a lot of money because she went to these two schools and did very well. You can't do that." You'll note that she didn't do that. She said one thing -- when Jen tried to claim that taking the job at her firm in San Francisco was a big risk, Sandy pointed out that Jen was going out there to take a six-figure salary out of law school, which is many things, but not risky. And she's completely and utterly correct, and her point is literally unassailable, which is why Trump -- who has been determined to put Jen in the final two from the beginning and can't think of a single decent reason to do so -- is trying to make Sandy look resentful of Jen's education, which Sandy never has said one thing against. Sandy didn't say one word against Jen for her education, and Trump's remarks to the contrary are horseshit, just like about 90 percent of his Boardroom comments over the course of the season.
Kelly is asked who he think performed better, and rather than letting him answer the question, Jen -- showing off again how terrified she is of people actually discussing her performance -- jumps in and gets all eye-rolly, going, "He worked with me one time." Kelly looks over at her and, in the one moment I've really liked him in many, many episodes, says, "He said Kelly, not Jen." Kelly goes on to say that he did indeed work with Jen only once, but notes that as it happened, the task he had a chance to get rid of her, and he did, because he didn't think she performed well. Jen -- who is desperate, desperate, and even more desperate to change the subject away from her ineptitude, which is common knowledge -- starts ranting about Kelly saying rude things to her behind her back in the suite, which has nothing to do with anything. The good news is that it's almost funny to see how she's making such an obvious jerk out of herself. The bad news, of course, is that I'm pretty sure she's going to win this whole damn thing. Anyway, Trump asks Kelly whether he'd rather play a weaker competitor, and Kelly says he's not concerned, because he can outperform either of them. Jen cuts him off -- again -- as she's been doing to everyone all through this meeting, all, "That's ridiculous! Mr. Trump! Mr. Trump!", and Kelly finally looks over and says with exasperation, "Can I have an opinion?" Considering that Kelly was answering a question that Trump asked him, you would indeed think that Jen could keep her yap shut for five seconds.
But there is no shutting the Crusading Jennifer Yap. She starts to talk about how she knows all about Trump's company, and pulls out the one fact she has at her disposal, which is the number of employees Trump has, which she waves around and demonstrates that Sandy doesn't know. And granted, it would have been great if Sandy had known, but honestly, that's such a suck-up move at this point that it doesn't impress me all that much. That, again, is an example of how Jen uses tactical BS in the Boardroom to compensate for the fact that she doesn't do a damn thing, and everyone knows it. If Jen could win on performance, she wouldn't need stunts like that, and she wouldn't need to be such a jerk all the time. When she starts haranguing Sandy in this enormously patronizing way about how Sandy doesn't even know what she's getting into, Sandy points out that she owns two companies, because she took the risk at 21 of opening a business at which she's been very successful, and that she's proved herself a bunch of times in her career, and in the tasks in the competition. When Jen jumps in to talk about her own business experience, Sandy makes the misstep of saying Jen isn't in a business where "the bottom line matters to [her]," and that's certainly not true, because big law firms are basically just like cardboard box factories, in that you produce a certain number of boxes for a certain amount of money, and then you go home. For the first several years, most associates are not exactly flexing their intellectual muscles -- they're making boxes, and they're punching a clock, and that's the story of big firm life as it has been described to me by everyone I know who's ever done it. ["Jen's firm goes bankrupt, Jen isn't on the hook for it. Sandy's firm goes bankrupt, Sandy goes to work at the Gap. Sandy's point stands, as far as I'm concerned." -- Sars] Jen makes this point in a more glamorous way about how she's "profitable," which I'm sure is also true.
And then Jen brings out this lovely comment: "Mr. Trump, your deals involve financial and regulatory complexity. Sandy simply does not have the intellectual horsepower to manage --" This is a bit too much insanely patronizing bullshit for Sandy, who points out that she makes business decisions in her own business every day -- and I feel for her, but I also would say they're not quite the same kinds of decisions. Of course, the person who gets this job isn't doing any of that anyway, but is doing a year of public appearances and interviews in Us magazine, so it really doesn't make a damn bit of difference. But just in case it does, Jen comes back with an even more patronizing tone as she says, "Sandy, I don't want to -- I'm not going to insult you, but I will tell you, Mr. Trump, that I am at a much higher level than Sandy is. I can handle very complicated transactions." Sandy comments that that's very interesting, considering Jen hasn't even done anything on the less than "very complicated" tasks they've actually had in the last 13 weeks. Jen starts to defend herself, but clearly can't think of anything right away, so she starts saying, "Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump," while she tries to come up with something. They bicker for a bit, and Jen starts to bitch about how Sandy "discounts the value of education," to which Sandy says, "I chose a different path," and Jen snaps back in her most accusatory tone, "Could you have, Sandy? Could you have?" "Absolutely," Sandy says. "I don't believe that," Jen snorts. (Of course, Jen's not going to insult her.) "I had a 3.8, I was in the business school," Sandy says, while Jen continues to say, "I don't believe that." And then, as Sandy rattles off a perfectly adequate college record, Jen switches to, "Then why did you drop out? Why did you drop out? Do you think it's a good business decision to drop out of school?" Which is pretty dick, because Sandy's business is apparently quite successful, and as much as people who go to college like to believe that you can't be successful unless you do that, it's pretty much a crock, and if you ask me, the person here who is insecure about her background isn't Sandy, it's Jen. That's why Jen keeps having to say "dropped out of school" and "higher level" and "intellectual horsepower." Because she hasn't done anything, and Sandy has, and Jen doesn't know how to deal with being in a room with someone who hasn't made the same choices she has but has come to a place in her life where she's more independent than Jen, probably has more control over her own career than Jen, probably has a shitload more fun than Jen, and is a much, much more pleasant and well-liked human being than Jen. So Jen has to screech at her that she never finished college, because that's just the way some people are.
Oh, and Jen winds up by telling Sandy how she (meaning Sandy) clearly "walk[s] around feeling inferior." You know what? I have never gotten the impression that Sandy feels inferior to Jen. Ever. And in my experience, the surest sign of an inferiority complex is the need to tell other people that they clearly feel inferior to you. So yeah, there's a complex in this room, but it ain't Sandy's. It's Jen's, because people like Sandy -- happy, successful, self-assured, and not working ninety hours a week doing work they hate in the service of people who don't give a flying mighty damn about them -- are a serious problem for people like Jen, who really prefer to think their choices make them superior to others, because how freaking depressing is it if they don't? Believe me when I tell you, law schools and the legal profession are full of outstanding, interesting, bright, dedicated, deeply satisfied people. But they're also full of petty, mean, self-important, unfulfilled snobs, and it's those people who have to run around telling everyone how they're on "a higher level" than everyone else.
Sigh. But of course, Trump's hard-on for Jen continues unabated, and he jumps in to say that he "loved the attack and the defense of Jennifer." And it was right there, when he praised Jen for being nakedly insecure, insulting, patronizing, obnoxious, evasive, and just plain flat-out fucking mean, that I just lost interest in Trump. Not just this season, but for good. Where have we gone, for God's sake, from last season, in which the nastiest person they had in the top five was Amy, who was just kind of snooty and full of herself and was that girl you knew in high school who got away with murder by wrinkling her nose? Holy sweet snow cones, this is an unpleasant group of people, and Jen is at the very top of the heap. And I'll tell you something else -- people will put up with jerkweed behavior from an attorney, because they think it benefits them. They like having a jerk for an attorney. They think it means the attorney will fight hard for them. But they don't like having a jerk for a boss, and they don't like to do business with people who gaze down at them like they're smelly peasants. Have fun as a manager, Jen.
Anyway, Trump lies to Sandy that the Horsemen "just weren't impressed with [her]," which isn't true, considering that at least one of them specifically said he was very impressed with her. But Trump fires her anyway, because he's a big snob, and he has some kind of an insane fixation on Jen that no amount of crap behavior and lack of productivity on her part can shake loose. So Sandy gets up and leaves, voicing over that she outperformed Jen, and she has no regrets. I actually wound up kind of liking her -- at least as compared to Jen. Who, in case I haven't recently mentioned it, sucks. I'm working on getting over it.
Up in the Boardroom, Jen and Kelly are told that they're the final two, and tomorrow, they'll get their instructions for the final task. They get up and leave.
Later, in the suite, Kelly and Jen are the only two milling around. "Jen sucks," Kelly says, reading my mind. "She's difficult to work with, she's unpleasant to sit with...all I do is get away from her as quickly as possible." Yeah. Neither of them is a gem, really. I would rather be boiled in a pot with, say, Nick, than spend five minutes with these pipsqueaks. Jen, for her part, claims that Kelly has been "very manipulative," both with her and with "people that [she's] become friends with." The editors really missed the boat there by not inserting the sound of crickets chirping, if you ask me. We watch Jen take off her makeup as Kelly says that he doesn't respect Jen, and thinks she's afraid to lead, and then Jen says that she's going to kick Kelly's ass, blah dee blah. They both need to be given big, big wedgies.
We learn that Trump does not look good in sports uniforms as we return to his black-and-white motto, which is, "Winning Is Everything." And what is he doing? Well, he's running with the pretend Olympic torch as part of the campaign to get the Olympics to New York. Because you know what New York needs? More damn people. All the natives will tell you. "Not enough tourists," they say. At least this part is over quickly.
And then, Jen and Kelly go into the Boardroom to meet with Trump and the viceroys, and I am flooded with memories of how Carolyn and George grinned at Bill and Kwame when they had this same meeting last year, because everybody was genuinely excited to have them both do well. This time, they're both totally stone-faced, because who could have anything like warmth or affection for these two buffoons? Trump explains that each of them will run a big event. (Actually, technically, he says that each of them will run two events, but he doesn't mean it.) Kelly will be running a charity polo tournament, and Jen will be running a charity basketball game. Trump gives a plug to Genworth, which is the financial services company that's the client for both events. He then tells them that they're now going to get the chance to "pick some employees." And six people are sent into the room: Pamela, Stacy, Elizabeth, John, Raj, and Chris. As Trump acknowledges, not all of these people got along with each other, which isn't surprising, since they're all kind of pricks. But Trump thinks that sometimes, you have to get good performances from people you don't like, so that's perfect for this situation. Because who could like any of these people at this point? Kelly leads off by taking Elizabeth. Jen takes Chris. Kelly takes John, Jen takes Pamela, Kelly takes Raj, and that leaves Stacy to be sent to Jen's team. Aw, last one picked. Poor thing. That breaks my heart. Trump reminds Jen and Kelly to act like bosses to their teams, and also reminds them that George and Carolyn will be watching. With horror, undoubtedly. Employees will go by van to the events, while the bosses will be driven in awesome chauffeured cars, yakkety yak. Now, shoo!
Out on the street, Jen gets into her car, and her team cheers as if they don't hate her, which they totally do, so I have no idea what that's about. Jen assures us that she didn't really pay attention to the car, even though it was nice, because she was working so darn hard. We watch as she calls Chris on the Space Communicator -- while he's driving, so that's nice and safe -- and tells him how they're doing this basketball game, and Chris Webber will be the emcee. Meanwhile, Kelly hops out at a traffic light and goes back to the van, where he hands off some paperwork through the window. And once he's told them to read and brainstorm and talk on the phone, Kelly calls out, "Love you guys!" And then there's this pause, and then John dryly says, "We love you too, Kelly," and Raj -- whom I usually find rather sketchy, but who was perfect in this particular situation -- says, "He loves us." Hee hee.
Kelly points out that his team -- the one he loves -- has basically no reason to do a good job for him, since he doesn't really have anything to hang over their heads. And also because he's an arrogant dink, but he doesn't say that. Thus, he wanted to give them tasks that they would at least sort of enjoy, in hopes that they would expend some level of effort. In the van, Raj and John are already planning ATV races. "I have no interest in Kelly's victory or defeat," Raj interviews. "Frankly, I'm not working for him. I'm doing this because I like winning. I couldn't give a damn about Kelly." Well, that's some sportsmanship for you. In the van, Raj tells Elizabeth and John that it bugs him that Kelly's up there in the car while he's back in the damn van. Maybe he would feel better if he renamed the van "Dreadnought."
Polo fields. The team hops out, and Kelly interviews that the Greenwich Polo Club is very, very lovely. They get themselves set up inside, and Kelly tells us that while he's never worked with Elizabeth, he's been told that she's very good as long as she has something fairly specific to work on. As Elizabeth starts actually working (horrors!), John interviews that he thinks Elizabeth is all power-hungry now because she was picked first, so he thinks she'll be all bossy. John insists that he and Raj, unlike Elizabeth, have nothing to prove. Uh, even though they all got equally fired, and Raj lost on a task that's supposed to be his specialty. And even though John was gone so early and made so little of an impression that documentary evidence is needed to prove he was ever actually on the show. Wait, was he? Chris Brandt, the managing director of the polo club, comes by to check in and meet the team. The big thing that's going on right now is that the Genworth logo is supposed to be painted on the polo field prior to the event. Add your own little "That's a great logo...for my horse to poop on!" joke.
Elsewhere, at Riverbank State Park, Jen's team is arriving to get started on the task, and Jen is telling us that these two days are "about execution." So she's lucky she has some other people with her so that some actual work can get done. It would have been neat if these people had been cursed with teams of "helpers" made up of people just like themselves. Jen reads over the schedule and discusses with the team the fact that Chris Webber is the emcee. "So you're a big basketball guy, Chris?" Jen says. Chris explains that "everyone knows" Webber from college and the NBA, and that he was supposed to come to the Knicks. And didn't. "What does he look like?" Pamela asks. Chris pauses. "Tall black guy." And then they crack up. And yes, it's funny, and no, not because all black people look alike. It's funny because it's a very poor description of an NBA player, and that's an empirical fact, just like "short white guy" would be a bad description of a jockey. And that's all I'm saying about that. Chris interviews that Webber will "throw some humor in there" and is "a good public speaker." Jen announces to the group that she's putting Pamela and Chris on "game operations." Like...operating the game? Goodness. What will Jen be doing? Somewhat unnecessarily, she voices over that for her, leadership is about "delegating and overseeing." It sure as hell isn't about doing any work, apparently.
A bit later, we hear Pamela making a call on the Space Communicator, introducing herself and Chris as the operators of the game. As it turns out, this call is to somebody who's with the NBA. Pamela says in an interview that in Jen's shoes, she wouldn't have handed off contact with the NBA, because those are the people who are going to evaluate you -- and I'm sure that while the charity is the sponsor and thus the client, the NBA is the power player in the situation. It's kind of like the Jessica Simpson concert -- the casino was the venue and would be the client, but the one you have to please is the NBA, because it's their charity, and they're giving the players and such. I think the NBA is the Jessica Simpson, really, except that the NBA can count higher than Jessica Simpson using a single three-point shot. The NBA guy asks who the lead person is on the event, and Chris says, "Jennifer, um..." and looks at Pamela. "Massey," Pamela says, and Chris repeats it. Heh. "And where is she at this point?" asks the NBA guy. "She is...in an office," Pamela says. Double heh. Is she...an animal? Is she...bigger than a breadbox?
Back in polo country, at a team meeting, Kelly is asking John to brainstorm ideas for things they could "sell to a sponsor." John then bitches for a while about how Kelly is on the laptop all day long, just working, working, working -- so annoying, you know? With the working? At any rate, it appears that Raj and John just became plum fed up with this, and decided they would have a good time, because they certainly weren't going to give two entire days to something just because they committed to it. John tells Elizabeth and Raj that he's just going to drink during the match. "Waaait a minute," Elizabeth says. "If I need help during the event, you guys are helping." "My event will consist of watching the game," John says. It's not easy to make yourself look like a bigger loser when you return after being fired, but I think John and Raj just may pull it off. Inside, Kelly picks his teeth as he voices over that indeed, he wound up "wondering where [his] team went." The team, meanwhile, is outside, having a footrace to a big sign. Kelly, inside, notes that the team clearly "didn't have much at stake." "If anyone asks, we were stomping divots," John says as the group heads inside. Jerks. Kelly says again that he has a team that has no inclination to help him, even when "[his] butt's on the line." It's almost enough to make a guy wish he'd been nicer, although that would be a sign of weakness, so Kelly probably just wishes he had a bayonet or something.
The morning, Team Jen gets up and out of the suite as she explains that it's the day to "make sure all these moving parts start coming together." Fortunately, she's got worker bees for that. You'll be shocked to hear that she's "given [her] team a long list of to-dos." It appears that Chris has "to do" the job of loading a huge amount of crap off of a truck and take it by elevator to wherever it's supposed to end up. And he's having no fun at all "humping" stuff from one place to another. And when he's done with that? Gift bags. And we know how everybody loves working on gift bags. In my favorite Chris sequence...well, maybe ever...Chris is trying to get some stuff on the elevator, but he's blocking the door, so the elevator keeps dinging because the doors can't close. Elevator: "[Ding]." Chris: "Fuck you." Elevator: "[Ding]." Chris: "Fuck you again." Man, I have had that day, let me tell you. Upstairs, Chris runs into George, who feels like this might not be a great allocation of work to one of the members of Jen's management team. George asks whether Chris feels "utilized or underutilized." Chris, sweaty, says that actually, he feels "overutilized." Hee. George then asks whether Jen has spoken to the NBA, and Chris reports that he and Pamela did, but Jen hasn't. George looks a bit surprised and more than a bit displeased by that report.
And now, Jen meets with a couple of women from Genworth who have come to have a look around. Jen shows them the "VIP seats," which will eventually be set up and blocked off for the different sponsors. Genworth Lady says she has other questions, and wonders if they can sit down. Jen says that can be arranged, so they go for a little chat. Jen tells us that having the court and the seats only partly set up was a cause of some discomfort for her. Genworth Lady asks Jen how she's directing people to their seats, as far as how the people from Genworth, for instance, will find the Genworth seats. Jen pretty much says they'll have ushers. Which I would consider inadequate in the extreme, because you can't have the corporate muckety-mucks standing around waiting for an usher to get to them, I don't think. Jen notes that Genworth Lady doesn't look excited, and says, "Is there a way that we should be handling this different from what we're doing?" See, that's not their job, Jen. That's your job. When you have someone who's job it is to plan the event, you let them plan the event. She should have asked them what concerns they had, or even whether they thought that would be adequate, rather than putting it in terms of, "Is there another way you want me to do it?" Because they're just the problem identifiers, really -- the problem-solving is Jen's responsibility. Genworth Lady basically says she's not in charge of how the event runs, so she's not really able to say how Jen should run it. In an interview, Genworth Lady says that they've found Jen very frustrating to work with, as she doesn't seem to do anything on her own initiative (sound familiar?), and just wants to wait for them to tell her what to do. Poor Genworth Lady feels inadequately sucked up to. That's not good news, Jen. Sucking up is yooge!
At the polo club? Rain. Rain, rain. Right when they were supposed to be painting the logo on the field, too. As Raj points out, they're contractually obligated to get the logo painted, but the rain is creating problems. Raj asks the field painters when they think they'll be able to get it done, and the guy's like, "Uh, not today." Inside the clubhouse, Kelly finally notices that it's pouring down rain outside. It's good that he's paying attention. He interviews that the challenge will be to make everything look "like it's running flawlessly." When, of course, it's not, because of the rain. And because of the imbeciles he has on his team. And just when things are looking gray (literally), a fax arrives with news that Tony Bennett is coming to the event. Everybody else is kind of like, "Huh, Tony Bennett, cool!", but Elizabeth immediately figures out that this means more work -- a sound system, specifically, because you don't bring Tony Bennett just so he can stand around slapping horses on the ass. "It's added on about 50 things to do when we already had 50 things too many to do," Kelly observes. And then, as the rain drags on, it begins to present problems of its own. The club guy tells them that not only do they need it to stop raining for the event tomorrow, but they also need it to stop pretty soon, because if the field is too wet overnight, they can't have it tomorrow. Kelly explains that there's no alternative plan, so he has to pray that the rain, rain, goes away. And comes again another day, when he's not trying to impress Donald Trump and a collection of uptight polo doofuses.
Back at the offices at the State Park, Jen is on the Space Communicator as Stacy looks on all scrunchy-faced, because it turns out that Chris Webber is flaking on the event the night before it's to take place. "I'm not letting Chris Webber go without a fight," Jen interviews, now that she's learned who Chris Webber is. Jen -- again, all talk, no problem-solving -- just lectures Webber's assistant on the phone about how they shouldn't have kept the team on the line. The thing is that if Jen is talking to the assistant, she has no control over whether Webber goes or not. Convincing her that Webber's being a punk won't help -- she probably agrees. In fact, she probably hates no part of her job more than canceling when Webber flakes. But that's the route Jen chooses, for good or for ill. "It basically blows the entire event," Jen complains. Because the assistant really and truly cares. On this dramatic point, the episode comes to a screeching halt. And seriously, how awesome is it that Chris Webber wants a time-out? I know I pointed this out in the recaplet, but for those of us who watch college basketball (and, like me, hated Michigan during Webber's era because we were rooting for Duke), this cannot help but remind us of Webber's famous time-out call in the closing seconds of the national championship game against North Carolina, which was unfortunate in the sense that the team had no time-outs left. Oh, and he did it about eight seconds after getting away with a traveling violation in the backcourt anyway. So on his second try, he managed to give away the ball on a boneheaded mental error. None of this is highly relevant to the episode, but I basically bring it up as often as I can, because it was so awesome.
week: The fucking thing is three fucking hours long. Now just what genius thought that was a good idea? ["Stacy." -- Sars]