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This week's task sends the teams to American Eagle, to invent Dawson Leery's hot ensemble. No, seriously, they have to make clothes that accommodate gadgetry. How revolting. Magna flourishes under Tana's leadership, despite the fact that their stoned silkscreeners manage to brand their clothes with a backwards logo. Net Worth, on the other hand, has the anti-benefit of Alex's non-leadership, and also is saddled with Chris's tendency to lose things (like, you know, credit cards) and Angie's tendency to choke during presentations (like, very badly). Trump hardly knows what to do with the volatile Chris, but decides that when in doubt, you should always keep the weird and crazy guy. Angie, somewhat oddly, gets her walking papers for giving a stiff presentation when Alex basically let the entire project go to hell and Chris failed in literally the one thing he was supposed to do. Sometimes, the Trump, he does make you scratch your head. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on That's Italian! (Roughly, Rounding To The Nearest Ethnicity): The teams were challenged to invent a new kind of pizza, and Trump fooled them both into making pizza with meatballs on it. While PM Stephanie was schlepping a bunch of pizzas to Brooklyn, Alex and Chris got into a tangle and, depending on your take, either almost started punching each other or almost started throwing flour girlishly. Really, either would have been funny in its own way. Alex had trouble selling the story that Chris, addled from tobacco withdrawal, was legitimately menacing, since it seemed like maybe he was just...you know, kind of disorderly. And Stephanie had trouble selling the story that she did a very effective job of managing her team, given that she bailed on supervisory duties in favor of spending a couple of hours riding the subway and letting people smell, but not buy, her delicious meatball pizzas. When she arrived in Brooklyn with pizza that was undoubtedly cold and congealed, she cemented forever the love of several construction workers for Domino's. Just a hint: When you're in Brooklyn, and you're having Domino's delivered from Manhattan, something has gone terribly wrong. I'm just saying. Ultimately, despite their differences, Chris and Alex ganged up on Stephanie and successfully got her fired. So now, there are seven left. Who will go ? And will there finally be a real fistfight?
Glowing green tower porn. Tourists stroll the streets of Manhattan in the rain with the umbrellas for which they paid $40. Fog envelops Trump Tower, which is so heavily metaphorical it makes my teeth hurt. We are entirely without ACWDW footage this week, as we move directly to the opening door of the L-Pal and Chris and Alex walking in. "Who's home, who's home?" Tana wonders as she comes around the corner, steeling herself for the possibility that she won't get her way. But I think she did get her way, and as is her habit, she gives big hugs. Angie looks very relieved as well. Yeah, not sure the suite was so much teeming with Stephanie fans. The boys sit down to tell the tale of the Boardroom, and Alex explains how Trump asked him how it felt to lose. Of course, Alex has already lost three tasks, so it's not as if it's entirely foreign to him, but I suppose Trump uses whatever material he feels is available that doesn't require him to dub any lines. Chris then regales the group with the hilarious tale of Trump telling him that he was "a mess" (it was actually "a disaster"), and he does it in such a way that it appears he doesn't know Trump didn't mean "disaster" in the awesome, "You're a disaster; here's a million dollars and a puppy" kind of way. Chris interviews that Trump told him to chill out and "change the way [he] was acting." He adds that if he's being perceived that way, then he has to change that about himself. Why? "To be a better person." Pfft. Come on, Chris! Do you want to be a better person, or do you want to get into a casino bar without paying the cover charge? He tells us that he has to maintain better control over himself. I personally see no reason to believe he will not be entirely successful in that endeavor; how about you?
The morning -- no Rhonaphone, no preliminaries, nothing -- we see the sunrise, and then New York is moving all speedy and time-lapse-like, and the candidates are streaming out of Trump Tower. They head over to these offices where there appears to be a big sign that says "Marcraft MAG Apparel Group," but I can't find anything anywhere on the entire internet to support the hypothesis that such a place exists, so maybe it's a pretend sign. Anyway, inside, Trump is talking to some bald guys in suits who are lecturing him about fabrics. The candidates come in, and Trump is saying "The product is great" and "You'd better make it successful," and so I guess this is...Trump's clothing place or something? Oh my God, you guys. I think we are inside Trump's brain. Okay, that was totally scary. Anyway, Trump welcomes the candidates by introducing this week's NotGeorge, a woman named Michelle Scarborough. She's one of Trump's in-house attorneys, and Trump says, "Don't let her looks fool you -- she's very, very tough." I'm sure Carolyn appreciates Trump reminding you that as a general rule, the really ass-kicking women have faces like dachshunds. That's why he doesn't let Melania balance the checkbook.
Trump tells the candidates that they are indeed "in the studios of the new Trump Collection." He says it's a line of "very luxury clothing." You would think that even if Trump had, like, a twenty-word vocabulary, he could deploy that phrase without biffing it, wouldn't you? He announces that in this week's task, the teams will be developing a line of clothing for American Eagle. Such an old-school TWoP shout-out, people. At AE, they'll work with some designers to create "wearable technology clothing." And what is wearable technology clothing? Well, that's where you have clothes that are specially created to hold various electronic doodads. Bren makes a face like he just ate a piece of spoiled meat, so I'm not sure what his problem is. Maybe he's not a doodad kind of guy. ["Maybe, like me, he thinks that maybe the kids today could just make do with existing pockets. I mean, come on." -- Sars] Trump then hands each team a Visa card with $5,000 on it, and the purpose of the Visa card is to go out and buy $5,000 worth of gizmos to work with. Are you kidding me? What the hell? They're going to spend $10,000 of Trump's money on iPods and fancy-ass cell phones just as inspiration for design purposes? I totally wish they had given them little mock-ups made of cardboard and washers. But at any rate, Trump has apparently decided he truly has money to burn, so the credit cards are handed over. Once they've designed their clothes, they'll do a presentation for American Eagle that shows off their nifty clothes. Whichever team gives the better presentation of wearable technology clothing will win; the other team will go to the Boardroom. And Bren is exempt, so don't think you're getting rid of his weaselly ass soon.
And then -- seriously, people, I almost can't believe this happened, but it did, I swear. In a long and badly dubbed voice-over in which you never see Trump's face, ever, he lectures the teams that in last week's task, they both decided to make meatball pizzas for Domino's. But, he tells them, if they had done their market research, they would have learned that people don't want meatball pizzas. They don't! What they want is cheeseburger pizzas! People hate meatball! They love cheeseburger! America is a deeply meatball-phobic society! "The lesson: always pay attention to your customer." And of all the intelligence-insulting things I have ever seen on a reality show, that may well be the most intelligence-insulting thing of all. Do they think that anyone is not going to know that this has something to do with the fact that Domino's is now marketing a cheeseburger pizza, and that Papa John's, which doesn't happen to be a sponsor, not only is selling a meatball pizza now, but snuck ads for it into last week's episode? I truly feel like I have just eaten a peanut butter sandwich made entirely of shame, just for watching that. Product placement is one thing; that is truly something else.
At any rate, Trump tells the teams to "have fun," and they leave. But not before we zoom in on a poster for the Trump Collection. (Motto: "Unrelenting pimping never goes out of fashion.") (Scrawled under the motto on every poster in the building: "UNLIKE WIVES.")
Net Worth has a meeting back at the L-Pal. Carolyn sits in as Alex explains that he's "feeling this," and he wants to be the PM. Alex is a dandy, people. He starts babbling on about the excitement he feels for fashion design, and the fear of him that begins to waft from Chris is palpable. You can tell Chris no longer wants to turn his back on Alex unless he knows exactly where Alex's hands are. Oh, and the first idea Alex floats is a sport coat you can slide your laptop into. Like, down the back. And...wow, that'll create a nice line, and the giant rectangular bulge on your back won't unnerve people on the subway at all. Chris interviews that Alex is "a self-proclaimed metrosexual." Chris tightly defines a metrosexual as "a male that embraces their feminine side more so than other males." Uh...well said! Not really accurate, but I'm not sure he could have come up with a way to explain that that would have more efficiently communicated his stark terror regarding the possibility that he might accidentally hang out with a gay guy and not know it.
Alex tells Angie that he thinks she'd be "awesome" for the presentation. They decide that Chris will hold the money, and Angie will be in charge of the presentation. It makes sense, because Alex is supposedly managing, and you don't want Chris in charge of the presentation unless you want to risk having food flung into the crowd if he becomes frustrated, so that leaves...Angie.
The rain falls, and New Yorkers hide under their umbrellas, doing the complicated ballet they do in which people try to avoid hitting each other in the eye with the metal ribs. (It's actually super-impressive, no fooling.) Magna hops into a couple of cabs, and Tana tells us that when they get to wherever they're going, they're going to find out what the gadgets are that are hottest with the "kids." She explains to us that she became the PM because she was the only one with business experience that involved clothing. Magna heads into an American Eagle store (natch), where they start bugging some guys who are innocently shopping. Asked what gadgets are most popular with their demographic, the guys mention the ubiquitous cell phone. You can imagine Tana and Kendra obediently scribbling, "Cell...phone...." Which is going to make them look good later, but...isn't it kind of stupid, really? Anyway, Tana asks a young woman where would be the best place to store an iPod. The woman offers the incredibly novel suggestion of a belt clip. Wow, that's...radical. Imagine it! Your personal audio player! On a belt clip! Good thing they did their research, because that back-of-the-neck thing would have bombed, dude. And then Tana goes up to one kid and says, "Would you, since you're a man, ever want anything in the bottom?" Um. Wow. The kid looks a bit stricken, as you can imagine you might, and then says, "Oh, the pants?" Tana confirms. You know, you just have to be so careful. He tells them he doesn't actually care for bulky stuff in his pockets. Kendra confirms that they felt like it was very important to talk to their potential customers before they made final decisions about what to design.
And now we are at Miss Alli's Nephews' Favorite Place On Earth: Best Buy. You know how some kids get taken to the circus or the park? Miss Alli's Nephews go to Best Buy. Because there are playable video games, and because they can share all of their father's biggest dreams in life. Anyway, it turns out that the most mature visitor to Best Buy after my nephews is Chris, because he is in charge of gadgetry acquisition. He's now at checkout, and he's asking for his total -- addressing the checkout guy as "Bubba." That's a good way to get a 20 percent anti-discount. Chris is spending about $4000, it turns out, and we watch as he gathers all his stuff, gets his receipt, and heads out. Chris picks up dinner, as he explains in an interview, and then heads over to American Eagle to meet up with Angie and Alex. As they all eat, Chris suddenly says, "Am I missing a credit card?" Chris looks through a pile of stuff, and then he gets Alex's attention. "Dude," he says. "I'm missing a fucking credit card." Alex looks disbelieving. "I'm not kidding," Chris says. Alex interviews that "on the inside," he was thinking that he couldn't believe how dumb Chris was. But on the outside, he...glares? Doesn't react? I didn't get that edit, because it seemed like there was supposed to be a second half, and there never was. Chris gets on the phone and calls Best Buy, but he just gets a recording saying that they're already closed. Ouch. Chris understates in a voice-over that it's "definitely a big deal" that their credit card is missing. He says that they would automatically lose the task if he couldn't find the card. I'm not sure if that's true, but it certainly won't look good. "That's $5000 basically gone," he says. You would think that Visa might rather that, on this show where they've so carefully placed their product, someone might point out that losing a credit card isn't necessarily the equivalent of losing a $5000 wad of cash, never to see it again. I'm just making a suggestion.
This week, the Trump motto is "Let Nothing Get In Your Way." It probably means "Don't Let Anything Get In Your Way," but okay. (I know it's bitchy of me to care, but...it's in such big letters.) We get an especially unflattering look at Trump inside the Trump limo this week, yelling at someone on the car phone. He lectures us about how you go over or through walls or whatever, but mostly, the lesson seems to be that you should be a great big jackhole all the time. I'm not saying this surprised me, but there you have it. Trump, in a nutshell. "There is no such thing as failure," he says. His 6,297 bankruptcy attorneys laugh themselves silly and have their fruity cocktails refilled on the sandy beaches they now call home.
Net Worth. Chris is headed into Best Buy to try to get back the credit card. He voices over, in the way of a major heap of excuses, that he "left the credit card at Best Buy." He adds, "I didn't lose anything!" Guess what, pumpkin: If you had it, and you don't have it now, and you couldn't put your hands on it if I asked you to, you lost it. Now take your Flintstones' chewable over there and settle down. Look -- Dino! Inside the store, Chris waits while the manager goes into the safe, but the little pile of credit cards with which the manager emerges does not include Chris's card. Chris calls it "a high-pressure situation" in which he normally would have been looking for a nicotine fix, but he tells us proudly that he didn't. He claims, however, that he's "quit cold turkey," and "it's not that bad." He goes on to say, with some pride, that he finds he's "less aggressive" since he gave up chewing. And then we watch as he turns to the Best Buy guy he's waiting with. "I hope they find the credit card so I don't have to find an aluminum bat and break somebody's kneecaps," he says. So the message from the editing staff to you is, "The quitting's going awesome, isn't it? Uh...don't mind us; we're just cuttin' tape! La la la..."
Magna. Bren is showing off his idea for a shirt with a pocket in the front to hold your Game Boy. Tana, meanwhile, is explaining that she put together a special Wearable Tech logo to attach to all their clothes, just to identify them as part of the group. That's probably a really good idea, especially for a presentation. One point for Tana! Of, like, normalcy! Craig then keeps up the bragging when he explains that he and Bren churned out three designs really quickly. One is apparently a white track-suit-type jacket that I think is actually pretty sharp. Craig complains, unsurprisingly, that Kendra was pokey in doing the women's designs. We watch as she seems to be pondering quite a bit. Kendra tries to tell the group that design and that sort of thing isn't really her strong suit. Craig interviews about how she should have "shut up" if she's not creative, but...I'm not sure how supportive he would have been if she had just said, "I'm bad at this, so I won't be participating." Kendra goes on to interview that Craig "pushes [her] buttons," and she further complains that her blood sugar was low. Wow, blood sugar? Talk about the last refuge of the hopelessly bitchy. Tana takes over and interviews that she didn't "want any babies here." No hypoglycemics, either! Certainly is getting pretty full of herself, there, not that the company she's keeping couldn't make one feel that way. Tana gets the team moving again, so at least Craig and Kendra will stop fighting.
Seamstresses work on Net Worth's clothing. As Angie explains, the design and creation of the clothes was more involved than she thought, because unlike, say, the toy designers of tasks past, these designers didn't just take the idea off to their Designers' Lair and execute it. Instead, they had the team answer every specific question about zipper here or zipper there, all that stuff. Angie already looks rather tired as she surveys a list of tasks that Alex has written on a big standing easel. Indeed, under Chris's name, there are a couple of tasks each written under "Men's Jacket" and "Board Shorts," and that's all Chris has. Then under Angie's name, there are four or five tasks each listed under "Girl Hat," "Girl iPod Jacket," and "Presentation." And then under Alex's name, there is "Belt Buckle," and there is the single task, "Decide how to attach." Mm-hmm. Don't strain yourself, there, Mr. Bling. Angie interviews that she probably bit off more than she should have. She shakes her head as she surveys the list.
Best Buy. Chris is still waiting. There's an awesome sequence in which Chris waits, and he waits, and he waits, and he waits. And then a lady's head pops out of what is either an office or the safe they were before. And then she disappears again, just as Chris looks over at the door. Chris has officially become a Public Relations Nightmare, and I can imagine four Best Buy managers cooped up in the safe, shooting evens and odds over and over again about who has to go talk to him. "I talked to him last time!" "I'm scared of him! I have a family to support!"
Craig and Bren are in the back of a cab when Craig gets a call on the Space Communicator. He answers it, and it's Tana. She asks him what they're up to, and he tells her they're on their way to Brooklyn, "to pick up the stuff." Not that kind of stuff! Although actually, from Craig's demeanor, I kind of wouldn't doubt it. As Bren explains, Tana really wanted the logos to get on the clothes, so he and Craig went down to this Brooklyn silkscreen place. Bren interviews that when they entered this rather run-down place, his "Spidey senses" should have given him some clue that all might not be well. Craig adds the details that the place is a little heavy on the Bob Marley references, and he sort of slurs that it's "a laid-back and very creative environment." What Craig and Bren are trying to tell you is that the place reeked of pot, but they can't quite tell you that, because it might have just been a very unusual air freshener, and Legal wouldn't clear "reeked of pot" in time for taping. When they get their pretty white jacket back, unfortunately, they find that the Wearable Tech logo is...backwards. Now, wouldn't you think a silkscreener would know not to do that? I mean, wouldn't you know not to do that? Unless he were...uh, spraying air freshener at the time? There's also some errant green paint on their blue hooded sweatshirt. I think this particular silkscreen shop saves money by having itself officially classified as a K-8 arts and crafts project. Craig tells us that there was no "backup clothing," and they didn't have any time to make any, so they were pretty much stuck with what they had. "It's all good," Bren lies to the silkscreener as they leave. No point in getting in a fight, I guess.
Best Buy. Chris is still haunting the various counters, telling them that he has been told by his supervisor (presumably Alex) not to leave until he finds the credit card. He continues to...hang out. Ultimately, the manager returns with the credit card, and Chris can leave at last. I wouldn't be surprised if that supervisor called upon his identity-theft friends and had them make up a new card, because that's how much fun I predict it was not, having Chris skulking around your place of business.
Magna. Tana and Kendra are planning out the presentation when Craig and Bren return with the clothes. Tana looks at the clothes and is mightily chagrined. "What the fuck is up with this?" she asks with a placid but simmering smile. They tell her they don't know how it happened, and Bren tells her he knows it's no good. "What was he smoking?" she asks. (Moms always know!) Tana interviews that when the boys were gone for five and a half hours, she figured they were going to bring back something rather spectacular. "But no," she says. "They brought back a piece of shit on a platter." Yeah, she's not entirely happy. She tells the team to move along, and then interviews that her only choice were to "cry," or "move on." I like to do both, which is why I spend a lot of time weeping in my car. She interviews that she just tried to keep the team doing what they were supposed to be doing, in spite of the backwards logo and so forth.
Tana chats with the models about how she wants them to present themselves. Craig, meanwhile, is using white-out (!) to cover the backwards green logo on the white jacket. Everybody makes mistakes, I suppose.
Meanwhile, at Net Worth, Angie is working on the presentation, while Alex talks to Carolyn and NotGeorge about the denim jacket they've designed. He slips the jacket onto NotGeorge, and Angie notices that it's 2:30, and their presentation is at 3:00. Alex is still sort of glad-handing about his brilliant "Beach Tech" (!) logo, and Angie explains that she just wanted to get the models and go. When Carolyn and NotGeorge are gone, Alex finally starts getting stressed about the need to get going, especially after they realize that the models were supposed to be there at 2:00 and haven't been seen yet. Finally, Alex locates the models, and now the models have to get into their clothes with no time to spare. Chris explains that he got in at 2:30, when everybody was leaving. He does say that everyone was "frantic" trying to leave. And as Alex directs one of the models about what clothes he's supposed to get and not get, we see that the team is getting ready to leave, and the denim jacket they designed is hanging on the rack. In other words, they're leaving without one of the pieces of clothing they're supposed to be presenting. Smooth! They finally get into their cabs and go. In the cab, Angie notes that it's now 3:00, and they're not at their presentation yet. And they just may manage to miss it. Extra-smooth! Oh, and you can see that she's holding her little notebook pages in her hands. You know, the ones she's using for the presentation notes. That's classy-looking. I wonder if they're in smelly marker. "Wow," Angie says. "I'm going to throw up." Me too, sister.
When we come back from commercials, it is 3:00. Fortunately for Angie, I suppose, Magna goes in first. Tana leads her team inside, and they get ready to start their presentation. Tana the Mary Kay Lady, unsurprisingly, can do marketing patter in her sleep and could sell you your own sock while you're wearing it, so she just tells all about the "line extension" for American Eagle, and she's completely polished. She talks about the research that they did, and then they bring out the models, and they also bring out -- as Tana puts it in an interview -- "Brenny-Boy." Bren begins to go through the different items that the models are wearing. He explains the sweatshirt with the pocket in the front to conceal a Game Boy, just so that if you get caught using it, you can put it away quickly and then take it out again just as quickly. Heh. Cute. My mom the teacher kind of wouldn't appreciate that professionally, but there you go. Bren's approach makes the American Eagle lady laugh, so that's probably a good sign. The Magna track jacket has mesh pockets on the inside where this particular kid is keeping a PDA of some sort, not that anyone is really using those anymore. I think the jeans with the teeny little cell-phone clip are a bit of a stretch, and don't seem to incorporate too much design inventiveness, but...whatever. The American Eagle guy asks Bren what he thinks is the most important gadget right now among the AE customer base, and Bren names the cell phone. (Ding!) With this, Magna is directed to hang out in the back of the store until it's time to be judged.
And now, here comes a very discombobulated Net Worth, stumbling through the front door late. Angie asks Chris whether, by chance, he brought the jean jacket, because it turns out that the model did not bring it, as they thought he was going to. Chris doesn't have it. No one has it. The jacket, she is missing. "It just got surreal from then," Angie tells us. She tries to line up the models for the presentation, and we are led to believe that American Eagle guy is getting twitchy over all the waiting. Angie dives into her presentation thusly: "We're very excited today. Net Worth is very proud...umm...is very proud to present American Eagle's...American Eagle Outfitters' new spring line, Beach Tech." Yeah. She didn't even have a first sentence that was finished, and she read that entire mess off her notes. Her torn-from-my-day-planner, raggedy-edged notes. She goes on: "Umm..." Alex says that Angie seemed not to be "focused" during the presentation, right from the beginning. He compares it to a high-school communications class, and I really can't argue. "Um, technology is the language of the world, it's the language of the new people…" I'm sorry, the "new people"? What people are those? It sounds like she's designing clothing to fit a new race of aliens. She wraps up with the following gem: "Uhhh...and you'll see them being featured in our line today." Good Lord. I know that's horrifying when it happens to you, because you kind of want to immediately burst into flames and die, but seriously, lady. Two introductory sentences? You had time for that. She goes to the first model. "This is, um, this is, uh, Travis, uh, Trace, and he, of course, is wearing the hoodie." Of course. This is the laptop jacket, because Net Worth's first great idea is that you'll carry around your laptop in the back of your hoodie. Seriously. Which will be great, as long as you have the ultra-light kind of laptop, and as long as you don't, like, sit down, or stand against anything, and no one bumps into you or anything like that. It would be awesome at the beach! They have a similar one on one of their female models, only it's pink, of course, because girls love pink.
American Eagle guy asks what the most important piece of technology is to the AE consumer, and Angie names the iPod. Now, in fairness to Angie, I might have said that, too -- I might have just assumed cell phones were barely "gadgets" anymore, and I might have named the iPod. It's not like that's a horrible answer, but it's not the one he wants, so that's one point off for Angie. (Oh, give me a break. I'm trying to cut the lady a little slack. Her team sent her up there to present a laptop down the back of a jacket -- she's not exactly showing off a 12-carat diamond.
Outside, a black limo approaches.
Inside, Alex gives a closing that's about as empty as Angie's opening, in which he blankly says, "I think it's really exciting." Wow, that was hot. NOT. But I think the question is -- did the belt buckle ever get attached? (Eye-roll.) The American Eagle execs send them to the back of the store, as we watch Trump come in the front doors. American Eagle lady asks American Eagle guy what he thought of their work, and he says that they both put a lot of work into what they did, but he thinks that Magna's presentation skills were far superior. Trump continues into the store. AE Lady says that Net Worth meant well, but hadn't done all the homework. Trump reaches the executives, and asks them how things went. They praise both teams, and then both teams are summoned. Net Worth is discussed first. They're told that while they had fun with it, and they embodied the brand well, they weren't very "convincing" or "prepared." That hurts, because there's really no excuse not to be prepared, and all that business with Angie and her notes...that was just painful. AE Lady says they didn't get as many good ideas from Net Worth as they did from Magna. I guess this means they didn't think Velcro-ing your laptop to the inside of your windbreaker was as great an idea as it originally seemed like it was. Go figure. AE Guy says they were impressed with the Magna research, and they were happy that Bren knew about the cell phones. So "the clear winner" is Magna, which makes them very happy. Trump tells Magna that their reward will be a shopping day at Bergdorf Goodman, where they'll get to buy themselves some clothes. "You're going to have a fantastic time," he says. Net Worth, on the other hand, will not have a great time, but will be coming to the Boardroom, where someone will get the boot. Tragic, that.
Back from commercials, we see Bergdorf Goodman as a sort of shopping paradise into which the members of Magna are welcomed. They have special things for them to look at, as they opened specially for this. Craig refers to it as a "museum of fashion," and talks about how "exotic" the clothes all were. Tana admires a little dress, and Kendra carries an armload of clothes while explaining that it was a bit fairy-tale-esque, looking at a tank top and seeing that it wasn't actually $129, but $1,129. For a tank top. Better be pretty good, I'd say. In fact, I'd say it should come with about $1000 cash sewn into the lining. Elsewhere, the boys try on suits. As it turns out, Craig and Bren purchase precisely the same suit. It's a nice one, I agree. This is our opportunity to hear, for whatever reason, Craig's little talk about how much he digs Tana, and how good he thinks she is at steering the boat when she's in a position of leadership. "She basically knows how to handle the wheel," he says appreciatively. We see the teams share an in-store champagne toast in appreciation for "another victory." In an interview, Tana happily says that as the 2-0 PM, she feels "untouchable," like the "queen bee." Yeah, you don't want to get too excited about that, dear. She giggles like she can't believe it herself, which makes it a little less off-putting, but...not much less. Bags full of clothes are packed into the trunk of a taxi, along with about ten years of accumulated detritus. Yum!
Back at the L-Pal, Net Worth is feeling glum. Angie, Alex, and Chris talk about how rotten they feel about the fact that one of the three of them is going home. Alex insists that they did "a better job," they just got dinged on the presentation. Which...I don't think so. I think they actually had worse clothing and screwed up the presentation and didn't do their research. All bad. Alex's argument that they "built a better rocket" and then failed "on the launch pad"...I am not buying. Alex interviews that it's not his fault that Angie had a bad presentation because of her "inability to handle pressure." She tells the guys about the insanity of the guy forgetting his jacket, and then says with horror that she thinks she said "uh" once! I counted at least five or six, so I think Angie is high, but whatever. You never hear the tics in your own speaking. Believe me, I've done it. Angie tells us in an interview that she's not getting fired over it, because the PM didn't get the team there on time, and that's not her fault. Nor is it her fault that Chris needed to be "babysitted" because he can't buy things at Best Buy without losing the credit card. "That's just pathetic," she complains anxiously.
Evening. Boardroom. Ding! The three little members of Net Worth file in. They are seated. Trump comes in and sits. He opens by asking Alex as the PM what went wrong. He says he heard the presentation wasn't good, and Angie admits it was her worst performance. She attributes the disaster in part to how late they were getting to the presentation in the first place, which of course stressed her out to no end. She says that then, the model didn't have his item, so that made it worse. Alex is asked who was responsible for the lost item, and Alex says it was Angie, because she was in charge of the presentation. She jumps in to rattle off the list of things she was in charge of on this task, which seems to be lengthy indeed. "So whose fault was it that the items were left behind?" asks a surprisingly flat-haired Carolyn. The humidity is killing our Carolyn! Angie says she thinks it was Alex's responsibility as the PM to have the clothes at the presentation.
Trump starts in on Angie about how she keeps "escaping," but how he's "getting a little tired of it," as far as her being in the Boardroom. You know who was in the Boardroom a lot? Boyfriend Bill. Boyfriend Bill was on a lot of losing teams. Not as many as Kwame, but a lot. Carolyn asks what exactly Chris was doing, since it seems like Angie was responsible for so much. Chris says that the first day, he went out and bought the items, and Carolyn points out that he lost the credit card, right? He admits that he did. Chris admits to Trump that losing the credit card was entirely his responsibility. "You failed in so many areas," Carolyn says with some surprise. "The presentation was...horrendous." Trump asks who chose Angie for the presentation, and Alex admits that he did. Angie says that when the model announced that he didn't have the jacket, it sent her into a spin, because they had to change the order. Trump tells Angie that it was her fault that she lost the jacket, and Angie basically admits that it was, although I don't know why. You can't literally say "Angie is in charge of the presentation" and have that mean that anything that goes wrong at the presentation is no one else's responsibility. That's just an absurd over-absolution of the PM and everybody else on the team. It's baffling, because...what did either of these guys do right all day? Seriously.
Asked why they lost, Angie points out that Chris was stuck at Best Buy for two and a half to three hours, waiting for the card. Trump asks if Angie would blame Chris for the loss, and Angie says she would. Chris, predictably, flips out instantly, Hard-Rock-Casino-style. "She was in charge of the presentation, and that's how we lost! How am I responsible for that?" And then, even though he just admitted being gone for almost three hours, it somehow becomes 45 minutes...or something...as he babbles about how it wasn't his fault. When it totally was. Chris should be quiet. ["Well, he's right on the merits. If anyone has an airtight alibi for non-involvement in the presentation, it's Lost Card Man." -- Sars]
And then Trump goes down this really stupid path of saying that Alex was "a star" (WHAT?) right up until "he met these two losers." Jesus. He tells them that there's a saying that hanging out with a loser will make you a loser, and that's apparently what happened to Alex. It's really fucking irritating the way he's suddenly making such a grand production out of the name-calling, but then Trump sends them out into the lobby to wait while he talks to Carolyn and NotGeorge. "Great, we're losers," Angie sighs in the lobby.
While they all wait outside, Carolyn says that she's not sure Chris is doing anything, he has excuses for everything, and she'd fire him. Go, Carolyn! Michelle, on the other hand, thinks Angie was horrible on the presentation, which was "a disaster." Boo, NotGeorge! You're not George at all! George would want to fire Alex for being so totally incompetent and delegating...apparently, everything! Come back, George! Trump calls for the team to be sent back in. Once they're there, Alex and Chris gang up once again, just as they did last week, with Alex saying that they didn't lose because of Chris's lost Visa card; they lost because of the presentation. So, of course, Angie is to blame. Trump asks what Angie did wrong, and when Alex doesn't immediately respond to Trump's "did she choke?" demand, he goes back to it: "DID SHE CHOKE?" Angie raises her hand and says that she knows this was her weakest performance. She also says, however, that the presentation sucking was not entirely her fault, given that they didn't get there on time, and she had way too much to do. Trump turns to Chris and says, "Do you believe this? You may escape." "'Escape'?" Chris says loudly and incredulously. "I shouldn't be fired by any -- by any means, I had nothing to do with the presentation." Now there's a novel argument. "I was so busy cleaning up after the shit I caused on Day One that I was too busy to be in any way involved in the fiasco of Day Two!" Can't wait to try that one out myself. Chris, barely restraining what I again find to be a really creepy sort of anger, dismissively says that the presentation was terrible, and that's why they lost, because they "went to the executives with crap." "But if you'd been there, do you think you could have helped?" asks NotGeorge. Chris goes on to say that 45 minutes wouldn't have done anything. Since when was it 45 minutes? How did that happen? It was clearly more than that -- he admitted to waiting at Best Buy alone for more than an hour, and he agreed with Angie's earlier statement that he was gone for two and a half hours. The hell? And who's to say 45 minutes wouldn't have helped Angie immeasurably in getting ready for the presentation? What if he'd been there to make sure the models got all the clothes over to American Eagle? Shut up, Chris.
Trump asks Chris if he thinks he's responsible for the loss, and Chris says he thinks he's partly responsible. Well, that's a sudden change of heart. Carolyn moves to Alex, asking whether Angie was left enough time to prepare for the presentation. Alex says she was, and that she "cracked under pressure." Carolyn isn't buying, pointing out that Angie hasn't cracked in the past; why would she do it now? And then Carolyn asks my favorite question: "So what was your job, Alex?" Alex says that it was to "make sure that everyone was taken care of." Carolyn points out that everything wasn't taken care of -- basically, everything failed. Trump, however, moves on to asking Alex whether he prefers Angie or Chris overall, and Alex goes with Chris, because "Chris has talent." He goes on to say that Chris held his temper much better this week, not that Alex would know this, considering that Chris was out of the picture…and not that Chris didn't just lose his temper thirty seconds ago. Trump says that he doesn't really want to deal with people's tempers, and he thinks that Chris has a problem with it. He asks if this has gone on over the course of Chris's life, and Chris admits that it has. Trump tells him that he doesn't want to deal with a person with a bad temper. He turns to Alex and says he's been so good, he was just "brought down by these two people." Good Lord, the man is inconsistent. Does the namePamelamean anything to him, do you suppose?
But then Trump moves to Angie, calls her a loser again, tells her that she's been on all these losing teams, and accuses her of "choking" on the presentation. "Do you agree that you choked?" he demands. "Yes, sir," she says. "Angie, you're fired," he says. That jerkweed. God.
Alex and Chris look pleased. The team leaves and goes to the lobby. Carolyn looks horrified, quite frankly, and there are no conciliatory words among Trump and the viceroys this week. Angie expresses disbelief as she says goodbye to Chris and Alex, and then she heads into the down elevator, muttering, "I can't believe that." There is only Trump, talking to himself, saying, "I don't want chokers working for me." Bleh. Every once in a while, the man has a day on which I find him even more distasteful than usual, and this was definitely one of them.
In her taxi interview, Angie bitches about being fired, says she can't believe she was fired, and manages to be both entirely correct and very annoying. "It's fine," she says, and it's not, but...okay.
week: Chris freaks. Some more. There is basketball. Wheeee!