Trump fills us in on the economic crisis from his limo in New York City. Irony. He hates what he's seeing, with all this unemployment, so he's decided to choose 16 among the millions of unemployed, and will give ONE of them a high-paying job. He's such a humanitarian. We hear some of their sob stories: "I used to be rich, but now I'm poor." Hmmm. Maybe they should have saved more? Trump says the world and economy have changed, but this is still the toughest job interview there is. They're all excited and confident about it. "Money, money, money" opening credits say, "What if you could have... A Second Chance?" Interspersed with our sad unemployed folks are close-ups of things like blueprints and pencil sharpeners. I wouldn't count on ever understanding what that's about. But it's still not personal; it's business.
Trump offices. A bunch of sad former richie-riches sit around and whine. First up is Tyana, an unemployed sales rep who says she went from six figures to buying second-hand clothing. She hasn't cut back on makeup, however, judging from the layers of it on her face. Steuart, who unfortunately doesn't know how to spell his own name, is a "fledgling entrepreneur," who's concerned about a stressed-looking guy in a red tie. You'd think that might be a good segue into introducing us to that guy, but it's not. Instead we meet James, an unemployed attorney who thinks being unemployed will make the competition a lot tougher because they're all hungry. They're all beckoned into the boardroom with Trump. Only he's not there until they're in and seated, like the good dictator he is. He joins them and says he wants to learn more about them; he knows they're all "victims" of the recession, but is there anything more?
David (the guy Steuart was so concerned about) says he married his high school sweetheart and they "produced" five children. I'm immediately concerned about his family, because the use of the word "produced" is far too businesslike for speaking about your loved ones. He worked in telecom for ten years, but his customers stopped paying their bills and he lost his job and his wife. His ultimate goal is to bring his family back together. Poppy is a bit less of a sad sack. She graduated from Stanford last year with a bachelor's and a master's degree, but hasn't been able to find a job yet. She's back at home caring for her grandma, though I think her grandma might disagree on who's caring for whom. Stephanie was a commercial banker and is sick of being blamed for the recession, especially since she's out of a job now. Nicole was a Miss California USA runner-up, and took a job out of law school. However, it wasn't the dream job she wanted, so she quit because she doesn't think you should have to settle. Gene's a little older. He was a military guy, and then a financial planner, but has been living off his personal savings for three years (good job saving, though, Gene).
Trump's heard enough and tells them he gets that it's all hard, and he'll give one of them a job, but it's going to be hard. He divides the teams up: men versus women. He says they need to go choose a project manager -- which is good and bad, because you show you want to win but you also could be the target. Then they'll meet at the Trump Building, where he'll give them their task. His parting words are that they're not friends and they need to just go out to win. He needs the drama to make sure this show gets renewed; it is a recession, after all, and Trump doesn't want to have to lose any of his bazillion sources of income.
The guys want to come up with a team name first; they want it to be about recovery and looking toward the future. "Struggling business owner" Anand interviews that a room full of alpha males can be tough, but he knows he's one of the most confident people here, and he came to win. I'm so sick of reality show contestants saying (or crying about) how they came to win. Because that's unlike the other reality-show contestants in what way, exactly? Anand suggests they name their team, "." Or "Phoenix." Then some guy named Alex suggests Icarus, "rising from the ashes." Which makes Steuart question whether he's cut out to be Trump's apprentice. You know, because the past winners have all been such masters of Arts and Letters. Someone suggests "Octane." James says he'd prefer not to do something too, like, awesome. Which is, like, awesome. They all love Octane, of course, because it's the worst idea they had. James hates it for being a buzzword. And I agree. step is choosing a project manager. When no one volunteers, a fast-talking "Struggling realtor" named Wade lies that Gene has leadership and is someone to look up to, so he should do it. Then he post-interviews that he doesn't want to be the guy whose head's on the block in the first battle of a long war. Gene steps up and says he'll do it, though he admits to mixed feelings. The guys wonder if the girls are already having a catfight door...
But they aren't. Instead they're coming up with names, one of which is "Phoenix." I would have loved for both teams to go back to Trump with the same name. Probably won't happen with "Octane," however. Liza, another "Struggling business owner" knows everyone's here for a difference and "May be the best man win," except she totally meant "woman." Tyana likes "Inspire," but Nicole doesn't like it, so someone jumps on the computer and pulls up a thesaurus or something. She starts shouting out terrible options: "Vigorous," "Stamina," "Fortitude" (which she can't pronounce). They choose Fortitude, and Nicole volunteers to be the first project manager. Mahsa, an assistant district attorney, makes fun of Nicole's assertiveness in her post-interview, and calls her "ballsy." The women think they'll win with their "synergistic energy." Ew. Nicole wants to make a strong first impression, and she thinks being project manager is the easiest thing she will probably ever do on The Apprentice. Wait. Does she realize there's more to it than just volunteering, and she actually has to lead the team?
They meet up with Trump at the Trump Building. He gives them the history of the building, which was built during the Depression. He thinks they'll all rise like this building did. Gene tells Trump they're Octane, and he's their leader. Some burly guy we haven't met named Clint says they like Gene and his style, and Trump agrees it was a good decision. Nicole tells Trump she's leading her team, Fortitude, which he thinks sounds good. Trump says Don and Ivanka will be his eyes and ears, and Ivanka introduces to the task: to build an ultra-modern workspace. They'll be judged on execution, functionality, and originality. Trump says he'll make the final decision, and the winning project manager will receive something very special. He says the losing team will have someone fired, and being the first one fired is "never great." He wishes them luck, and sends them on their way. Let the backbiting and fighting begin!
Fortitude finds their space, which is a big open space with no rooms. An unemployed publicist named Kelly wants to do something really opulent, like Trump, since he's going to be judging this task himself. She says he's set the standard for luxury office space so they have to pull this together. Tyana wants to make their space into a gallery/office, but other ladies don't agree. She starts throwing out ideas, but Nicole's not going to listen to her design and style ideas because she thinks what Tyana's wearing is tacky.
Meanwhile, the guys find their own barebones office. Anand has a real estate background, and is happy to be back in that field. Anand pushes that the office space be applicable to any industry. Gene's a little stressed out at jumping right back into working after spending three years trying to figure out what he wants to do again. Gene's idea is to make a "green office space," which James thinks is a terrific idea, but he says Gene has no idea what that means. Their architectural renderer shows up, and James is disappointed that Gene doesn't sit down and work with this guy for the limited time they have him. Gene's too busy off discussing what color the drapes should be. Maybe his style is less tacky than Tyana's, though, at least.
Back with Fortitude, Nicole confuses everyone by not telling anyone what to do. It bugs Mahsa, because she can't tell if Nicole wants her to get food or paint while Nicole, Tyana, and Poppy meet with the architect. It's really not a big deal, but she's definitely asking other people what they want. Mahsa thinks Nicole looks good on the outside, but there's no substance. Nicole sends Tyana away to help pick paint, and Tyana's already annoyed Nicole doesn't want to listen to her. Over at Octane, James and Anand take over and spend time with the architect to get their ideas on paper. Clint's frustrated that James and Anand took it over since Clint's apparently a "Struggling property developer." James thinks Gene's to blame for the team's lack of focus.
Mahsa, Tyana and Brandy (who?) are back with sandwiches and paint. Nicole immediately leaves with Stephanie to go buy electronics. They bicker over laptops versus desktops, and then about Tyana. Stephanie doesn't understand why Nicole wouldn't use someone in the real estate design business to design a space. Mahsa gets into an argument with Brandy, who's painting, because Mahsa's washing windows. It turns into a fight for nothing, because it looks to me like everyone's working hard, just at different jobs; isn't that sort of the point? Poppy and Brandy think Mahsa's a bitch. Which she sort of seems to be, because she thinks Brandy's not doing anything over there with her paint roller. David and Clint get tasked with buying trees and plants, which is the one place where it seems all the guys have an opinion. David's frustrated with all of the indecisions. Clint's going to call to the colorful plants Gene wants, but he tells Gene it might be tense because David wants bonsai trees. Gene says he has Clint's back. So David lies to get the phone, and it turns into an actual screaming match between Clint and David. OVER PLANTS VERSUS FLOWERS. What is this show? Anand breaks up the fight as Gene stands there. Clint thinks David was the biggest distraction, but he thinks it's all to blame on Gene's lack of leadership.
Gene wants to get the space painted today so they can come in the day and build. Ivanka shows up while they're painting. She doesn't think having a green office space is overly original, and nothing about their concept is blowing her socks off. She interviews later that a task about New York real estate is not one you want to screw up on with her father, since he's seen everything. When Stephanie and Nicole get back to Fortitude, a lot of work has been done, but Nicole immediately has to leave again to get furniture. This time, she takes Poppy and Tyana. She says the only reason she's taking Tyana is in case they fail and Trump asks why he didn't take her, since she's the one with experience. They only have 45 minutes to get all their furniture, so they buy a bunch of tables. Tyana says she realizes Nicole's stressing, but she's done this and it was easy as snapping her fingers. Nicole admits her opinion of Tyana shifted for being able to get that job done in 45 minutes. Drama averted? Is that even possible.
Well, it's okay, because there's still plenty of drama back with the plants-versus-flowers team of Octane. Now they're fighting over who should put the plants in the windows. David's frustrated that Gene won't make a decision, so Gene finally asks them all to stop talking. He's going to be a dictator now instead of a democracy. He scraps the Zen garden, and tells them all to listen to him, but David gets pissed off and yells at him. He asks him if he wants to go home, and Gene walks away, which David takes as a yes. I think I'm picking up on why David's wife left, and I don't think it was the loss of income so much as the anger issues.
Anyway, he asks David what he thought of Gene. He was proud of him by the end, but he says the beginning was tough because there are eight different personalities coming together at first. He says Gene's orders were barked and sporadic at first, but by Day 2, he was great. Steuart agrees they pulled together as a team on the second day. Trump asks who Gene's weakest link is, and Gene says there was conflict on the first day. Trump asks again who was the weakest, meaning "no imagination, no brain, no nothing." Gene says it's tough, and it's between David and James. He says David added discord to the team, but James was more subversive and negative. James is shocked about that, because he didn't know Gene felt that way. Ivanka says she's surprised to hear Gene say that since James was the leader when she showed up and Gene was away. Then Trump asks about conflict, and Gene says there was some between Clint and David. Trump asks David, who says Gene just threw himself under the bus because it was his fault. What I love about this is that Trump is obviously making them do this because they won and there needs to be drama for both teams, but they're totally buying in and fighting with each other now, so they won't even be able to celebrate the win they're about to have.
David and Clint explain the Great Plant Versus Flower Debate of 2010. Trump asks if Clint likes David, and Clint says that's not it; he has compassion about David, which David finds insulting since he doesn't need pity. Trump tells David he can get rid of that stigma by being successful, and David agrees and thanks him. Then Don calls out Clint for being the only guy not wearing a tie while trying to work for The Trump Organization. Trump says he does like ties, then asks Nicole what she thinks. She says her whole personal philosophy is about presentation and overdressing. He asks how her team did, and she says all of her ladies did great. He says that's not true, since he judged it and they did terrible. She thinks they did great given the time constraints. So he asks Tyana what she thought of Nicole. And Tyana rightfully says she didn't think Nicole led, because she didn't delegate or manage. She did love the office, though, but she credits the other ladies. Trump asks if Nicole is surprised Tyana said that about her, but she's not, because she knew Tyana talked shit to Don. He says that's true, but makes Tyana sound very fair and reasonable, talking about delegation and telling people it was up to them. Nicole admits she did that, but says she was trying to delegate. Trump doesn't see her as wishy-washy (because she's pretty and young and he's Trump). Tyana says she is, and everyone talks over one another, and then it abruptly cuts to another commercial.
Back in the boardroom, Nicole says she didn't want a dictatorship, but Don says she's the leader. Liza and Tyana agree about her poor leadership, and then Liza calls Nicole out for not being involved in the physical act of painting, and left them without a point person. Brandy, who we still haven't been introduced to formally (but I looked her up and she's a former lawyer turned entrepreneur), says Nicole is a leader, but ultimately delegation would have helped. Trump asks who was best, and Brandy says they all worked hard and were sweaty. Trump: "Slutty?" Everyone cracks up as she clarifies she said "sweaty," and he's just like, "Oh, wishful thinking." Okay, he didn't say that, but you know he was thinking it. He asks Mahsa, who tells him she thought Nicole would be awesome, but she totally wasn't. She points out that Nicole didn't want to use the one person with design experience for design. There's some debate over who threw whom under the bus first, and Ivanka tries to wedge in that they didn't love the design anyway, but Mahsa won't stop talking. Trump mutters, "This is the district attorney over here, so we have to listen." And they do to a point, then he cuts her off. Trump asks Nicole if she's a little surprised the team's being so vicious toward her before they even know if they've lost.
Trump shows the teams the other boardrooms. The women seem to like the men's artwork, but not their boardroom, which Don and Trump also don't like Ivanka does defend the chairs, which she says are conference room chairs. Then he shows the women's workspace. They all hate the piece of art of the old guy, but Trump likes their clear reception space. He doesn't like their boardroom either, though. He says, "That's almost boring." Trump says he doesn't love either boardroom (as if the one they're all in right now isn't totally boring), or either space. He asks Ivanka, who prefers the men's space. She likes their color, the lightness, how modern it is. And Don agrees. He says if he wanted to work at a 200-year-old space, he would work at the women's space, but he likes that people can gather and it's open and modern. Trump agrees, and gives the win to the men. He liked the artwork and says James "has some latent talent." The good news for Gene is winning project managers get to meet with top CEOs and business leaders; Gene's is Trump himself, and he promises Gene they'll have some fun. But first they can go back and watch the women catfight from the suite.
The women head back in, and Mahsa immediately starts in with her ranting about not understanding why she's in there. Nicole asks Trump if she wants to see the bulldog, and he reminds her they haven't seen it. She says these other two women attacked her and now she's going for the jugular. Nicole says the other women only agreed because their default response is that the PM should take responsibility, but Tyana was responsible for props and furniture. Tyana tries to explain that she went to get paint because Nicole wouldn't listen to her on design, but Nicole says she didn't know Tyana was going to go; she told her to do what she thought was best. Nicole also would like to point out that neither of these two is a team player, which is why one of them should be fired. They both jump in, Mahsa shaking her finger, saying every single person in the boardroom had her back. The three women scream and scream, until Ivanka steps in and says Mahsa's a polarizing personality, which is how she ended up here in the boardroom. But she also can't reconcile why everyone says Nicole's not a good leader. Nicole says her leadership style is that she wasn't bossy, because she thinks women rebel against bossy, so she wanted everyone to feel trusted.
Trump asks Mahsa what she would say if he fired Tyana, and she says she's a district attorney and it would be an injustice because Nicole could never be his leader and Tyana worked her butt off and had sweat dripping off her. Trump asks if Mahsa dislikes Nicole, and Mahsa says no one likes her. Trump thinks she seems very nice, but Tyana says she's a beauty queen, so she knows how to present herself. They all screech over each other. OMG. I want him to please fire all three of them. Trump asks why Nicole would bring Mahsa, a tough player who she has to know would kill her in here. She says Mahsa's disloyal and was ready to sell the team out from the get-go. Okay, I hate Mahsa, too, but sell them out? Really? To whom? I mean, what does she even mean by that? But when he asks her who to fire, she says Tyana. Don reminds Nicole that when she spoke to him yesterday, she told him that Tyana was her biggest liability on Day 1, but was her most valuable player on Day 2. Nicole says that's why she should be fired. Trump asks if she really said that, and he thinks that's a big thing. Trump asks if Nicole thinks Tyana is great right now. She says no, so he asks why she told Don that. She says it was about the furniture, but now that they hated it... Ivanka points out she loved it, so she can't disown it now. She says she hated the old man painting, and Ivanka smartly says that it shouldn't have been there, then, since she could have overruled them. Trump agrees he hated the painting, but she was the PM and lost, so... she's fired. Tyana and Mahsa look totally self-satisfied. Trump apologizes as they leave, and she thanks him. She gets into the elevator, all teary. Trump liked her, and still thinks she's a leader. He's going to set her up for an interview at the Miss Universe pageant. So all is not lost. But Don and Ivanka agree with his decision. One day, I want them to duke it out in the boardroom, post-boardroom duke-out. Oh, please, young Trumps, disagree with your dad.
In the elevator, Nicole tearfully says it was her dream to work for Trump and she got that, even if it was short-lived. She didn't think she'd be the first to go, but she doesn't regret the way she played the game. week: They're going to sell ice cream all over New York City, and the teams hate the other team, and each other. They throw each other under the bus in the boardroom again. It's as dirty and ugly as ever this season, which is just how we like our Apprentice.
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DeAnn, a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon, isn't wishy-washy. You can contact her at twopmodmars@gmail.com.