On The Air

Donald Trump and Hugh Hefner team up to make everyone feel uncomfortable about their sexuality. Also there’s a pink swimsuit, but it’s not meant for women. And Carey gets fired for being gay. Seriously.

Episode links:
Jacob’s recaplet
TV Guide review
Download the episode with BitTorrent

Previously on The Apprentice: Donald Trump had just as many Daddy issues as ever, so he brought eighteen people to LA to grovel at his feet for a job. The joke’s on him that most of them don’t care about the job, they just want to be on TV.

Somebody at Mark Burnett Productions must really hate Donald Trump. Okay, my thesis is actually that everyone at Mark Burnett Productions hates Donald Trump, and this entire show is a years-long practical joke on the man. But specifically, the folks in the casting department have noticed that any mention of homosexuality on the show sends Trump into some weird kind of gay panic, and they’ve started milking it for all its worth. I think they realized this right about the fourth season, when Clay came out in the Boardroom, and Donald Trump, god bless his twisted little heart, said “That’s why they have menus in restaurants, you know? I like steak, somebody else likes spaghetti.” And ever since then, the casting department has been consistently trying to blow his mind just to see how badly he loses it, kind of like a psychological experiment. Not that any gay person is ever going to win this show – the closest we came was last season with Sean, who was an admitted “metrosexual”, and even for that Trump needed a binder full of diagrams and an after-school special starring Christopher Lowell to make sense of it.

So I can see the same hint of mischievousness in this year’s casting. First we have Derek, who is gay but looks like a football player, and I can imagine that shit being harder than long division for Trump to figure out. Then we have Carey, who is like a perfect Xerox copy of Randall, but who has a whole box of surprises waiting for us underneath. Like how there are things that you can’t tell about Carey just by looking at him, and the fact that all he covets is a little pink swimsuit that he can work the hell out of on the runway is one of them. And if, in doing discovering this, we get to give Trump a tiny aneurysm, then so be it. That’s why we’re here.

The show gets off on the wrong foot to start, with the entire team cheering Frank’s return from the Boardroom. After how consistently each of these people trashed him, you’d think they wouldn’t be too hapy about him coming back. But maybe Martin really was as bad as we thought, and they’re just happy they don’t have to look at his tablecloth shirt anymore. Maybe they’re happy Frank’s back because that means they all get a free week. Frank’s sound beating in the boardroom last week seems to have squeezed some humility out of him, though, because he’s really more toned down and manageable this week. Just like last year, when Tarek came out of the gate all hyper and Mensa and like a really intense Orlando Bloom, and then came within an inch of being fired so he scaled it back until he was a more mellow and likable Orlando Bloom. Maybe Frank will really turn out to be the hero this season, and he’ll save puppies from a burning building in episode six and all of America will fall in love with him and chuckle at his rakish ways.

The candidates all gather at Santa Monica Beach to get their assignment for the week, which weirdly comes from Ivanka. Donald gets things started by yelling about how the swimsuit industry is “yooge” and Santa Monica Beach is “the best” and whatever the hell else he’s going on about, then he just stops in the middle of a sentence and Ivanka takes over. I don’t remember him ever letting Carolyn or George talk, like, ever, so maybe there’s something to be said for nepotism. It really does get you places.

The task is designing six swimsuits, and getting fashion buyers to place orders for them. The highest dollar figure wins, as always. And then Trump comes back to let us know this week’s twist, which is that the winning team this week will also win by default next week. In fact, they won’t even have to participate in the task. Everyone’s shocked at this. Shocked! I guess this means the winning team will just be out lounging around the pool while the other team is hustling their butt off, knowing that no matter how good they are they’re going to lose anyway. So I guess the lesson we’ll be learning next time is how to still function even though you’re completely demoralized, which is a good lesson to learn for working in any office environment. Especially one run by Trump.

The teams also got official names this week, even though we never saw them picking names, or even announcing them, onscreen. Unlike in the past where the first task seemed to be to sit around and brainstorm endlessly for a team name (I still think someone should resurrect the name “Dreadnought“), this time it just kind of happens. Like, we’re in week two, and oh, hey, the teams have names now. The Team Formerly Known As Frank’s has transformed into Team Arrow, and Heidi’s team is calling themselves Kinetic. So maybe it’s better that we didn’t see the process that led up to those two names, if it was half as boring as the names itself.

Carey immediately jumps the hell all over this task, even though Nicole is the project manager. They’re still in the van coming back from the beach, and he’s already got a sketchbook full of ideas. I’m getting the feeling Carey should have been cast for Project Runway, because he is so excited about this task, and not the selling part of it but the designing part. We get a quick glance at his sketches, and one of them has been labeled “Bulit-in Pennis Supportive (sic),” which is probably the most awesome thing I’ve seen on television this week. And indeed, Carey has set to work designing little short short pants for the gay market, and even though several people try to talk him out of it, he’s not backing down.

Team Kinetic, on the other hand, is squabbling about little stuff, but it’s clear they’re going to win. So there’s not much point in focusing on them, and the editing staff seems to agree. All the meat in this episode is on Arrow, and I can imagine that’s going to be the case for quite a while. The only thing notable about Team Kinetic is that Marisa is pretty hot, something I didn’t notice at all last week. I guess it helps to pay attention.

We don’t waste any time getting back to Carey and his personal crusade to go down in flames. He struts out wearing this hot pink paisley bikini bottom, and most of his teammates are like me in thinking it’s a piece for women. Even though Carey’s standing right in front of them wearing it, they still think it’s for women. That’s how unable their brains are to grasp the idea here. And once they do get it, they reaction goes from confused to horrified, and they all try to talk him out of it. By using such subtle remarks as “I don’t like it.” But Carey’s not hearing it, and the suit does end up in the final fashion show. He’s proud of his bulit-in pennis supportive!

Speaking of the final fashion show, it’s taking place on the beach, and because Donald Trump is trying to be “hip” and “funny” and he thinks America “likes him”, he makes a big show of taking off his shoes and socks and going barefoot on the beach. You can see him chuckling to himself, like “Oh, that Trumpy’s done it again!” But in reality they’re old man feet, and they’re white as hell, and it’s not in the least appealing. Keep the shoes on, Don.

During the runway show, several of the candidates actually get out and model the suits, including Surya and Nicole. And who is out there working that hot pink number? Carey of course. One of the most genius moves was to put him near the end, because up until then the crowd had been cheering and clapping and having a good time, and Carey goes out there expecting to bring down the house. And he does, but not like he intended. The pink suit does not go over well. Everything gets deathly quiet except for the roar of the sea. Derek starts flat-out laughing. Donald Trump looks like he’s been hit on the head with a shovel. It’s like Carey is walking in French, and nobody’s brain can translate what they’re seeing.

The results come back, and of course Heidi’s team has won. And they won by like a thousand dollars, mostly because the other team’s menswear sucked and sold only $350 worth. Out of $19,000 in total sales, only $350 came from the menswear, which is pretty sad. And I’m betting it wasn’t Carey’s amazing pink briefs that sold that much. So Team Arrow is heading to the boardroom, and Team Kinetic won’t be seen much next week because they won’t be participating.

Oh Jesus, I almost forgot about this week’s reward. This is the part of the show where I just completely stopped paying attention to the TV and started doodling, because the “reward” this week is a visit to the Playboy Mansion, and a sit-down chat with Hugh Hefner. And I can’t imagine anything worse in the world than having to sit in the same room with Hugh Hefner, except maybe to sit in the same room with Donald Trump. Because they are so very much the same person, those two, and I can’t imagine why it took until the sixth season for the two of them to team up. Both of them have so many issues and overcompensations happening in their life, and both of them have a way of making you feel unclean. Like just thinking about Hugh Hefner and his three girlfriends is enough to turn any teenager to celibacy. They should show this clip in high schools, and the abstinence rates would go through the roof. Because if sex means Hugh Hefner, then sex just became extraordinarily uncool.

I’ve got nothing against pornography, but I’m reaching for a sickness bag over what I am seeing right now. First of all you’ve got Playboy itself, which isn’t even about nudity, it’s about silicone and ugly women and airbrushes and has all the realism of a Japanese comic book. It’s computer-generated porn, Playboy is, and it’s about as titillating as seeing a topless hula girl tattooed on a WWII vet’s arm. A 90-year-old WWII vet. And then you’ve got Hef himself, who is so in opposition to the laws of the universe that I can’t even outline it. Let’s just say that the man oozes grossness, like I had to throw out my TV just because he was on it. His bathrobes and his ugly girlfriends and the damn swanky music they started playing when he came on the screen. The whole package of the man that is Hef. And then Donald Trump shows up in his limo, and the two of them are standing next to each other, and it’s like, and it’s like…

Okay, you know how the amount of spam on the internet just keeps rising, and the reason you always hear is because there is a tiny percentage of people who actually click through and buy V!agR@, and that 0.00001% is enough to keep the companies in business, and you always wonder who these people are that would actually buy this shit from junk mail? You’re looking at them. They’re on NBC right now. Hugh Hefner and Donald Trump are responsible for all the Viagra spam on the internet, because they think it’s a message from their assistant or something that they’re running low, so they just keep buying it. That’s what this is about, the calling to order of the Geriatric Horndogs Society. This show has just become Viagra spam for my TV, and I’m furiously looking for the “Junk” button.

Not to mention that the winning team is made up of seven women and one gay guy, and there’s only one straight male on the team that could conceivably get a rise out of visiting the Playboy Mansion, and that guy is Surya so he probably doesn’t, bless him. The women seem to be good sports about all of Hef’s bullshit, although I’m sure they’re secretly wishing they’d worn full-body condoms to protect them from catching anything while they’re there. At least I’m hoping, because if any of these women are the kind of woman who like Hugh Hefner, there’s going to be trouble. That kind of woman has no business on my TV, or even on my planet. Although, come to think of it, if there were such a woman on this show, the whole process would go a lot easier, because that’s exactly the kind of woman Donald Trump would want working for him.

Blissfully this segment is over quickly, and I’m able to climb down from the ceiling and get back into the show. Just in time for the Perpetual Losers to be heading into the Boardroom. Otto the butler of indeterminate nationality is gone this week, and there’s some blonde we’ve never seen before answering the door. Is Trump going to hire new staff for every episode?

Once we’re in the Boardroom, things start to get weird fast. Of course, anytime Donald Trump is involved in anything the line between normal and weird gets pretty thin, but this week he starts off by talking about what a great body he has (!) and how great he would have looked in Carey’s bikini bottom (!!). And while we’re still trying to digest that particular image, talk starts to turn to sex, and whenever Donald Trump is involved in a discussion about sex, the line between normal and weird just completely goes away and weird becomes normal. Carey outlines the team’s strategy on their menswear, how they had three lines: “If you will, a gay suit, a more metrosexual masculine suit, and then again with the straight suit.” It’s kind of a cocked-up idea to begin with, because when you’re standing on the beach where Baywatch was filmed you’ll probably want to stick with designing three straight suits. And the rest of the team seems to agree since they’re all chuckling while Carey’s talking. Like they had no idea this is what they were doing. But Donald Trump, well you know his brain seized up at the word “gay,” and he didn’t hear anything after that. Except maybe “metrosexual,” which he had to file away to figure out later. So he interrupts Carey right in the middle of a word, with what has become a common question in the Boardroom: “Carey, are you gay?” Carey fesses up proudly, and Trump latches onto the idea of a “gay suit,” the thing of which he has never heard. Everyone pretty much agrees that making a gay suit was a bad idea, and down the line just about everyone agrees Carey should be fired for it. But Trump does admit that Carey looked good in the suit, and goes on at length about how good he looks, and how he was working it on the runway. Oh god, Donald Trump just said the word “pecs.” Things are coming off the rails.

Oh, but we’re not done. It’s show and tell time at the Trump Mansion, and Donald actually brings out the offending garment. Everyone is in the middle of an argument about price points and indecisiveness and accountability, you know, actual things that relate to actual business, and Trump just reaches down and grabs the suit from behind his chair. But he can’t touch it, oh no. He declares it “gross,” probably because he’s afraid of catching gay cooties or something, so he grabs a pen off his desk and uses it to pick up the suit without touching it. It’s like he’s in third grade handling a pair of girl’s underwear. Like Carey took a dump in it or something. He can’t touch it because it’s a gay suit. This is Donald Trump. This is the star of the show. He thinks this is funny, that he’s so uncomfortable around homosexuality that he can’t even touch a pink bathing suit. He tosses it on the table in Carey’s general direction, and just starts to rip into it. “Who’s going to wear that suit?” Ivanka tries to get the conversation back on track by saying sure there are some guys who will wear it, but it isn’t a large enough segment that if you’re only making three swimsuits, you want this to be one of them. But Trump looks confused. He keeps repeating that it’s pink, and he would never wear a pink swimsuit. He can’t get off of it. Carey tries really hard to make a case for himself, but the ugly fact is that Trump’s mind was made up the second he heard the words “gay suit.” He could have fired Carey right then and there, for all the good the next ten minutes did. He even says Carey can keep the suit. Like he doesn’t even want it on the premises, because it might start to spread and make everyone else gay. Like a outbreak of spores.

So Carey’s fired for being gay, and the rest of the team is sent back to their tents, and to certain doom next week. I guess the moral of the story is: gay pride has no place in the Trump Organization. Stay in the closet, you and your pink suits. We don’t want everyone else to catch what you have.

I need some Pepto after watching this.