Today was NBC’s day to make their announcements. And I’m not going to cover everything, since you can find full coverage in a hundred other places, including TV Squad and Zap2It. But here are some of the things that jump out at me:

Scrubs had been on the bubble over the last few weeks, with news coming out that it was renewed, or it was cancelled, or NBC was cancelling it and it would move to ABC, to a hundred other possibilities. But today it’s official that the show is staying on NBC, Thusday nights, although this will almost surely be the last season. For a show that has ridden under the radar with middling ratings for its entire life, seven seasons is damn good. Glad to see it’s back.

Studio 60 is cancelled. Officially. Which isn’t a huge surprise since it got trememdously low ratings and was jerked all around the schedule this spring. At least it wasn’t cancelled and pulled early in the season, like so many other unlucky shows were, but it certainly wasn’t treated well. It’s coming back on May 24th to finish out the rest of the season, probably another six episodes. And that’s a courtesy many cancelled shows don’t get, so I guess we should be happy.

Also cancelled: a whole raft of midseason shows that just didn’t catch on. This was a really weak midseason, for all the networks but NBC in particular. The Black Donnellys, Andy Barker, P.I., Raines. Didn’t watch ‘em, don’t care.

Heroes is back, of course. It’s one of the biggest hits NBC has right now. And next year they’re making six extra episodes, called “Heroes: Origins”, that will be outside the season’s main story arc and each introduce one new character. Kind of a strange idea, and we’ll have to see how it plays out. There’s nothing wrong with more Heroes.

New shows: All dramas and dramadies this year for NBC. And they’re trying to cash in on the whole sci-fi/superheroes thing a little bit, which might backfire on them. Bionic Woman is an update of the old show from the 70s, Journeyman is about a guy who travels through time changing lives, and Chuck is an ordinary guy who gets a bionic brain implant. Can’t say any of those jump out at me, but I’ll probably give the first episodes a try, at least.

The Apprentice is not on the schedule at all, but that doesn’t mean it’s dead. It just means they still have a Trump headache and don’t want to think about him for a while. Can’t say I blame them.

Tomorrow? ABC’s new shows.

The boring, predictable ending is for Stefani to be made The Apprentice, because it was evident back in February that she was the only competent one out of the whole bunch of these jokers. I’ll let you guess which ending we actually saw tonight.

On Survivor first it was a very good week, with Lisi getting booted, but then it was a bad week with Michelle going next. I’m sending all my thought waves for Earl and Yau Man to be in the final two, but it’s getting harder to see it happen.

On The Apprentice I got to witness the impossible, Frank making the final four! Over Heidi! You know, Frank is my Sanjaya. Everything about him is repugnant, and he’s a five-year old trapped in an old guy body, but I so desperately want him to win and I don’t even know why. And to watch Arrow triumph over Kinetic? It’s so wrong but it feels so right. These are not the people I should be rooting for, but I find myself doing it week after week. I’m pulling for my boy Frank to win it all.

But on The Amazing Race, quite the opposite has been happening. The two shows while I was away saw the elimination of both the Guidos and Uchenna and Joyce, leaving us with a very grim final four indeed. Danny and Oswald are the only shining lights left, and I’ve wanted them to win from the beginning, so I’m still rooting for them to pull through. But I was hoping that as we got near the end there would be two or three other teams that I could also root for, kind of as a fallback in case the unthinkable happens. But right now I just want all six of the other contestants to be eaten by sharks. Seriously. They cast some dud teams for this All-Stars, and somehow most of them are still around at the end.

Oh, and there’s so much more on my TiVo that’s still crying out to be watched. House. Scrubs. How I Met Your Mother. Ugly Betty. There are only so many hours in the day, people.

Surya finally loses a task and gets fired, although it’s just because he’s a dink. And Trump starts to come into the 1920s when he realizes that women really can golf. Hey, at this rate they’ll be voting soon, too. Read it all.

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

Previously on The Apprentice: Trump hates white trash! Except when it’s Wrestlemania!

Currently on The Apprentice: Surya has gathered Arrow for dinner inside the mansion. Everyone is wearing pajamas, or sweats, or track suits, or t-shirts. But Surya is still dressed in a full suit and tie. And, for some reason, he is kissing Arrow’s ass up and down. Like telling them how he had wanted to switch teams because he saw that they were such hard workers, and such great people, and he’s like going around the table, one by one, telling everyone how great and fantastic each one of them is, and how he wants to marry each of them and make little Apprentice babies, and it’s all just talking for the sake of talking, and Frank gets sick to his stomach and has to go outside and interview about what a fake bullshitter he is. Which, really. About five people from Kinetic volunteered to switch over to Arrow that time, all those weeks ago, and they all did it because they wanted to impress Donald Trump, and because Arrow was such a team full of jagoffs and losers and you, Surya, wanted to be the one to whip them into shape and turn the team around. And you did it, you actually did it, but you did it by just being yourself and setting an example for everyone to follow of the way not to be. Arrow’s winning streak is entirely because they have united in their hatred of Surya and are doing the opposite of everything he does, so I guess in some way he was the one who turned the team around. In any case, Frank goes to bed because he’s had enough of Surya. As have we all.

After the credits the Apprenti meet Donald by some lake, and he’s got Bill Rancic and an executive from GNC with him, and the executive, during this whole and entire show, has this look on his face of being simultaneously bored and super scared and pissed off, like he really doesn’t want to be doing this. Like the CEO of GNC made everyone draw straws to decide who would have to be the one to actually go work with Donald Trump on this deal, and this guy lost out and he’d really rather be anywhere else. The task turns out to be designing and performing a halftime show, advertising GNC, at a local soccer game. It’s way stupid, but we get to make fun of people in costume, so I guess there’s a bright side to everything.

Arrow is brainstorming in a van, and they come up with exactly one idea. Just one. Surya tries to get them back on track to come up with more ideas, but he’s got two things going against him. First, he’s Surya so everyone hates him. And second, he’s Surya, so his idea of brainstorming is to have five minutes of silence where everyone creates a inner monologue of ideas and then presents them to the group after the timer has run out. Preferably with flowcharts and markers and big boxes with arrows leading to smaller boxes. This is Surya’s world, this is all he knows. So due to the second reason piling on top of the first, nobody does the actual thing he wants them to, which at the core is a good idea, and instead they just ridicule him forever until the end of time. Frank announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have two minutes left.” Tim is like blowing kisses at Frank, and everyone is giggling at each other. It’s like a van full of kindergartners, but because their authority figure is Surya, you don’t mind seeing them act out like this. If it was anyone else they were doing this to, they’d all be assholes, every last one of them. Of course, if it were anyone else they wouldn’t be doing this. So again Surya is creating his own problems just by being, the fact of which he’ll never grasp.

Kinetic is also brainstorming in the van, but because they’re all adults and none of them is Surya, it’s actually productive and boring. Both teams finally come up with the idea of putting people in big foam costumes out on the field. Kinetic will have big vitamins running through an obstacle course of lethargy and heart disease, while Arrow will have a boxing match featuring a ninety-pound weakling who turns into Popeye when he takes his vitamins. Yeah, I already said it was stupid.

On the day of the game, Arrow is sitting around in the locker room writing the “script” for their presentation. They’ve got this huge, convoluted plot revolving around the stupid idea of a boxing ring, and there’s five minutes until they go on the field, and they’re arguing about what to call “Mr. Vitamin”. While they’re still doing that, Kinetic is taking the field with four people in round vitamin suits running through an obstacle course while Angela screams something unintelligible into the microphone. It’s good to see that someone here learned the lesson of Aimee and made all their props bilingual, because a soccer audience in Southern California is probably going to be even more heavily Hispanic than a mall crowd. But still it brings up the point: if your props have to be labeled, like with words, your idea is probably too high concept for a halftime show. Especially in the nosebleed seats. They can’t read the writing. They can’t hear Angela shouting. All they see is these little foam dots running around, up and over and past other little foam dots. They actually have a pink heart as one of the props, which is probably the only one that doesn’t need to be labeled, but it’s a tiny gesture if the rest of it doesn’t make sense. It ends with one of the red dots crossing a finish line, and the tape doesn’t even break. All the while Angela is screaming, and even here at home I can’t understand her.

But that was high Shakespeare compared to Arrow’s presentation. Frank comes out wearing a suit, all “Let’s get ready to rumble!” Except he’s reading from a script that’s longer and more convoluted than most Broadway plays. He goes on and on about “Joe” (a very scrawny-looking Tim) and how he doesn’t feel his best. Then he yells “Here! Is! Mr Vitamin!!!” And the crowd…doesn’t respond. It’s so funny. Surya is talking about how people really got into the story, but we see a shot of a whole group of people just staring off into space. Like they’ve put PBS on the Jumbotron, that’s what this crowd looks like. There’s no cheering. There’s no life. The line at the bathroom is probably reeally long. The executive from GNC looks like he’s doing his taxes in his head, rather than pay attention to anything that’s actually happening around him. Some backup dancers in black shirts are following “Joe” around the boxing ring, but then when Mr. Vitamin comes out they change into white shirts. And there is no boxing! I don’t know who “Joe” was supposed to be boxing, but he keeps hugging Mr. Vitamin, who is standing outside the ring, and these other guys are just walking around, like in circles, and for all the fuss they put into building a boxing ring, where’s the boxing?

“Let’s hear it for Joe!” Frank yells. The crowd chews their gum. I don’t understand what just happened. Surya jogs down the field, smiling like he just won the World Cup. This show is so weird.

Everyone gathers on a balcony overlooking the field, before the game is even over. So the arena is noisy as hell, but Trump and the GNC executive are there and everyone’s standing fifteen feet apart, and nobody can hear anybody else, so everyone’s screaming like Donald Trump to be heard over the noise. And the executive has to decide who won the task, so he stops daydreaming about his upcoming trip to Hawaii long enough to tell Kinetic that they are the winners. Then immediately checks out again.

Kinetic’s reward is to go golfing with Trump, and once again, I’d rather be on the losing team. But it turns out all the girls are pretty awesome at golfing, or at least awesome enough that Trump’s mind is blown. Like completely blown. I’m sure Trump’s golf course only started allowing women on the links just last year as it is, because golfing is a man’s sport, of course. The only thing worse than a woman who can golf is a gay guy who can golf. If Carey was on the golf course? In his pink bathing suit? Donald Trump’s head would just pop right the hell off his shoulders, and the next time you’d see it would be in orbit around Mars.

And of course the most distracting thing about this segment is Donald Trump’s outfit. Holy hell. Golf is a thing I’ll never understand.

The best thing about this show is still the transitional shots. This time we have time-lapse footage of fluffy clouds moving across the sky, reflected off the glass of the downtown skyscrapers. I seriously could watch an hour of just that, and it would be better than having to see Surya do his thing. But the bliss only lasts a few seconds, and then we have to see Surya talking to his former team Kinetic through a hole in the hedge. And while just scant minutes ago we saw Surya telling Arrow how great they are and how much he wanted to join up with them because they’re wonderful people, here he’s telling Kinetic that going over to Arrow was a complete mistake. “I should have never left,” he says several times while the sad music plays. A single tear runs down his cheek.

In the Boardroom, everyone starts piling it on Surya, saying that he’s different from the rest of them, he doesn’t get along with the team, and not only did he suck as a Project Manager this week, he also contributed nothing the two weeks they did win. All true, from what I can see. Surya’s rebuttal is that “his record” is 5-2, better than anyone else on Arrow. And that’s only because he was on Team Kinetic back before they started to fall apart, so he’s kind of riding on their success here. Remember that we didn’t even see Surya until about episode 4, except for fleeting glances of him in the back of the room. So the amount that he contributed to any of those “five wins” he’s touting is questionable.

Surya just keeps talking and talking, digging his own grave, about how horrible the team is and how they don’t respect him and how they’re all just covering their own asses. They don’t have any discipline, and he regrets even joining the team. Which goes against everything he said right to their faces at the beginning of the show. So it’s no surprise that, one-by-one, all down the line, everyone else on Arrow thinks Surya should be fired. Surya’s eyes start to bug out, and his hair gets even frizzier, and his voice gets more frantic. And the arguments go around and around in circles until finally Surya is admitting that he sucks at being Project Manager, and he’s better off as a follower than as a leader. I don’t even know how we got there, but we’re there, and once he says it Trump’s super sense picks up on it, and it’s all over for Surya. There’s usually a point in the boardroom where something clicks in Trump’s brain, and the rest of the show is pointless because his mind is made up. And that happens here, so Surya is fired.

Surya’s still trying to bring up his record. “Five and two, sir,” he says sadly. Like the numbers are all that matters. Like he single-handedly brought each of those victories down from the heavens himself. In the car ride home he’s still talking about his “record”, and still saying he wishes he had never switched sides. That’s not the problem, you dink. The problem was that every word out of your mouth came from a textbook somewhere, and you preferred diagramming and flowcharting to actual useful tasks. Arrow is a bunch of immature children, but their hatred for you united them into a cohesive whole, and that’s a real accomplishment.

Next week? Arnold Schwarzenegger. Feel free to start practicing changing the channel now.

Derek gets fired, but not for being gay. I know, I’m surprised too. Read it all.

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

Previously on The Apprentice: Aimee got fired, but I can’t remember why. Something about a mall.

Currently on The Apprentice: So this week’s task is all about creating an “owner experience” for Lexus. Trump and some Lexus folks roll up to Rodeo Drive, but the only reason they’re meeting there is because of some tenuous connection to “luxury” that both Rodeo Drive and Lexus are supposed to represent. I’d say the link between the two is more “showing off” and “ego-stroking”, but that’s just me. Oh, and look, Randall’s here! Randall from Season 4, who had the steepest drop-off in popularity of any contestant, ever, during the live finale that season when he refused to share the prize with Rebecca. He’s kind of been in hiding ever since then. I thought maybe he was dead. But here he is!

This “owner experience” is all about bringing people into the dealership, giving them a good time, and showing off the new models. And in the end you’re judged by customer surveys. So again, it’s a task that has nothing to do with real estate, but it is all about making people happy and sucking up, two skills which are invaluable in the world of business. So already this task is more relevant than 95% of the other stuff they do on this show, in that it’s maybe something that actual executives would do in real life somewhere. The challenge of the task, then, is to be creative and come up with an event that won’t insult the Lexus owners.

Kinetic sits around and stares at each other for a while, with nobody having any ideas. Like, at all. And it’s tough, because this event is supposed to be promoting “luxury”, which is kind of a made-up concept devised by people like Donald Trump, and it has more to do with the afore-mentioned ego-stroking than with anything tangible. And if you aren’t a person like Donald Trump, i.e. if you’re a real human being, it can be tough to understand what people like that mean by “luxury”. This is why people eat caviar; not because they like it, but because they want other people to know that they’re the kind of person who eats caviar. It’s the whole feedback loop of defining your life by other people’s expectations, and it’s exactly the kind of existence that Donald Trump has built up for himself. So it’s not surprising to see him so sold on the idea of luxury.

So what is luxury? For Kinetic, it’s go-karts. And magicians. Because…well, I don’t really know why. Those ideas come about at the point in the brainstorming process when you start throwing out stupid answers because you can’t think of anything good, and they both come from Derek. But what’s surprising is the quickness with which the rest of the team latches onto those ideas. The correct response to “go-karts” is to laugh, and then to say, “Alright, let’s get serious.” But for Kinetic the response is to get wildly excited and go out and get some go-karts. Because luxury is like that.

Over at Arrow, “luxury” means Surya going crazy some more. Someone put the team into a conference room with a 20-foot-long white board, and an unlimited supply of dry-erase markers. I am sure this was done on purpose. The first thing Surya starts doing is writing on the board. And writing. And writing. The rest of the team is sitting around and trying to define luxury, but Surya is just going on and on and on with this stuff, setting one side of the board apart as a “toolbox” of skills that other people can draw from. I don’t even know what that means. He’s got flowcharts and boxes and big writing with arrows that lead to little writing that lead to littler writing. And he’s doing this constantly, like all day. Every time there’s a shot of someone else on the team working, you can see Surya in the back adding to his novel. I guess it’s good for keeping him out of the way; usually when you have an ineffective team member you want to give him crazy amounts of busywork so he stays out of your hair. Surya comes with a whole sack of busywork all his own, and he does it all by himself so you don’t even have to waste your time telling him to go away. He just goes off and uses an entire box of dry-erase markers to write the Great American Brand Marketing Textbook. Stuff like “What are the huge points on this car’s (features?)” That’s what he’s writing. In boxes, with arrows. At least he’s keeping busy, I guess.

Stefani and James and Frank must be on the ball, because their event goes off so well that we don’t see much of it. There is shrimp and pastry trays and flowers and actually letting people drive the car. Nothing goes wrong, aside from a dead battery, so it’s over quick. Winning teams are so boring.

Luckily, we’ve got a whole circus of the bizarre going on over at Kinetic’s tent. First there’s something wrong with the signs, but I don’t really know what. Everybody’s pissed off, though. Then Jenn is trying to give a presentation to an already bored crowd, but there’s too much glare for anybody to see her TV screens. Even she can’t see them, which is a problem because her presentation consists of little more than just reading what’s on the TV. So without the screens she’s lost, and she can’t find her place in her notes, so there’s a lot of awkward dead air in her presentation. But then comes the best part. Then come the go-karts. Which they seem to have made the focus of the event, like the whole success of the day hinges on people enjoying the go-karts. And they don’t. The cornpone music starts playing, so you know this is a disaster in the making. The go-karts don’t even look fun. TV can make anything look fun, but the go-karts don’t. One guy actually puts on a hairnet so he doesn’t get dirty from the helmet. That’s so hilarious, and so much something a Lexus owner would do.

And the whole day is capped off with the magician. Magic has nothing to do with cars or Lexus or go-karts, but there’s a magician anyway. Because why not? You’ve already lost, at least go out swinging. And this is one of those “hip” magicians, with the goatee and the rose-colored glasses and the long curly hair. “Yanni on crack,” Derek calls him, and I don’t think I can do any better than that. He does some card “tricks”, and it’s all horrible.

We know how this is going to end. Kinetic loses, of course, although what surprises me is that they still got an 84% approval from the customers. Not enough to save their hides, though. So Arrow’s reward is to go hang out with Snoop Dogg in the studio. And, again, just like with the Playboy Mansion, I’d rather be on the losing team. There’s not much to say here. First, Donald Trump says “fo’ shizzle”. That sound you hear is the Earth opening up to swallow us all. Then we find out Surya is a Snoop Dogg fan. Of course he is. And to cap it off, Frankie Suits gets up with his champagne and cigar and does the whitest rap in the history of white rap. I’m including Mel Brooks’ Hitler Rap here. It’s whiter than that.

Into the Boardroom, talk immediately turns to how much everything sucked. The signs, the presentation, the go-karts, the magician, the whole theme. Everything. Randall brings up the go-karts, and immediately all fingers point to Derek. Who, yes, was the first one to say the word, but the rest of the team jumped all over it too. Can’t blame just him for that one. But they try, and Derek defends himself by saying he’s a go-kart and deep-fried appetizer kind of guy. “I’m white trash,” he says, and Trump jumps all over that. You can see the synapses misfiring, almost as badly as they did with Carey’s pink gay swimsuit. It goes on for a full minute, Trump having a cerebral hemorrhage about the word “white trash”, and you’d think as a businessman he’d understand that white trash sells. Just look at Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson. But no, there’s this made-up word “luxury” that Donald Trump has invented, and the opposite of that is this other made-up word “white trash”, and so Derek gets fired with a quickness for even saying the word, and sent out to the hall. For a moment there he looks pissed, just a quick moment, but then by the time he gets outside he’s laughing. Just laughing at the whole joke this show is and how happy he is that he’s not going to win, that he’s not going to have to actually go work for Donald Trump. This is like the only show where the prize for winning is worse than losing, you know? And the real point of the game is to get on the show, so that you’re on TV, but then to make sure you’re fired before there’s any kind of real chance that you’ll win. Derek realizes this and just laughs at the whole show and the crazy old coot back in the Boardroom. That’s the reason I liked him, because he got the joke of the show and he didn’t take it seriously, and every time Trump went crazy it was like Derek was looking right at me through the television going “I know!!”

Trump lets the rest of the Boardroom know that just because Derek is gone doesn’t mean nobody else is being fired. In fact someone else is going home, and it is Jenn, the Project Manager, for several obvious reasons. But before we get there we find out how much Trump hates Randall. Randall tries to take control of the Boardroom, and keeps interrupting Trump. In the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a word, Randall butts into what Trump is saying, and it happens over and over. Donald looks pissed, and eventually he just has to tell Randall to chill. I was completely expecting Randall to get fired too. Or for Trump to go off on a big tear and just fire everybody he sees. The whole of Team Kinetic, then Randall, then the cameramen, then right on down the line until he’s firing the caterers. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Halfway through the Boardroom Jenn gets the joke too, and starts cracking up. First she suggests that they all get to go free, since Derek has already been fired. Then she see her own firing coming, so she interrupts Trump to let the rest of the team tell her how much they love her. And then she gets fired, and she’s laughing the whole time. Everyone goes outside for a big group hug, and you can kind of tell Jenn’s relieved to be out from under Trump’s big greasy thumb too. She’s still laughing during the car ride home. And somewhere, maybe hiding in the bushes, is Derek, all like “I know!!”

Next week? Everyone stops being polite. Could it have something to do with the sudden appearance of Bill Rancic?

The Apprentice hits the malls to sign up Hispanics for e-mail spam. It sounds worse when you put it that way. Read it all.

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

Previously on The Apprentice: Aaron got fired for the sins of the previous Boardroom, or for taking horse tranquilizers during the task, or for some unknown reason that Trump made up inside his own head. All are equally likely.

Currently on The Apprentice: Surya comes back from the Boardroom all full of fire and bitching about how Aaron was dishonest or something, and it really goes on for a million years. Somewhere in the middle of his monologue he proclaims himself Project Manager, a title that the others are all too happy to give him because they hate him and want to see him fail.

The next morning, the teams all gather on the airport runway so that Donald Trump can yell at them about Priceline.com and how great they are because they gave him a ton of money for the on-air plug. He’s even dragged out a couple of suits from the company, who describe the task as follows: teams will have to go to a shopping mall and sign people up for a Priceline sweepstakes, or something. I don’t know. It’s stupid, is what it is, and just a way for another big company to get your name and address so they can send you junk mail. And not only does this task, like all the others, have nothing to do with real estate, this week it also has nothing to do with “selling”, like so many of the tasks on this show purport to be about. In fact, it has little to do with any kind of demonstrable skill other than approaching complete strangers and getting their phone number, so the whole exercise is really kind of idiotic.

Kinetic heads over to their mall, the MainPlace Santa Ana, which isn’t even in LA, it’s in Orange County. It is, however, depressingly close to the house I grew up in when I was a kid. And its Wikipedia entry, for a short time, included the line “it thereby became the worst mall on the face of the planet.” I’m not even kidding. That’s awesome.

Derek goes on a tour of the mall, and finds that the clientele is 50% Hispanic. Which, two things about that: First, duh. Have you been to California lately? Second, only 50%? Have you been to Santa Ana lately? I would have pegged it in the high 80s. Anyway, remember this conversation. It’ll come up again later. Over and over and over.

Arrow, meanwhile, is trying to brainstorm under the oppressive crushing thumb of Surya, and it’s going about as well as you can imagine. Frank tries to bring up the idea of accosting people as they’re coming in and out of stores, and Surya interrupts him in the middle of a breath to ask the most inane questions ever. “Can you lead with the strategy of why you thought that?” The hell now? What kind of jackass question is that? I think Surya is one of those guys who spent so much time in business school, and breathed in so many of the spores, that now he doesn’t realize that there’s a real world out there. He thinks that we’re all just living in some kind of computer simulation and he’s still being testing for his MBA, and so if he becomes a living breathing textbook and parrots back phrases like “revenue maximization” and “strategy-led brainstorming” that he’ll get some kind of prize. It’s a Pavlovian response to the heightened sitation he’s in, like he believes that just because he’s on a television show that’s called “The Apprentice”, and just because that show has been labeled “Survivor in the business world”, that anything and everything he does actually has something to do with what he learned in school. And what he learned in school, like most of us, was to memorize the textbook and regurgitate it during finals. So that’s why this constant crap is always spewing out of his mouth, because he’s actually bought into the fiction of the show, and he thinks The Apprentice is a show about business skills, the same way some people get confused and actually think American Idol is a signing competition. None of these things are, in fact, true, so Surya is hopelessly behind the curve here.

He’s in good company, though, because you know who else has bought into the fiction of the show? Donald Trump. So maybe this will work out for Surya in the end.

Surya’s not reading the room at all, though, because while he’s droning on and on and on about this stuff, Frank and Tim and Nicole are cracking up and passing notes like a bunch of fifth-graders. And normally I’d tell them to grow up, but I think Surya has it coming so I’ll let them slide this time. Frank’s doodling on a napkin and he draws this hideous face with buck teeth and bushy hair that I guess is supposed to be Surya, and everyone cracks up. Again, mean, but deserved.

So the whole thing of this task is rounding people up and getting them to put their name and phone number into a computer. Then, presumably, they win something. Like years and years of junk mail to come. It’s like those raffles you always see in the mall where you can win a car, but they’re really trying to sell you whole-house water softening systems. So, at its core, it’s a really stupid task. But to excel at it, you’ve got to go out in the mall, intimidate people with your personality and with the cameras, and get them to come back to the computer. Frank turns out to be a genius at this, mostly because he’s loud and he’s got enough charisma that people give him the benefit of the doubt. Surya, on the other hand, is pacing the mall like a madman, and he’s perfectly willing to take no for an answer. Like, with most of the people he approaches, he backs away before they even get to say no. So he’s not getting a lot done, but at least he’s getting his exercise in.

Kinetic is wandering the mall trying to round up people, wearing Hawaiian shirts and straw hats, but they’re running into a little bit of a language barrier. Nearly everyone they talk to doesn’t understand a word they’re saying, because they don’t speak English. So they just stare back at them. No clue what they’re talking about. And even when they do get the people to the computer, it turns out the sign-up screen is in English anyway. Derek and Muna seem to have some secret reserve of high-school level Spanish they can fall back on, but the whole thing is just a big mess. And when we get to the Boardroom, there’s no surprise who the winner is. Despite Surya’s aggressive inability to deal with anything involving the real world, the rest of the team (fifth-graders all, remember) managed to pull it together and bring home the win.

Team Arrow gets to head back to the beach for their reward, this time for surfing. Mostly they suck, not that I’d be able to do any better. But there is much falling down, and then the waves start to get huge and everyone is getting swallowed up by the surf. And then we have a medical emergency, Nicole limping back to the beach with shooting pains in her foot. So she has to be rushed to the doctor (with Tim going along with her, hoping to score points by keeping her company), and finds out she got stung by a jellyfish. Ouch. And later, back at the mansion, it looks like Tim managed to score those points, because he and Nicole start making out by the pool. Which is gross, and is starting to turn me off my lunch, and it goes on far too long. Like way, far, too long. Why do you hate me, Apprentice editors? Why?

The next day, we mercifully find ourselves in the Boardroom with Team Kinetic. Aimee immediately starts to blame Derek for not telling her that everyone in the mall was Hispanic. Like, I know that shifting blame is what you’re expected to do when you’re in the Boardroom, and when you’re already on the ropes as an ineffective Project Manager you’ve got to strike back however you can. But Aimee didn’t need Derek to tell her that everyone in the mall was Hispanic. She only needed her eyes for that. And the big issue in the task turned out the be that people in the mall didn’t speak English. Which, that’s not information that Derek had. There are Hispanic people that don’t speak Spanish, and there are white people who don’t speak English, and none of that had anything to do with the little chat Derek had at the beginning of the show, which was mostly just about the color of their skin.

Derek calls the whole language thing a red herring from the start, but Trump latches onto it and it all goes on far too long. To the point where Derek, who not only isn’t responsible for the language problem but who also was one of the only ones who did anything to fix it, is on the ropes for-ever because he didn’t tell Aimee this obvious thing that she could have seen if she opened her eyes for two seconds. It doesn’t stick, though, mostly because Aimee slips up and says a couple of stupid things (one of them being “I wasn’t paying attention to who was walking through the mall”). And in the end the game of Duck Duck Goose that is Donald Trump’s thought process settles on “leadership” being the issue, and Aimee turns out the be the goose. So she’s fired. Which is kind of retroactively satisfying, after last week when she wandered around Ralph’s like her brain had been erased.

But then she gets mean in the town car, like the meds have finally taken hold and started her blood to boil, and she goes on and on about how she should have left the whole goddamn team back at the mansion and done the task herself and she probably would have won. Which would have made for some great TV, her wandering around the mall all by herself. And she loses points for calling this an “interview process”. So I guess that makes three people who have bought into the fiction of the show.

Next week? Oscars. So, no Trump. After that? A double firing in the Boardroom (way to ruin the surprise), and the return of Randall. Really? I thought he was dead. Also, you’re going to have to stay up until 10pm to watch this crap. Are they serious? Watching Donald Trump right before bedtime has been proven to cause cancer in laboratory animals. Don’t torture us like that.

Both project managers walk around like they’re lobotomized this week, but only one ends up getting fired. Plus, after four episodes of being a nobody, Surya all of a sudden just won’t shut up.

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

Previously on The Apprentice: What’s bigger than Donald Trump? The Super Bowl is bigger than Donald Trump. So no show last week. Before that? Hell, I don’t remember. Something about chickens.

This week on The Apprentice, we’re back to the weird and choppy editing. What’s going on there? This show always used to be put together so well; you could argue day and night about the validity of an entire show dedicated to the kissing of Donald Trump’s ass, but the one thing you couldn’t refute was that it was made well. Technically. But this season, we’re even losing that. Did they outsource this show to Korea or something?

This week’s task is all about honey. Trump barely has time to meet the teams in the driveway on his way to the limo, and he tells them in this weird halting way that they’ll have to harvest…the honey. Then they’ll have to bottle…the honey, and have to sell…the honey. Even Trump is off this episode. Did they outsource him to Korea too? Maybe this is really a CG Trump, being tested for the upcoming Trump cartoon.

So we get to see the teams visiting the beehives and “harvesting” the honey, but there are hardly any of the usual voiceovers that orient us to where we are and where we’re doing. We see some people putting on bee suits, and it’s not clear exactly who it is. Stefani is the only one talking, and she’s talking about how afraid she is of bees. And we hear Frank’s voice (you can never miss Frank’s voice), so it’s clear we’re dealing with Arrow here. But where’s the other team? What’s going on?

Now we’re in a building, also without any kind of transition, and Surya is talking and talking and talking about honey consumers and household penetration of honey. James clearly wants to punch him in the face. Aaron is just sitting there like he’s on painkillers, eating honey with a spoon. Like he’s checked out of the whole process. Never mind that he’s the project manager. And Sean, yes Sean’s back, he’s just sitting in the corner doodling in his notepad. And still Surya keeps on talking. Remember how in the first three episodes Surya didn’t say one word the whole time? I’m wondering now how difficult it was to find footage where he wasn’t talking. That would be a real editing challenge.

Now we’re back with the bees, and there are different people there. But we actually know who these people are, because there’s a voiceover from Aimee talking about how she took on the project manager role and sent the rest Team Kinetic to go harvest the honey. See how easy that was, editors? Try to keep it up. Derek is finding out that the bee suits, which are supposed to protect you against bee stings, really aren’t working too well. In fact, he’s still getting stung through the suit. That’s gotta suck.

And just like that the harvesting is done and the team is heading back. While they were gone Aimee was supposed to be handling their marketing, but we find out that she was waiting to do all of that until she had a name. A name for the honey. A name that they could put on the label. And she wants the whole team to brainstorm for a name for their honey. Hey, how about this? Just put a big sticker that says “Honey” on the jar. Problem solved. Looks like Aimee has checked out as project manager just as much as Aaron has.

Next the teams take a field trip to a honey factory, where they’re actually overseeing the equipment that fill the bottles. Is this what the show is about now? Factory work? Because I would think you’d actually have to be qualified to run these machines, but apparently not because we’ve got people like Frank and Nicole on the factory floor. But no one is worse than Tim. His job is literally to watch the machine fill the bottles. That’s it. The whole process is automated, and he just has to watch it. And he’s screwing it up! Something like five times he has to yell out to Frank to push the emergency stop button, because the bottles didn’t fill right. Or, as we see, the bottle weren’t lined up right and the machine squirted honey all over the floor. I can’t even figure out what’s wrong here. How does this get screwed up? Anyway, the whole team finds this uproariously funny. Tim and Frank are good-naturedly yelling at each other, and the rest of the team is laughing, and the whole time there are real employees standing in the back of the room, real factory workers who actually do this for a living and who have quotas, and they look like they want to kill themselves.

And then, before you know it, Team Kinetic is at Ralph’s supermarket. So, did they ever figure out their naming crisis? Did they go to the factory to fill bottles too? And did Aimee ever get any kind of marketing plan together? Apparently not, because the whole team is complaining about her. And for good reason. Their esteemed project manager is wandering around the store, dazed, like she’s just been let out of the hospital and she’s still a little disoriented. She even has this plain t-shirt on, that if you look at it just from the front, the way it’s hanging off of her, it looks like it doesn’t close in the back. The whole thing has an “Aimee just had her appendix out” vibe, and we see Derek and Muna getting their shit together and unloading honey from the truck, while Aimee stands around brushing her hair, yawning, and “watching the cart”. Other people are putting up crappy homemade signs in the front of the store proclaiming it to be “Honey Day”, and still Aimee is just standing there. Maybe she took some of Aaron’s painkillers.

Over at Arrow’s store, we see a closeup of their honey bottles, and guess what name they put on the label? “Honey.” Looks like someone had their priorities straight. We’re shown lots of shots of happy customers buying honey, and the team has done the smart thing of giving away one free bottle if you buy two. Because of the way these tasks are structured, the only thing that matters in the end is how much money you take in. The amount you have to spend to get there, and the amount of product you give away for free, and therefore the total profit you make, are irrelevant. It’s all about the hard numbers of how many you sell. And so it’s smart, in these cases, to go crazy with the giveaways and promotions, so that even if people are spending a lot of money they feel like they’re getting a lot. Hell, use your seed money to give out free gold bracelets with every bottle of honey sold, whatever it takes.

And it seems to be working for Arrow, at least until Surya shows up with his big giant energy suck. It’s funny how Surya seems like he’d be a good contestant, like on the surface, but all we’re shown of him is him being a distraction and an obstruction to everything around him. God, what if Surya is the Brent of this season, or the Markus, and we just haven’t realized it yet?

And Aaron is continuing his downward slide into stupor, half-heartedly grabbing a tray of free samples to hand out while muttering “I hate sales.” This coming from a guy who works in sales. We see him just standing around, doing a lot of nothing, and it seems like he just had the same surgery as Aimee.

Speaking of Aimee, the rest of her team is rallying around to save her ass. Angela puts on a track suit and starts trading on her reputation as an Olympic gold medalist to get attention, and Derek puts on his bee suit and starts walking around the store like a big goof, pulling sales that way. They’re gimmicks, but when you’ve got two hours to sell honey in an empty supermarket, which I can’t imagine is a big seller to begin with, you need all the gimmicks you can get. And it works, well enough for Kinetic to take the lead and win the task by a hundred dollars.

Oh god, here we go again with Trump. Trump is out of town “on business”, which really means he’s giving another one of his inane Learning Annex lectures. He’s up on stage talking about some crap or other, and there’s a whole group of people who may or may not be extras hired by Mark Burnett to fill up the hall, and someone is holding a sign that says “Trump For President”. This is so horrible. And then it gets worse. Sean, in the Boardroom, calls Trump while he’s still on stage to read the results of the task. And Trump stays on stage, and puts the call on speakerphone so the whole crowd can hear it. He explains about the “killer bees” and we hear that Kinetic won the task. The crowd goes wild. I have to lay down, because this is so stupid that it seems like it should be fake, but all the evidence points to it not being fake.

Trump goes backstage to yell into the phone that Kinetic’s reward will be playing basketball with the LA Lakers. Trump then hangs up and goes off to collect his $1.5 million speaking fee, while Sean dismisses everyone from the Boardroom. Arrow has to pack up their crap and move back to the backyard, and Kinetic gets to meet up with Kareem and some Laker Girls to shoot some hoops.

And then, Boardroom time! Trump is back from Minnesota, and he immediately starts laying into Aaron for being quiet last week in the Boardroom, when he was sitting at Trump’s right hand to judge Kinetic. There are some detours along the way, with talk about branding and the actual task at hand, but Trump just can’t get off of it. You know how he gets one thing that worms his way into his brain, and he won’t let go of it. That’s what’s happening here.

Oh, but there’s one more detour, where talk turns to Tim and Nicole and their supposed secret romance. Which of course we’ve seen absolutely none of so far, thanks to the editors, but he we are in the Boardroom talking about it. Frank’s giving Tim a hard time about how they’re going to get married, and Trump is saying that Tim deserves to be The Apprentice if he can get Nicole into bed, and everyone has a good laugh. Ha ha! Objectifying women is so funny!

But in the end all these detours are meaningless. Aaron spent the whole episode shuffling around like a zombie, and above that Trump just can’t get off the fact that he was so quiet in the Boardroom last time. So Aaron’s fired pretty quickly. But in the end, Surya still can’t stop talking. Even after Aaron has been fired, even as everyone is leaving the room, Surya is still trying to talk to Trump. Trump just tells him to shut the hell up and get out. No kidding; people have been fired for crap like that before. You don’t want to poke a stick into the hornet’s nest that is Trump’s subconscious.

And then, while Aaron is getting into the town car for his ride off into the sunset, Surya is still talking. Still! He shuts up for a blissful second while the car is driving away, but then he starts back up again during the walk to the backyard. The music fades out, the show’s over, the crew is going to bed, and still Surya’s talking, talking talking. Somebody needs to get that boy a muzzle.

Next week? Tim and Nicole get busy by the pool. Maybe. You never know with these promos. They seem to have very little relation to things that actually happen on the show.

Again, just like every week, you can ask the question: what does any of this have to do with real estate?

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

Previously on The Apprentice: A whole lot of yelling at tourists ultimately came down to nothing, as Michelle realized that it’s just a game show, and bowed out of the competition. Meanwhile, Trump’s head exploded. Some more.

The show picks up at the same phone call we saw last week, Andie calling from Trump’s “office” to let Team Arrow know that Boardroom has been canceled. Frank answers the phone, jumping up and down, and everyone shares a hug. We fade out on a hilarious freeze frame of Frank, like six feet in the air, with a cigar in one hand and everyone hanging off of him.

Normally this is where we’d segue into the opening credits, but instead we get some beauty shots of sunset in LA, and a gorgeous time lapse of a red moon rising over the city. We’re then treated to a sequence that almost seems staged because it’s too perfectly set up. Team Kinetic is having a nice orderly meeting inside the mansion, with clipboards and minutes and everyone sitting around in a power circle sharing their thoughts and feelings on how to prepare for the next task. This immediately cuts to Team Arrow sitting around the campfire in night vision, yelling and laughing and drinking beer and discussing the existential nature of Cheese Doodles. It’s like they’re setting up this whole duality between the haves and have-nots, between white collar and blue collar, and they’re making Arrow out to be the fun-loving hooligans while Kinetic are the stuffed shirts. And the funniest thing is that Donald Trump is the stuffiest stuffed shirt around, and his idea of “going wild” is taking off his black socks to show his wrinkled-up old man feet at the beach, and Trump is so totally a Kinetic. But they’re showing Arrow to be the more fun team. Another silent jab at Trump here?

Anyway, the phone rings and it’s Trump, who begins by calling Team Arrow “pathetic” and ordering someone from Kinetic to switch sides. Nobody seems too thrilled about this, not only because they don’t want to sleep in the backyard, but also I’m guessing because none of them want to get too close to Frank. But soon it dawns on them that Trump’s actually testing them here, and volunteering to be the one to rescue a failing team will look good on their permanent record. So pretty soon half the team is stepping forward to do it, including Heidi, the project manager. In the end it’s Surya, who we’ve seen on-screen for about five seconds total this season, who gets picked to switch sides.

Trump tells everyone that he’ll meet them the next morning on Mulholland Drive, and pulls out his standard lie for occasions like this: “I’ve got a lot a meetings tomorrow, but I’m going to stop by very quickly to give you your next task.” He does this every season, pretending like when this show is filming he does anything more than sit in the makeup chair for hours and hours, waiting for his next chance to be on TV. Everything surrounding Trump on this show is so fake; I’d be surprised if it was actually him on the phone talking to the teams right now. Surya heads over to the Arrow firepit and is immediately offered a beer. Welcome to the fun side of the fence!

And then we get some more hilarity. Surya, not realizing what he’s gotten himself into, whips out his little clipboard straightaway and starts going on and on about “righting the ship” and openness and trust and structure and the Fifteen Rules of How Arrow Can Do Better. They overlap the footage here so there are the Three Voices Of Surya in your ear and he seriously goes on and on with this stuff. And everyone on Arrow is drunk off their asses, so one by one they all fall asleep, right there by the fire, leaving Surya talking to the coyotes and no one else in particular.

Finally, credits. Six minutes in.

Cut to the Trump Limo heading up into the hills. Inside is some unspecified bald guy in a suit chatting about how some unspecified business is doing. And also there is Sean, last year’s winner. You remember? The British guy? No? Me neither. Until this episode, all I remembered about last year’s season was Lenny and Orlando Bloom, Brent and his bagels, and Lee and some other guy in the final two. Lee lost, but I couldn’t remember who won. But now here he is! Sean! The metrosexual! Remember now? No?

Trump tells his limo driver to pull over, and it’s so hideously fake, because when Trump’s talking you can see out the back window that they’re in traffic on some city street, but the exterior shot shows them all by themselves on the top of a mountain. So fake. Trump starts talking about automobiles, and how LA has automobiles on top of automobiles and how people do “everything” in their automobiles, even stuff he doesn’t want to talk about. Trump laughs at his own innuendo, and everyone gets squeamish because it’s like your grandma talking about sex. But his point is that LA is different than New York, where all they have is taxis and helicopters, and here in LA they have this thing called the “Drive-Through Restaurant”, a thing which Trump has obviously never experienced in his life, and when he finally gets to the damn point we find out that the unspecified bald guy in a suit is actually the CEO of El Pollo Loco. So it’s Fast Food Week on the Apprentice, and we’ve fallen so far this season that El Pollo Loco is the best they can do. What, Long John Silver’s didn’t return your call?

We jump right into the middle of the teams creating their new menu item, and I’m getting dizzy from how fast we’re moving through the tasks. We seriously spend like thirty seconds watching Arrow create a Chicken Tortilla Bowl, and fifteen seconds at Kinetic watching them chow down on their mango-pineapple bowl. We also see Derek and Marisa at some other building, completely in another part of town, and we get a voiceover about how they’re doing marketing and creating graphics. All of this takes place in less than two minutes. This whole middle section of the episode was so disjointed and jumpy and confusing, it felt like the pros that normally do post production on this show stepped out for lunch and left the editing to a high school AV club. It’s quick, it feels like there are big chunks missing, and it leaves you wondering what the hell happened. I had to check my Tivo to make sure I didn’t hit the wrong button and skip over five minutes of the show somewhere. Not a great showing from the editors this week, at least not in this middle section.

Kinetic is wrangling with a name for their new product, and they all seem to agree on the “Paradise Pollo Bowl.” It has chicken and pineapple, so what else are you going to call it? But Marisa, who you’ll remember is somewhere across town, keeps calling in with her brilliant ideas. Her brilliant ideas, of which she has precisely two, are: call it the Bravado Bowl (that’s just a horrible name for food, any food), and put some people in chicken suits on the sidewalk. The chicken suit idea gets universally shot down, because come on, even Donald Trump is classier than that. And they’ve already come up with a name, thank you. But Marisa won’t be held down. She keeps calling, and keeps calling, and every five goddamn minutes she’s on the phone talking about Bravado Bowls and chicken suits. By this time Heidi is completely pissed off and ready to chuck the phone into the deep fryer, but she just won’t stop talking.

Over at Arrow (or Aarow, in tribute to their Project Manager), we’re shocked to see everyone actually acting competently. It’s kind of funny when Aaron speaks with wide-eyed wonder about how they got “five dozen balloons” to decorate the store, like he’s never seen that many balloons in his whole life. But they’re generally doing a good job. They’ve got banners, and signs, and yes, a whole 60 balloons. They’ve got James out on the street yelling at cars, and if there’s anyone on this team who could actually be heard from inside an enclosed car going 45 MPH, it’s James. They’re also sending Frank and Tim out to do “bulk sales”. In the world of Frank and Tim, “bulk sales” seems to mean walking into the first car dealership you see and jumping around a lot so people are afraid to say no to you, but it does get them an order for 22 bowls. And at $5 apiece, it could be said that’s a task-winning move right there. We also see that everyone coming into the restaurant is getting excited about these new tortilla bowls, and the drive-thru is so backed up that people are honking constantly (fake!). Sean is there, and everyone is smiling and happy (although not necessarily because Sean is there), and could this be the week that Team Sucky turns into Team Awesome?

Meanwhile over at Kinetic, it’s like a ghost town, and the few people that do come in aren’t too thrilled about the exciting new blend of chicken and fruit that they’ve whipped up. Marisa and Derek have returned from their field trip, and they’re stuck outside in the hot sun handing out free samples to drive-thru customers. Marisa’s still going on and on about her chicken suits, and I guess so much of her brain was occupied with those suits that she forgot to make signs and banners. Because I see a few small signs by the front counter, but nothing like what Aarow has set up. There aren’t even any balloons! Aarow has 60 balloons, how are you going to top that? Sad music leads us away from Kinetic, mourning for the lack of chicken suits.

And we’re in the Boardroom, with everyone still wearing their El Pollo uniforms. Trump gets all 1950s, all “Take your hats off, you’re inside” in this stern headmaster voice. And we find out from Sean that Kinetic sold $313.54, and Aarow sold $480 for the win. Everyone on Aarow is happy, and I think Frank is in tears. But poor, sad Kinetic looks so deflated, and they’re told they’re coming back to the Boardroom. For the first time, ever. There are so many people on that team who I’ve never heard speak. I don’t even know their names. Is there really someone named Aimee there?

Aarow’s reward is to be taken to Malibu (Nicole’s fantastically excited just to hear that much…I think she’s easily pleased), where they will be treated to a beachfront concert by Andrea Bocelli, followed by feasting and fireworks. They’re all pretty thrilled, and I think I would be too, considering this is their first good news after more than a week of filming. I think they’re also thrilled just to get hot showers for a change. There is much celebrating at the mansion, with everyone jumping in the pool fully clothed. And then they go to the beach, and Andrea Bocelli shows up and starts playing piano and singing. I really have no idea who this guy is. Except that he was a guest on American Idol last year, and I had no idea back then either. Maybe I just don’t keep up on my Italian musicians. Frank’s pretty excited, though. Apparently he pops in an Andrea Bocelli CD every Sunday at dinner. Then they sit down to their feast, and because this show loves contrast, the shots of them eating on the beach are interspersed with Team Kinetic in the backyard cooking spaghetti in paper plates. You know I love contrasts too, but sometimes it’s just too much, you know?

Then we see Kinetic, sitting around in one of their power circle meetings in the backyard, only instead of discussing motivation and goals, they’re discussing who to stab in the back. And this team approaches scapegoating in the exact same way they approach everything else, by getting together and getting consensus. And who’s the chosen scapegoat this week? Why it’s Marisa of course, she of the chicken suits. Now normally on The Apprentice, and I’m talking about previous seasons here, the theme is that the Project Manager is always the one to be fired, unless someone else screws up horribly. But this season, Trump must be slipping a little or something, because every week he just seems to be going along with the team’s chosen scapegoat and firing them. He’s usually pretty sharp in the Boardroom; it’s admittedly the place where he has most of his mindblowing moments and reveals his inability to deal with the world the rest of us have to face, but a lot of the time he’s able to see through the cloud of bullshit that teams who’ve chosen a scapegoat walk in with and he’s able to fire the right person. Which usually is the Project Manager. Because there’s screwing up on the small things, which is what the scapegoat gets charged with, but there’s also screwing up on everything, which is what many Project Managers have done. And this season he’s lost the ability to see that. Like the sun in LA is getting to his brain or something. Like when he fired Carey for designing a pink suit, when it was the Project Manager’s job to tell Carey to quit it and go sit in the corner. The old Trump would have been able to ferret out Nicole’s incompetence that week, even if there were a gay man in the room. And this week he should have been able to realize that the correct thing to do with a disruptive task member is to sideline her and tell her to shut the hell up. Which was done to Marisa. And they still lost, which makes me think the fault lies elsewhere. Sure, Marisa obsessed so much over the chicken suit that she was incapable of processing any other thought. But what was Derek doing? Wasn’t he also on marketing? Does Trump know that he’s gay yet? He must not, or else he would have been fired. And what about the people inside the store, who were actually in charge of selling the damn thing? Or the people who thought that chicken and mango were a match that was just waiting to be made? Marisa was useless, sure, but it wasn’t her uselessness that made them lose.

Of course, it could be said that she was fired for her Boardroom performance. Because here she is interrupting everybody, and we’re not even thirty seconds in. Sean starts talking about the distinct lack of banners and balloons at Kinetic’s store, and Marisa just keeps saying his name. “Sean. Sean. Sean. Sean. Sean.” While he’s talking. He’s learned enough during his two months at the Trump Organization to know not to get up, reach across the table, and slap the hell out of her, but it’s what she needed at that point. And she’s not done! Whoever is talking at any particular moment in the Boardroom, she’s talking over them. What’s kind of funny is that most of them, Sean especially, just keep on talking like she’s not even there. It’s like when you’re chatting with someone, and there’s a phone ringing in another room, and you have the choice to either get up and answer it or just pretend like you don’t hear it. They’re all pretending like they don’t hear her, which I guess is roughly equivalent to a slap in the face.

Muna pipes up (for like the first time ever this season), and points out that Marisa is disruptive, and that even in this Boardroom she’s been interrupting everyone. Which is a smart move, because if your scapegoat is doing you the favor of acting rude in the Boardroom, the least you can do is bring it up so it’s fresh in Trump’s mind. And how does Marisa respond to this? By interrupting! By interrupting Trump as he’s defending her, no less! Talk about a bad move. A good portion of this game has nothing to do with winning tasks or displaying business competence, it has to do with getting on Trump’s good side. Because it is an ass-kissing competition, let’s not forget, and Trump over the last six years has shown himself to be highly unstable and emotional in the Boardroom. You never know what will set him off, so you’ve got to kind of read his mood, and if you’ve been labeled as an interrupter, what you’ve got to do is cut it out. Right now. Don’t give him anything to latch onto.

The rest of the Boardroom goes pretty much along the same lines. Aimee and Marisa get into a shouting match at one point, so when Heidi is asked to bring two people back it’s a pretty easy choice. And Marisa just won’t shut up, just won’t let Trump finish any of his sentences. He has to tell her to stop, he has to tell her to settle down, he actually has to ask her if she’s ready to let him speak. And that, on top of the fact that she only had one idea for getting people into the store, the chicken suits, leads to her being fired pretty quickly. After she’s gone, he pretty much confirms to the camera that the scapegoating worked on him: “Every single person on the team wanted her out. I think I had no choice.” Way to take control of the Boardroom there, Trump.

So goodbye, Marisa. You were hot, but sometimes that’s not enough. Even with Trump, surprisingly. And even in the towncar ride home, she Can’t Shut Up about the damn chicken suits!

Things we didn’t see this week that were promised in the previews: The shocking(!) move in the Boardroom. Didn’t happen, didn’t see it, why did they promote it so much if they were only going to cut it out. And: The Apprentice romance. Tim and Nicole were flirting a little around the campfire and on the beach, but there was a whole scene with them making out by the pool that was in the previews but didn’t make the show. Does NBC have the worst promo department in network TV or what?

Extra credit assignment: After watching chicken suits be vilified during this entire episode and this entire recap, look at this picture of Aaron, Project Manager of the winning team. Discuss.

Only half the candidates compete this week, and they have to run bus tours of Hollywood. It’s all moot, though, because at the end Michelle realizes she’s too good for this show and walks out.

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

Previously on The Apprentice: While Donald Trump was busy having his brains scrambled by Carey’s pink paisley gay bathing suit, the rest of Team Arrow was hard at work trying to paint Michelle as a crazy person who was actively standing in the way of any kind of work getting done on the task. At the time it seemed like scapegoating, because she was only on screen for a few minutes. But these previouslies are all about Michelle, so maybe her story will be continuing tonight.

The previouslies segue into the rest of Team Arrow hanging around in the backyard in night vision, hoping that “Johnny” gets fired. And who exactly is Johnny? Why, it’s Michelle of course. And why do they call her this? Don’t know. Frank tries to explain it, but his voice just sounds like a balloon slowly leaking air, so it’s not really making a lot of sense. “Johnny” does return to camp, and nobody’s happy to see her, and she’s not happy to see anyone. She says the game is all about politics as we go into the opening credits.

And the opening credits this season are as fabulous as ever, with one glaring exception. It’s awesome to see that they’re still using The O’Jays after all these years, and it really is one of the best theme songs on TV. I mean, Survivor and The Amazing Race have exciting theme songs, but they’re only exciting by association. They’re only good because they signal to you, “Hey, you’re about to watch Survivor and The Amazing Race.” As pieces of music, separate from the whole experience of sitting down to watch the show, they’re really nothing special. But “For the Love Of Money,” on the other hand. is just a ton of fun all on its own. It’s down and funky, and the irony of it being used as the theme song for one of the unfunkiest white men around is most delicious. They’ve screwed it up this year by dubbing in Trump saying, “You’re fired,” over the music, but even that can’t ruin what is usually the high point of each week’s episode.

Back from the credits, it’s sundown in LA, as shown to us with several silhouette shots of palm trees and the downtown skyline. It’s easy to tell this is a Mark Burnett show, because there are all these scenic shots of LA interspersed between the scenes. Just like how on Survivor you get time-lapse shots of the beach, or of scorpions fighting, on this show it’s the freeway, or the palm trees, or a time-lapse shot of hookers getting picked up on Hollywood Boulevard. It’s that extra little touch that makes you remember there are real pros putting this show together. I mean, they can make a show about kissing Donald Trump’s ass look gorgeous, and that’s a real accomplishment.

If you rememeber from last week, Team Kinetic won themselves a week off by being the winners in the last task. But that doesn’t mean they don’t get a phone call at some obscenely early time in the morning, and they’re asked to meet, along with Team Arrow, at Santa Monica Beach. Santa Monica? Again? There are other beaches in LA, you know. When they get there Team Arrow is all decked out in suits, but Team Kinetic has obviously been tipped off that something’s up, because they’re all wearing sarongs and board shorts. Puts a new spin on “business casual.” But soon they find out that not only do they get the week off, they also get to spend the day being pampered at the hotel’s day spa. So, in a way, this is Trump saying, “I’m sorry” for the Playboy Mansion. Because they’re still trying to wash that off.

So, basically, exeunt Team Kinetic for the rest of this episode, except for the few shots we see of them getting massages and mud masks. And that leaves us with Team Arrow, who is split into two sub teams this week. One team has Frank, Nicole, and Michelle (Team Sucky), and the other has Aaron and James (Team Not-So-Sucky). The two teams are tasked with creating a bus tour for Starline Tours, and convincing a group of tourists that LA really is as glamorous as they’ve heard. It’s not, but the tourists don’t know that. And neither does most of Team Arrow, because they seem to think putting lipstick on this particular pig will be easy. It’s not.

Team Not-So-Sucky gets right to work, calling up the Laker Girls to join them on the tour (why? Because everything’s more fun with cheerleaders!). Team Sucky sets right to work being, well, sucky, coming up with a “Day in the Life of the Rich and Famous” tour, which presupposes that movie stars actually hang out and spend time in Hollywood. So already, after five minutes of watching the teams at work, we already know who is going to win this task. It’s not difficult to figure out. But, just like each episode of Columbo starts by showing you the murder, leaving you only to wonder how Columbo is going to solve it, so here we’re left wondering how badly Team Sucky is going to screw things up. Let’s watch.

We start out with Michelle saying the word “consensus” about a hundred times, and while Team Not-So-Sucky is out making calls and trying to arrange things, Michelle spends a million hours trying to get the team to come together and all get behind the idea. She’s too afraid to just put her foot down and tell the team the way things are going to be, because she doesn’t want it to come back and bite her in the Boardroom. Which, considering Nicole was able to be a horrible Project Manager last week, and still got the blame shifted entirely to someone else at the end, maybe having the Project Manager pretend they’re not the Project Manager is the secret to success this season.

Salsa music and gorgeous shots of the beach, seagulls, and surfers. The segues this year are better than the show itself. A beautifully warped shot of people walking along the beach, which pulls out to reveal it’s actually a reflection in the windows of a lifeguard tower. It think these teams that are tasked with making LA look good need to get some advice from the Mark Burnett cameramen. But the salsa music is just there to show us Team Kinetic sipping mimosas by the pool. This is better than 80% of the rewards they have on the show, where they usually have to spend an hour with someone like George Steinbrenner or Regis Philbin, or spend the night being deloused after an evening at the Playboy Mansion. This reward not only recharges you and lifts your spirits, it brings you closer to your team too, so you’re more inclined to get along with them during a task. Good show!

Meanwhile, we’re getting some misleading editing with Team Not-So-Sucky, as we see Aaron trying to put together a tour of celebrity murders. The Menendez Brothers, OJ Simpson, things like that. He seems pretty serious about it, which shows you a lot about what’s inside Aaron’s head. The rest of the team shuts it down, and James switches gears to a tour of famous movie locations. Which is as good as you’re going to get, I guess. These tour companies kind of have learned the same lesson as the cruise ship companies, that it doesn’t matter where you’re going as long as you have fun while you’re getting there. So it’s not so important what sights you’re seeing, as long as the tour itself is a blast. And Team Not-So-Sucky picks up on this, especially when James takes one of the tours with the specific mission of finding out what the tourists are dissatisfied with, so they can try to make the experience better. Smart cookie, that one.

And what does James learn on the tour? It’s hot, the people are thirsty, and the tour operator is some kind of out-of-work comic who’s just glad he has a captive audience. The tourists seriously look like they’re ready to bolt at the next red light when this guy starts talking about his ruptured spleen. It’s embarrassing for the whole city, but it’s also true to life. You go to LA thinking you’re going to see movie stars, and all you end up seeing is this guy. Everywhere you go. Imagine a 24-hour American Idol audition, and that’s what Hollywood is like.

And while Team Not-So-Sucky is being not sucky, Team Sucky is being sucky some more. They split up into two vans and cruise around the town looking for all the hot spots that the stars frequent. And what do they see? Strip clubs, check cashing places, gift shops, Scientology temples. Massage parlors with bars on the windows. That kind of thing. Tim, who has obviously never been in LA before, sings the song of the truly disillusioned: “Hollywood’s kind of a dump.” And that “the rich and famous don’t really exist in Hollywood.” So they toodle over to Beverly Hills, and find out that it’s boring. Nice, but boring. So Michelle decides to go back to Hollywood. Or maybe Beverly Hills. Or maybe they could drive through Beverly Hills on their way to Hollywood. Michelle is one of those deer-in-the-headlights Project Managers, so afraid of making the wrong decision that they make no decision, which is a decision in itself, and possibly the worst possible one. So Tim and Michelle are wasting everyone’s time driving around in the van, but Frank and Nicole are in another van, doing even less. In fact, their major contribution seems to be talking bad about Michelle. Which she deserves, but so many people spend so much time looking for someone to blame, when if they just sucked it up and did the work, they’d win, and they wouldn’t have to blame anyone. But it’s Frank and Nicole, so what did you expect? Their idea of getting things done involves renting tuxedos and getting huge banners printed. Boy, Frank sure has come a long way from getting flyers at Kinko’s.

Meanwhile, Tim and Michelle are still driving. It’s dark, the hookers are out, and you can’t see a thing except headlights. But they’re still trying to decide between Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Still. It’s been hours. Michelle tells Tim to make a decision for her. This is sad. So both teams end up pulling all-nighters to work through their plans, but Team Sucky in particular gets like one hour of sleep.

The next morning, Aaron is leading a gaggle of Laker Girls down the streets of Hollywood. I guess this is his way of cleansing the gay he got all over him last week from Carey’s pink swimsuit. Everyone gets on the bus, and they’ve got popcorn, and they’ve got Arrowhead water (not quite the Perrier they were talking about the day before). But they’ve also got James screaming and making himself hoarse, and the people aren’t looking like they’re having too much fun. But they’re lucky not to be on Michelle’s bus, because she has taken the mic and she says “Rich and Famous” about fifteen times in the first two minutes. There are words coming out of her mouth, but they’re not making sense. Then she wisely passes the microphone to Tim, and once he gets it there’s some kind of magnetic field around his body that causes an insane amount of feedback to come out of the speakers. Kids are covering their ears. Dogs on the sidewalk are having seizures as the bus passes. I’m actually surprised the editors didn’t insert a fake shot here of Trump sitting in his office saying, “Do you hear that?” But the feedback fortunately is covering up what he’s saying, because he’s apparently picked up on Aaron’s celebrity death idea and proudly announces, “The first place we’re gonna see is called the Chateau Marmont. Chateau Marmont is most famous for is the location where the legendary John Belushi passed away after injecting a speedball full of drugs and overdosed.” Silence. Feedback. Horrified stares. Things are not going well for Team Sucky.

They’re not going well for Team Not-So-Sucky either, where the audience is less than captivated by James’ screaming. Finally Stefani just grabs the mic, and suddenly becomes awesome. She taps into some kind of past life experience, puts her glasses at the end of her nose, and becomes a tour guide. Like after this she probably got job offers from Starline. They’ve been looking for someone ever since they canned the spleen guy.

Before we know it, we’re back at Trump’s mansion to hear the results. And it’s exactly what we expected to hear half an hour ago. Team Not-So-Sucky wins by a wide margin. But first, Trump asks the teams how they think they did, and Team Sucky doesn’t even think they won. They can’t even get the confidence together to say, “I think we won.” They start blaming Michelle immediately, partly because they want to cover their own butts, but mostly because they know they lost. There’s no mystery here. Team Not-So-Sucky gets to learn that winning is its own reward, because even though they were on the winning sub-team, they’re still members of perpetual losers Team Arrow, so they get no reward, and everyone’s dismissed, with Team Not-So-Sucky coming back to the boardroom later, with Aaron sitting in as the “winning” Project Manager.

But then, what’s this? Michelle has something to say. And what she has to say is not only that she knows she’s going to be fired, so she doesn’t want to waste everyone’s time, but also that this season of the show kind of sucks and she doesn’t want to be a part of it. She calls out the whole “living in the backyard” twist as an incredibly stupid gimmick, without using those words, and basically says the show is so bad this year that she doesn’t even want to be a part of it anymore. Having to suck up to Trump on national TV is bad enough, but at least she thought she’d have a real toilet, you know? Trump tries to shame her into staying on, couching it as “quitting”, and of course “quitting” is one of Trump’s deadly sins. And then he starts talking about boxing, which has nothing to do with anything, but it’s kind of typical Trump. Michelle just comes back and says that staying on the show would compromise her integrity. This show is so embarrassing this year it’s actually against her nature to be on it. It’s subtle, and the editing staff tries to hide it, but she’s basically calling Trump on his bullshit here. And Trump of course doesn’t see it, because it’s a deadly sin, but she’s saying that she’d rather be a quitter than be a dancing monkey. She even gets this wicked little smile on her face, as she realizes what she’s done, and that what she’s done is flipped Donald Trump the bird on national TV. She’s reached the point in her personal growth where she realizes that she’s better than Trump, and this show is beneath her. It’s like watching someone slowly wake up from a coma. It’s kind of awesome.

Trump makes some noises to the effect that her leaving the show doesn’t let the rest of Team Sucky off the hook for coming to the Boardroom, but after some time he decides that he’d rather save his double firings for later in the season, and calls Arrow to let everyone know the Boardroom has been called off. So there is much cheering in the backyard, and the last thing we see is Michelle walking down the driveway, flipping off Trump and Mark Burnett and everybody. She was an extraordinarily horrible Project Manager, but at least she knew when to get out.

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.