Tonight’s episode begins with a wrap-up of last week – Team Synergy in the boardroom with Brent talking himself into being fired while Team Gold Rush sits in the apartment hoping for Brent’s return. They’re smart people – they know that Brent was a great team member … for them. Finally, Team Synergy is reunited, minus Brent, and starts celebrating while Team Gold Rush looks glum and somehow shocked. I mean, I understand that they would love to have Brent around, but seriously? The celebration is interrupted, however, by Andrea confronting Roxanne for criticizing her in front of Trump – how dare Roxanne say that Tammy was a better PM? :O
The Donald’s awkward staff interaction moment of the week:
Donald: How many propellers does this thing have?
Captain: Two.
Donald: Wow. They must be big.
The teams arrive on the Norwegian Jewel cruise ship for their new assignment: creating a 30 second commercial for the cruise line’s “Freestyling Cruising.” There’s a tight timeline for this one – the ship is leaving at 3:00, regardless of who is still on board that shouldn’t be! The teams react to the time crunch in different ways, but not until we get some promo shots of the ship.
At Team Gold Rush, Dan is serving as Project Manager, and he starts things off in a frenzy. There he is, yelling out commands that are barely intelligible and agitating everyone. Good thing they have the Russian to bring them back to earth. Lenny comes up with the idea of their commercial following a castaway that stumbles upon the ship and gawks at his good fortune and the rest of the team gets on board right away.
Over at Synergy, it’s not clear at first if they have a concept, or even a PM. Allie claims credit for the team’s idea, which is to contrast the flexibility of the cruise line with more traditional structured cruises, but nobody says how this will translate creatively into a commercial. Finally we learn that Roxanne is the new PM and it’s immediately obvious that she’s not really giving anyone direction and that Andrea is more than ready to throw her under the bus for it. At least they have the crew to tell them what to do.
Trump’s business lesson for the week:
I’m so happy he’s doing this! By the end of the season, I’ll be able to start my own empire!
“Listen to your people.” Hey! It’s Apprentice Kendra! Trump listens to her! Her ideas are great! Trump’s whole company will be so much better now! Thanks, Kendra!
Back to the task … Dan sends Tarek and Bryce to set up a shot of the theater because they’ll work better with just the two of them. At the villa, Dan micromanages the crew while the rest of the team complains about him and how little they’re allowed to contribute. Lee sucks up to everyone from Lenny Lee’s obviously a big fan to Bill Rancic while the girls hang out in the bathroom discussing the fascinating toilets.
At Synergy, Roxanne starts getting more direct with telling the cast and crew what they should be doing, but as soon as she takes a phone call, Andrea jumps in to contradict Roxanne’s instructions. Obviously, as Roxanne points out, “Andrea doesn’t know how to play in the sandbox.” Everyone makes it off the ship in time, but as soon as Synergy gets to the editing room, Andrea starts ripping apart every decision Roxanne makes. Actually, she doesn’t stop there – if Roxanne even suggests trying something, Andrea points out what a mistake it is. Roxanne is understandably unhappy with this, but it appears as though Tammy may have gotten on the anti-Roxanne bandwagon with Andrea.
Back at Gold Rush, Dan goes with Tarek’s idea of flashing words across the images rather than using a voice-over despite Lenny’s protests. It seems risky to not listen to the Russian, but we’ll see what happens. Lee, Lenny’s faithful sidekick, doesn’t even seem to speak up against Dan.
We’ve made it to the judging and Synergy’s up first in their black tops and blue scarves. What ever happened to suits? Since when do these teams need to be as matchy-matchy as a cheerleading squad? They show their commercial, starting with the controversial “bad black and white cruise dinner” and the execs seem pleased. Then, Gold Rush enters wearing black and white, which the execs just love. :confused: Dan starts off by explaining their concept of a castaway, calling it a metaphor. What? They show the commercial, which leaves the execs rather baffled. They ask what the guy had on his head (it was seaweed), but myself, I’m wondering why the crew stole the guy’s watch as soon as he got on board. Dan wraps up by talking about the metaphor again – apparently, we’re all trapped on some sort of floating raft.
The execs confer, pointing out that both teams started out with an odd beginning, but conclude that one was intriguing and confusing while the other was intriguing and clear. They’re also concerned about the lack of a voice-over in Gold Rush’s commercial – it doesn’t allow for people to “half-watch” television and still get the message. Synergy wins the task and gets the reward – going to a secret diamond vault. I’m underwhelmed by the reward until Trump announces the really good news – they’ll get to take some of the diamonds home! :bounce
The reward was the best of the season so far. They went down a creepy looking tunnel, got wanded by guys with guns, and got to see diamonds, play with diamonds, and take diamonds home! Allie was a girl after my own heart – when it comes to diamonds, she knows that size matters, and she found the biggest one for herself.
Back in the suite, Tarek and Dan talk strategy, specifically ways to get rid of Lenny and Lee. It appears that they’re working together until Tarek inexplicably remarks that Dan should remember that in the boardroom he will have zero friends. Umm … maybe you should have added, “except for me,” Tarek.
In the boardroom, Trump asks Charmaine what she thinks of Dan as a leader and she’s not complimentary, but doesn’t completely call him out. The conversation turns to Leslie when Trump asks why she’s always under the radar. Charmaine and Leslie speak up immediately, saying that Leslie has experience in broadcast journalism that she wanted to share but wasn’t able to. Dan and Tarek disagree that Leslie stepped up, but at that point the whole conversation disintegrated into a yelling match. Thank goodness for Carolyn, who stopped the yelling to point out how ridiculous they were being. Leslie turned her head from shouting long enough to agree. Trump was just excited to see Leslie put forth some energy, but they managed to get back to the topic at hand.
The commercial was confusing, and the castaway idea stunk. Lenny took responsibility for coming up with it and in a bold and intelligent move, did so in a way that was matter-of-fact and that did not encourage any additional comment. The conversation turns to the subject of the subtext, which Tarek stands by. Once again, Trump brings up Tarek’s apparently unjust membership in Mensa (jealous much?) and Lenny points out that anyone can jump online and join Mensa for a fee.
Talk turns to Lee and his habit of being an absolute brown-nose, which Trump calls “positioning himself” and seems to actually admire. The Donald asks Charmaine and Lee who they would fire and they both answer Tarek. Dan decides to bring Lee and Tarek into the boardroom and while he debates bringing Lenny, does not because he thinks that Lee and Lenny will be stronger together.
Next, a little bit of the discussion from the decision that will reveal nothing at all: Carolyn thinks that the concept was bad, so Dan should have brought in Lenny. Not doing so was a mistake. Bill thinks that Tarek was the one that took a bad concept and made it worse. The boys return to learn their fate.
One of the first things that Dan mentions about bringing in Tarek is that he told Dan that he wouldn’t have any friends in the boardroom. Dan, like me, was expecting the “except me” at the end of that. Trump then starts in on the subject of Lenny and Dan has to backtrack, denying that he didn’t bring want Lenny and Lee to strengthen each other. Lee, always the politician, takes every cue from Trump to chime in about Tarek’s past troubles.
In the end, Trump is still bitter that Tarek is a member of Mensa, and he refuses to fire Lee for being a politician. Lenny is sent the message that he doesn’t have long to go please don’t say it, Mr. Trump! but Dan is ultimately the one that’s ship out of luck sorry – I couldn’t resist. Tune in next week to see the tone deaf record music … did anyone else have flashbacks to The Super Bowl Shuffle during the previews?