First, we get to see a little flashback to last week when Andrea was fired and we then move back to the suite with the new Synergy after their first loss in quite awhile. Allie was really not happy with how, as she put it, Sean went to the Dark Side in supporting Andrea and suggesting that Allie be fired. Sean realizes that the unity shared by the three women could threaten his place in the game and he tries to defend his actions. Allie, however, says that she didn’t realize that he was playing with a strategy and that is not how she’s playing the game. So, is this a competition or what? Allie also, right after she told Sean that he should have aligned with the rest of them against Andrea, tells Sean that she isn’t trying to tell him what to think. :confused
The teams arrive in the fake waiting room of the fake boardroom and talk to the fake secretary while Donald schmoozes the CEO of Hair Cuttery Salons. Bill and Carolyn look on with huge cheesy smiles, but the group mercifully leaves the boardroom quickly to join the teams. Donald lets the teams know that despite his huge empire, people only talk about his hair. In an attempt to put the rumors of a head piece to rest, he asks everyone if they would like to touch his hair. Most of the women raise their hands, but Charmaine gets the honor. She confirms that Trump’s hair is indeed his own, but lets him know that she never doubted him. The Donald then introduces the CEO of Hair Cuttery and tells the teams that their next task is to throw a grand opening for a Hair Cuttery franchise salon.
Synergy
Tammy has volunteered to be Project Manager and she realizes that the team needs to be brought back together after their last boardroom. She doesn’t think that Sean is a bad guy but realizes that Allie and Roxanne will never let him back in their good graces. They arrive at their salon where they need to manage the staff, place product, and come up with a marketing plan. Sean knows that he absolutely cannot screw up because “there’s an X on his head.”
Gold Rush
Charmaine volunteers to be Project Manager of team Gold Rush because, as the only woman, she feels that she is the only one that knows anything about a salon. The team starts talking and Tarek wants to know what their theme will be. Charmaine’s opinion is that Grand Opening is the theme, but Tarek has a different idea. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really articulate what that idea is to Charmaine. She says that she’s open to an idea, but that he’ll have to give her one, but Tarek says that they just started talking and he couldn’t have possibly thought of a theme already. Charmaine really thinks that Grand Opening is enough of the theme, but she says that if everyone else on the team wants something else, she isn’t opposed to it. This isn’t good enough for Tarek either, who accuses Charmaine of leading by consensus. Finally, Michael comes up with the theme of “Making You Happy” and everyone agrees. They move on.
Trump’s Tip of the Week
“Watch Your Back”
Everyone wants Trump’s job, so he has to watch his back! People will go after you when you’re at the top – don’t let them get ya!
Synergy
Tammy and Sean walk the streets handing out fliers and talking to people about their event while Allie and Roxanne finish things up at their salon. Sean takes every advantage to chat up Tammy and is quite the British gentleman. The two pairs stop for dinner before meeting back up. Allie and Roxanne spend their time talking about how much they hate Sean What happened to the happy Synergy family and Allie’s constant smile? while Sean and Tammy have a date at a pizza parlor. Tammy is all smiles while she reminisces about high school pizza dates and talks about chemistry. :wub: . I think that Sean may have even referred to their meal as a date, but unfortunately his accent prevented me from understanding for sure. In his interview, Sean gushes about Tammy and says that they will have many babies after the show. Then, for some reason, the cameras continued to roll as he scratched his ear.
Gold Rush
The guys have quite the time trying to figure out what the hair products were all about and have to stock the shelves over and over again until they get it right. Charmaine works on teaching them what a hair product family is while Lee protests that they should get out on the street and do some marketing and stock shelves later. Charmaine overrules him. In her interview, she talks about the lack of respect for her on her team. In Tarek’s interview, he is frustrated that Charmaine and Michael only focus on “idiotic crap.” Back in the salon, Lee shakes his head and mutters, “Three guys taking orders from a lady.” :angry
Day of Event
At Gold Rush, Lee and Tarek are sent to drive around the area putting fliers on cars while Charmaine and Michael stay at the salon. Tarek and Lee talk about how they’re just going to blanket every car in the area, but they aren’t very quick when they’re actually moving around the lots. Lee mentions that they would do better with talking to people face-to-face, but there aren’t any people around. Tarek falls asleep in the van on the way to the next parking lot while Charmaine and Michael stand in an empty salon. Michael calls the wonder boys and asks them how they’re doing and they giggle while they tell him that it’s great. The truth is they’re having a great time mocking Charmaine and watching the task go down the drain. In talking about what Charmaine and Michael are doing back at the salon, Tarek says that Charmaine is probably getting her hair done. It would have been a catty comment except … cut to the salon … he was right. Since Gold Rush is already having such a great day, Bill happens to show up while Charmaine is being coiffed. :O He sits down to ask her about how the task is going and Charmaine lets him know that the guys just aren’t giving her a chance.
Synergy
Allie and Roxanne stay inside the salon working hard to sell products to the salon clients while Tammy and Sean make eyes at each other outside where they’re ostensibly trying to bring in foot traffic. All we see of Team Synergy is smiles and customers, so things are not looking well for Gold Rush at all.
The teams arrive in the boardroom to learn the results. Tammy is cautiously optimistic while Charmaine points out that their area didn’t have a lot of foot traffic. Charmaine actually talked for several minutes without really saying much. Trump asks Tarek how Charmaine was as a PM and Tarek calls her average. The Donald points out that Tarek calling Charmaine average will be the end of the possibility of them dating, but Charmaine quickly lets him know that there was never a possibility. Carolyn gives the results for Synergy, saying that they sold a total of $363 in products and had a total of $1005.47. Bill says that Gold Rush lacked direction and only had a total of $700. For the reward, Trump lets them know that since their task was all about style, they’d have a reward with the person with the most style – please don’t say your hair stylist, Mr. Trump – Burt Baccarach. Synergy will get to meet Burt and write a song with him, which Trump feels may make the team members lots of money down the road.
The Reward
Team Synergy is excited, especially Roxanne, and the team learns that they’ll be writing the words to a song called “In Our Time.” The reward turns ugly rather quickly when Allie shuts down one of Tammy’s ideas during their brainstorm. Burt is rather surprised to see them arguing while Tammy tries to tell Allie that during brainstorming, everyone’s ideas should be at least respected. Allie shuts Sean down too, and in Tammy’s interview she says that she wishes Allie wasn’t such a little bulldog. Tammy just wants them to all have love for each other like the world needs right now.
While Synergy is making music, Team Gold Rush is working on making plans for the boardroom. We’ve known all along that Lee is a politician, but he really excelled at it tonight. First, he told Charmaine that she should take Tarek into the boardroom and that she’ll have a chance against him because Trump has criticized him in the past. Then, he tells Tarek that it will be easy for them to make sure that Charmaine gets fired. In his interview, Tarek extols Lee’s virtues and morals while Lee goes on to tell Michael that it would be best for Tarek to be fired because then Lee and Michael could easily tell Charmaine what to do. After this display, we see Lee’s interview in which he declares that he’s not planning, he’s not conspiring, he’s not strategizing – he’s done with all that. He’s just going to protect himself and not align himself with anyone else.
Boardroom
Trump asks Charmaine what went wrong and she says that they didn’t capitalize on selling product. She hedges a bit on taking responsibility, but when Carolyn asks her if she shouldn’t have any blame at all, she admits that some of the fault lies with her but that the whole downfall wasn’t as a result of her leadership. Carolyn really wants to know what Charmaine’s plan was for the task and asks if the whole plan was putting fliers on cars. Of course, Carolyn is really just pointing out that Charmaine didn’t actually have a plan and Bill jumps in to let it be known that Charmaine got her hair done during the day. Charmaine defends that action by saying that someone on the team needed to experience the process that they were saying – a response that Carolyn loves. Charmaine’s answer doesn’t even work on the men, though, because Bill also points out that the haircut was close to the end of the day.
Trump begins talking to Lee, and he of course hedged any comment on Charmaine. He also said that he didn’t think he was hard to manage. Charmaine says that Lee was a little hard to manage, but the real problem was Tarek. Michael has a turn to speak at this point and he gives a very articulate explanation of how the biggest problem on any task is the person on the team that refuses to be managed – Tarek. Trump is impressed by Michael’s “beautiful statement” while Tarek thinks that Michael is being overdramatic.
At this point, Tarek and Charmaine start bickering and Trump asks them why they always fight. Charmaine lets Trump know that she supported Tarek in the first task that he led, but that since then Tarek has tried to take control of every task. She says that Tarek never allows a PM to do their job and lead the team. Tarek says that Charmaine leads by consensus, that the team tried to support her, and that she always tries. Charmaine heats up even more, knowing Trump’s opinion of crying, and Michael jumps in quickly to say that Charmaine did not cry during the task. Tarek also points out that Charmaine once commented that she wants everyone to love each other. Trump thinks that Tarek is a chump for not taking advantage of Charmaine’s love for love – chance 437 for Trump to say that he doesn’t believe Tarek is a genius.
Trump starts asking who should be fired and Lee starts to get in some hot water. He doesn’t want to Charmaine to go, but he doesn’t want Tarek to go, but Charmaine should have responsibility for the task that she led, but no he didn’t say that she should be fired. Carolyn hits the nail on the head when she asks Lee if he thinks that Charmaine would be less competition for him.
Tarek brings the attention away from Lee the Politician by starting the real argument with Charmaine. He says that she’s completely incapable of running everything, and their voices start to get louder and louder. They go back and forth for awhile until Tarek says that Charmaine is negative. Trump disagrees and finally calms Charmaine down and stops the fight. Trump tells Charmaine that she has some good skills, but she really made some bad decisions on this task. Also, she can’t control Tarek, who’s a maniac, but a good leader has to control whoever they’re faced with. Charmaine is fired, but Trump stops her from leaving right away. Tarek immediately knows what’s up and as soon as Trump starts talking to him, asks for another chance. Trump ignores him and tells him that he’s really inconsistent – he’ll have a good day, but then he’ll have a horrible day and that he really is impossible to manage. Trump says that good leaders need to also know how to follow and Tarek is fired as well.
The team leaves and Trump points out that they should have an interesting cab ride – he predicts that they’ll fight all the way home. Instead, though, they just ride in uncomfortable silence.
Next week, it looks as though the teams might be realigned into men v. women. They’ll be competing at a task at the football stadium at Rutgers University – if they haven’t been able to manage Brent, Andrea, or Tarek, will they be able to manage college students?
I was SO sad to see Charmaine go :( Allie is really starting to bug me. It's interesting as you pointed out that next week it's going to be men and women all over again :)
Great recap jlyl :)