Good evening everyone. Thank you all
for continuing to read these recaps. I'm sure watching my frustration
reviewing these episodes is extremely amusing. I promise they will be
more frequent in the weeks to come.
We begin with the visual recap of
episode 2: “Sex, Lies and Altitude”. I love that episode name.
The recap reminds us that Sam has only survived this far into the
competition because he hasn't been elected Project Manager yet.
Honestly seems like a rigged system to me. It's very clear that Trump
is significantly harder on the Project Manager than he is on everyone
else on the losing team. Which, if you think about it, makes sense,
since he's trying to hire a manager. However, it seems someone could
continue to advance in this competition way ahead of their actual
skill if they just avoid being elected Project Manager. Sad!
The contestants are gathered in the
condo, waiting for the announcement of who was booted. They all talk
amongst themselves, and everyone agrees Sam must be the person who
Trump fired. They see Nick walk in and are not surprised, but then
the next person to walk in is Sam! Everyone seems confused.
Sam does not make it past the foyer.
He just sits against the wall. What the hell is he doing? The camera
cuts to him and he says, “I don't care if it takes seventy-two
hours; I'm sitting here until someone greets me at the door.” Then
the camera shows everyone milling about the condo, completely
ignoring Sam.
Cut to a one-on-one with Nick, who
declares, “This guy is hilarious.” I agree, Nick.
Troy gathers VersaCorp around, and he
opines that Trump likes Sam only because the rest of their team
clearly does not. Sam makes a big spectacle, at all times, and Trump
seems to be entertained by that. Troy also says that he believes Sam
is impeding their team's progress. Everyone seems to agree with him.
I want to agree with Troy, but I think
this team has bigger issues than Sam. It's relatively easy to contain
one personality and still get the things done. Their biggest problem,
in my opinion, is the lack of a good leader who can come up with a
worthwhile plan and execute it properly. Or at the very least, they
haven't found one yet. Obviously, there are still contestants who
haven't had a shot at leading the team. Maybe they will find a good
leader among them.
Bill just proposed that they make Sam
the leader of the next task. He understands that Trump tends to place
all of the blame on the losing team’s project manager. If they
make Sam the leader and he takes them to victory, they win. He could
be the leader they are looking for, who knows? If they make him the
leader and he loses, then he's gone and no longer bothering them.
Win-win. Bill puts it best: “It's time for Sam to put up or shut
up.”
Trump and Bill.
While VersaCorp is planning their
leadership for today's contest, Protege is taking care of some
lingering issues. Jessie calls a meeting to settle the elephant in
the room: the Ereka-Omarosa fight. Immediately the team begins to
share their feelings with one another except for, you guessed it,
Omarosa. She just stands up and leaves the room. Apparently she was
personally offended by this meeting, feeling like it was a personal
attack on her. I don't see this at all. I think Jessie was definitely
doing the right thing by getting everyone together to have an open
dialogue. No one specifically talked about Omarosa.
Omarosa pulls Jessie aside and says
that a conversation like this needs to happen one-on-one with her.
She then says that her biggest problem with having a meeting with all
of the women is that if they start to give her shit, she can call out
the flaws in “every single woman here.” That's not cool, O. Not
cool at all. Nobody is happy with what she did here. The contestants
all go to sleep, with nothing settled.
The next morning, that weird phone in
the middle of their condo rings very softly and somehow wakes up Amy,
who picks up to hear the instructions for their next task. This was
at 6:00. They needed to be ready to go to Westchester Airport at
8:00.
Westchester County Airport.
Omarosa is not done yet, by the way.
She is really bringing out the devil in everyone. She gets in an
argument with her roommate, Katrina, where they go from being
friendly to Katrina calling her a “bitch”.
“I went from the projects to the white house. How successful is that?” yells O. Maybe I'm just being naïve, but if you're truly that successful why are you in a shitty competition to be Trump's lackey? It seems like Omarosa has calmed down. She even calls Katrina a good businesswoman, but Katrina will not let it go. She keeps yelling at her. Didn’t she say two minutes ago that she didn't want to personally attack anyone? This is truly insane! Amy just said to the camera that “it might be worth losing and getting rid of Omarosa so that the team can gain more progress.”
The teams both go over to Westchester
Airport and meet with Trump. He proclaims, right off the bat,
“Negotiation is a very, very delicate art. Sometimes you have to be
tough. Sometimes you have to be sweet as pie.” I wonder if that's
his strategy in the healthcare negotiations today. [Author's note: I wrote this a month ago. This feels dated but I'm going to leave it in.]
In this segment he also yells, “The
airline business stinks!” which is hilarious, because his airline,
Trump Airlines, had just failed miserably only a few years earlier. I
guess if he fails at something then it stinks. What a great leader!
I find myself asking, why are we here
again? This meeting is very confusing. Is this another task related
to airplanes? Trump is just ranting and raving about how cheap he got
his stupid 747 with “TRUMP” written on the side.
Finally the task for each team is
revealed. They are given a list of items that they must find in NYC
and buy for the lowest possible price after negotiating. That's the
connection to the airplane – he negotiated the lowest possible
price for it. Seems like a real waste of time to ship everyone up to
Westchester County just to tell them that. But then again, I also
happen to find this show to be a waste of nearly everything, so I'm
not sure why I'm surprised.
The teams head back to Midtown and
begin to plan out their strategies. They have only eight hours to
complete the purchases and negotiations. For VersaCorp, Sam is
elected the Project Manager. No surprise there. Jessie is elected the
Project Manager for Protege.
At this time, the items to be
purchased are revealed. They are a gold bar, a golf club called
“Great Big Bertha”, five pounds of fresh squid, a duck, cigars, a
Polaroid camera (ah, 2004), and a full leg wax for one team member.
The men elected to have one team
investigating prices in the office and one team out in the field
purchasing the items as told by the office. The women appear to take
a similar strategy.
Team Protege are in Chinatown trying
to buy five pounds of squid for $9. It did not work. Not a great
start. VersaCorp are also in Chinatown and are looking for a place to
buy a duck. The VersaCorp team members back in the office are trying
to negotiate the price for the gold bar by calling some brokers, and
they find out it's more expensive later in the day. I'm not sure I
buy that, but that's their intel. Sam makes the executive decision to
have them buy the gold immediately. He calls the field team and tells
them to go ASAP to 75 W 47th Street. Nick is on the phone
too and tries to give the field team the phone number for the gold
store. Sam flips out for no good reason, telling everyone that they
can only have the address. Also, I should point out that while Sam is
doing this, he is wearing a cowboy hat and playing chess. I'm not
sure who he is playing chess with. Probably himself. This is nuts.
The field team, especially Kwame, thinks that the fluctuation in
price won't vary enough to make this diversion from Chinatown
worthwhile. He is not happy.
What is Team Protege up to? They are
negotiating with “Michael,” the owner of a jewelry store, to buy
the gold. He starts out hard at $200 but Heidi thinks she can
schmooze him. Katrina straight up asks for $10 off. Team Protege are
being really annoying and you can tell that the owner just wants to
get them out of his store.
Cut to the men at their gold
negotiation. They ask the owner how much profit he makes on the gold
bar. He says $5. They don't believe it, so they keep asking him to
look them straight in the eye and say he only makes five bucks. This
is tense and weird.
Meanwhile, the women are still
negotiating. I think he's gonna give them the deal they want, $10
off. Team Protege are just being stupidly coercive. Indeed, they got
the deal. This show is so dumb. The girls just shook their butts for
one second, and the man in the frame did whatever they wanted. If
this isn't a good summary of Trump's world view then I don't know
what is. And, of course, the men were unable to negotiate the price
of gold down and bought it at full price.
DJT comes down to the offices, over to
Sam, and says “I hear you're in charge.” They have such weird
chemistry. Trump really seems to like this guy. I don't understand
this at all. Does Trump really view himself as that much of an
underdog that he sympathizes with an ostracized weirdo like Sam? Or
maybe Trump is that weird himself? These questions are purely
rhetorical, I'd rather not try to analyze The Donald's personality
any more than I already have to in this godforsaken punishment.
Almost immediately after the little
pep talk from Trump, Sam asks the men to call a golf store and
negotiate for the club. Guess what? He gave them the wrong phone
number! Sam, you have one job. I mean seriously, what is this guy
doing? The field team calls him back furiously, and he offers no
apology. They end up just going to the store without having called
first. They also send Troy, who volunteered, off to get a leg wax in
the meantime.
Omarosa gets the leg wax for the
women. She only pays $30. Troy gets his leg wax. And he pays $76.
Ouch. In more ways than one. Sorry. We are then subjected to a
classic leg wax pain montage, because of course we are.
Meanwhile, the men are in a store
practically begging for a discount on the golf club. They have gone
to this extremely high-end boutique golf store and the owner is just
not willing to negotiate. Sam's plan seems to be wrong in almost
every way you could imagine. At this time, Team Protege sends Amy
into a golf store in Chinatown and she buys the $419 golf club for
$300. The men then just walk out of their store without a club. I
don't really understand how they expect to win without buying the
product required of them.
Team VersaCorp is falling apart. They
are seriously running to the camera store rather than taking the
subway or a cab. It’s 4:00 pm, they are running out of time, and
traffic is so bad. The field guys tell Sam to go over to the cigar
store around the corner from Trump Tower so that they won't have to
rush to buy all of the items they have left. Sam just keeps feeding
them words of encouragement, and the mobile team is like, “No,
please go buy the cigars.” It's like talking to a brick wall. Sam
keeps asking what time they will get back to Trump Tower. He does not
seem to care whether they have time to get the cigars or not.
Finally, good news: the team got
nearly half off the Polaroid camera. They then run to the cigar
store, get the goods, and return to Trump Tower by 5:00. The women
also return around the same time.
Trump has George and Carolyn tally the
amount saved over retail list price by both of the teams. The women
saved twenty-two percent. The men saved nine. Team Protege wins,
because of course they do. It really looks like Sam is fucked. Trump
says, “I'm starting to think I will never hire a man again.”
That's definitely an alternative fact.
Team Protégé’s prize for winning
is dinner with Trump at the 21 Club. I have actually been there once,
and it is super fancy. It was a while ago, and I forgot there is a
Trump connection to that restaurant – a table is named for Trump's
dad, Fred. Donald begins to tell the team a very incomplete story
about how his dad, humble Brooklyn builder (eyeroll), always dreamt
of being able to go with his friends to the 21 Club. Apparently that
resulted in a table being named for him at the restaurant. That is
where the team will sit for dinner.
"Their table" groan.
Team VersaCorp is thoroughly
embarrassed. The mood is sad the next day. Sam is losing his mind
over having to go into the board room for a third time. I guess he
doesn't think that all of his experience in there will be helpful.
Meanwhile, people are expressing doubt that Sam will be fired. Heidi
says she would put money on him not going home. I think it has to be
a safe bet that he will be fired at this point – how much more of
this shit can someone pull and still impress Trump?
I never noticed this before but it
looks like the men/losers have to pack all of their stuff up every
time they go into the board room? That must be such a pain in the
ass. I guess just so they can actually leave immediately with their
stuff when they're fired.
So we're in the boardroom with all of
Team VersaCorp. Pretty much everyone in the board room answers
Trump's question about Sam being a leader with “no.” Nick kind of
evades it, but Kwame and Bowie are very direct. Sam then speaks up
and starts to spin the whole thing as a conspiracy against him. He
says that no one respects him. If they respected him, they would
think he was a good leader. I don't quite get that. Trump points out
to him that he has to earn their respect.
Trump asks Sam which two people he
wants to take with him. He selects Kwame and Bowie, the two people
who were openly critical of him. That's not really a surprise. Trump
calls him out on that fact. He says that he doesn't like the fact
that Sam can't handle criticism, despite the fact that Trump can't
handle criticism either.
Everyone is dismissed from the board
room and Sam, Kwame and Bowie wait outside to be called back in for
the firing. Ever since I found out that Robin was in an issue of
Maxim, I find myself trying to figure out what her deal is. All I
know is that she loves working those eyebrows while she calls the
final three back into the board room for her one signature line per
episode.
Kwame and Bowie make what I consider
to be a deadly mistake in the final three segment. When Trump asks
them why they should stay over Sam, they just trash the crap out of
Sam instead of talking about themselves. However, in this case, it
doesn't seem to matter what those two say. Trump is thoroughly
convinced by Carolyn and George that Sam needs to go. Sam is fired.
He looks like he might have died. Or, at the very least, that he has
been possessed by a demon.
The best part about this is that Trump
is gloating about how smart he was to fire Sam. He gives George and
Carolyn no credit. For three episodes they have been begging Trump to
fire this guy. I guess he's a slow learner.
