First of all, vanilla toothpaste? Last week we got donut ice cream. This week they didn't just travel to the opposite end of the flavor spectrum. They breached the flavor-time continuum and travelled to an entirely different flavor universe. Bad move, Proctor & Gamble. Or, should I say, that's one gamble that won't pay off! Hoo!
Anyway, there was a soft spot in my heart for Maria by the end of the episode because of the whole printer fiasco. Anyone who's ever worked in student publishing knows what it's like to get fucked by a printer, and that's basically what happened here. Of course, instead of whining about it and crying "rape" (literally), Maria and Ivana could have said something along the lines of "You can bill us whatever you want, but we agreed on $1,800 and that's what we're paying you." They made a similar mistake last week with the hot dog vendor on Times Square. Instead of fleeing across the street they may have said, "When a police officer comes and tells us we need a permit we'll move. Until then, we're staying." I'm pretty sure that's what Mosaic would have done, not because they're more business savvy, but because they're a group of macho assholes who aren't about to let some little foreign man make them lose to a bunch of girls.
As for the actual projects, it could be because I'm not a sports fan, or because I'm a misogynist, but I thought the Apex promotion was extremely lame. Mike Piazza couldn't have looked more uncomfortable, even before they made him brush his teeth in front of a bunch of screaming yokels. And the big payoff was allowing a small number of fans get their overpriced Crest flyers autographed by someone from New York's "other" baseball team. Lame, I say. I'm not a big fan of fire eaters or stilts, but at least the Mosaic promotion was more like a legitimate street fair instead of a horde of starfuckers clamoring for a glimpse of a baseball player. Plus, I guarantee that the combined salaries of all of those street performers was less than a quarter of what Apex paid Piazza.
And now, a word about promo editing. Last week I predicted that the doom scenario in the preview didn't necessarily apply to Mosaic, and I was partially right. The "no backup plan" comment was Pamela, but it was something she said during the planning stages rather than during the collapse of the project. And she was wrong. There was a backup plan, and it worked perfectly. The ominous spreadsheet (which I don't think we ever actually saw in he episode) no doubt belonged to Apex (not Mosaic) since they're the ones that went over budget. The grimaces were indeed very dramatic. As soon as that Harvard prick pitched that retarded insurance idea I knew it wouldn't work. What did we learn from this? Insurance lawyers ruin everything.
As for next week's episode, the promo is trying to tell us that the teams are self-destructing and the boardroom will be "explosive." What do we see? (1) A mildly aggressive comment from Raj to an offscreen Mosaic colleague, and (2) Jenn C (my favorite Apexer, by the way) eavesdropping on some of the other women and surreptitiously giving them the finger. Holohan's ignorant prediction: (1) the split in Mosaic is not nearly as pronounced as they're making it out to be - they're coming off of two pretty good weeks, their team doesn't have the interpersonal drama that Apex has, and the couldn't even come up with a really good zinger for the promo; and (2) Apex loses next week. If you look closely at the bird-flipping scene, the non-Jenn C women are hanging out in the suite and (presumably) bitching about Jenn C. It's unlikely that they'd be hanging around complaining about each other during the project, so the scene probably happens either at the very beginning or the very end of the episode. Jenn C didn't do anything this week to warrant a conspiracy against her, so the discussion is probably a post-mortem about next week's project during which they're deciding who should be fired.
Of course, I'm wrong all the time, so I'm prepared to eat those words. But I will point out that Stacie, who just got fired, is a restauranteur, and next week's project is opening a restaurant.
i don't know what is more pathetic, your detailed analysis of last night's apprentice episode or how much i thoroughly enjoyed your detailed analysis of last night's apprentice episode.
those Apex women are some crazy bitches, i prefer the boys team but that tall amazon woman on their team kinda scares me, i guess it is somewhat appropriate that she sorta looks like a man.
my theory on pamela is that she took one look at the sorority girls she was living with and high-tailed it over to team wang, not because she though the fellas were a better team, but because she knew she wouldn't get along with the other ladies. her "my penis is getting longer by the minute" comment was priceless.
even more priceless is the fact that i think she might actually have one.
that little annoying harvard boy with the insurance idea bugs me, he needs to be booted.
I would like to register my opinion as a budding psychologist that Stacie's behavior on the first task was yes, Bizarre, Inappropriate, and made things Awkward and Uncomfortable for the others on her team. But I was APPALLED by their blatant attempt to paint her as a psycho. I realize I saw only a fraction of footage, but from what I saw there was just a woman out of sync with her audience, not a woman over the edge. I thought the behavior of the team was disgusting, with the possible exception of Blond Jennifer, who at least had the decency to say the behavior was limited to one discrete incident.
I agree - and how the hell was she supposed to defend herself against all those power hungry woman scared of their own heads being on the chopping block. It was definitely unfair - possibly warranted - but she was still sabotaged.