The Apprentice 2, Episode 3: The Brush-Off

Mosaic meets with a PR company to talk about the million dollar giveaway idea. Madeline, the CEO, says that it would be almost impossible to pull it off in such a short period of time and suggests that they call legal to discuss it. Pamela says that the plan might not work – “I better check with legal” is rarely a good sign. Everyone thinks Andy should be the one to talk to them, since he’s the most enthusiastic about the idea. He does, and gets off the phone saying that it looks good. It better, because as Pamela tells us in an interview, they have no backup plan. She says they’ve put all of their eggs, chickens, and the chicken coop in this one basket. Uh-oh.

Over at Apex, Stacie and Jennifer C. go to pick up samples of vanilla mint toothpaste to give away. I’m glad to see that they’re planning on handing out free samples, because that was the very first thing I thought of that the teams should do. It’s 20,000 tubes, and Stacie assumes that they’re the travel size, so she figures that between her and Jennifer, they can load them all into the van. Then, in the elevator up to the storage room, they learn that the tubes are full-sized. Oops. The P&G rep says that she sent Stacie the dimensions for the tubes, but Stacie admits that she didn’t look at them. Well, that’s not good. When they see the 834 huge cases of toothpaste, all they can do is laugh. Jennifer is annoyed and says, “Did you even think?” They have three minutes until the storage facility closes, and they realize there is no way they can load up all of that toothpaste in time, so they head home empty-handed. Jennifer says that Stacie is dead weight – she can’t even get the samples to the event.

Meanwhile, Maria is arranging to have promotional flyers printed out and is on the phone with the print rep. It’s late at night, and they finally make arrangements to have the flyers printed. Maria asks about the price, but does not get a final cost from the vendor. Ivana is in charge of handling the budget, so she’s very frustrated that Maria doesn’t know exactly how much the flyers will cost. I can tell you right now, though, that if they’re running a rush job that will run on the presses all night and needs to be delivered early the next morning, it’s not going to be cheap.

Mosaic is excited about their sweepstakes, and Andy feels confident that this great idea will earn him the respect of his team. At 2:00 in the morning, Madeline calls and tells them that the plan won’t work – they have too many concerns and not enough time to resolve them all. The team looks totally panicked – all of their marketing materials talk about the million-dollar prize, and they have no backup plan.

The next morning, they have rallied. They’ll be giving away $5,000 three times a day. Pamela explains that for an amount as small as $5,000, there aren’t nearly as many legal concerns. They’re also handing out samples of toothpaste and have a total circus atmosphere going, complete with people on stilts, jugglers, and fire-eaters. Kevin is happy with how things are going – they’ve created a spectacular spectacular. (No word in the vernacular can describe this great event. You’ll be dumb with wonderment.)

At Apex, Mike Piazza is there, and Jennifer C. is in a near-constant swoon. Mike brushes his teeth for the crowd and tells everyone that he’s been brushing with Crest for years and has never had a cavity. He tries the toothpaste and loves it. Then, he signs autographs – but only on Vanilla Crest flyers and toothpaste boxes (which apparently they somehow transported to the event). It’s hard to tell on TV, but it looks like Apex has a smaller crowd and less energy. We’ll see how this plays out.

Apex heads over to the agency to get their invoice. They discover that the printing cost far more than the $1,800 that they had budgeted. Maria, Ivana, and the rep from the agency call the printer and discover that the price was higher because of the overtime charges they had to pay their workers. Maria tries to argue with the guy, but to no avail. As a result, the team is over budget by $5,000.

The team meets with P&G to review the results. Mosaic, they say, created a buzz with their passion, fun event, which had a great interaction with the crowd. Apex also had a great event and created real excitement with their celebrity guest. However, Apex was over budget. Trump asks Elizabeth about it, and she says that she just found out. Naturally, Trump is not impressed that the project manager didn’t know about this major problem. The reps from P&G say that they would have given the prize to Apex, but because of the budgetary problems, Mosaic wins. Really? Because honestly, Apex looked pretty lackluster to me… but I wasn’t there. Trump says that for thinking big, Mosaic will get a big reward – dinner on the Queen Mary 2 as it leaves the harbor. He notes Ivana’s reaction and says, “Don’t cry.” Kevin, as the project manager of a winning team, is exempt next week. Trump advises him not to give it up, a mistake I doubt anyone will make ever again.

Mosaic boards the ship, and Wes marvels at how enormous it is. It’s also incredibly ornate – you can see why Trump likes it. I notice that Chris is wearing the same polo shirt that he wore to the last reward, and I really, really wish he’d ditch it and wear a sport coat like the other guys are, because he is seriously under-dressed. He’s a stockbroker – I’m willing to bet he has more than one suit. Raj proposes a toast “to the continuous defeat of the women.” After dinner, everyone heads out to the deck of the ship. Chris says it’s inspirational seeing the Statue of Liberty, and that it makes him think about his ancestors coming to America, which makes me feel a little bad for making fun of his outfit, but not really. He should wear a tie. The night ends with Mosaic drunkenly singing patriotic songs.