The Apprentice 3, Episode 4: Vegetable Porno

But before we find out what happens next, it’s time for the Trump Lesson of the Week: “Never Settle.” Trump says that if you accept mediocrity, it’s a sign of laziness on your part. As a bonus to my beloved readers, I’m going to introduce a new feature to my recaps, the Betsy Lesson of the Week. This week’s lesson: If you’re ever in New Orleans, do not drink six hurricanes in an hour. Sure, they taste like really good Kool-Aid, but sister, that ain’t Kool-Aid.

Alex catches us up on the situation at Magna: the actress is absolutely furious. She tells Erin that she was treated really poorly. Erin misses the point by asking, “By whom?” That’s kind of the idea Erin – there was no one there. Bren immediately jumps in, explaining in an interview that Erin has no idea how to handle an angry woman, and after 10 years of marriage, he certainly does. I wonder how Bren will smooth things over with Mrs. Bren when she watches this episode! Bren apologizes to her in a way that strikes me as kind of oily, and not nearly as charming as he thinks it is. But then he tells the actress that he really thinks she’s the best person for the part, and she absolutely melts. Erin looks on in utter amazement. Crisis averted!

Net Worth project manager Kristen says that she wants to control the entire project. To that end, she puts Tana in charge of the models and tells her to work with Audrey. Audrey, Kristen says, thinks she’s working with Tana, but in reality, Tana is just supposed to keep Audrey out of her hair. She directs the runner playing the marathoner. He rubs his face with body wash and gives the camera a big cheesy grin. Kristen thinks it’s great, but Audrey thinks it looks dumb. The actor comments that at the end of the day, he’ll have a really clean face. Someone says that it’s body wash, and one of the other models questions putting it on your face. One of the candidates says it works on your face also. Hmm, that sounds like something we’ll be hearing about again.

Elsewhere, John and Craig work on the music for the commercial. John loves music and is having a great time in the studio. He even plays the drums, thus making him even hotter. He says that he hopes Kristen will follow his and Craig’s vision. John is going to be disappointed.

Kristen mists the models’ faces with water to simulate sweat. Audrey points out that it doesn’t make much sense to do their makeup and then spray them with water, since they’ll need to redo their makeup. Kristen blows her off. Kristen, just because you don’t like Audrey doesn’t mean everything she says is dumb. Audrey says that Kristen treated the models like they were really dumb. “She is a bitch,” Audrey interviews, “A royal bitch.” Angie doesn’t like the commercial. She says that it’s not innovative, compelling, or funny. She says it’s not out of the box, but rather, “This is right in the middle of the box.” She makes box outlines with her hands to illustrate her point. My point is that there’s nothing much more “in the box” than using a business cliché like “out of the box.”

Erin is having a much better time. She asks the model to lower his pants slightly to show off his abs. Then, because he has washboard abs, she figures what better to do than wash them? As his abs get lathered up, Erin smolders at him. She then says, “This looks like low-budget adult entertainment. We’ve got to cut this scene.” If Erin and the model’s genders were reversed, I think we’d be talking about sexual harassment. Her behavior was certainly questionable in this sequence.

They start filming, and Carolyn looks absolutely shocked as the chef shows her assistant how to wash his cucumber. Stephanie collapses in a fit of giggles, but Michael just wonders if maybe Bren misses his wife and that’s how he came up with this idea. Michael says he thinks the only way they’ll win will be if Net Worth comes up with “an even more idiotic concept.” If Michael is familiar with The Apprentice, he should know that’s a distinct possibility.

Net Worth works on editing their ad. Tara thinks the humor is gone from it, but Kristen says that it was never meant to be funny. Wow, Kristen really didn’t understand John’s idea. John is not happy, and says that the finished project doesn’t at all reflect his and Craig’s vision, but since Kristen is in charge, he will follow her lead. He adds, though, “I think it’s a mess.”

Trump boards the Trump Copter and tells Rhona to let him know when Donny Deutsch calls.

Erin has her team dress up as chefs to present the ad. Michael thinks it’s an incredibly stupid idea. They’re not chefs, they’re selling soap. “We look like morons,” he says. Michael should just be glad that Erin didn’t have pink bathmats for all of them to wear. Magna files into Deutsch’s conference room, and Donny introduces his own version of George and Carolyn. Then, he tells them that he cannot possibly take them seriously in their goofy chef hats and asks them to remove them. Michael looks a bit smug. The chef’s hats were dumb, but on the other hand, in Season 1, the women dressed up as flight attendants for their presentation, and it went over great. Go figure. Anyway, Magna airs their commercial, and it is indeed quite raunchy. Deutsch gives a tiny shake of his head, but the candidates all look proud of their work.

Next, Net Worth shows up to show their ad. They’re all dressed in green and white, which is fine, but I have to call foul on Kristen’s dumb newsboy hat. Their commercial is not at all funny, and really misses the spirit of what John originally had in mind.

Deutsch and his viceroys talk about what they just saw, and he says that he’s “really disappointed.” On one side, you’ve got the weirdness of the fact that the marathoner didn’t rinse his face off after lathering up. But on the other side, you have “this semi-porn movie that’s unairable.” He doesn’t like either ad. One viceroy says that she doesn’t like the ad showing “a guy leaving with another guy and a woman leaving with a cucumber.” They agree that not having the runner rinse off his face was strange. Deutsch thinks they must not have understood the product, especially because he put it on his face. What did I tell you? He concludes, “We got nothing on either side,” and calls Trump.