The Apprentice 5, Episode 2: Razor Burned

Synergy is still dealing with the Brent thing. Stacy says she feels distracted and vents to Pepi and Tammy about it. Tammy thinks that Pepi is handling the whole issue poorly and should have been more decisive. The entire team is upset. Andrea says she hates having to deal with Brent at all. Pepi takes Brent aside and says that the team wants to bench him for the task. Way to not own it, Pepi. Brent argues with him, and Pepi feels conflicted. Ultimately, Pepi lets him stay. The team does not look happy.

Michael says in an interview that they wasted so much time dealing with the Brent mess that they never really came up with a plan or an image. He suggests that they all wear bathrobes and slippers to get attention and tell people to text to find out what’s going on. The team agrees on this idea, and they are literally in the elevator on the way to the suite when they come up with this plan.

Gold Rush brainstorms slogans. Charmaine calls Lee on her pretty red cell phone that I am now coveting. She, Lenny, and Leslie want the rest of the team to join them right away so they can get to work. Lee isn’t ready for that, and wants to give them a list of clubs they can go to Lenny tells Lee to cut the B.S. and get the team out there. Can they start their campaign now? Because if they can, the other team is crazy for not having started yet. Lee suggests they meet at the suite at 9:00. The street team disagrees- they need everyone right away. Lee suggests that they compromise by meeting in Times Square in 40 minutes. “What are you, nuts,” Lenny asks. Leslie sighs at what a waste of time this is- they need to get to work. The street team hangs up, leaving a confused Lee holding the phone.

The next morning, Roxanne wakes up the rest of Synergy. She heard the other team leaving while her team slept and figures they have no reason to wait. Immediately I like Roxanne- she’s a hard worker. She’s frustrated and thinks Pepi needs to take control. Pepi listlessly stirs his cereal, but at least in his robe, he is dressed for work. Stacy is in charge of choosing their location, and using a computer monitor that may be larger than my TV, picks a place. She is a native New Yorker, so everyone figures she knows what she’s doing. That never, ever works on this show.

The Gold Rush team is already working, set up in Times Square. Lee says that he realizes now that Lenny was right- it’s not complicated, they just need lots of text messages – that’s it. He says it’s a lesson learned, and he had the wrong approach before. The team focuses on the people standing in line at the TKTS booth. It’s a captive audience, so it works well for them. Bill comes by, and Lee tells him proudly that they were out and working before the other team was even awake.

Synergy is at Times Square too, but they arrived much later. Michael notes that most people in Times Square are on the move, so it’s hard to get anyone’s attention. He doesn’t think their location is a good one. She thinks that Stacy should talk to Pepi about moving. Ivanka arrives and comments on the bathrobes. As she looks on, the team gets really no response. We see several shots of people throwing out their flyers.

Brent thinks it’s time to go “full force ahead.” They need to get attention, so he puts on a sandwich board and starts doing the robot. He then proceeds to dance like a maniac. Stacy won’t even look in his direction, so desperately does she want to distance herself from this spectacle. She says that she’s a criminal defense attorney, but she’s never seen anyone quite like Brent. Ivanka says that he’s hard to miss. My boyfriend Sean encourages people to honor the crazy antics by sending text messages. Brent says in an interview that without him, Synergy would not have had nearly as much attention. He says that his “overall talents, such as dance, robotics, and overall just being a nutcase” were what they needed. He reminds me in this moment of Napoleon Dynamite listing off his skills. Brent thinks that his team is finally realizing how talented he is. Don’t hold your breath, there, Brent.

The teams gather in the Boardroom. Ivanka says that Gold Rush was smart and impressive. They got 683 text messages. Bill says that Synergy got a late start and never quite found a location. They only got 458 texts, a loss margin of almost 50%. Trump says that it’s easier for him when a team loses so badly. The reward for Gold Rush will be the chance to work with Career Gear, a charity that helps outfit men who are “down on their luck” and need new job interview suits.

Gold Rush goes to a Trump suit showroom, where they meet three men and help them get suits. Dan seems to be having an absolute blast with this reward, perhaps because he owns a clothing company. The men look really fantastic in their new suits, and Trump arrives to give them words of encouragement. He assures them, “Trump is lucky.” He hopes that these men just need a little extra help to get on their feet again.

Back at the suite, as expected, everyone is talking about how impossible it is to work with Brent. Pepi wonders if Brent is mentally stable. I’m happy to say that after Stacie J. was basically diagnosed with mental illness by a group of women who had no idea what they were talking about, the team says that they don’t want to go that far. Pepi says that Brent seems to treat women differently, and they all do agree that he is not “socially stable.” They think he could snap at any time. Michael fears for the day that Brent snaps and doesn’t like that he can be aggressive. Tammy and my boyfriend Sean agree that it was especially weird when Brent was pounding on his sandwich board. Pepi says that Brent is a clown- “He might as well be wearing a big red nose.”

Now, what about Stacy feeling threatened by Brent? Well, she has a slightly different story now. She says she never felt like she was in danger – she was just uncomfortable. Pepi coaches her through how to phrase it in the Boardroom. Considering that she’s a lawyer, I think she can walk that line just fine. Roxanne is frustrated that Stacy has apparently changed her story. Stacy admits that, in the moment, she was upset, and Roxanne says that she was under the impression that Stacy wanted something done right then and there. Roxanne says in an interview that Stacy has lost credibility in her eyes. Stacy claims that she never used the word threat, but she totally did.

The long and short of it is that I think Stacy now realizes that she overreacted and that using the word “threatened” was out of line. Unfortunately, once something like that is out there, it’s hard to get it back again.