I had problems posting this earlier (sorry!) - here's the Entertainment Weekly
recap for subscribers...here are the good snarky bits from Whitney Pastorek:
We opened on the kids, as usual, sitting back in the loft having their family dinner, Maria trying to eat her food as her giant flower tried to eat her head, Raj dining casually in a blazer and boxers, everyone talking smack about Andy, when in the door walks . . . Andy and Wes. And Jen M. almost spit out her food. We, however, did not spit out our food... because we already knew that Stacy the Snack Cake was gone and only the tall preppies remained.
After the announcement, our heroes traipsed downtown to Donny's office, where we were treated to another lovely staged Corporate Moment as Mr. Deutsch said officiously, ''Send them in!'' into his phone, and then, in his Casual Friday Best, greeted the group and explained how he wanted these NYPD ads to really hit people in the center of their $80 Izod shirts. Oh, wait. When he banged his chest, he meant ''heart''? My bad. Okay: The NYPD ads were supposed to hit people in their hearts. Wow. It's like everything Celine Dion ever tried to teach me has just gone in one ear and out the other.
Apex, with Project Manager Elizabeth, immediately set about saying offensive things courtesy of Chris...''It's not a friggin' tampon commercial!'' he brayed, in response to Lizzie's suggestion that they maybe tone down the militaristic aspect in order to better hit people in the center of their Izod shirts, and I was on Lizzie's side when she said no no no, it needs more emotion . . . but no one else was, and then she basically lost the ability to speak English, and as far as I was concerned, it was right then and there that she was a goner. Finally, I thought, the promos reflected something accurate: the rest of her team — Chris, Terror Raj, Ivana (who has picked up a nasty habit of just repeating whatever anyone says near her and passing it off as an original thought), and Jen M. — really did stage a total coup against her incompetence, and only Increasingly Indignant Kevin, for reasons that remain a mystery to me, tried to help, but to no avail...Elizabeth simply would not shut up and listen, and so Apex ended up with an ad campaign that looked like the high school AV Club turned loose at a hardcore paintball convention (my favorite moment in the commercial was the cop rappelling out of a helicopter that was about seven feet off the ground), and they managed to spell front line wrong, making it one word, frontline, which if I'm not mistaken is a PBS show and not a place for officers of the law.
Mosaic, on the other hand, led by Champion Debater and Constant Reminder of His Wunderkind Status Andy, managed to come up with a great slogan despite the best efforts of Maria and her constant need to scream out, ''That's a wrap!'' Dragon Lady kept bitching about how there wasn't enough ''sex appeal'' — which confused me, because everyone knows if you want to get laid, you join the fire department — but Wunderkind tuned her out as they marched to victory with a campaign that, if I'm being totally honest, had me a little choked up. ''When was the last time you saved a life?'' the commercial asked, and through a mouth of Chips Ahoy, I choked, ''Oh, my God, never!'' and then I shed a silent tear.
But the time for emotion was gone as quick as it came. The contestants were ushered back into Donny's office, past the giant Wagnerian metal desk staffed by a hobbit (or wait, was that Stacy?) and into the conference room for their presentations, AV Club vs. Steven Spielberg, and it wasn't even close.
...has anyone ever given worse advice than his ''Curse as much as possible in the boardroom''? Yeah, I don't know, Wes. Maybe less David Mamet for you), Project Manager Indecision 2004 was dead in the water — so dead, in fact, that Donald didn't even have the Inner Circle convene tonight and just fired her in front of everyone.