1. The guys come out of the gate at the lead, showing smarts and potential.

2. The girls start out bickering and whining and screaming at each other.

3. Guys make some crippling mistake somewhere and ruin it for the whole team.

4. Girls get together just long enough to flash their "corporate assets" and take the thing home.

5. The Donald finds a way to fire someone other than Sam.

6. The Donald's Hair gets up and walks away: "This is getting ridiculous."

Any idea how the show is going to work later on down the road? Do the remaining men and women merge (a la Survivor)? Do the tasks become individual at some point?

Next week? Looks interesting. I am rooting for the men, without Sam. I'd like to see a woman finally go home (and be berated for their T&A shows) and hear what Donald thinks of Omarosa.

I mostly agree, FeverDog, but Assaroma isn't one of the worst T&A offenders. As a matter of fact, once the team gets going, she plays pretty well. If there's one thing she does well, it's keep the bickering within the group. Which is the way it should be, although I think she's ridiculous and will eventually take the down elevator. If the ta-ta shaking routine gets the women in trouble next week, I'm betting there are other prominent candidates who will be more vulnerable. That's not to say they won't try to set up Assaroma, but the Viceroys are likely to see through that.

I think the previews show the ta-ta world is going to come crashing down around the women next week. In just about every scenario, a woman can "charm" a guy into doing stuff he wouldn't normally do. (See: selling the gold at a loss, convincing the golf shop owner to sell a Big Bertha at cost + 10%--no matter how smooth in sales a guy is, he isn't going to convince a business owner to do this).

Next week, however, managing a restaurant is as much organization and iron-fist management as it is schmoozing the customers. A cold dinner goes away real quick if the pretty waitress or manager lays it on. OTOH, many ordinary New Yorker's probably will not care, since they are coughing up big bucks for good food, not a hot chick.

Next week is where the men finally win and show their true skills--I caught at the end of the preview where Carolyn looks at the women with true disdain and the Donald appears tweaked/disappointed.

My bet is that the men lose again next week. What I got from the preview was that both the men and the women act inappropriately; that the women cross the line with the T&A approach, and the men cross the line in either promoting, or allowing customers to think that Kwame is some kind of celebrity athlete.

However, note that when they show the women getting lectured by Ms. Viceroy, they are not in the boardroom. If they had lost, one would think that that conversation could have happened there. Instead, it looked more like a dressing down in a separate room, along the lines of "you may have won this battle [and therefore are not going to the boardroom], but your tactics are not appreciated." Conversely, I think the men may lose because they are actually disqualified; the women's behavior may be disgusting, but the men may cross the line of ethical business practice into some kind of deceptive marketing territory, and get themselves automatically dinged for it.

And remember the title of the episode is ETHICS SHMETHICS

Wordy McWord there.

It looked to me like the men toed right up to the ethics line. They may not have put their little piggies over it, though. To me, it will all depend on how strongly they imply that Kwame is some kind of sports dude and how much they let the customers assume it. If they attach his name to any team, then I think that they'll have crossed the line; if all they say is 'Get Kwame Jackson's autograph', then they're roping in the same type of sucker that thinks you can buy a Rolex for $25, and doesn't notice that it's a Rollexx. I'm not really up on pro sports, though, so I have to ask, is Kwame's name similar enough to some pro's name, or are they just trading on the black man+autographs=must be an athlete stereotype?

About Carolyn dressing down the women, I agree, it did appear that that took place somewhere other than the boardroom area (probably in the suite), and it seemed to me, especially with the voice-over about 'winning the battle but have they lost the war?' that she was serving them notice that she's not only not going to be going to bat for them when they do hit the boardroom, but that in fact, she's going to be gunning for them.

ETA: ok, some1105, I saw the footballs, but didn't catch the NFL logo. I agree that that would pretty much put it over the line.

I can't say for sure, but it seemed to me that I saw Kwame signing his name on foam footballs that had the NFL logo on them. Even without saying the words "I work for an NFL team," such action strongly implies that he does. I'm not sure whether that puts him over the line of legality, but I'd think that would be enough to get the boys into bad ethics territory.

I agree.

And if Sam was still on the team, he never, ever ever would have gone along with this.

:)

Although, it looks like the customers are mostly tourists, as it's a Planet Hollywood type of restaurant. Even easier prey.

From DariaG in the episode thread:


What kinds of team changes would be interesting? I think after this week (when it's down to 12 players) could be a good time for a change. Then maybe a merge at 6 or 8 with individual tasks?

Carolyn seems to have dissaprooved of many of the women's antics (i.e. the phallic ad campaign), but The Donald hasn't seemed to care as long as they brought in the cash. I wonder what they were doing during the preview for next week. Were they showing their tits or something?

However, while the women may be crass, it looks like the men could have possibly been doing something illegal. While i'm sure Trump is an expert shyster and is willing to fudge the truth slightly to get the deal he wants, I sincerely doubt he'd approve of actual fraud, and Kwame singing autographs while claiming to be an NFL player most likely applies.



I'll give him that. His business ethics were never in question. His sanity, that's another thing.

I'm taking votes: Who'll win Episode 4. Men or women?

My vote? Women.

The promo makes it appear like it COULD be the men.

Ergo, it's probably the women.

That may have more to do with the fact that showing the confrontation in the boardroom would give away which team wins. I think every promo will make it look like the men will win - until they finally do. Just like there was every indication that Sam would leave for three whole episodes - then he finally did. I like the advertising/editing better this way because it spoils less than if they tell us the result will be SHOCKING! (which at least gives away what won't happen)

As I think was mentioned in the thread on yesterday's episode, it seems that the whole west coast (including me, at least) got the preview for the episode we just watched instead of the new one--would somebody mind filling me in? From this thread I've gathered that they run a restaurant and Carolyn gets mad at the women....anything else that was shown?

From the preview, it also looks as if Kwame is autographing NFL balls and possibly selling them to people. I'm not sure what that's about. FWIW, the episode is apparently titled "Ethics Smetchics", so draw your own conclusion about what they might have did.

If carolyn was bitching at the women OUTSIDE the boardroom, here's something:

Carol-baby was with MEN in Episode 1.

Carolkins was with the WOMEN in Episode 2 (Remember the look she gave 'em?)

Carol was, I think, with the MEN in the latest one (Dunno about this.)

If that's the case, then she's with the women next time, probably?

(Unless Sam has her "taken out" and gets one heck of a disguise!)

C'mon. You wouldn't put it past him...

I got the impression that Kwame is pretending to be some sort of famous or semi-famous sports star, the way that the people are all wanting his autograph on the footballs, and some of the guys don't think that this tactic may be right.

I am so annoyed at the NBC/Apprentice site. There's a box about next week's show, but unlike the CBS/Survivor site, there's no copy of the preview available. I'm in Los Angeles and was wondering if I'd lost my marbles when they showed "previews" of the show I'd just watched! OK, so next week, on either Thursday, but maybe Wednesday, but on some day, I'll get to watch the "all new" show I've just seen??????? Sheesh NBC, will you please get your act together, or The Hair will FIRE your corporate ass!

Kwame's balls (heh) - totally not right if he's letting folks assume he's a famous player. Illegal if he's "forging" someone's name, since the autograph market is big money these days. But I believe it's only very bad ethics if he's writing his own name.

If he's selling them, that is *definitely* unethical. But my take on it was that he was just handing them out to get people to come to the restaurant. Not that that is much better...

Well, business ethics is a very murky field. They try to teach you in high school (I had a business class, in which I managed an A) that it's not, always do the ethical thing.

Problem is, too many people are out ultimately trying to screw everybody else for that to work 100% of the time. So what it becomes is you trying to gauge how ethical you are in relation to everybody else. You find yourself thinking "Well, at least I'm not as bad as (name of whatever complete sleazebag will make you feel better), and that's where this is likely to start. The other possibility is you're in the position of Versacorp-- namely, your main competitor is relying on underhanded tactics (e.g. sex sells) to win, and they wind up kicking your ass. So you begin thinking that if you don't want to go bankrupt, you have to stoop to their level. Either way, you wind up dirtying yourself a bit. (Then there are those who decide to be as sleazy as possible from day one, but we won't get into that.)

That said, Versacorp, as previously stated, is in position 2. The question is, how unethical are they in relation to position 1? Are they:
*Deciding that 'Kwame Jackson' sounds like a football name (which it kinda is), buying up a few footballs, slapping Kwame's name on them, and simply saying things like "Come see THE Kwame Jackson today at the (name of restaurant which I forgot)! Today only!" and being maddeningly vauge about Kwame's actual accomplishments on the field ('showed a lot of hustle', 'you can't miss him at the Meadowlands', etc.)? And are they handing out the footballs?
*Or are they selling the footballs, and giving Kwame a team and statistics ('Jackson led the league in yards after contact by a running back 3 years running for the Baltimore Ravens!') And are they getting the footballs in a fashion that does not involve them buying them (e.g. trying to get them for free from a sports store and leading them around as well)?

Obviously, option 2 is the sleazeball route which I wouldn't condone. Option 1 is the trying-to-survive sleaze level which I wouldn't like, but they would need to do to win. In option 1, they're not trying to fleece anyone out of any money; just getting them in the restaurant. So I'm just waiting to see the method in which they do this until i pass judgement.

Remember this is a Mark Burnett production, so I wouldn't be surprised if they do a team-swap thing, a la Survivor, or a team merge or something else that we haven't seen before on one of his shows. Burnett's modus operandi is doing the unexpected.

Well if one Corporation loses 4 times in a row, you KNOW some kind of swap will be coming--just to keep the men around in SOME form.

Y'know, I don't believe no one has mentioned the first "reality show" producer on Planey Earth:

PT BARNUM

When he brought Jenny Lind (The Swedish Nighengale) to sing in America, he auctioned off the first ticket, telling his friend Genin the Hatter to pay anthing for it, the publicity would skyrocket his business.

(Hatter only bid to $50, tho)

Barnum wouldn't have hesitated to have Kwame sign footballs. Wouldn't have batted an eyelash.

wrong place- I think.

Dude. Don't ask people to speculate about spoilers! That constitutes spreading the spoiler to the spec thread. Think before you post.

As a Mark Burnett production, I'm wondering what kind of cheezy ending they're going to use. I can't imagine that this would end in front of a live studio audience or have Donald Trump taking the Trump Plane, Trump Train, and Trump Automobile to get to the scene of the final decision.

I would love to see the teams merge. That's when some entertaining alliances could be formed. It would allow for more sneaky strategies too. Much more fun than "girls vs. boys."

I do hope that we don't have a "return of the ousted," although that seems to be the reality TV fad of this year.

I'm just kinda sorry that we won't be seeing Sam and Assorama on the same team. Now that would be a match worth recording for posterity.

Feverdog wrote:

I think this is a great idea! Assuming the women win tonight, what I'm hoping hapens is, the teams are divided up 6-6, with two guys on each team. I'm hoping they don't pick teams though by some random method like picking names out of a hat (tm Omorosa). I hate that.

They play things out until it gets to 8 players. At 8 players, challenges become individual. Both Viceroys observe everybody at this point and together they pick the 2 people to face DT

I'm thinking there's not a whole lot of pre planning.

But the women will win tonight, I assure you.

(And the jury's still out as to whether Carolyn is razzing the girls or the boys. It's PROBABLY the girls, but MB would be likely to use trick editing to lead us to believe what he wants.)

More George and Carolyn!

That's what I've been wondering about. Though, instead of a "merge", they'll call it a "merger" ("VersaProtege"?). But before we get to the "merger", I agree that there'll probably be some kind of team switch. The problem here is that the men could start losing sheerly due to a lack of manpower. On Survivor, MB counteracted that by having the larger team sit out a number of players during each challenge. No such thing is happening here, and that could really hurt VersaCorp.

I'm also wondering what will happen after the "merger". I see one of two possible scenarios happening. The first is what has been mentioned here: the possibility of individual "challenges" (tasks/assignments). That's the closest parallel to Survivor. But I see a lot of problems with this. First, I don't see a lot of business-like tasks that these contestants could do alone. Second, I think a big part of business is teamwork, and Trump and MB would do well to continue emphasizing that in the tasks. Teamwork--or the lack of it--makes for better television as well; watching 8 candidates do the same task in slightly different ways while not interacting with each other seems like it would be boring. Third, individual "challenges" would ruin the drama of the Boardroom in many ways. A lot of the fun of the show is watching the candidates point fingers at each other and suck up to Trump in the Boardroom. And if the challenges are individual, how will it be decided who goes to the Boardroom? Presumably success in the challenge is measured on some objective scale, like dollars and cents. Logically, then, Trump would fire the candidate who came in last place. But if he did that, there would be no use for a Boardroom meeting. Perhaps instead, they could decide that the bottom 3 performers in the individual challenges go to the Boardroom. If so, why would Trump not fire the worst performer? Would it be fair if he didn't? What other crieria would he use to make his decision?

For all these reasons, I think a better direction for the show to go after the "merger" would be for the entire group of candidates to work on one project as a team. They could still decide on a team leader each week. For each task, they are given a certain goal that they strive for--for example, a certain dollar amount in profits. If they reach the goal, they get the week's reward, and if not, they mope and point fingers. But whether or not they meet the goal, the entire team goes to the Boardroom each week, where their performance is assessed, blame is thrown, and 3 candidates are chosen for the final decision as usual. This model could work until the team gets very small, perhaps 3 or 4 candidates left, where individual tasks may be more appropriate.

And how will the show end? The last two candidates competing against each other on one final task? Doesn't have enough bang for a finale, I think. Perhaps MB will bring back the final 9 candidates to weigh in with their opinions on the final two, and of course George and Carolyn will have their say. But I doubt that this "jury" will be allowed to choose the winner. Even if they get to vote, surely Trump will get the final power of veto.


I've also been wondering about something else: how do the teams choose a weekly Team Leader? For example, suppose the women decide to try to get rid of Omarosa by voting her as the Team Leader for some task that they all know Omarosa would be singularly unsuited for. Can Omarosa refuse to be Team Leader, or is she stuck with the job?

My guess is that she could say no as long as there are other people who haven't been leaders yet.

Who forms the unholy alliance mentioned in the previews? Trump implied in an article that it's a man and a woman.

Since there are fewer men, I'll start with them:
I don't think it's Nick. He's got the motive, but it appears he's keeping to himself a lot.
I don't think it's Kwame. His social interactions, such as we've seen, have been with the guys -- I think he's bonded with them.
I don't think it's Bill, because he's pretty up-front and doesn't seem like the type to operate behind the scenes much.
So I guess that means I think it's Troy. He'll bend the ethics a bit, as we saw tonight, and he seems to be socializing with the women a fair amount.

For the women (much harder):
I don't think it's Omarosa, because of her "I'm not here to make friends" stance, and I think she'd be suspicious of anyone who suggested an under-the-table deal.
I don't think it's Kristi, because I just don't.
Ditto Heidi and Jessie.

That leaves 4 women, one of whom has a thing going with Troy. Any other thoughts on this?

It's not Katrina, because she's wearing a monster engagement ring and she's a "good person"

Bill looked like he was getting cozy with his blonde teammates in the previews.

Actually, Bill and Amy might be a very cute match...

I checked out the preview pretty carefully (I promise it was a lot more carefully than last week, when I thought Kwame was signing NFL balls), and this is my speculation as to the new teams, based on various group shots which can be linked together:

Heidi, Troy, Omarosa, Kristi, Nick and Ereka
(Heidi and Troy are in several shots together, then there's a shot of Heidi, Troy, Omarosa and Kristi doing something; Nick and Ereka I added because they were left over after the team below)

Jessie, Kwame, Bill, Tammy, Katrina, Amy
(Jessie and Kwame in several shots together, then Tammy in a shot with Katrina, then Katrina in a shot with Jessie, Bill and Amy)

As for who might have a thing going: Amy Reiter mentioned in "The Fix" on Salon.com that she ran into Amy and Nick lunching together in NYC recently. Hmmmmm......

If there's a merge.....r, does anyone think the girls will attempt a pagonging? I mean, right now it's 8 vs 4 (boy vs girl = tribe A vs tribe B). In order for the girls to ensure that one of them will win, wouldn't it be in their best interest to get rid of the guys? Personally, I don't think they have the balls (so to speak) to do it. They'll be too busy being "a good person", like Katrina. sigh.

ETA except Assorama, who has made it infinitely clear that she is NOT there to make friends.....

I did a quick re-watch and Troy, Tammy, Osamarama & Katrina are all wearing rings - so that leaves 3 men and 5 women to mix it up.

I can totally see Nick getting it on with someone. But also could believe it of Troy. (Could that be the "serious betrayal" that was referred to in next week's promo?) Anyway, I can't see it as much of Kwame and Bill, but I could be wrong.

As for the ladies, other than Omarosa I can see almost any of them making such a deal. They have shown that they aren't above doing most anything to get a win. I would like to exempt Amy, but I'm not completely sure I can. I only exempt Omarosa because 1) She would consider herself "above" such things and 2) I can't see any of the guys who are left being willing to make such a deal with her.

And while I'm here--did the promo for next week annoy anyone else as much as it did me? "there's only one thing to do: Drop the Bomb!" Like the fact that they are going to merge teams is a huge shock to anyone. We all so totally called that last week. And the whole "betrayal" stuff and saying that "it will even shock The Donald" would be more effective if he weren't immediately shown as saying, "You know, I don't get it." That hardly sounds like a shocked or outraged reaction to something as serious as a "betrayal" (although I'm not sure I understand what would constitute a "betrayal" in this game). Anyway, I know NBC is the master at playing head games with their promos, but this one made me want to puke.

I'll bet anything that the "big betrayal" next week will be nothing more than two women each accusing the other of having stolen her favorite tube top.

How do you really do a pagonging with no "voting"? Sure you can sabotage a game, but most of those things seem to be caught... and if you are caught you are out the door.

Self-interest seems to be against EVER sabotaging your own side. Even with Sam, the sabotage didn't go further than merely putting him up--the team actually tried to do what he said. In fact, they even tried to patch things he did wrong.

In regards to "Pagonging," if I were an Apprenticette I'd probably prefer to have myself compared to the guys--they already have the stink of loser-dom wafting from their pores, for the most part. I might be happy to see some of the women go.

Y'know, there's a big difference between a merge(r ) and a teammate swap. And what they're doing next week is a teammate swap. Not a merge(r ). There will still be two teams.

Man, if some1105 is correct, I'll bet Omarosa and Ereka are going to be mighty pissed they're still on the same team.

I guess if the losing team leader was one of the women, she could take two men to the boardroom regardless of performance on the task. I wouldn't do it, though. The men have been to the boardroom four times already. That means that Trump has already weeded out the chaff and is down to his favourites. Also, I think he'd react poorly if he thought he was being played. I think a big part of Jason's firing two weeks ago and Nick not being fired tonight was Trump telling the players "you can't manipulate me; I'll fire whoever I want".

With regard to the hyped "betrayal," and theoretical shocker in who is fired, next week, here's a little scenario I would personally love to see: a team wins, but partially due to the unethical or illegal actions of a team member, leading to The Donald actually firing a member of the successful team. Because let's face it, folks. Not even breaking the law will negate a win on this show. If that were the case, the women drinking on the job in an establishment which sells alcohol should have done it. It would be great if, just for once, there were consequences when an individual did something completely wrong within the context of the game.

Unfortunately, I doubt that's what's going to happen. RondaGC probably nailed it: tube top wars.

[SPOILER]My roommate works at Goldman Sach's, Kwame's employer before the show, and she attended one of his weekly viewing parties this past week at a bar here in Midtown NYC. She told me that everyone at Goldman is convinced that he won the contest, and was offered the job at one of Trump's businesses

Like on any other Mark Burnett reality tv show, the contestants have to "disappear" for the months during the airing of the show, and aren't supposed to go to work either...However, most ppl just take a leave of absence, but she told me that Kwame does not work there at all anymore, convincing everyone at Goldman that he might have come away as the winner.

It was being reported (maybe in Kwame's thread?) back in week 1 or 2 that when Kwame told Goldman that he wanted this leave of absence that he was told that if he left, his job wasn't going to be held for him. I don't necessarily think that just because he quit rather than getting a leave of absence that he won. It seems pretty reasonable to me that Goldman said no LoA, and Kwame went for it anyway.

All due respect, Kwame's been to the Boardroom twice, he's not been brilliant as a leader, the Fulton Fish market idea was the pits. Also, I think that Trump and the Viceroy's start to believe, where there's smoke, there is fire, and his third visit to the boardroom will be his last.

I say he's eliminated next week.

Sure, he's a good person and all that, but he's got too much Bowie in him to win. He'll be one of the first with a knife in his back, because he doesn't protect it.

Again, he's a good person... no question.

Regarding the betrayal next week, I wonder if it could be a same sex alliance that is made, resulting in two members being sent home?

If they fire people for sleeping together there would be nobody left at my law firm.

Kwame's web site http://www.kwamejackson.com has a 'Hire Kwame' link to his resume. This is an indication that he does not have a job working for Trump.