Am I the only one bothered by the incredibly fake Trump voiceovers? You can tell when he gives a huge speech that just doesn’t show a single frame of Trump himself, and the audio’s all wierd.
Yeah, I hate that too. It’s so damn obvious.
Let’s break forth the rhythm and the rhyme, it’s the Raj Ratings. A couple of themes ran through the show this week. One, is a person trying really hard to say “I’m a leeeeeeader. I swear!” The second is that this was a fairly pedestrian episode. A pedestrian episode warrants only a pedestrian effort on my part. Hence, there won’t be much movement and finding something fun and interesting won’t be easy. I figure I’ll see if I can pull this off old-school Haiku style.
Edmund Fitzgerald - or, Gone with no hope of returning
Bradford, Stacie J., Rob, Pamela, John, Jenn C., Stacy R.
A group of these folks
Probably are not quite the
Peer group one would want.
Elizabeth (Bismarck) –
As a leader, you
Flop around more than a
Dying large mouth bass.
And, don’t cry for me
Argentina. I am sure
Liz already is.
Titanic - or, Dead in the water, just waiting for the cargo class to drown
Andy (no change) – Pre-Haiku, 2 things. You won, but I don’t think it really helped you. In the end, you now look like the kid playing with the grown-ups but only doing well because you seem so mature for your age. In the end, you are still a kid. And, when doing an interview on how you are a big boy, don’t wear the backwards hat. I expected you to pull a slingshot out of your back pocket and start pulling girls pigtails.
If animated,
You’d be Cartman. “Respect my
Authoriteh!” Nah.
Bismarck - or, probably sinking, but it will take a couple more blows
Sandy (No change) –
Were you on the show?
Your only hope is that Trump
Tries to buy Petco
Chris (no change) –
In your face and rude
May work for Donald. You are
A low rent copy.
Stuck in dry dock - or, Who are you? Are you on this show? This level now represents those in transition from weak to strong.
Wes. (No change) –
Egads man. Yellow
Ponchos ain’t your thing. Speed up
And get canned blah one.
Maria (Bismarck) –
I (BLINK) don’t (BLINK) think
(BLINK) you (BLINK) can (BLINK) win (BLINK).
Take a (BLINK) chill pill.
Raj (No change) –
Sticking to guns, good.
Now try doing it with
A decent idea.
Ivana (HMS Pinafore) –
At this point, you are
No more memorable than
Robin. Begone milquetoast.
HMS Pinafore - or, Some singing, some dancing, some tragedy. Overall, not too bad.
No qualifiers.
Three seem strong. Which weak one joins
The lead herd of studs.
Queen Mary II - or, Leader of the Pack, vroom vroom
Kelly (No change) –
Man, you hate Andy.
Props on that. He is sort of
A dorky fellow.
Jenn M. (No change) –
Yowza. But beyond that
Donald needs estrogen in
The finals. That’s you.
Kevin (No change) –
Kick ass and take names.
It’s nice to see someone not
Mince words on this show.
Next week? I weep for whoever has Jenn C. in a construction task. That can’t go well.
I told my wife it looked like Buster Keaton. I expected to see Michael Dukakis roll in on a tank.
Personally, I think it’s easy to understand why most of Raj’s teammates didn’t see how bad his idea was. That’s because it wasn’t necessarily all that bad.
Sure, the execution was lousy. It scared people, and as Trump said, it smacked of a police state mentality. However, it would have worked better if coupled with Andy’s ideas of appealing to the notions of heroism, nobility and a desire to serve.
And that’s where Raj and company failed. It wasn’t the militarism per se. Rather, it was that the wrong aspects of militarism were emphasized.
Now that you mention it, that would have made some wonderful drama! I would have loved to see that.
Apex: “Elizabeth, you’re fired as PM. Go away.”
Trump: “Elizabeth, your own team fired you, and so do I.”
That’ s my thinking, too. For the target audience, an appeal to military values could work. The problem was the way that they came up with something that would make Mussolini proud.
JThunder, but it was Raj who was making machine-gun noises and being so hard-core G.I. Joe that I was repulsed. He was out of line, he was stupid, and he exhibited yet another failure on top of his fashion debacle.
Maybe he’s Omarosa.
Ichini Sanshigo, I agree. Jenn was a real bitch. I wonder if its because she had immunity, so she had little interest in winning? Or does she hate Elizabeth so much that she’d choose Raj over Elizabeth despite concept? She was smirking at Elizabeth’s flailing attempts to stay on task. Either way… bad bad girl.
Mullinator, bravo!
Your ratings bring glee,
Even though I would have switched
Andy and Kelly.
Look, I agree that Raj went too far. In fact, that’s my point. Usin a militaristic theme wasn’t inherently wrong, but Raj’s vision for it was.
Yeah, he was gun-happy, and that’s what caused them to stumble.
It was a great concept and I was so happy to see Andy prove himself.
Yes, it’s very annoying. It’s as if Trump couldn’t think on his feet to say this kind of stuff in the board room so they get some writers to script it out for him and then they dub it in later. Shenanigans! i declare!
The thing that really struck me about the episode was how clueless Apex seemed to be. Good god, the client stood right there and said he wanted an emotional appeal, that the campaign ought to be hitting you right in the heart, (no doubt trying to forestall another testicle ad like last season.) It couldn’t have been any clearer that their plan was completely hosed if Deutch had stood there in the planning meetings threatening to unleash his Nipples of Death unless they changed the campaign right now. And ol’ Flyer Girl was the only one to pick up on that.
Even when she tried to steer them in the direction the client clearly wanted them to go, they refused to listen. Crass even spouted that comment about it not being a tampon commercial, which garnered yoooge yucks and near-complete agreement from the team. I, however, sat there yelling at the screen, “No, you dimbulb, but it ought to be, since that’s what the client outright told you he wants. Dumbasses!”
Speaking of shenanigans and refilmed stuff…
Why did the Apex team all have their suitcases? I thought they only bring them when they’re called back to the boardroom?
This was them being called back to the boardroom. I think what’s throwing you off is that sometimes they’re in the boardroom three times instead of two. Sometimes the whole group meets in the BR for task results, and nobody brings suitcases then. When it’s just the losing team, though, everyone packs up for the BR. In the little interval between the whole-team BR and the final one, the selected aspiring corporate weasels who escaped go up to the suite with their bags, while the chosen few wait outside with theirs.
Oh. I get it. For some reason I thought that the 3 went and got their bags before sitting around. Now that I think about it, that would make for an interesting elevator ride. 
By the way, I forgot the tampon commercial drivel. Dumbass.
I thought this was a fun episode. I liked some of the drama. I liked Andy’s redemption. I liked the assignment.
A few thoughts:
-
I have to mention Pamela’s taxi cab confession as one that wasn’t clueless or hypocritical. I think she did a great job with the crap team she was dealt. I think she basically made the point that she did as well as anyone could expect.
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Kelly annoyed me when he hogged in on the presentation. He is kind of an arrogant jerk. But you know what? He was right. He was the right person for the job. He gave an incredible presentation. I was afraid Andy was going to hold onto it JUST because he wanted the credit. That would have been a bad leadership decision.
*Anyone starting to realize that not only is Raj annoying, but he is also an obstructionist? A bad team player? ANY time the team goes in a direction other than his, he is difficult the rest of the time. He rolls his eyes. He objects. He goes on tangents. I loved the scene with him and Elizabeth on the balcony. Complete honesty and it didn’t seem to bother him. I think he’ll make a strong argument in the boardroom when the time comes (he was strong tonight), but I think Trump knew that the mistake was Raj’s. Elizabeth HAD to go, though.
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I love that Wes didn’t back down when confronted. Ivana disease has spread to Jennifer (such a shame). Don’t these people realize Jeff Propst is not coming through that door? Wes said that he just told her to make her argument and not be a “pussy” (can they say that on broadcast tv?). Good for him.
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Don’t you love it when the person taking the team off track goes straight to the confessional and criticizes the leader for letting the team get off track? Maria did JUST that last night with Andy.
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That ad was solid. That is the only disagreement I have with the Mullinator ratings this week. I think Andy AT LEAST gets to splash around in the Bismark, if not higher. I think this was Trump’s first real test to see if the wonder boy could handle the pressure. Not only did he win, his team CRUSHED the competition (with help from some self-inflicted wounds). Props to Andy for keeping the SEX appeal out of it. It didn’t need cheesecake. It did exactly what Douche (sorry I watched South Park’s premiere last night as well) asked. And remember, George was in the editing bay when Maria made the call to Andy to push it. I think George made a note of that.
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Kevin really moved up in a loss. I can’t wait for his turn as project manager. I think he is going to be excellent. He seems steady, calm and organized. I really agree with Diogenes about Kevin being a straight shooter. He is the same guy in person as on the confessional. I almost plotzed when he said Elizabeth is a TERRIBLE leader to the camera and then a minute or two later gave almost the exact same speech straight to Elizabeth. But he did it for a constructive purpose. Final four, here you come.
I agree that Apex’s idea and execution was horrible. The minute they started talking about “military” and that I was thinking, “That is a terrible idea. Weren’t they listening when the assignment was given?”. THere porbably is a way to tdo the military theme effectively as some have mentioned, but it is tricky.
Having said that, I think it would’ve been hard, period, to beat Mosaic on this task. Their presentation was just that good.
But Elizabeth earned this one, she was absolutely terrible as PM. I don’t think she realized that a a PM, when your team is doing a crappy job on the task…and you realize it…you must correct it or suffer the consequences.
So, does anyone want to hazard a guess about why the fired players are coming back next week? What on earth will they be doing?
Well, if the previews are any indication, Stacie J. will be administering the fabled bitchslap to Ivana. As long as that happens, I don’t care if any of them are there to do anything.
I was just reading the recaplet of this episode on TWOP and I think it makes an instructive point.
Both PMs had esentially the same issue in that their teams wanted to hijack the ads in a direction which would damage their respective campaigns. Andy was decisive and firm about vetoing the “sex appeal” thing which would have been crass and would have undermined the basic appeal of his concept. His ad worked and he won.
Elizabeth let her team walk all over her and that was the difference.
Even Andy’s decision to let Kelly make the pitch was a smart strategic decision and not just a cave in. He utilized one of his teammates skills and it was the right choice.