The second-to-last episode – the tension would be building, if any of us could stand any of the people still in it. Damn you Tana – I was still rooting for you till you went to sleep two weeks ago. (The sandwich last week was pretty funny, though.)
They’re starting with a corporate reshuffling – duh, we can’t let that idiot Alex out on his own. Any guesses about how they’ll do it? Battle of the sexes? Final confrontation between Book Smarts and Street Smarts? or, if it’s Tana and Alex vs. Kendra and Craig, … uh, … four-letter names vs. more-than-four-letter names? (Gotta say, watching Kendra and Craig trying to work together would be pretty funny, though. I hope they go for that one.)
Apparently they’re going to do a regular elimination tonight – the banner at the NBC site touts a Final Three going to the last ep next week. Wonder how that will work.
Predictions? Commentary? Can anyone muster up anything beyond a big fat “who the hell cares”?
I care – this much. Did the Big Quitter really throw off the task schedule so badly, that there’s no round of interviews? Or was this planned all along?
It’s not entirely clear to me. It would be great if they decided to shake things up and change the way they do the final elimination. A three-way contest on the last task would definitely be interesting!
I gotta believe they mix 'em up by either asking Alex to pick a team member out of the three remaining on the other team, or ask the Magna PM to pick who to get rid of. So we have:
CASE 1: Alex picks who he wants to work with – probably Kendra, since I have the impression he’s not so enamoured of Tana or Craig.
CASE 2a: Magna PM Tana boots off someone – probably Kendra, because I think Tana values Craig’s “experience” more.
CASE 2b: Magna PM Kendra boots off someone – certainly Craig.
CASE 2c: Magna PM Craig boots off someone – certainly Kendra. But, ha! And also, ha! Would Craig actually be PM two weeks straight? Jeez, the guy can barely take responsibility for finding his ass with a map.
So, most probably, we’ve got Alex/Kendra vs. Tana/Craig, with either Alex or Craig going home. Oh. The suspense. It is killing me. Yes it is.
And, I’ll say, it has been looking more and more like Tana versus Kendra in the final for weeks now. And this entire group of candidates have been looking worse and worse as the season progresses, at least in comparison to the first season. But remember how bad some of the candidates were last season? Ivana, who hung on 'til the final task? Little stacy? Maria? And how capricious Trump’s firing choices were? Yeek. So… um, I forgot where I was going with this, but it needed to be said. I think.
Splitting the teams - I make the prediction that it is at Trump’s whimsy. I say this because I have the firm belief that he wants a woman to win at all costs and a white guy the least. If he lets Alex pick, there is the chance he takes Craig, they win, and Tana or Kendra has to be fired. Then, the remaining female stumbles in the final couple of shows and he has to pick either the clearly unchoosable Craig or the clearly demographically boring Alex. Trump will tell Tana to go to Alex’s team which leaves him free to fire a guy regardless of the results.
Which leads to the firing…and I call Alex. He’s gonna get fired unless he ends up in the finals against Craig which has no chance of happening. Since the last 3 or so episodes have beaten us into submission with “You were great (hah!) but now you can’t win” I think we finally get to the “You now actually suck, you’re fired” portion of the show.
If this person is going to manage on of Trump’s properties for a year, then that would be a very foolish position for him to take. Trump may have his quirks and shortcomings, but he’s no fool.
Whether he worries about quotas in general is one thing – but to very, very publicly hire three white males in a row – he doesn’t want to put himself in the shitstorm that would result.
He has to hire the person – he doesn’t have to give the person any kind of autonomy or authority if he doesn’t want to. He could, oh, have them sell Trump Water.
Based on the preview, it sure looks like Alex/Tana vs. Kendra/Craig. Also I think that Alex is safe because the teaser shows Trump firing someone and then right after that they show Alex doing a verbal shuffle. Another red herring IMO. My guess is that Craig will get the boot this week.
Actually, come to think of it, if Alex was really, really smart and just a bit devious, and he got his choice of players to pull over onto his team, he would pick Tana. Because then Kendra and Craig would have to work together without a buffer between them, they’d crash and burn, and Alex/Tana would coast to victory.
That could just be $250,000 worth of advertising for Season 3’s finale. To demonstrate that this show can produce top-notch “CEO’s”, he extends Rancic. Especially considering Trump already knows that he has a dud on his hands this season.
By renewing Rancic, he can brag that he DOES get the best, and he put his money where his mouth is…