When waiting for Kristi to return, the guys are hoping that by some chance Melissa might survive as they want the ladies’ team to be as weak as possible. The door opens; Kristi enters the suite, and the collective hopes of the guys crash. Kristi seems frazzled as she says that the boardroom is 100 times worse than what the rest of her team experienced.

On to the next task as the teams convene outside of Trump Park Avenue.

TASK: Create a promotional ad campaign for Lamborghini. Each team will be working with the Kaplan Thaler Group and will be responsible for creating a print and video advertising campaign consisting of a 30 second commercial spot and multiple poster print ads. The team whose ads are judged the best by two executives, Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO of the Kaplan Thaler Group and Ehren Bragg, head of U.S. Operations for Lamborghini will win.

Chris unanimously becomes the Excel project manager and he immediately tells the team that they need to meet with the executives before they came up with preconceived notion of what Lamborghini wanted. Almost as soon as Chris mentioned preconceived notions Markus jumps in and brings up the idea of using “smooth as silk” as the slogan. Chris is annoyed by this and shuts him down. Yet in the meeting with the executives, Markus pipes up and re-introduces “smooth as silk.” The executives say that they do not care for the idea and Chris feels as if his authority has been undermined.

Over at Capital Edge, Marshawn has taken the reins as Project Manager and she is putting her delegation skills to good use. She places Alla in charge of video production and Alla seem more than happy to handle the task. Kristi however viewed Marshawn’s delegation as laziness and felt that Marshawn should receive no credit if she did no work, citing any accolades that she might receive as complete bullcrap.

Trump’s Lesson of the Week: Be Flexible

Yes, being flexible in business is important, but one must wonder if this is the only flexibility that Trump is referring to. Congratulations to the Donald and Melania Knauss are in order as Melania has just recently become pregnant.

Moving on, Excel has come up with the idea of an old style Lamborghini driving through a tunnel only to morph into the new Gallardo Lamborghini as it comes out the other side. Chris put Markus in charge of communicating with the cars down the street in order to make sure that timing and shooting was accurate. Yet, Markus could not succeed in making simple walkie talkie communication and Chris was forced to take the responsibility away from him.

At Capital Edge, Marshawn has been focusing her time on the print campaign. This perturbs Alla, Jennifer and Kristi who are berating her leadership abilities. Seeing as the three of them have been in the edit suite for 10 hours the ladies are understandably frustrated that they have not had any significant contact with their project manager.

Back at Excel, the men are debating the fine points of their print campaign debating whether or not they should de-capitalize the “I” in Italian or if they should have a questions mark after the phrase “Green with Envy.” Markus seems to be the lone dissenter in the making of these decisions and the men as Carolyn puts it seem overly confident in their marketing campaign and as a result are missing some simple flaws. Only time will tell.

As the task nears its completion Randal leaves the team so that he can attend his grandmother’s funeral. As promised, he will do it in Trump style via helicopter. Randal still seems very solemn, but this may more so be his persona than just a result of recent events.

Passion. Envy. Prestige. Decadence. Ego driven. Lamborghini. The Ladies blast off to a strong presentation that makes your pulse race. The video advertisement may have been a little cockier than expected, but the ad and concept were overall quite professional. The gentlemen may have a run for their money.

That would be if the gentlemen felt like running at all. Their advertisement came across as amateurish except for the morphing of the cars and Chris simply could not keep his mouth shut as he described the subtleties of the print ads. In trying to define the art that was put behind each image it seemed as if Chris forgot that the buyer is not going to be worried about vectors and symbolic imagery.

DECISION:

This all adds up to the executives having a clear winner. They complained that team Excel did everything in words while Capital Edge got the message across with feeling. Markus spoke up and denounced the work of his team before the winner was announced and Trump questioned his loyalty to the team. Of course, Markus was correct in denouncing his team as the men lost. Better yet, everyone except Kristi voted for Marshawn to gain exemption and as a result Marshawn is safe next week.

The ladies for their reward were treated to a hockey game with the New York Islanders. Literally they were permitted to play with them. While this may have been fun at first, Rebecca fell and twisted her ankle. There are allusions that she may have broken it but we will have to wait until next week to find out about this “twist.”

On to the Boardroom!

George opens this boardroom by telling Excel that they lost this task on the terrace when the task was announced because they were overly cocky and as a result didn’t work hard enough. Carolyn complained that everything in the ads needed to be explained and that nothing spoke for itself. Chris as Project Manager could do very little but agree. While almost everyone at the table is pointing at Markus as the one who should be fired, Trump warns that there is not a reason on this task to bring Markus into the boardroom because he was the only person on the team who disagreed with the losing campaign. When asked for his decision of who to bring in Chris decides only to bring in Markus. Trump is shocked seeing as he had labeled Mark as the other person creatively responsible and pointed out that Markus was not to blame for this loss, but nonetheless, Chris gets his wish.

FIRING:

George and Carolyn both recognize that Markus is a loose cannon, but they each can not get over the stupidity of Chris’ boardroom decisions. Trump call the candidates back in and this firing is swift and painful. Donald tells both Chris and Markus that they are making a lot of mistakes and he goes further to tell Markus that he does not see him lasting much longer in this interview process. However, because Chris could not separate business from personal issues even after being told not to bring Markus into the boardroom, Chris, You’re fired!

With that Trump expresses his displeasure suggesting that he thought Chris was one of the better candidates, but the Apprentice moves on. 16 Candidates remain. Check in next week to see who gets the axe next.