"Party Time" -
August 2
In the last episode, the contestants faced more
cameras, in the form of photographers, and at the same
time, they faced questions from previously eliminated
players. And Brenden, Jules, and Niki joined those who
didn't make the list. It's down to the final 4, so
it's time for them to party.
What it takes to throw a party
The next morning, as the final 4 wake up at the
Melrose hotel, they're still reeling after having
almost half the field cut the night before. But soon,
as they sit on the balcony, instead of getting a
letter, they get a visit from Kathy. She asks if
they've gotten used to living in a penthouse, then
gets right into the next challenge; it'll involve
using every "skill" they've learned so far, and
they'll be divided into 2 teams: Jackaay & J.W. vs.
Jaret and Vanessa.
Each team gets half of a nightclub to throw a party,
and their goal is to invite as many socialites, party
promoters, models, etc. as they can to their event,
and hope that those people choose theirs over their
opponents'. Whichever team gets the most people to
attend their party wins. Oh, and they have just 10
hours before that party starts at 9PM. Not to mention
that the winning team will receive a set of expensive
watches, in addition to being exempt from elimination.
The teams arrive at the nightclub that they'll be
using, named Quo, to meet with John Mosley
(promoter/PR expert) about the art of networking,
which will be important for them to get the guests to
the party. The teams then split up to meet their
staff, then to come up with a name and theme for their
shindigs. Jackaay and J.W. had a bit of trouble coming
up with a name, until Jackaay came up with the catchy
"Status at Quo". Meanwhile, as Vanessa came up with "Lunes
at Quo", Jaret found her to be quite bossy. Gee, how
long did it take for him to figure that out?
The networking game
Each team was given an identical black book,
containing the names of assorted partygoers, including
models and promoters, and they'll have to compete to
get those people to their respective parties. And so,
they head out to meet these people. Each team even
gets a chance to advertise their parties at a local
hip-hop and R&B radio station; Power 105.1. Jaret is
up first, and he is nervous about doing a broadcast
that 1.9 million people would hear. (From what I hear,
that's around half of the people that watch this
show.) He gets interviewed, and pretty much gets the
message across as best as a guy from Texas can on
hip-hop radio.
Elsewhere, J.W. meets up with Stacey Nuñez, a "NYC
party girl" (yes, that's what it said), and he does
what he can to convince her to attend Status at Quo.
She says that she could bring about 30-50 people
there. She thought he did a good job. And after the
meeting, J.W. seems very excited.
Later, Jaret and Vanessa take their turn talking to
Stacey, hoping to woo her over to Lunes at Quo. They
pitch their deal, but they didn't know what would be
provided as far as liquor was concerned. And that
turned out to be a concern for Stacey. At this point,
it seems that Status at Quo would have the better
chance at getting her and 30-50 of her friends.
Now, it's Jackaay's turn to promote her team's party
on Power 105.1. She actually got some cheesy sayings
ready for it, because she thought she'd only get about
30 seconds to advertise it. But during the interview,
Jackaay shows that she's with it, and she gets across
what seems like a stronger message than Jaret's
because of it.
Meanwhile, J.W. calls Aaron Karo (club promoter) about
coming to Status at Quo, and Aaron says that he could
get about 100 people to the club. But he also says
that he has a meeting with Jaret in about an hour, and
that whoever impresses him the most will get the
people. Soon, J.W. meets Aaron in person. The first
thing that J.W. brings up is girls, which according to
Aaron is a good thing. And they continue chatting
about, well, girls.
In the meantime, Jaret and Vanessa are meeting with
David Spencer (NYC promoter) to see what he can do for
Lunes at Quo. He's not exactly a fan of the name Lunes,
but he does like that they'll have an open bar. At
least, Jaret said so at first. But as soon as he was
told what it meant, he changed his answer, saying it's
not open bar. Oops. But Vanessa tries to recover for
Jaret, saying that they'll comp one bottle per table
for promoters. Will that be enough?
On the way to another location, Jackaay calls Justin
Brody (model/manager) about possibly going to Status
at Quo. He says he has some people that he is
considering sending to Lunes, but Jackaay does arrange
a meeting in person to see if she can change that. At
that meeting, Jackaay does what she can to convince
him to send the people to Status, even bringing up
Stacey. In the end, Justin says he'll call later to
let her know what his plans will be.
It's Jaret's turn to meet with Aaron. He makes
whatever promises that he can, and the meeting goes
smoothly. But now, Aaron has a dilemma, as both sides
made strong cases, and he's not sure who to go with.
We then see quick clips of other meetings that the
final 4 have with others, as they each try to make
their cases to convince as many people to go to their
respective parties on this night. And as J.W. noted,
no one is giving a definitive answer on whether or not
they'll show up.
Later, Vanessa calls Stacey to ask if she has a guest
list for Lunes. No definitive answer once again, as
Stacey says she'll call back. Stacey then calls J.W.,
and she tells him that she's bringing 60 people to
Status. This makes J.W. quite confident that Status
will win.
Time to party... Or is it?
At night, the contestants are back at the hotel,
getting dressed up and ready for their parties. Both
teams know what's at stake; some obscenely expensive
watches, and safety from the next elimination. Once
they're ready, they are driven to Quo, and they go
into their respective halves of the nightclub for
final preparations. On Status' side, J.W. is working
the door, and Jackaay is inside making sure that their
promises from earlier would be kept. It looks like on
Lunes' side, Jaret has the door, and Vanessa is
inside.
The doors are open, and people that each side met from
the streets are making early arrivals to each club.
Then, the first of the big groups arrived, and it was
led by Stacey Nuñez. However, instead of going to
Status, like she said she would, she chooses to go to
Lunes instead. Huh? J.W. is understandably mad at
this. He informs Jackaay of this, and says they're
screwed. I'd say screwed is an understatement in this
case. And it shows, as people are now just going to
the Status side to ask where the Lunes party is. And a
dejected J.W. points it out to each of them.
As the people pile into Lunes from Stacey's group,
Jaret is marking the names of the people on the list,
to confirm that they're there. And J.W., well, can
only stand there and talk about how Stacey screwed
Status over. Inside, after entering, Stacey tells
Vanessa that it was a last-minute decision for her to
change her mind. Yeah, nice time to change one's mind.
Back outside, the people are still piling in to Lunes,
while there's little action on Status' side, except
for a ticked off J.W. This seems to have "Landslide
win for Lunes" written all over it.
But hang on! Aaron Karo shows up with a bunch of
people, and he leads them over to Status! And all of a
sudden, we have a ball game! Both J.W. and Jackaay are
very thankful that Aaron came to Status, as now, it's
no longer a landslide. But is it enough? Maybe, as
Aaron feels that Status' party is the better of the
two, as they're delivering on their promises. Well,
except for the bottles, as Jackaay doesn't seem to be
getting those to the tables as promised, according to
Aaron.
Soon enough, Kathy arrives to party with everyone, and
afterwards, she and her sister, Kyle, get down to
business and count the names on each guest list to
determine the winning team. When it's time to announce
the winners, she starts by saying that even though the
contestants didn't know any of these people 10 hours
prior, they managed to get over 500 people combined to
Quo. With that, Kathy announces that the winning party
is... Lunes at Quo! Jaret and Vanessa are excited, and
J.W. and Jackaay seem to take it well. Well, until
they get outside. Then, J.W. continues venting his
frustration about what Stacey did.
Upon returning to the hotel, we hear J.W. mention how
weird it was that Status lost despite the people
saying they had the better party, while Jackaay sees
that she has a 50/50 shot of staying in the
competition. Both are worried that they'll be the one
to go, and they both mention this to each other.
They're worth how much?
The next day, Jaret and Vanessa arrive at Wempe, a
jewelry store, to get their reward. The guy in there
brings them to where the watches are waiting, and
shows them what they've won. Vanessa gets her new
watch, and Jaret gets his. He asks what they're worth,
and the guy says that the two combined are worth about
$10,000. As they leave, they both don't seem to
believe that they're wearing such expensive watches on
their wrists.
Attitude and promises
The limo takes J.W. and Jackaay to the residence,
where one of them is about to be eliminated from the
competition. They sit alone in the deliberation room,
and soon enough, Kathy joins them. She starts by
reminding them that only one of their names will be on
the list this time. She then tells them that she feels
Jaret and Vanessa did a much better job of networking,
which was important for this task. She asks Jackaay
what she did, and Jackaay replies that she came up
with the name "Status", because it would sell easily
and she could say, "Prove your status, show your
status, come to Status at Quo." J.W. admits to having
a weak point when it comes to coming up with stuff
like that.
J.W. is then asked why he thought this challenge was
the hardest, and he says that they had to implement
everything they had learned in this one, and it was
tough to do that. He was then asked what he was doing
while the club was running, and J.W. mentioned his job
of marking off people on his list. Kathy then asks
what he was doing with the Quo staff, and he says they
were taunting him. She tells him that he should have
tried to smooth things out. Then, when asked if she
was impressed with J.W.'s attitude, Jackaay says no,
but she tried to just look happy in front of the
guests they had.
The next subject is a conflict concerning J.W. and
Stacey. J.W. explains what happened, and how she
seemingly screwed him over. Kathy then mentions that
from what she heard from Stacey and others, Jaret and
Vanessa "had it more together". J.W. says that he does
what he has to do, and if it works, good, but if not,
he at least tried. But Kathy says they didn't seal the
deal, and that he didn't keep his composure, which was
supposed to have been learned from the press
conference challenge. Kathy then brings up J.W.'s use
of foul language on the red carpet. J.W. apologizes
for it.
Kathy then asks Jackaay about the promise of free
bottles to a lot of people, and how people kept coming
up to her, wondering where they are. Jackaay says she
wasn't aware of how many bottles they gave out, and
Kathy mentions that that's something she should have
been aware of. She also says that this wasn't just
about getting people in, but also keeping them happy,
and backing up their promises. (Even though the
challenge was essentially judged by how many people
got in?)
Kathy then gives each of them a chance to say what
they learned. Both essentially say that they've
learned from their mistakes; J.W. about his attitude,
and Jackaay about the promises. After telling them
both that they didn't network well the day before,
Kathy sends them out to the hallway so she can write a
name on her list. Here's a hint: It starts with a J.
And both seem to be thinking that Jackaay is going
home.
Once they're back in, Kathy tells them that Jaret and
Vanessa are in the dining room, waiting to see who
will join them in moving on. After reiterating her
disappointment in J.W.'s attitude, as well as how
she's seen Jackaay in there more times than she would
have liked. (I say blame the cursed Madison team for
that.) With that, she reads the one name on her
list...
-Jackaay
With that, Jackaay survives yet again, and joins Jaret
and Vanessa in the dining room. And that means that
J.W. has to go home. He and Kathy say their good-byes,
and he heads downstairs and outta there, into the
waiting limo. Then, Kathy joins the remaining 3 in the
dining room, and congratulates them, before making the
weekly toast to the good life, ending the episode. And
next week, 3 will be reduced to 1, as a winner will be
crowned in the finale.
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