The Apprentice LA - Episode 2

In a way, this one is more overwhelming to type than last week’s, because so much happened and so little was shown. On the screen, Task 2 looked like it took a us few hours and that was that. In reality, from the time the phone rang telling us to meet Trump at the coast to the time the winner was announced spanned 36 hours, during which not one person on my team slept one minute.

Before I delve into the hideous Trina Turk experience, I want to explain some general things about how the filming works:

The show runs a strict routine (the first task was an exception because of all the initial stuff and because the task itself only lasted a few hours), and it goes something like this:

It’s a 3 day cycle. On day 1, the phone rings around 4:30am and the weird-looking blond secretary tells us to meet Trump some place or another by sometime between 6:30 and 8:00. We get ready, gather things we need for the task (pads of paper, pens, our two allotted cell phones and chargers, Red Bulls, granola bars, a calculator, a change of clothes, our two allotted laptops, etc.—during a task, sometimes someone buys a tool like a map or a phone book. Anything like this that we bought during a task is confiscated after a task. When a task begins we’re only allowed to possess the above listed materials that they gave both teams at the beginning. The idea is that every task is a clean slate and no earlier task can affect a later one. And of course, our wallets, cell phones, and other personal things are taken from us before any of the filming starts), and head to the van (each team has two vans, and a driver for each. When we get into the van, we have to let a camera guy get in first and close the door. Then we can open the door and get in (so he can get the shot of us getting into the van). When we stop we have to let him get out first and close the door, and then we can get out).

We head to the place where trump will announce the task, and often wait for up to an hour for him to get there (during waiting times like this the cast is on “lockdown” which means no one is allowed to say anything to anyone or interact with each other, since if something important happened like a fight, they couldn’t really show it because it would make no sense that we were standing around doing nothing at the time—these moments are pretty rare, and don’t really disrupt the flow of things very much). Trump arrives, and announces the task. Sometimes when something goes wrong with a camera or something he’ll joke around with us a little in the brief downtime, but for the most part our only interaction with him is what you see on camera.

Trump leaves, and we are given detailed “dossiers,” explaining the exact rules for the specific task and every limitation and allowance. The two teams move apart from each other and each gathers around and someone on the team reads it out loud. This, for me, is a time of half listening and half serious solo brainstorming. We’re also given a money purse with that task’s allotted cash inside (ranging from $1,000 to $50,000), and a spreadsheet on which the accountant (one team member is designated the hideous job of accountant, sometimes by volunteering and sometimes being assigned the job by the project manager) must write every purchase made and must have a numbered receipt to go with every item. This is taken extremely seriously by the show and as much as a dime off will warrant an investigation.

At that point—usually around 8am—the task begins. It generally ends about 30-35 hours later, sometime the next afternoon, and sleep during a task was rare. They purposely create tasks that would normally take a couple weeks, so that there is almost no chance for down time and no matter how hard you work through the night there will be stressful panicky moments the second day.

When the task ends, we’re brought somewhere for task resolution, when the winner is announced. After 35 hours, this is a big moment.

Then the teams head back to the house/backyard. That night (day 2 of the 3-day cycle), the winning team goes on their reward, and the losing team hangs around somberly.

The next day (day 3), are interviews, all day. The first people (order is random) have theirs at 8am, the last are in the early afternoon. These are the long interviews (more in a second).

That night is the boardroom.

Then the next morning, at 4:30am, the phone rings and the next task has begun.

So it’s a strict, 3-day routine, and as you may have noticed, there’s not much time for sleep (only between day 2 and 3 is a good night sleep possible, and often you’re woken up very early on day 3 for an interview).

To explain a bit about interviews—if you’ve noticed, about half of the show is a narrative by the cast, sometimes over footage of the task, and sometimes just showing the interview itself. These interviews come from two types of interview: OTF’s and formal interviews. In both cases, the producer stands right next to the camera and asks you questions, and you look at him when you talk—hence the cast members looking just off to the side in the interviews. OTF’s (on the fly’s) are short and happen during tasks. A producer will make eye contact with the cast member he wants to interview, and signal for you to subtly make your way out of the room with him. They’ll have a camera/lighting setup ready somewhere nearby. OTF’s can be as short as 30 seconds and as long as 45 minutes, generally in the 10 minute ballpark. They’ll sometimes ask questions about “how it’s going?” or “what’s happening?” or “what’s the plan right now?” and sometimes they’ll ask about something that just happened after an argument or something. OTF’s can be stressful. During the carwash, for example, I remember being OTF’ed for about 15 minutes, and the whole time I was freaking out because I was so immersed in selling carwashes and time was running out and I was standing there down the block answering questions.

Formal interviews are the ones that everyone on both teams does on day 3 of the 3-day cycle, the “off-day” (you know which one is which, because in OTF’s the clothes are the same and in the formal interviews the clothes are different). Each person is brought to some location in the city (sometimes an hour away) where the crew has a whole nice set up. The interview lasts for 3-4 hours, during which time they ask you process questions and opinion questions. Process questions suck—the question would be “what was the task” and you’d answer “For this, task, we had to design and manufacture six swimsuits for…” this part is boring and tedious. The other part—the opinion part—is fun. You basically vent and say your thoughts on everything that’s happening and everyone around you. This can be very enlightening and cathartic, almost like a therapy session. And it’s a nice small chunk of downtime in the midst of the chaos of the whole thing. The other purpose of these interviews is that it gives the people on the campsite time to talk about the people who are on interviews without them there to hear it. Especially in a situation like the backyard, it’s pretty tricky to talk about anything in privacy.

Also, a note on the crew. There are over 300 people on the crew for the show, and we’re strictly forbidden from interacting with any of them. It’s a very odd experience, having 300 random young people all around all the time and 18 of us and they all know everything about the 18 of us and we don’t know anything about them. We aren’t allowed to know their names or as much as exchange a smile. The reason is that if camera people start forming any kind of friendships with cast members, they might start being biased in their filming. A few weeks after returning to the real world I ran into 3 crew members outside a restaurant. I recognized them immediately as if they were close friends of mine—but I didn’t know their names or anything about them. They recognized me right away too. It was awkward because I’m pretty sure they’re still forbidden from talking to me, at least until the airing is finished.

Anyway, the crew is huge. There are a bunch of camera guys, each accompanied by a mic guy, there are people that deal with locations, people that deal with clearance (more on clearance another time), people that take photos, people that direct, people that produce, people that deal with tech stuff, people that deal with our microphones (except during sleep, every cast member wears a mike strapped around their waist at all times), etc. etc. etc.

The only ones we talk to are the producers. There are 8 total, 4 for each team. They work in pairs and alternate tasks. So we’d have 2 of them for a task, and then 2 others for the next, and then the first 2 again. It only takes a few days to get to know these 4 people really well. They are with the team 24/7, they take notes on everything that’s happening, they walkie talkie communicate with each other constantly, in a whisper. They do all our interviews. After it’s all over, they (with the help of editors) edit the whole show and create the finish product. In other words, these 8 (along with Jay Bienstock, the show’s Executive Producer) create, shape, and run the whole show. They also play a large part in the final casting decisions.

They’re also our disciplinarians. The producers and cast immediately slip into a camper – camp counselor relationship. We do a bunch of things that we’re not supposed to, and they constantly tell us to stop. Among such things are:

-talking, smiling, shaking heads, pumping fists, writing notes, or interacting in any way during a lockdown.
-talking about the cameras, crew, producers, former Apprentice seasons, other TV shows, the fact that this is a “TV show”, etc. since they can never use that footage.
-eating food that’s supposed to be strictly for the crew (I think I’m the only one who did this, and it was just once, and it did not go over well).
-being in illegal “groupings” (as a team, we can never split into more than two groups during a task, and no one is allowed to be alone—in other words, if we need a map, I can’t run and get it alone, I have to go with another team member, and during the time we’re gone, the rest of the team has to stay together. This is because if the team split into 3 or more groups there wouldn’t be enough camera people to follow them all)
-violating the dossier in any way. They are really strict about this. In general, I will give credit where credit is due—the producers maintain a high level integrity for the show. They are extremely careful to make sure that both teams have the same exact opportunities and advantages, and that no one breaks a rule.

One more thing that is important to touch on-- in general, after writing the above I’m reminded how incredibly fun this was. I may begin to confuse you with my opinions and descriptions of my emotions, because while on one hand this was the most intense, stressful, at times upsetting and always exhausting experience of my life, it was simultaneously immensely fun. Some people went there desperately wanting a job with Trump. Others went there with a very specific vision of how they wanted to act and be viewed. Because neither of these was true for me (the actual job was not what drove me at all, but rather my absurd competitiveness and desire to come out on top, and as for how I’d come off, I soon figured that I was just 100% going to be myself and that the viewers would have the pleasure of seeing the good, bad, and ugly—in a process so involved and intense and long, it’s not possible to act the whole time or hide parts of your personality—it’s just not), I really saw the whole thing as a big, long, hard, game that I was trying to win. And a two-part game—a team game, trying to win as a team, and a solo game, trying to beat your own team. It involved an element of strategy and manipulation (as the solo quest), and a lot of creativity, intelligence, cleverness, and common sense (as the team game). Basically a 300 person crew with millions of dollars to work with was there to facilitate a (potentially) 6-week elimination game, and you were being interviewed along the way about the experience, and as an extra twist, there were cameras everywhere filming this big weird game you’re playing for the summer and everyone you know would watch the game and write you emails about it. And it felt important, kind of like how an NFL player is, in the end, just playing a game, but it most certainly feels like an important game, that actually matters in the real world. This as like that. Now—looking at it that way, as an extremely competitive person not afraid of being embarrassed here and there, I’m having trouble thinking of anything that could possibly be more fun than that. And while there were times of otherworldly stress and through-the-roof misery, there were more times when I would think to myself, “how fucking fun is this?” Because for someone not thinking of it as a job interview or worried about a public image like a politician would, it was, more than anything, a spectacular recreational experience.

Okay, I’ll leave it at that. I’ve gotten a lot of questions from people and I hope I answered some of them.

Anyway, episode 2. Like last week, I’ll restrict every thought and opinion to exactly what I was feeling at the time, so if I’m acting unconfident and nervous, it doesn’t mean I’m foreshadowing getting fired soon, of if I’m acting really confident that I’ll “be around” for awhile, it doesn’t mean that I will, only that at the time that’s how I felt. I’ll also get pretty detailed here and there regarding a situation or my thoughts, and this is largely because I stupidly did not keep a journal, so I’m trying to get back in the moment in my head and capture the experience at the time. So this will function as my long-term journal as well. In other words, concise is not something I’m aiming for.

So to back up to the final night of task 1 (day 3 overall)—after getting back to the backyard after being released from the boardroom, I saw more than one camera planted on my head, with the intent of capturing the “Tim is angrily brooding and shaking his head because his nemesis Frank returns from the boardroom unscathed” reaction (I’ve seen the show enough times to know that they wanted that shot). So I did everything I could not to give them that satisfaction. Make no mistake—seeing Frank’s big fat head turn the corner, I was not happy (would you be happy?), but I did my darndest to keep a smile on. I thought I had won this battle for a few minutes of the episode, until the scene came on where Frank was screaming in all of our faces “now you see the real Frankie Suits!” and they captured a shot of me looking down with the “I cannot fucking believe this guy is going to remain a large part of my life” face on. Touché, cameras. Touché.

And Frank’s rant was even more absurd and animated than they showed on camera. He was screaming things like, “I was just in front of the most powerful man in the world and he spared me—and I saw him say it! Right there, he said it, ‘YOU’RE FIRED!’” and this wasn’t an act—he was jam packed with adrenaline. As I sat there and watched him scream at full volume, I had two thoughts: 1) this guy isn’t going anywhere for awhile, and it doesn’t make much sense to continue to be in a tense clash with him, and 2) he’s not much of a threat, and if you look at it from a certain angle (a very narrow, specific angle), he’s kind of funny, like a loud, annoying, dog who’s fun to play fetch with. Maybe I can even learn to have fun with this dude.

Don’t forget, you spend 24/7 with these people, and you’re all going through this weird shit together, and you really want to win as a team—and even though they only show the tense team moments, 95% of the time the team is having fun together—so why would I want to have an adverse relationship with anyone, unless I absolutely had to? If you’re on a basketball team that lives together 24/7 and is competing in a fierce nation-wide tournament for weeks on end, wouldn’t you want to try to get along with your team members? So after his rant, I went over and we had a beer and I told him I had put the whole thing behind me, and he gave me a big hug and said, “dis is how we do it in Italy!” I sighed, and thought, “This is your life, Tim.” (Of course, when I walked over to Frank, about 8 cameras ran over to catch the moment—I was still not at all used to this. What a weird fucking thing.)

So we all chat for a few hours about what we could do better the next task, and who would be PM. As I mentioned, I was not interested in the job so early, and neither was anyone else mostly. Nicole said she’d do it, and Aaron expressed mild interest, and that’s it. So eventually everyone went to bed. Nicole and I stayed up talking for a couple hours after everyone went to bed. She told me that she was planning on being PM the next day. Part of me knew I should go to bed since we’d be woken up early (I didn’t know when at the time) and I knew I should get as much sleep as possible. But it’s hard to have any one-on-one interactions with anyone with the whole team around, and as I mentioned I was pretty enamored with Nicole at the time and was not about to head off to bed. Every emotion is heightened in such a surreal and intense experience—camaraderie, fear, paranoia, jealousy, joy, etc.—and likewise, the fact that I pretty immediately had a serious thing for one of the team members was taking up about 70% of my brain at the time. Anyway, finally one of the producers stepped over and suggested that it might be a good idea to get some sleep. This kind of “advice” was rare—which highlights just how dumb staying up late was. It was about 2am. At 4:30am the phone would ring and we’d be on a 35 hour task on national TV (not to mention that she was planning on being PM)—not exactly the ideal time to chat till the wee hours. So we headed off to bed—on the floor of the tent crunched in next to 4 other people. (Incidentally, you’ll notice that none of the bitching about camping comments you’ve seen have come from me—except for one about the sun beating down—because I don’t really mind camping)

So the phone rings at 4:30am. You know that feeling when your body needs and expects a really solid night sleep and your alarm cuts that very short and it hurts and your body is craving more sleep and you’d do anything to not have to get up? This was like that. The thing that got me going was adrenaline (this would turn out to be a theme—adrenaline is everything in this). So we got up and took freezing cold showers and got in our suits and headed to meet Trump.

On the van ride we were on lockdown. There was music on and “We Will Rock You” came on, and the team all made eye contact with each other and gave each other looks like, “let’s fucking do this” and I suddenly felt wide awake—I was bursting with fierce competitive energy. Then the producer told us to stop fucking interacting. (I know this all sounds a bit cheesy, but it was immensely competitive—we can either win, and take the fucking mansion, and go on a reward, and have champagne, and send the fucking stuck up Kinetic girls outside to the backyard, or we can lose again, and watch them cheer again when they find out, and head back outside like losers to talk about what went wrong. And trust me, if you saw the Kinetic girls scream and cheer after winning the carwash task, you’d want nothing more than to beat them.)

So we get there and Trump announces the bathing suit task. Not exactly my wheelhouse. He asks who will be our new PM and Nicole says she will (this is the first time this was official). We break apart, read the long dossier and Nicole gives a feisty inspirational speech. She tells me that she wants me to be the accountant and in charge of all logistics. The rest is easy—Carey is gay, Aaron is impressively metrosexual, and there’s three girls. So those 5 would be in charge of designing the bathing suits, and James, Frank, and I, all equally clueless, would to the other stuff.

As for my job—accountant is, as I mentioned, a ton of completely thankless work (all the tedious aspects as well as managing the team’s budget and being responsible for carrying around thousands of dollars worth of cash)—and logistics for this task involved making a 35 hour timeline, scheduling meetings with Trina Turk, a fashion consultant, the manufacturing facility, coordinating with our four models and getting them directions and transportation, getting food for the team and models, etc. So I had my plate full.

The first thing we did was head to meet with Trina Turk at one of her stores. I might as well have been on Jupiter walking around that store. Put it this way—straight guys who dress conservatively don’t tend to hang around the Trina Turk store. We made a list of questions and Stef was designated the main “talker” in our meeting with Trina. So the meeting happens, Trina looks Asian, I say nothing, and she leaves. And this brings me to the topic that I’ve gotten about 487 questions about in the last 4 days—the pink pants.

Yes, folks, I was on national TV sitting around wearing neon pink pants. I suppose that warrants an explanation—we all decided to wear Trina Turk garb to the fashion show, and the store offered to deck us out for the occasion. The girls at the store dressed up each one of us, and decided that hell, I looked like the kind of guy who should wear neon pink pants. Not only that, but they gave me an extremely petit, frilly, fringy, flowery, entirely feminine black t-shirt to wear. So I shrugged—“okay”—when in Rome…

So we split into two groups—the 5 design people headed downtown to buy our fabrics, and James, Frank and I—the “under the radar” group—headed to the sweatshop to set things up and make phone calls and begin researching pricepoints.

We got there and James immediately assumed the role of sitting at the computer researching something so it looks like he’s doing something. I started making lists and timelines and studying the dossier (another role of mine on this task—to study and interpret the dense dossier). Frank was in charge of existing.

Looking back, the three of us were—barring a price point or logistics or budget disaster—sitting pretty during this task. Just be competent, and you’re safe. At the time, though, we were all a bit paranoid about “not contributing”—you tend to have one eye on the task and one eye on the boardroom (although I found myself having one and half eyes on the task more often than not). Frank started obsessing over his idea to build a big display stand for the contest and wanted to go to the Home Depot. This never ended up happening. James monopolized the computer and assigned himself the job of making our “line sheet” (the table of contents/brochure that everyone at the fashion show would be given)—at one point James went to the bathroom and I sat down at the computer and checked out the line sheet, and he returned and was insistent that I not work on it and that I get up from his computer.

Anyway, the rest of the team finally returned from the fashion district. Upon return, I immediately noticed Aaron roll his eyes, and the whole group looked pissed off. Aaron sat next to me and I quietly said, “What’s up?” and he gave me a look and motioned over to Michelle. I got the same look from Nicole later. Apparently Michelle had been a real nightmare to work with. In all honesty, this amused me.

So the night wore on—now, designing swimsuits is harder than it looks, and manufacturing them was even harder. We had one sweatshop worker only, and she would be up all night sewing our suits. The dossier imposed a strict deadline of 7am to stop working on suits and the group started to panic in the middle of the night. At one point, Frank decided he was going to sew one of the suits himself. He was tremendously excited about this idea and showed intense enthusiasm—for about 10 minutes until he realized that he didn’t know how to use a sewing machine or sew a bathing suit.

So the wee hours hit—the three girls are hovering around a table working on their women’s design, and Carey and Aaron are working hard on the men's. About 3 in the morning, our first suit was done. Carey’s female bikini bottom. As you saw, he tried it on. The camera captured the scene pretty well—I was mostly perplexed. However, poor Carey got a bad deal in the editing. There was not much second guessing at the time. In an interview I remember saying, “I would never ever wear that suit, but then again, I would never ever shop at a Trina Turk store either.” I think most of the team agreed. And that was our fatal error—imagining the Trina Turk store when designing the suits. In fact, external buyers would be our market—Bloomingdales, Nordstrom’s, and other stores that sell Trina Turk clothes—and those buyers probably buy the most mainstream stuff Trina Turk sells. At her store, she is completely off the wall (hence the neon pink pants), but unfortunately for us, Trina Turk herself was not a buyer. It was an error in strategy, and none of us caught it. So Carey’s suit actually made sense at the time, but they made it look like he “ramrodded it down all of our throats” to simplify the story and let Nicole off the hook.

Around 6am, the rest of the suits were finished and we laid them all out and Michelle and the girls started arguing about stuff. By this point, I was completely and utterly delirious with exhaustion and Frank and I were both slap-happy, and we decided to rile Michelle up—there was one suit that everyone agreed was good and was Michelle’s brainchild (the brown and white bikini)—so Frank and I called Michelle over and said that we think we should nix this one, that it just looked “tacky.” She took a deep breath and started explaining to us that everyone had already agreed upon it, and we said that we were actually taking a stand here and that we were vetoing the suit. She started getting worked up until we told her we were kidding. It was also at this point that Frank started calling Michelle “Johnny” behind her back. I know that sounds weird, but it was really fucking funny at the time.

So around 7am frank, James and I headed out to print out the line sheets, pick up food, and coordinate the meeting time with the models. The show would start at 1pm and the rehearsal would be at noon. This actually became very stressful—as I couldn’t reach two of the four models on their cell phones and we had planned to have all four head over to the sweatshop to try on the suits. So the first one I reached started driving out there and then called and said the traffic was bad and he was going to be very late. Suddenly I had a vision of the show starting, and one of the models is caught in traffic, one is at the show, and the other two are lost because I never reached them, and the whole thing being a disaster and it’s all my fault. Again, it may look overly-paranoid in retrospect, but these things were nerve-wracking at the time. Remember, it’s not like the show has everything covered for us and makes sure things happen like the models arriving—they’d just as soon have it be a disaster—that’s good TV. And the real world gets in the way a lot—bad cell-phone connections, traffic, unreliable people, etc.

We also went into Baja Fresh to buy food—this was weird because the cameras came in with us, so everyone in the restaurant was staring like we were walking in there naked—it’s times like these that you remember that you’re on a TV show. I’ll spare you the details, but Frank decided he wanted to buy the “Baja Fresh” ice crate to hold the drinks in, and started offering the lady over $100 to give it to him, even though she said she wasn’t allowed to. It’s times like these that you remember that you’re spending your summer with Frank Lombardi. Then we went to Kinko’s to print out the line sheets, and while we were driving, Nicole called and asked us our opinions on price point. James, who researched price point all day, couldn’t fathom the courage to give a solid answer. I gave my opinion (although I admittedly wavered as well), so did Frank, and we ended up compromising. It was a big moment—do you go high and go for the kill, or do you go low and go for volume—or will going low make your product seem cheap? What I kept saying was that our current prices were too low, so they talked and then told me they raised them. Then they called back and said they had lowered them a bit and it was all just a mess. They made Michelle look like the one who didn’t have the balls to put out her opinion, but like she said, that wasn’t her job—what didn’t make the edit was that this was James’ designated job.

So we get to the show (to avert the models disaster, I had cabs come to pick them up—except when I called a half hour later, the cabs had never come, and the models were all very confused—incidentally, they were not the sharpest blades on the razor. I was completely furious and increasingly panicked—I finally called high-priced town cars and sent them to wherever the four were to pick them up, and they ended up all getting there on time.)

So we got there and everyone changed into their Trina Turk outfits and we went to the runway for our scheduled rehearsal (each team was strictly forbidden from watching the other’s rehearsal). The rehearsal began and one of our two female models seemed extremely shy and nervous, and was showing absolutely no charisma. Nicole got on the runway and started coaching her, and showed her how to walk down the runway with some swagger. The rest of us were thoroughly amused and impressed by this, and someone said, “Nicole, why don’t you do it?”, and then everyone else agreed that she should do it, so she said okay and agreed to do it. This also allowed us to show all 6 of our suits in the finale, since now we had 6 people modeling.

So people began to arrive and of course, there was a complete panic when the beads on one of the suits broke 15 minutes before it began. Plus, we had forgotten to write the monologue that Trina Turk would read, describing our suits, during our walk off, so people were frantically writing that up. I, on the other hand, had my own personal crisis when I looked in the mirror for the first time, and realized that I was wearing a t-shirt that my sister would wear. It was the girliest thing I’ve ever seen. I was like, “Christ” and decided that I’m putting my foot down here—pink pants, fine, but I’m not going on national TV wearing a petit, frilly, fringy, girl’s t-shirt. So I sprinted full speed, pink pants and all, up to our trailer. Of course, a camera ran after me—if this ends up being an important fuck-up, they damn well want to capture it. I swapped the t-shirt for one of my normal black t-shirts, and made it back on time. Crisis averted (pink pants mini-crisis notwithstanding). Incidentally, after the task, one of the producers let us know that Trina Turk had decided to let us keep all of the clothes we had borrowed. This was unexpected and the team was elated. I, though, wasn't sure if being granted my very own pair of $275 neon pink pants was necessarily that exciting.

So we headed out into our seats next to the runway, and the show began. I was so unbelievably delirious and tired by that point, that I remember having a hard time moving my face muscles, and I’d find myself staring at people without thinking about it, in a complete daze. Remember when I woke up in the tent at 4:30am and couldn’t believe I had to get up? That was about 36 hours earlier, and I hadn’t slept since (and neither had anyone else). So anyway, the show finished—I felt pretty good about our chances.

Trina and her Asian haircut announced the winner.

Arrow- $19,600
Kinetic- $20,100

Excruciating.

Again, we had lost by the slimmest of margins. We had poured ourselves into this for the last 36 hours, and knew that if we won, not only would we be moving into the house and going on a reward and feeling like winners and not worrying about who fucked up and not sleeping outside, but there was the extra incentive that the winning team would not be participating in the next task (none of us really understood what that meant at the time, but we knew we wanted it). And worse than all of those incentives was the pure competitiveness—Kinetic beat us again, and again they were screaming and cheering, and all our work was for naught. I didn’t even want to make eye contact with them.

On lockdown, team Arrow took the hour and half van ride back to the mansion, through traffic. Everyone was completely dejected. There were some sad glances exchanged and some heads were shaking, but mainly, we were just looking out the window, miserably. I know this sounds incredibly over-dramatic, but it actually felt this bad at the time. You bond so much as a team during a task with a common goal, and when you fail collectively, the morale is so low and the whole team feels collectively bad about itself.

So we got back to the fucking tents and Carey gave his little speech about not wanted to talk about the boardroom, and we all plopped down and had a beer. Some people slept for awhile, and I ended up talking to Nicole about what had gone wrong. Michelle came over in the middle, and you saw this interaction. It wasn’t as bad as it looked. We were talking about issues we had as a team, and I mentioned that we were a mismatched group in a lot of ways, and that part of the challenge would be working well with people we would normally not be interacting with. Michelle asked for an example, and I said very plainly that she and I wouldn’t be natural friends in the real world, that we had very little in common. They made it look like she was offended, but I think she understood what I was saying. If anything, I was one of the few people on the team she was getting along with. They also made it look like I was using this as a reason that she should be fired, but in reality, I told Carey that day that I was going to say that he should be fired and not once did I suggest that Michelle should be fired. (At one point Nicole had some fun by telling me very seriously that she’d have to bring me into the boardroom final three, and fully had me going before she told me she was just fucking with me).

And of course, while we were sitting around, dejected, discussing what went wrong, the other team was at the Playboy mansion.

So I finally slept that night (although I was woken up a bunch of times by the sprinklers), and at the end of the next day (day 3 of the task, day 6 overall), we headed to the boardroom. The boardroom edit was pretty accurate, although Nicole had no chance of being fired—it was clear that Trump really liked her, and the whole team liked her. Only James attacked her, and yes, the ensuing scene was as funny as it looked. Nicole was hilariously irate. What didn’t come across was that she was so mad partially because he blindsided her and never mentioned to her earlier that he’d be attacking her. So she yelled at him and he was completely petrified of her and fully backed down, and Trump said, “James, it looks like you’re backtracking a little here, trying to cover your ass.” After the rest of us headed back to the campsite, James was asking me why Nicole got so mad—he was clearly shaken up by it. Stef was also shaken up because Trump had asked her why she didn’t offer to do the modeling, since she had “bragged so much about being a model” (apparently in her interviews during the application process she had continually brought it up).

Finally, Nicole and Michelle emerged from the boardroom, to no one’s surprise.

So, yeah—it sucks for Carey. Problem was, Nicole was too strong a player and liked too much by Trump to be fired, and when Trump determined that Michelle wasn’t to blame for the loss of the task, Carey was the only option.

So that’s where we are. See you next week.