''The Apprentice'': Like watching a car accident

Hi! I’m filling in for Whitney Pastorek, who’s on assignment this week and next. I know — that stinks. But in the spirit of tonight’s fake business lesson, ”Plan B,” let’s try our best to move on.

We opened to Michael and Brent returning to the power dorm from the boardroom. On cue, everyone else glared at Brent because they couldn’t believe he was still there, and still so very fat. For those just tuning in, Brent is the messy-looking overweight one who is fat. Andrea’s reaction to Brent’s unexpected return was to freak out in the bathroom. Brent’s was to construct a scaled-down version of Mount Everest using bagels. I’ll be the first to say that thing blew me away. The smooth contours of the mountain, the way his fingers gently glided along the cream-cheesy white ski slopes….But enough already with the all-you-can-eat Brent edit! We get the point.

And so the car commercial began. This week’s task was to inform Chevy dealers via a ”corporate retreat” about the 2007 Tahoe, as if there were any chance they didn’t know enough about it already. Project managers Andrea (Synergy) and Theresa (Gold Rush) took different approaches to the game. After everyone on Synergy effectively ignored Brent’s repeated suggestion of massages (ew), the team decided to capitalize on whatever meds Andrea had popped in the bathroom and rocked the task with the theme of ”nature — refined.” (There couldn’t have been a more fitting visual of this theme than the dual shot of a guy shooting skeet directly across from an old man fishing with his grandson. And how did Synergy even manage to get guns? I’m so confused.)

Gold Rush (Hashanah) began brainstorming minus Dan and Lee, who had decided to observe the Jewish holiday instead of getting pummeled by Theresa’s, uh…ideas. She was a total mess in their conference room, shouting out random non sequiturs while shooting down everyone else’s input. ”Get me a horse and carriage. Don’t take that away from me. What did you just take? And I want stallions.” Huh? I swear that was a direct quote.

Theresa ended up losing big time, but Gold Rush’s saving grace, at least in terms of entertainment value, was trusty Ruskie Lenny. Why, I had only just finished typing, ”Theresa suddenly has huge jugs,” when Lenny said, ”I wish, you know, her brain was bigger than her boobs.” Ha, ha! Imagine how weird she would look if that happened. Lenny also became my personal hero when he delivered what should be any smart person’s life motto — ”Shut up, I don’t listen to you” — to Charmaine during the event’s setup.

Lenny couldn’t save his team. Actually, he probably could have, had he taken the microphone instead of hired comedian Cory Kahaney (a former contestant on NBC’s Last Comic Standing), who within 20 (heavily edited) seconds managed to bash the park she was paid $1700 to stand in, the South, models, cars, golf, male genitalia, and finally, men. To middle-aged car-dealer men. The whole time Corey talked, I was envisioning the entire cast of Arrested Development cocking their heads in unison while asking, ”Her?” Charmaine, who was in charge of models and talent, clearly should have been fired for such a disastrous (yet hilarious, if only for the cringe value) choice.

And Cory wasn’t even the most ridiculous part. Theresa thought it would be really cute to literally demonstrate the concept of horsepower to men who have built successful careers upon pooh-poohing horses and peddling monster SUVs instead. It pained me to see Theresa bouncing alongside the dealers while they rode basically nowhere on patchy grass in a horse-drawn carriage. I wish just one of them would have asked her who she thought she was kidding.

Obviously, Gold Rush lost. Synergy’s ”reward” was to potentially get eaten by sharks at Atlantis Marine World. Trump said about the sharks, ”They’re gonna look at Brent, and they’re gonna say, ‘Wow!’ ” Trump is so wise that he knows what even sharks will say. But how can this remark not somehow constitute harassment? The ensuing reward scene featured copious glamour shots of Brent wriggling around in a wet suit and was followed by a rather humorous cut to Tarek forking his way through a giant bowl of tuna back at the suite. This segment has been brought to you by: fish!

Boardroom. Trump packed in a season’s worth of heavy flirting with Theresa, if only because he knew he was about to fire her. ”You have a great style,” he said. ”You know, I’ve seen the way you dress, although your dress is so different. I mean, you look so different.” Gross! Then Theresa and Lenny argued about whether or not they hated each other’s guts. Tarek inexplicably failed to defend himself about wanting to buy AstroTurf for the putting green. Carolyn referred to the comedian as a ”him,” which was funny just because this show frequently doesn’t bother to fix things like that. As if Carolyn doesn’t have better things to do than remember people’s genders!

Theresa actually had a graceful exit, full of nonconfrontational phrases like ”best of luck” and ”see you around.” In her taxicab confession, she promised that Mr. Trump would see her again. She’s right. It’ll be at the season finale, and he’ll have no clue who she is.

What do you think? Should Trump have taken Lenny’s suggestion to fire both Ts at once? Why don’t the women ever take each other into the boardroom early in the game? And what exactly will Brent do to go ”way, way, way over the line” next week?