''The Apprentice'': The girls don't play well together

Well, ducklings, if I wasn’t crying after tonight’s Grey’s Anatomy finale, I sure as hell am now: There are three more episodes of this infernal show left? I’m not sure I’m gonna make it. Leave me. Save yourselves.

But hey, let’s be positive. The firing of Tammy means at least the final four are gender balanced, reasonably intelligent, and hate each other a great deal. Sean and Lee vs. Allie and Roxanne is a battle royal I’m happy to watch, if for no other reason than to see the boys kick the girls right back to Westerberg High. (Note to Tammy: Teenage suicide — don’t do it!)

This evening, the task was to team up with Microsoft and Wal-Mart to create a selling environment for the Xbox 360. (According to Trump, ”There are no two finer companies in the world than Microsoft and Wal-Mart,” and judging from that comment, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Trump has never needed to purchase birth control or launch a small software company, but I digress.) Tammy’s concept for the ladies — to set up an awards-show-red-carpet vibe — wasn’t a bad one, but she made no attempt to create a selling environment and instead came up with what Trump would later describe as ”a third-rate liquor lounge.” My favorite part was the battery-operated click lights she put down to line the red carpet — and then never turned on. As much as I hate Allie right now, if I’d spent my afternoon sticking batteries in those damn things, I would have whipped at least a couple AAs at little Tam-Tam’s head. But I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual: Why do I hate Allie right now? Because she and Roxanne, for whatever reason — jealousy of Tammy and Sean’s flaming hott lurve? — decided to turn on their weak member and spent the entire task rolling their eyes as she project-managed in vain. Excuse me: Raising their eyes. Not rolling. Because there is such a difference. I apologize, ladies. Please do not hold a grudge.

Meanwhile, Sean took the project-manager post for the gentlemen, and they dreamed up this gazebo thing, outsourced their set-up and signage to these two dudes, and then spent the rest of the day taking camera-phone ”snaps” of one another. (The man flirting was so intense, I kept waiting for them to sing ”Ebony and Ivory” or something. Lee: ”You’re a Brit, and I’m a Jew….” Sean: ”And to make it all worse, I’m half Arab, too….”) (That’s not offensive if you watched the show. Calm down.) But there was one problem: Adrian, one of the signage dudes. Look, I do not want to accuse Adrian of strangely resembling my old landlord, the one who promised for five years that he would fix the wretched basement squat in which I lived and stop it from flooding every time we got more than two inches of rain, but Adrian strangely resembled my old landlord. And sure enough, Adrian screwed the guys in a major way. At first promising to deliver the floor and the ceiling for the display by midnight, he later revised that to 7 a.m., and then only showed up with the floor — the ceiling didn’t make it on time. As a result, the display looked like ass, with this big banner hanging off poster tubes and sagging all over the place. Luckily, the boys were smart enough to offset that disaster by putting price points (Lee! always with the price points!) and assorted other electronics in their gazebo, an idea the execs absolutely loved, and an idea that won them the task.

So while the boys trotted off on Jeffrey Katzenberg’s private jet to record voice-overs for the upcoming hit DreamWorks animated feature Over the Hedge (wow, three product placements in one night?), the ladies stayed behind to do their very best impression of what my sister and I sounded like every time we got in trouble and tried to blame it on each other. Allie and Roxanne blamed Tammy for saying the project was all about her and not taking suggestions. Tammy blamed A&R for rolling, sorry, raising their eyes at her the whole time — something that both Bill and Ivanka noticed, too, and called out in the boardroom — and for not lifting a finger to help make things in the liquor lounge better. No one was a winner here, if you ask me, and yes, feminism took a serious drubbing once again, especially when Trump asked who was friends with who. I’m so sure that question comes up all the time during Fortune 500 board meetings. (”Listen, Davenport, who do you like better: Frederickson or Kramden?”) But since Tammy did the crappiest job and also had the whiniest voice, I’m okay with saying bye-bye, Tam-Tam. Sean will write. I’m sure of it.

Now. On to a far more important matter: Trump’s rampant hostility. Tonight’s lesson was ”Death to Traitors.” No anecdotes, no Miss USA in the office, just, if someone’s messing with you, get rid of ’em fast. Sheesh. But it actually got worse in the boardroom, when he asked Tammy if she took things personally and then said, ”Hey, that’s okay. I take things personally, too. When somebody says something about me, I hate them for the rest of their life. And you know that better than anybody, Ivanka.”

?????

I’m sorry — did Donald Trump just make an incredibly crass reference to his first failed marriage, to the daughter who sprang from that marriage, in front of total strangers, on national TV? Dude, that’s, like…dude. And I thought I was sick of this show. Maybe it’s time for everybody to take a time-out?

Oh, time-out. That makes me think of Grey’s Anatomy. I gotta go cry again now. No, no. Save yourselves.

What do you think? Can feminism survive this show? Did Tammy deserve to be fired? And will Sean ever call her?