Task: Auction jewelry designed by Ivanka Trump
KOTU: Clint, Herschel, Natalie, led by Joan
Athena: Jesse, Brande, Melissa, led by Annie
Eyes and Ears: Ivanka, Piers Morgan
Outcome: KOTU raises $92,000; Athena raises $153,000. Athena wins.
Fired: Natalie, for poor jewelry choices and ineffective fund raising.
Donation: $245,000 to Refugees International, which assists and protects displaced people around the world.
They're still talking about the last task, and Joan's still fuming about Annie, when Trump calls them back to the boardroom for another task. Each team will pick five pieces of jewelry designed by Ivanka to auction.
Trump chooses Annie to lead Athena, since she was previously accused of playing to last rather than playing to win.
Joan nominates Herschel to lead KOTU, but Trump has other ideas: he chooses Joan. (There's a priceless look on Annie's face as she silently reacts.) Annie vows, "I'm gonna crush you, Joan!", but Joan looks mad enough to kill!
Joan already won $126,000 for her charity in the first task! Yeesh, it would have been nice to let Herschel win something.
Later, Natalie and Melissa take turns picking out pieces of jewelry for the auction. There's no conflict or competition here at all; they are picking opposite styles. Melissa's choices are large and showy; Natalie's are classic and tasteful. Melissa thinks Natalie's choices are nice, but her own choices will look more impressive up on the stage.
While the teams strategize, Trump meets with Piers Morgan and tells him to keep a watch on things. He warns that Joan and Annie hate each other and tell him what's going on. He describes Melissa as "bratty" and says Jesse hasn't raised any money yet.
KOTU prepares
There's not much drama here: The fund raising begins right away and Natalie goes off to select the jewelry. The rest of the team agrees to pool their money and buy the cheapest piece with it.
Joan is not happy with the jewelry that Natalie picked; it's not big or showy enough. She doesn't say anything to Natalie, though.
Natalie seems to be taking the lead on keeping track of donations. She is uncomfortable asking her friends for more money and tries to think of other possible donors. She wonders if Annie doesn't have some poker rivals who would love to outbid Annie's friends at the auction.
While Joan and Natalie go to the store to scope out some clothes, Herschel and Clint stay behind to pick out/giggle at the models. Herschel feels that chatting with them is the best way to evaluate their stage presence.
Joan selects some gowns to go with the jewelry and asks the store to hide them so the other team doesn't pick the same thing.
Natalie tries to reach poker champion Phil Hellmuth to find out if he'd be interested in kicking in a lot of money against Annie.
Ivanka and Piers visit KOTU. Piers thinks the guys look like clowns flirting with the models. Piers asks Joan how she feels about being in a competition with Melissa. Joan says she's okay as long as Mel loses only because she deserves it and doesn't get thrown under the bus. Ivanka says that if she got run over, her father would blame her for getting in the way.
Before the auction, KOTU pools their donor money and instructs their bidder to buy the cheapest piece.
Athena prepares
Annie assigns tasks and brags that other leaders haven't done that. Not true - Tionne did it for the hotel task. How soon they forget! Anyway, Jesse will do the brochure, and Melissa will pick out the jewelry... Melissa nominates herself to pick out the clothes too, but Annie has decided that this will be Brande's job, along with getting the models. Melissa fumes. She thinks this is her "thing," but so does Brande. Melissa feels backstabbed because Annie gushes with praise for Brande after weeks of criticizing her.
Annie thinks that if her team loses, she won't be fired as long as she raises the most money. She calls her poker buddies and aggressively asks them for money, really putting them on the spot. Melissa gripes. (Does she want to win or not?) She warns the team that whoever raises the least money will go to the boardroom if they lose. (With only four left on the team, it's not safe for her to assume that she'll be allowed to choose; Trump will probably just fire one of the four without asking her to pick.) Jesse asks if Annie is planning to lose.
Jesse confides to us that he's saving his big donors for when he has a task of his own, to benefit his own charity. (He's now the only one who hasn't led a task yet.)
Melissa comes back from the jewelry-picking meeting feeling that she made the better choices. She bristles (and gripes) when the team does not enthusiastically applaud her selections.
Annie frets about her teammates' anemic fundraising efforts. She feels that Brande is the only other good fundraiser on the team; Brande has a donor who says he'll give her a billion dollars. (Uh, don't count on that, Annie... he also said he was impulsive and he might only feel like spending a penny!) "I'm sure he was exaggerating," Brande sagely says.
But Melissa is still mystified by their sudden camaraderie.
They audition models. They pick out four and Annie feels that they need another blonde. Jesse nominates Brande. (Or did Annie just set it up for someone to have that "idea"?) She can model the piece that her donor's interested in. (Melissa gripes. She's starting to sound as bitter as Claudia did.)
Brande, Melissa, and the models go to the store to pick out gowns. They have one hour. Remember, Brande was supposed to outfit the models. Instead, she is more interested in modeling outfits for herself. As Brande wheels an entire rack of pretty things into the dressing room to try on, Melissa works with the other four and gripes some more, not that I blame her but please just stifle for a little while, okay?
Melissa steams some more in the van while Brande tells Annie all about their great shopping trip.
Jesse works on the brochure. It turns out that Jesse knows all about auctions. He hopes that hard work, rather than big donors, will get him through this task.
Ivanka and Piers visit Athena. Brande sucks up to him. Melissa gripes. They talk about how it's all about money. After they leave, Melissa makes more phone calls. Brande gripes that Melissa didn't do that before.
Phil Hellmuth calls Annie and tells her that Natalie called to ask for money and names. Annie calls the mutual friend who hooked Natalie up with Phil and screams at him. (KOTU overhears the whole thing through the wall.) Apparently, this mutual friend thought that Natalie needed a poker coach to help her to beat Annie. He swears he only put her in touch with Phil and no one else.
Melissa is grimly amused by what she perceives as Annie's hypocrisy in being angry about a tactic that Melissa feels Annie would have used without hesitation herself. Annie goes to confront Natalie. Natalie enjoys Annie's reaction, but realizes now she won't be getting any poker money. Clint asks her to get some money out of her manager instead.
Melissa works backstage to get the models ready for the auction. She gripes that no one pats her on the back for her hard work and even asks Annie if her jewelry picks were good. Seriously! Annie tells us that Melissa doesn't get it: it's really about the money.
The auction
Annie is the auctioneer for Athena. With some targeted remarks and cajoling, she raises $127K for the first three pieces alone (50K from Brande's donor; Brande gives him a good look). (We don't know what she gets for the other two.)
Clint is auctioneer for KOTU. The first item, a pair of rings, doesn't even fetch the starting bid of $20K. It gets very awkward, and they end up not selling it. Unhappy, Joan wonders if she should step in. The second item, a pair of earrings, gets only $12K (from Brande's donor). Clint awkwardly jokes that he saw Trump wearing a similar pair recently. This does not elicit any laughter. (Piers whispers to Ivanka that he feels sorry for him.) Worried, Natalie suggests bringing out their cheapest piece. It's a ring, but Clint is confused and says it's earrings. Joan comes out and helps Clint. Their bidder offers $83,500. KOTU hopes the audience will be in more of a bidding mood now. Joan continues to help Clint, joking that their model is bulimic. We don't get to hear how much the other pieces sell for.
The postmortem
Annie says Melissa did a good job of picking jewelry. Ivanka agrees. Annie doesn't want to identify any "weak spots" on the team, but says that Melissa and Jesse raised the least money. Piers questions why Jesse didn't ask his wife for money. Jesse says he doesn't mix business and pleasure and doesn't personally know a lot of movie stars.
Joan also praises her team. Ivanka asks why Joan didn't step out sooner when Clint's auctioneering wasn't going well. Joan says she wanted the whole team to participate. Ivanka isn't happy with their jewelry choices; they couldn't be seen from the back row. Between that and Clint's weak eprformance, it made Ivanka look bad. Joan explains their strategy of selling one piece for a high amount, and says their task was to raise the most money, not sell jewelry. Piers thinks it was disrespectful.
Clint says they didn't have as big of a war chest as the other team. Piers thinks they should have been able to get more money. So does Trump; he and Joan know many of the same people. Melissa says that this should be a private conversation, because Trump would be surprised at some of their mutual acquaintances that she and Joan have called who turned them down. Piers asks why Melissa is defending someone from the other team. Melissa felt he was taking a disrespectful tone and becoming aggressive and critical.
Trump asks Annie what she thinks. Joan says she doesn't care. Trump says he cares. Joan cover her ears. Wicked mature, Joan! Annie thinks it was disrespectful to Annie that KOTU didn't sell all five pieces. Joan, who evidently was listening after all, has lots to say about Annie's poor character and then repeats all of the things Annie said about Brande behind her back.
However, Annie and Brande already had a private conversation about this, and then Brande rallied and became a valuable player. (Annie does all the talking; Brande says nothing. Not that she can get a word in.) Melissa takes credit for being the first to express concerns about Brande! Joan complains about Annie's ego and her fake niceness and compares her to Hitler.
Piers asks if, in light of Joan's comments about Annie, Melissa still thinks that he was being disrespectful to Joan.
Annie says at least her people come out and help her when she asks them to. Trump agrees that they must like her.
Joan brings up the subject of Phil Hellmuth. Natalie explains it. The point of their story was that Annie didn't like what happened, ha ha ha! The significance of this is lost on Piers and the Trumps, who note that the plan backfired. This guy was loyal to Annie and didn't give KOTU any money.
Melissa has to throw in her two cents again, saying that Annie screamed a lot. Trump and Piers are mystified as to why Melissa is talking against Annie. Melissa says she's just trying to say that, contrary to Trump's impression, Annie was angry and screaming, that's how it went, and no need to bicker about it any more. Trump asks Melissa if Annie is a bad person. After a pause, she says no and then defends Annie.
Ivanka asks Jesse if Melissa's a liability since she's not on the same team as her mother. Jesse gives a noncommittal answer. Trump says Melissa's loyalty is admirable.
KOTU raised $92,000, mostly on one piece. Athena raised $153,000. (These numbers are profit - not counting the cost of the models and maybe the clothing and jewelry.)
Annie gets $245,000 for her charity, Refugees International, which assists and protects displaced people around the world. Not content with her win, before they even get back to the suite, Annie lays into Melissa for letting her mother make such personal remarks about her. Melissa says she tried to stop it and she can't control a 76-year-old woman. Annie hopes Joan gets fired. Joan Rivers is dead to her!
In the boardroom
Joan tries to defend Natalie's jewelry choices, saying she didn't tell Natalie what kind of jewelry to pick.
Joan cries rather than say who she would fire. Trump says Herschel raised the most money. And he thinks Joan was terrific. Clint was an awful auctioneer, but is not, in Trump's opinion, the reason they lost. Natalie picked jewelry that was too small to be seen from the stage, and she didn't raise enough money, so she's fired. Natalie says Trump is the first boss she's ever had, and also her first firing.
Annie is still yelling at Melissa about letting her mother call Annie Hitler; Melissa is watching the boardroom on TV. She interrupts Annie to say that Natalie just got fired. Annie is stunned to silence.
The remains of KOTU comes up to the suite. Melissa begs her mother not to throw gasoline on Annie's fire.
Annie's still mad, and tells us that Joan's a crazy bitch. Melissa says at least all the money's going to a worthy cause. Annie jokes that she's giving it to the Hitler Fund.
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