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Week 8:
“A Tale of Two Leaders”
Original Air Date: 10/28/04
Waiting to see who survives the boardroom, Maria tells us, “If Andy’s not fired tonight, I’d be incredibly surprised.” Well, Maria, I have to tell you, I’ll be incredibly surprised if you’re not fired before Andy Litinsky is. I’d follow him any day over you. But I must say, you’re not alone. Your cohorts are also shocked to see Andy come back with Wes Moss. Kelly Perdew has a near convulsion, while Jennifer Massey practically chokes on what she’s eating. Poor Andy knows it too and tells us, “I felt like the kid in dodgeball, who never gets picked, and they drive a bus over me.” Wow. Plenty of wimpy, skinny kids get beamed, but a bus? That’s rough. But you’re no wimp when it comes to business, Andy, and you know it too. “I think tomorrow, they’re going to see a different side of me, they haven’t seen before.” You show them, Andy.
Well, one good thing, Andy: Wes might have gone after you in the boardroom. but he still seems to be your friend; the guy even fixes your collar for you. Do I sense a new friendship a la Kwame and Troy? People who are actually mature enough to know that business is business and personal is personal. If I’m right, then you’re older and more mature than the whole lot of them. In any case, with your collar fixed, you join the rest of your cohorts for a video conferencing call with Donald Trump.
Trump calls in from his flight to Ecuador for the Miss Universe pageant, because despite all of his chastising of Raj two weeks ago for being a hound dog with the models, Trump really is no better. The only difference being that when you’re a billionaire, the beauty contestants lap it up and don’t complain that you’re driving them crazy. Getting down to business, Trump tells them that the assignment this week is to work with Deutsch advertising to create a recruitment campaign for the New York Police Department. The team that does the best job in the estimation of ad guru Donnie Deutsch wins.
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Upon meeting the candidates, Donnie Deutsch remarks, “Looks like Donald sent over another smart group this year.” Donnie, don’t you think they should be sucking up to you? “The thing I want you to focus on in this assignment is the emotional part, what is going to motivate people to want to give of themselves to serve for their city. The real core of this assignment is hitting people here [in the heart]…Don’t screw up.”
Andy finally gets his shot to lead and couldn’t be happier for it. He dives right in and takes control, leading the team meeting to come up with ideas. Taking the cue from Donnie, he stresses that their focus should be on what’s “honest” and “heartfelt” and on what “excites people.” He also wants to ask the bigger questions. The answer he feels lies in the question, “When was the last time you saved a life?” Cheesy, yes. But definitely the right direction. Maria though thinks otherwise: “Andy is pulling us down a certain degree, because he can’t stop talking about the emotion we heard about this morning. Well, we already know that.” Do you, Maria?—have any heart that is? You want to dump it faster than a bad boyfriend and quickly try to shift gears, “I hear what you’re saying…I see a picture of a Hummer. Let’s talk about sex appeal.” Andy shuts her down in the nicest way possible, “I disagree with that.”
Maria doesn’t like that one bit and tells us, “It would have been so simple for me to run the task and do a good job, because I have so much experience in advertising and marketing, but the bottom line is that Andy had a lot to prove and there’s no way he was going to let anyone rip him from the helm.” You got the second part right at least, Maria. But if your idea is to make some kind of sexed-up music video, you couldn’t be more wrong on the first part.
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I felt like the kid in dodgeball, who never gets picked, and they drive a bus over me.
