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When last we met: Andrea was shocked that Roxanne extolled Tammy's virtues in the boardroom, but all was for naught, as Brent – roly-poly, confrontation-loving, bagel-eating Brent – was swiftly axed by Trump.

[Though Brent seems to be doing quite well in his off-time. Apparently he's dropped a bunch of weight with a diet he invented in which you eat nothing but bagels. One has to wonder whether this is a concept he invented before or after the leaning tower of bagels in Episode 3. Could his weight-loss strategy be the antidote to the low-carb craze??]

Up in the suite, there is Synergistic celebration all around. Ding dong the Brent is gone. Tammy counts herself "absolutely ecstatic" at the prospect of working with her team "without an added weight on our shoulders." You can tell the others secretly lament the lost opportunity to make fat jokes.

Andrea takes a minute to confront Roxanne about her boardroom betrayal, asking just why Roxanne ratted her out without any prompting from Trump. Roxanne whines about poor treatment, but Andrea charges that anyone who "needs to be coddled" is not Apprentice material.

We will see, Andrea. We will see…

So – on to the task this week. There are establishing shots of a large cruise ship before cutting to The Donald engaging in petty banter about said ship.

"This is some big ship" is Trump's revelatory statement of the week, almost trumping (sorry, had to do it at least once) his musings on breakfast last episode.

Now, it hasn't been a particularly good week for the cruising industry. There was a cruise fire on a ship in Jamaica leaving one man dead and eleven seriously injured. Then, some pirates attacked a ship off the coast of Africa and apparently left a grenade onboard as they fled. And this after last year's headline-making stomach woes which struck both passengers and crew members and increased coverage of missing newlywed George Smith who disappeared from a cruise ship while on his honeymoon.

But I'm sure that the 30-second commercial promoting Norwegian Cruise Line that the teams are charged with making will inject the cruise industry with some much-needed positive PR.

Well, I'm sure for all of about thirty seconds. After all, that's the time it takes me to gleefully clap about the prospect of one of the team members being left on the boat as it departs (which The Donald declares it will indeed do in the event any of them stay on the ship for longer than their allotted 3 hours) and for Gold Rush, headed up by PM Dan, to get down to business. Within minutes, Lenny offers up a concept: A "guy in a little boat," he suggests, who "can't believe his eyes."

Oh! A castaway! How cute! The general team consensus is that this is a brilliant idea. I mean, it worked for Tom Hanks in that movie with that endearing little volleyball. Yes yes! Let's do that.

But – wait a minute here, people. Are you really sure you want to introduce the possibility of shipwreck into an ad touting cruise lines? Hmmm……

Oddly enough, this idea doesn't cross anyone's mind, and Gold Rush plunges ahead.

But at least Gold Rush has an idea. The ambient chatter over at Synergy consists of "Are we filming? Who is directing this?" PM Roxanne flails about wildly trying to make this commercial happen.

Andrea notes that Roxanne "didn't delegate, didn't organize [and] didn't direct," so Sean snuggles into the figurative director's chair. "We're having fun! Keep acting! Keep acting!" he encourages the poor schmoes who were somehow roped into doing this commercial.

Oh, Sean. You can direct me any day. How I love that silky accent. Sigh.

Trump's lesson of the week snaps me out of my daydream: "Hire smart people, and then listen to them." Well, the two project managers – who, may I remind you, are in fact in contention for jobs with Trump - don't appear to be all that smart, as they're both paying little attention to those on their teams.

At Gold Rush - with 42 minutes left to go - Lee complains that he hasn't been given anything to do because Dan micromanages. Well, forget Lee. -Why hasn't Dan delegated responsibility to the person who reveals that she has broadcast journalism experience (and who also – if I heard correctly – reveals that she clogged the toilet. Ew)- Leslie? I mean, that would be too easy, right?

Meanwhile, Synergy's theme seems to be emerging - contrasting Norweigan's ‘frestyle crusing' where you can make your own schedule for eating and activities to more traditional cruislines with more regimented timetables. But Andrea thinks Roxanne's set-up of two miserable people at a dinner table is too heavy-handed. She jumps in and tells the actors to lighten things up a little. "We don't want to convey that this part is terrible. It's just standard," she argues.

But Roxanne won't hear it. "Andrea doesn't know how to play in the sandbox," she alleges.

Then, time's up and the cruise ship takes off (without any of the candidates still on, I hate to say…) and the teams must buckle down and polish their commercials.

"When you think of cruises, do you think of schedule, structure and formality?" begins Synergy's voiceover. Well, gosh - no. I tend to think of sun, fun and how cool it is to have a pool on a ship. I mean, it just boggles the mind, right? But - more importantly - why is Tammy doing the voiceover? What about the dulcet tones of my boyfriend Sean?

There's continued tension between Roxanne and Andrea, resulting in Roxanne finally erupting. "The only thing that I expect from my team is just some simple respect," she cries.

Good point, but it's a little late in the game for this conversation, m'dear. Now buckle down and edit.

There's infighting at Gold Rush as well. Tarek wants music in the background with text flashing across the screen, whereas Lenny believes that a voiceover would make it less confusing. Tarek's rationale is that viewers see a commercial a number of times (disregarding entirely the high cost of running such ads repeatedly), and Dan sides with his faulty logic. "We're leaving the text," Dan decrees. "It's done. I'm happy with the text."

Cut to the Norweigan Cruise Lines' central office. Synergy presents first, and does a pretty good job with the exception of the blue scarves that each of them are wearing and that I totally and completely miss the point of. Then Gold Rush starts with a great intro by Dan about how we are all metaphorical castaways in our lives - feeling stranded because of our jobs and other responsibilities - and how a cruise with Norwegian's freestyle cruising can lift those restrictions. Then they follow that with a commercial pretty much unrelated to the castaway concept. (One exec even has to ask afterwards what was on the leading actor's head. It was seaweed, the team sheepishly admits. Get it? Castaways?

Synergy is the winner, the execs say, and Donald sends them off for their reward: A tour into a secret vault of diamonds, after which they will all get to take one home. After getting frisked by guards with guns, Synergy enters a spectacularly unspectacular room (was I the only one who thought the diamond vault would have diamond-encrusted walls? You know, very Scrooge McDuck-esque with those piles and piles of gold in the 80s classic cartoon "DuckTales".) They are told they can play with the diamonds, but those diamonds turn out to be slippery little suckers. Tammy's the first to drop one on the ground, but the rest of the team doesn't take long to follow.

"Oops!" Sean exclaims. "There's a million dollars! Oops! There's a million dollars!" (Ah, good looks, that accent and a sense of humor.).

Over at Gold Rush, Tarek and Dan seem tightly allied on their way into the boardroom. A pre-boardroom chat has them both agreeing that they need to "release some of the dead weight on the team" - namely, Lenny or Lee.

Within the first few moments of the boardroom trial, Leslie is accused of flying under the radar. I mean, she had this broadcast journalism experience - why didn't she step up? Leslie erupts angrily, charging that Dan simply ignored her, and then - alas! Here are the fireworks we were promised last week! - the entire team explodes into pandemonium.

Carolyn finally quiets them down. "Do you know how ridiculous you all sound?" she admonishes, then Trump swiftly points out the aforementioned flaw in Lenny's idea of using a castaway to advertise a cruise ship. Tarek is heavily criticized for the all-text decision, and his Mensa membership is called into question. "I think the Mensa people should change the test," Trump says later. Lee is accused of pandering of Bill and Carolyn, but not doing much when Trump's henchmen are not there to snoop.

Dan decides to bring in Tarek (oh, he stabbed you in the back, pal. That's gotta hurt) and Lee. When offered a third person, Dan confesses he'd like to bring in Lenny, but worries that the Lenny/Lee combination would be too strong to face.

The candidates leave the room and Trump consults his advisors. Carolyn firmly believes the trouble was in the concept, which belonged to Lenny, but Dan hasn't brought him in, so Dan should be fired. Bill thinks Tarek "made a bad concept even worse." And the candidates are brought back in.

When questioned on his decision to keep Lenny safe, Dan rapidly changes his tune, spewing forth a whole bunch of "we're a team" nonsense and how, since the whole team agreed, he can't hold Lenny responsible. Well, we just heard you say you didn't want to bring Lenny in because he'd be a threat, Dan. So Carolyn promptly calls him on his B.S. and Dan is fired for not bringing Lenny to the boardroom. Trump's parting words are a foreboding communiqué to Lenny: "Tell Lenny he doesn't have long to go. You can give him that message from me." (Did anyone else get a chill? I love it when Trump acts all powerful and threatening and stuff.)

So what have we learned, boys and girls? It might not be best to introduce to the idea of drowning when you're trying to get people to plunk down thousands of dollars for a trip. And - more importantly - you (yes, you!) can drop hundreds of pounds on Brent Buckman's 4-Bagels-a-Day Diet!*

[*Disclaimer: Elena Elbee does not officially endorse Brent Buckman, his products, or his dietary ideology. She does not receive any monetary compensation from promotion of Brent Buckman, his products or his dietary ideology. She just thinks that any diet requiring "a meal with lots of calories: For example, chicken fingers and cheese fries, pizza, ice cream sundae, cake, etc." is pretty rad.]

Past Recaps: Episode 01 | Episode 02 | Episode 03 | Episode 04