After a brief cameo from the ubiquitous Trump Bobblehead, Jenn and Kelly entered the boardroom. Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with Jenn over the fact that she did not say goodbye to him. "I stood there like an idiot," he said, regarding his walk to his helicopter. Well, at least he had his children. His beautiful, lovely children that for only five cents a day, you can feed for a month. Just call Sally Struthers. I mean, don't call her about the kids. Call her because she's probably very lonely these days.

George then detailed some of the feedback he received from Genworth and how the company felt ignored by Jenn. Instead of calmly explaining why their feelings were unjustified, Jenn attacked George, and like a cat stuck in the corner, he sprung to life with a mighty hiss - or in this case, a general smackdown of Jenn. As for Kelly, Carolyn suggested that he had very little control over his team, noting that he never really said anything like "Thanks for being with me." I don't know, but I thought that was all assumed when Kelly said "Love you guys!" last episode. I mean, he professed his love! To two men too! That's pretty intense for a military guy.

The two candidates sparred for a bit with Jenn being abrasive and Kelly sweating (not Kevin sweating, but sweating nonetheless). Eventually, Trump wrapped things up by mentioning "Over a million people applied for this." Yes yes yes. We know. You've only mentioned it like ten times already. Anyway, we cut to commercial, and when we returned, we were clearly live. The lighting was different, Trump looked slightly thinner, and the boardroom now echoed. Oh Mark Burnett! Trying to pull a fast one on us! We've seen too many tricky Survivors to fall for that though! But wait. It's only been 90 minutes and we still have 90 minutes to go. How can they make this final boardroom stretch another half an hour?

I should have never asked. As the fourth wall on the boardroom zipped off into the air revealing a well-dressed audience in Lincoln Center's Alice Tully hall, we knew that something very bad was afoot. Yes, the most sacred of reality ground - the boardoom - was disrupted so that Donald Trump could have some help making his decision by way of an Oprah-style audience discussion forum. The Donald admitted that he really had not made up his mind and so he was going to have Regis Philbin head into the audience and get the opinions of a few people. Oh god. Please. What dark road are you leading us down, Mark Burnett? Well, plucky Regis Philbin emerged for this "unplanned" segment and grabbed a wireless microphone that just happened to be readily available. In the audience he interviewed many people such as Bill Rancic, Troy McLain, Amy Henry (whose cuffs looked like they had been caught in a shredder) and a few other people of varying importance. Yes, this completely spontaneous moment lasted for about ten minutes, and amazingly enough, everyone seemed to have a speech prepared. Why, a wide shot revealed teleprompters which I suppose just happened to be scrolling random dialogue that coincidentally enough were the same words coming out of the speakers' mouths! Alas, not everyone was reading the teleprompters though. Trump's poor COO, Matthew Calamari, had a head on collision with live television as he stammered: "wow... uh... I like Kelly because... because... because... wow." The entire time I kept thinking "This is getting awkward. This is getting really awkward. Wait, it's funny. No, it's awkward. Ah ha. It's funny awkward!"

Nevertheless, nearly everyone who testified endorsed Kelly. I personally thought Trump would ask only two or three opinions, but the segment went on and on and on and on. I thought Wolf Blitzer would show up with a map and start filling in the Kelly states and the Jenn states. Honestly, this entire segment was worthless. Not only did it kill the momentum of the show and not only was it painfully obvious filler material, but it also cheapened the entire boardroom experience, if that makes any sense. This was supposed to be Donald's decision, not the people's. Making matters worse was that nearly everyone was pro-Kelly, so basically an hour and a half of careful editing to make the two seem neck and neck went out the window. Awful. Just awful.

Well, after Regis finished schmoozing in the audience, we knew it would be time for Jenn and Kelly to have their final boardroom moment. Oh, but no. Instead, we cut to a live feed of some hyper Kelly fans in San Diego and then some Jenn fans in New York. For the record, the New Yorkers were much more lively, but that might have been because of a hefty black woman who was jumping up and down as if Usher had just walked in the room.

So were we at the final boardroom yet??? No. Trump brought out all the former contestants and then asked THEM who he should hire. Sure, let's just stall some more. It's not like none of us have anything else to do tonight. Apparently the contestants weren't supposed to emerge until after the winner was chosen, which meant that they were onstage about twenty five minutes earlier than expected. That would explain why Sandy didn't have time to change out of her matador costume. Apparently she has a side job bullfighting for leisure. Maria, meanwhile, looked about ready to head to the Oscars. Trump never asked her any questions sadly, but I'm sure if he had, she would have said "Please, call me Juliette Binoche."

The Academy Award for Best Actress goes to...

Maria Boren!

Posted by B-side on December 17, 2004 4:04 AM