I Want to Work for Diddy: Tranny It Up!

This week on I Want to Work for Diddy, the teams have to create Diddy-themed viral videos, reminding us why the best viral videos are accidentally and fortuitously captured, and not written by a bunch of “Apprentice” rejects.

If Grimace and the Hamburglar had a love child…

We begin right where we left off, with the losing Downtown team returning to the apartment following crazy Deon’s elimination. Boris tells the group that instead of being pissed off they unanimously voted for him to go home, he’s going to accept their criticism and learn from it. Then he turns around and tells us that he doesn’t give a shit what his teammates think, but they won’t know that. Very crafty, Boris. Once they see the show, perhaps the FBI will reconsider your application given your unparalleled talent for covert ops.

Almost instantly the remaining contestants get a text from Diddy, instructing them to go to diddy.com for a special message. The message is a video from Diddy himself, and they all wet themselves simultaneously. He says that he’s determined to make diddy.com hugely successful, and for it be known as something other than the only place that’ll play Danity Kane and Day 26 videos. As such, the challenge is for each team to make a 90-second viral video about Diddy for the website. If they’re lucky, he may just make an appearance sometime soon so they can go from figuratively to literally stroking his cock.

The teams break off to begin planning. On the Uptown team, Poprah nearly turns the building into rubble when she jumps at the opportunity to be the on-camera talent. Red blinks at us in Morse code that he’s not surprised. For the rest of the team, a nervous-looking Brianna accepts the producer role, Red is assigned camera operation, and Suzanne will put her Harvard degree to work as a boom mic holder. With that out of the way, they settle on the concept of what is the craziest thing someone would do to show her love for Diddy. I don’t know, have his 1,242th child?

“Hell, I just agreed to do work. There’s MY love for Diddy.”

Meanwhile, the Downtown team immediately decides that (la)Verne should be the talent, and she should “use her trannyness” to make people laugh. Or in Boris’ case, get uncomfortably aroused. Verne agrees to do it, but both she and I think it was really weird and slightly offensive the way her team handled that. They head off to interview several of Diddy’s former assistants, which seems to go well at first until Mike interrupts interviewer Verne with instructions to “tranny it up” more. She’s offended, the interviewees are confused and scared, and the whole thing is a fucking mess.

Not like the Uptown team is doing much better. First, camera-guy Red nearly forgets to bring the camera with him — and then he can’t figure out how to get it to work while en route to their first location. Poprah tries to restrain herself for about, oh, 5 seconds before lunging over the backseat and pointing out he doesn’t have a tape in there. Whoopsie. For someone who secretly tapes girls as much as I bet Red does, I’m surprised by this oversight. The next challenge for Red is setting up the tripod, and Poprah again butts in, practically ripping it from his hands. His eyes furiously communicate a series of dashes and dots. I’m no Morse code expert, but I’m pretty sure that was just “Fuck you, Poprah.”

Once the camera is finally on the tripod, presumably with a tape inside, the Uptown team begins interviewing another one of Diddy’s former assistants. They ask him to do a Diddy impression, simply because he’s the same race and gender as the real thing. If that’s the only requirement for a good impression, it’s time to take my Hilary Clinton on the road. Not only is the impression terrible, but Red’s still a disaster, interrupting and having technical difficulties. Brianna, meanwhile, stays true to her no-work policy and stands around like a deer in headlights.

Is he doing Diddy or Carlton from “Fresh Prince”?

Going back to the Downtown team, we see they’re also seeking out Diddy impressions from former employees, but luck out when Diddy’s former stylist does a pretty decent one. As “Diddy”, the stylist begins ranting about applesauce, which gives the Downtown team the idea to make their video about Diddy’s obsession with applesauce. Specifically, Boris suggests that he dress up as this big fat guy who’s trying to steal Diddy’s applesauce away from him. Everyone’s really excited about the idea, especially Stefanie, who launches into rapid, shrieky sorority girl-ese complete with flailing that poor Kendra has to duck and weave to avoid.

So it turns out that Red’s tripod victory was short-lived, as the Uptown team’s camera is now jammed onto the stand and cannot be removed no matter how hard they try. Afraid that someone’s going to break the damn camera if they keep pulling, the team decides that there’s nothing they can do but haul around the camera/tripod as one piece. I can’t wait for them to accidentally club someone or break out a car window with that thing. And on top of all this, the team misses a text message from Diddy while trying to pry the camera off. The message was to alert them an interview had cancelled, but Brianna doesn’t see it until they’re practically at the interview location, resulting in lost time and general frustration.

This is about how good I expected Red to be with his equipment…

Back at the apartment, the Downtown team starts working on solidifying their applesauce idea, deciding that Boris will be the applesauce bandit whom Verne will have to chase. Their attention then turns to Boris’s bandit costume, which consists of a cape, a doo-rag with eyeholes, and bikini bottoms over tight pants. In other words, his standard Saturday night get-up when he trolls for ladies to bring back to mom’s place. At first he only weakly protests, probably because when Stefanie helps him put on the bikini bottoms, this is the closest a woman’s been to his crotch in a long, long time. But he eventually brings the bitchassness and refuses to cooperate because he doesn’t want to look like an idiot. Don’t worry, your bigoted mouth already took care of that weeks ago.

The Uptown team has also returned to the apartment, and the girls are sitting around complaining about Red while he skulks in the kitchen and squints and scrunches his hatred. As a team, they decide they better get some funny footage tonight as a backup in case their original plans don’t work out. And so the shenanigans begin — Suzanne pours vodka in her nostril, Red lets the girls wax hair off his leg (and almost kicks Poprah unconscious in the process), and Brianna pulls out her eyelashes in large, teary clumps. It’s all stupid and juvenile, but pretty entertaining — probably because I’m also stupid and juvenile.

She’s neither the first nor last woman to send liquid shooting out her nose for Diddy.

While this is going on, the Downtown team is still fighting with Boris, insisting that the bandit has to be fat, so Mike can’t do it instead. Verne further cements her favorite status in my book when instead of being angry or super annoyed with Boris, she tells us that she understands where he’s coming from, since she knows all about being unhappy and insecure about her body. You know, the twig and berries. However, after he sees the self-mutilation the Uptown team is happy to perform, he gives in and agrees to play the bandit.

The next morning, the Downtown team heads out to tape the chase sequence between Boris and Verne. All she needs to do is look at him the wrong way, and he’ll start running faster than the last time McDonald’s had 29 cent hamburgers. Boris reluctantly gets in costume, complaining about everything he can think of — from his balls hurting to the temperature outside. Stefanie bitches to us that he should just man up, but ten bucks if you asked her to put on an unflattering outfit, she’d wail louder than the time her daddy refused to buy her a pony. And it does look pretty damn cold out there. Okay that is the last time I defend Boris. I feel dirty now.

The Uptown team is also out on the street, finishing their video by approaching strangers and asking them to do crazy things for Diddy. Seeing as though this is NYC, most are more than happy to oblige, including this gentleman:

I’m pretty sure it’s bitchassness to let someone write bitchassness on you

On their way to a second shooting location, the Downtown team realizes they made a big mistake by leaving their cell phone at the apartment. Given that they’re pressed for time, a huge fight breaks out in the car over who should have to go back and get it. Eventually Stefanie and Kendra get stuck with the task — despite it appearing to be Mike’s fault the phone was forgotten — and both ladies are pissed as hell about it. So pissed, in fact, they don’t pay attention to where they’re going and get their dumbasses lost and have to call NYC-native Mike to whine for help even though Mike, Boris and Verne only have 17 minutes left to shoot.

While Mike patiently gives directions to the girls, Verne loses her own patience and tries to wrest the camera from his grip to begin shooting Boris’s scenes herself. Both guys scold her to chill out, and Mike snaps at her to stop pouting when she, well, pouts. Just like any biologically born female would, Verne shoots him a dirty look that promises to make his life hell later for that pouting comment. And by later, I mean immediately as she starts spewing f-bombs and having an emotional breakdown in the middle of a convenience store. She may have been born with testicles, but she’s definitely a chick.

They head outside to shoot another chase scene. Boris takes off and Verne follows, but winds up totally biting it on the pavement when she trips over a plastic bag that’s just lofting around on the sidewalk. Shaken and bloody, she picks herself up and keeps going while Mike crows that it was awesome and totally natural-looking. Somebody needs to kick him in the balls. I bet that’d be natural-looking too.

That plastic bag may be beautiful, but it’s also a death trap.

Time for the teams to meet with their editors to put together their videos. Poprah once again seizes control of the Uptown team by ordering the editor on how exactly to edit their video, and refusing to let any of her teammates chime in. Over on the Downtown team, it’s Verne taking charge and ordering people around. Fascinating stuff.

Meanwhile, Downtown’s Kendra and Stefanie have finally located their forgotten phone and are on their way to join up with the others. In the car, the girls make small talk. Kendra asks Stefanie what kind of industry she wants to work in, and Stefanie brilliantly answers “the entertainment industry” while Kendra sneers and doesn’t even try to hide her disdain. It’s pretty awesome. This results in the two girls slinging some tame insults at one another (“robotic”, “unoriginal”), despite having been total BFFs in the first episode. Cmon, Kendra, I’m disappointed in you. Go for the jugular. Tell Stefanie you know her clothes are knock-offs and you can see her roots.

At this point, we get to see both finished videos. The Uptown team decided to use all its footage from the night before, including the disturbing footage of Brianna yanking out her eyelashes and looking like an alopecia patient. The video’s not necessarily the most original, but it’s entertaining to watch. Everyone likes pain. The only problem with it is the whole premise is somewhat illogical — what’s the incentive to do these things for Diddy? It’s not like he’s paying or giving anything to the person who does the craziest thing. All you get is to possibly show up for a few seconds on a website no one’s ever heard of. Answer that, Ms. Harvard.

The Downtown team’s applesauce video, on the other hand, is much more original, although I find it less entertaining. It’s basically Verne chasing Boris around the city, shot in a campy style with over-exaggerated facial expressions. But besides Boris’ ridiculous costume, I just don’t think this thing has mass appeal. I think a lot of the humor rests on knowing Boris and Verne, personally. Nonetheless, both teams are confident they’re going to win.

Trannying it up, indeed.

As for determining the winner, both videos were posted online so Diddy’s fans could pick their favorite. And by fans I mean the 17 people who knew about this and regularly visit that website. Later that night, Capricorn contacts the contestants via satellite phone to reveal the results. She’s uncharacteristically chipper as she heaps praise on both teams, but finally gets down to business — with 54.6% of the vote, the winner is the Downtown team! Freaked out about the upcoming elimination, the Uptown team girls immediately begin plotting how to gang up and Red and get him sent home.

The next day, they have that chance. Again, Capricorn is the only member of the DFL they have to face, and discussions begin with Brianna’s leadership skills. The girls mildly back her up, but Red calls Brianna out on missing the text message from Diddy. Brianna handles that hurdle smoothly before directing the attention on Red, opening the door for all three girls to start calling him out on everything from his ADD to his lack of preparation with the camera. A screaming match between Brianna and Red breaks out over who wants to work for Diddy more, who sacrificed more to be on the show, Red’s trusty sob story over being an immigrant, Rosa Parks, blah blah blah. It’s not worth summarizing in detail when it’s basically like watching two monkeys throw shit at each other.

Capricorn finally puts it to a halt, and the girls unanimously elect Red for elimination. He picks Brianna as his opponent, and they go before the DIC. Red begins his blinking routine, whereas Brianna turns on the water works and hilariously insists “Going to work is what I live for!!!” Sure, who doesn’t enjoy getting paid to sit around reading your favorite blogs and planning lunch with your girlfriends from the moment you arrive in the morning? Midget faced Phil is a sucker for tears, and says he doesn’t think Red is nearly as passionate about the position as Brianna is. Red gives a wishy-washy answer to that one, but then argues that the girls ganged up on him and schemed to get him eliminated. What, women scheming? I don’t know where he’d ever get that idea. Must be an Algerian thing.

“Scheming? What scheming? We’re debating the relative merits of tampons versus pads, Red.”

The DIC throws the Uptown team out, and discusses Brianna and Red. Phil thinks Brianna has the passion and the drive to be Diddy’s assistant, but Capricorn calls her whiney and says she’ll annoy the crap out of Diddy after a while. Capricorn then defends Red and says he’s being played by the “panty convention” and totally believes the girls strategized his elimination. When Kevin tries to speak on Brianna’s behalf, Capricorn interrupts to complain about Brianna missing Diddy’s text and how he’d beat her senseless in real life for doing that. Wow, Capricorn is clearly anti-Brianna. Maybe she and Red are boning.

The Uptown team files back in for the results. With a quick fake-out by calling Red’s name first — usually the sign of doom — Phil tells Brianna that she is not ready to work for Diddy. Once Brianna leaves in a teary mess, Phil tells Red that he wanted Red to go home but was outvoted. AKA Capricorn had his balls in a vice. Red blinks back that he understands and won’t disappoint him again. Capricorn then lets them know that since they’re down to 3 people and the Downtown team has 5 people, they’ll get to pick which one of the Downtown team’s members they want to join their team. I bet they’ll pick Mike. I don’t think he’s the strongest of the Downtown team, but he carries himself like he is, which will be enough to fool the Uptown team.

So what did you think? Did Brianna deserve to go home? Did you like the Uptown or the Downtown team’s video/concept better? And are you excited about Diddy finally showing himself next week?