‘The Apprentice’ crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's at the expense of the entire nation of Italy. Trump rebounded nicely with a task that at days end came down to a battle of punctuation.

Trump had a lot to live up to this week as Martha put up back to back gems. This Wednesday’s effort on Martha featured not one but two certified lunatics. One of which was so unreasonable, so irredeemably evil and so unwilling to compromise that he’s in Omarosa’s league. What’s even better is that neither one of them was booted. (And I must say, the show was much more entertaining without a plane turning laps to burn fuel with its landing gear pointing the wrong way.) The tackle basketball game in 114 degree heat on ‘Survivor’ didn’t do much to lower my expectations either.

Last week on 'The Apprentice', Melissa was given the heave-ho because she “can’t get along with women”. Sounds like my yearbook quote. Good rule of thumb gang, you can’t mention that you’re incapable of working with 54% of the free world. Bottom line, it was pretty boring.

This week, the task had more creative insight. They’re to design a 30 second spot and a print ad campaign for Lamborghini. Donald tosses to the pompous head of US relations for Lamborghini who gives a prepared speech that was dry and forgettable. I proclaim to an empty room, “Hey, that guy got shafted. He didn’t get a neck.”

Chris takes the helm for the guys and tells the team not to have any preconceived ideas before they meet with the client. Markus fails to comply, “Ummm, I already have what I think is a winning slogan.” Oh yeah, baby. This is one of those moments where reality, good hard-core reality is about to happen. Chris implores him not to present his brainstorm but he pitches his tag line to no-neck before he can even finish his opening statement, “Smooth as silk.” Money shot.

This is why I do what I do. This is why I’m sitting here after midnight typing this right now. It’s for moments just like that. It’s because of guys like Markus looking a grown man (sans neck) in the eyes and saying with heavenly pride, “Smooth as silk, does that interest you?” The Lamborghini director replies with some good constructive feedback, “No.” God that feels good. I haven’t felt this satiated since Tyra had the authenticity of her chest validated. Great stuff.

The guys disregard the pantyhose theme to go with the Big Bang campaign, which centers on a vintage Lamborghini exploding and spawning into the new breed. It was one of those ideas that sounds good in theory but in execution, it doesn’t represent. The car wasn’t quite old enough. It merely looked like it changed colors. Markus takes over traffic detail and immediately screws it up. Josh feels he runs interference and wonders if he’s actually playing for the girl’s team. I've got to believe it’s hard to stay motivated when your team thinks you’re the mole.

The girls go a different route. They decide to show five thousand different images of the car in less than four seconds. George is up with the hip, new lingo calling it a hodge podge.

The guys reach a critical juncture. One of their print campaigns features the phrase “Rebirth of Italian intimidation.” Now you’ll notice I capitalized the “I” in Italian in that last sentence. I’m not sure why I did that. Maybe it’s because I speak English. They feel that an uppercase “I” could be mistaken for the all too common backwards seven. I hate when that happens. I don’t even think I’ve ever seen a backwards seven unless I was playing hangman.

The guys' reaction to the lower casing of the letter “I” was priceless. It said, “Oh yeah, baby, it jumps out at you. That puts us over the top.” Another punctuation dispute broke out over a torrid campaign about a lime green Lamborghini, with the line “Green with envy”. Markus felt it merited a question mark. The others felt it was a bold, declarative statement.

Come presentation time, the girls looked a little silly to me but the highfalutin director said it was clear victory noting both of the punctuation differences. The girls are treated to some ice time with the New York Islanders. I’m guessing they figured the boys would cleanup the car task because that was clunker of a reward for the girls. On an unrelated note, I didn’t realize we still had a hockey league in this country. But they had uniforms and everything.

Chris takes Markus and Markus only into the boardroom. I’m digging the heads up action this season. The Donald implored him to take the lower case “I” guy but he refused. He took the guy who couldn’t direct traffic but campaigned vehemently for the question mark. That was enough to save him.

The Donald backed by the punctuation campaign fired, “I asked for a smart business decision. You made an emotional one. Chris, you’re fired.”