“No go on interview. Gene’s schedule is full.”

That’s the text message I received from Murtz Jaffer on Friday after the episode. No go on interview.

Gene’s schedule is full.

Of course it is. Frankly, I would have been shocked if Gene Simmons had been available for the scheduled interview. I doubt he follows the laws of gravity, let alone his NBC post-firing interview schedule.

My feelings were, of course, quite mixed. On one hand, I could have had an opportunity to talk to one of the most utterly evil and insane people alive– something you just don’t do every day. On the other hand, I was completely terrified. Needless to say, it would have been enjoyable for you to read.

Instead, we’ll undertake the far less frightening task of recapping this completely wonderful and shocking episode. Not the fake scenes-from-next-week “shocking”– like, really, actually shocking. Here we go–

We begin in the suite, where Piers Morgan teases Jennie Finch about her being forced to say she’d fire Nadia. It’s funny because most Apprentice candidates (contestants? cast members?) dread the “Who would you fire?” question, and certain ones hate it. Jennie Finch hates that question.

After Nadia is sent packing, we see Nelly bawling in Carol’s arms. Nelly’s time on this show is severely limited. Carol, on the other hand, might win the whole thing. She’s pretty awesome. Nelly refers to the boardroom as “brutal, brutal, brutal, traumatic.” She’s going a bit silly here, but boardrooms can be pretty miserable experiences. You come out feeling a combination of drained from arguing and debating for two hours straight, guilty because you just trashed your friends, angry/hurt because your friends just trashed you, and over-analytic/worried because you’re not sure if you did something that you’ll regret in four months when everyone you know is watching it on TV.

Anyway, Omarosa is talking to Nelly and she’s being comforting and thoughtful and sympathetic. And quite frankly, I think it’s all a complete act. She strikes me as remarkably disingenuous, and her attempt to be a likable character this season seems awfully transparent. She says, “All we need is one win and that little house of cards will come tumbling down,” referring to the guys’ team. This part I understand. When my team, Arrow, lost the first 26 tasks, I remember thinking that all those cute girls on Kinetic would start clawing each other’s faces the second they finally lost. Which is what happened.

After the commercial, we see some b roll shots of New York. I must say, I feel a bit cheated that our season was in LA. It was fun, but the Apprentice should just be in New York. Speaking of which, if the Giants somehow beat my sweet, beautiful Patriots, none of you will ever hear from me again.

Trump jokes with Vinnie about how many bodies are in the river. Vinnie comes back with, “I ratted on one show, I’m not rattin’ on this show too.” Well played. Trump introduces Jim Cramer from Mad Money. I’ve never heard of him.

Trump sends Gene Simmons over to the girls’ team. It’s funny, they never choose someone like that. Usually Trump asks either who wants to go, who the project manager wants to send, or who the other team wants to bring over. In this case, the producers decided it was just too damn good to put a lecherous, woman-hating narcissist in close quarters with a group of beautiful, narcissistic women. I tend to agree.

This also puts the women in a hilarious lose-lose situation: either they lose and they’re a hopeless 0-3, or they win, and Simmons gets all the credit for “saving” them. Ha.

Simmons, unprovoked, and without cracking a smile, tells Trump, “you’re the devil.” Trump is frightened and immediately changes the subject. I could watch those two interact for days on end.

The task: to create “a Kodak mobile printing experience.” Riveting.

Next scene. Girls’ team (Empresario) in the van. Simmons declares himself a benevolent dictator, which is both patronizing (benevolent) and dickish (dictator). Omarosa will hear none of it. She says she’s the only one who reacted– but we don’t see her react.

Simmons decides that only two people should go meet with the executives, because “two people do better talking than six.” He’s 100% right– these silly executive meetings should never have more than two people in them. After referring to himself in the third person, Simmons utters what will be their tagline, with the tone that can only come from someone who is truly, deeply, and lustily in love with himself. “It’s a Kodak world. We all just live in it.” He emphasizes that the tagline brands the Earth as “Planet Kodak.” Personally, I like it. Although the “we all just live in it” leaves a lot to be desired.

Over at the guys’ team (Hydra), Tito Ortiz is project manager. They all head to meet the executives. They learn that “affordable, premium ink” is what the execs want the focus to be on.

Empresario sends Nelly and Carol to meet the execs. As soon as the meeting starts, the goofy, “Someone is f***ing up right now” music comes on. Uh oh. In this case, the music is for Nelly, who is talking way too much. Or at least that’s the story.

You see, sometimes, a task will produce a legitimate winner and loser, and a legitimate couple f***ups on the losing team. Other times, either no real mistakes happen, or the producers want to keep the person who makes them on the show– in those cases, they create drama where there really isn’t any. This seems like one of those cases to me. I was in a bunch of exec meetings during tasks, after which, had they interviewed me with the question, “So wasn’t [name] talking way too much in there?” I probably would have agreed that yeah, they were talking a lot. If they wanted to screw that person, they’d use a combination of my answer in that interview, a bunch of out-of-context annoyed glances from the execs and the other teammates, and that goofy music, to make it seem legitimate that talking too much in that interview was indeed a fireable offense.

In this case, they make Nelly look like a huge jackass. She comes back to the war room, saying all the wrong things about what the executives wanted. Simmons interrupts her with, “They’re wrong,” referring to the executives. The music gets scary, and they show a bunch of nervous glances among the women. “The executives themselves might not understand what Kodak means,” he says, wearing sunglasses indoors. At this point, he’s become a full-fledged caricature of himself. He has a legitimate God-complex. It’s great TV.

“If I were sitting on the sidelines, I’d say ‘Gene Simmons, you’re a powerful and attractive man.’”

It was at this quote that it kind of hit me– Simmons’ entire persona in this show is tongue-in-cheek. Sure, you have to have a legitimate God complex just to humorously act like that big a narcissist, but more than anything, he’s toying around with the entire show. Interesting.

Back in Hydra’s war room, Steven Baldwin is taking over the brainstorming session. I would have been incredibly irritated to be on a team with him. If you’re gonna take over a session like that, you better have some really good ideas coming out (like, say, me). Piers calls him a “rhino with a spear in his back” and takes the floor for awhile, suggesting that they use Tito and Lennox’s fame in their tagline. Baldwin puts it all together: “Kodak presents the ink revolution that’s gonna knock you out.” Baldwin’s either really dumb, or reasonably intelligent with a really dumb demeanor– can’t quite tell yet.

Back to Empresario. Nelly interviews that Gene doesn’t get his hands dirty and criticizes him for making the girls do all of the work. Then we see him tickling her as she squeals happily. Like 3% of her wants to stand up to him, and 97% has completely succumbed to his power over her. She brags that Simmons has taken her as his “CEO.” The benevolent dictator has shone favor upon Nelly, and she’ll be damned if she’s not the luckiest gal around.

Omarosa interviews that “Gene Simmons let us do all the work, and he’ll take all the credit.” [Eye shift, thinking hard, suddenly remembering her quest to be likable] “But, um, I don’t care as long as we get a win.”

Meanwhile, the guys are working on decorating their Kodak trailer. They then head back to the war room. Piers works with the graphic designer while Baldwin directs a “photo shoot” of the two tough guys. Piers and Baldwin get into a spat about whether the muscle-heads should have their shirts on or not.

It’s funny– now that Lord Simmons is gone, Baldwin and Piers are slapping each other around for alpha dog status within the team. This is funny because they’re the two weenies on a team of incredibly manly men. I love Celebrity Apprentice.

Vinny Pastore interviews that Baldwin and Piers are d-bags.

Then Tito and Lennox move to the edge of the table at the same time, which prompts the table to rock, which in turn prompts coffee to spill on the important laptop with all of the artwork, which in turn prompts Piers to lament that “Steven Baldwin managed to pluck total disaster from the jaws of obvious victory,” even though it wasn’t really Baldwin’s fault. I hope I never spill coffee on my laptop.

Everyone freaks out and Trace tells them all to have a smoke. He probably wouldn’t have liked me.

In the girls’ van, Omarosa explains to us that Simmons has no idea what the product is. And I’m sure he doesn’t.

Simmons explains to us that he’s doing “God’s work” by displaying the hot girls on his team along with the product. Legitimate God complex. How awesome is that?

Jim Cramer comes by and Simmons leads him around. They splice together Simmons interviewing about how blown away Cramer was with shots of Cramer looking unimpressed. They’re good, those editors. At the end, Simmons tells Cramer that he (Cramer) is a “powerful and attractive man.” Any chance of me turning on Simmons and deciding I hate him was shot to hell here. I’m gonna start saying that to people on a regular basis. “It was great meeting you. You’re a powerful and attractive man.”

At Hydra’s trailer, the goofy music comes on, telling us that their artwork sucks. Tito reinforces the music, calling their artwork, “sloppy.” We see the guys squabbling, and then Tito retells the coffee/computer story. Cramer visits them, and suddenly flamboyant and animated, explains, in a lot more words: “Ink concept, good. Sloppiness, bad.” And that’s how you simplify a 40-hour task into one or two concrete facts.

Back to Empresario’s trailer, the execs visit and are taken on a tour by Simmons, as he stresses his “Kodak world” concept. Omarosa hopes they can tap into the “Simmons magic.”

At Hydra, the snazzy music comes on, as Alec Baldwin makes an appearance. Steven pitches the team’s ideas to Alec, who mocks him mercilessly. I’m sure he mocks Steven in most cases, but here it’s even worse, because Steven has spent 40 hours obsessing over this task with the other guys and after that much time, it seems really important (trust me). From an outside perspective, it must all seem pretty silly. Alec explains that Steven is “full of shit.” Ha.

Piers takes an obvious and unnecessary shot at Steven: “Very good to have Alec Baldwin there, because it showed everyone what a real Baldwin is. Because obviously, [if you had the] choice: Alec Baldwin? Massive TV star. Steven Baldwin? [condescending mouth gesture].” I do think Piers is intelligent, and he’s definitely witty, but he seems like a genuinely mean-spirited guy. He’s like a smaller, pettier Simon Cowell (who I can’t ever imagine getting into an ongoing bitch-fight with Steven Baldwin).

The execs show up. Piers sells their product to him, saying he was giving them “a smattering of English bullshit,” and that eventually he “began to believe [his] own bullshit.”

Next scene is Trump meeting with the execs. They rehash the toddler-level plotline: “Guys sloppier than girls; guys ink concept good.” The big secret question they’re keeping from us is this: “Is Lord Simmons brilliant or a buffoon?” And as such, we are yet to hear a qualitative statement either way about his “Kodak World” theme.

Boardroom time. Trump asks Simmons about something that “disturbed” him– that he heard that Simmons hadn’t shown up to the executive meeting. Trump does his best “Trump on a normal Apprentice” impression and says this in a “grilling” tone. Simmons explains that he “didn’t want to divert [his] mind with a corporate executive who has a point of view that’s pretty well defined.” He explains his theme, and then continues: “If I were the CEO of Kodak, I’d say, ‘I give up. You’re the cream of the crop.’”

Trump breaks character after the brief lapse into the alpha dog act. Simmons owns Trump. Everyone in the room knows it. Trump’s not even upset about it– he’s just happy that Gene Simmons is hanging out with him.

Trump turns to Tito, a much less terrifying target. “I heard your presentation was very, very sloppy,” scolds Trump. Shocked that that came up in the boardroom. We hadn’t heard anything about that until now. Tito tells the coffee story and defends his team, all things considered.

Trump asks Cramer who the winner is. Cramer (who seems to think he’s in a normal TV show with actors, not a reality show) explains that Empresario’s presentation was much better than Hydra’s, but that Hydra’s ink concept was better than Simmons’, so they win. The show’s verdict: Simmons concept bad, Simmons buffoon.

Tito’s charity will receive the donation. He interviews that “Being a celebrity is only paper deep, but being a real person is skin deep, and blood deep.” Someone needs to explain to Tito that “skin” generally comes up in the superficial part of the analogy.

The guys walk out of the boardroom triumphantly. Lennox Lewis is last. He looks like he’s not sure what TV show he’s on, and that he’s still trying to figure out why he had to sell cameras all day. I’d estimate the ratio of words spoken by Steven Baldwin to words spoken by Lennox Lewis in a single day is 54,881 : 1.

In the boardroom, Simmons declares to Trump, “We couldn’t have done a single thing better. If Kodak were to come in, I would say in front of you and everybody else, ‘You’re a terrific company, I respect your brand, and in this instance, you’re wrong.”

Simmons seems to be saying this: “I’ll buy into this show, I’ll play the game during the task– but when I lose with what I know is a better concept, I won’t play along with the storyline, ‘The other team beat us fair and square’ like everyone else always does on this show.” I felt the same exact “incorrect verdict” thoughts after the GNC task of our season, for the seven of you who care.

Omarosa says, “We did not completely get a big vision from our leader. The reason is that he never met with the executives. He never got what we were supposed to deliver.”

What she seems to be saying is this: “I will play along with every part of this game. I’ve obsessed over this game for the last four years, I know exactly how it works, and I’m going to try to say all the right things at all the right times.”

She continues, “I think it was a combination of Gene’s fault, and lack of a good plan.” Translation: “I think it was a combination of Gene’s fault, and the project manager, Gene’s, fault.”

In fact, there’s so much “translation” needed in this boardroom, I’m going to adopt the great Jacob Clifton’s technique, and transcribe the remainder of the boardroom as I heard it.

Ivanka: Ink. The executives said it was about the ink.

Trump: Simmons wasn’t in the executive meeting to hear that.

Simmons: I am smarter than the executives.

Trump: I love you.

Ivanka: You’re successful because you stick to your beliefs. In this case, those beliefs were wrong.

Simmons: No they weren’t. They were right and Kodak wasn’t smart enough to recognize it. (Translation of the translation: “Everyone is playing along, but I won’t. You want to craft a story where the guys win? You can deal with the consequences– I will destroy this show’s integrity while defending what was in reality a better concept than the guys’.”)

Ivanka: But you’ll never get credit for that, not here. This is a game and you’re breaking the rules.

Trump: Nelly, I’m going to turn this on you now, since we’re obviously not actually kicking Gene Simmons off this early.

Nelly: Carol! Help me!

Trump: Carol, you will not help her.

Carol: Nelly and I both sucked in the meeting. But especially Nelly. Only Nelly sucked.

Simmons: Nelly and the meeting are irrelevant. The end product was correct.

Trump: [trying to channel normal Apprentice Trump] Gene, there’s a winner and a loser, and you guys lost.

Simmons: We won mightily.

Omarosa: Ask Gene the name of the printer.

Trump: What is the name of the printer, Gene?

Gene: Some dumb shit.

Trump: Carol, who would you fire?

Carol: Me or Nelly. Whichever one of us was the one who messed up. Nelly was that one.

Trump: That’s very brave. I love that!

Simmons: She’s wrong.

Trump: Please stop, Gene. Let’s just fire Nelly here, please. Please, don’t do this.

Simmons: I’d hire both of them. Nelly is great.

Trump: F***ing hell, please. Jennie, who would you fire.

Simmons: Gene.

Trump: Omarosa?

Omarosa: It would have to be Gene. I made a spreadsheet, and the likable characters on the past six seasons say “It would have to be…” before saying the name of the person they would fire.

Trump: Marilu?

Marilu: Gene, because he wouldn’t let us go to the meeting.

Trump: Nelly?

Nelly: Jennie.

Trump: Good. N– wait, what? What the hell is going on? You’re not playing this f***ing game either?

Nelly: No. I’m playing, I’m just terrible at playing it. Jennie’s not a leader.

Jennie: F***ing what?

Trump: Nelly, you suck. The plan is to fire you. Gene, pick two people.

Gene: Can I bring back one?

Trump: Please, Gene. Don’t do what you’re about to do. I’m old. Don’t do this to an old man.

Gene: I’ll bring back Omarosa.

Trump: Goddammit Gene! She’s a c*** but I can’t f***ing fire her and you know it. And I can’t fire you either. You’re hurting an old man. I’m dying. Is that what you want? You’re killing an elderly man. Okay, I’ll let you change your mind. You can bring back Nelly. The executives didn’t like her.

Gene: The executives can eat my ***.

Trump: I’m asserting my fake authority and making you bring back another person.

Gene: You’re kind of a d-bag.

Trump: Killing, Gene. An old man.

Gene: Alright, Christ. I’ll bring back Jennie too.

Jennie: I look unbelievable right now. I’m crushing Tim’s soul at this exact moment.

[candidates walk out of room]

Trump: What the hell.

Ivanka: You have to fire Gene here. That will maintain a 4% integrity level of the show. Otherwise it drops to 2%. It was 65% for six straight years. Now it’s at 4%.

Trump: Cramer?

Cramer: I’m on a different planet.

[Outside:]

Omarosa: “It just pisses me off being the cop out for everybody, being the scapegoat.” I saw a likable person say that on a previous season.

Gene: Oh you are some kind of c***.

[candidates walk back in, Omarosa and Gene arm in arm]

Trump: Look at you two!

Gene: Shut your mouth.

Trump: I’ll pay you anything to stop being mean to me.

[candidates sit back down]

Trump: Omarosa, what the hell.

Omarosa: I don’t know, T. He’s insane.

Trump: But, like, really. Right?

Omarosa: Yeah, he’s not playing along.

Trump: Jennie, what the hell.

Jennie: I’m not a great candidate. I’ll probably falter as a leader. Or maybe they’re lowering expectations so it will be a heartwarming surprise when I’m a great leader. Tim’s not sure.

Trump, verbatim: “Gene, what the hell do I do?!”

Gene: You are a pathetic little man.

Trump: You’re so independent. You’re so tough. You’re so much man in one body. You’re the only person who understands me. Can we go on a 7-hour car ride together? Just the two of us?

Gene: No.

Trump: This show is destroyed. I told you how not to get fired and you won’t play the f***ing game. My game. And you won’t play. In front of everyone.

Ivanka: Daddy, this is not how this is supposed to go! Fire him. Why do you love him so much? Incidentally, I am also crushing Tim’s soul right now.

Trump: I can’t tell him anything. He’s the most independent thinker there is. He never does anything I say. He always leaves the toilet seat up. Do you think I’m smart, Gene?

Gene: You’re mad smart.

Trump: Then why aren’t you playing my game?! I’m not supposed to fire you right now. Gene, you’re fired.

Gene: Sorry, pal.

Trump: This f***ing sucks.

And so, let’s all pause for a 10 second moment of silence, as we mourn the the Apprentice’s integrity, now that we’ve watched Gene Simmons murder it.

[pause]

So the boardroom ends, and Gene Simmons’ final exit includes him calling the elevator guy “Jeeves,” popping his collar on the way out, and declaring himself to be in the “people business.” I’m going to miss him.

Next week, Steven Baldwin and Piers Morgan continue the battle of the weenie Alpha Dogs.

Check out Tim’s website, at www.timurban.com, where you can listen to samples of his new album, Turning Home, see pictures, and contact Tim. You can find Tim’s blog at www.timurban.blogspot.com.