by David McAlpine

This week on The Apprentice, Rockport, the normal sponsor of the "Where Are They Now?" end-of-the-show segments is the head of this week's challenge: a battle of the sexes fashion show. The twist is that the men will be presenting the women's line of shoes and the women will presenting the men's line of shoes. The Project Managers this week are quiet, passive Wade and loud, active Stephanie, setting up quite the war.

Stephanie lays down the law with the women right away--this is about winning, not about picking each other apart. It seems to unite the women; even Mahsa is on board with the whole idea. The come up with the concept of creating a fictional character, Tristan, which will be the center of their show. In turn, the entire show will be a day in the life of Tristan…except he's in his underwear the whole time. Isn't this about the shows?

The women have everything in place and planned down to a T, but the execution starts to fall apart. Poppy only buys one pair of briefs when she goes shopping, while the women pick a model with scars on his legs, which Liza wants to cover. Trump seems heinously uncomfortable with the idea of the underwear, but Brandy pulls it off as emcee of their event.

Wade, on the other hand, struggles to get the attention or respect of the men right away. They decide on David and Gene emceeing, who are two of possibly the least dynamic people in the competition. In a task that they're already at a disadvantage at, can they really afford to pick bad emcees, too?

That's just the beginning of the downhill slope, though. Wade starts to fall apart with the planning and all the guys get distracted with the models to get anything done on time. Catherine, the Rockport executive, is horrified at their run through, and Gene almost steps down from emceeing.

At the actual event, the men just decide to go for it, which results in an even worse show. Names get mixed up and David is so caught up in reading that he forgets about the audience.

In the boardroom, it's clear that the women won, despite using the model with the scabby legs. Stephanie scores a one-on-one with the CEO and President of Rockport, while the men get a date with Trump. As a team, Trump chastises all of them for sucking so hardcore. Wade and Gene fall under fire--Gene for being the worst emcee of all time and Wade for picking him.

At this point, it's a massacre from one end of the table to the other. The entire team is still backing up Wade, leaving Gene to flounder. Trump doesn't give in so easily, though, not even giving Wade a chance to bring people back in. Instead, he fires both Wade and Gene, making a prime example of Octane and just how bad poorly they did this task.

Back in the real world, both Gene and Wade are thriving in new positions. Gene has turned entrepreneur status and started his own assisted living company, while Wade took the Tyana route and now has a job in real estate.

The Apprentice airs Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.

(Photo courtesy of NBC)

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