'The Apprentice' recap: Designing Women

On "The Apprentice," Trump fills us in on the economic crisis from his limo in New York City. Irony. He hates what he's seeing, with all this unemployment, so he's decided to choose 16 among the millions of unemployed, and will give ONE of them a high-paying job. He's such a humanitarian.

We hear some of their sob stories: "I used to be rich, but now I'm poor." Hmmm. Maybe they should have saved more? Trump says the world and economy have changed, but this is still the toughest job interview there is. They're all excited and confident about it. "Money, money, money" opening credits say, "What if you could have... A Second Chance?" Interspersed with our sad unemployed folks are close-ups of things like blueprints and pencil sharpeners. We wouldn't count on ever understanding what that's about. But it's still not personal; it's business.

Trump offices. A bunch of sad former richie-riches sit around and whine. First up is Tyana, an unemployed sales rep who says she went from six figures to buying second-hand clothing. She hasn't cut back on makeup, however, judging from the layers of it on her face. Steuart, who unfortunately doesn't know how to spell his own name, is a "fledgling entrepreneur," who's concerned about a stressed-looking guy in a red tie. You'd think that might be a good segue into introducing us to that guy, but it's not. Instead we meet James, an unemployed attorney who thinks being unemployed will make the competition a lot tougher because they're all hungry. They're all beckoned into the boardroom with Trump. Only he's not there until they're in and seated, like the good dictator he is. He joins them and says he wants to learn more about them; he knows they're all "victims" of the recession, but is there anything more?

David (the guy Steuart was so concerned about) says he married his high school sweetheart and they "produced" five children. We're immediately concerned about his family, because the use of the word "produced" is far too businesslike for speaking about your loved ones. He worked in telecom for ten years, but his customers stopped paying their bills and he lost his job and his wife. His ultimate goal is to bring his family back together. Poppy is a bit less of a sad sack. She graduated from Stanford last year with a bachelor's and a master's degree, but hasn't been able to find a job yet. She's back at home caring for her grandma, though we think her grandma might disagree on who's caring for whom. Stephanie was a commercial banker and is sick of being blamed for the recession, especially since she's out of a job now. Nicole was a Miss California USA runner-up, and took a job out of law school. However, it wasn't the dream job she wanted, so she quit because she doesn't think you should have to settle. Gene's a little older. He was a military guy, and then a financial planner, but has been living off his personal savings for three years (good job saving, though, Gene).

Trump's heard enough and tells them he gets that it's all hard, and he'll give one of them a job, but it's going to be hard. He divides the teams up: men versus women. He says they need to go choose a project manager -- which is good and bad, because you show you want to win but you also could be the target. Then they'll meet at the Trump Building, where he'll give them their task. His parting words are that they're not friends and they need to just go out to win. He needs the drama to make sure this show gets renewed; it is a recession, after all, and Trump doesn't want to have to lose any of his bazillion sources of income.

Photo credit: NBC