As soon as they're in the lobby, Bethenny apologizes to Jim for keeping him around, but she figured Martha may have fired her "on the spot" if she didn't send the right person back upstairs. Jim's cool enough with it. Bethenny then starts second-guessing herself about how she never made the "Dawna won't become one of us" argument. Howie tells her it's too late to do that, but Jim is sort of egging her on to make the statement anyway. Because it will help him. I still don't know why Jim and his big mouth didn't make the argument himself. It's not like he's ever been afraid to make himself look like he has an agenda. Julia sends them back in.

Back in the conference room. Martha asks why Bethenny couldn't motivate "these guys." Bethenny doesn't know. She says she gave "500\%" and "worked like a dog" and all those good clichés. Then she says, "To answer your question: Dawna sucks." Well, more or less. Charles, to his credit, tells her that Dawna is already upstairs enjoying the peace and quiet, so cut the shit. He asks Howie what he thought of the team's decisions, and Howie tries to make the best of his one out, saying that Bethenny could have maybe done better by taking a "dry run" at the presentation. Bethenny objects, but not on the grounds that I would have, which are that Howie is the one who didn't want to rehearse until it was crazy late. Alexis is my girl, though, and she points it out for me. Bethenny and Howie bicker for a good bit about rehearsing and knowing what you're talking about, and Martha reminds him that he had all day to prepare. She tells Howie that he had an opportunity to take hold of the sales pitch and really make a go of it (okay, she says "step up to the plate," but that doesn't mean I have to), and he didn't.