The next morning, Alla looks like the exact hell you'd think she looks like in the morning, and learns that they'll next be meeting Trump at NASDAQ at 9. Trump's waiting for them with two unfulfilled executive types, and here's what he's saying: "I use a lot of Microsoft and it works. So I'm very happy." The executives -- apparently from Microsoft -- nod and smile at this weird statement, because they don't know that he pulls this shit on somebody before every task. He then commands them to go downstairs so they can meet the teams in a very strange way. There's always something really awkward at this exact point in the episode, and I can't figure out why. His total lack of social skills? ["The use of 'Microsoft,' 'works,' and 'happy' in the same sentence? Because Wing, Toque, and I had to hit pause to let that shit sink in." -- Sars]

Alla is dressed like a crazy person, a concept I'm well aware has lost all meaning over this season. However: she's wearing a jacket that looks like it's quilted, with giant Victorian flowers all over it, trimmed with huge expanses of slate-gray seal fur, and flowery scarf best described as "menstrual," with a complicated white shirt underneath. She looks even more Versace-baroque than usual -- and not in the good way, not like there is a good way -- but of course she makes it work, somehow. Her makeup is even prettier than normal, and her hair looks touchably soft. This is the second-weirdest outfit so far, although nothing will trump her previous space diplomat attire. It's almost hard to focus on anybody when she's wearing this costume, but it is notable that Randal is wearing a pinstripe suit and looks like a seven-foot pile of a million unmarked bucks, although there are a few demerits for the three-point pocket square he's rocking, because it adds a weird concierge vibe.

Trump gets all Trumpy about how NASDAQ is so super-amazing and the most powerful, most hair-covered stock market ever to swing its economy-setting Adjusted Base Period Market Value Index around, and how other stock markets cringe and scatter when it comes stalking down the road, and how it's gigantic and powerful and will monitor and trade your shares into submission before kicking your publicly-traded ass out of a cab onto the sidewalk with just a few pennies on the dollar for your trouble, and wipe its composite index on the leather interior after doing so, because the NASDAQ doesn't believe in love, just its own animalistic needs. Man, I hate when he over-identifies with the weekly sponsor, to whom we're tenuously connected by the fact that Microsoft is traded on NASDAQ, but also NASDAQ is traded on Microsoft, in terms of software, and then he says NASDAQ trades the 3,000 "top growth companies" -- gross, somehow -- and that Microsoft is a $300B company. He introduces the teams to Janice (really unfulfilled- and resentful-seeming) and Dustin (That Guy to the MAX, moderately attractive but greasier even than James), and points out that Bill is here again.