Seemingly tired of the process and at least some of the people from her team, Dionne Warwick became the latest person to put her hand up to leave in The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 4, although she did not leave with the same grace Niki did the week before, instead opting to call NeNe a coward on her way out.
The women return to the suite in turmoil. NeNe’s still upset by Dionne, while La Toya’s frustrated by the lot of them.
Trump calls everybody back into the boardroom for another task. They will create their own works of art, whatever they want, whatever will sell. Each team will sell them in their own gallery. Additionally, they will design and decorate 7 baseball caps. These proceeds will go to their team’s totals, plus the celebrity that makes the best hat will receive a donation for their charity.
La Toya would like to step up as project manager, but Marlee shoots her down. John Rich will be the project manager for the men.
Before even getting into planning for the task, John makes a call to start fundraising. His folks in Nashville will get a jet, and he guarantees $500,000. He says this is called Celebrity Apprentice for a reason. If they don’t bring in a donation, he will hold it against them at some point. To be fair, some people have friends with deeper pockets than others, but everybody should be able to bring in something, even Jose Canseco, who once again claims he cannot get any donation of any size.
Marlee hopes to bring her team together for the first time. Having said no to La Toya’s request to lead this task, Marlee immediately turns to her to get something, which she’s afraid she can’t do on such short notice, so she instead offers to do some things in memory of her brother.
Jose says there’s an illness in his family. He will be leaving the show. Trump agrees to give $25,000 to his charity, B.A.T. (Baseball Assistance Team). Richard Hatch asks: would Jose make this up just to save face, seeing as he hasn’t raised anything and doesn’t seem to be trying to do so? I’ll admit, the thought crossed my mind as well.
Everybody goes to the art supply store. John Rich does a PSA: don’t sniff glue. Cue Gary Busey. While shopping, Gary seems to have done something to upset Meat Loaf, who warns his fuse is about to blow, and it will not be pretty.
La Toya says she has a shirt of her brother’s. There were only a couple of them made in the world before he passed away. She has one of them and is willing to give it for the task in his memory.
Meat Loaf doesn’t have any paint when they get back. Did Gary buy all the paint he’s using? All of a sudden, Meat Loaf goes psycho crazy on the taking it very calmly Gary. As crazy as they make Gary out to be, Meat Loaf’s a raving lunatic and/or putting in a show. After much shouting and threatening, it turns out Meat Loaf’s bag was just in a corner. John Rich asks that this embarrassing energy and language be stopped so that they can focus on the kids instead.
The women make a painting with each of their handprints. Everybody’s going to get their hands dirty today, even Star, though she ain’t happy about it.
John doesn’t know anything about New York, but what he does know is traffic is crazy. He doesn’t want to try to get across it at any point after 3:00. Meanwhlie, the women are still doing their paintings 20 minutes later.
Don Jr. shows up to talk to the women. Star says it’s nerve-wracking, and NeNe responds that’s what Star thinks about every task. Marlee just got a call for $133,000, but she’s worried about John. Don thinks everybody seems down and out.
George got kicked off the show when Trump made it a family affair, but he’s back for his occasional cameo. He thinks the men’s spirit is good.
The women were going to leave at 3, then 4, then 4:30. They have 3 hours to get to the gallery in bumper to bumper Friday night rush hour traffic. The men, however, are ready to go and don’t have anything to do, so they take a trip to see what the girls are doing. Uh, sitting in traffic.
While they wait for selling to get underway, Meat Loaf apologizes to Gary for how he acted earlier.
With half an hour until their gallery opens, the women finally arrive. Now they just need art. The art delivery guy’s stuck in traffic, too. With minutes to spare, the art arrives. They’re not going to have time to fuss about placement and such, so they just get what they can where they can.
The men open their doors to a line waiting to come in; the women open their doors to about 5 people. Unlike the party town with open bar that the men have going on, the women look like they’re ready for a funeral. Eventually, though, business starts to pick up.
With multiple $5,000 donations, the men are not doing too badly so far, but now the cavalry is here. John sells a hat for $50,000 and another $50,000 for the boots. Seeing the money pour in, Richard Hatch is getting desperate, so he slashes his prices in hopes that somebody will buy something, with both of his paintings now on offer for $1,000.
The women don’t have a plane full of hillbillies, but they are lucky that the rules are pretty lax for this task. The person or their representative does not have to show up, and they can take credit card information by phone, fax, or e-mail. They are limited by their max credit card amount, but seeing as that’s $99,000, the three donations in a row they get of that size should go a long way. Marlee had one donor for that amount, and La Toya’s T-shirt also got that.
While they are focused on selling, Federico Castelluccio shows up. He says he’s not just from the Sopranos, but he’s also a painter, who will be judging the hats.
The prize possession of the men’s auction is a guitar. The bid: $470,000. No matter how impressive a showing the women put up, it would seem that should cement the men’s victory.
Trump asks about the argument that happened with Meat Loaf and, well, Meat Loaf, for which they have now kissed and made up. The net result is that the men were very impressed with how their project manager handled a volatile situation.
Star says it was an honor to work with Marlee. La Toya says Marlee was the star.
Before we get to the main event, it’s time to reveal the winning hat: La Toya. Her charity, AIDS Project Los Angeles, will receive $25,000.
Trump would like to make a deal. If they both agree, the losing team will keep his or her money for their own charity. They agree.
The men’s team raised the most money of any team in The Apprentice history: $626,908. That money will go to John Rich’s charity, St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. The women did very well, and they actually pulled out a win with $986,000, which will go to Marlee’s charity, Starkey Hearing Foundation. Trump offers $14,000 to bring it to an even $1 million.
Seeing as how Jose left already, which probably helps the men more than it helps the women, Trump has another offer. Do the women want to forgo firing one of the men? Marlee has to make a decision, but Star’s whispering won’t help her any. Because they have lost so many tasks in a row, the women think it would only be fair that one of the men gets fired. They can now stick around and offer their input.
John says the weakest player, based on fundraising, was Richard.
Hope would fire Richard. Star agrees.
Money aside, Gary, with his lack of focus, is pointed to as the weakest. Meat Loaf agrees. Mark, too. Lil Jon gets on the bandwagon. Marlee interjects to come to Gary’s defense.
Ignoring the pleas from every member of the men’s team and not allowing him the opportunity to defend himself, Trump fires Richard Hatch for not raising enough money.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 6, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.