After returning from his concert, Brian McKnight threw in the towel and was fired after the end of the first task in The Celebrity Apprentice 2 Episode 7. During the boardroom, Joan Rivers got mad because Annie Duke did not team up with her little girl Melissa against Brande Roderick. So, of course, Trump “coincidentally” matched Annie against Joan as project managers for the second task, a charity auction.
Piers Morgan, winner of The Celebrity Apprentice, is back. He’s expecting to see a lot of activity in the Kotu room. Instead, he sees Herschel Walker and Clint Black sitting there chatting with some models.
After Piers pays them a visit, Melissa finally realizes she has to start making some calls to try to increase the money she’s got coming in. She knows she and Jesse are bringing up the rear.
Annie has gotten word that Natalie is attempting to raise funds through Phil Hellmuth. Phil calls her to confirm this, and she ain’t happy. She calls and warns the guy who gave away Phil’s name that he might want to turn the volume down on his phone. The other team hears the screaming through the wall. It was a good move, but it didn’t quite work. That leaves Natalie without very much money for the task.
Melissa is still looking for a pat on the back.
Annie’s got a bunch of friends sitting in the audience as expected, so she knows right where to go to get the money. She gets $25,000 for the earrings. Then she gets $52,000 for a necklace. Brande comes out next, and this is Stewie’s girl. He bids $50,000.
Clint is the auctioneer for his team. Unlike Annie, he doesn’t have a group of friends lined up to bid. Nobody’s bidding. They skip past the first item. Piers calls this an insult to the Trumps. He gets the starting bid on the next item, $12,000. They decide to switch things around and bring what was supposed to close out their night up third. Clint’s trying to sell based on his original cards. He doesn’t realize he’s really trying to sell a ring, not earrings. Joan gets out on stage to try to save him. This finally produces some good results as intended, since this is the piece they’ve put all their money on, with this item bringing in $83,500.
Annie says that Melissa did a fantastic job on the jewelry. She does not believe there was a weak player on their team, but if she had to pick, it would be based on money raising. That would mean Jesse and Melissa. Piers asks: couldn’t Jesse get money through his wife’s (Sandra Bullock) friends?
Ivanka wasn’t happy with the pieces Natalie picked. She’s also not happy that they pooled their money on one item, leaving the others up as a free for all that may or may not sell.
Donald Trump asks Joan why she hasn’t tried calling more people. She says she has tried. This time it’s Melissa to the rescue of her mom. She calls Piers disrespectful.
Trump asks Annie what her take is on this. Joan’s not interested. She plugs her ears. What is she, 5? Annie agrees it was disrespectful to Ivanka. Joan’s response is that Annie is a despicable human being.
Annie says that business is business. Yet Joan continuously has these rants where she personally attacks people. First Clint. Now Annie. In response to Annie’s concerns, Joan compares her to Hitler. If Annie’s so bad, why did people get on planes at 6AM to give her money?
So then Joan brings up the phone call from the other day where Annie was yelling. That yelling was effective and stopped her team in its tracks. They don’t get the point of this story since it’s self defeating.
Piers wants to know why Melissa continues to defend her mommy, who’s on the opposing team.
Melissa says that Annie’s not a bad person, but she is different than she is in the boardroom.
Kotu raised $92,000 in profit, mostly through one piece. Athena raised $153,000. This record amount of money from one task will go to Annie’s charity, Refugees International. They are more than double where last year’s celebrities were at this point.
Clint says there is no weak player on their team.
Trump wants to know why Joan didn’t pick the jewelry. Joan says that she had a young point of view, like Ivanka. Ultimately, though, Joan liked the other team’s jewelry better.
Joan is unable to answer who should be fired. She even likes Clint now.
Herschel raised $55,000, so he’s probably safe.
Because she was not an effective fundraiser and picked the wrong jewelry, Natalie Gulbis is fired.
The task will be to create a new signature meal for Schwan’s Livesmart brand, as well as a new marketing campaign for the brand.
Jesse James is finally the project manager for his team.
Herschel will be the project manager for Kotu. He realizes that Joan and Clint still aren’t comfortable with each other, no matter what they may say in the boardroom.
The food has to taste good, although they have to be wary of calories, fat, and sodium.
Annie looks up the Schwan’s brand. She sees that their #2 regular seller is pasta and meatballs, which they do not currently offer the low calorie version of. She wants to do this.
Rather than just caving, Jesse asks the others what they want. Melissa picks chili. Brande picks meatloaf and mashed potatoes (as health food?). They’re going to make all three and choose between them.
Jesse sends Brande off to cook with Annie so that Melissa isn’t in there with her.
Herschel will be the chef since Joan can’t cook and Clint can barely cook. He picks chicken because that’s a popular item online. Clint agrees to let Herschel have his way, but they’ll be doing a chicken dish based on Clint’s wife’s recipe.
Melissa wants to know what their plans are. Jesse doesn’t seem to know.
Annie’s putting her money where her mouth is, and she’s proving that she knows how to cook. Brande’s back to getting tired of Annie again.
Clint objects to Herschel’s dessert, but he agrees to let Herschel do as he pleases as project manager. He’s not sure that the yogurt can be frozen and thawed successfully.
Clint wasn’t delegated to cook, but he wants to cook anyway. They find out the meal is very salty. When someone tells you their aim is low sodium, you probably don’t want to include soy sauce. They squeeze some oranges to try to reduce the flavor of the soy.
Jesse loves the chili. The girls go with the pasta and meatballs, and he goes with it to keep them happy.
Jesse won’t tell his team what the marketing part of the task or the presentation is. They go home while he continues to work on it because it’s not like he’s letting them in.
Kotu’s dish is orange Asian soy chicken with green beans and sweet potatoes, as well as dessert. Clint’s marketing concept is to get himself on camera and have meals delivered to his tour bus. They like the meal itself, but the dessert is problematic. First, can they freeze it? If they can, to package it would be expensive.
Athena’s meal is the triple play turkey meatballs with gluten-free pasta and appleberry crisp. Jesse has managed to pull off his secretive presentation. Jesse’s team doesn’t know what the marketing is, though, and neither do the executives.
Herschel says Joan did a better job than Clint because she did what she was told to do.
Annie thinks Jesse did well in some areas but not well in others.
The executives liked the innovative and gluten-free approach (all Annie’s idea, which Joan doesn’t like), but they didn’t like the lack of a marketing campaign.
They liked that Kotu’s dish was easy to create and tasted good, but Herschel’s dessert was overly complicated.
Despite the lack of a marketing campaign, Athena has won. Jesse’s charity, the Long Beach Education Foundation, will receive $20,000.
Clint thought they won but was concerned that they were giving them something they already had. He wouldn’t have done the chicken. Herschel claims that Clint never expressed his criticism against that idea.
Joan again can’t answer who should be fired.
Since he was responsible for the choice of chicken and also the dessert, Herschel Walker has been fired, leaving Joan and Clint to fend for themselves. Let’s see how they get on as a team.
Trump actually made two decisions that could be backed up as common sense tonight. Who saw that coming? Granted, these Rivers chicks need to go home already.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 2 episode 9, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.