Category: reality tv

Last week’s double firing in The Celebrity Aprentice 2 Episode 6 was brought to you in part by Donald Trump’s ego. If you missed the first hour and 50 minutes, don’t worry. You didn’t miss anything related to the firings. First, Tionne was told by Trump how impressed by her he was the prior week. Then, she was fired after he asked if she remembered Bradford (she didn’t, and nobody else does either), who got fired for volunteering to come back to the boardroom. Next, it was Khloe Kardashian’s turn to be fired. What did she do wrong? She got a DUI before the show even began filming, which Trump was too incompetent to figure out until after the first 6 episodes had aired. Taking the moral high ground, Trump (yeah, Donald Trump) fired her on the basis of not wanting someone who had a DUI in her history to be on his show, although he had no problem letting Dennis Rodman run around drunk for 6 episodes. In the real world, this would be illegal. So much about this being a show about business lessons. This is the same hope for ratings that sank this show the first time, and it looks like Trump’s trying to do it again.

Joan expects Clint to be fired, but if he’s not fired, she says she will not work with him again.

Clint and Melissa both expected the people they brought back would be safe. They should have been.

Brian McKnight will be on Athena now that he’s back.

Trump asks if anybody has any problems with the boardroom. Joan speaks up. Trump defends himself. Not well.

Natalie Gulbis will be the project manager for Kotu. Brian will be the project manager for Athena. The two people who haven’t led a task, Annie Duke and Jesse James, do not step forward. Annie doesn’t want to be the manager for this because it’s too subjective and she doesn’t have a great deal of control over what the person judging it will think.

This week’s task is for an identity theft company. They’re going to create an in-store point of sale display.

Annie takes the lead on asking the executives questions. Brian just sits back and lets her run with it.

Next we see an ad for Joan and Melissa’s “viral” videos. Combined, with two national promotions, they’ve managed to generate just over 3000 views. Should have gone with Jesse’s video, All.

Joan’s a bit of a one trick pony, wanting to make their display funny. The others opt for a theme that revolves around a safe.

Jesse will be doing the display design for his team.

Brande will just sit back and let the others do whatever they want. She doesn’t plan to give any input on the task, believing that, if she just does as she’s told, she’ll be fine.

Athena’s construction design team has been waiting around killing time for three and a half hours. Annie finally asks Brian if anyone’s called the construction guy about time lines. His response: no one has. So would he like somebody to do that? Annie calls. Melissa’s take on Annie calling the guy: she’s just covering her own butt. The answer Annie gets is that they need to be there by 4:00. They have 15 minutes. Nobody else seems concerned by this. So then she calls Brande and Jesse and has them leave and get there as quickly as they can.

Jesse believes he’s getting sick, which is bad news for his team because he’s been relied on quite a bit. After he vomits, maybe he’ll feel a little better. For him, though, there’s no excuse to sit on the sidelines unless he’s dying, so he’s going to keep trying.

Brande is there merely to serve as a distraction to the guys who are trying to work on the design.

Joan believes their concept is boring. She suggests to Natalie that they should use Herschel Walker in their display. In addition to celebrity, she wants to use humor, and idea that shows who’s really running this task.

With that said, at 5:15PM, they call Clint to say they want to change everything. His concern is time. Somehow, this leads to an argument between him and Herschel. Clint’s the only one who realizes that the ad can’t stay as is if they add a bunch of stuff to it. They’ll have to shrink the rest of it down.

Athena’s CD is blank. The designers need something not blank to be sent to them so that they can finish their work.

George is concerned about the lack of creativity he sees from Athena.

Joan has decided she can tolerate Clint.

Athena is struggling with technology. First, they lack technology at the design place, so it must be done at the printer by the other half of the team. Then, they struggle with e-mail because the image is too big. Annie blames their troubles on the lack of understanding of a deadline by anyone until the last minute.

When the others arrive at the design place, they’re impressed that Jesse’s still working despite being sick, but they don’t like that Brande’s not doing anything on her own.

The night before, Natalie decided that they should pack in a couple hours before 10, instead of going back to Brooklyn to see what they are going to be working with. The next morning, they realize the faces are too small, so they’ll need to run around trying to get the fixed version. With one minute remaining, they return and are ready to go.

Joan does the presentation for Kotu. She thought her presentation was just okay.

Brian will be doing the presentation for Athena. He wants to sell them the display, not the product.

Natalie was impressed by her team, although she’s not sure they won.

Clint believes Natalie was a great project manager. Joan rates her about average.

Kotu’s positives: original idea, great use of celebrities
Kotu’s negative: display units didn’t house the packaging (anyone wanting to buy would have to call or go elsewhere)

Athena’s positives: good presentation, good brand messaging
Athena’s negatives: spin on what they had already done, not very original

Kotu won, despite the lack of actual product. Had Joan not stepped in and forced them to change it and add celebrity pictures with bright colors, they may not have won, although the quality of the packaging was pretty good without that. Natalie will receive $20,000 for the Boys & Girls Club of America.

Joan is pretty sure her daughter is safe because Brande’s going home based on her conversation with Annie at dinner last night. I have to wonder whether she heard what she wanted to hear.

Annie blames mainly Brian about the fact that they ran out of time.

George found Brian to be very laid back.

When asked who she thought was the weak link on the team, Annie says Brian. Because she didn’t say Brande, Joan assumes she must be a trouble maker.

George says that it’s not good that they spent so much time on the presentation, which was Melissa’s primary focus. If her daughter is fired, Joan will quit, too. So she says.

Brande blames the project manager Brian. Jesse would also fire him.

Melissa would fire Brande because she doesn’t think ahead or outside of the box. She just does as she’s told.

Annie agrees. She doesn’t stick her neck out. Ivanka counters that Annie is just like that, since she hasn’t stepped up as a project manager.

Brian doesn’t seem overly concerned whether he’s fired or not. He chooses Brande and Melissa. With that, Joan breaks her glass and starts packing.

Melissa blames Annie. Uh, Melissa, Annie’s not even on the firing line with you. Stick to Brian and Brande.

Brian says that he doesn’t like the idea of firing anyone, so he doesn’t offer an opinion who should go.

Brande doesn’t think that Brian wants to be there any more. He responds that, in some ways, he’s had enough. With that said, Brian’s fired. He’s okay with that decision, accepting responsibility for the loss.

Still an awful lot of time left in this show, though. Something else is going to happen.

Trump wants them to be brought back in.

Their next task starts right now.

They will hold a fashion show and jewelry auction. Because Trump’s daughter has a jewelry line, they will be selling her product.

Annie will be the project manager for Athena. Joan suggests Herschel as project manager for Kotu. Trump would rather see Joan do it. Time for a showdown between Annie and Joan. Yeah, this wasn’t staged.

The first thing Annie does is assign tasks. She picks Melissa for jewelry. Melissa wants to do clothes as well. Brande will be in charge of that, though. Melissa is offended.

Brande’s excited about being involved in this task. She has booked the models to give them first pick, and she’s got evening gowns lined up as well. She’s proving she’s the right choice for this task. Melissa’s slowly growing more irritated, although you can’t really tell because she has no facial expressions.

Joan’s goal is to get the nicest, cheapest jewelry.

Clint will be the auctioneer for Kotu.

Joan is continuing the personal attacks on Annie. She’s over her fight with Clint. Now it’s time for fresh blood.

Annie’s already lined up a buyer for $25k, or whatever she needs to win. That’s more than anybody else on the other team thinks they can get from all their buyers. Melissa, who apparently doesn’t realize she’s on Annie’s team, doesn’t like this.

Annie tells her team that, if they lose, whoever raises the least is going to be taken into the boardroom to be fired. Jesse doesn’t want to waste his bullets unless it’s going to his charity or for when it counts.

The other team knows how dangerous Annie is. They come up with an idea to pool all their money. If they don’t sell a piece, they don’t have to pay the wholesale price for that piece. All they have to do is sell their cheapest piece for a lot of money and make a big profit.

Natalie is in charge of picking the jewelry. Joan has opted to let her do that, although it’s not entirely clear why.

Joan is unhappy with the jewelry that Natalie picked. They won’t display well on a runway. Natalie says that the jewelry Melissa picked was too flashy and chunky. Joan says her daughter was right. Not that she’d ever say she was wrong.

Annie and Brande are spearheading the phone calls to the donors, in an effort to pick up the slack for Melissa and Jesse.

One of Brande’s donors says he’ll raise as much money as they need to win.

Natalie’s already exhausted her rolodex, so she asks: are there any poker players who would like to beat Annie?

Natalie and Joan decide to go to the department store, so Clint and Herschel are left to the task of picking models. Jesse realizes that this was a mistake when he sees what the women on his team are looking for from models.

In addition to the fact that they actually paid attention to what they should have with the models, Athena comes up with the idea of making Brande the model for the piece of jewelry that her big donor will be buying. Somehow, this offends Melissa, too.

Watching Joan and Natalie shopping, it’s not as if Clint and Herschel would have been any better at this aspect of the task either.

Brande’s concerned what she’s going to wear, so Melissa takes over the task of dressing the other girls.

Natalie hopes to get some money from Phil Hellmuth, one of the leading poker champions.

Trump has asked someone to keep an eye on Annie and Joan, project leaders who hate each other, as well as the bratty Melissa and Jesse, who hasn’t raised any money. It’s Piers Morgan, last year’s winner.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 2 episode 8, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.