The All Star Celebrity Apprentice cast consists of 14 returning contestants, most of whom were terrible during their first appearance. Aside from Bret Michaels (who shouldn’t have won) participating again in the same capacity as last time, the other winners (at least two of whom shouldn’t have won) will serve as advisers.
Trump tells Bret he doesn’t understand why he came back because there’s a good chance he’ll lose. I’d argue he won on a sympathy vote last time, but regardless, he still should be good enough that he can at least last for several episodes, raising money for his charity in the process. Of course, there’s always the chance he’ll bomb and get fired tonight.
Rather than the typical men against women, the teams will be selected in a schoolyard pick ’em with Bret Michaels and Trace Adkins (who was the runner up in his last season, losing to Piers) as captains.
Bret: Omarosa, Lil Jon, Brande Roderick, La Toya Jackson, Claudia Jordan, Dennis Rodman
Trace: Penn Gillette, Dee Snider, Marilu Henner, Stephen Baldwin, Lisa Rinna, Gary Busey
Did Bret really just select Omarosa as his first choice?
Bret’s team chooses the name Power based on Omarosa rapping. The other team chooses Plan B, which Gary informs us is also a birth control device.
When he mentions the name of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, Trace is chosen as the project manager for his team. Omarosa nominates Bret as PM for their team, since he is the only winner competing this year. Brande, who was picked by Bret/Omarosa specifically for her fundraising ability, gets down on her hands and knees to secure the position for herself instead.
Piers Morgan, a clearly deserving winner who Donald Trump takes full credit for being successful since appearing on this show, will join Ivanka as an adviser this week. After throwing Bret under the bus for not being the first project manager, Omarosa starts talking about Piers’ mama.
They will be making meatballs for charity.
Bret has decided after the boardroom that he made a big mistake not taking this first one and also of selecting someone specifically because she’s evil. Speaking of Omarosa being evil, La Toya doesn’t like her either.
As his team starts to talk meatballs, Trace says it doesn’t matter. He’s not sure it even needs to be open to the public.
Omarosa says in no uncertain terms that her main goal is to be personally responsible for taking out the only winner.
Brande does not trust Dennis to do anything, so he’s going to have to find something on his own.
Stephen has decided to withhold his fundraising abilities until he’s project manger. This is a high risk strategy because if you don’t raise anything, you become an easy target.
Brande’s team already has a long line before they even open. Trace’s restaurant is deliberately left closed, and he puts signs on the windows letting people know it’s a private event. Of course, this does not stop Gary from yelling outside for people to come in.
Trace’s biggest donor shows up with $100,000 as the clock winds down. Brande, however, is not so lucky because all her donors show up, except for the largest one.
Bret has attacks coming from all sides. First Donald and Piers give him a hard time because he shouldn’t have come back (then Trump shouldn’t have offered), then Omarosa weighs in about how he sucked at fundraising.
La Toya was not overly impressed by Brande as a manager.
Trace finds difficulty getting support for closing the restaurant to the public, even if his logic that the big donors are all that matters is sound.
Stephen’s strategy to not try was not lost on Trace, who does not think anybody came in because he called them, and Stephen acknowleges he did not raise a penny. In a hectic atmosphere, he may have gotten away with this, but when you’ve only got a few dozen people coming down to a closed door event, it allows you to greet every person that enters the door.
Omarosa and Piers have their tiff dating back from the first Celebrity Apprentice season when she insulted him and his family. Dennis and Claudia for some reason choose to come to her rescue and go after Piers, an adviser who may have input into who gets fired. In doing this, Dennis just asks a question and bows out after hearing the answer, but Claudia goes on a rant in which she offends Ivanka by talking about Piers whining like a woman.
Kelly & Michael, whoever the hell they are (I guess they replaced Regis & Kathy Lee), must pick a winning dish. They have chosen Brande’s team to win the $20,000 bonus prize.
More money was raised by both teams than any first episode in the history of the show. Brande’s team raised $230,533 for a grand total of $250,533, which Brande considers a disappointing result relative to the input she had received from her team. Trace’s team raised $419,539, easily winning over $670,000 for his charity, American Red Cross. I’m not sure his risky strategy either hurt or help… he just fundraised better. He feels like he owes them for what they did for his family when their house burned last year.
Omarosa was in charge of the team’s accounting. Brande says she will be taking the two people who raised the least amount of money, and she will defer to her cashier for that. Omarosa does not want to answer. She should be brought back then. Granted, Brande should know more about what her team did than she seems to know.
La Toya blames Brande, but Piers counters that you can’t blame the person who raised most of the money.
As we go down the line, almost everybody falls around the 25,000 range, so there’s really no clear loser here. The only stand outs separated from the rest of the group are Lil Jon and Brande. After hearing all these numbers, Trump says that they must have won if they really raised that much.
Omarosa says that Bret brought in $15,000 while La Toya was around $18-20,000, putting them just shy of a few others. Omarosa’s numbers are closer, but there is still a $30,000 discrepancy. Surely Trump should know the real answer to this question, but he’s not revealing it if he does know.
Brande will bring back La Toya and Bret based on Omarosa’s numbers. None of the judges can figure out why she would believe Omarosa, but Trace says that she is doing the right thing because Trump won’t fire Omarosa (and he won’t, not for at least a few more weeks).
La Toya reiterates that she would fire Brande.
Brande repeats what Trace just said. She truthfully does not believe Trump would fire Omarosa. Trump claims he’s worried about his credibility if he doesn’t fire the worst person. He says this with a straight face.
Trump has already said he has no idea why La Toya has been brought back into the boardroom. For all the back and forth for the next few minutes, it becomes obvious that it really does not matter what anyone else says at this point. Trump can’t fire Brande either. She raised too much money. Bret Michaels, who Trump did not want to come back in the first place, is the first one fired this time.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of All Star Celebrity Apprentice Episode 2, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.