dingoRUE

Osama bin Laden was killed in The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 9. Oh, and Hope was fired. I think. NBC dropped the ball. There was no reason at all the show had to be interrupted and they couldn’t wait until 11:00 just because the President planned to speak “soon” (aka 11:35).

NeNe acts surprised to find out that Star doesn’t want to talk to her. Realizing that the two can’t work together yet not wanting to fire either of them to resolve the issue that’s not going to be resolved otherwise, Trump opts instead to mix up the teams, swapping Meat Loaf with NeNe. Good luck boys and La Toya.

Their task is to produce a comedy show with three comedians and 50 tickets each (to be sold at whatever price they can get), with the goal of earning the most total money. Jim Kramer will be taking Don Jr.’s place this week.

La Toya will be the project manager for Backbone, while Meat Loaf will be the project manager for ASAP.

NeNe needs some more time to pout, so she disappears from her new team.

John Rich fired most of his ammo during the art task, so his angle this time is to secure a comedian, Jimmy Fallon.

Star gets Tracy Morgan on video. Jim Kramer is not impressed. Why not a personal appearance?

Trump should have gotten rid of NeNe last week instead of Hope. Now he’s in the position of making the call to ask her to not quit. No such luck. NeNe sends La Toya a text saying she quits because she can’t stand this negative environment (which she created for herself).

La Toya doesn’t seem to be making much progress. She’s not comfortable either asking for money or leaving voicemails.

Meat Loaf’s afraid that he’ll lose and his donors, who want to give specifically to his charity, will then end up giving to La Toya instead. They decide to strike preemptively and ask Trump for the okay for each project manager to keep their winnings for their charity. Trump says he can’t promise that because they should be trying to win if that’s the outcome they want.

Jimmy Fallon arrives as planned, and he surprises them with a check for $10k. Oddly enough, he’s a singer/songwriter.

Star and Marlee convince Meat Loaf to continue and stop moping, but regardless his head’s still not in the game. However, when it’s time for him to take the stage, it’s then that he kicks into gear. Marlee also takes the stage to do a routine.

La Toya’s never been this happy on a task, but she’s left thinking: did they raise enough money?

It’s evolving into a lovefest. Without NeNe, everybody is getting along with everybody else.

Trump’s message for NeNe: you’re fired, you’re a quitter, and Star Jones kicked your ass. He more or less admits that Hope shouldn’t have been fired, but what’s done is done.

John Rich has an offer for Meat Loaf. If his team loses, he will personally match whatever he raised.

ASAP raised $102,080. Backbone raised $82,500. As the winning project manager, Meat Loaf will receive the money for his charity, Painted Turtle. He says this is one of the best moments in his life.

La Toya can’t say anything bad about her teammates, and she is unwilling to pick which one was better.

Lil Jon says it should be the project manager or the person who raised the least. In either case, that would be La Toya. As the only one to ever be rehired, La Toya is also the only one to ever be fired twice.

It’s double episode night. First was The Amazing Race, now it’s The Celebrity Apprentice. One task down, one to go.

Onstar will be selling new technology at Best Buy, and their task is to introduce this new market with video. They will be judged on creativity and originality, product integration, and brand messaging.

George returns to take Ivanka’s place.

John Rich will be the project manager for Backbone for a third time. Marlee will be the project manager for ASAP. The winning project manager will receive $20,000 to be matched by Onstar.

John is struggling with a sinus infection or something. He’s hardly able to read and write, let alone think of the script.

Meat Loaf takes the creative lead on his team’s commercial. Marlee goes along with him, realizing his quest to find a donut shop represents a risk. He doesn’t come up with a script, though. They can just improv. Because Star’s in charge of branding, he thinks it’s her responsbility to come up with a script if she wants one.

The men opt to show a soccer mom and a college girl talking about how great it is they can now get Onstar. Lil Jon would like to get a lot of special effects into this shot, which their studio is not really equipped to handle.

Star is the main actor for her team. She can’t remember her lines. Cue cards don’t seem to be helping either.

Don Jr. notices the tension in ASAP and the fact that Meat Loaf seems to be the one in charge.

After Star finishes her informational part of the commercial, it’s time for officer Meat Loaf to save the day by finding Marlee’s stolen car. Now he wants to find his favorite donut shop.

Marlee realizes she took a little too much of a back seat, and she just hopes they have enough to edit.

Backbone arrives to edit first. John bets the other team got too complicated and fell behind. Lil Jon is confident they have plenty of time, but his special effects will push them close to the deadline. When ASAP does arrive, Star sits back and lets the other two do the editing.

The execs felt ASAP had a much more ambitious project but were a bit softer on the message. They didn’t like the the policeman was seen as the butt of a joke rather than a hero. They liked Lil Jon, but thought maybe he came on too strong. That said, they really sold the idea that this is a new way to get Onstar. One miss was someone was driving a car without wearing a seatbelt, which makes the footage unusable.

John thinks the other team missed the main point. The other team is unable to say the guys did a better or worse job… just different.

Backbone wins, putting the Jonz in the final 4. As the winning project manager, John Rich gets $40,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Marlee would fire Meat Loaf because his working style is different than what they are accustomed to. Star would fire Meat Loaf because of the creative. Meat Loaf would fire Star based on product placement and branding.

When they go out into the hallway, the argument continues. Meat Loaf wants to get into a shouting match with Star, who he calls sweetie, which she takes offense to, though Trump doesn’t understand why.

Somehow, the boardroom ends up turning into a debate about whether it was politically correct for Meat Loaf to call Star sweetie, as if this is accomplishing anything.

Because they lost the task on branding, the person in charge of branding has been fired. That would be Star. Bad decision. She didn’t cost them this task, although she didn’t attempt to salvage it either. With Star being assigned 2 of the 3 criteria for the task, while leaving the commercial in the hands of the other two people, she was an easy target in the event of a loss for any reason.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 11, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.

Although she never actually did anything wrong, La Toya fell victim to the demands of her team and was eliminated in The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 8.

NeNe’s goal now is to figure out a way to kick Star’s ass.

In Trump’s opinion, the most important thing to looking good is hair. Their task is to produce a hair show for Farouk Systems. They will be judged based on brand messaging, showcasing of products and tools, and overall presentation.

Meat Loaf and Lil Jon play rock, paper, scissors to determine their project manager, Lil Jon. NeNe agrees to be the project manager for the women because Star thinks she should be. They’re already off to a shouting match before the task has even begun, or at least NeNe has a shouting match while Star sits there calmly. In the process, she calls Hope Star’s puppet. I’m sure the executive has a good first impression. Star asks for an explanation. She does not get one.

John asks if anybody has Niki Taylor’s number. Not only is she a supermodel, but she’s also a former teammate of the women. She’s in and can’t believe the girls didn’t call her.

Meanwhile, the women haven’t said a word since NeNe blew up. Now, they’re forced to attempt to work together, awkwardly.

La Toya’s back. She doesn’t know why she was fired (a fair complaint), and she wants a second chance. She does not want to be with the girls, though, and would like to join the guys’ team. Trump says he’ll think about it.

NeNe has decided on a concept of shaking their hair. Getting the feeling from the exec that he wanted to stress that the products are made in America, the men go with feeling good in America.

Star hires some dancers. Marlee says she would be happy to model. Hope is tired of being a model. Bad news then: that is what you do.

Star has no problem helping NeNe in this task. NeNe says she’d better help her because otherwise she’s going to tell Trump. Hope, however, has checked out. It’s hard to blame her, but it’s a good reason for her to be fired, not that I think Trump needs much motivation. She’s served her purpose of being the hot girl, and as we approach the end, he can now cut her loose.

Ivanka sees that the men are relaxed and confident, perhaps too confident. NeNe spends her time telling both Ivanka and Eric that the boardroom will be chaotic.

Once Niki arrives, NeNe goes into paranoia mode, well, worse than before. She doesn’t trust Niki or Hope or anybody else for that matter and is worried about sabotage. Marlee and Hope are also shocked that Niki is working for the men. Why? You didn’t ask her.

In addition to coming herself, Niki has brought three models with her.

The next morning, the hair stylists show up at 8AM, and so do the models. The only thing missing is the women’s team that told them to arrive at that time. They show up half an hour late, and NeNe can’t figure out why it’s an issue. Regardless, they are able to do a rehearsal in as planned. As for the men, Lil Jon feels comfortable with just 10 minutes of rehearsing.

NeNe does not like Hope’s runway presentation. The problem is Hope is a Playboy model, not a fashion model. She’ll tell you that herself. What I want to know is: what the hell did they do to Hope’s hair, and did they think it looked good?

NeNe’s already got her boardroom lineup determined and, for that matter, has for two days: Star and Hope.

The men may have gotten their presentation off to a rough start, but Lil Jon’s energy and their America concept eventually takes off. They have no clue whether it’s good or not because they don’t know anything about hair shows. Regardless, unlike NeNe, Lil Jon’s not even thinking about the boardroom yet.

NeNe says she doesn’t feel like everybody lived up to their full potential. That could have to do with her alienating them from second one. She expected them to just get over her attitude. In her defense, NeNe calls Star a disloyal backstabber. Furthermore, Hope is Star’s puppet on a string. From there, NeNe goes on and on and on and on some more. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear the results of the task before ripping everybody apart?

Lil Jon declines to name a weak player, and it doesn’t matter because they’re not going to lose anyway.

Farouk loved Lil Jon as an MC, thought they did a good job on branding and messaging, and loved the theme of American cities. However, he did not like that they didn’t articulate that the products are safe. For the women, their stylists were informative, and Marlee did well as a model. However, NeNe was a weak MC, there was no real theme or direction, Hope looked awkward in the show, and it seemed like the stylists were running things rather than the team.

It’s pretty obvious what happened here. The men have won. Lil Jon will receive $40,000 for his charity United Methodist Children’s Home. Before they leave, Trump has another surprise: La Toya will be joining them.

Now that she’s back, Trump asks her opinion. Star vs. Nene? She likes NeNe. Well, at least that’s one vote in NeNe’s corner. Hopefully not enough to save her, but I suspect that Hope’s going to be too quiet for his liking and get fired anyway.

20 minutes left. I know what that means. NeNe’s not done running her mouth, no matter how old it already is.

Hope finds it interesting that NeNe’s charity is for domestic violence when she herself is mentally and verbally abusive. That fact was not lost on me either.

Memo to NBC: I don’t need to see Obama taking over the airwaves again. I can read about Osama bin Laden being killed online, rather than during a show I’m trying to watch. And they aren’t even ready yet. The speech is still being written, so they’re going to fill the time until it starts. Ugh. This can’t wait until the news at 11?

20 minutes later, the news anchors continue to ramble, telling us that Obama will make a speech in another 10 minutes or so. What’s left to discuss? You’ve already told the story in great length. If the White House wanted to tell this story, they should have written quicker. I’m off to watch my Tivo’d Undercover Boss. For those of you keeping score at home, the final tally: 50 minutes (not counting the half hour before they interrupted the broadcast that they were telling us a speech was coming soon).

Anyway, it appears that Hope has been fired, not surprisingly, although it’s not as if they’re going to let anybody watch the firing.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 10, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.