Once the dust settled from the over the top drama in The Celebrity Apprentice 5 Episode 2, Victoria Gotti was fired.
This week’s task is to design living window displays for the Ivanka Trump Collection, to be judged by Ivanka and an executive from Lord & Taylor. Dayana volunteers for the women, getting the nod over Teresa. The gay guys are nominated for the men, with George drawing the short straw.
Everybody is drawn to Aubrey’s ideas for their team, and like last week, it’s not long before she takes over.
For George, the first trick is to figure out just how many windows they are responsible for doing. Once he realizes the task says two, they’re off. They want to see hot twins. That’s about it.
The women had already come up with a day and night theme, and after meeting with the executives, the men are on the same path.
Unlike the men, who have to go hunting for models, the women already have much of what they need present. Debbie believes she can fit into that role, but at age 41, she’s outside the target demographic and quite a bit older than multiple members of her team.
Adam used to be a carpenter, so he’s right at home when they start building their sets. So much at home that he declines to run his ideas by the project manager. Not that George seems overly concerned. He’s willing to defer to his team to run with what little guidance he provides.
Having planned to jam multiple themes into each window, the women realize something on arrival. These displays are a lot smaller than they thought. They try to talk the team in the van into reducing their ideas to just the best ones, which those who are not physically at the location are reluctant to do. By the time Don Jr. arrives, their concept doesn’t seem to exist yet.
Deciding there is a need to also display Ivanka’s jewelry, Debbie makes a call to Ivanka asking for access to that collection as well. Simple enough to get a yes.
Dee finds out the diagnosis on his finger is not as good as he’d hoped. He needs to have surgery, now.
One thing the men have neglected to notice that Ivanka stressed: her brand’s color is coral. What they did manage to do thanks to Paul is create signs that are brand specific. The women have a coral border around their windows, which ultimately ends up covering their shoes.
Having struggled with their photos the night before, the morning of the presentation, the women’s struggle continues. With an hour until the presentation, their photos and sketches, which are the center of their theme now, are sitting in traffic. So they think. The sketches are printed. The photos are not. That leaves one window display blank with 10 minutes to figure out an alternative. Aubrey comes up with a plan B on the spot.
As the task begins, Dee returns with a cast. The one armed man isn’t quitting. Arsenio insists this can’t be done with one arm, but that didn’t prevent Dave from winning Hell’s Kitchen 6.
During the pitch, George mentions Lou’s name as someone who didn’t want to get involved. Lou’s standing right there. Here comes another tantrum.
When they arrive in the boardroom, Dayana still struggles to explain their concept.
Teresa thinks Dayana was great. Nobody disagrees.
Tia declines to comment on the weakest player. Teresa continues the lovefest. Dayana doesn’t want to mention two people to bring back because they won. Trump tries to bully her into answering, but it doesn’t work. So who would Aubrey choose? She doesn’t want to answer either. Who would she want to stick around? Lisa and Patricia.
Clay has been hard on George throughout the episode, but when asked in the boardroom, his response is that George did a perfectly fine job. Arsenio liked working for George because he left him alone to do his job.
The judges liked the women’s attention to detail, use and integration of the logo throughout, the living aspect of the window, and clear understanding of the demographic. They did not like the fan because it wasn’t a photo shoot, and they did not like the lost visibility of the shoes.
On the men’s side, they loved the signs so much that Ivanka wants to use them for her shop, and they also liked the twin concept, brand messaging, and Arsenio’s presence in the scene. They did not like that it was hard to see the second window due to their choice of a very dark midnight blue color, they did not feel that the clothing was appropriate to the setting, and they felt the team lacked creativity and did not take risks.
All things considered, the men did a good job, but the women did better. As the winning project manager, Dayana wins $20,000 for her charity, the Latino Commission on AIDS.
Lou suggests that Adam’s reluctance to call George and ask whether midnight blue was okay is the reason for the lack of visibility in the second display, but this was a color George had already signed off on.
Arsenio was the only person on the team willing or able to choose the clothing. They can try to blame him for this, but none of the others would have stepped up to the plate in his absence. Because of this issue, Lou would fire Arsenio. Arsenio’s input is that, if the clothing was a problem, maybe he should be fired.
Paul would fire George due to his communication. Clay would also fire George because he didn’t necessarily delegate tasks. Adam would fire the project manager.
Penn says he was self marginalized, since he doesn’t have a good eye. Teller does all of their visual work.
George will be bringing back Arsenio for the clothing and Lou for his lack of a role.
Lou doesn’t think George is an aggressive enough person to be the project manager.
Arsenio doesn’t know what happened at the location with Adam’s subteam, and neither does George. That said, what they do know is that there are members of the team who wanted Lou to be elsewhere.
George assumes he will be fired. With that, George has been fired.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 5 Episode 4, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.