So he thinks he should have been fired, and he was taking one for the team? That’s self-sacrifice worthy of the hero of Clint’s upcoming vanity press novel, Flint Brown: Bluetooth Cowboy! (“Run!” yelled Flint, diving onto the live grenade. “My stomach muscles might be able to contain the blast, but if not, I can’t take the risk that you’ll be hurt!”)
Celebrity Apprentice Smackdown: Season 2, Episode 7 (Apr 20)
Opening credits! The shot of Herschel Walker standing in front of a sign that says “Celebrity Cupcakes” makes me laugh for reasons I can’t explain or even understand.
Trump meets the Retarded Baby Ducklings on the sidewalk. He assigns Brian McKnight to Athena, a decision that satisfies Brian. Then they all joke about the Boardroom because nobody can stay mad overnight. Also, Trump calls Khloe a dirty, drunk-driving whore, but not in those words. Joan Rivers thinks that Khloe’s becoming “such an example”. You know, like Martin Luther King or Simon Wiesenthal.
Did you know identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in America? It’s a growth industry! Todd and Andrew of Lifelock are here to introduce the task. Todd’s that guy who does the ad where he puts his social security number onscreen, because he’s so certain of his identity protection service. Todd looks a little bit like Bob Odenkirk, and since Andrew is bald and wears glasses, I can pretend that this is a lost episode of Mr. Show.
The Ducklings are going to create a package and retail store display for Lifelock, even though they’re selling a service instead of a product (That’s actually an interesting marketing assignment. I didn’t know the show was capable of that anymore.–Myndi) George and Ivanka will be the wingmen, which makes me happy. Natalie steps up as Project Manager for KOTU, and Brian takes a second turn as PM on the Athena side. Brian foreshadows that he’s trying to get back into the swing of things after missing the last task.
Athena meets with the executives, and Todd is impressed with their questions. He spots Annie Duke as being the one in control, and notes that Brian is sort of sitting back and not participating. At the KOTU meeting, they explain that famous people are some of the biggest targets of identity theft. You know, I was the victim of identity theft once. It was very minor and the damage was minimal, largely because I don’t have anything, but it’s pretty awful. Clint ends the meeting by hitting them up for free Lifelock memberships, because he is That Guy.
At the KOTU “brainstorming” meeting, Clint likes the image of a safe, but Joan prefers a bodyguard. They decide to sell little safes which contain everything a shopper needs to become a member. Their tagline is “Are you safe?” which is not ending up on a t-shirt anytime soon. Joan doesn’t like the idea, but she keeps it to herself.
Athena wants to use Todd’s image for the display, since that’s what the company’s been using. Jesse James comes up with a cool lock-shaped package that includes a CD-Rom with the information. Brande Roderick explains that she’s just sitting back and listening and then goes out to help Jesse take pictures of locks (That doesn’t really seem like a two person job–Myndi). Meanwhile, Melissa Rivers says “I like punctuation in slogans. Period,” which is really funny, but not in the way she thinks it is. Annie Duke says they’re feeling pretty good about the time limit. Also, Brian McKnight is just totally punched out. He doesn’t give a crap, and you can see it. He has become the Creed of Athena. (The band or the character from The Office. It works either way!)
KOTU talks to their graphic designer while Joan tries to rein in her disgust for the boring gray sage. Clint and Herschel then travel to the display builders, who immediately start cutting wood. Athena’s builders are in the same building, only they’re sitting around waiting for somebody to tell them what it is they’re supposed to be building.
Annie then asks the team if anybody’s called the builders yet and offers to do so. Melissa reads this as an effort on Annie’s part to absolve herself of responsibility, which makes no sense. She actually just volunteered to take responsibility. I don’t understand Melissa. (I think her point was that Annie was doing that thing where she asked about doing something, just for the sake of asking, so she could say she did so in the Boardroom.–Myndi) Anyway, the builder says they’ll need their plans by 4 PM in order to finish, but it’s already 3:40. Annie calls Brande, who’s still taking pictures of locks with Jesse. Annie starts to freak out over time, but Brian assures her there’s nothing to worry about, because he totally doesn’t give a crap.
In the Athena van, Brande complains to Jesse that he’s being “relied on for too much stuff”. Jesse is OK with it because “It makes the day go by”. Ha! Jesse has to be from the Midwest. In an interview, Jesse explains that he’s not feeling well, and then we get the super-classy footage of Jesse running into a porta-john to puke. There is sound, which means that either they used the feed from his mike and we just heard actual puke, or the sound guys took the time to add puking in post. Either possibility is horrifying. Jesse heads to the bathroom again after he meets the builders. He interviews that he can tough it out and further “I get kind of pissed when people who work for me are sick. Because I’m selfish.” Ha again! Jesse really does look sick, and he appears to be swigging Pepto-Bismol. So either that means he’s got it from both ends, or they’re using “puke” as TV-code for “poo”. Try not to think about it.
Brande asks the builders a bunch of irritating questions and gets in the way and makes herself the center of attention. It’s all loaded with innuendo and the soundtrack sounds like she’s trying to seduce a cartoon wolf. What’s great is that the builders don’t give a crap. They’ve got stuff to do!
Joan complains to Natalie that the display is boring, because Natalie is pliable and agrees with the last thing she heard. Joan talks her into using Herschel for the display. They call in the new change to Clint, which has all four of them peeking around the side. Clint gets upset that Brande’s walking around so he goes to another room with Herschel. Herschel finally takes the phone and talks to Joan, then berates Clint for his poor communication skills.
At Athena, their designer finds that the CD they brought over is blank. Brande calls the Athena office to e-mail the images they need, and because she only asks for the logos, they don’t send her Todd’s picture. Melissa then gripes about how Annie has taken over, which is the opposite of her previous complaint. George swings by for a visit, just as they’re all moping around on their laptops and not talking to one another. George thinks their concept is boring, and he gets hilariously sarcastic with them. I love George.
The men return to KOTU, just in time for Natalie to talk about all the different ways you can fold paper. Meanwhile, they come up with captions for each of their pictures, and they’re so stupid that you will actually get dumber for hearing them. Of special note is the way that Natalie insists that her caption mention that she got a hole-in-one. Well, sure. That’s totally organic to include in a display about identity theft. And Herschel’s caption implies that Lifelock is the only thing that dissuades him from engaging in identity theft himself. It’s poorly thought out, but KOTU wraps it up in plenty of time.
Athena suffers from difficulty with their e-mail, so they can’t get their image files back and forth, finally Annie decides that Jesse should just send what they have to the printer. Brian has no input, because he’s making a list of his 25 favorite musicians in his head. (Holding spots 1-5? Brian McKnight.) The rest of the team heads over to the builder, where Jesse is taking control. He really looks sick, and we hear that he threw up eight times. How is that even possible? By the fifth time, you’d think there’d be nothing left. By number eight, you’d be barfing up organs and bones. I wouldn’t believe that from most other contestants, but Jesse seems like the kind of guy who could have a baby and then go back to plowing the field. If men had babies, that is.
Annie says that Brande is “literally just wood floating down the stream”, which makes me think that she is literally uncertain about what literally means. Jesse calls Annie “Annie Duke”, first and last name, which makes me think of Tobias Funke. He also suggests that they can add the verbiage to their display with paper and glue since they missed their deadline. How does Jesse’s team lose so often? The guy is really pretty good at this.
Morning comes and KOTU’s safe arrives. They’re thrilled, except that the headshots printed too small. Apparently, this is an easy fix. Athena’s on the other hand, looks boring with lots of white space.
Presentation time! KOTU goes first. Their presentation begins with the whole team claiming to be Joan Rivers. You know, like Spartacus. Because why not make us think of a movie that ends with a mass crucifixion in an episode that airs on Easter? The presentation isn’t great, and it’s a little confusing because their display has a brochure, and there’s also a starter pack but it isn’t clear where you get that. Also, what kind of store would you even see this in? Sadly, nothing hilarious happens.
Now it’s Athena. They’ve jazzed up their display with a picture of Todd and some verbiage. Todd grins broadly at his own picture. Brian handles the presentation, and actually manages to put some enthusiasm into it. (Brian McKnight: Selling It Whether You Want It Or Not (But Girl, You Know You Want It) since 1969) Their display holds the packaging, which is a big advantage over KOTU.
Boardroom Time! When asked, Natalie is not certain that her team won. Way to inspire confidence. Trump is impressed that Joan and Clint are friends again. Joan rates Natalie as a “7 or 8”, which Natalie is happy about. Coincidentally, that’s where she usually ends up ranking in tournament play.
Brian thinks his team was great, which encourages Brande to talk about how much work she and Jesse did. This leads to a discussion of how often Jesse threw up. Trump is impressed, and yes, it was “7 or 8 times”. One round of puking for every point Joan gives Natalie as a leader!
Ivanka says Lifelock enjoyed KOTU’s presentation but didn’t like that the display didn’t house the packaging. Trump is wowed by their packaging, though. George says that Athena hit all the brand messaging, but the audio was clearly added in post. Did George muff a line? Anyway, Athena failed by basically using Lifelock’s existing campaign and just putting it on posterboard. Putting a new hat on Malibu Stacey, as it were.
The results are in, and KOTU managed to win despite making it impossible to actually get something from the display. In the suite, Joan tells everybody that she had dinner with Annie, and Annie hates Brande so it’s time for her to go.
In the Boardroom, George thinks they should have listened to him when he suggested that time might be a problem. Annie is frustrated that nobody listened to her. Brian confirms that he didn’t panic. When asked for the weakest member, Annie names Brian. Joan flips out over this in the suite. I get the feeling there’s some huge friction between Melissa and Brande that we haven’t seen, because Joan acts like naming Brian instead of Brande is a betrayal. George tells Melissa that she lost focus and should have worked more on the packaging and display. She argues with George, which is not a great way to survive a Boardroom. Joan complains that they’re out to get Melissa. Note that nobody has actually cited her as being the problem.
Brande and Jesse agree that Brian should be fired. Melissa says that Brande should be fired because she doesn’t take initiative. Brande explains that she gives 190% and works with “zest”. Annie loves Brande, but doesn’t think she sticks her neck out. She doesn’t play to win. Ivanka suggests that Annie is not playing to win either, as she hasn’t stepped up as Project Manager.
Trump asks Brian why he doesn’t care, and Brian doesn’t have a good answer. He takes Brande and Melissa back to the Boardroom. Now, this makes sense. Brande is the only other person the team named as a problem, and George cited Melissa as not contributing enough. But Joan is furious. She throws a glass. She storms out of the suite because everybody is ganging up on Melissa. I get the feeling that Melissa suffers from some debilitating physical or mental impairment that forces Joan to be ultra-protective. Like she’s spending all her time keeping the world from finding out that Melissa has an IQ of 11, or that she was born without a spine. It’s weird that Joan is angry at Annie, since Annie said nothing at all about Melissa. Annie reassures Brande as they walk out, even though Brande never once mentioned her name.
Seriously, Joan is furious and disgusted with Annie. I don’t quite get what’s going on. She won’t even wait in the suite with Annie. So it’s really awkward when she runs into Annie and Jesse in the hall. Annie even indicates that she fingered Brande in the Boardroom (not like that!), but Joan says it was “wishy-washy”. We didn’t actually see that, but now it’s even more confusing. Annie cited Brian (that we saw) and Brande (which we sort of saw) as contributing to the loss. In fact, she was apparently hard enough on Brande that she felt like she had to apologize on the way out. I’m not sure what else she was supposed to do. I mean, the room was against Brian, so it makes more sense to keep the focus on him, rather than derailing it. Never once did Annie indicate that Melissa was to blame, and Joan’s mad at her anyway. Annie explains that Joan is mad at her for not defending Melissa, and since the only person who had anything to say about Melissa was George, it would have been crazy to defend her. Arguing with George is, more often than not, a trip to the Loser Elevator.
Back in the Boardroom, Trump starts with Brian. Brian admits to time management problems. Trump asks why he brought Melissa back, and he says “You told me I had to bring back two.” Yeah, Brian is over this. Brian won’t commit to which of the two should be fired. Brande says Brian “doesn’t want to be here anymore”. Brian says it’s tough to be here, and Trump turns this into a riff about how Joan is “older than you. Older than me and everybody”. Trump thinks Brian lost his energy since last week, and Brian admits that he has a lot going on, and it’s hard to go through with this now. Something clearly happened while he was away. He’s dead inside now. Remember that old Ren and Stimpy cartoon where Stimpy is sad because he misses his fart? And Ren tries to cheer him up, but Stimpy keeps flatly intoning “I don’t care” over and over? You could replace every shot of Brian in the Boardroom with Stimpy and nobody would even notice.
Trump is actually trying to get Brian to care, but Brian pretty much admits he’d rather not be there anymore, so Trump fires him. Well, at least that one made sense. On the way out, Melissa says “Love you, George”, and George is just storing her in his Hatebook. Brian doesn’t even get a limo rant, just an interview where he says that Trump fired the right person. Brian McKnight: Saying “The Hell with It” since 1969.
The fact that Melissa wasn’t fired doesn’t make Joan any less angry. And then Trump calls everybody back to the Boardroom immediately. There’s a second task! Cripes! They have to hold a fashion show and jewelry auction. And get this, they’ll be auctioning off pieces from Ivanka’s jewelry line! Hey Ivanka, sorry I withheld parental affection until I was sure you wouldn’t grow up ugly – here’s some product placement to make up for it! Also, they’re auctioning off jewelry that’s commercially available? Weak.
Annie jumps in as Project Manager for Athena, because she was waiting for a fundraising task. So the previous two fundraising tasks didn’t count? KOTU nominates Herschel, but Trump asks Joan to be the Manager, because he wants to work up the Annie/Joan rivalry and he can’t wait for it to happen naturally.
In the Athena room, Annie asks Jesse to make up a brochure. Melissa volunteers to pick out the jewelry, which is fine. Then she also volunteers to pick clothes, but Annie gives Brande the job because she “knows the most about beautiful women”. Ha! Melissa is absolutely seething. Brande gets the modeling agency to send all the available models, so they can pick the cream of the crop. Melissa interviews about how irritated she is that Annie and Brande are getting along. Sure, it’s not like Annie could possibly be using the people who are most qualified to get ahead, right? To me it looks like Annie is either trying to motivate the least motivated member of the team, or she’s trying to put enough on Brande that there’s an easy scapegoat who’s no good at defending herself. Melissa doesn’t agree with me.
At KOTU, Joan assigns Natalie to pick the jewelry, and then makes a dusty joke about lesbian golfers. She chooses Clint as the auctioneer, which is a little iffy since that involves paying attention to people. Joan makes a lot of character attacks on Annie, and I’m starting to think that Annie actually stabbed Joan at one point, and it just didn’t make it on camera. The KOTU guys start hitting up their rich buddies to bring in some cash.
Athena also goes after their rich friends, and Jesse remains silent as ever. Man, Sandra Bullock’s agent is working really hard to keep her away from this show. Annie browbeats some poker sap into flying in and buying jewelry. What is up with her? Does she have dirt on every single poker player? It’s certainly not because she’s so likeable – Annie Duke knows where the bodies are buried, you guys. Annie tells the team that if they lose, she’s taking people to the Boardroom based on how much money they raise. Jeese: “So you’re planning on losing?” Hee. Jesse interviews that he’s saving his own big donors for when the money will go to his charity. Plus, you’ve got to figure he’s got a little more limited pool than some of the others. He doesn’t have a hundred pro athletes on speed dial.
In the KOTU van, they’re all afraid of Annie. They come up with the idea of pooling all of their bids on the cheapest piece of jewelry to get the largest profit. I can’t decide if that’s brilliant or stupid. Natalie and Melissa go out to pick their pieces. Since I don’t know a damn thing about jewelry, I’m going to hope that Myndi will throw in an italicized comment about their respective tastes and the overall quality level of the line. (The whole thing boiled down to the fact that you can have a model wearing gorgeous diamond studs that are classic and elegant. But they won’t stand out on a runway. Melissa knows this and picked chunky, large and somewhat trendy pieces that could be showstoppers, while Natalie went with pieces that are understated and classy, yet not terribly unique or exciting.–Myndi)
By the way, they’re meeting at the “Fashion Institute of Technology”. Is that where they develop ever more advanced sewing machines?
Melissa returns to show her jewelry, and she doesn’t get nearly much attention as she’d hoped. At KOTU, Joan doesn’t like Natalie’s choices because they won’t project on the runway. That’s actually a good point, but since she’s wearing an insane necklace that looks like she won it for flashing the hell out of Mardi Gras, I don’t trust her judgment.
At Athena, Brande and Annie are handling the fundraising. Brande takes one donor literally when he says he’d go up to a billion dollars to help them win the task. Melissa is still angry about Annie and Brande and compares them to Lord of the Flies in a way that makes me think she’s not sure what Lord of the Flies is about. Although, Annie and Brande are whispering and giggling, which is deeply irritating. Unless they’re whispering because they don’t have the conch shell.
The skies run red with blood and the Apocalypse is upon us, because Natalie actually comes up with a good idea. Call in one of Annie’s poker rivals who’d love to see her lose. She then calls somebody and we hear her ask for the number on “anyone who would go against Annie”. The poor woman from Information was probably deeply confused by that request.
The KOTU women go out to pick out the fashions, while Clint and Herschel pick models. At the same time (or so the editors tell us), Athena runs through their line of models. Jesse’s impressed at how the women on his team with intelligently choosing models, and assumes the guys at KOTU will pick the one with the biggest boobs. Well, I’d hope so!
Cut to Herschel and Clint staring mutely at one model’s rack. Ha! They can’t think of any questions, so they make her walk around. This provokes a “You’ve walked before” from Clint. He’s a devil with the ladies, that guy. There’s hilarious footage of the guys interviewing the models, and just being entranced by everything they say.
Over at Athena, they find themselves short a blonde. Jesse nominates Brande as a model, and she volunteers to wear the piece of jewelry that her donor is interested in. Yes, it’s a little gross when you think about it too much. And by “too much”, I mean “at all”.
KOUT picks out outfits, and I never thought I’d be sitting here recapping Joan Rivers selecting evening gowns. Life has taken some odd turns. Then she starts picking out underwear, and suddenly I find that I have gone blind. (Hey, at least it was underwear for someone else.–Myndi)
When Athena goes shopping, they have the good idea of bringing their models to the shop so they can try things on. Melissa doesn’t think Brande worried enough about the other models, and then is visibly disgusted when Annie calls them up. You know, Melissa would not exactly make it into my fallout shelter, but those two are really starting to grate. We are, briefly, in agreement.
As Athena works on their brochure, Jesse says he “grew up in the auction business”, and I didn’t know that was really a business that you could grow up in. You know, start out with your parents at a little Mom and Pop auction house… Once again, he mentions that he doesn’t want to use his contacts just yet. That’s either foreshadowing or filler. (I think Sandy told him he could only call her in to help if he made it to the finale. Just my theory.–Myndi)
At KOTU, Natalie contacts one of Annie’s archenemies to show up and put out some money. I really hope that happens because it’ll be awesome.
Well, we’re not ending on an elimination this week, but it’s even better. Trump talks to an unseen person about the situation. He explains that Annie and Joan hate each other, and he’s like this person to keep an eye on things. (Also, I don’t think Annie has ever said anything bad about Joan.) He also describes Melissa as “a little bit bratty”, and that Jesse James “hasn’t raised any money”. And just who is this unseen person? Why, it’s last season’s winner and Meanest Man in the World, Piers Morgan! Hooray! You guys, this is going to be fantastic! I can’t wait to watch Piers get all snooty and dismissive with this batch of ducklings! (It’ll be gold, Jerry. Gold!–Myndi)
Next: Joan and Annie fight it out. Melissa snaps at Joan. Somebody is compared to Hitler. All this, and Piers Morgan too! I can’t wait!
