The Apprentice LA - Episode 14

Well look at us. Here in our final recap. It’s been a long road, and a subsequently long cumulative recap (about 80,000 words!). But we’ve had fun, haven’t we. Now it’s time for one of you to go on a reality show. I’ve enjoyed this experience thoroughly, but now I just want to sit back and watch someone else on one. So get on that.

Anyway, let’s continue where we left off in Episode 13 recap, Saturday morning before the finale.

So Nikki and I spent the majority of the day Saturday recovering from the night before, and around 6pm we met the cast in the lobby and headed in vans to the Hollywood Bowl for a meeting and rehearsal. The highlight of this meeting was the Mark Burnett assistant lady coming in and telling us that even though all previous casts had been paid (about $1,500 per episode they appear in), because of the additional costs of filming in LA, etc., we would not be compensated for the time we spent filming.

Chaos.

18 furious type-AAA personalities, all viciously attacking the messenger at once. Secretly, I found this scene highly entertaining, but there was no smiling in that room.

It was pretty ridiculous—every other cast had been paid, and we had been misled the whole time to think we would be as well, and this was a big surprise. So the conversation predictably evolved into the cast passive-aggressively threatening to not show up at the finale, and Derek even warned that Mark Burnett may expect to see “shenanigans” from those who did show up. Good times.

The next morning, we all received a personal phone call with the news that Mark Burnett had “rectified the situation,” and that we would all be paid in full. Yay threats!

Anyway, that night, Stefanie threw a cocktail party for the cast in her uncle’s screening facility in Beverly Hills.

I showed up with Nikki, my friend Lunin, my dad and his wife Jane, and my two sisters.

We walked in to see most of the cast, and a bunch of cast members’ friends and family, all milling about, chatting it up. There were screens everywhere, playing clips from the show.

Before I could even get my bearings, Lunin and my father had launched into a vicious, neck-and-neck competition regarding who could be more awkward at the party. Though my dad, a seasoned awkward pro, had begun as the 3-1 favorite, Lunin came flying out of the gates, and took the early lead. At one point, I noticed him standing about 15 feet away, by himself, sweating, expressionless, standing perfectly still amidst movement all around him, staring straight ahead. He was like the Michael Jordan of awkwardness.

Anyway, this battle lost intensity when my father took off after about 30 minutes, and Lunin became liquored up, which seemed to solve most of his problems.

On the other side of the coin, my sisters were chatting it up like they owned the place, especially my 17-year-old sister Jordan, who took about 11 seconds to become the life of the party. I looked over at one point to see her spoon-feeding spaghetti into James’ mouth, with James looking horrified and trying to find some way out. Not a shy girl.

The only cast members not to show were Michelle, and Surya (who is not fond of Stefanie). A highlight was meeting Frank’s family, who are exactly how you picture Frank’s family. It was also fun meeting Frank’s girlfriend—I asked the obvious question: “What’s it like dating Frank?” She responded, hilariously, in a comically thick New York accent, “It’s exhausting.” HA.

I also found myself talking with James and his wife when the clip of my final boardroom came on the TV. “That sucked,” I said. They nodded awkwardly. Fun!

Another highlight was the news that Kristine will be on the cover of the June issue of Playboy. Wowsers. (This has been all over the news, and the second headline of CNN.com for much of last week, instantly making her more famous than the rest of the cast combined.)

All in all, fun event.

Sunday, the whole cast met in the lobby at 2pm and vans took us to the Hollywood Bowl. This ridiculous buffer of time was mainly for the girls to get all haired and make upped, so I found myself sitting around with Martin, Derek, Carey, Surya, and Aaron for 4 hours in the “men’s dressing room.” Finalists were in their own rooms elsewhere, since technically, finalists aren’t supposed to interact with anyone else the whole weekend. This was idiotic, since we had all just spent the whole weekend together. It’s like when a college freshman comes home for Thanksgiving break, and the parents impose a curfew—even though they’ve been living on their own and doing whatever they want on weekend nights for the past 3 months.

So anyway, we all sat around the dressing room lazily, which was relaxing and pleasant and boring. Until 5:15pm, when I realized that my shoes were back in the hotel.

Why am I like this?

It’s like forgetting to bring my ID to two subsequent aircraft rewards, or forgetting my ties when I showed up at the final week of the audition process. Tim Urban: smart guy + idiot.

So I bolted out of the room, and told one of the production ladies that I had no shoes. She was like, “FUCKING FUCK,” and ran off to see if she could find someone who could zip back to the hotel to get my shoes. She came back and told me that someone went, but it was unclear as to whether they’d be able to make it back in time.

I looked down at my dirty New Balance sneakers. This would be interesting.

A few minutes later, we were all brought up to the stage and told where we’d be sitting, etc. They told us that any of us could be called on at any time, and that whatever you do, don’t swear. But they also encouraged us not to be too tame, and to interrupt or argue if we felt the desire to.

Back down in the room, they brought the male cast members into the makeup room, and unglared us (this was the first time production had put makeup on any of us during the whole experience). I went back in the dressing room, to find—MY SHOES.

YES.

Now, no one could stop me. I got in my suit, and thought through in my head how I wanted to answer the various questions that could be thrown at me:

“Are you still with Nicole?”
“Are you going to marry Nicole?”
“Are you in love with Nicole?”
“Who should win?”
“What do you think of Frank?”
“What do you think of James?”
“What do you think of Stefanie?”
“Defend your video.”
“Attack the other video.”

I ended up only being asked the 4th question (in typical Tim last-minute form, I first thought about how I would answer this question about 10 minutes before going on stage).
Apparently, they had a whole “Tim, are you gonna marry Nicole?” segment planned, and cut it at the last minute—too bad, I had some funny answers up my sleeve.

So finally, it’s 7pm, showtime, and we’re brought upstairs. Backstage, where we waited, there was a TV, tuned into NBC. A minute before 7, suddenly backstage with us, there was Trump, Ivanka, and Don Jr. They cordially said hi to us, and then were ushered onto the stage. Suddenly they appeared on the TV we were all watching. Weird.

We all stood there together, and watched that season recap montage that led off the finale. It was fun. Every time someone was fired, we’d boo, and laugh every time anything awkward happened. It was also bizarre, because we were watching an hour of TV that we were all about to be in. We were all about to go inside the TV (sorry, but this shit weirds me out).

So they bring us to our places, and then the door opens, and we all walk out into our seats, to applause. Really fun times.

I looked out at the crowd and tried to spot people I knew, but I couldn’t. Between trying to spot people in the audience, and realizing that I was finding myself feeling entertained by the show as if I was a spectator, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t simply watching the show like everyone in the audience, I was in the show and could be called on at any time. I had to keep reminding myself to focus, in case I got a “Tim, what do you think about this?” and had to know what was just said.

So after all the introductory stuff, Trump says, "We’re gonna watch the two commercials now. They were both good—one was better than the other—but we’ll talk about that. " And sitting there at that moment, I thought, “Frank and Nicole are done.” The hope had been that the commercials were deemed a wash, and everyone was on equal footing. Even though it hadn’t made the edit in episode 13, I knew that Ivanka and Don Jr. would be gunning for Nicole and Frank, since I had seen them do it 10 months earlier in the final boardroom. The big question had been: Will he fire people based on the videos? As it turns out, the answer was yes.

So he shows the videos, and they talk about them for a bit. Then, Trump says, “Tim, of these four, who should win?”

Nothing will jolt you out of “Am I watching TV or am I in the TV?” limbo like having Trump suddenly address you. Freaky.

So I kind of smile, because every person in the Hollywood Bowl knew I was going to say Nicole. Everyone laughed, and finally, I started in with my answer, and as soon as I said, “Nicole,” everyone laughed again. Sigh. So I admit that I have no credibility on the topic, and Trump agrees.

I explain that I’m going to mention a couple objective facts that have nothing to do with my personal bias.

1) With her own corporation, she transacts tens of millions of dollars of real estate on a daily basis without blinking an eye (exactly what a job with Trump would require).

2) She was the only one of the four to step up as project manager early (week 2), something that takes guts and should be noted (Frank never stepped up voluntarily, Stefanie actively shied away from the role the entire time, and James only stepped up week 9 after he had been attacked in a boardroom).

Trump agrees that “That’s true. She’s very capable. And so are you.” I’m thinking that last part was his way of saying, “Now that I watched the episodes, I think you did well.”

He asks Aaron the same question, and Aaron, also predictably, says James.

They play the two videos. This was unpleasant. Ten months ago, three people and I, on no sleep, had constructed a mediocre 60 second commercial. Now, it was playing in front of a massive live audience. “Why is this weird dumb video still a part of my life?” I kept thinking. Plus, even though millions of people watched it in the episode the week before (which is a staggering number—even on the nights when the ratings sucked, the audience would fill 200 Fenway Parks), it somehow felt bigger to have 2,000 people sitting there with me in the Hollywood Bowl watching it. If I’m presenting a video to 2,000 fucking people, I want it to be top quality. Instead, I was presenting mediocrity to them—it felt like writing a terrible, last minute paper in college and reading it aloud to 2,000 people.

As for the other team’s video, I wouldn’t say it was phenomenal by any means, but they did a better job of writing a 60 second commercial for 60 seconds. We wrote a 90 second commercial and squished it into 60 seconds. I think our original idea to capture the “Super-Mom”—the demographic that makes up 90% of Renuzit’s consumers—was a better concept than a fat smelly man they used as their lead character. But a good concept not pulled off well is inferior to a decent concept executed better.

Then, Trump announces the two potential jobs, and the four finalists have to declare their choice (this is the first time they learn what the locations are). The one thing of note here was the end of Frank’s description of why he wants the job in Atlanta—something along the lines of, “I want to build buildings, and those ah two buildings that I can help you....[2 full seconds of silence]….erect.” To which the crowd burst out laughing. Ha.

So we go to commercial, and upon returning, we hear the ominous boardroom music. Uh oh. He takes about 30 seconds to fire Frank and Nicole, which was no surprise, but it was still sad. I didn’t like watching either one happen.

Of course, his official reasons for firing Nikki were ludicrous—1) She brought me back for the final task. Absurd because she and Frank decided this together, I was the completely obvious choice for them, I was a good asset to them on the task, the other options would have been Martin, Carey, Michelle, or someone on Kinetic who they hadn’t worked with, and finally, the first thing Trump did was compliment both team’s choices of people. And 2) Trump doesn’t believe in interoffice romance, and he wants her to “only love him.” Absurd because A) last year’s winner was the guy with the interoffice romance, B) Trump is the one who kept bringing this up, no one else, and C) when he’d bring it up, he’d say things like, “what a great couple—good job, Tim. I may have to hire you if you land her.” Basically, Trump and production decided that James and Stef made a better final 2 than Frank and Nicole (for whatever reasons), and they threw out some evidence to justify it.

So it’s down to the final two, and Trump plays their videos. James at his job and with his cute kids, and Stefanie wearing a hardhat (all lawyers spend time on construction sites with hardhats on, right?) and doing karate. They had filmed these same videos for Frank and Nicole as well, and they had flown me to Chicago a few months earlier to be in Nikki’s video (after finding out that she and I were still together). It took one day to film—there was a camera crew and one of the show’s producers, and they filmed her in her office, at a gas station talking to a client, in her house, and at dinner with me. Then we took the crew out and all got drunk together—it was a good time.

Anyway, up to the very last segment of the show, I thought James was the winner. Can you really anoint Stef the winner when she never showed interest in leading the group, and only played a front and center part of one task (Lexus)? Up to the very end, friends of mine would talk about James, Nikki, Surya, Frank, and the other girl on your team. It just didn’t seem possible for her to win.

But man, that girl can argue in a boardroom. She definitely blew James away at the finale, and I suppose she is a strong, smart, extremely capable woman, so I guess I can see the reasoning. I guess.

Anyway, later that night, I told James that until after the last commercial, I thought he had it. “I did too,” he said. And the way he got fired was weird. Trump’s last words to James included something like, “there was some dialogue throughout the course of this that really bothered me, and you know what I’m talking about.” No one, including James, does seem to know what he’s talking about. My guess is that he’s referring to week 8 (when Surya accused him of playing the eleventh-hour naysayer to cover his own ass, and thinking more about the pending boardroom than the task at hand). But no one really knows.

So he hires Stef, everyone claps, she hugs everyone, and the finale ends.

The next 20 minutes were pure mayhem. Suddenly there’s a ton of press on stage interviewing cast members, people are talking to Trump and the kids, some former cast members are milling around, and a bunch of fans are off the stage looking on. I walked over and said hi to some of them, and suddenly, a whole crowd came over, and people were firing questions, and I took a bunch of pictures and signed autographs. It was fun. Of course, there were a contingent of completely insane, delusional people as well—one guy told me he just arrived in LA for the finale and asked politely if it was okay if he crashed at my house. Another guy starting telling me a business pitch he wanted to give Trump, and asked me if I’d relay the information to him.

Anyway, after it all died down, Nikki went and changed, and we headed out to catch a cab to the after-party. On the cab there, I asked her how she was doing. She was just fine—not one to dwell.

Just as we were catching our breath, we arrived at the after-party. Complete chaos.

There was a red carpet outside, and immediately upon walking in, we both suddenly had a camera and press person in our face and a crowd of people around.

Like standing on the edge of the stage earlier, it was like, for one night, we were legit celebrities (but for full effect you have to forget that everyone at that party is a huge Apprentice fan). The whole cast was there, and everyone had their friends and family there, and every cast member was being celebrated by all their own people and all the fans there, so it was like 18 people’s birthdays at once. Quite fun, I must say.

Trump and the kids were there for awhile, but we got there too late and missed him (apparently my mom had talked to him, and told him that it was silly to fire me for the romance, since “he learned it from you.” God bless her soul, but she can be very stressful to have around in a situation like this). Also, apparently Trump had gone up to Surya, who had been one of his favorites, and, referring to his “Sanjaya should win comment,” said, “That was stupid, and embarrassing, and it wasn’t even funny.” Yikes.

Another weird element at the party was the dozens of former Apprentice cast members that were there. This presented the incredibly bizarre phenomenon of mutual recognition between two strangers. And not just facial or name recognition—you know each other. I’d turn around and see someone from another season, and immediately recognize them, and then they’d look at me and immediately recognize me, and we’d be like, “Hey! Great to see you, how’ve you been?” Except we had never met before. Even when actors recognize each other, they don’t know each other. In this case, I’d know what they did for a living, I’d know about their background, their sense of humor, and their general personality. And vice versa. Just incredibly surreal. Probably even weirder for me than them, because when I had watched them, I had no association with the show at all. I’d just sit there with my roommate, and discuss these people, and like them, and hate them, and suddenly, they were right there, being like, “Tim! Hey!”

Anyway, for anyone who watched season 4—I hung out with Markus. The Markus. I can’t possibly express how happy this made me.

The night evolved into a blur, and let’s just say that Monday was not a pleasant day. But what a crazy night. What a crazy weekend.

The next morning, everyone checked out of the hotel, and I said goodbye to some people in the lobby. It was sad. Sure, a lot of us will keep in touch, but it would most likely be the last time the cast will be all together. And it really felt like the end of an era. Yeah, there will be more interviews, and the thing will drag on for quite some more time, but the show itself was done. Finally, 14 months after I went to that open casting call, it really was over.

All in all, the whole thing was a phenomenal experience. As for the, “would you do it again?” question, I’d compare it to a hard, beautiful hike. Was it a wonderful experience? Yes. If I could go back, would I do it again? Absolutely. Will I ever forget it? No. If I could do another one right now, would I? Not a chance in hell.

As I said, now it’s your turn.