Celebrity Apprentice - Episode 2

I can’t possibly stress enough how happy I am to be recapping this episode instead of participating in it. Not that staying up for 36 straight hours to complete some inane project with a bunch of Type-AAA personalities who are smiling at you to your face and trashing you in the private interviews isn’t fun. It’s just that I’d prefer to sit on my couch in my underwear and watch other d-bags do it instead.

And speaking of other d-bags, as much as I like the “celebrity” aspect of this season—let’s be honest, it’s a pretty good idea by NBC—after going through this hell for 12 tasks myself, all I really want in the world is to watch other “normal” people go through the intense misery, knowing it’s not me. The celebrity thing isn’t as entertaining for me to watch, for two main reasons:

1) It’s not nearly as rigorous as a normal season—we all pulled an all-nighter almost every single task and would work for 36 hours straight, while the celebrities are protected by SAG rules and are only allowed to work 12-hour days. We also slept the same room and were together a hideous 24/7, and the celebrities all lived in their own hotel rooms. Bullshit.

2) Trump just isn’t completely comfortable being mean to celebrities. He’s just not in full form this season. He’s a perpetually entertaining man—don’t get me wrong—but he loses some of his bite around this new crowd.

But I’ll take what I can get. They didn’t cancel it, so I won’t complain. Anyway, let’s recap Episode Two.

Opening scene: Carol Alt and Omarosa walk out of the boardroom, agreeing to “leave it in the boardroom.” Not bloody likely.

“Hellooooooo! I’m backkkk!” shrieks Omarosa. The other contestants are horrified—not that she’s back (they knew she wouldn’t be fired)—but simply horrified by Omarosa in general. Carol explains to the group that Tiffany was fired because she “held out with some of her contacts.” Not true—she was fired because she was meek and intimidated, and because there was no chance he was firing Omarosa in the first episode when she’s one of the show’s main draws. Incidentally, after interviewing Tiffany last week, I’m tragically in love with her, and hate all the other women for getting her kicked off.

Omarosa reiterates she and Carol have “left it in the boardroom,” to which Piers replies, correctly, “I don’t think so.” I’m pretty sure he’s really awesome. She comes back with, “Oh, Piers. Keep drinking, tuck your shirt in.” Piers takes the high road and asks her not to get personal. Unfortunately for the Big O, she’s no match for Piers—he’s way too witty, and she won’t win this battle. “We hammered you today—we beat you into the ground,” Piers continues, and gives just a hint of a smile, which mocks Omarosa, the show, and himself for being on the show, all at once. He interviews that Omarosa is “gobby,” whatever that means, and refers to her as both a “creature” and a “mutant” in one sentence. Back to the action, she continues calling him an alcoholic, the one comeback she has on him at this time, and he tells her to “shut up.” You almost feel bad for her. Almost.

Next is a touching scene when Stephen Baldwin presents the $69,000 from the hot dog task to his mother’s breast cancer research fund. This is about the only circumstance in which the editors will portray Stephen Baldwin in a positive light this season.

Trump meets the candidates in Trump Tower and introduces them to “the head of Macy’s,” a hilariously handsome man who looks like Pierce Brosnan. Trump asks the candidates which of them likes animals, and expresses shock when the tough guys, Tito Ortiz and Lennox Lewis, raise their hands. “Pitbulls?” Trump asks. Everyone laughs. Except Lennox Lewis. “Cats,” he says. Cats. Lennox Lewis enjoys cats. I’m happy I know that.

Trump tells us that February is “Pet Adoption Month.” Duh. Tell us something we don’t know.

Trump then introduces a small, Jewish man named Rob Lebowitz. Rob tells them about the “Pedigree Adoption Drive,” which aims to find owners for abandoned dogs. He explains that their task will be to create a 30-second commercial, which will be judged on “message, originality, and creativity.” During my season, we always paid an idiotic amount of attention to these criteria, writing them up on the big board, repeating them over and over, branding and tattooing them on our chests—but I’m realizing now as a viewer that no one cares about the criteria. You just need to create the better commercial.

Trump says, “Rob is going to make the choice, but Terry, Ivanka and I will be looking over his shoulder.” Translation: “This needledick is the judge, but not really.”

The Donald then asks both teams to pick their project managers on the spot. The girls choose Nely Galan. She annoys me. The guys pick Gene Simmons. “Very logical choice,” says Trump.

Which brings up a phenomenal aspect of this season: Trump is intimidated by—perhaps even terrified of—Gene Simmons. Watching Trump struggle to maintain Alpha Dog status on his own show is better than sex. “He’s a real character, this one, I’ll tell ya—he likes the women though, don’t you Gene. Are you hitting on your opponents, Gene?” says Trump. Simmons humors him: “Of course, that’s my job.” Trump says, “That’s your life, forget about your job.” Trump desperately wants to be friends with Gene Simmons.

Simmons interviews that “I’ll fire anybody. I’ll fire Donald Trump.” This will be an enjoyable season, SAG rules or no SAG rules.

In the Empresario “war room,” Nely has everyone hold hands. Everyone complies except Omarosa, who’s not into Nely’s “existential bullshit.” Next, the girls meet with the small Pedigree judge for 45 minutes. I’ll tell you, these meetings are worthless, except for one thing—if you don’t go, you’ll lose the task because that’s an Apprentice cardinal sin. What I learned is that these meetings are mainly another chance for the sponsor to talk their product up to a national audience.

In the guy’s war room, Simmons is taking charge—he actually seems intelligent. He decides to ditch the needle-judge and go straight to the studio. Frankly, if I were Gene Simmons, I would too.

“We need to understand what the commercial is, before we know how to move forward,” says Baldwin. I gotta say, Baldwin is a f***ing creepy dude. Like, a creepy dude.

A bunch of guys throw out a bunch of rejected ideas, including the intensely awesome Trace Adkins, who is shot down by Simmons, who says that he doesn’t “buy that visual.” This makes Adkins way too angry, as he shouts, murderously: “YOU DON’T BUY THAT VISUAL.” Somehow—somehow—these people actually seem crazier than the people on my season. Can’t be, can it?

Baldwin jumps in: “Guys, I’ve worked in film for 20 years.” Piers drops, “Have you?” What a wonderfully hilarious man. Baldwin’s idea is to have Lennox Lewis holding a dog. “Heartstrings,” he proclaims. The group concurs. Baldwin is nominated the director.

Enter Ivanka. The ensuing scene is my favorite scene in the history of television. Real life, too—it’s my favorite scene in the history of television and real life.

Ivanka shakes Simmons’ hand—he holds on way too long and asks, “Are we hiring you to be our spokesman for…” at which time she tears her hand away, and actually shakes off the sleaziness. She then recoils into a defensive, arms-crossed pose, completely horrified by Simmons. Ivanka then asks to hear the concept, and Simmons interrupts with, “Let me finish the thought—she’ll wait.” Ivanka gives him a look of death. Piers starts explaining their commercial to Ivanka, and Simmons again interrupts, telling Ivanka, patronizingly, “Listen, we think it’s terrific you’re here, but we’ve got work to do.” Ivanka interviews: “What wasn’t smart, was Gene Simmons saying ‘I’ll wait’ when I asked a question.” And just when I though it couldn’t possibly get better, Simmons says to Ivanka, “Being the female of the species yourself, does not mean that you are gonna be talking to your sisters about what we talked about?” Ivanka, now livid, says, “To the women, because I’m a woman? No, I have no interest in doing that.” Simmons gazes at her both patronizingly and lustily. He’s a vile man. I’m obsessed with him. Ivanka interviews, ominously: “That was not so smart—I think that was not a strategically intelligent thing to do, as I found it rather rude.”

Now. There are so many phenomenal things about this scene I can barely contain myself. First, I spent the entire summer of ’06 (while we filmed) being scared of Ivanka. We all did. A) She’s incredibly scary, and B) She has this immense power on the show, as Daddy’s precious little girl, and “the person with the most influence over him.” She completely prides herself on being “the real decision maker on the show.” As such, everyone has always completely kissed her wonderfully-shaped ass in these little entrances, and she has grown very accustomed to being The Ice Queen of Terror and Omnipotence. Second, Ivanka is absurdly hot, and every straight guy on the show inevitably becomes thoroughly attracted to her. Third, there was always a sense of, “Wait, I’m actually more accomplished than Ivanka in the real world—why the hell does she have all of this power over me?” So my emotion toward her is some combination of attraction and resentment with a dash of intense fear.

So to see a guy as amazingly filthy as Gene Simmons both slobber all over her while simultaneously disrespecting and patronizing her mercilessly—well, it doesn’t get much better than that. And yet, it does. Because this season’s also different. In any other season, disrespecting Ivanka is an automatic firing offense. But Trump loves Simmons and fears him. So to watch Ivanka’s livid interviews, knowing that her ominous tone and threats don’t actually carry their usual weight—well, it quite simply leaves me quivering with glee.

Anyway, let’s continue. Baldwin and Simmons work on the movie. An incredibly lovable bulldog goes skittering across the slick wooden floor over to an equally lovable Lennox Lewis, who’s laying playfully on the ground. I’m somehow jealous of both of them. Piers has an idea, which is shot down by Creepy Baldwin—Piers interviews that Baldwin and Simmons are taking this one on themselves and are cutting the others out.

They head outside, but have to abort and move back in because the public starts crowding around. I can’t imagine what explanation I would have come up with after seeing Stephen Baldwin, Gene Simmons, Lennox Lewis, and Vincent Pastore on the street filming something together. Though they show some fabricated tension (via selective interview questions) between Baldwin and Simmons, my hunch is that they got along fine throughout the task.

Cut to the girls. Nely is being annoying. Omarosa interviews that it was “very strategic” on her part not to get involved in the creative. Not rocket science. But true.

Nely is having fun as director, and comes over to Nadia, asking her for cages. Nadia explains that she’s been working on getting the music. Nely interviews that “Nadia was not used to working for anybody. Whatever I would tell her do she did, but she did not execute any of the things I told her to do very well.” Maybe it’s editing, but they spend about three minutes showing Nadia being incompetent at everything.

Marilu works with terrible actors, trying to make them into unterrible actors, but seems to want to plunge her head into the wall.

Back to the guys. They pick Trace to do the voiceover. He is absolutely spectacular. He’s also by far the coolest person on the show. Simmons calls Adkins’ voice “the voice of God.” He’s not far off.

Simmons tells the whole team that not only are they not allowed to help, but that they can’t even see the commercial until the judge sees it. Gotta love Celebrity Apprentice. Something like this would never happen on the normal Apprentice. Piers tries again to help. He really wants to be needed. He’s pretty noticeably hurt that they’re not including him—it’s like he wants to say to Simmons, “Obviously we don’t want them to help, but you want my help, right?” No one argues with Simmons because they’re all scared of him.

In the girls’ studio, Nely is trying to “push her brain to do something fabulous.” She should have pushed it harder. Omarosa hilariously refers to the dog’s drool as “foam,” and calls it unappealing. High comedy. I love dogs.

There’s some issue with the voiceover and they come up with some solution. Kind of boring.

Back to the guys. Tito gets fed up, and decides that he’s not scared of anyone…even scary Simmons. He leads the other five guys into the room. They’re taking a stand. Then Simmons and Baldwin kick them out and they all run away. Also high comedy. Simmons tells Baldwin that he would normally tell them to “get the f*** out of here.” He looks extremely angry, but somehow is also smiling. What a frightening man. Baldwin seems to be thinking, “How the hell did I end up alone with Simmons?” and says, “They left…they left.” I may be secretly starting to like Stephen Baldwin. Please don’t tell anyone.

Back in the war room, Tito is irate, storming around and yelling, “I run a multi billion-dollar company.” Odd. I thought he was a UFC fighter. Piers still can’t believe he’s somehow part of the dumb loser group and not in the editing room.

Onto the presentations. Girls first. Nely introduces their video for 74 hours and Trump tells her to shut her face. Omarosa is inexplicably holding a hilarious little white dog. Jennie Finch looks unbelievable. Marilu predicts that they’ll be better than the guys, because they “went after heart, and women are usually better at that than men.” Apparently she hasn’t met the ultra-cuddly Lennox Lewis.

Men’s turn. Simmons says in a terrifying voice, “Good to see you.” The needledick judge explains how upset and hurt he was that they didn’t come to talk to him. Simmons tells him that he doesn’t give a shit, and proceeds to disrespect the needlejudge in every way possible. The judge is petrified of Simmons. Trump is too. This is too f’ing good.

They play the commercial. Tito interviews that when he saw the commercial, he was surprised. He explains, profoundly, that he “went from being kind of a frowned face, to a smile.” I swear, that was verbatim.

In the girls’ room, Nadia thinks that they did a “great, unbelievable job,” and that if they lose, it’s because they “didn’t put six celebrities in a 30-second spot.” I’m not really sure what this meant, but it seems to frighten Nely.

In the guys’ room, Simmons commands the group that “If we lose…it was the right decision to forego [the meeting with the judge].” He’s basically threatening them, should they end up in the boardroom.

And we’re in the boardroom. Trump makes his usual dramatic entrance…except it’s not so scary on this season.

Trump explains that the needlejudge was hurt that the guys didn’t want to talk to him. Ivanka jumps in, while displaying the evil eye, that the needlejudge “also thought that Gene was a little bit abrasive,” adding that she thought Gene had been as well. She says, as scarily as she can muster, “I came to observe you. I asked about the content of the commercial, to which you said to Stephen, ‘she’ll wait.’ You asked me also when I was leaving if I was going to go and tell the females—because of some sisterhood bond—what you had been doing.”

Now here’s where we hit gold.

Ivanka earlier was all like, “Well that was not smart. No, that was not smart at all. You wait till my Daddy hears about this.” And now in the boardroom, she’s like, “Daddy, listen to what he did.”

And Trump responds, “Gene, did you insult my daughter? Nobody insults my daughter.” Except he’s smiling—basically winking and elbowing Simmons—and fully mocking Ivanka. In order to get in with Simmons. Because he wants to be best friends with him. Ivanka is completely irate now, and incredulous that her father is much more interested in being friends with Simmons than defending her. Simmons says, as patronizing as ever, “You’re absolutely right. And I sincerely apologize for any shortsightedness I might have had.” He didn’t even apologize for the disrespect. For the shortsightedness. Just precious.

They show the videos again. The girls’ video is atrocious. So much so that Simmons gives Baldwin a quiet high five in the middle of it. They play the guys’ video. I may or may not have teared up watching it. Omarosa laughs in the middle of it, and afterwards explains that Lewis is “such a big tough guy, and to see him cuddling with this little dog...” Lewis responds that the reaction Omarosa just had is exactly what they were going for. Game, set, match. Omarosa calls Lewis hot.

Yet again, Trump scolds the girls for not using their star power. Nely is hopelessly sticking by their product. Pierce Brosnan scolds the guys for not captioning in “Heavyweight Champion” to let viewers know who Lewis was. Piers Morgan counters that everyone knows who Lewis is, to which Brosnan fires back, “You’re wrong about that,” in a way only an amazing Pierce Brosnan guy can. Piers looks meek. He’s having a bad, bad day.

Trump announces the winner. The guys. No surprise whatsoever.

They head back to the war room and pop champagne. Celebs or no celebs, trust me, the happiness is genuine. You put your heart into a task, and winning feels extraordinary.

In the boardroom, Trump yells at Marilu about her bad voiceovers, at Nely about her lengthy introduction at the presentation, and then asks Jenny Finch what she did. “I was in charge of research, the client, and taking care of the client.” He asks her who she would fire. She pauses, looking positively exquisite, and picks Nadia and Carol. Carol says she’d fire Nadia. Carol’s a tough cookie. Nely says she’s bringing back Nadia and Carol.

The three of them return to the boardroom. Trump yells at Nely for awhile, and she probably would have been fired if Nadia had had even a halfway decent performance. But Nadia doesn’t even give an effort. She’s not remotely in her element in a situation like this, and doesn’t seem to really give a crap either way.

Trump doesn’t see her “being able to lead the team.” He compliments her profusely and then fires her. Afterwards, Trump comments, “That was tough.” Ivanka agrees: “That was as tough as it gets, but I think you made the right decision.” She always thinks he made the right decision.

Cue the firing music. I love the firing music.

Next week, Gene Simmons is on the women’s team, Stephen Baldwin falls off a table, Alec Baldwin makes an appearance, and we’ll apparently be treated to “one of the most surprising boardrooms in Apprentice history.” Of course we will. I love this show.