The Apprentice 2, Episode 8: Military... Police?

Not much time for the boardroom this week - it seems pretty obvious who is going, though. Apex comes to the boardroom, and of course Jennifer is exempt. By the way, in my article last week, I short-changed Jennifer by saying she didn't give credit to her team. I wrote that part from memory, and my memory was faulty. Immediately after they were declared the winner, she DID tell her team what a great job they did.

Trump wastes no time asking Elizabeth what went wrong. She says they didn't have a good idea before they started. Trump asks if that was her fault, she says no, it was that they didn't have a specific idea to latch the campaign on. Yes, you did. It just wasn't a good one, and you didn't come up with anything better. He asks her if she is a good leader? She defines leader as someone who sticks by their convictions. She could have gone the easy route and picked a generic campaign that she didn't believe in, and she doesn't do that. She thought she could come up with a better idea, and she swung for the fences.

What the HELL is she talking about? Was the campaign not militaristic? Did the rest of the team want something other than the finished product? I don't get it. Is she saying the final product was her idea? And if "sticking by her convictions" means changing her mind endlessly, I guess she did that, all right.

Trump wants to see the ad. Donny was right - it make it look like the war is going on in New York. Carolyn says it's pretty bad. Trump says it looks like they're in a police state - he wants to go home and lock the door. Wives won't want their husbands to join in, unless they have a bad relationship.

Trump asks if Raj wanted the campaign, and asks if he tried to shove it down Elizabeth's throat. Raj agrees, saying he wanted to go full-tilt on the idea, all the way. Trump loves this, saying that if you believe your idea is good, you should push for it. Besides, he says, there were no other ideas on the table, so he pushed the best idea there was.

Jen defends Raj, she thinks he did a solid job and defended his position well. Chris agrees that he stood up for an idea, whether it was good or bad. Ivana agrees, commending Raj for taking a position, which Elizabeth wasn't willing to do. He asks Ivana if she was weak and ineffective, or just weak. Ivana says both. Ouch. Elizabeth tries to say that she had her position, that the ad was a bad idea. Trump ignores her, and Jen says she was weak and ineffective, indecisive to the point of paralysis. She was terrible, and she struck down every idea they had.

Trump turns to Elizabeth and tells her the others think she's incompetent. He asks Jen if that's too strong, she says no. Elizabeth keeps saying that she didn't like the campaign and tried to come up with something better. Kevin butts in at this point, telling Trump how they stayed up half the night to come up with an idea she liked, only to have her throw it out when the team wasn't behind it. She argues, but pretty much says the same story except that she claims she was "going to go with it anyway," which is complete bull.

Trump stops her there. He says, as a leader, if you think you're right, you have to stand by your decision, no matter what. He doesn't mention it, but as a comparison, look at how Andy steadfastly refused to "sex up" their ads, and ended up with a campaign that Donny went nuts for. Back to the boardroom, Trump says that the whole team thought Elizabeth was terrible, and asks what is missing with her. She has great credentials, but showed no leadership.

He asks who she would bring into the boardroom, and she picks Raj and Chris. Raj I can understand, but why Chris? Makes no sense. There's a long pause. Trump says he doesn't think it's necessary, Elizabeth is fired. I've seen a lot of awesome stuff in this episode tonight, but that was King Awesome. Raj and Elizabeth are shocked. Trump says he doesn't want to waste time, and shoos everyone out of the boardroom. Carolyn looks like she's trying not to bust out laughing. George says the end result would have been the same either way.

Next week: Rob, Jen C., Stacie, and Bradford are back. Why? Who cares! This is gonna be fun!

Elizabeth doesn't know why they ganged up on her. Maybe because you were a terrible leader? She thinks she was an easy target. She stands by her convictions. WHAT convictions! She could not have led a team using a campaign that was absolutely wrong. It was vicious and uncalled for how they ganged up on her. They said some untrue things. Not in the version I saw. This is one seriously deluded woman. Go home.

Mike DeGeorge has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Management from Christian Brothers University in Memphis, and has almost ten years of management experience. He is also Associate Editor of RNO. Email Mike at mikmaria@charter.net.

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