The Apprentice 2, Episode 7: Dog Eat Dog

At the suite, the pre-boardroom sniping is in full swing. Lil Stacy says that they could have “struck gold” with her pet photo idea. She adds that she never would want to give dog massages, suggesting that was a bad idea. Well, it was a bad idea that beat you, wasn’t it? Wes says that there is no way Stacy will be the next apprentice. She talks and argues way too much. He tells Stacy that he won’t bad-mouth her in the boardroom if she does the same for him. He adds that it’s easy to point fingers at the project manager. Immediately after, the editors show us Stacy saying in an interview that Wes failed, it’s his fault they lost, and that he’ll surely be fired.

The team heads to the boardroom, and Trump questions Maria (who is wearing a flower pin that is almost as big as her head) first. He says that since she’s exempt this week, she can speak freely. What went wrong? Maria says they had a problem with leadership, and that they didn’t have much time to complete a tough task. Trump says the task wasn’t that hard. Kelly says that Wes made some critical mistakes, and that his slow decisions caused them to miss the lunch rush. Carolyn asks him how many dogs he washed in two hours. He’s not sure – maybe eight? Carolyn says that it was only four. Sandy says that she washed dogs also, and that she did as many as Kelly did. Trump asks how many that was – four or eight? He says that he hates people who exaggerate. I don’t think Kelly really meant anything by it. He was just giving a guess as to how many dogs he washed in those first few hours.

Sandy adds that there wasn’t enough traffic in their location and that they didn’t charge enough. Trump agrees that it was the wrong location. Wes says the location was fine, but it was just slow. Well, then, the location wasn’t fine, was it, Wes?

Wes says that they weren’t able to switch locations or to start a second branch because Andy lost the phone in the cab. Trump says that he’s been sticking up for Andy for weeks, but now he’s not so sure that was a good idea. He calls Andy a disaster. Andy says that’s not true, and that he closed more deals than anyone else.

Trump asks Wes what the problem is with Andy. Is it, once again, that he’s too young? Wes says that Andy requires too much management. It’s interesting – project managers keep saying that about Andy, but we really haven’t seen it yet. I suspect it’s true, since we’ve heard it so many times. Andy points out that he made a huge contribution by finding the team’s charity, Kitty Kind. Trump thinks the charity was a bad choice, since it’s for cats, not dogs, adding, “The last thing dogs want to know is that they’re helping cats.” Hee! Allen thinks they should have offered more services, like the other team did. Trump can’t believe dog massage exists, and says he’d rather stick to building buildings.

Trump asks Stacy if she is at all to blame for the team’s loss. Stacy maintains that she had nothing at all to do with it. She says she’d fire Andy, because Wes had his faults, but is stronger than Andy overall. Andy says he’d fire Wes.

Trump asks Wes who he wants to bring to the boardroom. Wes chooses Andy and Lil Stacy. He explains that Kelly and Sandy did a great job, and that Maria is exempt, so he has no reason to bring a third person with him. That makes sense. The candidates leave so that Trump, Allen, and Carolyn can talk about them.

Carolyn says that Stacy didn’t produce anything, that Andy was all over the place, and that Wes was a poor leader. I have a feeling that if Carolyn had the choice, she’d fire the lot of them right now. Allen says that Andy’s losing the phone was a huge problem, but that Stacy didn’t put in enough effort. He asks, “What did she do other than debate?”

Stacy is so screwed, I just know it.

Trump calls the three back into the boardroom. He asks Wes why he chose Stacy. Wes says that Stacy wasted time with bad ideas. Her pet costume thing was too expensive and they didn’t have enough time to execute it well. Yet, she kept bringing it up, which wasted the team’s time.

Stacy, of course, argues with that. It was, she says, a great idea. Carolyn asks her if she’s just bad at selling her ideas. Then, she bluntly asks Stacy what she contributed. Stacy says she did promotions, but Carolyn says Maria did the same thing. Why didn’t Wes use Lil Stacy’s ideas? Stacy blames Wes for failing to see her wisdom. Andy says that Stacy has good ideas, but doesn’t do a good job of convincing others to buy them.

Trump says that’s crucial to sell your ideas (and maybe at that moment, he thought, “Hey, that would make a great Trump Lesson of the Week!”). Carolyn says that sometimes you have to fight to get your point across. Allen agrees, and says that you have to convince the leader, not just stand in the way. Wes says that’s why he is such a good leader – people listen to his ideas. Trump basically tells him to forget that notion, that he was a lousy leader. Andy’s losing the phone was a horrible mistake. But he hates that Lil Stacy never takes responsibility for anything. Stacy says she’d like to be responsible and would love to be project manager. That’s funny, because I never heard her volunteer. Carolyn says it’s not up to them to make her project manager – she needs to convince her team to put her in charge. Trump says that Lil Stacy is always complaining and consistently blames the project manager for what went wrong. Even though Wes and Andy made some big mistakes, Stacy is fired.

Really, any one of these three could have been reasonably fired this week. Wes wasted a lot of time with the charity idea and got a late start, which was a big problem for the team. Because Andy lost the phone, the team wasn’t able to work more than one location, which definitely cost them business. And Stacy not only didn’t offer anything to the team, she actually hurt them by being a constant negative voice. In the end, it looks like Andy and Wes have more potential than Stacy does to contribute to the team, so it makes sense that Stacy got the axe this week.

Lil Stacy grabs a suitcase that is almost as big as she is, and heads for the street. Wes tries to give her a hug, but she refuses and shakes his hand instead. In the boardroom, Carolyn is still disgusted with Lil Stacy. “For her to say give me the responsibility,” Carolyn asks, “Go get it yourself.” Trump says that Lil Stacy never took responsibility, and he’s tired of it.

In Lil Stacy’s cab ride home, she says Wes tried to blame her for their failure, which is “amusing” to her, since she tried to help. She says that Trump didn’t get to know her. She has no regrets, and learned a lot. It kills me that every week, the person who got fired claims to have no regrets and to have learned a lot. You’d think that if they really did learn a lot, they’d have figured out why they lost and might regret something that they did.

Next week, Andy apparently decides he’s had enough of being dragged to the boardroom, so he fights back by serving as project manager. And is there a mutiny at Apex? The voiceover promises, “It’s getting vicious.” I am so there.

Betsy is the Associate Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached with any comments at betsyw42@hotmail.com.

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