The Apprentice 2 “A Look Back”: Ah, Memories

We don’t see much more of the fashion task. Raj famously wears his smoking jacket, and Isaac Mizrahi initially thinks that this oddly dressed person might be the designer. After Mosaic loses, Trump says John was a lousy leader and fires him. John says in an interview that if you’re going to get fired, you can at least take some comfort in being fired by the very best. Trump says it was a tough call, but that Mosaic lost due to their pricing and John should have been more involved in that decision.

The next week, Trump restructures the teams. Andy and Wes think that the new Mosaic will be great. Wes says that Andy is “the smartest kid,” Kelly is very strong, Lil Stacy is annoying, but a tough negotiator, and Sandy will be a workhorse. When the teams are challenged to come up with a service business for dogs, Raj goes to talk to a groomer for advice. The groomer basically tells him that what they want to do is impossible, and that no one can groom a dog on the street. The groomer goes on to tell him how delicate dogs can be, including a rather gross description of how they might accidentally knock a dog’s eye out of its socket. Luckily for Apex, Raj chooses to ignore the guy. Apex wins the task, and at long last, Lil Stacy gets fired. In her interview, Lil Stacy says that she is a smart person with a lot to say, but that maybe she needs to be a better listener. Good plan, Lil Stacy. Trump says that Lil Stacy annoyed everyone, including him.

When the teams have to come up with an advertising campaign for the New York Police Department, Elizabeth is paralyzed with indecision, even from the beginning. Kevin and Ivana talk and agree that she’s just inept. When her team loses, Elizabeth is fired without a second act in the boardroom. In her post-firing interview, Elizabeth is quite insightful. She says that she allowed other people’s decisions to influence her so much that she couldn’t function. Looking back, she realizes this is a problem she really needs to work on. Good for you, Elizabeth. Trump says that she lost control, so he had to fire her.

The next challenge is to renovate a house, and one team discovers that the house is already occupied, by baby birds. Raj and his team save the birds, but lose the task. In a very honest interview, Raj says that he shouldn’t have changed the house from four bedrooms to three and that he picked the wrong darned contractor. He says he’s not broken-hearted and promises that America hasn’t seen the last of him. Trump says that he liked Raj, and that he was a character, but he screwed up and had to get fired.

In the bridal shop challenge, Kelly may be project manager, but Sandy is clearly the one in charge. She tells Kelly exactly what they need to do, including cleaning any and all dust off of the floors and making the bathroom spotless. Andy takes on the unpleasant task of cleaning the bathroom and even makes a lovely toilet paper pyramid. Before the doors open, Sandy gives the vendors a pep talk about selling all of the dresses so that no one has to take any gowns back to their showrooms. It’s a nice little speech, and when she’s done, it’s clearly time to get to work… but Maria has to jump in and give her two cents. Maria prattles on about her own home economics skills, experience with making tailored suits, and so on. It’s admittedly hard to focus on what she has to say, since I’m distracted by the flower pin the size of her head that’s on her lapel. Sandy finds Maria’s interruption “uncalled for and unnecessary,” and I agree.

Apex loses the task and blames project manager Chris. Chris says that he didn’t do a good job in the task, so he understands why he got fired. Trump says that Chris may have wanted to lead, but when he got the chance, he didn’t do a good job.

We learn of a little corporate espionage in the Levi’s task – Wes finds a prototype of Apex’s fit wheel in the copy machine. Whoever left it there is an idiot, because Maria immediately says they can use this information to their advantage. Sandy thinks they can do better and comes up with a different way to show the different fits of the jeans. When Mosaic loses, Trump can’t decide which was worse – Maria’s crazy power trip or the fact that Wes let it happen – so he fires them both. And for those of you who were amused by the fact that the two of them had to share a cab, they also have to share a final interview. Wes says that they over promised and under delivered. Maria thinks they were targeted because they took on a lot of responsibility. Well, that’s one way to look at it, I guess.

The only new material we see in the Pepsi task is that Sandy and Andy determined which of them would be project manager by a coin toss. And in case you’re keeping a stalker journal about Andy, his lucky side of the coin is tails. When the team loses, Sandy and Jen dominate the boardroom brawl, and Andy is fired. Andy says in his final interview that he regrets letting the two of them talk so much. Trump says that he hated to fire Andy because he’s smart and talented. However, he’s still young, and he let the rest of the team run over him.

At the end, we see some quick flashes of the challenges ahead. It looks like one will involve a basketball tournament, and another will include a polo match. Who will be the next Apprentice? We’ll find out in just a few weeks.

Betsy Wasser is the Associate Editor of Reality News Online. You can reach her with any comments at betsyw42@hotmail.com.

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