The Apprentice 2 Finale: Three Trumptastic Hours

Jennifer meets with one of the sponsors, John from X-Box. They have a lounge set up for the basketball players with big plasma screen TVs hooked up to X-Boxes and big leather couches. As John admires the set up, one of the TVs shorts out. They need more power to run all of the TVs and video games. Jennifer says that the building engineer is coming. John is clearly not satisfied and repeatedly asks Jennifer to take care of the problem. Jennifer explains again her plan to have the building engineer take care of it and asks if there’s anything else she can do. John simply says, “Make the problem go away.” He doesn’t want Jen to send someone else to talk to him; he wants her to fix it. John then tells Jennifer that she doesn’t have enough power to run the neon X-Box signs that are in their contract.

I think Jennifer’s actions were dead-on. Of course she doesn’t know how to power a bunch of TVs and video game consoles, so she needs someone else to help her solve the problem. She failed, though, to adequately reassure John that she was going to take care of the problem and quickly.

Good news for Kelly: It’s a bright sunny day, and the ground is dry enough to paint those sponsor logos. But there is bad news, too – the paint for the Wisk logo is a bright color that will scare the horses, so they can’t put the logos by the goals the way they’d planned. Kelly knows he needs to call Wisk, since they have a quarter of a million dollar contract to have the logos on the field.

Jennifer finds the engineer and learns that they need to rent a generator. They get it set up, and the TVs are up and running again. John is happy, but says it should have been done the day before.

Kelly calls Wisk and gives them the bad news about their logo placement. The representative he talks to has him choose the next best spot. Kelly quickly picks an area on the sidelines and has the logo painted there. He thinks it’s a good location and hopes the sponsor agrees.

Meanwhile, Jennifer has solved her MC problem by asking the basketball commissioner to handle it. The mighty Trump helicopter arrives. In an interview, Chris says that Jennifer should have been there to greet him, but she wasn’t. Trump gets in a golf cart to go to the basketball court, trailing children behind him. Jennifer finally finds Trump and walks him to his seat at center court. After she ascertains that he doesn’t need anything, she takes off. In an interview, Jennifer says she would have liked to stick around to watch the game, but she knows she needs to get some work done setting up the charity event that will follow. She puts Pamela in charge. Jennifer’s putting Pamela in charge of a lot, isn’t she? In an interview, Pamela says that she thinks Jen should have been the one to work the game, especially because her position was so visible.

Jennifer scurries off to the venue for the charity event and says that she put Pamela in charge of the game because she needs to get everything else set up. She explains that the needs to work behind the scenes, but that she asked Pamela to please invite Trump to join them at the charity event after the game. She also asks Chris to remind Pamela to do so. In an interview, Jennifer says that someone has to work behind the scenes, so that’s what she’s doing. That’s all well and good, but she should have taken a minute to invite Trump to the event and make him feel important. Could it not be more obvious that Trump likes to be sucked up to a bit?

The game ends, and Trump heads for the TrumpCopter. Chris tells Pamela too late that she needs to invite Trump to the VIP event. Trump notes, perhaps a little sadly, that no one said goodbye to him. Poor guy. He says that the event went well, but that something was lacking. As his chopper takes off, Pamela comes racing out to invite him to the event, but she’s too late.

The polo event begins, and Raj sends John to greet the guests. Elizabeth tells someone that they don’t have the table assignments ready yet, so she’s working around the problem by doing them after the match is over. Meanwhile, Kelly is back in the clubhouse working on his laptop. Carolyn asks him how many guests are there, and Kelly says that he doesn’t know, and that it’s “a bit of a melee.” Carolyn tells him to get outside and get to work. Trump arrives in the TrumpCopter and learns from Carolyn that things are going pretty well. Kelly quickly spots Trump’s pink tie and goes to greet him. As he walks Trump to his box seats, it dawns on Kelly that he never made sure Trump’s seats were in good condition. As fate would have it, they’re not – they’re dirty, and two of them are broken. Kelly is embarrassed and worried that this will count against him. I’m sure it will, because that’s a real miss.

Jennifer welcomes everyone to the post-game VIP event. They’re selling a variety of items in a silent auction, from autographed baseballs to Waterford crystal. Chris reports that, unfortunately, the auction didn’t go as well as they’d hoped. Bob, who works with the NBA charity, puts a pair of autographed sneakers up for a live bid. Jennifer gets things rolling by bidding $500 from her team. The bids keep on coming, and Chris says in an interview that Jennifer did a great job of creating excitement in the auction.

Kelly enjoys the polo match, then says goodbye to Trump. Then, his team hits another snag – Tony Bennett will be there soon, and the bathrooms where he’s supposed to change are “unsanitary.” Chris from the polo club says that he doesn’t have the staff to spare to clean the bathrooms, so Kelly sends John to clean up the clubhouse. I bet John is regretting his game of throwing tissue paper from the gift bags on the floor now. Raj and John rush to clean things up, ending with a spray of cologne to freshen the air. Tony arrives, and the room looks decent. Over in the tent, Kelly speaks to the crowd about the charity and introduces Tony Bennett. Then, he stands just behind the stage and watches the crowd, happy to see how much they’re enjoying the performance. Kelly thinks it was a home run.