The Apprentice 4, Episode 6: Friggin’ Slaughter

Trump has heard enough. He says that since Josh lost so horribly, he’s not going to ask him who to bring back. Brian is exempt, so he can go back to the suite. Rebecca and Marshawn can join him, as everyone agrees that the two of them did well also. That leaves Josh, Jennifer, James, and Mark.

Bill says that as project manager, Josh is responsible for the loss. Trump thinks Josh choked in this task. Carolyn can’t believe they had so few people selling in a sales task. She can’t choose one person to fire. Well, I can. I would fire Jennifer. She has indeed been talking up her incredible selling abilities, but she totally failed. She claims that she couldn’t sell in that environment, but Marshawn, Rebecca, and Brian did. Even if sales were low, if she’s so great, she should have done better than the three of them. Sure, the layout wasn’t what she wanted, but she should have adapted, maybe worked the line and showed merchandise to customers there. Or she could have met them after they used the batting cages and sold them the equipment they just used. Pair all of that with her terrible performance last week, and Jennifer is an easy choice.

The four return to the Boardroom. Josh says that Jennifer was the weakest of them all. Jennifer argues that they didn’t follow the original concept. James agrees that they veered off the path, and much to Josh’s shock, says he would fire Josh. Mark blames Jen. Jen cries, “I got a lot done!” Josh takes my point that she failed to work the line at the cage. Jennifer insists that she could and did sell, but no one is impressed. Josh rolls his eyes to the heavens.

Trump focuses on Jennifer, saying that she needed to show them something after the last task, but she didn’t. Josh repeats to an increasingly hysterical Jen that she failed. Carolyn shuts him down by saying that he failed too, a fact that Josh has no choice but to agree with. Trump now zeroes in on Josh, saying that he was an ineffective leader and made bad decisions. James stuck himself in that batting cage all day, and Mark sold almost nothing. With that, Trump fires all four of them, disgustedly saying, “Go home.” Before he leaves, Mark apologizes for letting him down. Trump says all of them are better than this.

The four former candidates leave, and Carolyn says again that this was the worst defeat ever. Bill says sadly that it “had to be done.” Then, in the most awesome part of this episode, all four of them cram into the backseat of the cab. Instead of hearing an exit interview, they all sit there in fidgeting, awkward silence.

Next week, the candidates try to move on from this huge loss. And in two weeks, there’s a Star Wars task! Two weeks is plenty of time to compare Trump’s hair to Chewbacca’s fur.

I was disappointed by the outcome of this task. It felt like a stunt, plain and simple. As I explained before, I think Jennifer should have been the one fired. But if not Jennifer, then fine, fire my boyfriend Josh. He was the project manager of a team that failed miserably and horribly – he should be responsible for that in a big way. And he was so focused on the success of the cage that he didn’t seem to be focused on sales. Send my boyfriend packing – fair enough. But Mark and James really were not to blame for this loss. Mark worked in the batting cage because someone had to, and because Josh asked him to. James came up with the idea of baseball, but that idea wasn’t what made them lose. It’s not like America’s pastime is an unpopular sport, and his batting cage idea did draw potential customers. Not his fault if the sellers didn’t sell to them. All four of them were fired to create a Shocking Boardroom, no more, no less.

Betsy Wasser is the Associate Editor of Reality News Online. She can be reached with any comments at betsywasser@gmail.com .

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