The Apprentice 5, Episode 4: Don’t Squeeze the Charmaine

Roxanne says that Brent is hard to deal with. Brent interrupts and says that his friends love to deal with him. Ivanka says that might be true, but his team sure doesn’t love it. Tammy says that they’re not working with a full team because of him. Brent says that he has saved “the team’s behind” many times. He has great ideas and put them forward, but now they’re all picking on him. Ivanka points out that Brent was the one who opened the floodgates by saying that Tammy “stank.” Before he attacked her, no one said anything about him. Maybe it’s not that they’re all ganging up on him so much as that he doesn’t approach things well. I absolutely love Ivanka. She is a smart, smart woman and really puts things well.

Brent says he was just offering his opinion. Trump wonders why he couldn’t have been more moderate about it, which is funny coming from a man who regularly calls people “a disaster.” Ivanka says that the way Brent expressed himself was offensive.

Tammy says she never said Brent was fat. She never used that word. She felt that they needed a fit person to represent the product, and he doesn’t represent that. That’s a fine point, but I think Tammy came up with it after the fact. Like I said before, she didn’t want him to present not so much because he’s overweight, but because he’s unprofessional, unreliable, and doesn’t present himself well. Now she’s just had time to come up with a better excuse. Trump says that it would be better to have someone with an attractive body (creepily pointing out Andrea and Roxanne and reminding me once again why I would not want to work for this man) present than Brent. Sometimes that’s what you have to do in life, and sometimes it would be better to have Ivanka present than him or George. Brent knows that’s how life is, so George wants to know why he finds it so objectionable. Brent says they teamed up on him.

Allie disagrees; they all came to this conclusion separately. Tammy says that everyone is embarrassed by him. She adds that she thinks Trump should fire Brent. Andrea agrees, and Brent says sarcastically that he’s not surprised. Andrea says no one would be surprised. Brent responds that no one asked her, and she agrees and shuts up.

Trump asks if we should learn from experience, whether it’s over a lifetime or just a few weeks. Brent says sure. Trump says that the team can’t stand him, and that he has learned absolutely nothing from his experience as to how to handle them or interact with them. They all think he’s a loser and a loose cannon. They also think he’s a negative influence on the team. Trump says he could sent Brent out and bring him in again, but why bother? Brent is fired. He doesn’t want to waste time.

The rest of the candidates pile into the elevator, hopefully waiting for the doors to close before they cheer. Ivanka and George agree that Trump made the right decision. Trump thinks the team will be better now.

Was Brent the right person to fire this week? Sean was right that he had so little responsibility that their loss was not his fault. Several people made small mistakes. Sean did a terrible job with the presentation. Andrea was in charge of the cluttered graphics. Tammy lead them all. Still, I can’t really point to any of them and say, “Yep, she’s the one who screwed it up.” Like Trump said, it’s not so much that their billboard was bad as that it just wasn’t as good as the other one. Still, someone had to go, and it certainly made sense that it was Brent. Neither he nor his team could function well with him on it. Every project manager would have to waste time trying to figure out the best way to marginalize him. And Brent had dug himself into such a deep hole by just rubbing everyone the wrong way that no one would listen to him. His idea of focusing on the cereal as a diet aid, for example, wasn’t really a bad one. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea ever, but it wasn’t bad. But because it was Brent’s idea, everyone dismissed it out of hand, and there’s nothing he could have done to change that.

In his cab ride, Brent says Trump made the wrong decision and that everyone sold him out.

Next week, the candidates promote a cruise ship, and their egos are as big as the boat. Excellent.

Betsy Wasser is the Associate Editor of Reality News Online and ate a bowl of cereal before writing this recap. She can be reached with any comments at betsywasser@gmail.com

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