The Apprentice 5, Episode 9: Missing the Boat

It seems like ages since the last episode of The Apprentice, but we get a quick recap, including poor Leslie getting fired on her birthday. Back at the suite, though, they don’t know it yet and have a cake and candles all ready for her. Poor Leslie! At least we don’t see any footage of everyone else eating her cake.

Lee returns from the boardroom, and Charmaine is not happy at all, swearing under her breath. Lee says he liked Leslie a lot, adding that she fought hard for herself. Charmaine wonders if Trump thought anything about her stopping and giving her opinion that Leslie should not be fired. Lee says no. That was a bit of a risky move on her part. On The Apprentice, if you’re safe, keep your mouth shut or Trump will remember you’re there and fire you, too. Lee says that he was instructed to be PM in the next task. He’s glad to do it and is determined to win.. “That seat in the boardroom has my ass imprinted on it,” he says.

It’s time for the next task, and this week, it will be especially Trump-tastic: filling in for Carolyn and George are Trump’s children Ivanka and Donald, Jr. Trump says that at the last boardroom, Lee barely escaped. Trump says it was closer than Lee realizes. Lee says he thought it was all right. Trump introduces the task, and draws a fairly insulting comparison between all of the people who pass through his hotel and all of the people who passed through Ellis Island. Way to not take it seriously, there, Trumpers. The sponsor for this task will be Ameriquest. Because Ellis Island is a symbol of the American dream, Ameriquest often donates money to them.

The teams will take Circle Line boats to Ellis Island, take photos, then work with designer and printer to create a souvenir program for the national park. All proceeds will benefit the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation. The team with the most money at the end wins. Trump scolds Gold Rush and tells them they’d better win.

Speaking of Gold Rush, we’ll start with them. The team springs into action quickly. Tarek will write, Michael will take pictures, and Charmaine will specialize in “inside sales.” She is thinking about selling large numbers of brochures to hotels. Good idea. In fact, everyone on the team seems so confident and together that Lee is happy to delegate a lot of work. Michael and Tarek will go to Ellis Island while Lee spends the day with Charmaine working on sales. He finds leads on the internet and she makes the calls. Charmaine cannot believe it when Lee hands her 68 pages worth of leads. She says sthat they need to be more focused no chains, only locally owned places. She’s hoping that selling in bulk will be the way to win. In practice, though, it’s a lot harder. Charmaine gets shot down hard over and over again. In an interview, Lee says really wants to impress Trump. He is convinced that if they lose, he’s gone. He adds that selling on the street will not win the task.

Allie volunteers to be the project manager at Synergy because three of her four grandparents came through Ellis Island. She hopes to make them proud by winning. Allie and Tammy go on a tour of the park so that they can learn more. Tammy takes notes and will write the copy. Andrea, walking with Roxanne, thinks it’s a waste of time. Roxanne says in an interivew that Andrea can’t stand not being in charge. Her sole goal in life is to make the PM’s life a living hell.

To that end, Andrea finds Allie and demands that she come up with a schedule for everyone- not just for that day, but for the rest of the task. Allie says to concentrate on taking pictures. Allie says she just wanted “to shoo her aside.” Andrea is “counterproductive and condescending,” and tries to make her feel insecure about work. The team gets ready to leave and Andrea asks Allie if she has everything. Allie says yes, but then we get a shot of a notebook. It turns out that Andrea was right about making Allie feel insecure in this case, huh? The team gets on the boat. Suddenly, Tammy realizes she’s left behind her notebook, the one with all of the notes about the copy! Allie panics. She and Tammy get off the boat… but it’s moving! Tammy and Allie are left behind. Allie feels totally helpless.

And now for the Trump Lesson of the Week: “All In The Family.” Family and business are both priorities, Trump says. He has a really fake sounding conversation with Ivanka as he tells us that both business and family are important, so you should, “Try getting them all in there.” Yeah, that’s not really helpful, is it? And now for the Betsy Lesson of the Week. If you go to Costco at lunchtime on Saturdays, you’ll get all kinds of free samples. Sure, it’s more crowded, but you get a free lunch. Plus, this is how I discovered that my son, who has started a minor vegetable boycott, loves, of all things, spinach nuggets.

Gold Rush is working on their program. Tarek wants to use black and white photos and tie them to appropriate quotes. That sounds nice. The cover and inside cover, though, will be color. Lee says that’s exactly what he wants. Either that’s a huge coincidence or Lee is more than willing to delegate a lot of work on this task. Ivanka arrives, and she agrees with me. She thinks Lee is depending totally on Tarek, a huge responsibility. She wouldn’t have delegated so much if she were in charge. Charmaine thinks that Tarek seems to be the PM. She doesn’t want to win under Lee’s leadership. He does not deserve to be rewarded because everyone else is doing the bulk of the work. She has a very good point, though to be fair, the team seems to be doing really well.

Synergy is working on their program too, though Allie and Tammy are still stuck on Ellis Island. Allie put Andrea in charge of design, because as Andrea has been telling us for weeks, she is an expert in this kind of thing. Andrea thinks Allie made a big mistake staying behind on the island. She works on the cover. The photograph is a big picture of Ellis Island, and Andrea has the Statue of Liberty ghosted in the foreground. Allie arrives and doesn’t like it- it looks like that statue is just floating in the water. I agree with her- it looks weird. In an interview, Allie says she expected more of Andrea, after Andrea spent so much time touting her resume. She asks to work on the cover, and Andrea quickly backs away, saying Allie can work on it. It comes across as really passive-aggressive. Tammy says that Andrea is not a team player at all.