The Apprentice 5, Episode 10: Cutting It Close

The next day dawns and Gold Rush begins the task. Lee and Tarek are to go out and put flyers on cars while Charmaine and Michael promote to people in the parking lot. Charmaine tries to approach a bald man. Lee and Tarek put flyers on cars, but they don’t think it’ll work. Lee thinks face to face contact would be better, but they don’t see anybody. Lee thinks that if they can get just two people to come in from using the flyers, it would be enough to win the task. I guess technically that’s possible, but since they’re selling inexpensive haircuts and not, like, diamonds, that seems unlikely to me.

Michael and Charmaine are nervous. They haven’t had a lot of people walking in. Michael walkies Lee. He and Tarek lie and say it’s going great. Tarek says that they have been frustrated with Charmaine for a long time. Michael hasn’t been around for as long, so he’s not as annoyed. The two wonder what Charmaine and Michael are up to. Tarek jokes that Charmaine must be getting her hair done.

Guess what Charmaine is doing? Yeah, getting her hair done. Bill arrives just in time to see her asking all kinds of questions about the merits of ceramic straightening. In the van, Tarek and Lee make fun of her. Tarek mocks her saying that she wishes they could all hold hands and love each other. Meanwhile, Charmaine tells Bill that as the only woman on the team, it’s hard to get the others to relate. She tells him that they had a hard time laying out the shelves, then we cut to Lee making fun of the five hours they spent stocking the shelves. Forget marketing! Let’s get the shampoo families together! The two guys talk about what they’re going to wear to the boardroom, apparently thinking it’s a foregone conclusion.

Meanwhile, Allie works her hardest to get people to buy products. It’s a lot faster to buy shampoo than it is to get a haircut, she reasons, so they can do better volume that way. She gets a big sale. A little boy gets his first haircut. Aw! This brings us back to the Betsy Lesson of the Week. My son got his first haircut a few weeks before he turned one. I was completely unprepared for how incredibly grown up he’d look with a proper little boy haircut and proceeded to sob for about an hour, both in the salon and as we walked through the mall. So, seriously: brace yourself and bring some tissues. But I digress. Tammy and Sean flirt outside. Tammy thinks that she led the team well and did a good job. Eh. It’s hard to say- we didn’t see much of what Tammy actually did. This bodes poorly for Gold Rush, of course.

The teams gather in the boardroom. Tammy feels confident. Charmaine says that foot traffic was low at first, but that the day ended strong. Tarek thought Charmaine was “average” as a project manager. Trump jokes, “So much for dating Charmaine.” Charmaine says it was over between them a long time ago. Carolyn reports on Synergy. They sold $363 worth of products, earning $1,005.47. Bill says that Gold Rush didn’t have much direction. They got just $700 total. Trump says it wasn’t even close. Hair Cuttery, Trump says, is “all about style,” so now they’ll meet the stylin’ Burt Bacharach. They will meet him at Steinway Hall and write a song with him. Maybe they’ll get rich. Yeah, maybe not.

It’s time for the boring reward. Roxanne talks about how prolific Burt Bacharach is. One of his new songs has no words, he says. It’s called “In Our Time,” and he wants them to think about lyrics. Allie is thinking laughter and tears, then Tammy thinks of rhyming careers with tears. Allie hates it. Tammy says that Allie ruins everything and makes Sean feel like an outcast. If only they could have love, like what the world needs now, she says, which is hysterical. They sing their song, and Roxanne has the best voice. It is boring. I wish they’d just eliminate rewards altogether.

Charmaine and Lee run into each other in the suite, and Charmaine says he hopes he doesn’t throw her under the bus. He says he won’t unless she attacks him. Lee thinks that if Charmaine went one on one with Tarek, her chances would be better. Trump, as we all know, thinks Tarek is over-rated. Charmaine thinks that Lee is the one on her team who is closest to being an ally. That is sad, because I never got the impression that they liked each other. At all. Lee wishes her luck.

Lee then talks to Tarek. Oh, sneaky! Tarek points out that Charmaine and Michael were in the store all day and didn’t sell any product. Tarek is confident that Lee will be on his side. Tarek thinks Lee is moral and doesn’t want to lie or be a snake.

Ironically, Lee then talks to Michael. He tells Michael that he thinks Charmaine is a good worker bee, unlike Tarek. He suggests to Michael that Tarek needs to go. Then, in an interview, Lee says he’s done ganging up on other people and conspiring. He is? He says he’s not supporting anyone. “I’m done with that.” He’s only going to protect himself.