The Apprentice: Los Angeles, Episode 5 – A Honey of a Task

Things don’t look much better at Kinetic. Aimee’s sales pitch consists of her saying, “Are you sure you don’t want some?” Derek decides to take action. He puts on the bee suit to “generate some buzz” that way. The pun, amazingly, seems to be unintentional. He talks up the shoppers and shows where he got stung. They love him. The team decides to step things up further, putting Angela in a track suit and pointing out that she has an Olympic gold medal. Very smart of them to exploit that. I mean, why not use your advantages? Angela says that she and Derek decided not to give up and to really push for a win. Derek says that things are looking up despite Aimee, but he still thinks they’ll lose.

The teams gather in the Boardroom and Sean puts Trump on speaker. Trump is at a public speaking engagement as he takes the call. Arrow, Sean reports, sold $775 worth of honey. Kinetic sold $836. Wow, I was not expecting that. Kinetic’s reward will be the opportunity to shot baskets with the L.A. Lakers. Kinetic will also move back into the house, plus Aimee will be Project Manager again next week and will join Trump and Sean in the Boardroom.

Arrow packs up their bags and returns to the tents. Frank happily greets his grill again. “This sucks,” sighs Nicole. She hates camp more knowing how much better things are in the mansion. “Seriously, it’s not even funny anymore, it’s just got to end,” she says, echoing the feelings that all of the viewers of the show have about the stupid tent twist. This “haves and have nots” twist was mildly interesting for about two episodes, but now I find it tedious.

Kinetic goes to play with the Lakers. Muna says that it was an honor to meet Phil Jackson, and that he was taller than expected. An even bigger thrill would have to be playing with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Kobe, alas, is not there. The coaches talk about the importance of playing like a team, compensating for team members’ weakness when need be. Derek thinks that lesson is valuable and well-timed. Aimee says that everybody was fired up from the reward.

Arrow sighs about being forced to go to another Boardroom. Surya has yet to go and is really not looking forward to it.

James says that Aaron has a lot to think about. He says Aaron can’t be laid-back in the Boardroom. He’s going to have to go for the kill. Aaron tells the guys that he’s definitely bringing in Surya. Since Surya is a brand manager, he should have been an asset, but his theory and statistics slowed them down. Elsewhere, Nicole asks Surya if he’s excited about his first Boardroom. Surya says that it’s “a complete unknown” for him. Nicole thinks that he, Tim, and Aaron will be the final three in the Boardroom. Surya thinks Aaron was a bad leader. But, he notes, the rest of the team has bonded and it would be easier for them if he were fired. Surya leans over the hedge and tells Derek his concerns. Derek promises to talk to Aimee to see if that’ll help. After Derek fills her in, Aimee promises she’ll be fair and will not let Arrow ambush Surya just because they’re tight. “I will not let him go down,” she promises.

Arrow arrives in the Boardroom. Nicole says it stinks being back in the tents. They had a sense of victory and it was stolen back from them. Surya says losing feels terrible. He thinks they lost because they relied on their sales ability alone. He says that Aaron is to blame for the loss. He’s a great guy, but he has to blame the Project Manager. Surya thinks there was a lack of leadership. Trump asks if Aaron was quiet, adding that he was very quiet in the Boardroom last week. Of course if you’re not braying as loudly as humanly possible, Trump apparently can’t here you. Sean says that it was Aaron’s chance to impress Trump and that he missed an opportunity.

Aaron says he values his words very greatly and will speak up that night. The breakdown came from sales and preliminary marketing. Aaron says Surya didn’t contribute anything. James agrees, saying Surya has great book smarts, but couldn’t come up with solid plans. Aimee asks if everything was up to Surya, or if the rest of the team was involved. Surya says that he expected Aaron to tell him that he was in charge of marketing, but that it never happened.

Trump laments that when the team won, they loved Surya, but now that they’ve lost, nobody loves him. It is, of course, not that simple. When the team won, they had no reason to say anything bad about Surya, so he didn’t hear it. He’s not hearing any complaints from Kinetic about Aimee right now, but that doesn’t mean they love her. Aimee says she’s been in marketing activities with Surya and he’s capable of good things.

Trump asks Arrow what they think of Aimee being so tough. Aaron says he respects it. Aimee says that she is going to be as fair as possible, so she intends to ask blunt and direct questions. The rest of the team has no problem with her approach.

Nicole says that given what Trump has been saying, she’d have to fire Aaron. It sounds like Trump is not impressed with him, she adds. Aaron says he’d have appreciated some direction from Trump before the last Boardroom and would have been more vocal if need be. Sean says he should just be himself. Trump says that there’s a lot of middle ground between Aimee, who is being “a hard ass” when she “almost got her ass fired” last week. Since we’re using the word “ass” so freely, I’d like to add that Trump is being an ass for saying the word “ass” in a business setting twice in the same sentence.

Stefani would fire Surya because he didn’t contribute to the marketing efforts and because he harmed her in her sales attempts. She thinks he should have been at his own assigned station. Tim says they didn’t have much foot traffic, and he blames that on lack of marketing and Aaron. He adds that he wasn’t in the store, but out with Nicole. He agrees with Trump that Nicole is a star. Frank asks Trump to see if Tim would marry Nicole. Nicole turns bright red. Tim doesn’t want to talk about it in the Boardroom. Trump tells him that if he marries Nicole he’ll be his hero.