The Apprentice: Los Angeles, Episode 12 – Trumped Up Charges

Frank and Heidi are working, too. Frank says that it’ll be half presenting the brochure, half the video. Frank will do the video, so Heidi will do the brochure. She is struggling with the copy, and Frank is worried that they won’t finish. He says he expected more from her, given her reputation. He offers to help her, but she declines, burying her head in the copy.

The next morning, Heidi is animatedly practicing her presentation, as are James and Kristine. Stefani, as always, sounds amazing. James says that Trump values charisma and someone’s ability to hold a room. We get a montage of everybody grooming, including some very vigorous shaving from James with an electric razor. It looks like he’s about to scrape the skin off of his lip.

The candidates arrive at the Boardroom, huge presentation boards in tow. James says it was a fun project, and he appreciated the opportunity. He loved working with Stefani. Nicole says she and Kristine had different focuses, which wound up being beneficial. Kristine says Nicole has amazing energy that needs to be “focused down.” Heidi says that Frank is a ball of energy. Trump isn’t so sure that’s a compliment. Even horses are energetic, but he doesn’t want to hire one. Heidi says that Frank needed to be focused at times. Frank says Heidi was a great team member and that Trump will be impressed by what they’ve pulled together. I think it is a real misfire for Kristine and Heidi to begin trashing their teammates before they’ve even presented. Trump loves to look for weaknesses (almost as much as he loves to look for shiny objects), so that kind of negativity might really stick with him.

Stefani and James begin. Their campaign is “The Height of Luxury.” Stefani says that it was all about big images and grand imagery. Stefani talks about a five star lifestyle. As always, she sounds and looks fantastic. Stefani is probably the strongest presenter we’ve ever seen on this show. James says that they wanted to show a full marketing plan to extend the brand. He and Stefani show a chart indicating where the new Las Vegas properties will fit in with the rest of the brand, giving a real big picture to the marketing. Heidi says she was “100% impressed,” but it didn’t worry her. Perhaps she should be worried, because Trump says they’re the team to beat.

Kristine and Nicole are up next. They are wearing matching outfits of black scoop necked shirts, gold beads, and tan skirts. It looks dumb and amateurish to me. You don’t sell high end real estate on the strength of matching outfits. Kristine sets up presentation boards while Nicole pulls up the computer. Trump is impatient with the delay. He tells her not to get nervous, then says she’s not making much of a presentation. James actually gets up to help her out. Kristine is incredulous, saying she did everything else. Heidi looks smug. Kristine begins her presentation, explaining that she came up with the tagline, “Las Vegas Is Turning Gold.” Her speech sounds so informal and off the cuff that at first, I think we’re listening to an interview and am surprised to hear that it’s the real thing. She says people don’t want to know what the faucets look like, which Trump disagrees with. Nicole sounds even worse, stammering all over the place. Frank says in an interview that the whole presentation was a bomb. Trump says that it’s choppy and broken down.

Then, Trump notices something even worse. Kristine and Nicole’s brochure shows a different phone number than James and Stefani’s. He sends James and Nicole out to the hallway to check the phone numbers. While they’re out of the room, Trump disparages the presentation. Kristine admits that she was “not so thrilled.” She says that Nicole takes for granted that she sells condos for a living, and pretty well proceeds to trash Nicole while she’s out of the room. Meanwhile, Nicole realizes their brochure had the wrong number. Nicole says it was Kristine’s fault. In the Boardroom, Kristine tells Trump that she did everything while Nicole slept. Oops, time to stop talking about Nicole, because she’s in the room. Nicole admits it was the wrong number, which she pins on Kristine. Trump says he likes the brochure, but the presentation “sucked.”

Frank and Heidi are up next. Heidi starts off by saying that it was an honor seeing the ground broken for the first tower. Trump immediately corrects her, saying that happened over a year ago. Heidi completely falls apart from there on out, tripping over her words and generally making a mess of things. Frank is horrified. He thinks she choked under pressure. Frank takes over, presenting their DVD, and he sounds rattled, too. Kristine says that she felt a glimmer of hope when she saw their presentation. She says they had no concept. The video is very detailed – I mean, it shows the showerhead. Trump may be proud of the fact that he “hand selected” that showerhead, but that doesn’t mean we need to see it quite so clearly. Frank concludes the presentation by saying that the hotel will be a Trump masterpiece.

Trump asks what their theme was. Heidi tells him it was “world class luxury,” and Trump and Don are immediately all over her, because they never actually said that. What’s the campaign? Frank says that the towers sell themselves, which Trump immediately disagrees with. Trump doesn’t like the brochure, and Don points out that there’s no picture of the building. He says it’s too wordy, that he doesn’t want to read a book. He asks whose idea it was. Heidi starts to answer, but Trump doesn’t want to hear it.

James thinks everyone is in “big, big doo doo,” and that Trump may fire a lot of people. Trump says the presentation was a disaster. He adds that things have gotten complicated. He says Stefani and James did a great job. Stefani presented very well, and it’s “highly unlikely” that they’ll be fired. He says he should probably fire both teams, but instead, he’ll fire one person from each team. Way to bend the rules there, Trumpers.

Trump says that Kristine and Nicole’s brochure was good, save the phone number. Nicole says that Kristine put in the wrong information. Trump then tells Nicole that Kristine said bad things about her while she was out of the room. Kristine admits that, and says Nicole was unfocused, so she just let her sleep. Nicole says it wasn’t an issue. Kristine says Nicole’s head wasn’t in the game, that she wasn’t the person she worked with before. Trump says the mistake was bad with the phone number, but he likes the brochure and video better. Heidi agrees that the other brochure looks better.