The Apprentice, Episode 8: Water World

With the challenge over, it’s time to blow off some steam. Troy and Kwame hit the gym. Ereka admits that exercising would be a good idea, but she’d rather do some drinking. “I wanna be bad tonight,” she declares. With that, most of the crew dresses up and goes to a bar. Nick and Amy continue to flirt. Bill teases them by trying out Amy’s first name with Nick’s last name. Bill says that Nick asked him if Amy likes him. Bill passed Nick a note after gym class saying that he thinks she does. Bill thinks he enhanced Nick’s confidence. Amy and Nick dance together and look like they’re having a great time. Katrina is surprised to see Nick cut loose, saying, “He’s always so reserved. His downfall is Amy.”

Amy says in an interview that she thinks Nick has a crush on her, but she’s not sure what she thinks of him yet. Then, she tells Nick that a guy across the room looks like her brother and that if she and Nick had a kid, that’s what he would look like. Nick looks completely freaked out. Bill observes that everyone is having a good time and that it’s a big love-fest, but he knows that will change when they have to go to the boardroom.

After Bill’s helpful transition, it’s time for the boardroom. George reports that Protégé sold $6,283.45 worth of water. Carolyn says that Versacorp didn’t do as well, earning only $4,015.92. Ereka doesn’t know what went wrong, saying, “We did everything we could do.” George says that Protégé sold to two distributors, accounting for more than half of their sales, due in large part to Troy’s efforts. Troy shares the praise with Heidi and Amy, which is very cool. Trump says that usually when a project manager chooses two people, it’s a bad thing, but this time Heidi must choose two people to share her helicopter ride. She chooses Amy and Troy. Of Troy, Trump says, “You’re doing a great job for Idaho.” Kwame and Omarosa get no reward, but at least they won’t have to go back to the boardroom.

In the suite, Heidi calls her mom to check on her. She says that it’s been a rough week, and it meant a lot to dedicate their task to her mom.

Heidi, Troy, and Amy head to Trump’s helicopter for their reward. Troy says that it’s very posh, like “a limo with a propeller.” It’s Troy’s first real look at the city, and Amy and Heidi act as tour guides, pointing out landmarks. The helicopter goes past the Statue of Liberty, who Troy calls, “the most beautiful woman in the world, aside from my wife.” The three of them declare this the best prize yet.

In the suite, Ereka talks to Bill alone. She tells him that she’s taking Nick to the boardroom. She says she talked to Katrina, and Katrina agreed it was a good idea because Nick didn’t give it his all. She’s not taking Katrina because she didn’t need her as much in this challenge. As a result, she’s taking Bill. Ereka promises that she’ll make it clear that she’s only taking him because he was with her when they lost an important deal for a distributor. George seems to think that their failure with distributors was important (gee, maybe because that’s why they lost), so she has to point out that they shared the blame on that particular failed deal.

Bill says in an interview that he remembers how last time he thought Ereka was on his side, but she changed her tune in the boardroom. Ereka tells Bill that it’s nothing personal. Bill says, “Just because you preface something, ‘it isn’t personal,’ doesn’t mean it isn’t.” Ereka says that Nick is allowed to take it personally, and Bill says that he should also. Ereka says, “Yeah, you can. Whatever.”

I absolutely loved Bill in this scene. Ereka and Katrina threw him to the wolves at the last boardroom, and he hasn’t forgotten. And he’s right – just because you say, “it isn’t personal,” doesn’t absolve you from whatever you do. It’s like when someone says something really nasty to you and then throws in “no offense.” That doesn’t make it okay.

Next, Ereka tells Nick that she’s taking him to the boardroom. It’s a much more hurried conversation than the heart-to-heart she had with Bill. Nick is unconcerned. He says he plans to ask leading questions that she’ll have to answer, causing her to implode.

In the boardroom, Trump asks Ereka what went wrong. Ereka points out that while the other team sold to distributors, her team actually did better in restaurants and bars. I don’t see how that matters, since their numbers were so much lower. If anything, that little statistic suggests to me that they got lower sales with more effort.

Nick says, “We lost, and it stinks, and I’m tired of it.” Trump points out that Nick has been on a lot of losing teams, both last week and all of those times with the men’s team. Bill says that together, he and Nick have gone to the boardroom six times. Trump says, “So you’re escaping.”

Carolyn says that all four of them did poorly. George is surprised at how little they’ve all learned. For one, they didn’t do any research to learn about their target audiences. Ereka nods emphatically and tells them about how Nick refused to look at the web site. Nick says, “How did you know I didn’t review it before?” Ereka says she was with him, he went to sleep, and then he was with Katrina all day. Nick says that he got up early, looked at the web site, and it was not helpful.

George says that Nick never made a strong connection with any of his potential customers. Nick disagrees, saying he brought energy and charisma. Ereka, he claims, was the weak link. Ereka got frazzled in front of the group, he claims. Ereka says, “I was fixing your mistakes.” Nick starts to say, “Even if that was the case –” but Ereka interrupts him to make a face and say, “It was.” Nick goes on to explain that if you’re a leader and get frazzled in front of the troops, no one will believe in you. Ereka then whips out a chart and tells Trump that the numbers speak for themselves: Nick had double the accounts and pulled in less money than anyone else on the team.

Trump asks Bill who did the worst. Bill diplomatically says that no one is proud of the way they performed, and he only worked with Ereka, so he can’t say who was the weakest. Bill is very good at not answering these tough questions. He did the same thing in the boardroom after the Planet Hollywood challenge, when he pointed out that since he was in the restaurant the whole time, he didn’t see what the others were up to. He says that Ereka held her own.