The Apprentice, Episode 9: Catty Games

As usual, the candidates are hanging out in the suite wondering who will go home next. Katrina says that she supported Ereka, but Nick and Bill turned on them. She says that it was boys against girls in the boardroom. The very fact that she said that just reinforces Trump’s theory that Katrina and Ereka let their friendship dictate their decisions. Nick walks back into the suite, remarking to Bill that if Ereka had chosen Katrina instead of Bill to accompany them to the boardroom, he would have been the one fired.

The two guys round the corner, and Omarosa squeals when she finds out that Ereka is gone. Katrina looks distraught. Things just got lonely for her on her team. Omarosa says, “The game has changed significantly.” Katrina says in an interview that she hates Omarosa’s smugness, and that it’s not fair that Ereka is gone when it should be Omarosa instead. Technically, that’s not possible since they’re on opposing teams, but we’ll let it go this time, because we get her point. Everyone hugs Nick and Bill, and Katrina has a face like thunder. Bill tells everyone that things got very tense, and that Ereka refused to shake their hands at the end.

Katrina says that she believed in Ereka, and insists that she recommended Ereka take her to the boardroom. That’s not what Ereka said last week. Ereka said that she and Katrina spoke, and Katrina said that Nick did not give it his all. Nick says, “If she would have taken you with her, I would have been fired.” He’s probably right. Nick says that it was wrong of her to refuse to shake Bill’s hand. He says he can understand why she didn’t shake his hand, but Bill is a nice guy.

The Trump Phone rings. Kwame, in a short pair of boxers, learns that the teams need to meet in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When they arrive, Trump begins by evening out the two teams, since Versacorp got “clobbered” in the last few challenges. Nick is Versacorp’s team captain, so it’s his choice. Trump notes that Nick needs to start winning. He chooses Amy to rejoin the team. Trump points out that Amy has been picked to even out teams twice now. He thinks she’s getting too much power, and if he were in Nick’s shoes, he never would have chosen her. Maybe, he suggests, he should go ahead and give her the job now.

Trump is so right. Amy is a very good player. She’s smart, she’s resourceful, and she gets along well with everyone. And now that she’s been chosen twice, Trump can see that she has the respect of the other candidates. If Nick chose Amy just because he has a crush on her, that’s not very smart. If he was just looking for a good player, he could have chosen Troy.

Trump explains the challenge: Each team will meet a group of emerging artists. They must choose one artist, then take their work to a gallery and sell it. The team that makes the most money wins. It’ll be a tough challenge because art is subjective, and it’s a product with no set market value.

Kwame is the project manager for Protégé. He says that it will be important to choose the best artist for the task. The first artist they meet is named Giles. In an interview, Omarosa mispronounces his name (just like she did with Isaac Mizrahi), and says that his art has a different edge. That edge is that he likes to put a piece of DNA into all of his paintings, whether it’s a hair, a toenail, or an eyelash. Omarosa says that she has connected with his work since she was able to touch it. Then she rubs Giles’s arm as Heidi rolls her eyes.

Nick and Katrina meet with an artist named Andrei. Andrei does nature-based abstract paintings, and tells them all about his work. Nick likes him a lot – he finds him sincere, and he thinks he did a great job of explaining his art to someone who doesn’t know much about painting.

Meanwhile, Amy and Bill meet with Leah. Leah does paintings of snapshots of her life. She says that people like her art because they can relate to it. Amy really loves her work.

Protégé next meets an artist named Meghan. Heidi says that Meghan’s apartment is crazy, and a little bit creepy. It’s stocked with her art, which is very unusual – filled with severed heads and naked bodies. Troy says that her art is weird, and wonders if customers will like it. On the other hand, her average price point is $4,000, compared to the $1,500 average they’ve seen with other artists.

Everybody get your pens ready, because it’s time for the Trump Lesson of the Week. This week’s lesson is, “You’ve Gotta Believe.” If you don’t believe in something, it won’t work. That’s the entire lesson. Is it just me, or are they getting progressively shorter as the show goes on? In the finale, the Trump Lesson will be, “Sell.”

Protégé meets to choose an artist. They are between Meghan and Leah. Kwame thinks that Meghan’s art is weird, but admits that he knows nothing about art. In an interview, he says that he signed up for The Apprentice to take a risk, so why not take a risk as project manager? Omarosa says that choosing Meghan would be a calculated risk. She says that from an art perspective, she has concerns with Meghan, but she loves Leah. But from a business perspective, “Tomorrow, Meghan is the only one that’s going to drive the numbers that we need to win.”