The Apprentice, Recap Episode: Business as Usual

The next task is the negotiation task, in which Sam, as Trump puts it, leads the men “into complete chaos.” After Protégé wins once again, Sam calls his dad for a pep talk. After he hangs up the phone, he tells the guys that he asked his dad what the most important thing is on a team. His dad told him a strong leader, which cracks everybody up. In the boardroom, Sam’s lack of leadership is too much for him to overcome. Trump asks, “Isn’t it over, Sam?” and fires him. We get a nice, lingering shot of Sam’s death stare, but Trump explains, “He wasn’t angry. He was just passionate about his job.” In my interview with Sam, he said that because he didn’t have the respect of his team, he couldn’t have possibly succeeded as a leader. In his post-firing interview, Sam jokes that “a lot of people think I’m certifiably insane.”

The teams face off in the Planet Hollywood restaurant management challenge. Trump notes, “The women relied on their usual tactics,” as we see them parading down the streets in short skirts and tiny t-shirts. Troy causes controversy by having Kwame sign autographs, while Bowie does an ineffective job of selling merchandise. Versacorp loses – again – and Trump fires Bowie, citing his failure to sell. In my interview with him, Bowie claimed that the men’s team actually sold more merchandise than the women’s team did. In his post-firing interview, Bowie says that he regrets that he didn’t make himself a leader, and says that if he had been project manager, his team would not have lost.

Because the number of men had so greatly dwindled, Trump called for a “corporate reshuffling” before the next task, and the project managers chose new, co-ed teams. Trump notes that Amy was the first one picked. In the flea market task that follows, Trump says, “Kristi choked, and her lack of leadership frustrated her team.” The one nice thing, though, is that Heidi and Omarosa bonded, at least for a moment, to talk about the terrible location that Kristi chose and how long it takes her to make a decision. Kristi’s team actually misplaces money and ends the task with a loss. Kristi confides to Jessie that she’s planning to take Omarosa and Heidi to the boardroom. Heidi overhears them and blows up, saying that Kristi stabbed her in the back. Heidi later explained to me in our interview that the reason she was so angry was that Kristi had promised that she would never, ever take Heidi to the boardroom.

In the boardroom, Omarosa administers a very smooth and polished attack on Kristi. Trump fires Kristi, saying that she failed to defend herself. In her post-firing interview, Kristi says that halfway through the challenge, Omarosa handed her the money and receipts and said, “I can’t do this. It’s your problem.” As a result, she was shocked at what Omarosa said in the boardroom. “It was so obnoxious that I felt I didn’t have to defend myself.” Oops.

The next challenge is the charity auction, and Jessie has trouble negotiating a donation from Isaac Mizrahi. When Protégé goes to the boardroom, Omarosa attacks Heidi, and much to Trump’s surprise, Jessie claims to like her in spite of it. In my interview with Jessie, she explained that she likes Omarosa as a person, but doesn’t approve of her management style. It’s a distinction that’s apparently unimportant to Trump; in the end, he concludes that Omarosa was rude, but Jessie was a doormat, so Jessie is fired. Jessie says in the end that she is proud that she was true to her morals and character. She has no regrets.

Before the real estate challenge begins, Protégé chooses Amy to even out the numbers. Trump notes that she was selected once again by her peers and says, “I was impressed.” But before the task begins, Omarosa gets hit on the head with a piece of plaster. She has a doctor come to the suite to examine her. The doctor says, “You’ve got a little bump there,” and advises Omarosa to take some Advil. Trump says that Omarosa was still not convinced that she was okay, so she went to the hospital to have her head examined. It’s kind of cool when you can literally say that someone had her head examined. Anyway, Trump reports that the doctors there didn’t find anything “terribly wrong” with her. He says that he would show us that scene, but that the cameras were not allowed into the hospital.

We next go from exaggerated drama to a real problem: Heidi learns that her mother has cancer. Heidi is very upset, but says that her mother wants her to stay. She’s grateful to have something else to focus on, but her mother is never far from her thoughts.

Project managers Katrina and Troy check out the two apartments, and Troy completely flusters Katrina by writing, “I want what you want,” on a slip of paper, in clear violation of the rules that she made up for how they’d negotiate for the apartments. Katrina is hopping mad and vows to win the task. She doesn’t, though, and in the boardroom tries to take Troy to task for his supposedly shady tactics. Trump says that they were duped, and Katrina and the rest of the team say they weren’t… except for Tammy, who thinks they were. For her disloyalty, Tammy is fired. Tammy says in her post-firing interview that she is a loyal person, but she will point out someone’s shortcomings if she has to. In this case, it’s that Katrina was duped. She totally was, but Tammy probably shouldn’t have said so in front of everyone.