The Apprentice, Episode 13: The Firing Squad

The next day, Kwame’s team meets in his hotel room to review plans. Omarosa says that Jessica Simpson is set to arrive in the hotel at midnight, and she’d like for the whole team to greet her. The phone rings, and Omarosa answers it with an annoying high-pitched “Kwame Jackson’s room!” It’s Diane, and she wants to talk to Kwame. The van for the band is at the airport, but no one knows where the band is. She tells Kwame that she talked to Omarosa the night before, then puts Kwame on hold. Kwame asks Omarosa about it, and she bats her eyelashes at him innocently. Diane comes back, and Kwame confirms that she talked to Omarosa about this the night before. Omarosa takes the phone and coos that she wonders what the misunderstanding was. Diane says she told her to work out the flights. Omarosa says she’ll call her back and hangs up the phone.

Can I just say, one of my biggest pet peeves in the business world is when someone screws something up and calls it a miscommunication or a misunderstanding. There was no miscommunication. Diane told Omarosa what needed to be done, and Omarosa couldn’t be bothered to do it.

Kwame asks Omarosa about the phone call at dinner. Omarosa tries to avoid the question and says that she called Diane before dinner. No, he’s talking about the phone call she took at dinner. Omarosa says that it was Diane’s office calling to say that Diane had left for the night. There was no emergency. Wow, she just totally lied.

Troy asks Omarosa why she didn’t tell them at dinner what the call was about, and she trots out the tired old “I’m telling you now” excuse. He is shocked at how Omarosa has dropped the ball. Kwame calls Diane back and apologizes for the snafu. Heidi says in an interview that she thinks Kwame should have talked to Omarosa about what she did, but that he wants to avoid conflict. Meanwhile, Diane looks fed up and worried that the band won’t have transportation.

In an interview, Kwame says, “If I were running the show, I’d fire incompetent people, but I don’t have the luxury of doing that.” My guess is that it’s somehow against the rules of the dossier for Kwame to actually fire Omarosa, so he’s decided to just do his best to work with her in the limited time of this task. So far, I’ve got to say, it’s not going too well!

At Briarcliff Manor, Carolyn and Leslie talk to another woman who is upset that inventory is being stored in the garage of a model home. She goes to talk to Bill. Bill says that they are storing the items for the gift bags there, and says that surely it’s not the first time the garage has been used for storage. Leslie tells him that it’s courteous to get the manager’s approval first. Bill dismisses her, saying there is no problem. He says in an interview that Leslie treated him like he was dumb and inexperienced, but that he’s not. “I’m not some rookie who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.” I agree with Bill that finding storage for the upcoming golf tournament was a lot more important than keeping the garage empty, but he was rather arrogant in the way he handled Leslie.

Little by little, Bill’s office gets loaded with stuff – golf bags, gift bags, and tons of boxes. Bill says that Leslie has been displaced, but that frankly he doesn’t care what she thinks. Bad idea, Bill. The camera pans to Donald Trump’s golf clubs amid the chaos.

I don’t recap commercials, but I just have to say that the trailer for Spider-Man 2 looks awesome.

Kwame’s team has dinner with Joe Simpson, Jessica’s dad and manager. Omarosa excuses herself to do some work. She gets a call from Diane – Jessica is missing. The driver can’t find her, her luggage, or any record of her on the flight. Omarosa smugly says, “Kwame is currently having a wonderful meal. Let’s see what he thinks of the missing rock star.” Omarosa calls Kwame and opens with, “We have a small issue.” She asks him to “report to the office.” I can’t believe she just told her boss to report to her. In the restaurant, Troy and Kwame agree that, “She’ll be okay.” It’s not clear if they’re referring to Jessica or to Omarosa, but Kwame says in an interview that he thinks it’s important to maintain composure in front of your team.

Kwame and Troy join Omarosa in the office. She tells Kwame that the logistics are “sloppy,” and tells him, “It’s all you, baby.” The logistics are sloppy and that’s Kwame’s problem? Hello, it’s your job, Omarosa! Kwame says in an interview that he would never hire Omarosa, as she has proven herself to be incompetent. Kwame says that he doesn’t want to leave Joe Simpson at an empty table, so Troy stays behind to work with Omarosa. Omarosa says that Kwame handled the situation badly, that he should have at least pretended to be worried. Maybe she should have told him something other than, “We have a small issue.” Like, “We have a major problem.” She thinks that because he wasn’t a hands-on manager, they’re in the midst of a huge disaster. That’s one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that because Omarosa screwed up, they’re in the midst of a disaster. Omarosa gives us our final words for the week: “How do you lose a rock star?”

Next week, on The Apprentice, it’s the two-hour finale! One of the candidates will hear the dreaded, “You’re fired,” but the other will hear, “You’re hired!” Can Bill handle the pressure? Can Kwame handle Omarosa? We see a clip of Jessica Simpson, so if you’re worried, she didn’t vanish off the face of the earth. Jessica says, “I was so confused, I didn’t know what to do.” But if you’ve ever watched an episode of Newlyweds, you know that could refer to something as simple as getting the little paper covers off of the drinking glasses in her hotel room.

Who will it be? Well, my money is on Bill, but Kwame could still pull out a win. We’ll find out next week on the live two-hour finale!

Betsy is the Associate Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached with any comments at betsyw42@hotmail.com.

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