The Apprentice 4, Episode 10: Operation Sabotage

Capital Edge’s team arrives at Union Square, where Felisha encourages the temps to work with people one-on-one. They might not have bullhorns, Felisha says, but they worked extra hard to sell. She offers several people her cell phone to call for samples. She doesn’t think people are responding to the carriages, but thinks her people are working much better. Carolyn comes by and says hello to Alla. Alla tells her that she’s been loaning people her cell phone. Carolyn notes that Capital Edge has 15 people with posters and that the carriages are “embarrassing looking.” At the end of the day, Alla, Adam, and Felisha walk down the street arm in arm, happy with how they did.

The candidates gather in the boardroom for the results. Excel got 978 phone calls. Capital Edge had just five fewer calls. Excel wins. For their reward, Randal and Rebecca will spend the day with Shania Twain. First they’ll go horseback riding with her, then have dinner. I have to say, neither of them looks especially excited about the plan.

Randal and Rebecca congratulate each other on making the final four, then meet Shania in the park for horseback riding. Shania is wearing a ton of eyemakup and should really lay off on it a bit. Randal’s horse keeps wandering off, much to Rebecca’s amusement. Over dinner, Shania tells them that success comes from hard work. Rebecca says in an interview that really resonated with her because in this task, she and Randal pushed each other and wound up winning. She toasts Randal for leading them to victory.

Alla and Adam get ready for the boardroom together and talk about how Felisha made mistakes. The workforce, Alla says, was lower than what she wanted. She mentions 25 people, which is a bit confusing because I thought she had budget for 15. Maybe Alla is referring to her plan to have 20 or 25 people come and use just 15? I don’t know. Adam agrees, though, saying that 15 people was not enough. Felisha championed labor – why didn’t she get more people? Uh, because they didn’t have the money for it?

Here’s where things get interesting. Alla then talks to Felisha and has a completely different angle, this time about how Adam messed up. Note that the one thing these conversations have in common is that Alla herself did not make any mistakes. The woman is a master manipulator. Felisha says that they could have had more people if not for the money they blew on carriages. She thinks that if Adam doesn’t get that they couldn’t hire more people due to budget, he’s naïve.

The team arrives in the boardroom, and Trump immediately berates them for losing a street task to a team that is not only one member smaller, but also includes a person with a broken ankle. Felisha says that there was no one thing that caused them to lose. She hired the staff, and says that they never considered hiring more people. I’m surprised she’s saying that, since she was in favor of hiring more temps but didn’t have the budget to do it. Alla fills in that information, saying that Adam’s carriage idea ate up a lot of their money.

Trump thinks that the carriage idea was a bad one. Their 15 people were pretty puny compared to Excel’s 60. Carolyn adds that there was no sense of immediately and that the horses can’t speak (unless they had hired Mr. Ed, which would have been awesome). Bill weighs in with his opinion that they just didn’t think big enough – they had fewer people and more importantly, were just in one location. Carolyn adds that they were out-thought.

I think Bill is probably the most on target. The carriages couldn’t have been that dismal of a failure if Capital Edge only lost by five calls. If the carriages were useless, then they’d have lost by a much larger margin since they had so few people with signs compared to Excel. I think where Excel… um… excelled… was in their decision to canvass the city, to work in more than one neighborhood. They exposed themselves (sexy) to a wider range of people, and I think that’s what gave them the edge. I don’t buy Trump and Carolyn’s argument that they needed people. After all, the entire point of the task was to use a wrap. If all they needed were people hawking the stuff on the street, why even have wrapping as a component of the task? I think that the teams would have been more successful if they’d wrapped something big and interesting – say a stretch Hummer parked somewhere high in traffic, or maybe even a building – and had people in front of it promoting the phone number. I also suspect that Adam’s plan to wrap the carriages would have been successful in the long run if it had been executed better. If the carriages were wrapped completely (not just a poster on the side) and had a presence in a high traffic area over, say, a week or a month, I think they’d have done well.

Alla says that she told Felisha to bring at least 20 people, but only 15 showed up. She also adds that Excel stole their bullhorns. Rather than being aghast, Trump and Bill think it’s great.

Felisha says that the people were her idea, and Carolyn says it was a lot better than the carriages. Felisha thinks that the other team “got lucky,” and that’s why they won. Alla, however, thinks that lack of staff was the reason for their loss. Felisha says she tried her best to get people, but all she had was the phone book. Alla quietly says that Randal and Rebecca had the very same resources and got much better results. Carolyn thinks that if they’d had just one more person, they would have won.

Felisha says she would fire Adam – his focus was on the carriages, which were no good. Alla says she’d fire Adam because when you look at overall performance, Felisha is stronger. Trump sends Alla back to the suite- she was not the reason for their loss.

Carolyn says that she thinks that Felisha and Adam are the weakest two left. Felisha gasps, but I have to say, I agree with her. She’d fire Felisha. Bill, on the other hand, thinks Adam hasn’t stepped up yet, so he’d fire him. Adam says that he has innovative ideas and is a sponge, eager to learn. He thinks his energy and passion ar real assets. Felisha says that Adam’s inexperience is a huge issue. She thinks that overall, he handles things poorly. Trump notes that Alla’s parting words were that Adam is weaker. Felisha says Adam needs a lot more time before he can work for Trump.

Bill asks Adam how he is more qualified than Felisha. Adam says that he has very good analytical skills. Felisha thinks that hers are just as good and directs him to tell Bill what he has that she doesn’t. Adam says that he thinks they have many of the same strengths, but that his analysis is better. In the last task, Felisha was only in charge of labor and managed it poorly. He thinks she should have negotiated both more of the budget and lower prices for the labor, which Felisha says she did.

Trump says Felisha did a terrible job, but Adam blew too much of their budget on the ineffective carriages. Adam is fired. As the two leave, Bill says he wishes Adam had shown his strengths earlier. Trump thinks that together, Alla and Felisha could beat Rebecca and Randal. It’ll be the battle of the blondes against the brunettes!

In his cab ride, Adam muses that he thought he’d win it all. He says that although he’s young, he still has a lot to offer.

Next week, the final four battle it out in a big task involving Microsoft Office. See you all then!

Betsy Wasser is the Associate Editor of Reality News Online. She can be reached with any comments at betsywasser@Gmail.com.

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