The Apprentice 5, Episode 3: Shark Bait

Over at Synergy, Andrea is indeed the project manager and has decided that coming up with a theme is the top priority. She may be smart but I still don’t like her. Brent suggests giving massages again but no one agrees. Andrea says that she’s giving him busy work because he’ll feel like he’s a part of the team, but if he screws up he won’t hurt them. Everyone looks at the car, trying to brainstorm something that will click, and Michael comes up with “nature refined.” Everyone loves this because it combines ruggedness and luxury. Brent is, by the way, not paying attention.

Suddenly it’s the next day and Gold Rush is setting up for their event. Theresa reminds us that they’re going for class. Lenny feels like he’s the only one doing anything. The ground isn’t good for golf, and now Bryce and Tarek look dumb, since they’re in charge of the golfing event. Theresa notes that there are no generators or electricity (Lenny’s responsibility), but Lenny says it’s not his problem. Bryce tells him that if one person drops the ball, everyone looks bad. He quickly calls someone for generators and saves the day. He and Lenny start fighting and Bryce warns that Lenny is in trouble. He tells Lenny he saved him.

Synergy’s event will feature a rock wall and skeet shooting. Andrea wants a shotgun in her hands, and though she doesn’t say it, I’m sure we can guess who she wants to shoot. Roxanne and Brent are given the unenviable task of setting up trashcans. The team is informed that they can’t skeet shoot in the park, so that’s off. Hmmm, I wonder if this means they’ll have to come up with a plan B?

Synergy’s event begins. In addition to the rock wall and fly-fishing, there will also be golf cart racing. Sean thinks that Andrea is brilliant, which means that we were never meant to be after all. The dealers are loving the golf cart racing. Two of them have a fender bender and another dealer remarks, “Car dealers can’t drive.” Climbing. Fishing. Riding in a Tahoe. Sean gives a spiel about the features on the car, interviewing that they did a lot of homework on it so they could incorporate it into the events of the day. Bill teases Sean, asking if he knew any of the information before the event.

At Gold Rush’s event, Bryce is assigned to teach the models about the car. He doesn’t think this will turn out well. Not only do the models not seem to care too much about the car, Bryce only has 20 minutes to make them experts. Gold Rush’s event starts. Theresa tries to justify getting the horse and buggy by telling the dealers that they have to do with the “history of horsepower.” Carolyn watches the dealers play golf and says that she’s not sure if this is a classy golf tournament or an event. However, the dealers seem to be enjoying themselves, so she can’t say it’s a total disaster.

Speaking of disasters, here are the models, trying to impart everything they learned in 20 minutes. They’re not good, to say the least. Bill asks a dealer what he thinks. He says they’re not impressive. Bill thinks that Gold Rush’s only hope is to liquor up the dealers and get them to enjoy the models. Things only get worse when the comedian, Cory Kahaney from Last Comic Standing, starts her act. She manages to be both unfunny and offensive. She goes after southerners and models, then swears. She keeps going on about sex and men and everyone is clearly uncomfortable. Charmaine gets her off the stage by gesturing that her time is up. Cory then bluntly asks to be paid. What a charming woman.

The klezmer music starts up again as, back at the suite, Dan and Lee prepare to go to the boardroom with their team. In said boardroom, Trump nicely asks if they had a nice holiday. He then asks Theresa how she thinks she did; she’s “cautiously optimistic.” The teams were scored on interactivity, information, and motivation. Gold Rush didn’t do so well. The surveys Bill reads talk about the team’s poor choice in comedians, their lack of product knowledge, and their bad salesmanship. Synergy, however, had great results; their dealers were very impressed. They win. Their reward is, instead of dealing with sharks in the corporate world, they get to swim with sharks at Atlantis Marine World on Long Island. Trump randomly asks if Brent will swim. He then asks who Theresa plans to bring back to the boardroom. She names Lenny.

Synergy goes to Atlantis Marine World for their reward. The sharks look mean. Roxanne says that one is bigger than Allie and Allie remarks that it’s bigger than Brent. Oh, ha, ha, fat jokes. Those never get old. Everyone except Roxanne needs to shut up. Yes, that means you, too, Sean. Brent wonders if the sharks are tranquilized. (Nope.) He’s the most nervous of everyone about being shark bait. Eh, he’d be shark bait even if he weren’t there, so he should be grateful he’s facing off with a shark instead of Trump.

Allie wants a shark to eat Brent. I want Allie to shut up. Look, I don’t like Brent that much but is all of this insulting really necessary? We get it. They don’t like him. Let’s move on. The members of Synergy get in cages in the water. Brent is incredibly nervous but, to his credit, rides out the whole experience. Sean interviews that, unfortunately, Brent survived. Betsy, you can have him. Enjoy. Sean adds that this was a nice bonding experience for the team. Well, except for you-know-who.

In the suite, Gold Rush is not exactly bonding. Tarek tells Dan that the loss is Theresa’s fault, not Lenny’s. They didn’t have a theme and Cory was awful. Lenny wonders why Theresa tried to blame him. Theresa starts yelling about his screw-ups and Charmaine asks him who he thinks should be blamed instead. Lenny tries his flimsy argument that the absent Dan and Lee are responsible, as well as Theresa and Bryce. Charmaine tries to respond again and he tells her to shut up. Don’t tell Charmaine to shut up! She’s cool! Lenny thinks that Theresa has made a big mistake. Bryce doesn’t get why he’s trying to blame Dan and Lee because he’s the one who had to help Lenny with the generators. He says that he did it for Lenny because he doesn’t like to fail. Lenny says that he did fail, but Bryce says he saved him.