The Apprentice 5 Extras, Episode 2

The first scene this week is the same as the preview from last week (Tarek and the reprieved Gold Rush members returning to the suite), so we’ll just move on. The next scene shows Brent playing with devil sticks in the suite. Betsy’s boyfriend Sean interviews that Brent is “not put together properly.” He’s an outcast, and Sean likes him, but if he’s trying to concentrate on a task, he doesn’t want Brent around him.

Andrea calls a team meeting with the apparent intention of telling everyone their strengths. It’s actually more of an excuse for her to say nice things about everyone but Brent. I’m not much of an Andrea fan. She tells Brent that he’s misevaluating himself if he thinks he has strong people stills. Everyone else jumps on Brent and tells him what his weaknesses are. Brent thinks they’re wrong about his lack of people skills. Andrea says that when she’s project manager, she won’t be putting him in a people position. Brent interviews that he thinks the others don’t like him because he stands out, but he’s proud of that. He won’t quit and wants to prove them wrong.

After a replay of the Brent/Stacy debacle, the Trump Lesson of the Week, and the Gold Rush brainstorming/Lee sucks sequence (in which Lee calls “Charmaine” honey and earns more of my wrath), we see Synergy sleeping the morning away. Gold Rush is up and out as Tarek wonders if Synergy will be in Times Square as well. Roxanne gets up at 6:30 and has the unenviable task of waking up the rest of her team. She wonders what they’re waiting for.

Synergy does their thing in Times Square. With less than two hours left, Brent turns into Robo Brent. Stacy says he’s weird.

Gold Rush goes to the suit showroom for their reward. There isn’t much additional footage here, though John, one of the men they’re helping, says that putting on a suit gave him confidence and made him feel like he was back on Wall Street. Trump tells the guys that he wishes he looked like them. He gives them a pep talk and says that sometimes people in business just need a hand.

It’s boardroom time. Pepi makes sure to turn Trump’s attention to Brent right away. He even manages to blame Brent for their lateness in starting the task the second day. Interesting logic. Brent thinks he rocked. Pepi says that Brent is a big part of why they lost. People made mistakes because they were distracted by him. Trump notes that they started late, adding that Gold Rush was just better. Michael says that Pepi was a good leader but he couldn’t manage Brent. Trump wonders if Brent can be managed, then asks if Michael thinks he’s smart. Michael’s eyes widen and he asks, “Brent?” It’s kind of funny.

Brent blames Pepi for the loss because he was bad at organizing. Trump asks Pepi who did the best. Pepi says that everyone did well (except Brent, of course), but Roxanne and Andrea were the best. He told Andrea that she was a good leader but she sometimes trumps the project manager. Trump notes Pepi’s use of his name and Pepi says, “Trumptastic.” Shhh, Pepi. You’re not helping.

Instead of continuing a dialogue on why Andrea sucks (which is one I would enjoy), the conversation moves on to Stacy’s horrible job at choosing a good location. She tries to argue that she made a good decision. Michael interrupts to note that their target market was 18-24-year-olds. The other team did well, but they didn’t hit the target market either. Most of the people in Times Square at that time of day were tourists, kids, and seniors. Stacy tries to argue that there are also clubs and restaurants in Times Square, adding that Gold Rush was there, too. Ivanka says that they had a better location and got there earlier. They also spread out while Synergy kept together. Roxanne says that they planned to spread out, but when she brought up the idea again after hearing that Gold Rush would be in Times Square, she was shot down. Trump decides that, because she’s so smart, Roxanne shouldn’t be fired, and she might be the only person in the room who shouldn’t be.

Trump starts his typical routine of asking everyone who should be fired. Sean names Brent, saying that they were slow because of him. However, Pepi kept asking for consensus votes. He tries to say that this isn’t necessarily bad, but Trump gets him to admit that it kind of is by invoking the name of Douglas MacArthur, who would never lead by consensus. Brent raises his hand to try to say something but Trump tells him to wait, then moves on to Allie. She says that Brent should be fired. Roxanne says that they lost because they were late, so Pepi should go. Andrea blames Brent. Bill thinks that’s lame. Thanks, Bill! Andrea calls Brent embarrassing. Andrea, Bill basically just told you to shut up. You should listen.

Ivanka wants to know if Brent is manageable. He thinks he is. She asks if he’s a team player. Trump asks if Ivanka could manage him, but she’s not sure. Brent says he’s definitely manageable and Trump asks, “By who?” Somehow this leads him to the bathrobe idea, which I don’t think was that bad. At least someone had an idea. Michael gets dumped on until he finally blurts out that Brent threatened Stacy. We got through that whole thing again. The best parts are Ivanka’s expression, which says, “You have to be kidding me,” and Bill’s expression, which says, “Can I go home?” Pepi chooses to bring Brent, Stacy, and Michael back to the boardroom. Trump will fire two people.

Bill thinks that Stacy needs to go because she didn’t take responsibility for her actions. Ivanka thinks that Brent is a liability but that Pepi should be fired for being weak. Pepi, Michael, Stacy, and Brent reenter and Pepi starts in on Brent again, calling him a negative force. Brent calls this bull and they start arguing. Ivanka asks Pepi how he leads. He says it’s by delegation, which some people would call consensus. I think he’s confused about what delegation means. He had to step in because Brent had some crazy ideas. Pepi thinks he’s usually a good leader but Trump replies that he wasn’t this time around.

Brent thinks he was helpful to his team because he created a buzz. We get more Brent vs. Stacy. Bill finally ends it by saying that since no one else was there, we’ll never know the truth. Go to the videotape! I would like to note that Michael has been quiet this whole time, which is very smart of him. If you keep your mouth shut when they’re not talking about you, you might get out alive. Summer.

Trump says that the location of the task was important and Stacy screwed it up. If she can’t handle Brent, she can’t handle Trump’s business, so she’s fired. Michael gets off with a warning and Brent is a disaster but gets to stick around. Pepi didn’t lead and lost the respect of his team, so he’s fired, too.

In the cab, Pepi says he’s disappointed but confident that he contributed a lot. Synergy is now in a bad place because Brent is still with them, so Pepi wishes them luck. He says that he put forth his best but there were circumstances out of his control. He thinks he was courageous to step forward and be the project manager when other people were afraid to. Even though everyone has to do it eventually. Whatever. Pepi tried his best to keep Brent in control and thinks that he should be back in the suite instead of Brent. He’s a loser in life. Ouch.

Stacy says that she’ll remember, “Location, location, location, you’re fired.” Me, too. Good times. She’s still arguing that Gold Rush did well in Times Square, so she couldn’t have screwed up too badly. Synergy is destined to fail with Brent on their team, and she doesn’t think there’s any way he’ll wind up working for Trump. Pepi says that they came into this experience because they deserved to be there. I guess Brent doesn’t, huh? He thinks they have good futures ahead of them. He’s looking forward to keeping in touch with the great people he met.

In her exit interview, Stacy says that she thought she would be a good apprentice because she’s a trial attorney (we know! You told us ten times!) and thought a lot of the skills she uses in her job would carry over into business. She was blamed for the bad location but would choose it again if she had to do it over. That’s our Stacy, learning from her mistakes. Pepi was in a bad situation because of Brent, who Stacy calls a “walking time bomb.” He should have been fired for his “unacceptable” behavior.

Stacy says that she often works with people who have been accused of things, and now she knows how they feel. This was the first time in her life she wasn’t able to talk herself out of something. So she’s never lost a case? Ever? I find that hard to believe. Stacy says that right before you’re fired, Trump stares you in the eye and won’t break the gaze. She knew at that point that no matter what she said or did, she was out. She’s happy to go back to her job and plans to do more media work.

In his exit interview, Pepi tells us that he thought he would win because he has a good education, a good family, and a lot to offer. I’m not sure what his family has to do with Trump thinking he’s a good businessman. Pepi thinks that being project manager was a calculated risk. If he’d won, he would be safe for a while. Not if he royally screwed up the next task. Has Pepi ever seen this show? He’s fine with what happened and says that so much went wrong, he can’t blame just one person. He then proceeds to blame Brent for the loss. Please find a new tune, Pepi.

More Brent-bashing: he’s unmanageable. He’s one of the most difficult people Pepi has ever worked with. He lacks self-awareness. Pepi feels for him and thinks that Brent expresses himself incorrectly, which leads to problems. When Trump said that he was firing two people, Pepi thought he might be one of them. After Stacy was fired, though, he thought Brent would be the other person to go, so he was surprised to be fired himself. Pepi has lots of good memories and liked meeting interesting people who he could relate to. He also enjoyed eating with Trump after the first task. Pepi is glad to go back to his job and his family, who will be proud of him. He’s paving the way for the next generations of his family.

In an interesting preview for the next episode, Gold Rush has a team meeting in the suite. Lee announces that tomorrow he and Dan will begin observing Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. This means that they will attend services for two days and won’t be working. Lee interviews that he hopes his team respects this. Tarek tries to figure out if they can communicate via cell phone, then realizes that that’s out of the question.

Lenny speaks up that this is “f^%@#*& stupid.” He thinks Dan and Lee just want an excuse not to work. Dan says that these are his personal beliefs and he’s just stating what he will and won’t do. Lenny says that he’s Jewish, too, but he’ll still be working. Israeli soldiers fight on Jewish holidays, even though they’re not supposed to. I think Israeli soldiers trying to keep from getting killed is a little different from Lee and Dan not marketing Tootsie Rolls or whatever. Dan says that all Lenny needs to know is how he practices his religion. Lenny says it’s fine, but if they lose, Dan will be blamed. Oh, Lenny. Did you learn nothing about religious tolerance from Jen C.? Trump isn’t going to like his attitude…

Jenn Brasler is an Assistant Editor of Reality News Online and an aspiring writer from Falls Church, VA. You can e-mail her at luckyjenn@hotmail.com. She’s glad that Trump already gets how much Roxanne rocks.

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