The Celebrity Apprentice 5, Episode 7, Part 1: Am I Blue?

Last week on The Boardroom That Wouldn’t Die: The teams were tasked with throwing launch parties for Crystal Light, which Aubrey totally loves so much because it helped her lose a ton of weight, you know! Project Manager Aubrey and Teresa didn’t see eye-to-eye, though for all the camera time that conflict got, I completely forgot about it. Meanwhile Clay sent Penn away, which was also nothing to write home about but this show wants you to think otherwise. Both teams went all-out, and in a Boardroom which somehow lasted for three days, the women were (briefly) unified but the men’s team still won. Aubrey and Dayana went after each other, but Trump is not about to fire a hot model or the number one source of catty drama quite yet, so Patricia got the blame and was fired.

We begin this week as Lisa is telling the men that Dayana is more of a team player than Patricia is, and she’s praying that Aubrey will walk into the room and one of the others will take the bullet (what are you, new here?). Sure enough, Aubrey and Dayana walk in, and Aubrey is in tears again. She interviews that the right person didn’t get fired, and Dayana is the weakest member of the team and is next to go.

Lou hugs Aubrey (even though he was making fun of her for crying) and Lisa jokes to him not to break her ribs. Penn tells Dayana he’s glad she made it through, but she’s upset too and she talks up Patricia in her interview spot. Arsenio tells her she’ll never be criticized for being choked up over her charity, as if that’s what she’s upset about. Debbie tells us their team is still emotionally dysfunctional and not unified and out to get each other, which is music to the producers’ ears. And, cue the O’Jays!

Clay meets with Kristy White, director of marketing for the National Inclusion Project, and talks about his charity while playing with Kristy and some kids in a park. He hands her both checks, totalling 50 thousand dollars. They play that game with the giant parachute, which I don’t know the name of but I always loved it when I was a kid.

The teams assemble at Trump Tower, as the Donald is quick to remind us. Today's challenge is to create and sell a My New York celebrity guidebook, brought to you by the Toshiba Tablet, which I bet Aubrey really loves and uses all the time. The women’s Project Manager is Teresa, which Trump seems happy about, and Aubrey wonders if it’s a recipe for disaster, presumably because it’s not her. Teresa interviews that team morale is down and someone needs to step up and turn things around, and she says it’s gonna be her. For the men, it’s going to be Dee, who is playing for the March of Dimes.

Trump says the team who creates the best book will win a bonus to their total, courtesy of Toshiba, and it will be judged by a great friend of Trump’s and a great celebrity. He doesn’t tell us who it is, but everyone now knows from last week’s preview, so thanks a lot, NBC! And we’re off!

Teresa reminds Forte that the team who raises the most money for their guidebooks wins. Debbie says Teresa takes control of the meeting by telling everyone they need to raise a lot of money, which they already knew. Debbie says it’s the Project Manager’s responsibility to bring in the largest amount. Dayana leaps in with an idea as she tells us she needs to be more aggressive and speak up sooner so no one accuses her of never creating or saying anything. “Well you never let me say anything, so shut up.” Yes, the team is unified already.

Over at Unanimous, Dee reminds us and his team of basically the same thing Teresa did – raise the most money and all that. Penn has an idea of shooting each team member in a different location, and explaining what they did in New York, or something like that. Clay has a concern that every picture will look the same, but I have no idea what he’s getting at – however, Dee likes the idea anyway. Clay says it wasn’t the best idea, and “I don’t know if it’s the entire head, but at least Dee’s forehead is up Penn’s ass.” See, without his childlike giggling, it just comes across as vicious.

Debbie and Lisa are in the van, and Debbie gets off the phone with an anonymous friend who wants to donate 10 grand, bringing her total so far up to $17,500. Lisa explains they’re splitting up the places they plan to photograph so they can get done by three and get to work on the graphic design. After a few shots with them, we switch over to Aubrey, Dayana, and Teresa, where Aubrey’s picture is being taken at some unnamed place. Aubrey interviews that it is like “two blondes trying to be nuclear physicists,” and she feels stranded and in prison with the two of them because she’s not used to working this slowly and ineffectively. Full of compliments, that one.

Then after another quick visit with Debbie and Lisa, we’re back to Aubrey’s complaining, as she says Dayana forced Aubrey to take 36 pictures of her in one location backlit by the sun. Then she makes fun of Dayana’s accent. This is a good time to point out that last week Aubrey told us she was part of a campaign to stop bullying. The irony is too sweet, isn’t it?

Unanimous is on the roof of Trump Tower, which has some truly majestic views. Lou flexes his biceps for one shot, and Dee explains the idea is to tap into neighborhoods that they all have a connection with. Clay tells us that Paul is taking the East Side even though he’s pretty sure Paul has never even been there. Ah, there’s the childlike giggling. Lou takes Penn’s picture and tells a very morbid joke about having the perfect opportunity to throw someone he doesn’t like off the roof for suggesting he’d bring Lou back to the Boardroom. Good grief, he’s still bitter about that? What does it take for this guy to let something go already?

Debbie and Lisa are back at Forte’s suite with the graphic designer, and Debbie calls the other team to tell them to hurry their butts back. Aubrey tells her there are three places they still want to go, and Debbie says if they don’t make it back in time they won’t even have a chance to finish the book. Lisa gets in on it as she gives Teresa grief about worrying how pretty everyone looks. Gosh, I sure am worried that they won’t get finished in time… except that I’m not.

Dee tells us that Paul is a man of few words, so Penn took over writing for him and wrote the most negative description of the upper East Side that you can imagine. Lou reads it and there’s an awful lot of bleeps, which doesn’t seem so tourist-friendly to me, but Clay and Paul both love it. Paul tells us he’s not a New York City guy because he moved to the country a hundred years ago.

Clay points out a joke Arsenio wrote as not being funny, and Arsenio says something about how when you’re not funny, jokes don’t appear to be jokes to people who actually do them. Clay and Arsenio play fight over that while Paul looks on smiling, like a father watching his kids’ horseplay. This episode is three hours long.

Back to Forte’s war room, where the other girls have returned, and Lisa says it’s an hour and a half too late, but she says nothing so as not to distract from the graphic designer’s work. Debbie asks if they need signage and Teresa says yes, they always need that. Debbie interviews that no one had brought up signage or the aesthetics of the kiosk that they’d be selling the books at, and Teresa didn’t present her visual concept to the rest of the team. She says Teresa is serving as a distraction to getting the work done, which she resents, but she and Aubrey are getting ready to “power shop” to make their kiosk look halfway presentable.

For her part, Teresa gets in on the cattiness by saying she felt Debbie was setting her up at the last minute, which she hasn’t done to Lisa or Aubrey. I don’t know, it seems like a pretty big thing to overlook, so it’s a good thing Debbie mentioned it when she did, but I’m just a casual observer so what do I know?

Back to Unanimous we go, and Penn is telling the team he’s set up donations from Teller and from the Blue Man Group. He says he offered Blue Man Group to Dee, who loved the idea. The men continue calling their rich friends, and Lou even leaves a message for Vince McMahon, owner of World Wrestling Entertainment. (I’m a lifelong wrestling fan, so if Vince shows up, this will officially be the best episode of this show ever. By the way, is it coincidence that this episode is airing on Wrestlemania Sunday? Hmmm…) Arsenio says everyone is on the phone at the same time, and he’s trying but all of his friends are avoiding him, because when you don’t have a talk show, a lot of people who you thought were your friends are not. I wonder if Johnny Carson ever had that problem after he retired?

He finally gets a hold of Jay Leno, who says he’s going to FedEx a blank check. Arsenio talks about how he and Jay are friends, and does his Leno impression to demonstrate how Leno got him into show business. See, I could have sworn I remember Arsenio mocking Leno when the two were both on competing talk shows, and not in a friendly way, either. But here, he says Leno is like a big brother to him. I’ll never understand these late night wars, I guess. (A little detail I love: The screen on the phone has The Celebrity Apprentice logo, which is kinda cool.)

Down the hall, Lisa has her grumpy demeanor out as she’s giving the girls grief about taking a hundred pictures, and says it’s always up to her to save everyone’s ass. Dayana asks Lisa if they’re including subway directions, and Lisa bites her head off about it and says they’re focusing on the least important stuff in this whole [bleep] task, and flat-out tells Dayana to shut up. In an interview, she calls Dayana an “eleventh hour Yappy McYapster,” which I can’t add anything to.

Dayana, to be fair, is trying to be helpful and asks Lisa if she needs any more help, but she really can’t read the room as Lisa tells Teresa to get Dayana out of there and says, “Oh my god, [bleep] shut up. [Bleep] shut up. [Bleep] shut up,” and Dayana keeps talking the whole time. Teresa makes the “zip your lip” motion to her, while the graphic designer looks horribly uncomfortable. Dayana interviews that Lisa is confused over when to get emotional, and Trump is not going to pick a winner who’s going to be shouting and yelling and screaming and crying. No, but he might give their charity 10 grand, as we learned last week.

Lisa continues trying to get Dayana to shut up, and interviews she’s blown away by the stupidity of parts of their group. She actually tears up while talking about how she sweated her ass off putting this book together and she’s “sick of this pressure from women who all they do is looking in a [bleep] mirror. [Bleep] you. Develop a talent and a brain and then maybe the world will take you seriously.” And she’s nearly in tears as she says this. Wow – maybe Dayana has a point about Lisa not knowing when to get emotional.

It’s the next day and Unanimous begins selling their guidebooks at 8 AM—I guess the rest of their night was so boring that we had to skip over all of it. [Editor’s Note: What, did you want this episode to be four hours long?!] Dee is confident he’ll raise lots of money and hopes everyone else will bring in a lot as well. There’s a wrinkle, as Lou tells someone they’re five dollars, and a guy is apparently told otherwise. Clay asks Paul to tell them to stop saying they’re five dollars, and Dee says it is worrisome but they still need their big donors to make a difference. He hopes the Blue Man Group will make a big donation, and he shills the guidebooks to the public by saying, “If you don’t donate money, I am burning in Hell.” Hey, it worked for Jimmy Swaggart!

Meanwhile, Forte is also selling their guidebooks, and they’ve gone with a black-and-yellow color scheme for some ungodly reason. Aubrey offers to give someone a kiss if they’ll buy a guidebook, which should tell you something about how much faith they have in the product. Teresa says she’s not going to focus on the drama from yesterday (the producers will do that for her) and now it’s time to start selling. A contrast is shown as Dayana gets turned down by two people but Aubrey gets a donation from one guy. I’m sure those three people represented a very accurate depiction of how sales went down all day, too.

Back at Unanimous, Michael Andretti shows up and buys a book for 20 thousand dollars, so it’s good to see he’s not as bitter toward his former teammates as Lou is; Dee is also impressed. Lou announces a 25 thousand dollar donation, though the dude’s name is not given even though he’s standing right there next to Lou. Another guy buys two for 15 thousand, and Dee interviews that he never heard Arsenio make an announcement.

Speaking of Arsenio, he’s on the phone asking about Leno’s check, but apparently it got lost and is still on the truck someplace. He insinuates it’s because the check arrived at his New York office at 7, but the office didn’t open until 10. So somewhere in New York City there’s a truck driver with a blank check from Jay Leno. Arsenio says he’s never failed at anything (I remember a Star Search reboot that says otherwise) but today he knows he’s in trouble.

At Forte, Debbie says things started slow and they had to work for every 20 dollars, but then the big money starts coming in, and they’re off and running. Dayana does some goofy singing as she interviews that people don’t realize she’s a hard worker and she’s there to win for her charity and win The Celebrity Apprentice. So… basically she’s there for the same reason as everyone else.

Lisa announces a five thousand dollar donation from Jeff Foxworthy, and she tells us a few more donations came in as well. Meanwhile Teresa’s big money donors have not shown up yet and she’s on the phone trying to track them down. Lisa says the pressure is on her to raise more money because she’s Project Manager.

Back to Unanimous, where the Blue Man Group are making their entrance by parading down the street with a giant blue man puppet or something. Teller also shows up, and I have my little geek-out moment at the Penn & Teller reunion before Teller hands Clay 20 thousand in cash. Penn says his “little Grinch heart” grew three times in size.

But the stunt backfires, as the Blue Men burst some balloons filled with money. Everyone scrambles to pick it up as Dee announces it’s all for charity. It appears quite a bit is turned in, but Clay calls it a “complete [bleeping] disaster” as Arsenio notices some woman trying to put money in her pants. Clay interviews that within seconds, there were fifty people on the ground grabbing at the cash, and Arsenio grabbed some out of the crack of some lady’s butt because she was trying to put it in her pants. Where the hell were the cameras to capture that?

Some woman is shown pulling money out of her cleavage, as Clay angrily tells Dee that if they recovered half of what they were given, he’ll be surprised. And people call me cynical? Learn to trust people, Clay. Penn has a slightly better attitude, as he says if anyone copped the money and ran away, he considers that charity. A bit simplistic, but still.

Clay is livid as he tells Dee he got kicked and hit and he didn’t like it. Oddly, he blames Penn for this, as he calls it an example of Penn having an idea and not caring how it affects other people. Geez, how dare Penn invite big-money donors like the Blue Man Group without thinking that maybe they’ll blow thousands of dollars out of balloons and create a mob scene that Clay wouldn’t enjoy very much! How could he not consider that?

Back to Forte we go, as some more donations come in. Aubrey announces a two thousand dollar donation and interviews that she may not have brought in as much as the other women, but she had the most people coming and bringing money, because everyone she walked up to and addressed she found a way to get them to come up to the booth and donate money.

Meanwhile, Dayana announces a donation of $17,500, and says Marco Andretti is donating seven thousand, and her friends got together and donated the rest. She claims she was the one who brought in the most money, and her biggest check was from Venezuela and they had friends in New York. Teresa’s husband shows up and brings checks from their friends, which ends up totalling over 20 grand. Teresa feels there’s no way she’ll be thrown under the bus because she stepped up to the plate and did what she had to do.

At Unanimous, Dee announces there are five minutes left of selling. Clay autographs someone’s book in pink, because “that’s what they gave me – isn’t it redundant?” (Because he’s gay – get it?) Arsenio is on the phone, finding out that one of the ladies from his office is stuck in traffic and has his check from Jay Leno. The clock winds down and sales are over as Clay is actually turning people away, and of course that’s when Arsenio’s assistant shows up with the check. He interviews that if they lose, it won’t matter why his money didn’t come; what matters is that it didn’t come.

Dee interviews that the object was to raise funds, and Arsenio raised zero dollars, so winning the best-book challenge could be a game changer.

Back at Trump Tower, in comes Regis himself, to the surprise of no one who watched the previews. He calls Donald “Trumpster,” which is funny, and I’d love to see anyone in the Boardroom try and get away with that one. He starts to point out the two covers of the guidebooks, and says the women have a more colorful cover (and he doesn’t point out that theirs is the one in black and white—the ironies just keep on coming). He goes through the men’s book, and then the women’s, and doesn’t say much about either of them, although I’m sure he went on about each of them for two or three hours and they had to cut it down considerably.

Finally Reege says he likes the women’s cover and the persona treatment, and he likes the men’s book because they “picked out big neighborhoods,” so he says. And the winner is… and commercial!

In the Boardroom, The Donald enters and starts by asking Teresa if she thinks they won; she has no idea but she hopes they did, and she was proud of her team at the end of the day. Trump asks Dayana about her difficult time last week, and Dayana says she has a difficult time every week, and she’s going to write her name on one of the chairs, which gets a laugh from the men. Trump asks her why she has a difficult time, and Dayana says something about not being direct or aggressive but it’s too hard for them to listen. Lisa shakes her head.

Trump goes to Aubrey, who says Dayana brought in money but derailed the team in other ways, mentioning the fight with Lisa, and says a lot of people are finding it difficult to communicate with her and it’s not just a language-barrier problem. Ivanka pounces on the fight with Lisa, naturally, and asks about it. Lisa says she took on the whole task for the book and says Dayana asked about subway directions, and blames Dayana entirely for the delays and says if it were up to Dayana, they would have had no product to sell.

Then the arguing ensues, and I have a hard time keeping track of it, but basically Dayana says the graphic designer had the subway directions so she figured she did her part, Lisa says something about if it was that important it should have been for the whole team, Dayana thought everyone was “doing for themselves,” Lisa says no one was, Aubrey keeps saying, “Please hear that” over and over. Arsenio looks disgusted – this show gives me a headache sometimes. Anyway, Lisa starts in again on how the team is driven by her and she does ninety percent of the work with Aubrey, and she doesn’t appreciate people flying under the radar and doing nothing.

Trump asks her if she doesn’t think Teresa was a good Project Manager. Lisa backtracks and says she wasn’t addressing that but Trump points out that she just said she and Aubrey do all the work. Lisa saves her ass by giving Debbie credit as well.

Debbie gets in on the act, saying some people aren’t proactive. She talks about how she and Lisa rushed through their pictures because they didn’t care about how they looked and rushed back to meet the graphic designer. She again says people can be more proactive and not dump everything on Lisa. Teresa takes offense and jumps in saying they didn’t even go to her spots, and they talk over each other as Teresa tries to explain her concept to Trump, but Trump asks Debbie who she’s blaming, even though we don’t know who won yet. Debbie says she’s referring to Teresa’s organization.

Teresa says by now everyone knows what they have to do and she didn’t think she still needed to babysit anyone. She and Debbie argue now, as Debbie insists Teresa didn’t tell them her vision or concept or anything. To this Teresa says, “We’ve been doing printing every single week,” and I have no idea what she’s trying to say. Either way, she’s pissed now, and Debbie tries to explain but Teresa says, “Are you kidding me?” over and over again, and Arsenio wants her to flip the table, which I confess I was waiting for too.

Teresa calls Debbie “Miss Wishy-Washy” before she finishes her point, which is that she told Debbie to take care of the printing a half hour before it had to be done. Aubrey suddenly asks if she can join the other team (because she hates being around all this drama, except when she causes it) and Dee says, “No!” which is pretty funny. Teresa jokes she wants to go on the other team but Trump says he doesn’t think the men want them, and Dee says, “Oh no, no!” He may be the most upfront person on this show.

Ivanka asks Teresa if she thinks Debbie should be fired if they lose, because they have three hours to kill so they may as well stir the pot some more. Teresa says either Debbie or Dayana, although I don’t see how Dayana was at fault this week any more than Teresa was, but okay. Debbie says Teresa doesn’t like anybody who speaks out against her, which is likely true, but Teresa disputes that as Debbie says it’s not professional. Teresa says, “Look what you’re wearing! Are you professional? Your [bleeps] are hanging out!” Yow—things just got awfully personal. (For the record, Debbie is showing way less cleavage than Nene Leakes did a few times last season, so I think Teresa is just being petty now.) Arsenio even looks fed up as Teresa continues the tirade, and Aubrey looks about ready to crack up.

Trump gets things back on track by bringing up Regis Philbin, and saying Reege looked at both guidebooks. He liked both of them a lot, but the one he liked better… was the women’s. Because of that, Toshiba is giving them 35 thousand dollars to add on to their total, but if they lose, the men get the 35 grand plus everything the women made (Lisa: “They do?”), and vice versa. So Trump tells Dee the women have a 35 thousand dollar head start on them.

Trump asks Dee what the bursting balloon was all about, and Penn explains how the Blue Man Group caused a near-riot and how the money was blowing around the area so they didn’t get a lot of it. The women laugh at this, as does Ivanka, and Penn calls it “psychedelic pandemonium.” Trump asks Lou what happened with that money, and Lou says it’s amazing how everyone became piranhas fighting for ten dollar bills, and he mentions how Clay got knocked over.

Clay calls it a disaster and a horrible idea. Trump asks Dee if he thought it was a horrible idea, and Dee says no because Blue Man Group were bringing eight thousand dollars, but Clay says they only got two thousand of that, although I don’t know how he’d know that for sure. Dee asks if he knows that for a fact, and Clay says he doesn’t. Don Jr. asks if they got it all, and Clay lets out a high-pitched “NOOOO!” Clay starts to dispute the statement that it wasn’t their money (which no one has actually said, at least not that was aired) but it would have been their money, but Penn shakes his head, which Clay argues with.

Trump tells Penn he thinks Clay is right, that it was their money until it got blown up, but Penn says that’s not true and so does Dee. Clay says they were going to donate eight thousand dollars, but Penn says they brought that as part of the spectacle, and Clay belligerently says, “That was stupid!” Actually if you’ve seen the Blue Man’s show, it fits right in, stupid or not. Also, if you want more of Penn’s opinion on what happened, he wrote up a piece in Huffington Post about it.

Trump asks Dee who brought in the least amount of money, and Dee says Arsenio, but not for lack of trying. Arsenio explains the debacle with Jay Leno’s check, and Trump says combined the two teams raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you know what the difference is between winning and losing? I expected him to say something like “perseverance,” or crap like that, but apparently it’s only fourteen dollars. Wow! Trump says they’ve never had anything so close in the history of the show.

He tells the men it would be sad if they lost by only fourteen dollars and they threw thousands of dollars away, and he asks Clay if that’s what he’s saying, because we have to milk this conflict for all we can. Clay says if he’s raising money for charity, he doesn’t want to lose anything.

So finally we’re going to find out who won. Trump asks Don how the women did, so if you’ve ever watched this show before you now know exactly which team won. Don says the women raised $127,855, plus the 35 grand bonus, for a grand total of $162,855. Teresa says she’s proud of herself and the team. As for the men, Ivanka says they raised $162,869. Dee is unsure if they won, but they did. (I refuse to believe Trump did that match in his head, so I’m assuming someone rushed in to tell him the 14 dollar difference and got edited out.)

Trump asks Dee about his charity, and Dee says two of his four children were born prematurely, and they’re healthy but the March of Dimes helps families with children who aren’t healthy, and he’s been working with them for twelve years. So the grand total is 326 thousand dollars he’ll be giving them, and everyone applauds as Trump congratulates both the men and women and says they’ve now raised over a million dollars for charity. There is more applause, but Clay still looks pretty ticked off. The men are dismissed.

The men are not shown celebrating for a change, as we’re right back to the Boardroom. Trump asks Debbie why they lost, and she says it was not for lack of trying. He again jumps on her for not thinking Teresa was a good Project Manager, and Debbie says it didn’t have to do with fundraising, and if it came down to money, she basically won the book part of the competition.

Trump asks Teresa who raised the most money; she says Lisa, and she was a close second. Trump asks about Dayana, and Dayana says she brought in about $25,500, which Trump says is pretty good, so she’s likely safe again. Ivanka points out that Lisa basically wrote the book and raised the most money, and asks if she was effectively the PM on this task; Teresa says Lisa was her right hand, and Trump somehow brings up Lisa roasting him again with what he calls her “fresh mouth.” Um… okay then.

So who raised the least? Teresa is very reluctant to say Aubrey, and Trump asks her why. Aubrey says she raised 20 thousand, which was the least. And that’s all the time we’ll spend on that, because Trump asks Teresa about her “babysitting” comment again. Teresa says she told Debbie to take care of the printing, and Debbie says, “I don’t think she knows what that means,” though whether she’s talking about printing or babysitting, I don’t know.

Teresa says they’re in week seven and they all know what they’re supposed to do, and when Debbie was PM, Teresa gave her 110 percent (seriously, is everyone going to say that at some point this season?). Debbie insists she did too but Teresa says she didn’t, and the two of them talk over each other again as Debbie tries to explain the signage issue, and Teresa says, “Hello?! I’m speaking!” The men are amused, until Paul pretends to be serious and says, “Hello?! She’s speaking!” This cracks up the men. That Paul, such a rascal.

Teresa says she delegated and implies no one listened to her. Debbie says there was no direction and the graphic designer was being monopolized until the eleventh hour, so Debbie jumped in and asked about the visual on the kiosk, which Teresa didn’t know, so Debbie and Aubrey ran out and created the entire visual.

Before another argument ensures, Trump asks who else Teresa had to babysit, and Teresa names Dayana. Trump asks why Dayana, but doesn’t let her explain as he then asks if she thinks they lost because of “Deborah.” Teresa can’t answer that either as Trump says she could say they lost because of Aubrey because she raised the least amount of money. (Aubrey looks worried, but come on – she ain’t going anywhere for a long while.)

We move on as Trump asks Lisa about Aubrey raising the least, and Lisa says she doesn’t care, but she can’t explain either as Trump says if Aubrey had raised 15 dollars more, they would have won. Aubrey jumps in and says she did raise 15 bucks more (she did?) because everyone she talked to on the street donated at least 100 to 500 dollars, but Trump cuts her off and tells her she still raised the least amount of money. Aubrey insists she still raised a lot of money, but Trump again says she still raised the least amount. Here are my two cents, as if you asked: When the lowest amount raised is 20 grand, that’s still pretty good, so maybe you need to find fault elsewhere. I hate that I’m defending Aubrey, but there you go.

So Trump asks Debbie who he should fire, and Debbie says Teresa, because Lisa out-fundraised her, and for the disorganization as well. Teresa takes it hard, as we all knew she would, as she says, “For a couple thousand dollars more, thank you very much.” Trump asks Debbie who the weakest link is instead, and Debbie admits Teresa is indeed a team player, and not that Dayana isn’t, but Dayana may be the weakest in terms of ideas.

Dayana says she’s already explained how hard it is for her to be heard and how many ideas she’s put on the table in every task they’ve lost, and Lisa interjects but Dayana asks that she not be interrupted, but Lisa says, “Yeah well it’s getting a little hard.” That’s what she said! (I actually said this out loud, and the next shot is of Aubrey chuckling. What a great serendipitous moment that was for me.)

Dayana asks for Lisa to let her continue, and Lisa scoffs. Ivanka points out that she was able to articulate herself there, so what’s happening during the tasks? Dayana points out that here Lisa is not screaming at her to shut up – she has a point there. Lisa says she’s not in her ear, distracting the graphic designer.

Dayana insists that all of her ideas she puts on the table are not heard, although Aubrey says they’ve heard every one of them, and Dayana says they’ve lost every task following Aubrey’s “theories.” Trump asks Dayana why her team doesn’t seem to respect her week after week. Aubrey looks ready to jump on that morsel, but Debbie says he asked who the weakest player is, and they said last week they have a strong team. She has nothing personal against Dayana but the ideas are not always focused on the task at hand and don’t always make sense for what they’re trying to do.

Trump asks Dayana who the weakest player is, and she says the one who brought the least money for this task would be the weakest, meaning Aubrey.

Trump tells Teresa to pick two people to bring back in with her, and the suspenseful music plays even though this is the least suspenseful part of the show each and every week. To the surprise of no one, Teresa picks Dayana and Debbie. Trump calls it “interesting,” though the word I would have used is “predictable.” The women are dismissed and Trump tells the men to turn off their TV. For their part, Dee thought Aubrey would be the weakest member, and Clay thinks Teresa is going to get fired for not picking Aubrey, which everyone agrees with. I don’t know, that doesn’t seem likely to me, since you know Trump is in no hurry to fire Aubrey.

Outside the Boardroom, Debbie doesn’t think she lost them this task (I think she’s right), and Dayana says this one was about fundraising. Debbie asks Teresa why she didn’t bring back who raised the least amount of money if this was about fundraising. It’s an excellent question, so of course Teresa has no answer. (“I’d rather bring back the people I don’t like,” being the unspoken reason.)

Back in the Boardroom, Trump asks Teresa who brought in more money between Debbie and Dayana. Teresa says Dayana, and she says she brought in more than both of them. Trump moves on to Dayana and asks her why he shouldn’t be firing her tonight, since it’s her third time back in the Boardroom. She says she’s the one who has been raising the most money for charity in total, since she won 20 grand for her charity and 50 grand for her teammates’ charities; Teresa questions that amount, but Dayana says she brought in $25,500 for her and $25,000 for Patricia, which is true.

Trump asks Teresa if she has a personal problem with Debbie. Teresa says no, apparently forgetting about the way she went after Debbie’s clothing earlier. Trump asks why he’d fire Debbie as opposed to her. Teresa says every week she’s delivered, and Debbie hasn’t, and she picks her weeks when to deliver and when not to. Debbie leaps on this and Teresa flat-out accuses Debbie of setting her up with the printing, which Debbie denies.

Ivanka asks for clarification on this whole printing issue, and Teresa claims she put Debbie in charge of printing the banners, which Debbie says was not clearly delegated. They argue this and Teresa goes back to saying, “I didn’t know I had to babysit you. Again, we’re in the seventh week! Are you serious, Debbie?” She certainly repeats herself a lot. She asks Debbie how old she is and throws in one more “Are you serious?” as the two of them argue. Dayana is caught in the middle and Trump jokes about how much she is loving it, while Ivanka makes a joke about how she’s wisely not saying anything. Meanwhile, the sniping goes on.

Debbie says there was poor leadership, and Trump asks if Debbie is hard to manage, to which Teresa says yes. Is she talented? How that’s relevant only Trump knows, but Teresa says maybe in singing, and Ivanka is surprised that Teresa won’t even give her that. Teresa says something about her being big in the ‘80s, and Debbie mentions managing her own business, but it’s hard to pick anything out of this racket.

Trump asks why he shouldn’t fire Teresa if she’s the Project Manager and she lost. Teresa says she delivers every single week, and she raised the most money on her team this week. He asks if she’s surprised Dayana raised so much, and Teresa says she’s not and they all could do that if they put they mind to it. Trump says, “But Debbie didn’t do that.” Keep stirring, Trump, keep stirring.

Teresa starts to say it’s because Debbie’s been out of the spotlight for a while, but then Trump asks why she didn’t bring Aubrey back to the Boardroom, since she raised the least. Teresa says that going forward they need key players against the men, but Trump says she needs to worry about today instead of going forward, and Debbie says it should have been her and Aubrey if they raised the least, and not Dayana. She says she doesn’t see Dayana as a big problem, but Teresa says Dayana has come back three times so obviously there’s a problem there.

Don asks Debbie if that’s a smart, strategic statement to make right now. Debbie says she doesn’t strategize, and I have trouble following her logic as well but she uses the term “throw someone under the bus” and that’s when I automatically tune out. Trump asks why they want to throw Dayana under the bus, and Debbie doesn’t know. Teresa says she lies low, and Trump says that could be a smart strategy. Trump goes back to Debbie’s comment, and Debbie says it should be her and Aubrey in the Boardroom if they raised the least.

Trump asks Debbie what she has to offer moving forward (I thought we weren’t supposed to worry about moving forward?) and Debbie says she offers ideas, creativity, proactivity, hustling, and being a team player when needed. Teresa, same question? Instead of answering, Teresa disagrees with Debbie and says she’s only a team player when she wants to be, and Ivanka points out that she did says “when needed,” and tells Debbie it was an interesting way to qualify her statement. Debbie rambles about how sometimes being a team player means stepping out of the way, and Trump makes an interesting point that maybe Dayana does that well, and she just sits there and watches the two of them go at it. Sneaky, the lengths he goes to just to keep her around, isn’t it?

Dayana says she doesn’t believe that’s why she’s still here, because she raised a lot of money and worked a lot for her charity and she’s always working for the rest of her team. Teresa says there was also a book involved and it wasn’t just about the money (yeah, it pretty much was). Trump says this task was about raising money, whether they did a good book or a terrible book, and Regis liked it but that didn’t cut it.

At last he gets to the point, which is that this was about raising money and who raised the most, and he thinks Aubrey should have been brought back and she might have been fired for this task because she raised the least. (Ha! Good one, Trump, tell us another one!) But of the people she brought back, Debbie raised the least, so she’s fired.

Debbie says she’s comfortable with that, based on the way this went, and Trump again insists that Teresa should have brought back Aubrey. So Debbie gets punished for Teresa’s mistake, I guess. Probably the wrong decision, but again, Teresa is more confrontational so of course she’s gonna be sticking around.

Debbie hugs Dayana goodbye, and asks for one from Teresa but doesn’t get it, as she just waves goodbye and hops on the elevator. Debbie’s voiceover says the worst thing about this experience has been seeing how shrewd and dishonest people can be for very self-serving purposes, and sitting inches away from people and know that they’re lying leaves her feeling a little unsettled. She says Trump can’t fire her from being Debbie Gibson, so nothing is lost. She doesn’t get the loser’s limo treatment, since we’ve got another hour to go.

Stay tuned for my recap of that next hour, coming soon!

You can follow Reality News Online on Twitter and on Facebook! On Twitter, you can get up to the minute notifications on article postings and other reality TV news by following us. So head on over to Reality News Online’s Twitter page! On Facebook, you can become a fan, join discussions, and more!

Dave Marklinger (thewave297@hotmail.com) can’t believe he missed Wrestlemania for this.

Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site! Also take a look at the rest of the site; and don't miss The Reality TV Hall of Shame. You can even buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store!

For more news about The Apprentice, be sure to check out SirLinksALot: The Apprentice!