The Apprentice 2, Episode 14 Extras: Marco Polo

We start out with Jennifer and Sandy making dinner in the suite while they wait for Kevin and Kelly to return from the boardroom. And, yes, both of them seem to think that Ivana’s the one who will be fired. When they discover that they’re right, Jen interviews that it will be easier to be without Ivana, since she’s “immature and unprofessional.” The final four toast to being in, well, the final four. Kelly and Kevin joke around and Kelly wishes Kevin luck. Kelly ranks himself the strongest (of course), Kevin second, Sandy third, and Jen fourth.

Sandy and Kelly talk about Jen and her decision to let Sandy be the project manager of the candy task. Sandy thinks that Jen gave it up too easily. Sandy interviews that Jen is always positioning herself. She thinks that Jen was scared to be the PM on the candy task; she doesn’t have guts and doesn’t take risks. Looks like she’s already planning her boardroom strategy.

From the next room, Jen hears Sandy and Kelly’s conversation and calls out that she didn’t give up being the PM. She also wants Kelly and Sandy to say things to her face while she’s in the room. She thinks Kelly is a coward. Them’s fightin’ words! Sandy says that Jen was on the fence about being the PM and Jen denies this. She thinks that Kelly sees Sandy as his main competition and wants to discredit Jen. Wait, what?

The next day, the final four head out for their interviews. In his discussion with one of Trump’s henchmen… er, pals, Kevin calls himself an opportunist. He likes to learn through practical experience and thinks it’s a good idea to balance experience with school. In his interview, Kelly talks about the startups he’s worked for. He’s asked where he sees himself in ten years and responds that he wants to own a bunch of different stuff.

Jen says in her interview that her biggest obstacle has been convincing people that she can get the job done. Her interviewer tells her to give a more specific answer. She replies that it’s been “stepping up.” How is that more specific? The interviewer asks if attorneys make good businesspeople; Jen thinks that they do. “Aren’t they pessimists?” the interviewer asks. Objection – do you have evidence to support that claim?

Sandy tells her interviewer that she came on The Apprentice because she wanted a new challenge. However, when she’s talking to a different interviewer, she says that taking a job with Trump would be “safer.” Kelly says that his main weakness is becoming impatient with people who give up easily. Kevin says that he needs to learn to pick his battles. After the interviews, the final four decompress and, from the looks on their faces, go over and over their responses to figure out if they answered all the questions the way they should have. Sandy wants one more week to prove herself.

The final four head back to their suite and pack before the final boardroom. Kelly jokingly asks Jen, “Are you having fun yet?” Kevin thinks that he did well in the interviews, but he’s never been in such a competitive environment before. Sandy thinks that the playing field is even. The four hug each other, realizing that two of them won’t be coming back to the suite. Jen says that after this point, alliances and friendships don’t matter anymore.

Although the clips are out of order, with the Boardroom at the end, I’ll put it back into order for you – so we’re in the boardroom with the final four. Trump asks Kelly why he should choose him over Kevin. Kelly talks about his experience, his leadership training, his “innate drive,” and his creativity. He adds that he’s stepped up more than Kevin and is a better planner. Kevin disagrees. He has respect for Kelly, but Trump needs someone to listen and learn from him. He doesn’t think that Kelly is as receptive.

Kevin says that he and Kelly have the same credentials. Trump replies that Kevin has a bunch of degrees but hasn’t done anything. He talks about the interviewers’ agreement that Kevin doesn’t seem to have any direction. And then he fires him. Just a minute, I have to go cry again. Okay, I’m back. Trump thinks that Kevin will be very successful and Kevin thanks him. As he leaves, he says that he thought he was one of the strongest competitors but he has to respect Trump’s decision. He’s grateful for the experience.

Trump explains to the final three that everyone agrees that Kelly is amazing, so a woman’s going to have to go. Jen immediately starts talking herself up. Trump asks Sandy what she thinks and Sandy replies that Jen knows how to be a lawyer, but that’s about it. Jen ties to interrupt as Sandy continues that people should learn from their experiences. “How would you know?” Jen asks. “You dropped out of school.” Um… that’s the point, Jen. Sandy dropped out of school and learned from her experiences.

Sandy asks Jen if she’s ever taken a risk. This starts off the first round of Jen/Sandy bickering. Trump tells Sandy that she can’t criticize Jen for going to good schools and making a lot of money. Well, then Jen shouldn’t be able to criticize Sandy for dropping out of school, Mr. Money. I really think that if Trump didn’t have so much money, he wouldn’t have been so adamant about Jen deserving credit for going to Harvard and making money.

Jen says that she’s good for the job. She pulls out Sam’s strategy, telling Trump that she knows all about his company. Trump asks George for his opinion; George says that he liked that Sandy worked her way up and took the opportunity to try something “bigger and better.”

Trump notes that Carolyn is torn over Sandy and Jen. Sandy wonders why they’ve been working for 13 weeks if it’s going to come down to their educations. She mentions that she has a better track record. Trump asks Kelly which woman he thinks is better. Jen speaks up that Kelly has only worked with her once. Kelly replies that she’s not him. Pleased, Trump comments to Carolyn that Kelly is “pretty tough.” He asks Kelly if Jen is weak. Kelly says that she is. Trump asks if she’s the weakest out of the whole 18. Kelly says that she is.

Jen argues that Kelly is actually worried that she’ll survive and beat him. Trump asks Kelly if he wouldn’t prefer to have the weakest competitor stick around. Kelly doesn’t think it matters, since he believes he’ll beat either Jen or Sandy. Jen pronounces this “ridiculous.” Sandy and Jen fight again and Trump lets it go for more than half a minute. Then he says that Sandy doesn’t seem to value education. He also has a problem with the way that Sandy defended herself and prefers the way that Jen both defended herself and attacked. Therefore, Sandy is fired.

On her way out, Sandy says that she still thinks she’s better than Jen. She has no regrets, though, and never realized how much she could accomplish in a short amount of time. She thinks that she made a good impression on Trump and says that you never know about the future.

For some reason, we then see Kevin get fired again. (Twist the knife a little deeper, why don’t you guys?) We see Sandy get fired again, too.

In his cab, Kevin says that he believes he was fired because of his résumé. He adds that he didn’t want to get into any fights in the boardroom. He had a great experience, had fun, and made a couple of new friends. He chose to work rather than “play the game,” and is proud of the job he did. Kevin thinks that he should have talked about which people were the best for the job rather than talk about whether Kelly was worse than him. However, he thinks that Trump probably went into the room knowing who he was firing. I think that he knew he was going to fire Kevin, but I’m not so sure he knew he was going to fire Sandy.

In her cab, Sandy says that the fighting was “excruciatingly painful.” She thinks that Jen was better at defending herself, at least according to Trump, because she had more reasons to defend herself. George gave Sandy more credit and everyone was building a case against Jen, so she had to defend herself. While that may be true, it sounds more like Sandy’s looking for a way to sleep better at night. She thinks that Jen’s only advantage was having to defend herself more. She thinks that Trump made the wrong decision, but she’s honored that she made it to the final three. She’s proud of herself and what she’s accomplished. She also hopes that Trump hasn’t seen the last of her.

Cut to Jen and Kelly going up to the top of Trump Tower after the boardroom. They drink champagne at what Jen calls the literal top of the world. She’s not happy, however, that she has to drink champagne and toast with Kelly. She explains her boardroom behavior by saying that desperate times blah blah blah. Kelly interviews that he doesn’t like Jen but had to congratulate her and eat strawberries with her on the roof. Jen jokes that she wants to throw Kelly off of the deck. He should totally tell Trump that she said that.

I can’t help contrasting these two with Bill and Kwame. The two of them toasted with champagne on the roof, but they wished each other good luck and seemed pretty genuine about it. They toasted to opportunity. They talked about how grateful they were for the opportunities they’d been given. Kwame said, “May the best man win,” and Bill replied, “I think we already have.” They were classy. Jen and Kelly are acting… well, I’m thinking of a word that rhymes with “classy,” but I’m not going to say it, because then I might not be considered classy.

Kelly says that he’s going to give 110% on the next task. That’s original. He also says that his work will be “top-notch.” Jen says that she’s motivated and excited. And she’s oh, so pretty. Did everyone notice how pretty she is? I think she wants you to remember that.

After the task assignments the next day, Jen explains that Chris, Pamela, and Stacy, her former peers, are now her employees. Jen rides in a Maybach and calls the others, telling them about their task. Her explanation for why she chose Chris is ridiculous – it’s because they have the NBA task and, simply, “he’s a guy.” Hey, Jen? Raj is a guy. John’s a guy. And you know what else? That’s a remarkably sexist attitude. I’ve known plenty of girls who like basketball. So let me just sum up my point by saying, “Shut up, Jen.”

Jen explains that she chose Pamela because she’s smart and organized. She claims that Stacy is working for her because she’s smart as well, but she seems to be overlooking the fact that Stacy was the only person left, so Jen didn’t really have a choice. She also says something about Stacy being a lawyer, but for this task, that doesn’t have anything to do with the price of milk. Jen says that “the idea of beating Kelly is just too much to resist.”

Kelly rides in his own Maybach, jumping out at a stop to give some papers to his employees in their van. I’m still confused as to why he decided to tell them that he loves them. Kelly explains that he picked Elizabeth because he knew that Jen would want her. Ha! That cracks me up. Oh, and she’s also good from a marketing standpoint. Kelly picked John because he’s “motivated” and does good work. He picked Raj because he’s not Stacy. Oh, sorry – he picked Raj because his clothes are conducive to polo. No, seriously, that’s what he said.

At some point during the tasks, Stacy meets with someone about catering for the post-game reception. She’s supposed to figure out how many tables to keep inside and how many to put outside. She thinks it would be strange to have both taller tables (at which people can stand) and smaller tables (where people can sit) inside. Stacy starts to say something about putting some tables outside, then kind of trails off. I don’t think she has any idea what she wants. The caterer seems to agree and tries to get an answer out of her. The caterer has this look on her face like, “I can’t believe this.” Stacy keeps trying to make a decision but can’t quite put her thoughts together. “Am I driving you crazy?” she asks. Yes, but why stop now? Oh, wait, she wasn’t talking to me.

Chris is in charge of looking through a huge number of boxes, the contents of which are supposed to go into gift bags. He and Stacy are amazed by the number of boxes in a storage closet; he says that they can’t reach them all. She tells him that they have to open all of them to make sure everything is there. Chris disagrees; he says that if someone didn’t ship something he or she was supposed to, it’s that person’s fault. What a great attitude! I can imagine him in Raj’s position – “I don’t care if we’re contractually obligated to paint that logo on the field. If it doesn’t get done, it’s not my problem.” Tell me again why you were fired, Chris?

Jen interviews about all of the things that still need to get done. Chris tries to wrestle some boxes into an elevator, talking about putting the gift bags together. He swears at the elevator, which is sure to be helpful.

Kelly’s team meets with a Genworth managing director about putting the Genworth logo on the polo field. It’s Raj’s responsibility, and Kelly is (quite appropriately, as we learn later) worried that it won’t get done. Raj is told that the field will be mowed and then the lines will be painted on it. The logo can’t be sprayed until after the field is mowed, and it has to be sprayed first thing in the morning.

Later, the team meets with a couple of other Genworth employees, who talk about the polo match being a good cause. They try to reiterate how important it is, mentioning that some VIPs, including Genworth’s CEO, will be there. The male employee says that some people there will have Alzheimer’s, and Raj decides that this is kind of funny; security may have to chase after people who are wandering around. Yes, hilarious. The guy doesn’t seem very amused by Raj and says, “I can’t wait to see how Raj screws up our logo on the field.” Ha!

Kelly wants his team to brainstorm about things that they’ll be selling during the match. This kicks off the spreadsheet madness. After being chased away from the computer, Raj interviews that Kelly is like Ulysses S. Grant. Oh, he’s going somewhere with this. Raj explains that Kelly isn’t brilliant, but he’s a good leader. He can “send people forward to be killed and to get the job done.” Is Raj worried about getting killed on the polo field?

Kelly explains to Raj that he doesn’t want a bunch of spreadsheets on the computer. Raj says that something in Kelly’s head is “skewed towards that militaristic bent” and he’s sick of it. He, John, and Elizabeth go out to the field, where John and Raj talk about relaxing and enjoying the match the next day. Elizabeth tells them that they’d better help her if she needs them to. Inside, Kelly wonders where everyone is.

Jen meets with a couple of people from Genworth who don’t have much information on what’s going to happen the next day. Jen wants to know if Chris Webber or someone from Genworth is going to “go first” (I’m not sure what she’s referring to). One of the Genworth women says it’s not her decision. Jen tries to explain that she just received the assignment so she doesn’t have everything worked out. The woman interviews that this is a bad excuse.

Jen asks how the MVP of the game will be selected. The woman replies that she doesn’t know. Jen thinks that Genworth would want to do the selecting. The other woman asks if Jen would have contacted them about this if she’d had more time. Jen says that now she can keep in touch with them, and the first woman asks when, “three in the morning?” She’s trying to lighten the situation, but Jen doesn’t see the humor in this and tries to make her excuse again. The first woman says that choosing the MVP is important.

Jen decides to pass off the discussion to Pamela. This turns out to be smart, as Pamela is either on top of things or does a good job of pretending that she is. Pamela interviews that Genworth doesn’t think they have things covered. Indeed, the first woman interviews that she doesn’t have much confidence in Jen and her team.

Next week is the three-hour finale, but there will probably be extra footage anyway. I’m going to have to back Kelly on this one, though I can’t help seeing him as the lesser of two evils. Who will be hired? Tune in and find out.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other Apprentice 2 Episode 14 articles:

Jenn Brasler is an aspiring writer from Falls Church, VA. You can e-mail her at luckyjenn@hotmail.com. She’s trying to decide whether to use her powers for good… or evil.

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