The Apprentice 5, Episode 12 Extras: Mean Girls

After we see Lee and Sean return to the suite and have dinner with the women, we see them heading out to start the next task. They brainstorm about a theme in their van. Sean says something about a “magical” entertainment center. He wants the theme, “What do you use your Xbox for?” Lee thinks they should tell customers where in the store they can get everything they include in their display. Both of them like the idea of “bringing your lifestyle together.” Lee is the one who comes up with having an actual 360 display. Sean is so proud of himself, he actually shouts out, “I’m so good!” The way these guys are exclaiming over themselves, they’re going to a very scary place. They pat themselves on the back for being geniuses and coming up with a genius idea in mere seconds. Lee interviews that, basically, they rock and he guarantees a win.

Lee and Sean get to work outsourcing their display at Wal-Mart. Sean interviews that they wanted to get the bids to come to them. Horrible display guy Adrien has the lowest bid, which explains a lot. Bill tells us that he’s seeing some good negotiating going on, and he thinks Sean and Lee had a good idea. Adrien will be doing the roof and floor of the display and another Bill will be doing the wrapping. Which we know turns out to suck. So, good choices, Lee and Sean! Later, Lee tells Sean that Bill loved that they were pitting people against each other. The guys got a rush out of doing it.

After the Trump Lesson of the Week, we see Synergy working. Tammy talks about how they need good signage for their display. She puts Roxanne in charge of this. Roxanne calls someone and tells him that they need a five-feet-by-one-foot sign. He notes that those are strange dimensions. Tammy happens to be in the room and is listening, by the way, so her later complaints about the size of the sign don’t really hold water. She could have told Roxanne to make it bigger. Instead, she asks Allie how good she is at signage. Allie says Roxanne is better.

Tammy interviews that she was surprised how badly Roxanne did with her assignment. Roxanne also has issues with Adobe and can’t get a document done to send to the sign guy. Tammy thinks it’s more important to get the sign out, even in another format, than to learn how to use Adobe. Hey, Tammy? Stop being passive-aggressive. If you want a better sign, tell Roxanne what to do. This is why you suck as a project manager.

The next three scenes are the Allie/Roxanne eye-rolling stuff, Tammy’s confrontation of them, and Gold Rush having display issues. After that, everyone is back in the suite and Tammy is complaining to Sean about Allie and Roxanne. Sean thinks they wanted her to lose. He encourages Tammy to be strong in the boardroom. Roxanne overhears and tells Allie that they’re talking about the boardroom. Allie takes the opportunity to pop into the room and congratulate Sean on his win. She heads back to Roxanne and says Sean and Tammy are probably talking about them. Sean is sure that Tammy will be around when he and Lee return from their reward.

After said reward, the women head to the boardroom. Everyone discusses Tammy’s “entertainment” theme, which you can read my opinions of in my corner office/mailroom assignments. Ivanka makes a great point that a lounge like Tammy wanted indicates elitism, but people who shop at Wal-Mart are in a different category. Tammy’s excuse for her poor performance is that she couldn’t clear her thoughts; stuff was coming at her from all directions. Ivanka points out that that’s life. She says the task was about branding and Synergy’s display didn’t speak to the clients’ needs. They also didn’t explain how to use the Xbox.

Everyone discusses the signage and how Tammy said the task was all about her. Tammy and Roxanne bicker and Ivanka tells Allie to stop rolling her eyes and speak up already. Trump asks who was the worst and Roxanne tries to defend herself after Tammy names her. Trump thinks Roxanne doesn’t get along with people. Like who, Andrea? I mean, come on. Trump is sure that Tammy would want Roxanne gone, then asks who she would choose if it were between Tammy and Allie. Tammy would fire Allie, of course, because she’s not multidimensional. Roxanne laughs and Trump notes this. Roxanne says that Tammy isn’t a straight-shooter. Ivanka says that Roxanne should have just kept quiet and let Allie defend herself. Except, as Roxanne mentions, Trump asked her to speak. Sorry, Ivanka, you’re wrong this time. She still thinks that Roxanne should just defend herself because that’s enough of a challenge right now.

Allie thinks that Tammy isn’t good under stress. Trump calls Allie uptight and asks how she deals with pressure. Allie thinks she’s poised and composed. Tammy says that Allie and Roxanne spend a lot of time complaining about other people. Roxanne thinks Tammy is punishing them because they like to have a good time, though they also work hard. Trump notes that Tammy never said anything about that. After the whole “yes woman” discussion, Roxanne and Tammy bicker, and Roxanne should really just be quiet and let Tammy dig herself deeper.

Ivanka wants to know the women’s individual strengths. Roxanne places herself in between Tammy, who’s operational and technical, and Allie, who’s more intuitive. She thinks this is a good place to be. She would fire Tammy, but it’s not personal (though no one else believes that). Tammy whines that her team didn’t back her up on this task, so she had to do everything. She thinks Allie and Roxanne made a strategic decision not to respect her. What kind of strategy is that?

Tammy’s design was awful, so she’s fired. Good riddance.

In the cab, Tammy says that she’s disappointed that she didn’t make it farther. She got little support from Trump, who she guesses likes Allie and Roxanne more. She’s upset that they supported each other and not her. Roxanne was bad with the signs and has no confidence. She and Allie also gossiped a lot instead of focusing on the task at hand. Tammy thinks Lee is more mature than Roxanne. She adds that she was a strong project manager and avoided drama, maybe to her detriment. She notes that she just might not have a strong enough personality for Trump. Apparently that’s okay. This just in: Tammy has no personality and admits it! Tell everyone! She thinks Allie and Roxanne will fail.

In her exit interview, Tammy says that she thought she would win because she has good skills and the ability to build relationships. She thinks maybe she took the process too seriously and didn’t have enough fun with it. Her big statement of the week is that “people love entertainment” (really?), so she thought they would like her theme. Tammy complains that everything she delegated was executed poorly. She isn’t sure if that means Roxanne and Allie didn’t have the abilities to succeed or if they were sabotaging her. Of course, she thinks they ganged up on her in the boardroom. She had the support of Bill and Ivanka, but not Trump. She still fought, though, but couldn’t win him over. Tammy liked Sean, of course, and got along with everyone, which she thinks is one of the reasons she got so far. Her plan is to next go home and see her family in New Jersey.

In a preview for the next episode, Roxanne and Allie return to the suite, much to Sean’s dismay. He interviews that Tammy is stronger than Allie and Roxanne, and now he has to listen to them for another week. Roxanne tells the others that Tammy could have said stuff about Allie in the boardroom, but she targeted Roxanne instead. Allie denies that they ganged up on Tammy, since she feels that she was trying to mediate between Tammy and Roxanne. Roxanne says that there was a lot she didn’t say to Tammy that she could have. Sean is bored with the women and their crap and vows to destroy them. Good luck, there.

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’d take Roxanne over Tammy any day.

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