Apprentice: Ding Dong the Bitch is Dead!

Celebrity Apprentice opens with Gary not enjoying last week’s Hail Mary win but bitching at everyone for not thinking he’s a good leader when he really is…in his own mind.  Geez, be a man and get a glass of champagne and shut the hell up.  John suggests they not show “this dynamic” when the women walk in which is any minute since Niki just up and pretty much resigned.

Gary Busey kicked our asses?!?  WTF!

The women come into the suite and Mark’s like what the hell happened, did Niki quit and Star, the voice of reason and calm, says, “She exited gracefully.”  I don’t know why that sentence made me want to punch her, but it did.  Star thinks it was classy then says she’d never quit on her charity.  So a classy quitter is what Niki is.  She has to explain classy over and over and over again to Gary.  “CLASSY!  C-L-A-S-S-Y!”

Gary meets with the head (get it?) of some brain center and he gives her the $20K from Trump and the $20K from Camping World.  Also, he’s a little too close to this woman and it is a little creepy.

Onto the next task!  Trump introduces some tight-asses from ACN which he says is a “home-based marketing company for individuals” which to me sounds like something between Amway and a pyramid scheme.  Their website says they are a “home-based network marketing opportunity” company, which doesn’t clear things up.  What do they do?  They sell video phone service.

These two asses can pucker tighter than lemons sucking alum.

The task is to create a 30-second commercial to showcase their new videophone.  The commercial will be shown to ACN’s 450 “independent representatives” and they will vote on the commercial based on the following criteria:  creativity, company brand messaging and integration of the ACN video phone.  Project managers?

The women get together in a group and Dionne says, “It’s already been decided, she uses it,” and I’m trying to figure who she means when I hear Marlee’s interpreter says, “Marlee’s phone is specifically for the deaf.”  He forgets to add “Dumbass” but the tone insinuates it.  God, Dionne is such an ass sometimes, and she really does seem to hate “them thar’ cripples.”  Nene offers to do it.

On the men’s side, Lil Jon swears over and over and decides to do it.  He’s done commercials and videos and well, there you go.  The winning team will get $20k from Trump and $20K from ACN.

The women head to their war room to figure out the theme of their commercial.  Dionne, looking particularly puckish in her sequined cap, immediately demands to be put in the studio so she can record.  Record what?  She wants them to show how she can work with a music engineer via video phone to create music.  Yeah, you aren’t relevant anymore so seeing you making music isn’t going to ignite the masses, it’s only going to scare the elderly more than they already are when it comes to technology.

Hip AND technology put together?  That’s ALL ME, baby!

Nene and Marlee like it and Star jumps right on that freight train.  Dionne says she “thinks it’s wonderful.”  Enjoy losing.

The ACN execs join the men’s team and Jesus, does that blonde guy look tight as an evangelist.  Lil Jon asks a very intelligent question about their demographics and Evangelist “doesn’t want them to get too caught up in the details.”  Douche, marketing is all about knowing your demographic and what is going to work for them.  That is pretty damn important.  “Think about the overall emotion of the product.”

This phone only works if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Lil Jon says the execs are too conservative then he uses the most conservative cliché in the business by saying they need to think outside the box.  Sometimes it’s okay to think INSIDE the box.  Because sometimes, that’s where the damn customers ARE.

Jose goes all Gary Busey on the execs and asks if their video phone would actually work intergalactically…meaning, can you communicate with aliens “in a very funny, very emotional, positive way.”  Yeah, back inside the box, dude.  Even Gary looks around like WTF?

Anyone?  Bueller?

Over at Team ASAP, the execs talk about the emotional side of things, not the technological side, so everyone knew immediately that the idea with Dionne was not going to work because she has no emotions.  Dionne is pissed.

If it’s not about me, I’m out.

Team Backbone decides to go whack-a-doodle and while Jose’s face twitches all over Hell’s half acre (seriously, WTF is wrong with him?), Meatloaf comes up with the idea of having grandparents getting the phone as a present and calling their grandson, only to find him “with a chick.”  Woooooo!  Baudy.  For 1950.  Then Lil Jon jumps right outside of the hetero box and says, “What if he’s got a boyfriend?” and everyone laughs and thinks it’s a great idea.  At this point, I know they are going to lose.

John brings up a great point and says although it’s funny, will a lot of people who see this think their audience won’t buy the phone because of that situation.  Given how conservative they seem, how tight their asses appear and the whole evangelical way about them, John is spot on.  Funny but so, so wrong.  Right?  Right?

They make Gary the grandfather.  Already I’m out.  Then they want Jose to be the gay guy, and I’m sort of back in.  He’s hiding something, isn’t he?  “It’s a big gamble,” John says.

Marlee comes up with a new idea and it has to do with a deaf woman!  NO WAY!  Her range is amazing.  Anyhoo, she comes up with the idea of having a girl in Paris as an exchange student and she’s connecting with her mother back home who is deaf and the video phone lets them sign back and forth.  Okay, good – emotional, traditional – they are on to something.  Wonder how Dionne can get her 15 minutes in?

Dionne does say that Nene was a wonderful PM because she delegated “the right things to the right people.”  Nene asks Hope to do the graphics and Hope says it’s in PowerPoint and she doesn’t feel “solid enough in PowerPoint” to do it.  Probably because she spends most of her career in PhotoShop.  Star says she’ll do it.  Hope says she can go to the prop house and shop.  Nene is pissed.  “What woman can’t go out and get a sofa and two chairs?”

Then LaToya has her own little meltdown about how she had Lasik surgery and she didn’t put the medicine in her eyes so everything she’s looking at seems like it’s underwater.  Nene puts her in charge of timing and is pissed since she was seeing fine EVERY OTHER DAY.  I actually don’t think LaToya was making it up, but she should have stepped up in other ways to offset that.

Then put on GOGGLES and move your ASS.

To my surprise, Lil Jon really gets the whole thing – they have to write, direct, act, edit and finish this commercial all today.  He does a great job keeping everyone on task, even Gary who is all over the place. In fact, Gary won’t shut the hell up and finally Meat says let me talk with Lil Jon for a couple of minutes to get this thought through but of course Gary won’t shut up.  They keep walking away from him and Gary keeps trying to take over.  “I’ve been doing this a long time,” Gary snots to Lil Jon.  Doesn’t mean you’re right.  Lil Jon says you have to listen but not let people like that take you off task.

Wait, can’t I play in your reindeer games too?!?!?!

Nene and Marlee are discussing how the scene is being set up without knowing what Hope and Dionne are getting.  They get the actors together and the script has been put together pretty quickly – basically, it’s a Nene/Marlee/Star production and everyone else should be getting coffee.  They wait and wait and wait for the props.

Hope and Dionne are at the prop house dicking around and basically leisurely shopping.  Nene calls and Hope says they are just now leaving the prop house.  Apparently it is hard to shop for a sofa and chairs in a timely fashion.

OH MY GOD, WHAT? I am really busy eating and shopping right now!

Nene says outloud, “These people are not skilled,” to Marlee and Star.  She says she loves LaToya but she’s not stepping up (she did last week, so I’m going to cut her some slack) but Hope and Dionne are dead weights and we all know it.

Look at her!  Clearly she’s blind today otherwise what is her excuse for that outfit?

Jose looks totally and completely gay and very comfortable with it.  Richard takes one look at the Urban Cowboy vest and tells them they are so not gay because gay guys don’t wear stuff like that.  Unless they are in Village People, I mean come on, that is too easy.  Then he says Jose is “one good lookin’ fella.”  The problem begins when he opens his mouth.

The props show up and the grandparents’ couch is bright purple.  Lil Jon is like, dude, who’s grandma has a purple couch like that?  Uh, duh!  Prince’s grandma.  Sit your asses down and start filming.  They toss a throw on it and it is fine.

The props show up and WHO THE HELL IN PARIS PUTS UP A PICTURE OF THE EIFFEL TOWER?  Morons.  Marlee is trying her best to set up the scene quickly and keeps asking Dionne where things go – is this for the American side or the French side and Dionne gets so pissy.  You can tell she’s totally uncomfortable with someone “crippled.”  And you know she still uses that word.

Finally she’s just like, “We have a sofa for French.  And lamps for French,” like she’s talking to a stupid kid.  So rude.  “Let me do this!  This is my task, okay!”  Wow, she is a one-task master, isn’t she?  No multi-tasking for her.  Marlee walks towards the camera and makes a face like “What a bitch.”

LISTEN to me Deafy, this is MY task!  Didn’t you hear me the first time?

Nene makes cat sounds and a scratching motion as she says Dionne will sit down then “Reour!” (that’s French for “meow” if high school French taught me anything)…then she sits down and “Reour!”  No kidding.  This is why I’m a dog person.

Jose practices being gay and is now all worried about what his Facebook friends are going to say (I’m sure both of them are at the Charlie Sheen show) and what his dad is going to say.  Just beat him up if he smarts off.

Losing no time getting to the O-face.

John is still freaking out about the pitch and I’m with him.  At this point, I was thoroughly convinced they were going downtown.  Just too much homo for this company.

Team ASAP is taping their commercial and I find it funny that Nene keeps saying “Quiet on the set” while she is chomping gum like a cow chewing cud.  It’s actually a great commercial.  Ah, and there she is…the host mother is Dionne and she looks like a stereotypical French mother.  No one dresses like that there and if they did they would be considered a tourist.

Everyone!  My Flavo-Flav clock tells me it’s time for a Jelly Belly break!

LaToya bitches because she wishes she had more responsibility but says Nene relegated her to keeping time.  You sort of didn’t give her a choice, did you?  You could have taken on more responsibility if you wanted but instead you chose to bump into walls instead.

On the men’s side, Ivanka shows up just in time to see Gary acting like a total fool.  They won’t tell Ivanka the punchline and Lil Jon says it’s going to be really big or will fail miserably.

Looks like par for the course, grandpa.

She makes them promise there is no male frontal nudity, given that Gary is running around in a robe AND NOTHING ELSE.  Sadly, he does flash the camera and without the pixels America would have vomited in unison.

Sweet, merciful pixelation.

Gary asks everyone if they’ve seen “Big Wednesday.”  That is what his fiancé calls his “apparatus.”  I don’t even want to know.

The women have 2 hours to edit the video and are all heading over to the editing suite AS A TEAM.  Dionne chews her gum like Nene and her cud.  Seriously, people, not classy.  Nene’s like, yes, everyone is coming to the suite, where else are they going?  And you heard Dionne say, “Home,” and Nene laughs because OH HELL NO YOU AREN’T.

I’m so bored I can barely chew my cud gum.

Star and Marlee both say hey, we’re working, no one is going home and you can see Dionne is cranky because she wants her nightly milk and cookies before tucking herself in with some Carson.  I’d say 21^st century but she’s probably forgotten about last week.

Dionne says if she needs her to stay, of course she will, then as soon as they get to the editing suite, Dionne hugs Nene and Nene’s like, “Oh, you’re going to leave.  Okay…thank you…” which in my mind gave her permission to leave.  I would have been like, “Why are you leaving when everyone else is staying?”

She even manages to look mananimous.  Bitch.

Dionne admits her body was telling her to go to bed which, okay, she’s 70, I get it.  But maybe ask permission and play the age card.  Instead, she interviews that she’s the matriarch of the group and “I felt I deserved a little bit of a reprieve.”  First of all, bitch, you EARN matriarch, you don’t get it just by being old and second, oh, you’ll be getting a good long reprieve if your team has anything to say, and by God they will.

Then Nene interviews that although she’s not her babysitter and it was her decision to leave, Dionne should have understood that everyone was staying.  “Nobody cares about her being a legend,” she says.  No kidding.

The men’s team has fewer issues and their editing goes smoothly – they must have dropped Gary off at daycare.  They said they will either crush the women or die.  Yep.

Don shows up to the women’s editing suite and plays with Star’s pooch (literally, it’s sort of cute the way he’s holding it, not Austin Powers International Man of Mystery at all).  He asks where Dionne is and Nene says she just left.  He said he was pretty disappointed to see Dionne left and that Nene was okay with it.  Also, kudos to the camera crew for shooting down Nene’s shirt, girlfriend has a nice pair of melons.

Presentation day!  Dionne says she didn’t miss anything by not being in the editing suite that night (except an appearance from Don) and that she did everything she had to do.  Star’s dog buries its face in a huge handbag.  I’m with you, pooch.

Or maybe her handbag just needs a good wax.

The women are in their suite practicing and Star interviews she wanted Nene to take part in the presentation.  Nene practices and Star says the way she is presenting is “far too sexy.”  Nene is pissed and chows down on a croissant.  Don’t drown your feelings in food, we all know where that leads.

Nene says she’s not sexy but she’s working it accidentally by swaying back and forth.  In her interview, she really turns on Star and says she doesn’t care she was on The View.  Way to take constructive criticism.

Nene gets onstage and is swaying but also stilted and staccato when she speaks.  Should have practiced speaking as well as the swaying.  Star does a great job presenting the audience with information they already know and she seems to read from her notes too much.  She says she writes a presentation specifically with pauses for applause.  Bitch.

I’m PAUSING…

They show their commercial and you can tell Dionne thinks very highly of her “Bonjour.”  The commercial is pretty good, everyone cheers and yes, it is traditional.  Star is convinced they knocked it “out of the park” on brand messaging and the emotional connection.

The men’s team is up next and Jose says this could be one of the biggest blunders in Apprentice history.  No, I think Bethany was.  But let’s see what happens.  At this point, I was still sure the men were going downtown and Lil Jon was gone.

Lil Jon comes out and turns it totally on when he gets onstage.  He jokes about drinking a lot of shots with the two evangelical execs and you can see there are no laughs on their side (at least it was edited that way).

Yo-yo-yo, whiteys, you got some ethnicity in DA HOUSE!

He says the commercial is going to “take you to the ultimate coolness level.”  Then he starts talking about viral videos being crucial in selling products and if ACN had a Superbowl commercial, their commercial would be it.  Holy shit.  He’s right on.  This would work perfectly for the Superbowl.

The commercial rolls and they present, “Tommy gets engaged.”  Tommy’s in Argentina and he’s engaged!  To Pablo!  A.K.A. Jose.  Their tagline is, “Sometimes you just have to see it.”  Everyone laughs and claps.   John is still concerned about widespread use of the commercial and I get it.  The execs ask everyone to vote and we see them turning their 1980s digital dials to do so.

Thank you for letting us spread the word of the gospel throughout America via videophone.

Boardroom! Trump says both teams did a great job and focuses on the men first.  They all think they knocked it out of the park.  Cliché central.  They all say Lil Jon was efficient, professional and a very good manager.  He tasks people, he organizes and they all enjoyed working with them.

Trump asks them if they were too risqué and Richard says no way I’m gay!  Okay, he doesn’t say that.  But Lil Jon says yes, it was a risk but people succeed because they take chances.  He said all their commercials on the internet looked the same (oh crap!) and they wanted to be different.

Cohesive, but John is carrying the Christmas theme a little too far.

Lil Jon says their slogan is “Life without Boundaries” and if they can’t think outside the box, “they need to change their slogan.”  Damn!  Good for you.

Trump asks Jose about playing gay and he says he was really nervous because when he dad sees this he is going to get it.  Why not just hire your brother to beat him up?

Nene is starting to twitch in her seat.  When Trump brings up the viral, she starts to get upset.  Then he asks Meat about the cohesion of the team and Nene starts to tear up and wipe her eyes.  She’s trying to be cool about it and finally Trump is like what is wrong?

Shit, I might as well have Massengill on the table right now.

OH NO, the classic Woman Crying at Work™ scenario that we all go through at least once if not more.  Son of a bitch!  Everyone woman hates it, swears she won’t do it, then here we are, crying in offices with GLASS WALLS SO EVERYONE KNOWS.  Well, better than holding it in and dying of heart attacks like the men, I guess.

Trump tells Nene she did a great job then heads over to Dionne for feedback and she says Nene was, “Superb” as a project manager.  Trump asks why she is taking things so hard and Dionne says it’s because she’s emotionally attached.  Trump is really proud of the team and continues to ask how she was as a project manager and they all say she was very good.

Then Nene says she’s fighting for her charity which is for women dealing with domestic abuse.  She admits that she suffered from it, Marlee was in an abusive relationship for years (William Hurt), LaToya was (Joe Jackson) and Dionne probably considers Burt Bacharach as abusive.  I mean, look at the man:

Clearly an ASS.

Then Trump gets to the meat of things.  “Didn’t Dionne go home early?” Trump asks.  Now the first time I watched this I was sort of on Nene’s side but this time I actually think Dionne was sort of correct too – if Nene wanted her to stay, she should have said something.  But Dionne is a force, she has a strong personality, so how do you fight that?

And sometimes she likes to pretend she’s kissing herself.

Dionne immediately pipes up that she didn’t feel she’d be any use in the editing suite.  Dionne says she asked if it was okay to go home (she didn’t, she merely announced she was leaving) but says if Nene had said not to leave she wouldn’t have (not sure that’s true, but Nene should have said something).  Don says there was a lot of resentment at her for leaving.

Dionne says, “I asked Nene if she needed me or if it was okay if I went back to the hotel,” and Trump asks Nene is that was true.  Nene pauses and says she wasn’t asked.  Trump asks if it was inappropriate and she says yes but then Dionne is like, “Why didn’t you say anything?” and I have to admit, as much as I hate that egomaniacal bitch from Hell, she’s right.  Nene should have said no, you have to stay.

I am going to flat out kill you.

Nene says she wasn’t Dionne’s babysitter, which is true, but she is the project manager.  “It’s not being a team player, it’s nothing personal.”  But the look on Dionne’s face says it’s more than personal.  She’s totally going to cut a bitch later.

Star says that Hope and LaToya were the weakest links on the team.  LaToya explains the Lasik surgery problem and it was only in the one eye.  ONE EYE?  Oy.  She says she did what she was asked.  Nene says her son could keep time.  The problem is, she wasn’t tasked with anything else – so in her defense, she did what she was told.  Trump says she has stepped up in other tasks (the RV task for one).

Marlee pipes up that in this task, LaToya is more of a follower than a leader.  Trump says he’s surprised at the dissention.  Let’s go to the winners.

ACN loved the women’s commercial and the emotion.  They loved the men’s version because of its creativity and humor and ability to go viral.  Shit.  The men won!  It was 53% to 47%!  Wow.  That is close.

Victory is ours AGAIN, bitches!

Lil Jon gets his $40K to make it rain on the United Methodist Children’s Home and Nene and her team of cackling hyenas of hate have to stay in the boardroom.

Trump asks Star what is going on since this is their third loss in a row and Star says she’s never seen a group of women pull together – and Trump rightly shuts her up and says they weren’t really working together, clearly.  “Why did you lose?” he asks.  Then he admits it was very close so how can he really get crazy on their asses?

Dionne starts this bullshit about how the criteria they are given…then she makes these hand gestures like there is no way they could possibly in the history of the world or parallel universes that exist do these project and Trump is like, bitch, EVERYONE is given the same set of criteria.  The bottom line is, they played it safe, the men didn’t, and the people spoke.  Done and done.

LaToya can’t name a weakest player because the women are all headstrong.  Yeah, I think it’s Dionne.  He should have asked me.  Star says not everyone brings the same skillset to the show.  Star points out LaToya and Hope aren’t leaders but Trump says they weren’t supposed to be leaders.

Trump asks Marlee who can’t carry her weight and doesn’t contribute.  Marlee says in this task it was LaToya which surprises Trump since Marlee hates Dionne as do we all.  LaToya fights to stay on the team.

Trump asks Nene who the team could work without and after a long pause, she names Dionne.  Nene says she respects Dionne and she likes her (lies, all lies!) but she left the task.  No, she’s just a damn troublemaker.  Don says it was very apparent there was resentment towards Dionne from the team yesterday.

Ivanka kicks the field goal and asks if it is a stamina issue or an indifference issue.  To those of us non-Wharton grads, what she ask was, “Is bitch old or does she not give a shit?”  She doesn’t give a shit but if she did, she’d use Depends.

Dionne says, “I’ll answer that…it’s not stamina or indifference.  I did everything I was told to do.”  She does say that Nene should have said she should have stayed.  Trump says he’s not sure she asked for approval.  Then Dionne says, “I told Nene I was going to go home and said, ‘Is that okay Nene.’” Which just proves her point that it really wasn’t a question but more a declaration looking for approval.  Also, that wasn’t true.  Girlfriend was going to go no matter what and we all know it.

Then Dionne and Nene get into it and did anyone else notice how Dionne kept calling Nene “baby” and “honey” and “baby” again – very condescending and I would have called her out on it.  Trump says they are both telling different stories and he doesn’t know the truth.

Ivanka says it’s not about being useful in editing – there are too many people – but it’s about cohesiveness and being a team player.  Doyee.

Trump asks Hope – is she still there? – who should be fired and she says Dionne.  She’s just happy it’s not her although she’s a close second.  He asks Dionne who he should fire and she says she’s going to take everyone else’s opinion and fire herself.  Trump is like, “YOU WOULD?”  And Lil Jon is like WTF?  Trump HATES being called out like that.

In fact, I DARE you to fire a legend!

“Certainly,” she says.  “Fire me.”  Legend or not, Trump will not let a triple-dog dare go by.  She says she feels like she’s the only one who can be straight up and honest and that may intimidate people.  I hate when people use “I’m too honest” as an excuse for their diva behavior.

You. Stupid. Bitch. Why does everyone keep doing my job?

“I don’t want to be the cog in the wheel that stops it,” she says.  Star is pissed and says this is endemic to why they lose.  This whole program is about charity and she could not imagine telling Trump to let her go without accomplishing the reason she came there.  She does have a point – people are giving up to easily because they are already rich so what difference does it make if they make money for their charity, they will still be okay.

Trump says Dionne is kind of quitting and she disagrees, then he tells her she does kind of have a chip on her shoulder.  Yeah, the size of Gibraltar.  She disagrees.

Trump says it seems that everyone is against her and she says she doesn’t think so but then turns around and says that everyone wants to get rid of her.  Ivanka is like, “Two people.”  She points out that many people have said it about LaToya, too.

Dionne says she’d love to stay because she has a lot to offer, she’s strong, she is a team player and my thought is, what show is she watching?  Trump says it looks like she doesn’t feel she can go forward and she disagrees and says she can.  Trump counters with how she said she should be fired and she says it’s because that’s how everyone else feels.

Trump yells at her and says he is the one making the decision, not Nene so Dionne changes her tune and says she really doesn’t want to go, she wants to stay.  And that’s when Trump goes for the jugular and I love him for it.  “It’s too late,” he says.  “Is it?” Dionne says, and Trump says, “Dionne, you did the wrong thing.  You’re fired!”  Sweet, sweet justice, although I’m going to miss seeing her do a stint as project manager.  That would have been sweet.  I’m guessing she’ll be back for the finale, unfortunately.

They leave the boardroom and Star (I think) says she’s leaving but it wasn’t her responsibility or some such nonsense.  Nene hugs her and Dionne points her finger in Nene’s face and says, “You’re a coward, baby.”  They go back and forth like little kids fighting over who’s dad could beat the other dad up and it’s tiresome.  Snipe, snipe, snipe.

Pull my finger, you coward.

Trump can hear the fighting and he loves it.  His secretary makes notes in her Hello Kitty diary about the fight.  Trump says, “She looked me in the eyes and challenged me.  Nobody gets away with that.”  No kidding.

Every woman in my life, I swear!

Dionne says Trump did not make the right choice in firing her but she didn’t flex her muscles as much as she could have.  “Sometimes ladies have a habit of not quite being straight up,” she says.  I call those everyday. Then she says she doesn’t like craziness, “Unless I’m the crazy one.”  Mission.  Accomplished.

Next week?  Auction time!  Meat Loaf breaks down and tries to kill Gary.  I can’t wait!  And you know where to put up the ground up body, right?  In the Meat Loaf!