I won’t beat around the bush – there were two stories in the press regarding The Apprentice: Martha Stewart that completely overshadowed the show itself. Come to think of it, the debut of the new Chuck Norris home gym infomercial overshadowed Martha’s show. See, what I’m saying is, Martha’s show is not exactly getting ratings. In fact, one news story was confirmation that NBC is not renewing the show. I’ll pause a moment here for you to absorb this sad and shocking news.
You okay? Tissue?
Gather yourselves and straighten up, because the other press tidbit was even more mind-blowing: Alexis Stewart has a real vagina! More on that after the jump.As always on all Apprenti, the show opened with the post conference room reaction and fallout. Dawna was particularly affected this week and cried her eyes out. Please… Has Martha ever cried? Ever?! I can’t imagine Ms. “There’s no crying in business” Stewart would look too kindly on Dawna’s raw emotion. When the others learned it was Howie who had been sent packing, the general feeling was that of confusion. Amanda pondered sagely, “If she likes Jim, then she certainly won’t like me.” Part of the fun of writing Martha recaps is that no one cares when I write stuff like, “You’re right, Amanda… As you’ll find out later when you are sent home to your coven of weird mannish Interrupter People.”
The next morning, Marcella won the race to the ringing telephone clad in nothing but a towel. That wasn’t the strange thing though – far off in the background was Jim in his boxer shorts mugging for the camera. Like the 5 year old he is. (And the previews for next week highlight his immaturity yet again. Sigh.)
Martha again had to pre-tape her bit outlining the week’s task. Am I the only one who finds it terribly annoying that the recorded snippets sometimes start with Martha discussing business with someone first, rather than just addressing the candidates? Who in the world believes that Martha is there working with someone and the camera, lighting, sound guys magically appear to surprise her so she can outline the challenge? What was even worse this week was that she was speaking from the Martha Stewart offices right downstairs but couldn’t meet with the candidates. I know I’m splitting hairs about an already doomed show, but I can’t help it. Trumps little commanding fake helicopter phone calls are amusing; Martha’s little fake decision making clips are just stupid.
The challenge: With $40K seed money, each team would be given a retail space and have to sell as many Tiassimo Hot Beverage Systems as possible. Gee, that’s exciting and fresh… About as exciting and fresh as it was the first time they did it this season with the flower challenge. At least they weren’t given the exact same retail spaces. Or were they? This show is just so incredibly lazy. I fear that this is plaguing all of reality television – Martha is just (once again) on the forefront of a trend.
Team Matchstick still had four members – Project Manager Marcella, Leslie, Amanda, and Ryan. While sitting around thinking of ways to sell the beverage maker thing, Ryan proved one of the more elusive and little understood facts of life. When a bunch of women live together for a couple months, their menstrual cycles get in synch. ‘Cuz Ryan was totally PMS’ing when Marcella asked a simple favor of him. Ryan strikes me as more of a “pads” rather than a “pons” man, but that’s just a guess.
Over in the Primarius camp, Dawna was taking charge and confounding Project Manager Jim and his peanut-headed underling, Bethenny. (Remember the “scandal” about how Bethenny seriously dated Charles’ son or something? Yeah, me neither…) Dawna knew that if her team was to lose, Jim and Bethenny would gang up on her in the conference room. So she decided to head down to a PR firm on her own and hammer out a plan.
I have a different take on the reason Martha pre-tapes her assignements…she isn’t working downstairs from the loft but from her home. Remember this season was taped when she was under house arrest at Turkey Hill. I find it odd that she doesn’t just come out and say it — but rather makes up excuses that she is away on business.
Helaine — Get with it! Martha no longer lives at TurkeyHill and hasn’t for some time (ie. before her Jail time) That house is for sale btw.
hey! Marcella has a little tat on the small of her back… i think she’s a little cutie… ha ha…. if i were Jim, i would be making my move when the cameras weren’t rolling…
Marcela’s a cutie and Bethenny has a SLAMMIN body I gotta say. Loved the tight little pink shirt she was wearing at the reward.
Did you notice that Bethenny (I hate that spelling, and her face) pronounced “sandwich” twice as “SAMICH”? Was she one of The Little Rascals before coming on the show? Maybe a Bowery Boy? Bugs Bunny?
I also liked Amanda whining about stiff, perfect people — in THAT suit with THAT hair and THAT makeup.
“She is the most sexless automaton I’ve seen on TV since ‘Small Wonder.’”
Quote of the year!!!
The only reason I watch the show is to see Jim’s crazy antics. I have a feeling next week’s episode is going to be especially enjoyable for me.
omg, every time i look at Amanda I see a drag queen impersonation of hillary clinton.
Go fightin’Lattes…………
priceless!
So when they were on their boat trip and they said “Alexis made us great sandwiches” am I the only one who laughed at the thought of someone beleiving that she actually made those sandwiches? They were even complineting her on how good they were.
Besides, the only sandwich shes good at eating is the tunafish one. Zing!
“I also liked Amanda whining about stiff, perfect people — in THAT suit with THAT hair and THAT makeup.”
Too funny, when Amanda was making that remark I thought she was describing Martha to a “T”, and it seemed by the reaction shot that Martha had the same thought cross her mind too.
Way to insult the person you are trying to impress Amanda. Take your plastic eye, your plastic personality and your unmoving hair and hit the road!
She probably did make the sandwiches, EdHill. She does her own cooking and cleaning and all of that. She prides herself on being a better cook than her mom. Check out the article on her in Harper’s Bazaar this month, it’s the Kate Winslet cover.
Am I the only one who was proud of Jim for helping Marcella out this week. Without his pep talk Marcella probably would have gone home. Also I dont think that Ryan was bipartisan as much as he relized that Martha and Charles were mad at them for not supporting Marcella adn he changed his game plan immediately after seeing how much they like Marcella. He shut up and let Amanda dig her own grave.
You know what creeps me out about this show? How everyone’s vaguely age-inappropriate — either an old lady or an infant. Amanda is THIRTY and dresses like a senior citizen; Dawna is 37 and looks 57 (and male); Marcella acts like a five-year-old; and Jim acts like a two-year-old. Were there really no mature business people who haven’t sealed their cunts at age 25 who applied for this job?
I used to really like Ryan. He appeared to be a great team player but this week he showed himself to be a total dick. And his little speech was pathetic.
While it might have been nice that Jim gave Marcella the pep talk, its obvious he tries to keep people around that he thinks he can beat. However, I do enjoy his circus act most on this beautiful train wreck of a show. I also love how he loses his voice by the end of each task.
sg-dub; your idea for the $40K seed money = priceless.
Speaking of Spicey Latinas, has anyone heard anything about Ivette, Maggot, or Crappy? Just wondering if they ever got the message that America thought they were total creeps.
Quote
“Speaking of Spicey Latinas, has anyone heard anything about Ivette, Maggot, or Crappy? Just wondering if they ever got the message that America thought they were total creeps.”
From what I understand, the “orignal spicy latina” has a new website…and still in denial.
I don’t really like Jim, but it was cool to see him help Marcella out. It was perfect opportunity for him to tap that @ass though…..
dear sg-dub,
wow, this was an awesome recap and covered everything i was so looking forward to!
i want to know who told alexis to speak so damn much this episode and when she “yelled” at them in the boardroom for being “dead” i almost fell over laughing.
and wtf was up with martha talking to limey julia? the idle chit-chat? “yes, it is getting tougher…” martha said…so does she often find time in her shedule for this crap? like my third grad teacher always said to me “less talking, more working!”
oh, and good luck on your garden!
most cordially,
jash
ps the girl on girl thing never does it for me anyhow.
And don’t forget, I believe it was Mark Burnett who said something to the effect of, “We just wanted to run this show 1 season. So we knew that’s how long it was going to be.” He’s not very good at trying to save face.
Right on JustUsMoms “omg, every time i look at Amanda I see a drag queen impersonation of hillary clinton.” …. my husband and I have been saying the same thing, we didn’t pick out the hillary clinton similarity but we were saying how some drag queens look more feminine than her.
Also – my husband noticed that she gives it a away that she is not a woman because she’s A MAN…. DUHH. (AMANDAH). Awesome recap as always. Thanks.
of course monkeyjim was “helping” marcella to keep her around longer because he felt she was less of a threat than the other two. rememner the flower shop episode?
It’s true that there were strategic benefits to keeping Marcella around but Amanda and Ryan were being such cocky, smug a-holes, I could see he’d want to stick it to them just because, espeically given how adorable and defeated Marcella was.
Amanda and Ryan really were appalling though. I really hate this sabotage the project manager tactic – even if Marcella didn’t wind up being fired, it’s so damaging, especially when she wasn’t doing a bad job at all.
Ever week I watch Jim, and
cannot believe he is still
on, I actually find myself
saying out loud, I really
hate this guy! Then I realized why….we have all
had a Jim as a co-worker in
our careers….mine was named Lou!!! Playing every
one against one another!
Boy did it bring back memories that I thougth I
had forgotten….I can’t
wait for Jim to get booted off!!! Wake up Martha, would you really sit at
a conference table with this guy, or a restaurant?
(I can just hear him yelling “food fight”)
AND, if he doesn’t stop shaking his head up and down with everything Martha says,and making those faces…I just want to slap the guy!!!
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