Doin’ It Doggie Style With Merv Griffin

Another week, another ride on the Martha Rollercoaster. Last week, despite Jim’s annoying clown act, the challenge and the show itself was pretty compelling. Perhaps because the show revolved around something Martha can relate to – creating food in the kitchen and force-marketing it to bored housewives. Before learning about this week’s task, we were treated to a couple rather uncomfortable scenes – neither of which involved Alexis Stewart! But even before that, we had to endure yet another week of the insufferable Jim regaling the world with more blather. His Primarius teammates were all hoping to see Jennifer return to the loft having survived Martha’s tepid “Goodbye.” After all, Jim had been in the hot seat almost every week, everyone hated working with him, and he is a complete and total liability on every task.But lo, Apprentice: Martha Stewart jumped the shark last week by getting rid of a decent candidate in favor of a stunt cast dickwad to create “controversy.” But like Omarosa and Danny before him, Jim just succeeds at making viewers mad and angry at the show. Issuing hollow declarations like, “I warned Jen not to bring me in there with her,” and, “These people are not ready for me! They’re busy worrying about me and I’m busy worrying about winning!” No, Jim, you’re only partially right. They ARE busy worrying about you alright – busy worrying about you losing another task for them. Jackass.

After Jim’s little show, there was an incredibly annoying buzzing of the doorbell. Initially, the candidates looked terrified and confused that someone had come calling – geeze, last week the phone’s ring caused fearful looks, this week, it was the ceaseless buzz at the door. BZZZ, BZZZ, BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Damn, whoever it was certainly didn’t have any manners or patience. I figured it must be Jim’s wife who had stopped by to serve him divorce papers for missing the birth of his daughter. Or maybe some wacky character lined up to test the patience of everyone as a sort of business lesson… BZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZZ!

Nope, it’s Martha Stewart herself! She surprised the gang with an impromptu visit and tour of the living quarters! Everyone looked nervous as they gathered around their Mistress in the kitchen. She asked the Silent Croatian what he’d been up to that evening – perhaps because she was still fearful of the future serial killer. He positively beamed, “I took a little nap!” Ok, that doesn’t sound so creepy in writing, but trust me; it was totally childlike and weird. Martha then roared through the loft, doling out little passive aggressive Marthisms like, “Your rosemary is dying.” She then tested some bedposts and countertops for dust and gave disapproving looks to everyone. She lamented the bunks and close-quarters, even comparing it to, “you know where.” Oh, Martha, you so fuh-nny! You went to prison and now you’re back on TV! She refrained, however, from asking Howie if he had made Ryan his bitch yet.

She happened upon Jim and told him that he’d (finally) be tested as Project Manager this week. Jim, of course, took the opportunity to be an egotistical dick and declared, “I’ll be like Babe Ruth, pointing to the wall and hitting a home run!” Did that mean that he’d also prove himself to be a sexist drunk like the Babe? Time would tell. (Pssst! Yes.)

The next morning, Martha was clipping some bushes as she called the loft to tell the wannabes to meet her at 9AM at her Connecticut studios. Are we still supposed to believe that Martha actually prunes her own bushes, rather than the army of illegal Salvadorans we all know she employs for just such tasks? Cripes, Martha probably employs someone to trim her own unruly bush, let alone her gardens. Though I doubt it’s a Salvadoran man – though that imaginary scene makes me laugh for some reason. “You simply must remove all the stubble. You simply must use the wax of bees from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. You simply must shape it in a perfect witch’s hat for the Halloween season! Gaze upon my mons pubis!”

Anyway, we were treated to another awkward scene up at the Westport, CT studio. (Shout out to the Merritt Parkway sign I’ve seen a thousand times! Southern CT in the hizzouse!) Martha was with her dog and some ubernerd named Marc Marrone who apparently hosts some show about pets that Martha produces. This guy has his own show?! I figured it must be some public access thing, but apparently not. Marc and Martha were having a stilted and embarrassing conversation when Marc just happened to mention that the pet industry was a “34 Billion dollar industry.” Alright! After Wishbone last week and its measly millions, we’re back to the more Trumpish Billions with a B. The candidates arrived and Martha proceeded to explain the challenge. I only half listened as I was still reeling over the fact that this Marc Marrone guy has a show and not only that, but that it tapes in the same studio as Martha’s cooking show. Eh, a little monkey poo never spoiled anyone’s endive crab dip, now did it?

This is from nbc.com and explains what the teams had to do: The task involved dogs. Each team was to work with four celebrity dog owners to negotiate a personal experience with each of them and their dogs that would be sold at the Beneful Celebrity Dog Auction to raise money for a charity called “Broadway Barks,” which is devoted to homeless dogs and providing funds for New York animal shelters. The winning team would be the one that raised the most money. Thanks nbc.com, because honestly, I just didn’t get all that from the show.

Team Matchstick would be working with Chad Pennington (the oft-injured Jets quarterback), Fran Drescher (the annoying yenta), Bruce Villanche with his neckfat, and Merv Griffin (the cryogenically frozen producer). Team Primairsupplius would have the pleasure of meeting Paul Sorvino (the typecast fat Italian guy), Susan Lucci (famous for being a loser), John Lithgow, and Todd Oldham (the fashion guy.) Seemed like a pretty fair match up, actually. Though if there’s any justice in the world, Bruce Villanche would get the lowest winning bid by far. I mean really, you’d have to pay me to hang out with that dude. Why is he famous again?

At this point, the show got really choppy and destroyed any notion of continuity. Therefore, my recap will jump around as well. First, Dawna, Amanda, and Project Manager Marcella met with Fran Drescher to kiss her ass a bit. It turns out that Amanda shared something in common with the former “Nanny.” They are both cancer survivors – certainly nothing to joke about. However, have you ever heard of eye cancer? Me neither, but Amanda had it. EYE CANCER? That sucks. I think her admission stunned her teammates, as they pretty much just sat there mute.

Then, out of nowhere, it was time for some MarthaWisdom. She explained how pets are a really important part of any family and… Actually, that was about it. At this point I did notice that Martha carried her dog, Francesca Blackburne, everywhere. She carried her at the TV studio, she was now carrying her at the office, and she carried her every subsequent time we saw her. For a second I thought Martha had rescued a crippled dog – but then I remembered Francesca Blackburne isn’t the only bitch in the Stewart household and realized that no, Martha was just being the pretentious millionaire that she is.

Quick, over to the Jets practice facility where Ryan, the Silent Croatian, and Leslie were meeting with Chad Pennington asking if the winning bidder could gain access to the Jets locker room. The answer was no, of course, because that just doesn’t happen. I’m not sure what they settled on with the experience, but I did notice that Ryan was totally in love with Pennington. Another thing was that David, the Silent Croatian – people, I know he’s not really Croatian, spare me the email. I’m sure Zagreb is lovely this time of year – as I was saying, the Silent Croatian was, well, he was silent. It took Charles all these tasks to notice this and he finally pointed it out. But you know what? I’ll take a quiet, introspective kid like David over an old man who constantly sucks on an unlit cigar. Charles was worse than ever this week, swishing that thing around his mouth like it was his job.

Excuse me… What’s that? Who is contacting me from the other side? Oh, Sigmund Freud? Sure, sure, you can interrupt this recap. No one reads it anyway – this is Martha Stewart’s Apprentice after all. What’s up? Charles? Yeah, if he’s not fondling the cigar between his fingers he’s actually sucking on it. What – sorry, yes, I sprechen zie deutch. Ya. Ya. Ya. Sure, I’ll translate for the readers. Siggy says that Charles’ mom didn’t breastfeed him and, as I had previously mentioned, he also has a really small pecker.

Sorry about that. Shit happens all the time around Halloween. Jim, Howie, and Carrie then met with Paul Sorvino, his daughter, and his mangy dog. They met out in Central Park and agreed that the Sorvino prize package would involve a Hollywood dog trainer and filming the winner’s dog and putting it on a DVD. Um, that’s great and all, but where’s the “Endless Pasta” meal at Olive Garden with Mr. Sorvino? What? You laughing at that joke? Am I funny? How am I funny, like a clown? What is so funny about me? What the F*CK is so funny about me? Tell me. Tell me what’s funny.

Bethenny and Sarah else with Susan Lucci who agreed to a “Diva doggie day” experience to auction off. Howie, Carrie and Jim got John Lithgow to agree to allow the highest bidder to be on stage at his current Broadway show. Then it was time for the heaviest hitter; Bruce Villanche. No, really, I mean the heaviest hitter. Memo to Bruce:

Then my favorite part of the whole episode occurred when they unfroze Merv Griffin from his liquid nitrogen bath and Leslie, Ryan, and the Silent Croatian probed him about some of their ideas. Of course, only Ryan and Leslie probed Merv, as David remained silent while typing some notes on his laptop. Merv, whom I assume is a pretty cool old queen, told David that his note taking was annoying and that he was essentially useless. David laughed his uncomfortable nerd laugh and Merv just continued to make fun of him. The scene, as well as Charles’ follow-up criticism, completely justified everything I’ve been saying about David since the premiere. And it felt really good.

That night, Team Primaries K gathered for dinner at what appeared to be a Chili’s or Chi-Chi’s or some equally lame spot. Guys, YOU ARE IN MANHATTAN IN NYC, not Manhattan, Kansas. Project Manager Jim certainly chose the destination, as he was by far the happiest one of the bunch. Completely forgetting his poor wife and newborn at home, Jim declared, “Let’s get drunk and have sex!” The look of disgust and apathy on the others’ faces was great. Even they “get it.” It’s not like they were upset or fired up at Jim’s boorish antics, you could tell they knew it was all shtick and that he was just a pathetic loser.

Jim continued as he kept ordering beers, shouting, “Get me three bottles of Cuervo, a beer bong, and a keg!” Woo flipping hoo. Jim: The Life of Any Party. What a complete tool. Carrie eventually got upset at Jim, – but only because they had work to do early the next morning and a hungover PM wasn’t the best way thing for the team. Jim, reverting to 9th grade, began peer-pressuring Carrie, whose hair never progressed beyond 9th grade. Ugh, this whole scene was so annoying; let’s just move on.

Carrie and Sarah met up with Todd Oldham the next morning and got him to agree to some prize package where he would design a room AND an accompanying dog room as well. Remember back when Todd Oldham was hip and edgy? Me neither, but he must’ve been at some point, right? Both teams had secured all their stars and had promises for some pretty decent packages. All that was left was the auction itself.

Bernadette Peters hosted the auction – unfreezing Merv was apparently a 2 fer 1 deal down at the lab. We were treated to a split second of Alexis on camera making a pained face as her mother opened the festivities. She totally hates this show and hates her mom more for forcing her to contribute to it – though “contribute” is WAY too strong of a word. The auction proceeded and not without a few surprises along the way. If you didn’t see it, play a little game with yourself… guess how much each star would get for their little doggy inspired prize package. Go ahead, I’ll wait… now guess among: Pennington, Sorvino, Drescher, Lucci, Villanche, Merv, Lithgow, and Oldham.

My faith in humanity was restored as Bruce Villanche’s package garnered the lowest bid at $1900. Wait – did I just say “Bruce Villanche’s package? SHUDDER. Lucci and Pennington were next, both under five grand. Merv and Lithgow got $7250 and $8500 respectively, which left Oldham, Drescher, and Sorvino. Get this – Oldham, $17,000. Sorvino, $15,000. Drescher? $28,000. Faith in humanity – promptly unrestored. No way did any of you guess that correctly. Blah, blah, blah, in the end Jim and his team Primerronthesideofcautionius won the task by a couple grand causing him to launch into a series of cocky palpitations and proclamations. Sigh… and now we’d have to suffer through him enjoying some great reward for winning the task.

Except this is MarthApprentice where rewards aren’t rewards at all! Awesome, another non-reward week. Martha tricked the winners again by explaining that helping out the homeless dogs was reward enough; thank you and have a good night! Suckers! Surprisingly, Jim didn’t go ballistic and demand a tangible prize of some sort. Eh, I guess he was content to just go get hammered again to forget about his wife, daughter, dignity, pride, and self respect. The good news? No Jim in the conference room this week! The bad? I hate to admit this but… most boring conference room – EVAH!

We don’t need an asshole in there to make it watchable, but we do need someone who actually speaks. After absolutely no attempt at misdirection, it appeared that the decision would come down to PM Marcella and the Silent Croatian. Everyone agreed that Marcella could cook, but that she couldn’t really be an executive leader of men. As for David, Charles was all over his ass about his inability to speak or make a single decision of any sort. It was great when Charles removed his cigar and said, “David, with your odd hair, fashion, and demeanor, it’s like you’re a Silent Croatian or something.” I’m not even kidding, I swear.

LimeyJulia appeared quickly as she welcomed David and Marcella back into the conference room. Martha, who clearly wanted nothing to do with either of these inexperienced kids, asked both, “Why do you want to be an executive here at my company?” David came up with an interesting answer about how he wants to run her Internet department because he had noticed several opportunities for improvements. One was that if someone searches for “recipe” on Google, Martha isn’t the first hit! David, dude, I know you don’t cook for yourself but when I Google “recipe,” I want actual recipes, not Martha trying to sell me one of her stupid books. Bad idea – unfortunately both Charles and Martha ate it up. Alexis? I wasn’t sure she was actually still in the room.

Which reminds me, Charles and Martha (and I) piled on David for being silent and unassertive. And yet, freaking Alexis gets away with being a gargoyle week after week. Why is this woman even on this show? Marcella was asked the same question and did a good job of kissing Martha’s ass but then took,“100% of responsibility.” Ouch – isn’t that just punching your ticket for home? Apparently not, as Martha said “Goodbye” to the Silent Croatian stating that he was simply too young and inexperienced.

She added, “And your hair is just way too greasy. Now go back to your mom’s basement, lay off the Hentai, stay away from the Serbs, and … Alexis? Alexis are you awake?” Actually, I can’t really blame the poor dear as I was drifting myself at this point.

Did you remain awake all the way through that conference room?