Celebrity Apprentice Recap: Episode 6
Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog
Last night’s episode featured quite possibly the two strangest boardrooms in the show’s fourteen season history. First up was the case of the forged menopause tweet that quickly degenerated into a battle between Kenya Moore and Vivica A. Fox to determine who was more ghetto. Couple that with the earlier focus on Shawn Johnson’s period, this season could easily be summed up by its emphasis on the female reproductive system, which Trump seems to love to preside over.
That was quickly trumped (hehe) by the second task, where Trump showed us all, in case we forgot who rules his kangaroo court. Is there anyway we can look at the decision to fire an entire team that won five episodes in a row and not come to the conclusion that this thing is completely rigged? The simple answer is, no.
From a purely competitive standpoint, this makes no sense. That’s never what Celebrity Apprentice has been about. The show is Trump’s circus where if you don’t fight to the death, preferably bringing as much about the inner workings of female private parts into the boardroom as humanly possible, you go home. Ian Ziering deserved the sack, but that left a Real Housewife and Johnny Damon. Which is boring. The solution was simple. Fire them all.
It didn’t matter than Geraldo and Vivica lost week after week. Winning the challenges has always been less important than carnival antics. Performance should not be completely discredited, as we saw with Ian.
I had Ian pegged to be in the finals against Geraldo. I was wrong. Is this surprising? Sort of.
I did also last week say that Leeza was a dark horse who needed another win to become a legitimate contender. That did happen. But more importantly, something else happened.
Ian sunk his own ship with his plagiarized “La Cucaracha.” Let’s get one thing straight. Using the song would not be copyright infringement. It’s a folk song. No one owns it. Apparently that didn’t matter, even with a businessman like Trump in the room (though for all Celebrity Apprentice intents and purposes, he’s the red queen).
The truth is, it didn’t matter. It was stupid. It would’ve lost. Both tasks weren’t even close. That’s why talking about them isn’t interesting. Kenya was sunk with #babiesluvbuns before the menopause and the stolen phone and Ian was sunk for his poor attitude and overall crappy boardroom performance.
The boardroom took a turn when Trump decided that Ian wasn’t enough. The closest thing this mirrored was the Celebrity Apprentice 5 task where Trump wanted Adam Carolla to serve him Michael Andredi on a silver platter. Carolla took the bullet and Trump sent them both packing.
That task was early on in its season. This week was the last one before the final four. Knocking off both Brandi and Johnny doesn’t exactly change as much as you’d think. Trump typically sends two of the final four home anyway in a dated adherence to the show’s original format.
Problem is, it does matter. Trump could’ve fired the whole team by advancing one of them to the final four and sending them packing with Vivica, which is going to happen. This would’ve made the whole thing look less rigged. Why didn’t he? Maybe he doesn’t care.
It’s been a weird season of Celebrity Apprentice. It’s the first season since the original to air the majority of the tasks in one hour blocks, though the first did one a week. This cast hasn’t been all that interesting. Lots of narcissism and plenty of fights, but the competition hasn’t been one for the ages.
Geraldo could have changed this. He looked like the second coming of Piers Morgan (albeit with reversed political views) in the first few tasks. Then he transformed into the reincarnated Aubrey O’Day, who forced her ideas down her teammates’ throats and lost. Rivera will make it to the finals. Will he win?
Seems likely. Leeza Gibbons is the new front-runner. Before you say “oh look Ian was wrong,” consider this. In the show’s condensed format, we haven’t seen a lot of Leeza. She flew under the radar all season. Before this week, there was no reason to suggest she belonged in the finals. Nepotism, yes, but that really only takes you to the final four (now the final three).
I have a feeling this is it for Celebrity Apprentice. The show went off the air for almost two years and when it came back, NBC has burned through the episodes with little fanfare. We’ve been down this road before as NBC cancelled the original version of the show, only to bring it back because its lineup faltered. It seems likely that this could and probably will happen again.
The finals will pit Geraldo against Leeza. No doubt about that. In order to determine who has the upper hand, we can ask a simple question.
Who gains the most from winning?
Trump likes to play king maker. He took all the credit for Piers Morgan’s CNN show (to be fair, he did deserve some of it). He picked Arsenio Hall over Clay Aiken because he knew Hall’s increased exposure would lead to a new late night show which he could also take credit for.
Geraldo and Leeza are both old and established. Leeza has a radio show. Geraldo works for Fox News. Trump can’t really take any credit for Geraldo’s future fortunes. If Leeza says the words, “I want another TV show,” the crown is hers.
If that doesn’t happen, it’s still probably hers to lose. Geraldo will probably go for broke on fundraising and do something bold for the finals. That could win it for him if he fights hard enough. It should be an exciting finale.
