Celebrity Apprentice 2: Episode 6 Recap
| April 5, 2009 | Posted by Roshawn Watson under Uncategorized |
By: Roshawn Watson
The Task
This week’s task was to create a 60 sec. viral video to help promote All® Small and Mighty detergent. Since KOTU was decimated due to 4 losses, Trump decided to restructure the teams (as I predicted previously). Melissa Rivers, Brandie Broderick, Annie Duke, Tionne Watkins, and Jesse Jame made up Athena. KOTU consisted of Clint Black, Joan Rivers, Natalie Gulbis, Khloe Kardasian, and Herschel Walker. Because both Clint Black and Melissa Rivers had experience producing videos and TV shows, they were chosen to lead KOTU and Athena, respectively.
Athena chose to shoot a video with Jesse James and little people to feature the All® Small & Mighty detergent. Jesse “plays” a car mechanic wearing visibly dirty clothes. He states the new detergent will help him clean up. Then, three little people dressed up as little All® detergent bottles scrub him down. A few seconds later, Jesse’s clothes are completely clean. The video definitely pokes fun at itself because at the end, you can see the little people throwing down their detergent hats and saying a few choice words. This video overall was entertaining. Athena worked pretty harmoniously on this task, and Melissa created and executed the production like a pro.
KOTU chose to shoot a video with sexual innuendo. Clint Black plays a husband who calls his wife about perhaps doing the “dirty laundry.” She begs off stating she has too much other work to do. Laundry is their key word for sex. In the bedroom scene later that night, the wife says “I am ready to do the dirty laundry now” and exposes her lingerie. Clint then states, “Honey, it was a small load, so I did it myself.” The not so subtle sexual references weren’t really a great fit for the conservative All® brand, and the video was pretty corny at best. More importantly, Clint completely disregarded the opinions of his team. He alienated himself by pretty much doing the entire task without the team’s input or assistance, much to their dismay. Joan Rivers was especially upset about being marginalized because being funny is her job.
Help support Joan and Melissa charities by forwarding their videos to your friends
The Task Results and Boardroom
Famed blogger Perez Hilton said that the KOTU video was crap and that he wouldn’t have finished it if he didn’t have to, but he thought the Athena video was “excellent.” Unfortunately for both teams, the All® executives didn’t like either production for All® small & mighty detergent because they felt both videos failed to connect adequately to their target demographic: women with children over 25. Since they were ultimately the clients, Trump decided to do a double firing this week because neither team really won.
Clint wisely chose Khloe Kardashian and Natalie Gulbis to go back into the boardroom with him while Melissa chose Tionne Watkins and Brande Broderick. It was clear that Brande Broderick was uncomfortable being selected for the boardroom, but Tionne volunteered to go to the boardroom to support Melissa. Honestly, both Clint and Melissa thought they would be fired as the project managers. Interestingly, they both survived this week.
Keep the Peace. Melissa led Athena like a pro, and her team sung her praises all the way to the boardroom. She was very collaborative, organized, and extremely insightful into her team’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, because she knew Annie Duke is a pretty intense person, Melissa assigned Annie to find the costumes. By sending Annie away and still giving her an important task, Melissa was free to lead without the hostility that Annie sometimes brings to the tasks. Additionally, because of Annie’s meticulous nature, Melissa also assigned her the task of product placement. Melissa almost effortlessly managed one of the strongest personalities left on the show. By keeping the peace, the task was not derailed due to the frequent bickering on past episode.
Know when to dissent. Clint said there were two things that were grounds for immediate termination for an employee: dishonesty and insubordination. He considered Joan Rivers antics insubordination. However, she genuinely thought that he didn’t have a clue about what he was doing. Since the rest of the team shared her opinion, she voiced her concerns throughout the project. This is one of the reasons Clint didn’t dare bring her into the boardroom. Joan, an internationally famed comedienne, told Clint that the video wasn’t funny, and the that the concept stunk for this product. He refused to heed her warning. If he had taken her into the boardroom instead of Khloe, he definitely would have been fired.
Unfortunately, this week’s lame firings had nothing to do with the tasks. Trump decided to teach lessons with the firings this week.
I haven’t been this ticked about the show since Trump picked that slimeball Piers Morgan in favor of the beloved Trace Atkins in celebrity apprentice season one.
First, Trump fired Tionne because she “volunteered” to go back to the boardroom out of support for Melissa. Apparently, this is inexcusable because you should never “volunteer for a beheading.” Whatever! That was obviously not what she was volunteering for regardless of how someone tries to spin it. Next, Trump fired Khloe Kardashian because she got a DUI (before apprearing on the show), stating that he just found out and she would not have been selected for the show if he had known. Although I definitely don’t condole drinking and driving, I wish Trump would have just used objective measures to decide who stays and who goes. It just not as fun when the firing seem purely arbitrary.
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I totally agree with you about this week's firing Shawn. I am so disgusted I am considering not watching anymore. Khloe Kardashian never should have been fired on the grounds of her past DUI. Yes, I am opposed to drinking while driving, but come on Trump. Khloe has already been punished and is paying for this mistake. I think she's been learning her lesson since then and didn't need big bad Trump to step down from on high and condemn her again. His judgment had absolutely nothing to do with the task at hand. I am also terribly disappointed that he fired Tionne. Had this been about the poor performance on the given task, he would and should have fired the project managers.
What an exciting contest! I would love to see the season finale in person.
Shawn, you said it best with this is just another dysfunctional day in Trump's world
FD, your comments are always right on point, and I agree completely.Michael, I'm definitely going to be entering the contest myself.Robin, I guess we're equally cynical about this episode.Regards
What a game!