Troy continues to impress. I liked his leadership. He was effective, but he was never arrogant or bullying or controlling or any of the other things that typically get brought out in “project leaders.” I also liked the way that he praised his team and showed appreciation, especially the way he showed special attention to Heidi. He seemed sincere too. I didn’t think he was faking any sympathy.
I liked the way he suckered Katrina on the “write up” thing, but really, he won the aprtment because of a coin toss. maybe if she had been willing to negotiate instead of just whining about Troys “dishonesty” she could have ended up with the crib or at least something in return. Troy just got himself in the best position for his team. I think we’re starting to see that his disarming country yokel facade is just that. He’s no dummy.
Tammy pretty much needed to go last week. She was a drag on every project she participated in and she was no better this week. Trump fired her for being consistently useless, not for saying Katrina was duped. She was just a tool and good riddance.
I thought Heidi showed some toughness this week too, not just for staying in the game but for working her ass off and contributing.
Osarama seemed pretty worthless this week too. I think her days are numbered.
I missed the last fifteen minutes (well, I watched it on “mute”) but I can’t understand why Katrina was making such a big deal about Troy’s joke when he wrote on the paper “I want what you want”? How is that duping anyone? I think either I just didn’t understand, or something hit the editing room floor that would have explained why she felt duped just because he was refusing to let her run the negotiation. Three, four days later she’s still bent out of shape? What did I miss during that exchange? It came down to a coin toss…she wasn’t tricked or duped, he wasn’t dishonest. Can anyone enlighten me?
Oh, and I’m glad Troy’s team won, but I was really hoping they’d lose just so they could give Omarosa the boot. This was the perfect week to prove once and for all that she thinks way too highly of herself and needs to go. I can’t believe she could even think about goofing off so much when cameras are rolling, headache or not, especially when she knew she was up against the Heidi sympathy front. And I think Trump should have told Heidi, The game can wait, I’m sending you on my plane to be with Mom throught the operation, we’ll start up again when you come back. That would have impressed me more.
I again agree with Diogenes. The end of the world is nigh. :eek:
Troy indeed owned. And his bit at the beginning wasn’t unethical, it was funny. Besides, it’s pretty clearly going to come down to a coin flip – just how the hell are the two teams supposed to “negotiate” which apartment to take? What could either team possibly give up? Manpower is all I can think of, and I’d bet that’s against the rules given that they specifically evened out the teams at the start.
Tammy should have been fired after her performance last week with Carson Daly, and only the “winning team survives” rule saved her. Hey, I think Carson’s a huge vaccum of suckitude, too, but even I know you don’t insult someone you want for a charity gig by implying their star isn’t bright enough standing alone.
All hail the Fox editors, who interpersed footage of Omarosa playing basketball with Heidi working her ass off. Hey O – it’s called Tylenol, look into it.
Bill could have gotten more money out of that gal. She caved too quickly to his counteroffer – she was willing to pay more. Maybe not enough to put Bill’s team on top, but certainly more than she gave up.
Which is another point: the metric on this test isn’t very fair. The winning team was essentially decided on a coin toss, since it’s a lot easier to post a big percentage increase on a crappy apartment that starts with a very low price than it is to do so on a better apartment with an original price closer to it’s fixed-up value. Yeah, I know business and life aren’t fair, but then in real life neither team would have someone fired so long as they both met or exceeded the boss’ profit expectations.
I only saw the last half of it, so all I have to judge by is the bits in the boardroom. Based on that, I’d have to say that it certainly looked like Katrina needed the boot this week. She was blaming everyone around her for their failure, but taking none of the blame herself. First she accuses Troy of dishonesty, but even when he’s been cleared of that won’t admit that he outsmarted her. Then she blames Bill for not negotiating well, when he apparently didn’t exactly have an overbrimming pool of people to negotiate with. (Besides, isn’t this what she does for a freakin’ living? Why wasn’t she doing the negotiating? Oh, right, she was too busy hiring the contractor.) Then she turns on Tammy, saying that she spent too much time babysitting to be truly effective. And they’re up Tammy’s ass about being disloyal to her team?
If I were an employer, there’s no way on earth I’d want someone around who makes baseless accusations, refuses to admit her mistakes, and takes absolutely zero responsibility for her failures. No way in hell. I’d rather have ol’ Dead-Weight Tammy, since she’s at least got the balls to stand up and say, “Yeah, face it, we fucked up.”
Also, an effective project manager delegates the things that don’t really require her personal attention, so she can attend to the stuff that does. It would have been far more effective to delegate hiring the contractor, so that she could take charge of the negotiations. If Tammy truly needed a babysitter, she should have delegated that, too.
Personally, I was glad Tammy got the boot, just as I was glad that Jessie was fired last week. I like the fact that Trump can tell who is dead weight, who’s a backstabber, and gets rid of them. Both Jessie and Tammy were disloyal drips who didn’t contribute much to their teams. Neither of them seemed too bright either, for that matter.
I agree that Katrina was a huge crybaby in the boardroom and that Troy didn’t do anything wrong. However, Tammy was wrong. Katrina was not duped; it came down to a coin toss and that’s the only way it a decision could have been reached under the circumstances. Though Tammy and Katrina were both kind of off, at least Katrina made a meaningful contribution to the group effort. Tammy was downright embarrassing last week and did nothing but argue this one.
IMO, Versacorp’s apartment looked great at the end, better than Protege’s. Troy only won because his apartment was assessed at $1200. Period. As Katrina said, Troy won out of sheer luck. I think Troy did a good job, but I’m not convinced he won due to fabulous leadership qualities.
As others have said, I think this was a contrived opportunity for a firing. In reality, both apartments got nicely renovated and rented at a net gain. The time limit to rent them was unrealistic and I think both teams, but espcially Versacorp’s, could have gotten more if they’d had a couple more days. Like last week’s task, neither team was really a loser; both did a good job and achieved the goal. No, I think Trump used these tasks to cull out the truly weak members of the group, which is fine by me.
Any predictions/wishes for who gets cut next? I can see wanting to get rid of Omarosa because she’s a major PITA, but in my experience, the controversial characters remain until late in the game because people love to hate them. I could be wrong, and I kinda hope I am. Thoughts?
What’s nice with Tammy’s firing is that we see that, unlike other reality shows, where the producers rig and influence things to keep the troublemakers on because that creates ‘better entertainment,’ we see the jerks go out the window first. Very satisfying.
It makes Trump look good. Not in bad hair looking good, but as ‘fair boss’ looking good.
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I think everybody dropped it right here. There are lots of things to negotiate. If it had been me, I would have tried to get the other team to agree to “raise” their basis price – or lower mine – in return for the better apartment. The way it looked to me, one apartment clearly had more potential (wood floors, fireplace, big windows) and a lower original rent. In other words, one apartment was clearly going to be everybody’s first choice. Clearly, Trump intended for them to negotiate something and that implies there were things that could be traded.
Another thing I don’t get is why both teams waited until the afternoon of the last day to start showing the apartments. The bottleneck was always going to be finding a renter. Get potential people in ASAP so you have a pool of interested applicants you can call back at the end. As it was, it looked like they took the first people in the door.
I agree that Bill could have hung a bit tougher but he was under extreme time pressure and had one prospect to work with. Deadlock was not an option. To beat the other team, he would have had to pull down $1925 and that wasn’t going to happen. I was surprised (or maybe they cut it out) that the team (especially the team leader) hadn’t set a target price for the negotiation. Don’t these people do this for a living?
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I agree. Maybe he did but the complete exchange got edited out. He was clearly offering her the chance to go home. That wouldn’t make much sense if he’d simply been offering her the chance to just drop out.
How long did this game actually run, anyway? The tasks are obviously not a really week apart.
Maybe I’m just too cynical - but a renter showing up to Protege’s place, looks over the place, negotiates and signs a lease all in the last 9 minutes before the competition ends?
Help me find the right word here… convenient? lucky? dramatic? influenced? fixed?
Yeah, that seemed weird. Christ, the credit check alone should take at least that long. shrug
But omigod I was hoping for Troy’s team to lose so they could kick that useless waste of oxygen that is Omarosa in the ass out the door. Holy fucking shit she is a tool. I can only hope that this little stint on this show completely ruins whatever career she thinks she had…ok, maybe that’s a bit harsh. But I for one would never hire her sorry ass after seeing her drama queen act on the show.
Yep, gotta go with everyone else here - I don’t see how there was any duping going on at all. Troy even told the camera beforehand that he wanted that same apartment. I think he only wrote what he did because he thought Katrina was being silly to require that they both write down their choices.
I think Tammy’s firing definitely shows that Trump is more aware of what goes on that just what he sees in the board room (or even what he’s told - perhaps he’s watching the tapes). She definitely needed to go. As annoying as Omarosa is (and I do think her days are numbered - I didn’t see her try to modify her “rude behavior” in any way), she has pulled her weight (well, not in this episode, but there were other episodes where everyone else was commenting on how she was working as hard as anyone). It doesn’t seem like Tammy has ever pulled her weight. In every episode there’s some comment about how they wish Tammy would just keep her mouth shut.
I still don’t like Heidi, but might have to change my mind after this week. She really was classy and professional in the way she dealt with her news and didn’t let it affect her work. She was a trooper.
Interesting. I recall having heard somewhere that all the contestants were under the strictest contractual obligations not to let on who got the boot and who won. But per her website, she is available for speeches, appearances and “consulting.” This strongly implies that she was not the eventual winner.
I think you’re totally right about the Big O. She’s the Johnny Fairplay of The Apprentice. She’s not going to win. But I think the producers will really want to keep her around as long as possible for her audience annoyance factor, which is HUGE!
I used to think Donald Trump was the perfect example of Money Not Caring Who It Belonged To. This series has made me realize that he’s a very smart, rather cool guy. I still question his taste and his hair, although improved, is still one of the more bizarre coiffures on television, but I respect him now and think he’s probably entitled to every cent he’s made!