Why are folks so hard on Annie self-congratulating herself for this win? Her team was a huge underdog and I took most of it to be aimed at Joan, which is justifiable, IMHO, after all the hateful things that Joan has said to and about Annie.
Why do people accuse Annie Duke of “lying”? I haven’t seen any evidence of outright dishonesty on her part.
Was she buddying up to Brande after lamenting her previous performance? Sure, but that’s not dishonesty. If anything, it shows that two people are capable of putting the past behind them.
Was she dishonest for not tearing Brande a new one in the boardroom? Not in my book. She told the Riverses that she would go after Brande, but she didn’t say that she would do so with any degree of aggressiveness or venom. In fact, she has consistently demonstrated that she can criticize her teammates in a calm and dispassionate manner.
Or was she dishonest for the positive things that she said about Joan Rivers in last night’s episode? Again, I don’t see how. The ability to commend your opponent is admirable, and as far as I can tell, she didn’t say anything that was out of character or implausible.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see where these accusations of dishonesty are coming from. The only possible instance that I can remember is her pleading innocence when Melissa River protested that Brande and Annie were shutting her out. Even then though, I would not be so quick to assume that this was a conscious decision on their part, or even that this was the entire story. Sometimes, when dealing with difficult people, we can wind up ignoring certain things that they say, and this may (fairly or not) be perceived as shutting them out completely.
In the boardroom she starts with the “I respect Joan Rivers very much…”
Then the very next talking head interview: “Joan Rivers isn’t a very good person.”
That’s either dishonesty or she respects bad people. Which would you like?
When you bluff in poker, is that “lying” or just playing the game?
I think Annie is – as she has said of herself so many times I want to puke – a very good game player. She is conniving, manipulative, scheming, and willing to do or say whatever it takes to win. I think she has no conception of what the word “honorable” means. I think that’s the world she lives in. Poker is not about honor; that concept never enters into the game, nor do such things as honesty and loyalty. Poker is about winning, period. Manipulation and “dishonesty” in the form of bluffing are absolute integral parts of the game.
And that’s the way Annie has been playing Celebrity Apprentice. When it looked like it was in Annie’s best interest to dislike Brande, she did. When it looked like being friendly with Brande was in Annie’s best interest, she did that.
If you really watch the way she’s handled herself in the challenges, she always tries very hard to position herself so that she can take maximum credit for a win, and minimum responsibility for a loss. When Brande was the project lead, Annie did as much work as she could. In that way, if they won she could honestly say “I did most of it”, and if they lost she could honestly say “Brande was the project leader, the loss is her fault”.
When Annie was the project lead, she gave Brande a lot of responsibility. In that way, if they won she could honestly say “I was the project lead, it was my win”, and if they lost she could say, “Brande did most of the work, it was her fault.”
Whether the way Annie plays this game is good or bad depends on how you think businesses should be run, and what you think is the proper behavior of corporate managers. I think it’s clear that Donald holds that Annie’s qualities and strategies are admirable in the business world. Personally, I think it’s pretty sad.
I didn’t really like Clint, he has his own ego problems. But I can respect him because whenever it came down to it, he took responsibility for his failures. Annie never has and never could be capable of doing that. I have zero respect for her.
Joan and Melissa clearly went way, way overboard in their vitriol against Annie. But I at least believe that their feelings are genuine, however inappropriately expressed they might be, and I can respect their honesty. Joan is right about Annie, she is completely two-faced and will do anything to win. I have zero respect for her.
I hope Joan beats her ass in the finale, but I do feel it’s unlikely.
The best part, for me, was when Clint sang his jingle to Ivanka and innocently asked her if it made her want to eat some tuna. (with a giant shit-eating grin) Ivanka’s eyes flashed at the (possibly unintentional) double entendre and she quickly changed the subject.
As for Annie admitting her failings, what exactly were hers? She positioned herself so far ahead of the field, they had to stunt cast Joan for some “trumped” up finale drama. (Brande needs far less help than Joan to put up a decent fight against Annie)
Last time, Piers was also extremely far ahead, so Trace Adkins was stunt cast for some phoney baloney US vs. UK angle. (The more capable opponent, Carol Alt, was dumped owing to lack of dramatic conflict)
In next week’s preview,
It looks like they are trying to handicap Annie by attaching the boat anchor that is Dennis Rodman to her team
It’s not really fair to call Rodman a boat anchor. He’s more like a speedboat tied to your boat and heading off in various constantly changing random directions . . .
$265,000 for Refugees International. Enough said.
Oh, I don’t know. I respect Joan Rivers as a comedienne. She can be quick and clever with her ad libs and she cracks me up. But her nasty personality on the show makes her quite unlikable and not a very good person to be around. I like Annie the same way I liked Piers last season – they both know how to play the game and they know how to call on people to bring in money when necessary. After all, this is Celebrity Apprentice, so the contestants are expected to have resources that we mere mortals don’t have. I can easily see Annie coming back next season to sit next to the Donald the way Piers is doing this season. No way can I imagine Joan doing that.
I don’t think that the two concepts are mutually exclusive. I can think of several people that I respect on some level, even though I think they have contemptible habits and behavior.
As for Roadfood’s comment that “When it looked like it was in Annie’s best interest to dislike Brande, she did. When it looked like being friendly with Brande was in Annie’s best interest, she did that,” I think that’s also a hasty accusation. There are several things that I strongly dislike about Annie Duke, but I’m not about to assume duplicity in this case. It is perfectly possible that she disliked Brande at first, put those feelings aside so that they could work together on a task, and then developed a new level of respect for her. In fact, as I recall, Brande had a lot of valuable input on that particular task, so I can see how Ms. Duke could have come around. Again, I can think of several past colleagues that I initially disliked, but whom I learned to work with and respect.
For various reasons, I wouldn’t want to hire Annie Duke to run a company. I don’t care for some of her behavior in public, for example. However, I also think that some of the accusations being levelled against her are unfair – or at the very least, overly hasty.
I pretty much dislike Annie for the reasons people have mentioned. She has spent the game completely in CYA mode - maximizing her contributions to be safe or positioning herself so that if her team loses, she can’t be blamed. And she’s done this so transparently. Someone who is supposed to be good at playing the game should be a little more subtle in that regard.
She clearly was getting the hate edit this week. “I’m so proud of myself!”
I also think Clint got fucked in the previous task. I think if you have the star power of Clint Black - and let’s face it, a lot of people listen to country - and the very professional sounding jingle, and compare it to Annie’s creation - it’s pretty clear that Clint wins. The execs thought that because it was country it wasn’t as good. It’s a jingle, not a freakin’ extended version. I think people could bear hearing it for 30 seconds. That guy took a lot of shit from people this season but somehow always ended up taking the high road, no matter how douchily his behavior might have come across. I like him a lot based on what I saw on the show.
Trump’s logic in his firings of Jesse and Brande made no sense. Brande was the number 2 fundraiser and the show is supposedly about “raising money,” right? But then he says the last task might not be fundraising. Then he uses the reverse logic to dismiss Jesse.
I kind of have to laugh at Brande. She made a deal with the devil by allying herself so closely to Annie, and it was clear she was going to be seen as Annie’s lackey. She never asserted herself outside of Annie, and that was a major mistake. I think she should have been fired last week for that reason. It was nice to have an epiphany and give a spirited defense in the boardroom but she hadn’t done that all task. But despite all of this, she did a damned good job.
Jesse demonstrated why Sandra Bullock married him. He stuck to his principles, and never pimped out his wife. His situation is clearly different than Annie’s - I wouldn’t be bothered by a business associate hitting me up for cash, but your spouse is a different subject. And I have to think Sandra Bullock would show up for Jesse if he asked… but he clearly didn’t want to play the game that way. He got a little weird in the end, but still he’s a stand up guy as far as I’m concerned.
Yeah, I’ve got a lot of respect for Jesse. (I was originally going to say “nothing but respect,” but the guy does slip awfully easily into passive aggressive mode when you piss him off.)
I agree. Let’s face it, some people just aren’t comfortable hitting their friends up for money. I certainly wouldn’t be. That’s one of the things I dislike about the Celebrity Apprentice. It’s all about who has the richest friends.
And for someone from a working class background, like Jesse, I can only imagine how awkward it would be calling up your wife’s friends and asking them for 10, 20 or 30 grand.
That was just a side effect of her wanting to win the freakin’ game. If one of the competitions in Celebrity Apprentice had been, let’s say collecting bottle caps, Annie would have collected the most bottle caps.
How about this: Remember the jewelry auction? The other team came up with an absolutely brilliant strategy, using one of Annie’s poker rivals against her, to raise more money for their charity.
What was Annie’s response? She called the guy and told him not to participate. By doing that, she caused a charity to lose out on some big money. But it wasn’t HER charity, so she didn’t care. Like I said, no sense of what “honorable” means. In a situation like that, the truly honorable thing to do would have been to acknowledge that the other team out-strategized her, congratulate them for finding a novel way to raise more money for their charity, and then redouble her own efforts to raise even more for her charity.
But, very clearly, what was important to Annie was not anyone raising money for any charity, but that she had been bested, out-thought, and might lose. So she fought back in a decidedly dishonorable way, taking money away from someone else’s charity in the process.
Now that’s enough said.
In Annie’s defense (and I don’t like her either even though she admitted to giving good blowjobs on national TV), Phil Helmuth said on his blog that he is in Annie’s bullpen since they do a TV show together. I take that to mean that she will call him on the final challenge, assuming that it is a fundraiser. I also take it to mean that he was never going to give any money to Natalie.
Annie’s still a bitch though. Or maybe the producers are just giving her a terrible edit.
From Hellmuth’s blog (previously posted on p. 3) we can see that the producers made Annie call him back on camera for dramatic effect:
Personally, there is nothing more phony than the Rivers gals, and I can’t see why anyone dislikes Annie based on her performance. She is tame compared to Trump.
Possibly, but raising money for charity isn’t a side effect of the game. The objective is to raise money for her charity and Annie has done that beautifully. You can take whatever view you want about someone from watching a heavily edited (and scripted) TV show, I know I think less of Joan Rivers now from what the producers have been presenting, but the fact still stands Annie is helping a very worthy cause to the tune a quarter of a million dollars so far. Good for and good for Darfur refugees.
The posters above already mentioned that Hellmuth commited to supporting Annie before the show began taping. He wasn’t going to give money to anyone but Annie, anyway. He was already going to participate for Annie at some point in the show. I also remember that Kotu’s only money from the auction came from an Athena bidder.
Even had Hellmuth given his money to Kotu, Athena still would have beaten them in fundholding and the money would have gone to Annie.
I don’t think that’s at all clear, and you and I have a different view of what honorable means in this situation. I have fun watching and discussing this online, that’s for sure. I’m not going to think less of someone who plays the Apprentice according to the rules of the game better than anyone else and results in providing a great deal of support to a worthy charity. Hell, I didn’t know who she was before the show, but I am a fan now.
I don’t know that I would describe that strategy as “absolutely brilliant”. If someone comes up with a bunch of unusual ideas that ultimately do not work, I wouldn’t say that person was brilliant.
The supposition was that Annie was a hateful bitch that has many enemies in the poker world. In fact, it turns out quite the opposite is true, based on the number of supporters who show up for her on a day’s notice.
When Natalie Gulbis tried to implement her strategy, she quickly discovered she was completely clueless about poker and did not even know the names of any poker players. This is not a sign of a brilliant or well thought out strategy.
She called a friend who gave her a big poker name seemingly at random. This person turned out to be a supporter of Annie and friend of 12 years!
So, the entire premise of this idea, that Natalie would be able to find enemies of Annie in the poker world who truly want to torpedo her, seems to be completely wrong. The fact that Natalie came up with such a flawed tactic only means she had bought into the delusion perpetrated by the Riverses.
That quote from Annie just supports what I said: “If you help Natalie I will kill you!” even if “help Natalie” means giving money to a charity. How could it be more clear that Annie didn’t give a rat’s ass about whatever charity might benefit from Hellmuth helping Natalie, all she cared about was that he didn’t help Annie’s opponent.
The producers making her call him back to get the dramatic effect is irrelevant to this discussion about the kind of person Annie is (we all know what kind of people “reality” show producers are). Her first reaction speaks volumes.
I completely disagree. Do you judge the worth or brilliance of all ideas solely by whether they ultimately work or not? I don’t. And if they had found a rival who agreed to bid for their team, you would be saying now that it was a great idea?
At the time the idea was formed, it was great thinking. Later reality made it unworkable, but the original brilliance of thinking of it in the first place remains.
Yes. If we’re dealing in absolutes, an idea is “absolutely brilliant” only if it does indeed work. Anything less (i.e. it ultimately does not work) cannot be called “absolutely brilliant”.