The Apprentice, 11/18

Is Jenn some kind of moron or something? She couldn’t grasp the idea of the wheel? I mean, it’s not like it was some kind of new invention or esoteric concept. Ivana didn’t make up the idea of a selector wheel. It’s something that has been used many times over. (That’s not to take credit from Ivana. Doing the jeans catalog as a wheel was a heck of a good idea.)

And it was so wonderful to see Maria get canned. She really gave us some good TV in her final hour. Wes totally deserved to be fired, too. What a wussy. This was a good week for the dual firing.

Some idle thoughts on the remaining players.

Ivana: Ugh. She’s mostly incompetent, but has occasional periods of good work. I hope she doesn’t have a well-timed success that takes her to the final 2. But I think Trump does know that she’s mostly useless, so I’m not too worried.

Kevin: Blah. He’s just not that good. He was compared to Kwame a lot at the beginning of the show. Of course, that’s partially because they’re both black and have names starting with K, but it was also because they both seemed to be quiet, solid, and competent. But Kevin is no Kwame. Kwame definitely (IMHO) didn’t deserve to win last season, but he did have a lot going for him. He had an excellent background and education, which contributed to his successes on the show. And he also had excellent interpersonal skills. He could be very charming. (Except to Russell Simmons. Hee!) Kevin, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be gifted in the people skills department, nor does he seem to have such a solid set of business skills. In the end, Kwame lacked creativity and backbone. And Kevin lacks those things, too. Kevin is just lackluster and boring. I’m not going to call him incompetent, but he’s not good, you know?

Jenn: Ick. As much as I hate to admit it, but Ivana does have a point about Jenn having some kind of mojo working for her. She coasted for a long time on her “best of the women” throne, but it’s become clear that she’s not any good, either. I think that everyone’s realizing that she doesn’t actually contribute anything.

Sandy: Meh. She’s had some surprisingly good turns in the past few weeks. I see her as being akin to Troy in that she’s good at what she’s good at, but she’s nowhere near the business generalist that Trump is looking for. One major criticism I have of her: She doesn’t “step up” to take leadership. Her successes were in weeks where she was officially deemed a leader–one week as PM and the next week as the obvious expert in the bridal field.

Andy: Hmmm… Andy has potential. His lack of real-world experience is palpable, though. This leads him to make some bad decisions and to be too passive. But he does have some good instincts. He’s way to green to be the “head of one of Trump’s companies,” and if there was a better pool of contestants, I’d call him dead in the water. But Trump might just decide that he’s the best of a bad lot.

Kelly. Yuck. On the rare occasions that he makes it on screen, he annoys me. He really hasn’t shown me anything positive, other than his fashion drawing, and his willingness to let Sandy co-lead. But his lack of screen time and lack of really obvious shortcomings suggest that he’s probably the winner.

At this point, I guess I’m rooting for Andy and Sandy(!).

Maria’s blinking was DRIVING ME CRAZY! Thank God she is gone.

The only thing I want to add is when Jenn said something to the affect of “Ivana is out to get me and she has no reason to be.” Huh? You mean except for the time you yelled at her how you would take her down and decided to defend Raj and sacrific Ivana. Hey, Ivana is lucky to still be there, but she has plenty of reason to hate Jenn’s butt…figuratively of course.

Kudos to Jen for snatching the choicest bits from the jaws of them bitches!!

It’s funny how my feelings about some of these people have shifted. A few weeks ago I liked Jenn and hated Ivana but now I totally hate Jenn and Ivana has shown some worth. I really hope Jenn gets some payback for stealing Ivana’s credit like that, and just the way she treats people in general. She’s completely mean and domineering. She seems to have no real warmth at all and no ability to connect emotionally with anyone. It takes a while to catch on to that, though. She steamrolls people.

Trump said there was someone this season who was worse than Omarosa and I think it may be Jenn. There’s something really scary and cold about her. I think Ivana has humanity even if she’s incompetent at times, and she’s done a good job of reestablishing some credibility in the game after a shaky start. Same with Sandy, She won back to back tasks for her team and last week delivered probably the single most sound ass kicking in the history of the show.

Kelly is a preening, egoistic prick.

I like both Kevin and Andy. I thought Andy has held his own pretty well and that he shined in the police recruiter task. I think that Kevin seems like the most sane and decent and has also held his own against the sociopaths.

At this point, I just really want to see Jenn and Kelly get fired. After that I’d like to see Kevin or Andy win the game but I’ll really just be happy if it isn’t Jen or Kelly.

Where are those Raj ratings?

i’ve seen just a few of the shows, but I’d say best line was when Maria s defending herself Trump said "No one cares what you think’. Maybe he’s always like this though.

Floating in the atmosphere somewhere. I taped the show and have yet to watch it (or read about anything that happened.)

whimpers No Mullinator summary? Why did I get out of bed this morning?

Some additional thoughts, on further reflection –

Wes’s passivity was truly mind-blowing. W. T. F. on that whole thing – seriously, WTF was he thinking?

As a couple of people have already asked – Who would have thought that Sandy would make it this far? I’m guessing she won’t make final four – she isn’t the generalist that Trump needs – but flying under the radar and not doing anything egregiously stupid has been enough, I guess.

Andy, OTOH, probably will make final four. He can’t be the final winner, for all of the reasons people have mentioned – he really is just too young and too inexperienced – but he’s done well. Trump was clearly extremely impressed with his “sometimes listening is the point” answer in the boardroom last night.

I’ll join in the chorus on “wow, Jenn really is a horrible human being.” Remember in the Mattel week when she was snarking on the kids? That, apparently, was the real her. and her stealing the credit from Ivana like that – unbefreakin’lievable. Luckily Trump had eyes and ears there and I hope whichever person it was (Carolyn? Bill?) told him immediately that Levis guy was just wrong/

WTF on Trump making it a point to whoever about calling Bill Mr. Rancic, and not Bill? Who the hell has called Carolyn Ms. Whateverherlastnameis?

I wish they’d spent a little less time on the photo shoots and a little more time on the boardroom in this episode.

And a big fat “word” to Green Bean on her analysis of the Kevin/Kwame comparison – I am less impressed with him with every passing week. He’s still good for the final four, though, I think.

I find it hard to muster up a whole lot of sympathy for Ivana. Up until this episode, she’s been either a non-contributor or a screw-up in pretty much every task. In fact, the thing she’s been best at is avoiding responsibility so that, if her team loses, she can point the finger at whoever actually accepted the responsibility. I was completely floored that she actually stepped up with an idea (and a good idea!) and promoted it in this episode. However, the fact that Jen got some of the credit for it is just karma’s way of biting Ivana in the ass for being such a slacker for the past couple months.

Y’know, my impression, at least at first, was that Jen simply had reservations about the idea, and wanted Ivana to sit down and think the whole concept through – how does it work, will it meet Levi’s requirements – before rushing off and doing it. Then, instead of saying “I think your idea sucks; you need to think it through,” Jen gets some discussion going, and raises potential objections, by couching her concerns in the form of questions. Seemed like a pretty good way of discussing the idea in a neutral manner.

But, on further reflection, I think it’s more likely Jen’s just a dimbulb.

Yeah, he let that Ivana/Sandy argument get totally out of hand. I mean, I’m neither much of a people person nor much of a manager, but I would have jumped in after about thirty seconds and said, “look, if you need to argue about this, do it AFTER our presentation, but right now, we need to start getting shit done.” Geez, Wes.

I think you’re mixing up Jen and Pamela.

I still like Jenn. Yes, it’s not nice to steal credit for things you didn’t do. But on the range of sins you can commit on The Apprentice, I consider screwing over Ivana about on par with taking the second-to-last cup of coffee. It was obvious that Ivana and Kevin formed some unholy bitchface/flopsweat alliance and were gunning for Jenn from the beginning of the task.

While Jenn is by far the best presenter, they chose to let Kevin lead the presentation. He was sweating so bad I thought the Levi’s execs were going to have to hold up one of those plastic sheets like they were in the front row of a Gallager show.

Ivana was bad too. Her butt slapping valley girl act was terrible. Jenn jumped in right in time. If not for Maria’s astounding incompetence, it might have been a close race, and Jenn’s contribution could have put them over the top. She was right to jump in, in my opinion.

Boy wasn’t Maria bad though. Whoever told her she has good presentation skills needs to be banned from Earth. At one point she was leaning so far over the desk and frantically thrasing her arms around. I was afraid she’d lose her balance and saw a hole through the table. And just WTH is that jacket?

:smack:

I thought Jenn’s “I don’t get it routine” was just a passive aggressive tactic to try and derail Ivana’s idea and make it seem like Ivana was stupid and not making sense. It didn’t work because everybody else understood Ivana’s idea just fine.

I shouldn’t have read the boxed spoilers. I never do that. Why start now? The surprise was blown.

A few random thoughts:

  • Billy Joel sounds off AND his piano sounded out of tune. That was the most boring reward segment EVER. Even more boring than Bloomberg!

  • Wow. Two weeks in a row, Jennifer gets props in front of Trump. First, she gets the pass from Chris and then she gets the unearned praise from Levi’s Guy. It is all about presentation. She’s the best one left. She should KILL in the interviews.

  • I don’t understand why she is dumb all of a sudden when she has done well so far. This feels like a “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” thing. She really has been solid on every task so far. Chris was right last week that she deserved a pass. This was the first week, I’d agree with Ivana, that a FEMBOT charm helped her. (Other than the fact that she has used her charm to make presentations and gather information…sorry…that’s life!)

  • Normally Ivana’s little “She’s a bitch” confessions are off base. Usually, Ivana is just jealous or mena spirited. Tonight she was right in her frustration. Ivana had a VERY good week. All the great inspiration came from her. When the big guy comes in, her “enemy” gets the glory. That has to hurt. I will say that it is HIGHLY improbably that Ivana makes the final two. Burnett would never allow that to happen because we’d know who the inevitable winner would be! The OTHER player.

  • Jennifer didn’t so much steal credit as she got undeserved credit. Plus, she had to jump in one the presentation. She KNEW she had been handed busy work (nice scene where she acknowledges she is doing it) and was probably worried she was the one on the chopping block. She HAD TO DO IT, I TELLS YA! (Plus, I love her!)

  • Why so much bad leadership? Wes just put his hands in his pockets (of his NON-Levi’s)! In his defense, I TOO would have a tough time limiting a catfight. I’m just not that strong…

  • I am glad Maria got the ax. Other than the fluttering eyelids that remind me of a Pokemon episode, she talks in buzzwords and catch phrases even in normal conversation. And once again, she complains about a leader’s inability to reign in disruptive team members (her)!

  • I think Trump was poking fun at Bill with the Mr. Rancic thing.

  • Andy rallied nicely. He was on the ropes. He wasn’t going to be fired last night, but he saw his glow fading. When Trump came back with “Good Answer” I thought he was going to do a table dance.

*Sandy finally gets called into a boardroom and escapes without a scratch. Did she even take any heat?

*Poor Wes. He looked gut shot. He thought he had lived to fight another day and before he could draw a deep breath, Trump rabbit punched him.

  • Looking at the remaining 6, there really isn’t a lot of quality left.

Yeah, that was the other thing I wanted to say –

Why on EARTH did they not wear Levi’s to the presentation?

Andy did. I THINK Sandy did. He said HALF of them didn’t. I’m betting it was the half that went home.

Andy gets an “I told you so!”

Word.

I hate her businessbotspeak. Before they started on the catalogue she mentioned that she was going to take the team “out of their comfort zone.” I reflexively slap anyone who says that around me. How exactly do you make a catalogue that takes people out of their comfort zone? Make Sandy slay a dog for the cover shot? Make Wes pose in lingerie? Maybe she just planned to blink them all into submission. Like all manager speak, it makes no sense at all.

Loved “Well, uh, we didn’t have time to go buy Levi’s” – :wally

I totally agree with this.

At the risk of being accused of falling under Jenn’s “spell,” I’ll strongly second that what she did during the pitch was just damn smart. She knew Ivana trumped her this week contribution-wise (Once they showed the prototype wheel thingie, I was like, that is an awesome idea. From space-waster Ivana, go figure.) and that she’d better let her voice be heard in some way to avoid getting railroaded should they lose. As watsonwil says, she didn’t “steal” anything, she just jumped in and articulated aspects of the idea in a way that Ivana and Kevin took to be hijacking. Which is ridiculous.
The fact is, Jenn helped them in that presentation. Ivana was falling all over herself in an effort to get her brilliant idea on the table- and Kevin? Do yuz remember the water display we got from that poor basserd? Holy socks, I thought I was watching George Costanza getting grilled about the missing Yankee equipment. (“Kevin likes his chicken spicy!”) Jenn, as always, came across as cooly intelligent and measured and may have actually sold the concept better than the other two. It was a shame that Ivana didn’t get killer props this week for her contribution. But I think the Levi’s guy may have just been voicing his admiration for Jenn’s more convincing overall style. Of course the fact that she’s hot didn’t hurt this impression. But it’s not like she was just flashing her boobs.

I also don’t buy these new charges popping up spradically now that Jenn has been an under-the-radar flyer. She proved herself a capable leader in the dog grooming task and a more than capable clutch player in the QVC task and others. She’s calculating, she’s cold (the “disgusting” comment about Kevin’s sweating was just mean), but you can’t say she hasn’t displayed genuine skill and smarts.

BTW I’m sure someone has posted this, but if not - you can watch extended and deleted scenes from all the episodes the next morning at Yahoo:

http://apprentice.tv.yahoo.com (click on Exclusive Video at the top)

I especially enjoyed Ivana making fun of Kelly’s love handles. He looks like he’s in remarkably good shape for a 37 year old, but hey - if it’s there, Ivana go after it!

Hee. :smiley:

I’ve hated Maria from the first minute I saw her. Those eyebrows! Those lips! That attitude!!! So, needless to say, I’m awfully glad she imploded last night and took her team down with her.

I could care less that Wes is gone, too. He was a hot dog and deserved to be eliminated.

I worry for Andy. The kid has been pretty sharp throughout (except for the lost cell phone bit) but Trump has it in for him. He just doesn’t have the goods on him yet to fire him. But he’s doomed!

I can’t figure out WHY poor Kevin was so sweaty! Did they turn off the A/C? There is no way he should have been nervous; his team had this challenge knocked. . . and he knew it.

Bad Jenn. No biscuit!

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