The Apprentice. 3/4/04

I agree that Troy is the frontrunner but I think that Heidi is a stronger contender than you’re giving her credit for. I didn’t like for the first few weeks when she kept playing the jiggle card to win tasks but she’s grown on me lately and I think Trump likes her too. She’s got a lot of energy and toughness, a willingness to work hard (didn’t she scrub toilets during the apartment challenge?), she’s shown a versatility in that she usually seems to find a way to contrubute to her team and she can sublimate her ego to the leadership of others. She can be abrasive and impatient and he’s not particularly cultured but I’m starting to see that as more of a blue collar, unpretentious quality than anything else. I think she likes to roll up her sleeves and get to work rather than sit around and talk about it. The thing is, I believe she is someone I would want working for me. I think she would get things done. She may not be Miss Sunshine all the time but her job would get done. I’m picking her to go the final two with Troy.

After that it’s hard to call. Nick is a wild card. he could go a long way or he could totally flame out. He’s a little too cocky for his own good, I think.

Amy has just been sailing along by virtue of being on winning teams but has she actually accomplished anything?

Kwame stays under the radar but he’s going to have to actually perform sooner or later.

Bill is just meh. He’s not horrible but he has no chance to win.

Katrina is so out of there next.

Of course. the firing order will depend a lot on who wins the tasks. Troy saved Assorama for a couple of weeks longer than she should have been there.

For the winner, i can’t see anyone outperforming Troy at this point. it’s his to lose, barring some monumental screw up and he doesn’t seem to be inclined to make any huge mistakes.

Because Kwame’s choice was sensible from a survival point of view. He didn’t pass on Troy becaus Troy is his buddy, but because taking the two women in maximized his own chances of survival. He correctly surmised that Heidi and Omarosa were much higher on the Trump Shit List than Troy (especially after the compliments Trump threw Troy’s way last week) and figured the two of them would argue and at least one would spontaneously self-combust. And he was right. Trump’s noting the drywall “injury” probably sealed the deal.

That wasn’t the case with Ereka. If Ereka had better boardroom sense, she would have seen that the two most vulnerable people were Nick and Katrina. Thus, the only reason for keeping her was because they were friends – it wasn’t a calculated business decision, it was an emotional decision based on her and Katrina being “best friends forever.”

Nick was exactly right: if Katrina had been called in there, he would have been gone.

Probably Katrina as I can’t imagine it being anyone else.

So do I! She’s great.

Overall performance. Troy has done better than Katrina ever has, so that’s why there wasn’t a problem. Besides, I’m pretty sure Trump would take Troy over Katrina any day of the week.

I personally was kind of “meh” about Heidi at first, but she grew on me a great deal as time went on. I think that after Katrina goes, I’d be very hard pressed to predict who will actually win.

Troy : Amazing and worth routing for!

Nick: Mixed about him. Sometimes I like him, sometimes I want him to just VANISH!

Amy: I really like her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were in the top three.

Bill: Love him! Just LOVE him! He might waffle at times, but he has great ideas and is someone who can get things done(like at Planet Hollywood). Would love to see him in the top three.

Kwame: Takes responsability for his actions and decent, but not quite good enough to go much farther.

Heidi: See above. She might it to the top too. I wouldn’t mind that at all.

Katrina: I used to like her, but then grew to hate her. Sheesh. If she wins, then Satan will be wearing a parka in Hell.

katrina will cross carolyn. she’s pretty much worthless.

10 mins with trump would have been awesome! shiiit thats why i watch the show - to get advice from donald:cool:

Good riddance Omarosa.

Really, if she had a concussion then why didn’t she go to the hospital? Because the doctors would take one look and tell her there’s nothing wrong. A little piece of plaster isn’t going to do any damage, and Trump knows it. That crap wasn’t going to fly for long.

It’s a dog eat dog world, and she’s a she-dog. :smiley: She said in the limo that she’s a good person, and maybe she is, but I have yet to see any evidence of that.

All-night party at the suite tonight when Kwame and Heidi return!

I can’t resist: I have to add to the Assorama pile-on. I was cringing every time she spoke this episode.

“I have to sit down to eat”
“I’ve got a CONCUSSION
“These are some of the most classless people I’ve seen”
“Art is very subjective, blah blah blah”

A few episodes ago she was the “from the projects to the White House” gritty warrior woman, and now she’s the elite art connosseur? Please. Having said that, I do think that Heidi was on the verge of getting fired until “O” pulled her barging in stunt. Fer chrissakes, you haven’t even been fired yet - you’ve just been narrowed down to the final three! Control your emotions or - oops, it happened - you’re fired.

Anyone else notice how as we identify more with the contestants the amount of TV time devoted to the project decreases? The first few weeks the project would run until about 45 minutes into the show; the last couple of weeks the teams are finished by 25 after the hour. More drama to be found in the boardroom now!

People have speculated on who crosses Carolyn next week; I’ll agree with the posters who said that it has to be a woman. But did anyone else notice that we got our first true laugh out of Carolyn tonight? When “O” threw out the “Heidi kept dropping the F-bomb” and Trump played dumb, the two proceed to explain what “F-bomb” means Carolyn was actually laughing! (Or they edited to look that way - in any case, she laughed tonight!)

Man, I am WAY too hooked on this show!

I’m not at all sorry to see her go, but I don’t know that I would’ve fired Omarosa over Kwame this week. Actually, I don’t know that she deserved to go to the boardroom, but she was appallingly bad at defending herself once she was in there. Why the heck didn’t she mention that she sold the only piece of art?

In contrast, Heidi and Kwame both handled themselves well: don’t be afraid to admit your faults, and explain as concisely as possible why you made the decisions you did. And she may be low class, but at least Heidi wasn’t playing the sick mom card whenever anyone questioned her efforts.

Regardless, I figured out what annoyed me the most about O: she constantly comes up with these bits of wisdom that she herself does nothing to practice. Embrace difference, unless the difference is that someone is less educated or classy than you, in which case you should deride them for it at any opportunity. Everyone is your teacher, unless you know far more than they do and then you should probably do what you can to belittle them.

Also, it’s not particularly classy to constantly harp on someone’s lack of class, which is all I have to say about that.

I think they would’ve done really well with Leah’s paintings – maybe even pull out a win. Nick picked a boring artist, but it was stuff you could see hanging above your sofa. In a game about selling, that’s what you want.

Coupla things:

Why did Trump have such a problem with Nick’s team picking Amy? Amy is the only person on the show who hasn’t been to the boardroom (IIRC). She’s a proven winner who always pulls her weight. Was Trump suggesting that Nick only picked Amy because he likes her, and that he should have picked Troy? Because it seemed to me that Amy was more useful on this task than Troy was.

Did Omarosa really have a concussion? Or was she making that up?

10 minutes with Trump should have left Nick blinded by the light shining off all that hideous gold fixtures. Could Trump’s house be more gaudy or nouveau riche? I think not. Yuck.

I’ve been thinking about who is going to piss Carolyn off. It’s between Nick, Bill, Katrina, and Amy, since that’s the team Carolyn supervises. It seems to me it would either have to be Katrina or Bill, and I’m betting Katrina. Once she’s gone, there isn’t a whole lot more fat to trim.

I just wanted to say, in the ‘teasers’ for Today this morning, they said, “Find out why The Apprentice’s Omarosa may be going from the board room to the courtroom!”

I hope she’s going to be suing Burnett, or Trump, or someone. Not because I think she has any cause or a chance in hell, but because she would be humiliated.

It’s probably more like she’s decided to study law or something.

I found Trump’s little tete-a-tete with Nick extremely revealing. He flat out loves that kid! Obvious he sees himself in him and all that sentimental hoo-hah. Plus, did you catch The Don’s glowing comment when they were standing by the window? Paraphrasing now, but I believe it was, “I think you’re doing really well. Even when you weren’t doing so well, I thought you were doing well.” (!) I was afraid to hear what may have come next. You know, I find you very attractive, Nick.
That exchange made me a leeetul nervous about Troy’s ultimate fate.

Question: what exactly was the deal with Trump slamming Versacorp’s pick of Amy at MOMA? Was he saying it was unwise of them to make her seem so valuable in front of him, or was he slighting her in some way? Sh*t, I woulda picked her.

I got the impression that Trump didn’t think it was good strategy for them to pick Amy again because they were basically telling Trump how valuable she was. Trump said something to the effect of “Why don’t I just hire her right now.”

So glad to see Anal-Rosa go. She has to be the most contemptible passive-aggressive c*nt I’ve ever seen on TV. “I didn’t know I’d get yelled at for getting hit on the head.” She’s setting herself up for a lawsuit.

Nick made a great decision on the artist choice, any other artists was a stupid bet. But, he is an arrogant little fuck.

re: Trump’s surprise at the choice of Amy

Troy had been the Golden Boy on the previous few projects. Amy has been doing solid, but not outstanding (except for the golf club incident) work. I don’t think Trump has noticed her.

I believe The Donald felt that Troy would have been the better catch. The details of this challenge showed that the team made the right choice. Troy was not able to sell art, although I think he could have done so with more time for homework.

Omarosa was able to project a snobbish, condescending artsy attitude. If she spoke to more than one patron I believe she could have sold more pieces. Heidi and Troy should have kept their mouths shut and cleaned up the snack table…

USA Today has been running comments from Trump about the show:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/trump-apprentice-index.htm

And here:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2004-02-20-apprentice-week-seven-side_x.htm

He explains that constantly picking Amy makes her look like a superstar and therefore makes it look like everbody agrees that she should win the thing.

My picks:

Amy looks golden. I think she wins the thing

Troy finishes second. I just don’t think that Trump will be able to identify with the guy enough to pick him.

Nick goes to the final three. However, this is a dangerous pick. I think that he could easily flame out. He tends to pout when he doesn’t agree with decisions that the team leader makes. That said, I think that this competition comes down to salesmanship and I think he has that in spades - when he’s motivated.

Brian. Slick guy, good manager. Doesn’t hog the spotlight enough. I don’t think he has enough ego for the Donald to choose him.

Heidi. Spunky lady who shrugs off adversity and still competes. I was praying that Trump would say to Omarossa, “Here you sit whining about a little bump to the head and at the other end of the table sits a woman whose mother just had surgery for cancer! I haven’t heard a single excuse from her. What does that tell me about who has more desire to succeed?” In the end, I think that she creates to much friction to be a great boss.

Kwame. Of all of the contestants, I think I would like to be his friend the most. Did you notice how he got a distraut Omarossa her chair? He is obviously a smart, thoughful guy who’s going to do well in life no matter what. His problem is that he doesn’t have a willingness to be out front leading. Fades in the background way too much.

I too, would like to know about the likelihood of Omarossa actually having a concussion. That seemed like a very minor bump to the head.

Oh, yeah. Katrina, though a nice piece of eye candy, is toast.

She is seriously hot, though.

One more body on the I’m-So-Morose-Ah pile. Good riddance, bitch. Go, Troy!

To everyone who’s said this, or some variation on it:

Yes, if judged on this task and this task alone, Troy should have been fired instead of Omarosa. But never once have they even suggested that who stays and who goes was entirely based on that week’s task. I believe that Trump is making his judgments on a cumulative basis, as the collective weight of each candidate’s performance builds up week by week.

For that reason alone, Kwame would have been out-and-out insane to have brought Troy into the Boardroom. Yes, this was not Troy’s best week. But over the course of the last nine weeks or so he has consistently excelled at almost everything else he’s been asked to do. Omarosa, on the other hand, was at best mediocre this week - and it was the best she’s ever been. For Kwame to suggest - as bringing Troy but not Omarosa to the boardroom would have done - that Omarosa was a superior candidate compared to Troy would have reflected badly on Kwame’s personnel evaluation skills.

If I have two people working for me, and one of them has been a consistently hard-working, effective, skilled employee, and the other has consistently achieved nothing, been as lazy as possible, and irritated all of her coworkers, and if I then assign both of them a single task - which just happens to play better into the skillset of the latter than of the former - and the generally good employee has a bad week… any halfway decent manager would fire the generally bad performer.

I love this show so much. I think I like it better than Survivor, even, because it seems like the above - the cumulative nature of Trump’s judgments, where your body of work rather than your most immediate performance determines your success - leads to what I always want to see in shows like this: the good people rising to the top. Troy, Bill, Amy, Nick, Kwame, and yes, Heidi, are the six best people in this game, and they’re all still here. Compare to Survivor, where the most skillful, strong, and intelligent people tend to get voted out by the dumb and weak as quickly as possible.

Excellent analysis, storyteller!

I thought Kwame couldn’t have played it better if he’d actually hired a professional hypnotist to mesmerize Trump and his minions. It’s a game show, and the object is to WIN, not to be nice to your opponents. His move in bringing in the two fighting cats meant that once he played his “I took a risk and it didn’t pan out, take it or leave it” card - which was either going to work or get him fired no matter who else was in the room - all attention was then diverted to the Bitch-Fest. And he just sat there with a little smile on his face while Skeletor and Assarosa competed to see who could look the least professional. He looked like a stand up guy, and they looked like people you wouldn’t want to work with if they were the last humans on Earth. It was a magnificent move; Kwame, at least, seems to understand that it’s a game and his objective is to get other people fired. I’d hire Kwame in a New York minute.

Even if it doesn’t, bringing in Troy means the only goat in the room is Kwame. Without Assarosa, there’s no conflict, no mention of the lunch incident, and even Heidi would have looked better because that entire BS doesn’t get mentioned. See, NOBODY really screwed up more than the others; they picked the wrong artist and it didn’t work out. None of them were good at selling art and they made no effort to even pretend to like or understand it. It’s hard to blame anyone for being unable to sell that ugly, creepy shit, but they all failed at it. Without that silly little lunch fight in the room, there’s only one thing to talk about, and that’s the choice of artist and the inability to sell her “art.” And Kwame would logically have to take the fall for it. I tell you, the man knows how to play.

And that’s what I don’t like about Survivor. Survivor is like a high school student council election; it’s just a popularity contest. In “The Apprentice,” the real dicks and feebs are getting killed off at breakneck speed.