By the way, what was that creepy footage of some statue on Ellis Island - it took me a second to realize that the cameras did not in fact find a washed up dead body during the task, but was some poignant sculpture representing sacrifice or something…
That was an artist’s concept of wretched refuse, of your teeming shore.
I don’t think so. Wasn’t that Allie heading off with him for a date in next week’s preview? The thought of any woman taking him seriously makes me cringe. Eeeww!
Annieclaus, I thought that Sean was the only one wearing a flag tie. To me, it seemed to bring out reserves of smarm I didn’t think even he was capable of. It was like he was saying, “Hey, look at me! I’m a Brit but, gosh darn it (or the British equivalent of gosh darn it), I like America!”
Overall, it was a dull show but I am glad that Lee got to vindicate himself in such a clear win. Much to Charmaine’s chagrin, at that!
Nope. It was that dark haired girl on the Gold Brick team. I think her name is Tammy.
Nope again. The whole team wore them. Even the girls. Even Andrea, ick!
Right you are! That Charmaine will get hers, I’m sure!
I liked Allie until this week, but no, I’m not seeing a front runner.
::Monty Python voice:: Tarek’s doing better!
Annieclaus, I only got one out of three right? Dang! No more crocheting while watching the show for me. Apparently I can’t do both at once. 
I find Lee, Roxanne and Sean to be the most consistently solid, with a minimum of glaring personality defects. The others are either filler (Michael, Tammy) or have scraped by on luck (Allie, Tarek, Charmaine) and their days are numbered.
Out of Lee, Roxanne and Sean, Lee has gotten the most positive face time, and I can see him taking it all. Of course, he’ll probably be fired next week, proving that I really don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.
Roxanne is my pick to win it all. Of course my previous pick was Lenny so take it as you will…
I would like it if she won, if only because she is solid, steady, not prone to exaggeration, etc. She hasn’t really distinguished her work much, though.
I thought Lee was actually pretty arrogant with his “This is how I scripted this” moment. Did I mis-hear him (I hope)? He did get them out of there and selling early, but the rest of the task was a solid team effort, not his win and his alone.
Nope, that’s what he said.
Wow, the sacrifices I make for you all – I’ve just forced myself to watch this episode the second time, and if you all thought it was boring the first time… It’s really obvious that there’s nothing much to show when the editor spends an amazing amount of time on atmospheric shots: the rain at the start, Ellis Island, the golf course, pretty buildings… I finally succumbed to the lure of the FF through the footage of the Reward. Hey, I haven’t assessed any points in them so far, so what’re the odds?
Let’s get to it, then:
Lee +1 for his attitude on returning from the Boardroom. He honestly didn’t seem mad or upset at Charmaine for her totally voluntary attack on him, and his remark about that seat ‘bearing an imprint of his ass’ showed a nice flash of humor.
Two other bits around the same time that made me go hmmm: saying Leslie fought the best of all the people ‘he’d fired’ and saying that Trump had made it clear he wanted Lee to be PM the next time. The first could simply be an awkward misstatement of what he meant to say, but on the face it looks like Lee feels he has had an active role in choosing who was fired. Tying that to his later remark about how he’d scripted everything, and do you suppose Lee sees himself as the Machiavellian politician Trump called him? Manipulating, making subtle moves to control the outcome?
As to the second: DID Trump make a definite call to Lee to take control, and we didn’t see it? Or was that another bit of manipulation by Lee: he knows he needs to be responsible for a win, and that it would look particularly striking to be the one to break the losing streak. So he wants to be PM, and this way he can take over leadership without looking pushy. After all, Trump wanted it that way…
(No points on either of those bits, but I found them interesting. And interesting bits are too rare in this episode to skip any.)
Trump-fils comes across as a son of the aristocracy. Soft, rather pudgy, privileged. Nice manners, apparently, though being under close observation might play a role. Maybe smart, but certainly has never had to make hard choices, do without anything, or been forced to scramble to win anything. Nothing too wrong with him, maybe. Perhaps a few sessions at the hands of a stern taskmaster wielding a birch rod… <ahem> Nevermind.
Charmaine: +1 for suggesting they go after bulk sales.
Lee: +1 for agreeing to pursue it. It wasn’t a task that required a great deal of physical work or massive research.: take some pictures, add probably a smallish amount of text. Lee saw that Tarek and Michael could handle that part of the job alone and so used the rest of the available manhours looking for another edge. In the end it didn’t add a lot to the victory – $85 out of a $1500 total – but going for it didn’t take anything away from the main effort.
Andrea: -1 for the endless attempts to usurp control The woman CANNOT bear to be following anyone else.
Tammy: -1 for leaving her notebook behind. Her assigned job was to accumulate the info for the brochure, losing it was extremely careless.
Roxanne: +1 for making an effort to hold the boat when Tammy and Allie weren’t back in time. In contrast, Andrea seemed perfectly happy with the situation. Why? Because without the PM on the scene, Andrea’s chances for seizing control – and being the hero of the hour – soared.
(BTW, there are all sorts of ‘semi-point’ incidents I’m skipping over, because they didn’t seem QUITE bad or good enough to count. Should Allie have taken the whole team to Ellis Island? Maybe not…otoh, there have been past occasions when extra eyes have spotted things that played a role. Should Allie have stayed on the boat? Probably yes, and sent Roxanne after Tammy. OTOH, you can argue that if Tammy’s notes were gone, Allie might have needed to decide on a new course for the brochure, sent people after different info… <shrug> Just not definitely enough ‘bad’ for me to take off points.)
Tarek: +2 for the design of the brochure. My heart sunk a bit when he started in on using black & white – going all artsy, a la the no voice-over cruise ad? – but in the end everyone involved thought the brochure was not just good, but much better than Synergy’s.
Lee: +1 for good delegation. He handed off responsibility for the brochure, refused to second guess or tinker, and got an excellent return for his trust. And unlike his first turn at PM, when Lenny basically shoved Lee to the side and took over, it was clear that Lee was the one making the strategic decisions and his team was working well under him.
Andrea: +1 for stepping up and taking over the design of the brochure in Allie’s absence. Sometimes pushiness is really justified as initiative, and time was short.
Andrea: -1 for producing an ugly brochure. At least, the cover was pretty clearly bad.
Andrea: -1 for throwing up her hands and quitting in a snit when the others made changes in the brochure.
Lee: +1 for developing and carrying out a strategic sales plan. He got his team up and out and in command of the perfect area, setting his team up for great sales and blocking the other team. That plan was the single most important key to their victory. Yes, they had the better brochure, but if the team’s had switched sales locations, people who had already bought Synnergy’s brochure would most likely not have bought Gold Rush’s as well, even though it was better looking.
Allie: -1 for NOT having created any sort of plan, so far as we can see, other than having your team wear flag themed outfits.
Roxanne: +1 for realizing that Synergy was wasting time at the first location and urging Allie to move the team elsewhere. A different embarkation point would have been better than the museum, but at least getting out of direct competition with Gold Rush helped.
Charmaine: +1 for getting at least the one hotel to call back, and closing the deal for a hundred copies.
Andrea: -1 for being a hopeless salesperson.
Andrea: -1 for not bothering to mention your background in bulk sales until too late.
Win/Lose points: Lee: +3, Allie: -2. Out earning your opponent by almost 2 to 1 is a decisive victory, and Lee was personally responsible for the key decisions that led to victory. Allie didn’t do anything flat out bad, but she was outclassed in leadership.
Andrea: -1 for her speeches and actions in their suite prior to the boardroom. Calling the others bitches who had lied about her, the obsessive recounting of how many brochures she had sold (Captain Queeq and his strawberries came to mind), her confronting Allie and ranting, and then not being willing to let Allie reply before stomping off… All in all, Andrea was NOT in control of her emotions.
Sean: I keep wavering. Is he due a point for not falling in with the ‘pack’ after Andrea? Or was it just a continuation of his general track of trying to stay on good terms with everyone instead of committing to a side? Or even just a dislike of nasty scenes, so lets keep things as smooth and easy as we can? But on the fifth or so hand, that’s part of keeping the others willing to work with you when YOU are leading, so…+1
Allie: -1 for the way over the top hyperbole. “tear her apart”? “blood on the walls” ? And especially unpretty when what you are doing is coordinating a future attack on your chosen scapegoat. I mean, yes, you honestly think she’s disruptive and hard to work with, but what did that have to do with this loss? Very, very little.
(You’ll note that by contrast Roxanne said very little, and what she did say was expressed in a controlled, thoughtful manner.)
Boardroom:
Roxanne: +1 for making telling points against Andrea (such as bringing up the way Andrea quit over the brochure) without seeming vindictive. Also nice dodging of Trump’s phrasing, avoiding telling him that, Yes, he had been mistaken in thinking Andrea a star and later on, Avoiding saying that Andrea was a ‘better leader than follower’ to make it clear you didn’t admire her as a leader, either. And without being rude or blatant about your care for Trump’s ego, either. And Trump complimented her on it, saying he’d like to have her advocating for him. Hmmm. Isn’t being a suitable stand in for Trump the biggest role the Apprentices fill? I’m going to give Roxanne +1 for getting that compliment.
Sean: +1 for saying he would fire Allie. He finally came down amd declared himself and, in all truth, Allie WAS the one who bore the most responsibility for their loss.
Roxanne: +1 for defending her idea of shifting the sales to Ellis Island (saying they sold more in a half hour there than an hour in the earlier location.)
Andrea: -1 for not living up to your hype as a graphic designer AND for not speaking up about bulk sales near the start.
Choice of ‘victims’: Again, it didn’t happen, so 0.
Scores for the Candidates
Name : points for this episode : cumulative points [win/lose record as PM]
Roxanne : +6 : +14 [1/0]
Sean : +2 : +11 [1/0]
Lee : +7 : +10 [2/0]
Charmaine : +1 : +6 [1/0]
Allie : -4 : +2 [1/1]
Tammy: -1 : +2 [0/1]
Michael: -2 : -3 [1/0]
Tarek : +2 : -14 [0/1]
Fired:
Name : Score in final episode : cumulative score : # episodes lasted : pts/episode
Andrea: -6 : -1: 9 episodes : -0.67 pts/episode [2/0]
Leslie : -4 : -2 : 8 episodes : -0.25 pts/episode [0/1]
Lenny: -17 : -17 : 7 episodes : -2.4 pts/episode
Bryce : -12 : -11 : 6 episodes : -1.8 pts/episode
Dan : -12 : -12 : 5 episodes : -2.4 pts/episode
Brent: -9 : -14 : 4 episodes : -3.5 pts/episode
Teresa: -10 : -11 : 3 episodes : -3.7 pts/episode
Pepi: -6 : -5 : 2 episodes : -2.5 pts/episode
Stacy : -7 : -7 : 2 episodes : -3.5 pts/episode
Summer: -12 : 1 episode : -12 pts/episode
Note:
Another firing that isn’t ‘fair’ on the face of it. Andrea had a 2 win/0 loss record as PM, and though she had weak points this episode (especially the failing to bring up the bulk sale idea) none of the were the primary cause of Synnergy losing.
I think this firing was another Zombie taking the fall, a la Brent’s in Episode 4. That time Brent got the shiv to ‘save’ Andrea and Tammy, this time Andrea was sacrificed to keep Allie. Why? Partially, maybe, because Allie reminds Trump somewhat of his daughter. Similar build, blondness, feminine manner, etc. But I don’t think that will carry Allie any further: it got her a second chance, but she’d better make good in future. Mainly, though, I think as Trump was exposed to Andrea’s personality, her good points were outweighed by her interpersonal shortcomings. I doubt her ambition and pushing to be leader threatened him, but her inability to get along with coworkers would.
As Lee is “The Politician”, I hereby dub Roxanne “The Diplomat.” Most of her points have come from saying the right things gracefully and the wrong things not at all. Maybe her next turn at PM will give her more chance to showoff business skill or creative thinking.
Prediction: I think the three at the top of my scoreboard will make it into the final four. Who the fourth might be… Charmaine, Allie and Tammy are really middling: not great, not bad. They sort of shuffle up and down in placement. Michael I think is hopeless: There are mistake and then there is the total inability to make a decision.
Despite his scores, I’m actually not ruling out Tarek. He made a lot of early mistakes, but not so lately. If he managed to hit a home run as Project manager the next time he’s up, I think he could make it. A big success close to the end would carry more weight with Trump than the long ago goofs.
SBS
SBS - thanks as always for the recap.
I was a Lee hater early in the show but I think he will be the first “young guy” Apprentice. He understands that this is a game, and has been really smart in his play. Delegation. Being friendly but not too close to anyone (well, now that Lenny’s gone). Breaking the task down into the essential elements, limiting opportunities for the other team, and doing the simple stuff like WAKING UP EARLIER THAN THE OTHER TEAM. He’s a bit hubristic - WTF is up with the snarky firing comment? - but that’s his immaturity coming through, I suppose. He also has the ability to banter with Trump and it doesn’t annoy him. His one-liners back to him are pretty nice.
Fuck Andrea. What happened with her was pure karma. Generally being an ass, even when you didn’t have to, and the constant sniping of every PM finally caught up with her ass. Does not play well with others, indeed. For someone with so much intelligence, she sure didn’t count on the fact that her failure to establish any relationships that were not condescending to others. I mean, she basically treated everyone like slightly better Brents.
I found it sad, actually, toward the end of the task when it dawned on her that no-one, except maybe Sean, liked her at all. The last 20 minutes of the show looked like high school, and we saw the real Andrea - jealous and insecure once she left the confines of the chemistry lab! We saw a glimpse of this with her crying jag when Brent returned from a boardroom earlier in the season. Homegirl strikes me as one of those people who goes on Ricki Lake to tell all the girls she hated in high school and that picked on her that she’s a success - only to hear them say, “Oh yeah, I kinda remember you… what was your name again?” I must admit that I never noticed the yellow eye shadow before - what the fuck?
Sean is gross on so many levels. Perhaps some of you find his confessionals endearing but I actually cringe in embarrassment for him every time he’s “joshing” on camera. His lips bug the hell out of me too. Go away, dude.
Allie… what the fuck? I was scared for my safety after her declaration of bloodletting - excuse me, fucking bloodletting in the boardroom. Chill, chick. You weren’t exactly amazing on this task - it was a dogpile of sorts on Andrea, but she had it coming.
Charmaine is a catty middle-schooler. She’s sucked as a leader, made critical mistakes and somehow avoided a major ass-kicking to date. (The vitriol that Trump directs to Tarek is probably more appropriately deserved by Charmaine.) I think we will see a Lee-Charmaine showdown… and my money’s on Lee. Homegirl is taking this way too personally, and despite what Lee said, I don’t think he’s going to forget her stupid “don’t fire Leslie” comment.
Roxanne is looking good, and Tammy appears on camera but I have no idea what the hell she is doing on this show still. Michael is just there as well.
I’m calling the final four: Roxanne, Tarek, Lee, Allie. I want to put Sean in there, but I just dislike his smarminess so much! I think we’re going to see Roxanne vs. Lee in the Apprentice-off…
SBS – fabulous recap, as always. Thanks for taking the bullet and watching this snoozefest again with your scorecard in hand. (Theory: They doubled up on eps two weeks ago so we’d all be jonesing for a new ep and not realize how weak it was when they finally aired it. Both shows that aired on the Night o’ Two Eps were infinitely better than this. Running the Leslie-firing show as the first half of) a double-header would have made this one even more excruciatingly boring.)
My prediction for final four: Roxanne (who I hereby throw all my allegiance behind) amd Lee, who will probably be final two, plus Allie and Sean (that sleazeball). Has Sean been PM yet?
Hippy Hollow, or the Ricky Lake guests simply don’t care about her success. Heh.
And yet expects others to follow her. I can’t believe that she’s shocked that people didn’t admire her as a leader.
I’d die before following anyone like Andrea.
Great recap, as always, SBS! I can’t believe you watched that snoozefest twice just for little ol’ us. Aw.
Andrea really is a nasty, nasty piece of work. Self-deluded to the max.
I’m thinking at this point that the final two will be Roxanne and Lee. Roxanne clearly knows how to measure her words perfectly; anyone know what kind of law she practices? That’s a woman who thinks about all possible angles before opening her mouth, and yet manages to do it in the blink of an eye. Very impressive. I’d like to see her lead a task, too, to get a better idea of how she operates under the insane deadlines that these teams face. I would only hope that with Andrea out of the way now, at least nobody else would be actively backstabbing her.
Lee is a bright young man and clearly a very political animal. He’s far more devious than I thought at first; even his unwavering support of Lenny was a success for him, although not for Lenny, because it showed Trump that Lee is loyal unto the death, or cobra, whichever comes first. I see him making the final pair just because I don’t think he’s made any huge mistakes thus far. My biggest concern about him was whether he could successfully lead a task, but this week he showed that he definitely has the stones to do a good job and the drive to make the rebellious rest toe the mark.
Sean squicks me out, too, and I’m not sure why. Except that he’s so smarmy. And I also cannot stand his lips. Just…ewww.
The rest, it’s really a matter of what order they’ll be eliminated in. I can see Tarek or Allie making the final four but not beyond that. Who else does that leave? Tammy…Tammy who? Michael, Mr. Indecisive. Am I forgetting anyone? And if I am, doesn’t taht pretty well prove my point?