Cool double firing. The silent cab ride was comedy gold.
Lobster for dinner, eh? As I recall, a law was passed back in the 1600’s that you couldn’t force your apprentices to eat lobster more than three times a week. Let’s hope Trump doesn’t fall afoul of that law…
Hi, everyone. Time is going to be tight for me tomorrow and Wednesday, so I made my notes as best I could on my first viewing, and I’m going with that. I suspect I’ve missed some things I’d catch on a second viewing, but hopefully not too much. Plus, we are getting close to the end line. By now we pretty much have seen the remaining candidates in action long enough to have formed opinions on their characters.
Sean -1 for excessive defensiveness over explaining why he said Allie should be the one to go previously. C’mon, the truth seems obvious to me: Sean honestly felt Allie was more responsible for their loss (and she was), that Trump would see that and fire Allie. In that case, backing Allie would only have made it even more difficult to get along with Andrea. <shrug> He should have painted it as solely a strategic move – that he ‘was sure’ Trump was going to fire Allie. Allie wouldn’t love hearing that, but I think they could accept it better if he’d been honest over it being a strategic move.
Charmaine: +1 for Trump picking you to examine his hair. (Or…not. Shouldn’t your attitude have been, ‘No need to look, Mr. Trump, I’m completely sure it’s your hair’?)
Tarek: +1 for pushing to have a theme. Most tasks this season have been won by the team with the better theme, so it’s reasonable to want one…but it really doesn’t seem to have played a role this time.
Charmaine: -1 for indecisiveness. We don’t need a theme beyond “Grand Opening.” Okay, what theme do you want? I don’t lead by concensus. Okay, we’ll go with ‘Making you happy’ since the rest of you want it. Uh-huh.
Tammy: +1 for getting half her team out marketing that evening. Let’s face it, getting your hair done takes at least an hour out of your day, and I don’t think most people’s schedules are loose enough to just have a spur-of-the-moment cut because they see a flyer giving a price cut that day. Give them the info the night before, let them think it over and possibly rearrange other commitment so they can take advantage of the sale.
Lee: +1 for realizing that marketing would be a better use of the early evening vs. shelf stocking.
Charmaine: -1 for having her whole team shelf stock and not marketing.
Charmaine: -1 for the shelf stocking debacle. The task took three times as long as it should because of your team having to do and undo and redo shelves. And the blame for that is yours. You knew there is a good reason to keep the various items together in families (mainly to make it easier to sell the person the matching products once you talk them into one) and you knew your team had zero idea what went with what. So YOU should have broken the arrangement down for them. Put a single bottle of each item onto the shelf where you want it and then the guys would only have had to play match the bottles up – TODDLERS can put the correct items in the correct places when you give them an example to match with.
Michael: 0 points either way, but what was with the ruler??? Sheesh. Set the bottles side by side and in even rows and just eyeball it. It’s a retail shelf not diamond splitting.
Tarek: +1 for also trying to get Charmaine to let them go out and market.
Lee: -1 for sexism. “Three guys taking orders from a lady.” Yes? I bet that comment will really endear you to Caroline when she hears it.
Charmaine: -1 for the near zero thought/effort that went into their marketing plan. Send half your team to stuff flyers (hideous orange ones at that) under wipers in random parking lots, and have the other half stand around to schmooze foot traffic. Worst of all, you apparently stuck with that ‘plan’ even when it became apparent there WAS no foot traffic! Even Mohammed had to go to the mountain. When Tarek and Lee told you there weren’t any people to talk to in the parking lots, why didn’t you try sending them to places there were people? Send them to a mall, maybe. At least people out shopping might be willing to spend the time on a hair cut. Send someone to a Jr or High school at let out time with an extra special 50% off for student cuts. Anything to get some bodies in the shop.
Charmaine: -1 for getting her own hair done. Yes, the cutters were standing around doing nothing, but as Bill and Trump pointed out, that was time you WEREN’T making any effort to sell. Basically, you’d given up and decided to indulge yourself.
Lee and Tarek: -1 each for the time they spent continuing to hand out flyers and mocking Charmaine. Given that you realized the leafletting was a waste of time, why didn’t you suggest an alternate way of spending the time? You could have found a park or something, any place to hand out your flyers to people. Why didn’t you? Because you were happy to see your team fail, because you felt it would be Charmaine that took the fall. Not very team minded of either of you.
Charmaine: -1 for admitting to Bill you had trouble leading the team, that Lee and Tarek were too agressive for you to handle. Do you expect that Trump will find an all woman company for you to manage?
Allie: +1 for seeing the importance of pushing the product, that you could earn more per minute by selling expensive conditioners than by just hair cuts.
Allie: +1 for great selling skills, so good even Tammy and Sean noticed from outside the shop. (She just sold six items to that woman!)
Tarek: +1 for rating Charmaine as ‘average’ as a leader. Damning with faint praise, sounds businesslike, non-personal. (Things heated up later, of course.)
Win/Lose points: Synnergy did $1005 vs. Gold Rush $700. A decisive edge, and the deciding edges came from how the PM used the prior evening AND realizing the importance of pushing the products. Charmaine missed the boat on both points, and Tammy got the first, and probably at least agreed on the second. Charmaine: -2, Tammy: +2.
Reward. You have got to be kidding me! How in hell is writing a song a ‘reward’, and what did it have to do with anything??? Give the winning team a spa day at Trump Beauty Salon or something like that. But we have a first! I am assigning some points for things that happened during the reward:
Roxanne: +1 for saying that getting a chance to write the song was ‘yuuuuge.’ Not just Trump’s favorite hyperbole, but said with his accent and being subtle enough to do it not directly in his face. Major suck up points.
Allie: -1 for continuing to show hostility to Sean. It makes you look bitter and vindictive and it makes the whole team edgy. It’s fine to feel that way, but you should be able to keep it from showing.
Lee, Lee, Lee. What a politician. In apparantly close order you:
+1 approach Charmaine and essentially negotiate a non-agression pact. Result: Charmaine will attack Tarek/Michael and leave you safe.
+1 next approach Tarek and make it clear that the ‘team’ should dump Charmaine. Result: Tarek is sure Lee is on his side, so Lee is safe from attack in that direction AND he has someone to take point in attacking Charmaine.
+1 next approach Michael and explain that Tarek is the bigger danger to the two of you, that big smart men like Michael and Lee can get poor little Charmaine to do whatever work they’ll need done in the future while Tarek is a wild card out for himself. Result: Lee is safe from attack from Michael and he has someone to take point in attacking Charmaine.
End result: Lee has all three thinking he is in alignment with them AND he ensures the major attacks will go against Tarek and Charmaine, who he absolutely knows are far more dangerous opposition to him than unable-to-decide Michael. Lee is honest (to himself and to us in the confessional) about what he is doing: There is no team, and he isn’t supporting anyone. He will do whatever needed to off his rivals from now on. If this show was about picking a power-behind-the-throne manipulator, Trump should just fire all the rest and crown Lee now.
Of course – that isn’t what the show is about. 
Boardroom:
Charmaine: -1 for being called on not pushing the product harder.
Charmaine: -1 for being called on not having a better marketing plan than going after people who happen to stroll by.
Charmaine: -1 for being called on wasting time on that hair cut.
Tarek: -1 for Michael’s calling him hard to manage, and saying he should be the one fired. (Dance little puppet! Lee has a masterful hand on your strings.)
Tarek: -1 for Trump’s saying “You’re not a genius” and again suggesting that the Mensa tests must have going it wrong. (Show of hands: how many people suspect Trump took the Mensa test and failed?)
Lee: -3. You hit the trifecta: Trump, Bill and Caroline ALL called you a politician in so many words. Have you ever seen the ranking of ‘politician’ on those polls of what professions do people admire/trust/respect?
Lee: -1 for Bill’s (? or whichever of the judges) dismissed your blathering with a rather contemptuous ‘you’re dancing.’
Nice fight between Charmaine and Tarek. Pretty even, I think, with neither able to decisively gain the upper hand or outtalk the other.
Tarek: -1 for calling Charmaine a ‘negative’ person and having Trump immediately contradict you.
I guess the time of the PM nominating victims is over, so we’ll skip that from now on.
Scores for the Candidates
Name : points for this episode : cumulative points [win/lose record as PM]
Roxanne : +1 : +15 [1/0]
Sean : -1 : +10 [1/0]
Lee : -2 : +8 [2/0]
Tammy: +3 : +5 [1/1]
Allie : +1 : +3 [1/1]
Michael: 0 : -3 [1/0]
Fired:
Name : Score in final episode : cumulative score : # episodes lasted : pts/episode
Tarek : -1 : -15 : 10 episodes : -1.5 pts/episode [0/1]
Charmaine : -10 : -4 : 10 episodes : -0.4 pts/episode [1/1]
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:
Charmaine being fired was, as the chorus so often chants after Trump’s decision, ‘a no brainer.’
More interesting is Tarek’s firing. I shouldn’t have wavered last time, Tarek really was one of the Living Dead. I think he got tossed this episode mainly for convenience. Clearly they wanted to have the series last exactly X episodes which must have called for a double firing at least one more time, and doing it at this point returns the candidates to an even number = even teams.
Who will be the poor bastard, er, lucky winner who gets to move from S to GR next time? I’m wondering if Sean might volunteer, to get away from Allie/Roxanne who seem to have decided he’s a loser. Which would set up a men vs. women episode, which might appeal to Trump.
Was Charmaine chewing gum doing the last taxi ride? Ick. Still, maybe it kept her from using her teeth to chew through Tarek’s throat.
Prediction: No change in the top 3, and of course two more totally out of it. So its either Allie or Tammy in the fourth slot, and I have no choice between them.
OTOH, I really see Roxanne as the clear front-runner. Of course, she could break down and reveal a so-far-hidden demonic side…
SBS
Great summary, **SBS. ** You did very well.
My favorite part was when Bill walked in on Charmaine getting her hair done. How could she possibly think he and Trump would look favorably on that?
That reward was painful to watch. Just…painful.
I agree with KSO. Best. Cab ride. Ever.
Charmaine is a first-class jackass. I agree that Tarek was a little dickish on this task, and he probably dug something of a hole for himself by badgering Charmaine early on… but this has to be one of the worst-executed tasks I’ve seen on the show. Especially considering the PM claimed to have knowledge of how salons work.
The classic moment was seeing Charmaine in the chair when Bill walked in. If Carolyn saw that she’d have kicked her ass down the street!
Lee is playing the political game, but it was sort of unnecessary. It was pretty evident that Tarek was going to go at Charmaine and vice-versa. Actually, now that I think about it, I think he might have stoked the fires for both of them. Pretty shrewd. Unfortunately for him, he has the rep as a politician and that is probably going to cost him as they approach finals.
Tammy - meh. Underwhelming as PM, had the good fortune to compete vs. Charmaine. Allie was the one who seemed to figure out the importance of selling the “product.” (Gah, they make it sound like contraband or something!) Sean is absolutely repellant. A sign needs to fall on him, stat. Roxanne is under the radar and competent, which bodes well for her. Allie is going way overboard with the competition thing and that’s going to cause a problem. I think the only thing I care about at this point is getting Sean’s smarmy ass out of the competition. Every time he comes on the TV I want to hurl a brick at my TV - even though I bought it with my hard-earned cash and I’d have to replace it.
Michael is a ditz. His soliloquy was hackneyed and sounded like a fourth grade speech for class president. I can’t believe Trump actually thought it was good. Was he simply telling the Black man that he spoke nice, like he did with Roxanne last week? He’s not long for this show. His gross imcompetitence and fetish for detail while ignoring the big picture will send his ass home pretty soon.
On to Tarek: kind of fucked up. I didn’t think they lost because he was particularly difficult. Charmaine is such an idiot and so pathetic as a leader, it would be hard for anyone to take her seriously. He was on thin ice, however, and never really got into Trump’s good graces. Shame, really, because he wasn’t bad and actually contributed a lot to the team’s victories over the weeks. Keep in mind I’m not a Tarek fan, either.
Final four looks to be: Lee, Roxanne, Allie, and Sean. No way is Tammy making, nor Michael.
Sure they were silent but…
Did anyone else notice that both Charmaine and Tarek will trying really hard to stiffle laighter as they were getting into the elevator for their trip down? And how they were both smiling walking out of the Tower and into the cab? And the very last look at them in the cab had Tarek trying to surpress a grin?
Am I the only one who noticed all that?
Well, my wife did too - was it only us?
I noticed it too. And I think their “hate” for each other will manifest itself as uncontrollable lust once they arrive at the Apprentice holding hotel for the balance of the series shoot, a la David & Maddie on Moonlighting, but without the wit.
Didn’t Trump refer to a fling they’d had earlier in the season?
I noticed it too. I figured for Charmaine it was because she was glad he got fired with her. I don’t know why Tarek was smiling, I can only assume it was something edited out. Perhaps a joke by someone, probably Lee if I had to guess. He seems the kind of smarmy wise ass who would have a joke ready to fire off.
Actually, I thought Trump was making fun of him. It seemed like Trump was saying “You must have spent a long time rehearsing that little speech. Do you now know how goofy it sounds?”. But Michael just took it as a serious compliment.
Wow. This season is just so…weird.
Lee is becoming increasingly creepy. Willing to stab anyone in the back to get ahead. Utterly untrustworthy. At least Trump and all the viceroys see that plainly now.
Allie is even creepier in a “pure evil” kind of way. I keep waiting for death rays to shoot out of her eyes or something. Man, intense much? Yes, she’s good at selling, but she still sends chills down my back. I think she’d not only stab anybody in the back to get ahead, but dance on their corpse.
Sean is just disgusting. I cannot wait for him to go. I’m not usually that picky about appearance, but every time I see his oversized lips, I want to hurl something at my TV. Or just hurl.
Tammy is just kind of there. At one point my hubby turned to me and said, “Tammy? There’s a Tammy? Where did she come from?” It was hard to disagree with him.
Roxanne seems competent enough, but then I see her lined up as an enthusiastic member of Allie’s coven and I want to shake her till her teeth rattle. Stay away from the evil little blonde, Roxanne!
Michael is just a buffoon. A ruler? :rolleyes:
Charmaine and Tarek won’t be missed. Especially Charmaine’s grating speech. It’s not just her accent, but a combination of the accent with what she says. Tarek is just an idiot, but I agree it looked like he and Charmaine were ready to jump each other the second the cab arrived at the losers hotel.
At this point I don’t even care who wins, and I barely care who loses. It actually makes it more fun to watch since there’s nobody I give a damn about and I can laugh at the whole bunch of them.
As for next week, the previews showed several shots of the 3 women together and the 3 men together, portending team realignment as male vs female.
For whatever reason, Trump seems to like Lee, although his stock might be dropping with the politician behavior last night. Allie, Sean and Michael are being shown somewhat negatively and one of them is probably next to go, especially if one is a losing PM next week. Tammy and Roxanne are flying under the radar – not making any big mistakes, but not doing much to distinguish themselves positively either. Unfortunately, that might be enough to win this season.
I did notice Charmaine trying not to laugh. I didn’t notice Tarek.
Allie is freakishly intense and Sean is starting to annoy as well.