The Celebrity Apprentice: Were Those a Group of Virgins, or What?

It’s week two of the Celebrity Apprentice! Who’s hooked? Am I the only one excited for the moment when the previews come true, and Joan Rivers yells about blood money and throws her champagne, and Brian McKnight tells Dennis Rodman to shut it? Oh my, I think I just got goosebumps.

Well, none of that happens this week. Instead, it’s time for Superheroes and shoes. Guess which one I love more? If you said shoes, you are so very, very wrong.

Before the action starts, Joan makes a Very Special Visit on behalf of her charity, God’s Love We Deliver and presents the check she won last week. And so, we are reminded that the CelebApprentice represents charity work, not gossip and catfighting. Whatever, Trump.

The teams converge … at the Post Office? Where are they? Donald introduces Zappos.com CEO, Tony, and the task: Create and pitch a superhero costume and four-page comic to promote Zappos.com. Standing in for Ivanka this week is Erin Burnett of CNBC, and returning to hold back his laughter, is Don. Trump commands them to immediately choose their project managers.

Huddle! Melissa Rivers decides it should be Khloe Kardashian, since Khloe owns her own retail stores. The men take much longer (they don’t have a Melissa, after all) and offer up Scott Hamilton. Scott thinks it’s because he was so authoritative last week. No one corrects him.

How much does Khloe Kardashian look like Kelly Clarkson? It’s amazing! I kept waiting for Khloe to have a personality, but it never happened. She has almost no expression the whole episode, and speaks with almost no inflection to any of her words. And yet, a successful businesswoman. Allegedly. She’s not familiar with “online” though, so hopefully someone can show her what a computer and the internet are all about. Ignore the scene later where she’s playing with a Mac.

Tony explains during team one-on-one sessions that Zappos.com is about customer service above all else, and sometimes, they’re even fun. Melissa asks inappropriate personal questions during Athena’s meeting, and Tom Green is inappropriately not funny during Kotu’s session. Not that you can really blame either of them, because Tony provides plenty of answers, but not much by way of personality.

The teams retreat to their War Rooms for brainstorming. The women talk over each other and then ignore relevant suggestions, with Khloe a little slow on stepping up to lead. Eventually she does, and splits the teams into two groups. The editing gets sketchy here though, so I’m not sure what the groups are, except that Annie volunteers herself and Claudia to write the script, and the writing prowess of Joan Rivers – the Joan Rivers, who has written for Broadway, television and film – goes ignored. You can already guess how insulted she is without me saying a word. Claudia eventually pitches her idea of Mizz Z (as named by the Joan Riverz), an everyday woman who turns into a superhero with lightning bolt (because she’s “z”apped, get it?) and saves the day with easy, breezy, beautiful customer service. Or something. The team loves the idea and brainstorms the character and slogan (arrived at eventually by Melissa). Don comes in to scout out the cattiness, and finding none, listens to Melissa pitch the character and slogan. Awesomely, Melissa takes credit for the slogan and the character/story idea. To avoid embarrassing the team, Claudia lets it slide…for now.

Over at Kotu, Tom Green fills in for Andrew Dice Clay as the Problem of the Week. So here’s the thing: Again, the editing looks sketch, so I don’t know if Tom was really that annoying, or if he’s just edited that way.  I think he genuinely tried to help while being funny, and the problem is no one else thought he was funny or helpful, so he just came off like a jerk. Or that’s what Scott thinks. He blames Tom for derailing Kotu through the whole brainstorming session, when it’s more likely that the problem comes from the fact that Scott made zero decisions and let Dennis Rodman waste time pitching his transvestite character. I’m not kidding.

Image Comics provides an editor and an artist to help with sketches and story, and then focus groups visit each team to hear and provide feedback on the ideas. This is great in concept, but poor on planning. The focus groups are all men and comic geeks. The focus group should really be women who might or do visit the site, no? The women make the most of the focus group, while the men pitch all of their ideas, because they still haven’t found one to single out.

The women volunteer Natalie to dress as the superhero during the presentation, instead of a hired model. She’s less than thrilled, and, it turns out, has only marginally more personality than Khloe. Claudia comes down with the flu, prompting sympathy from everyone but Annie, who believes that a good life can only be measured by how much someone suffers and by how much someone works while suffering. If you complain, you lose. I think Annie might be taking this show a little too seriously. Piers Morgan could be intense and also took the show very seriously, but he also laughed. You could tell, no matter what, that Piers was having a good time. Not so much with Annie.

Anyway, Claudia asks to go home, since she’s supposed to present the next day to Trump and Tony. Someone, obviously, should have nixed that idea the moment she fell ill. But the team sends her away, happy to let her rest. Except for Annie, who makes a mental note to hold this against Claudia in the Boardroom, should they fail.

Over in the Kotu Kingdom, Tom continues to irritate, but he is not alone! Enter Clint Black! The little country singer gains a reputation for being rude and unlikable, and the men blame it on little Clint being something of an egomaniac. Clint has a nasty habit of interrupting people while they speak, and becoming defensive and angry when someone does the same to him. Jesse James appears more offended than anyone. Because, you know, Jesse’s just like everybody else. Like you and me. In plaid shirts. Scott seems completely unoffended because short guys stick together, and they’re buds.

Most notably, while Tom was being irritating, he at least did a search for character names that begin with “Z.” In a last minute decision, Scott decides, by himself, to name their female character EEE – for Everywhere, Everything, Everytime. Tom argues the choice (incessantly), but everyone else basically defers to Scott, who nicely refuses to argue about it.

The Pitch! Team Athena does well except for Claudia’s delivery, hampered by her illness and the fact that she can’t think too quickly on her feet. This was the role for Joan, who is already comfortable speaking to a crowd.

But good news – the men screw up! Armed with Scott’s decision to name the character EEE, Tom Green pitches to Trump and Tony. The presentation goes well, but Tony’s stumped by the decisions to name the character EEE.

To the Boardroom! Trump stirs up more trouble before declaring a winner. For starters, Melissa again tries to take credit for the idea and the slogan, but this time, the team comes to Claudia’s defense and corrects Melissa’s error. I love it when they smack each other down.  Joan complains about Annie’s “rudeness,” who naturally, is then offended. But again, it doesn’t matter – because the women win!

Alone now with Trump, Scott tries to rely on his team to back him up, but they abandon him because the men really don’t want to stick their necks out. When asked, the votes are evenly divided for Scott (for not controlling the team) and Tom (for the perpetual disruption). However, Jesse throws out Clint’s name, for being difficult. (Back with the women, Joan calls Clint “a snake.”)

The same arguments go round and round, so obviously, this boardroom is a lot less interesting than last week’s. Eventually, Trump commands Scott to name his two victims, and after first saying that only Tom deserves to join Scott for the final Boardroom, at Trump’s urging to pick a second name, Scott chooses Herschel. Not because Herschel deserves it (and from the look on Herschel’s face, even he feels like he doesn’t deserve it), but because Scott would like him as back up, knowing how much Tom irritated Herschel as well.

Now. Obviously, Tom Green’s good television, so the likelihood of his leaving is slim. However, the extended boardroom doesn’t work this week, because for all of the arguing we have over whether Scott could or couldn’t control his team or whether or not Tom was too disruptive, the decision for elimination usually comes down to the person who cost the team the win. Not once did Scott say that we lost the task because Tom was too disruptive, and kept us from focusing more time in developing other ideas. If he blamed Tom’s disruptiveness for the loss and showed how it affected the whole team’s performance, he’d have made a better case and we’d have had a more interesting Boardroom. But all Scott did was complain that basically, Tom’s annoying. Who cares? Tom didn’t come up with the idea for EEE. And that name was a major factor in the team’s loss. Had the name been Z or Zelda or Zathura, Scott would have more of a chance.

But as the three men re-enter the Boardroom following deliberation, Trump allows them to fight and eat up air time, with arguments that are irrelevant to the ultimate decision. Trump even sends Herschel out of the Boardroom early, suggesting that Scott should really have brought in Clint. But finally, Trump ignores all of the complaints about Tom, because the name EEE cost the team the win. And that’s it, Scott! No rose for you – er, you’re fired!

Best moment: After the focus group leaves Team Athena, Claudia saying, “Were those a group of virgins, or what?”

Khloe’s charity: The Brent Shapiro Foundation for Alcohol and Drug Awareness

Next week: Bridal Gowns + Tom Green = the Project Manager in a Wedding Dress! And George is back!

Season 2, Episode 2 (originally aired March 8, 2009)

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Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Ali Goldstein