The Celebrity Apprentice Review: Eye of the Beholder

We’re only five weeks into The Celebrity Apprentice, but it feels like the season has been airing for as long as I can remember. After a 12-minute recap of last week’s episode, this installment begins with the men’s team bragging and celebrating their three consecutive wins while NeNe cries as if she’s the first Project Manager to ever lose a task. Mostly, she’s upset because Dionne hurt her feelings. LaToya Jackson is understandably disappointed about having been thrown under the bus and called incompetent by her teammates. “I’ve always known that you can’t trust anybody,” she says to the camera. That’s a very telling statement; I wonder what kind of family she grew up in.

Mr. Trump calls everyone into the boardroom as they’re decompressing and tries to play up the drama of the NeNe/Dionne fight by having the contestants recount what occurred. Since most of these people have daddy issues that you wouldn’t believe, they respond in sheepish anticipation of punishment. Trump moves on and tells the two teams that their task this time involves putting on a full art show in a New York City gallery. Like many other challenges, this one comes down to which team raises more money by calling in rich and famous friends, acquaintances and anyone who may owe a favor.

The men convene to discuss their plan of attack; of course, Gary’s suggestion for an art piece is “a clown on a bicycle that goes on a string between two points.” That idea is a little too on-the-nose. If I had to guess what Gary Busey’s concept of art is, I would have described exactly that scene, and I think most others would, too. Project Manager John Rich moves on and tells his team that he can personally guarantee $500,000 from his country music friends in Nashville or wherever he’s from. Also, he says, everyone on his team had better contribute something or he’ll hold a grudge against them for the rest of their time on the show. Jose Canseco confides to the audience that it’s impossible for him to raise money, as he doesn’t have the resources that the other men do. I don’t understand why he’s so down-and-out. Doesn’t he know at least a few wealthy dealers from his drug days? Meanwhile, the women are listening to Project Manager Marlee’s translator explain that they simply must win at all costs by putting the backstabbing aside to act like a team. LaToya gamely suggests exploiting her brother’s death by making all of her art pieces into schmaltzy tributes.

Jose approaches Trump’s office with some dramatic news. His father is in very poor health. In response to Jose’s tearful admission that his father’s condition has taken a turn for the worst, Trump stupidly asks if Daddy Canseco will be okay. I think probably not. Jose must leave the show and fly home, but not before receiving $25,000 from Trump for his baseball charity. The worst thing about this show is the fake model receptionist sitting at the front desk next to the elevators as the contestants leave. I hope she appreciates that she literally has the best job in all of the world. I’m sure she makes more money than I can ever dare to dream of making, all while miming phone calls and note-taking for a few seconds at a time on-camera.

Following Jose’s sudden departure, his team pretends to be sad that he’s gone, in spite of the fact that he never contributed any effort, money or remotely useful ideas to the challenges. Richard Hatch says what all of us are thinking and wonders aloud whether Jose left so hastily because he knew he couldn’t raise any money for the task. The two teams are let loose at Michaels arts and crafts store to buy all of their supplies for the challenge. For the most part, the men seem fine with picking out their own paints and canvasses. Gary, on the other hand, wanders around like he’s just been dropped off in a Bangkok suburb blindfolded without a map and asks Meat Loaf if he’s buying supplies for everyone else. Meat Loaf- or Meat, as the guys call him- says no, everyone is responsible for their own things. Recall this detail later; the issue might come up again.

In the lady van, LaToya pulls out a T-shirt that she supposedly carries everywhere with her, since it’s so precious and close to her heart. It’s the final shirt that her brother Michael approved for sale before he died, and only two of them were made. Because she knows her brother wouldn’t want anything different, LaToya donates the shirt to the cause, having the proceeds go to Marlee’s charity, the Starkey Hearing Foundation, if they win. Marlee says she got goosebumps when she saw the shirt. I don’t know if I would do the same thing, to be honest; LaToya’s a better person than I. She’s an awesome sister, indeed.

So, remember that time I told you to keep in mind that each of the players on the men’s team should have purchased their own art supplies, even though Gary assumed that Meat Loaf was going to serve as his ad hoc personal buyer? Well, you won’t believe it, but Meat Loaf is now noticing that some of his stuff is missing, while Gary somehow has a large array of paints and brushes on his meticulously organized table. Not surprisingly, Meat Loaf loses his shiznit and goes from zero to sixty in about one millisecond. Yelling that his paint and sponges were stolen, Meat boils red and screams at Gary like an incredibly large and violent toddler who hasn’t yet been exposed to the concept of self-control. It is one of the oddest things I’ve ever seen on reality TV. Meat is shrieking and cursing and lunging toward Gary as if demonically possessed, while Gary gazes ahead like he’s half-watching a baseball game in a sports bar while secretly wondering when his buffalo wings will arrive. Mark begs Meat to calm down, since he doesn’t want his buddy to be kicked off the show. John Rich begs everyone to remember his charity, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and calm the heck down for the sake of sick kids. Meat responds well by chilling out and reclaiming his things from Gary’s table, while Gary tries to make up with Meat immediately.

Back at the women’s camp, Star is having a freak-out of her own over an offline printer. She calls the whole ideal nerve-wracking, and NeNe is nearing the end of her rope watching Star get nervous for no reason. I can’t imagine this woman in a courtroom. Don’t lawyers have to possess some measure of patience and levelheadedness? Does Star not know anything about damage control? Marlee isn’t doing much better; she’s visibly worried, apparently because John Rich is ridiculously well-connected when it comes to wealthy donors, and she’s certain on some level that her team will lose.

That old guy named George who fills in for Ivanka when she’s gone has not aged at all in the past several years. He comes in to visit the men’s art gallery, where they have all of their work on display. George says he doesn’t know whether anything will sell, but it may, since “art is in the eye of the beholder,” as if anyone cares. Does he think any visitors to the gallery will come because of the promise of good art? These guys, like most celebrities, are used to exerting themselves very little in exchange for ridiculous amounts of compensation. They could have drawn stick figures on paper napkins for this task, since it was never even remotely about the art. At least the dudes have their stuff set up; it’s only two hours until showtime, and the women are still stuck in traffic with an empty gallery awaiting them.

As the men sit around with nothing to do but eat and wait, Meat Loaf sits Gary down and sincerely apologizes to him for flipping out. He cries and maturely admits his mistake while Gary listens. This is one of the sweetest and most honest apologies of all time. Gary recommends anger management to Meat Loaf. Meat has already taken the courses, he says, but I guess it’s an ongoing process? Gary tells the camera that although he was “beaten senseless” and forced to endure a “confrontation of death,” he’s willing to benevolently extend his forgiveness to Meat Loaf, who has ascended “to a level of dancing on a rainbow.”

The women are finally arriving to their gallery, and they load their art into the building with only five minutes to spare. At this point, I’m hoping the ladies will beat the smug off of John Rich’s face, but if their art is any indication of their capabilities as a team, I’m worried. There’s one piece that’s just a white canvass on which the words “In Memory of Michael Jackson” are casually scrawled in red paint, and if that’s intended for sale on its own, I applaud LaToya’s gall. Basically, the women’s gallery is about as festive and cheery as a death camp, and they mope around as if they’re sure of their impending loss. The men are celebratory from the beginning, accepting $5,000 in cash from former contestant Trace Adkins, $10,000 for a Sugar Ray song lyric that Mark McGrath scribbled on a canvas, and $470,000 for a Gibson guitar signed by the team members, along with several other items. Richard Hatch stands around motionless, convinced that he doesn’t have any prospect of raising money at all. Nevertheless, he sells both of his pieces. Busey has a painting of his marked for sale at $550,000, but he’s willing to let it go for five grand. How big of him. The women start to pick up their game and raise ridiculous amounts of cash, largely due to Marlee reaching out to all of her contacts and Star sitting at a computer processing electronic credit card transactions from all over the country. The high point of their night is receiving $99,000 donations each from three separate people via credit card. One of those donations is for the commemorative Michael Jackson shirt, which means that one person got a an extremely rare and priceless artifact almost directly from the deceased King of Pop, and the other two folks got worthless half-attempts at elementary school art for their money.

In the boardroom: John Rich is confident that they won, with absolutely no question. Marlee and her team look intimidated. Star’s habit every week is to kiss up to the Project Manager in front of Trump so that her team is less tempted to complain about how annoying and difficult she was during the task. She basically calls Marlee a dream come true, and all of the women agree that they harmonized beautifully this time. Trump tells both teams that the amount of money they raised was higher than ever before on the show. Challenges like these really boil down to the contestants sitting together in a room, making phone calls to their rich friends asking for money, then waiting for the cash and checks to arrive. The art was an afterthought, so it kind of makes me sad that LaToya’s precious T-shirt had to be given away. It could just as well have been anything else. Considering the fact that some people called in to buy art sight unseen, it doesn’t make sense to sell anything of any real value. Anyway, Trump tells them that the men broke records with their earnings, having raised $626,908 (who paid 8 dollars for something?), but the women beat them with $986,000. Marlee starts to cry with relief, and Trump reaches into his change purse to donate the $14,000 they need to bump up the total to a million bones.

Because he’s a misogynist lunkhead, Trump doesn’t let the women enjoy their win. No, no; they can’t just retire to their quarters to have champagne and watch the men duke it out. Because this challenge raised so much money for good causes and whatnot, the rules of the game are abandoned, and Trump has to the two Project Managers to agree to let the men’s team donate their cash to St. Jude’s. Additionally, he asks the women’s permission to not fire anyone this week, since Jose already went home. That doesn’t make sense. The women have been dropping like flies for weeks, so it’s not like the balance is drastically off after Jose’s departure. The women need to figure out how charitable they’ll be, so they take a moment to think. Star has the presence of mind to whisper into Marlee’s ear, which amuses everyone for a second. Marlee decides that Trump should fire one of the guys, after all, and everyone votes for Richard Hatch, since he doesn’t have rich and famous friends. They can’t for one minute imagine how in the world Richard could refuse to take advantage of the hoards of rich people sitting back awaiting his requests, but seriously, who hangs out with Richard Hatch these days? I think it makes sense that the guy doesn’t have a tight inner circle of A-list celebrity friends, but they won’t let him off the hook. After a brief, insincere flirtation with the idea of firing Gary instead, since he’s actually useless on the tasks, Richard gets the chop. This game is, above all, about which player has the most friends with disposable cash, so I guess it was never meant to be.

Season 11, Episode 5:  “The Art of the Deal” (original airdate 4/3/2011.)

The Celebrity Apprentice airs Sundays at 9/8c.

Images courtesy of Douglas Gorenstein and NBC.