The Celebrity Apprentice Review: A Fail of Three Sisters

Week 10 of Celebrity Apprentice inexplicably contains two challenges and two eliminations, with a surprise forfeit to boot. We begin with NeNe and Star returning to the champagne lounge, where the men are still welcoming LaToya to their team. Star’s too mad to even sit down, so she exits the room immediately. Telling the camera that she never really intended to have a conversation with NeNe though she shook on it and told Trump that she would, Star reveals her two-faced immaturity to the world yet again. Poor NeNe sits left behind; she’s disappointed that Star is too afraid for a face-to-face discussion and can’t take the heat of confrontation. This statement might seem a little ironic in a few minutes, but let it be known that Star Jones backed out first, just like the spineless manipulator that she is.

The Trumpster meets his contestants at a comedy club somewhere to explain their next challenge. First, though, NeNe has to stop everything to rat on Star for not making an effort to resolve things, and Star admits that she doesn’t think anything can be worked out between them. For this reason, Trump decides to have NeNe and Meat Loaf switch places. That puts NeNe, John Rich, Lil Jon, and LaToya on one team and Marlee, Meat Loaf, and Star on the other team. The task is another simple fundraising challenge, where we get to watch the players call their rich friends and sell individual units of something useless in exchange for a lot of dough. In this case, tickets to a comedy show are the hot commodity, with each team responsible for showcasing three comedians. For some reason, Mad Money host Jim Cramer is helping Trump this time around. LaToya agrees to be Project Manager for her team, and Meat Loaf steps up for his. “I took Celebrity Apprentice for one reason: to raise money for these kids,” says Meat. Again, do these people not have money of their own to spare for their beloved charities? I love how they want us to believe that appearing on the show has nothing to do with the fact that their careers are dead in the water and their egos in desperate need of a good stroking.

It’s time to start brainstorming and calling contacts, but NeNe is nowhere to be found when her team gathers. Though Star was fine to move on with no concern for the human being she left in her dust, NeNe simply can’t perform, since she’s still too upset over their fight. NeNe tells the camera she’s not in a good place and needs to be alone, but her team doesn’t know why she’s quarantined in her hotel room, ignoring the phone. I actually feel bad for her; she’s a sensitive woman, and her bark is much worse than her bite. John is not amused, however; he considers NeNe’s abandoning her team the ultimate betrayal. Still, the show must go on. John calls up his friend Jimmy Fallon to see if he’ll drop in on the comedy show, and he agrees, because he’s one of the nicest people on the planet, as far as I can tell. As her teammates make calls of their own, Star decides to ring Tracy Morgan for a cameo. He concedes to appearing in a short video to be shown during the performance. Jim Cramer drops in to check on the team and complains that Star shouldn’t have settled for a video from Tracy. I agree.

I wonder how much planning goes into making these surprise celebrity friend appearances look impromptu each episode. Was Niki Taylor sitting by her phone, waiting to be called in? Was Jimmy Fallon? Back in her team’s lair, LaToya tries to make something happen by anemically calling across the country to get her contacts to fly over for a lame night of sub-par comedy; surprisingly, no one is biting. Tracy Morgan greets Star to say some unfunny things into a camcorder. Basically, she has him repeat “I’m a lawyer” over and over again, since he played Star on SNL for a parody of The View, and Star probably doesn’t know about anything else he’s ever done. The fact that she thinks the crowd will be even remotely interested in Tracy’s reprisal of his Star Jones impression demonstrates how painfully out of touch she is.

Trump is back in his office, calling NeNe to track her down. When he asks her where she is while her team is slaving away dialing numbers and whatnot, she responds that she can’t stand the negative environment and wants to walk off for good, especially since Trump seems to accommodate Star way too much. She leaves without giving anyone a chance to say goodbye in person, and when John learns the news, he acts as if his own father has just dropped him off at an orphanage and sped off in a pickup truck.

Lil Jon and John Rich are doing well with the fundraising, though they point out that their contacts have been drained by this point. LaToya is not having much luck; her friend Kathy Hilton reluctantly agrees to donate the $1,000 that she just blew her nose with, even though she’ll have to call someone over to fish it out of the trash, and she’s all the way in the back of the house by the pool. Meanwhile, Meat Loaf is with his team in a van, sobbing. He’s just realized that most of his contacts are donating money specifically to be awarded to his charity, The Painted Turtle, but that charity won’t receive the funds if his team loses. All the money will go to LaToya’s charity instead, and he can’t allow that to happen. Back in their camp, Star calls Trump on behalf of a distraught Meat Loaf to ask if they can keep their funds if they should lose. Trump says he’s not willing to make an exception in this challenge, since that would take away the incentive to win. He reminds Star and Meat that the show is more about winning than it is about charity. Meat keeps crying and insisting that he can’t go on playing the game if he has to follow the rules. This is pretty pathetic, though I understand why he’d be discouraged and upset. Celebrities are some of the most fragile people on the planet, as it turns out, and Meat is the most breakable of them all.

Jimmy Fallon shows up to greet John, Lil Jon, and LaToya and give them a preview of the song he wrote for the comedy show. He also hands over $10,000 in cash. This guy is a class act. I seriously have never heard anything unfavorable about him. I need some dirt quickly; I just love him way too much, even though he could never make it through an SNL sketch without snickering like a little girl. Speaking of little girls, Meat is still sniffling and rocking back and forth as Marlee tries to galvanize him into actually performing his job as Project Manager. She tells him not to quit before it’s over. She admits to the camera that she’s afraid of losing, since Meat has shown everyone his weakness.

It’s showtime. Meat’s team is up first, and he takes the stage with enthusiasm, erroneously referring to the upcoming hack comedians as “the best on the earth” or something absurd like that. The three performers are pretty godawful, but the crowd is laughing and having a good time. For some unexplained reason, Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates are in the audience; this fact is never mentioned by anyone onstage, as far as we know. Meat takes the stage again and makes the mistake of introducing Tracy Morgan’s video clip by calling it “really funny.” It’s not, and no one laughs. It’s literally about ten seconds long and pretty pointless. Anyway, when they’re done, Star celebrates the success of the show, grinning and saying it was great. Just how old was this woman when she was hit on the head? I don’t ever understand where she’s coming from, and I don’t think she ever knows what’s going on around her.

Next, LaToya commands the stage for her team and whispers timidly into the microphone, introducing her team’s three comedians before they proceed to stink up the room with their stale material. Rachel Feinstein does the same jokes she performed in the most recent season of Last Comic Standing, and they’re as stale as ever. Really, Rachel? You went on some lackluster dates a few years ago? Do tell! John Rich reserves the honor of introducing his friend Jimmy Fallon, who lights up the room with his brilliant rendition of a song called “Yer Fired!” It’s all about being fired on Celebrity Apprentice, and it’s pretty cute in his country accent and all. I’m not sure why we needed to hear the song twice in its entirety; we already saw him perform it for the team, but whatever. The crowd likes it, because Jimmy is a comedy god, and he just followed some of the worst comedians around.

In the boardroom: Trump asks Meat how he’s doing after their conversation earlier, and Meat starts to cry again. He’s not doing too well, evidently. Trump calls Marlee “beautiful Marlee” because she’s wearing red lipstick and flashy jewelry. This douchebag just never quits. He thinks he’s on Mad Men every time he enters the boardroom. Trump addresses the camera and speaks directly to NeNe. “Star Jones kicked your ass, whether you like it or not. You’re fired, and you’re a quitter,” he says. Because Meat Loaf is still over there having a heart attack, John Rich offers to personally match whatever amount of money his team raised for The Painted Turtle should they lose this challenge. This causes Meat to further lose it; he cries some more and says this show has made him want to be a better man. John’s donation won’t be possible, since Meat and his team won, even though their show was surely far less successful in terms of entertaining the audience. Their team raised something like $184,580; Meat leaves the boardroom and calls home to cry about winning before crying to the camera that this is the third most emotional high point of his life, after the birth of his two children. Back in the boardroom, John eagerly points out that he raised more money than his teammates did, and LaToya feebly tries to explain that all of their contacts were drained of cash, which prevented their goals from being met. Lil Jon says that the responsibility for their loss should fall on the Project Manager, and everyone agrees. LaToya is fired unceremoniously. Wow, she came back to the show only to demonstrate once again that she’s not a capable leader. How embarrassing. The remaining five contestants toast The Painted Turtle and ready themselves for the next task.

Trump approaches the teams with the President and C.O.O. of OnStar, the on-demand vehicle security company. Since they have a new portable unit which can be installed in any car, they want the players to promote it in a new commercial. As always, they’ll be judged on brand messaging, product integration, and creativity. Marlee and John Rich agree to act as Project Managers, and Star speaks up right away to say that she’ll take care of brand messaging. Let’s all keep that in mind as we proceed.

The teams meet with OnStar execs. Lil Jon and John Rich are like a power duo that can’t be stopped, so they dutifully take notes and ask great questions. Meat, on the other hand, decides to dominate the room in place of his Project Manager so that he can ask if the OnStar system can be used on a bicycle. He’s on a high from his win, I think, and he doesn’t remember how silly his ideas usually are. Unfortunately, Marlee and Star aren’t used to dealing with his special brand of creativity, so they don’t know how to politely dismiss him like the men’s team used to do so well. Meanwhile, John Rich is suffering from a painful sinus infection and migraine, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to construct a script for his commercial while Lil Jon advises. They’re rolling along pretty well, though John is clearly in agony. He’s a trooper.

Meat continues to take over and usurp Marlee’s power as Project Manager, instructing the camera crew to execute this crazy scenario he’s dreamed up for the ad. The crew tells him it’s a bit too ambitious of an idea, but he won’t hear any of it. Marlee and Star look peeved but are reluctant to step in and stop him in his tracks. Star is sitting behind a computer screen as usual, refusing to come up with any ideas of her own, though she claimed to have brand messaging in the bag. That’s her speciality, she continually reminds us, but she’s blanking on what to write. She blames it on Meat for some reason, demanding that he recite a script for her. I don’t know why Marlee just won’t step in and stop the insanity. She leaves Star and Meat to bicker. Meat accuses Star of procrastinating, and that’s of course what she’s doing so that she can pass the buck later when they lose. Her M.O. is to act bewildered and ask loads of questions that make the task seem hopeless, and then under-deliver on her portion of the challenge and blame someone else when the project fails to impress. It’s worked thus far. As she begins to act out the scenario that Meat has described, Star has trouble memorizing lines and performing her part. “My brain is fried,” she explains. Yeah, several minutes of sitting still behind a laptop without typing a word will do that to you, I suppose. Marlee admits to the camera that she’s taking too much of a backseat during this challenge, and Star brags that she’s letting Meat take control so that he can take the fall later on.

John and Lil Jon are already in the editing room, trying to piece together a few vignettes they filmed of ladies using the OnStar system and cars falling out of the sky against a white backdrop. I don’t know why these folks are all so ambitious for this task, but I suspect it’ll work out for the guys, even though they’re running out of time to edit. Marlee and her team haven’t even begun to cut their film yet, since they’re stuck in traffic. They’re worried about the fact that they have no script, no shot list, and a terrible idea, while the men’s biggest worry is that they won’t have enough time to polish their awesome commercial with great special effects before they have to show it.

The executives take a look at the two commercials. First, we’re shown Meat Loaf’s brainchild, and it’s quite possibly the worst commercial I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen this! It features Meat Loaf as a lumbering police officer approaching a car to use the OnStar system to locate a doughnut shop and then meeting Marlee and Star at the shop, where Star is revealed to be the voice of OnStar, because her name is Star. It’s an ugly mess of an ad, and they barely mention the new retail product at all. The execs don’t look pleased. John and Lil Jon, on the other hand, have crafted something a bit more modern and simple, with a fun tagline and several mentions of the brand and product included. Despite Lil Jon’s onscreen shouting and some awkward acting by the ladies in their ad, it’s a million times better than that of the competition.

In the boardroom: John and Lil Jon brag about how smoothly the task went for them and how well they collaborated to bring together a nice package in the end. They’re proud of their work and what they turned out, despite John’s being ill the whole time. Trump can’t wrap his head around their unlikely friendship, since he’s forever stuck in the year 1934. “So, a hip hop guy and a country guy get along?” he says, as his mind explodes. John Rich asserts that his onscreen partnership with a Black dude (of all people!) is breaking all sort of barriers, and he’s proud to do that for his country. Trump shows the two commercials again in their entirety so that the teams can size up the competition. Everyone agrees that Marlee’s team sucked, while the guys pretty much nailed it. Trump and his cronies explain that the executives hated that Meat Loaf played a comical cop character, since police officers are heroes to the OnStar community, and they didn’t appreciate the doughnut-gobbling stereotype. They also hated that the brand messaging was completely lacking, and that there was almost no mention of the fact that OnStar is now available at retailers instead of just pre-installed in certain car models. The fact that they were so soft on brand messaging and product integration is a pretty big deal.

The guys’ team wins, of course, and John Rich receives $40,000 for St. Jude’s, bringing his all-time total up to $695,000. The men leave to celebrate, and Marlee, along with Star and Meat Loaf, remains to fight. Don, Jr. points out that brand messaging lost the task for them, but Star refuses to take any responsibility whatsoever. When Trump asks Marlee who she’d fire, she nominates Meat, since his ideas led to the awful ad. She at least admits that she should have stopped Meat in his tracks, but she doesn’t explain why she failed to do so. In my estimation, as crazy as Meat is, he’s the last one who should be on the chopping black. Marlee failed to lead, and Star failed to fulfill the requirements of the job she volunteered to take care of. Star keeps arguing that she wasn’t in charge of the shot list even though she was in charge of brand messaging. What does that even mean? How can you take care of brand messaging if you have nothing to do with what shots are shown in the ad? What’s your glitch, Star?

In the hallway, while Trump and co. deliberate, Meat confronts Star and tries to get some answers from her regarding her inability to step up to claim her actions like an adult. Star refuses to engage with him, because she doesn’t have anything to say. She knows how sneaky and unreasonable she is, but she’d rather plug her ears like a child than own up to her evildoing. Meat is outraged and demands a response, but Star tells him that he’d have to have her credentials in order to qualify for a debate with her. There are some very bad, admittedly sexist words in my head that I’m refusing to type, and I resent Star for making me think them. I hate this woman with such a white-hot fire. A few moments ago, in an attempt to get her to focus and have a conversation with him, Meat addressed Star as “Sweetie,” thereby unintentionally giving her some more material for the boardroom.

Back in front of Trump, Meat explains that all he wants is for Star to tell the truth and admit her failure,  but Star changes the subject to bring up the offense of being called a pet name. Trump can’t believe she’d take offense at that and basically tells her to shut up and take a chill pill. He says he hates “all this politically correct crap,” to no one’s surprise. I guess he considers the issue of basic respect toward women too politically correct to be taken seriously, so he doesn’t listen when Star makes the valid point that it’s an inappropriate and patronizing thing to do. All of this is beside the point, and I hate that I’m forced to agree with Star on something. The fact that she was offended, paired with the fact that she essentially made sure that her team missed the mark on this task, is all the excuse Trump needs. He fires Star with contempt, and she looks as crestfallen as anyone could ever look. That’s the last time I ever want to see or hear from this woman ever again.

Season 11, Episode 10: “Laugh On” (original airdate May 8, 2011)

The Celebrity Apprentice airs Sundays at 9/8c on NBC.

Images courtesy of Douglas Gorenstein and NBC.