LAST EDITED ON 03-21-06 AT 09:20 AM (EST)

Official RTVW Summary
The Apprentice 5
Episode 4
A bunch of morons actually want to work for Donald

Previously on the Apprentice:
What’s the matter…haven’t you been watching, either?

For the official summary of last week‘s nonsense, check this out. Apparently, someone named Theresa was fired because she didn’t bring Charlemagne to the Board Room. Y’know that guy’s been dead for well over a thousand years, don’t you Mr. Trump? “So what,” says he. “George still makes it in, doesn’t he?” Also, there’s no room for an older, not-so-pretty-anymore blonde in his organization. He already has Caroline, so that demographic slot is all filled up.

Anyway, we see some of the other members of last week’s losing team up in “the penthouse” wetting themselves. “Oh, that Board Room was so awful,” they cry. “Much worse than the last one,” they moan. This tells you several things right off the bat: 1) This team has already lost two of the three first challenges, and 2) they complain like little kids. Feel free to hate them. Okay, hate is a strong word. Feel free to yell at the TV whenever their mewling little faces appear on the TV screen. Treat it like primal scream therapy and you’ll be able to get through the episode better. Oh, by the way, this team is called “Gold Rush”. It’s such a stupid name that no witty comment shall be wasted on it.

The two guys who survived that Board Room experience, Lenny the Russian and Tarek the non-Russian, are greeted enthusiastically by the others. Tarek does a confessional where he says that he thinks Mr. Trump will fire him if he goes back in to the Board Room any time soon. Well, that’s what happen when you suck, moron. You should be fired just for stating the obvious.

The group is told that Theresa was axed because she did not bring back to the BR the biggest failure on her team - a chick called Charmaine. Charmaine then throws a hissy-fit by going into her bedroom and sobbing into her pillow. Now you see, this - this is why The Apprentice should not be Tivo’d or recorded or even watched. This is supposed to be a contest among bright and energetic ladder-climbers who could legitimately fill a role in a multi-billion dollar enterprise. What we actually get is prissy, whiny, attention whores. You should be ashamed of yourself for having any interest in this show whatsoever. I know I am.

*queue music* Money, money, money, mo-ney. Monnney.

Gold Rush - Dan, Leslie, Lee, Summer, Tarek, Charmaine, Lenny, Theresa, Bryce,
Synergy - Tammy, Pepi, Roxanne, Sean, Allie, Michael, Andrea, Brent, Stacy

The phone rings and the kids are told that Trump is meeting them at the Trump Grill at 8:00. Donnie meets the contestants there and introduces some mannequin named Avanka. It’s supposed to be his daughter, but she’s either had a buttload of surgery to remove the normal attributes of human skin on her face, or she’s wearing a mask. I guess I would do the same if I was related to DT because he’s such an ugly bastard. George is also there. Trump tells the teams that his restaurant sells a lot of cereal for breakfast. Yeah, that’s the way to sell your restaurant on national television. Admit that you can do no better than what I can get out of my own cabinet. No wonder you’re in deep debt, you putz. Then he explains that Daryl Brewster and Sarita Nayyar from Post Cereals will judge them on their task. The task is to develop 20ftx15ft billboards for Post’s newest cereal - Honey-soaked Driveway Gravel Clumps.

For Synergy, Tammy has decided to be the leader. It’s odd, because every Tammy I’ve ever known has been a big ugly man-woman, but this Tammy is actually attractive in a Mediterranean way. I’m not sure what that means, either. When someone on the team asked if any of them had eaten Driveway Gravel before, Allie - who can’t be older than twelve by the looks of her - says that she used to eat Driveway Gravel with her dad, and that’s the only childhood memory she has. Probably because the memories of the time he spent as a male stripper at the airport have been repressed. Of course, the next shot we get is the entire Synergy team gorging themselves on this stuff. Then the pot begins to boil.

Tammy asks if anyone has experience speaking in front of executives. Brent’s hand goes up. If you’re not familiar with these characters, then you should understand that Brent is the in-your-face type of nutball who is going to want to be a part of everything so that you eventually have to tell him to his face that you don’t want him around at all. Oh, and let’s get the obvious out of the way. If you’re easily offended by jokes regarding a certain type of physical condition, then I suggest you stop reading right now. I’m not usually one to stoop to making fun of someone’s appearance, but with Brent it’s just so obvious and such a part of why people don’t like him. So, here goes. I’m just going to say what everybody thinks about people like him. You have been warned. I’m actually going to say it. His hair is a mess. There, I’ve said it and all of you people out there who suffer from messy hair can just complain to the management. It’s not my fault that you have messy hair. You should really accept that you have a problem and deal with it before it affects your well-being. I’m telling you because I care.

Anyway….

Tammy tells Brent that instead of presenting, he will be assigned to coordinating clothes for the presentation. Roxanne almost chokes on her Driveway Gravel while stifling a laugh. Sean says in a confessional that no one wants to give Brent any responsibility. Sounds like a setup, doesn’t it? Then Avanka walks into the room and Brent almost rips a tendon in his neck to see her. She does not have messy hair and so he is naturally attracted to her. In an attempt to impress Trump’s “daughter”, Brent throws out some ideas for the billboard they are working on. Tammy tells him to shut the hell up and then she broad jumps the table and lands a brutal kick to his forehead. He makes a sound like a waffle being eaten by a duck. That’s how it played out in my head, anyway. The rest of the team just rolls their eyes.

Allie then goes back to her childhood fantasy of a loving father sharing meaningful time with his daughter over a bowl of cereal. The others recognize that she is sinking further into her denial of what really happened during her childhood. To appease her, they say it’s a good idea. Andrea has some sort of confessional, but I’m not really sure what she said because I was so distracted by her oversized Adam’s apple. Andrea is either in drag or in transition, take your pick.

When Avanka asks Brent about his special little task, he realizes that he needs to do something or he will just look ridiculous. He pulls Tammy aside and uses his messy hair to try to intimidate her. She doesn’t go for it. “Look, pal,” she says, “we don’t want someone with hair like yours to do the presentation. People with your hair issues just don’t eat healthy cereal and we think it would send the wrong message.” Brent does little more than bob his head for five minutes. He must have thought that by shaking out his mane even more, he would get Tammy to cave. It still doesn’t work. Brent has his first of several confessionals where he complains about the lack of respect he gets from his teammates. It’s not just your teammates, Brent. It’s everybody who’s had to listen to your “poor me” crap for more than five minutes.

Trump gives one of his thirty-second business seminars where he says something that is not so profound as it is copyrighted from more successful people.

We finally take a look at Gold Rush. They’re also scarfing down the new cereal. Charmaine has a completely irrelevant confessional. Someone talks about squirrels. Luckily, the rest of the team recognizes the absurdity of using a common, disease-carrying rodent to make people want cereal. George comes in. Charmaine talks more. Her bandana looks nice, and that’s all you need to know about her. George says that this is a difficult group because they are all aggressive types. It’s true, the guys seem to be arguing a little bit. Somehow, Charmaine keeps them on track. They eventually come up with the idea of having someone pouring the cereal down their throat. That may not sound appealing, but you have no doubt fallen for that advertising gimmick yourself. If it has the potential to make you choke and die in a gluttonous frenzy, then you can’t pass it up.

Now we see the teams go out to solicit people on the streets of New York. Apparently, this is legal again. Giulliani is definitely not in charge anymore. Synergy’s Sean, Allie and Roxanne accost one attractive young woman who falls for their empty promises of fame and fortune. Allie then flirts with several guys who remind her of her father before the other two reel her back. They find some forty-something guy who just barely qualifies as being old enough to be the woman’s father in the ad. It is of little consequence that the man and the young woman look nothing like each other.

Gold Rush’s Tarek, Lee and Leslie are on the prowl for a young woman. They find someone willing to agree to take $200 for a photo shoot. If you ask enough people on the streets of New York, you can find someone who will eat a live puppy for free. In a bit of foreshadowing, Tarek says that he hopes the other team doesn’t come up with a more creative idea. Don’t fall for this kind of editing; it means nothing.

Back to Synergy, Andrea the man-woman says that she is a graphic artist wiz. Brent tries to help “her” out. Andrea sends him thoughts of death and pain but all he feels is a little itch on the back of his neck. Then, in a confessional Brent says crap this, and sh!t that, and those broads can eat my poop and stuff like that. He does. Go back and watch it again if you don’t believe me.

The photo shoots breeze by. In that time, Andrea sends Sean images of what she’s been working on. Her work sucks. With Gold Rush, Bryce is the wet blanket. Tammy tells him to stuff it, because they were using his ideas and he should not try to backtrack now. The guy was obviously trying to give himself some wiggle room if his team lost. He wanted to be able to say, “Well, Mr. Trump, I realized we were going in the wrong direction and I tried to change it.” An understandable strategy but one that invariably pisses off your teammates.

The teams have to prepare for the presentation the next morning and Andrea is all kinds of upset that Brent is taking too long to get ready. For one thing, he takes several minutes to mess up his hair. When she gets on his case, he says that she is an “unappreciative you-know-what”. I don’t know how they let that get past the censors, I really don’t. Anyway, she responds by waving her salary in his face. Here’s something that doesn’t make sense - if you’re already a multi-millionaire, then why the hell do you need to work a temp job for the likes of Trump? Either you’re lying about your success or you have a warped perception of success. I say you’re a liar and a man, Andrea.

Presentation time. The billboards are unfurled. Team Gold Rush has the better billboard. But they do something really weird. They bring a baby carriage to the presentation. When Donald asks them what it is for, Charmaine says that it represents the newest addition to the Post family. So apparently, they want you to eat a baby for breakfast. Nice.

Synergy tries to explain their billboard, but everyone agrees that it is too busy for commuters to read. Then they try to do a slide show. Synergy loses and they are going to the Board Room.

As a reward, Gold Rush gets to have a meal with Chef Jean Georges. No, I’ve never heard of him either. The only notable thing about the reward is that the idiot Lenny tells the world-renowned chef that he needs one more seasoning touch on his plate.

When we go back to Synergy, they are having a clothes-on orgy. I am not making this up. Allie and Roxanne have piled on top of Sean on his bed. He wasn’t complaining. That constitutes an orgy in my book. Andrea and Tammy sit on a couch while going over the strategy to eliminate Brent. Brent is in the kitchen with a couple of Gold Rush people. He tells them that no matter what, they should save him a place at the table because he will be coming back from the Board Room. If you’ve watched reality shows for any length of time, you know right then that he and his messy hair are toast. In his last confessional of the night, he says that he is a nuclear bomb that is waiting to go off in the Board Room, or something to that effect. More bluster that signifies almost nothing. Or at least, not what he thinks it does.

The Board Room
What happened in the Board Room is real simple: Trump begins to place the target on Andrea for her inability to put together good billboard graphics, with a few shots at Tammy for her leadership. Then Brent opens his big mouth. The man literally castrates himself right there in the Board Room. It was not a pretty sight. What made it worse was how smug Andrea became as she pushed Brent to go bigger with his defensive stupidity. The meltdown was truly nuclear, just as Brent had predicted. Then Trump had the unbelievable gall to say that Brent really was a liability on this challenge because of the way he looked. C’mon, Trump - you look like a mackerel with a cheap wig. You should not comment on how other people look. Eventually, Trump tells Brent he’s fired. Brent takes it like a slap in the face. It was so funny, I watched it several times. In the taxi, Brent tries and fails to sound like a reasonable person who was taken advantage of. Truth is, others just have a hard time accepting people like him for who they are and he just doesn’t know how to react to that kind of treatment. Too bad for him. If he would only get a haircut, then people would like him, right? Right?

Next week: I go back to sleep and forget all about this show. You should do the same.

ETA Damnit, damnit, damnit! I had to come back and edit for one lousy, stinking typoe.

A Cyggie siggie!