Celebrity Apprentice Episode 8: Quality, Value and Convenience, Oh My!

Previously on Celebrity Apprentice. After a 5th loss for Emprasario, The Donald plays the team swap game and puts Piers and Amarassa on the same team as they both have such a track record of playing well with others. They play they my black book is better than your black book game sell tickets for celebrity carriage rides in Central Park. The New Emprasario is full of shiny happy people who work well together and Hydra is dominated by two people who believe the only thing that gets them camera time is being an azzhat. Just like the Hydra of myth you just can’t kill the beast and Hydra wins. This puts The Donald in the position of not being able to fire either Piers or Amarassa so he fires no one. Marilu-who and Amarassa switch teams for the next challenge.

Amarassa channels Sally Fields and believes The Donald likes her, he really really likes her, she believes that moving her away from Piers has something to do with like for her, as if. Emprassairo walks in to the deadest celebration party, evah. Trace walks in like someone killed his puppy, then Marilu-who comes in followed by Tito. Then Steven comes in and they wonder what happened and they find out about the non-firing.

Piers says getting Marilu-who for Amarassa is like trading the Devil for Nelson Mandela. Piers gets to tell his charity, Intrepid Fallen Heroes, about the money he won for them. Piers said it brought home to him that he isn’t here to grab camera time by fighting with everyone, but it is about charity. We will see how long that lasts.

They start the next task at a Heliport. The Donald guarantees someone will be fired this time (after all he has split u Thing 1 and Thing 2 (no not the twins on Flavor of Love) so has a nice target one on each team. They are going to QVC in Pennsylvania. They will do a 10 minute live segment to sell a product. They cannot chose the same product. The winning teams Project Manager get $20,000 for their charity. Steven is Project Manager for Emprasario, Piers decides that Marilu-who should be the Project Manager as she is the teams biggest shopper and hasn’t won any money for her charity, yet.

Marilu-who is excited about this. Piers, once again, thinks they should rely on Lennox Lewis to sell the product. Piers starts “teasing” Lennox because getting along with anyone all the time is not in his programming. Lennox admits he was tired, but Piers had diarrhea of the mouth. Lenox wants to be used in different ways *insert non-PG13 joke here* but seriously, folks, like everyone else in Hollywood, he wants to direct.

Off to see the 6 products they will choose from: a magnifying mirror, a utility tool kit, a bamboo storage drawer, a fry pan, an electric sweeper, and a two in one ladder/cart. Both Teams want the ladder. Emprasario decides if they both want the ladder they’ll just get the negotiations over with a coin flip. Steven calls on the Lord to influence the coin flip, but the Lord works in mysterious ways and Hydra wins the toss and the ladder/cart. Emprasario will get the sweeper.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT ALERT:
When Steven and Trace come back to say the lost the coin flip. In the exact center of the screen as Trace sits down is Trump’s book on the side table.

Carol Alt has worked with QVC for five years and they are deciding between here and Marilu-who for who will be on air. Carol says she always has Marilu-who’s back, lets see how that works out, shall we? Marilu-who has sold all her books on QVC. So they start rehearsing the ladder/cart so Marilu-who will be ready to go. Emprasario decides Trace will be the on air personality for their segment. Steven things big ol’ Trace with the little sweeper will be “adorable”. They are using Lisa one of the QVC hosts because Amarassa thinks she is “so darn cute”. She’s a southern girl so her and Trace hit it off right away.

Hydra gets Rick as their QVC co-host. Marilu-who thinks he is so game show host and Piers wants to play to Marilu-who’s unbelievable passion for the ladder/cart. She tries to move Rick with the ladder/cart and promptly drops him onto the ground. Rick walks off holding his tail bone joking that he wants to be on the other team.

Amarassa wants Trace and Lisa to do some rehearsing and Steven nixes that idea in the bud. Steven figures that since he sings in front of hundreds of thousands of people his faith says that Trace will be just fine without any rehearsal for this. I mean it isn’t like he rehearses those concerts or anything. Steven assures Amarassa that he is a really good director. Trace looks nervous.

The Junior visits Emprasario, he like the Trace selling to Middle America thing. Then he visits Hydra, they seem to have a plan and really believe in the product, but he notices Marilu-who talks, a lot. Steven asks the QVC consultant if they can break the payments up and he says they do have a program called Easy-Pay. Apparently the Lord has forgiven Steven after forsaking him on the coin toss because without that voice in his head he never would have asked about it.

Hydra, 5 minutes to live on the air. Lennox in the control room digging the Producer/Director thing. Piers will believe it when he sees it, and thinks Lennox believes he is Coppola directing Marilu-who in a major motion picture. Way to project your delusions of grandeur, Piers. Lennox is directing, Carol is on set, and Piers is watching how the sales are going on a screen. Marilu-who can’t hear Piers, sadly they fix the audio problem and they are live. Ivanka is watching the live feed with The Donald. Marilu-who has a lot of energy, and talks, a lot. They have a viewer call in and Marilu-who talks, a lot, even when her co-host is talking to the viewer. The Donald and Ivanka think she talked too much and jumped from one thing to another too much.

Emprasario, 25 seconds to live air. Trace in nervous and wants his jacket, Amarassa goes to find it She notes that she has never seen him that nervous. Tito worried that Trace didn’t get any rehearsal. The Donald thinks using Trace is an interesting choice. Trace dumps some nuts and bolts on the floor to sweep up. The Donald and Ivanka think the sweeper is an easier prop to work with, and The Donald likes the demo with the nuts and bolts. They notice that his energy is really opposite of Marilu-who’s, nice and calm. Lisa brings up the easy pay, which is apparently unusual for a new item, and that seems to get them a spike in sales.

The Donald said Trace didn’t have a lot of energy, but it came off as being confident. Marilu-who had a lot of enthusiasm but didn’t seem confident. Time for the boardroom

The Donald starts off the boardroom with the two performances were very different. Marilu-who starts off the discussion with their passion for the product, and then she talks, a lot. Piers says for energy and leadership from Marilu-who was great. Tito says for Hydra he thinks Trace was the best part of the team and The Donald agrees with that, especially the picking up nuts and bolts thing. The Donald asks Stephen if Amarassa did a good job, and he says she did. Piers looks like he was sucking on a lime after finding out Amarassa did well. The Donald asks Stephen if they were worried about how much their product cots and he says they implemented something that QVC has historically used called Easy Pay (lots of stunned looks from Hydra over that one) He tells Marilu-who she seemed nervous which seems to shock her but somehow either she doesn’t have a lot to say, for once, or they edited that out. He says both did a good job, just very different.

Now for the results The Junior says Emprasario sold 716 units for a grand total of $43,000. Ivanka says Hydra sold 703 units for a total of $35,145. The winner is Emprasario. The Donald says Hydra made a couple of bad decisions since they sold fewer units at a lower price for less money, so it was a romp. Emprasario heads off to the war room to watch. They are all happy and Stephen says that his Mom will trip over the money he won for her charity, thank you Jesus. I guess Jesus has to be somewhere because I’m sure he has run screaming from the Big Brother House this season.

Now onto who to fire from Hydra. Marilu-who says it was a big loss given how enthusiastic they all were. He asks Piers who he would blame and he replies he likes leaders who show passion. The Donald agrees she has passion, but they lost. The Donald asks why they didn’t use Easy Pay? Marilu-who says they didn’t know. Ivanka asks doesn’t some of the fault lie with Carol Alt who worked for QVC before? She says she didn’t know about it. The Junior says between you someone should have known as it is a pretty common thing on QVC. The Donald asks Piers who he would fire, and he again stammers a bit and then says “Sleepy Boy” Lennox contributed the least. He says he only slept on the helicopter ride over and The Donald says that isn’t a very nice thing to say to Piers. Piers can’t understand why calling someone “Sleepy Boy” is inappropriate when you can just say they were sleeping. The Donald tries to explain that while it may be a fact saying it that way is insulting. Emprasario is hoping this means Piers is going down. Piers tries to say it is just British banter. Lennox finally gets Marilu-who to agree he was awake for his task. Piers is trying to save Marilu-who’s behind and The Donald finally says you may not fault her for those other things, but you can fault her for the wouldn’t let anyone else talk thing. The Donald tells Marilu-who when she tries to defend herself that he understands her energy, but she was overdoing it. Lennox said if he had to fire someone it would be the Project Manager. Carol says she’d also have to go with the Project Manager as the decisions go back to her. Carol says she swayed us to the ladder with her passion, and Marilu-who replies that the problem was the price point. The Donald questions her on that and she says she means the Easy Pay would have mattered, and he agrees.

The Donald goes back to Piers and he complains that The Donald is trying to get him into the blame game and while the others would pin it on Marilu-who he thinks lead well. Stephen notices how subdued Piers is. Piers tries to get the attention back on Lennox and The Donald says don’t be deceived by Lennox. The Donald asks Marilu-who who she would fire and she babbles for awhile and The Donald tells her to stop talking and answer the question. She sits there quietly for the first time all episode. Since she won’t answer The Donald asks who is safe. She says Carol did the best job, then the three go out and will come back in for the firing.

Ivanka says in this case it seems the fault has to lie with Marilu-who. She took on a lot of responsibility and the buck stops with her. The Junior agrees about the Project Manager but is surprised she let Carol be safe. The three on the block are talking and Piers and Lennox agree they would have kept Carol in just for not remembering about the Easy Pay thing.

The Donald asks Marilu-who why should he fire Piers rather than her. She says because over all she is a better player. Then The Donald asks why bring Lennox instead of Carol? Carol worked hard all day where Lennox was sleepy in the morning. He never really picked up the ball and ran with it and the team didn’t know what he was doing most of the time. Piers says he is surprised Carol isn’t there, which The Donald agrees with. Ivanka says if she really didn’t know than she isn’t very observant. Piers talks about Carol, but Donald is more amazed that Piers is sweating, and wants to know what is going on with him. He says he sweats when he doesn’t want to be fired. Ivanka chimes in that her father has a difficult situation because you can’t isolate anyone as having really under performed.

Marilu-who tries to direct the blame once again to Lennox, and The Grinch-Donald’s heart that had grown three sizes last week shrinks back to it’s usual size and Marilu-who is fired and sent back to Whoville. He tells her that she is a terrific woman and to get the hell out of there. As the guys walk back to the board room to cries of Sleepy Boy is back Marilu-who is in the limo. She says the experience was great and she feels like a member of the Trump family and she is proud of how she played the game.

Singing in the Spring with Tribe.