For Trump's side, it was Carolyn and Bill checking out the tasks as George was observing the Jewish holiday. (Clue 1 to Gold Rush: Don't trash someone for observing the holiday!) At Gold Rush, they encountered chaos - the models who supposedly learned about the car and were to teach the GM folks knew nothing, horses (horses?), a golf course set in what looked like a dog park run, a comedian (Cory Kahaney from Last Comic Standing) who was lewd and inappropriate for the event and just a total disaster. The team was fighting amongst itself and it was horrid all the way around.
As for Synergy, at the last minute they found out that skeet shooting wasn't allowed in the park. Andrea substituted golf cart racing, which ended up being a big hit with the GM people. Andrea even managed Brent. She gave him important tasks such as strategically setting out the trash cans. Brent had spent a good chunk of the War Room time chowing down and not being helpful, but at least he didn't really hinder the team.
When the teams were brought into the Boardroom after the tasks, there really weren't any surprises. Synergy won the task, while Gold Rush couldn't have done any worse. So, it would be reward for Synergy and the Boardroom, where one person would be fired, for Gold Rush. Synergy's reward was a trip to Atlantis Marine World where they swam with sharks, bonded, and had a grand ol' time.
Dan and Lee returned to join their team in the Boardroom. Blame got tossed at everyone except perhaps to the one who really made bad choices, Charmaine. Lenny blamed Dan and Lee because they left and Theresa for being a bad leader. Bryce blamed Lenny as he didn't get a generator (which Bryce secured without incident). Theresa's dislike of Lenny made him the scapegoat for all going wrong. It was just as much a mess as the task was. I noticed that Charmaine wasn't mentioned at all when it was she who secured and paid the comedian who so turned off the crowd. Oh ... Tarek was also blamed.
Theresa chose Tarek and Lenny to go to the Boardroom. Trump did the right thing — "Theresa, you're fired." She led the task and, inevitably, she was responsible for its failure. Trump said he should have brought Charmaine in. I disagree. In my opinion, Theresa was the one to fire. What do you think?
Dollar bills, y'all...


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Article comments
1 - Brent
Andrea's plan for dealing with my namesake was to give him busy work to do and then if they went to the boardroom blame him for not stepping up. Risky tactic but since they didn't go to the boardroom it didn't come up. One thing I will fault her for is not calling the park ahead of time to find out if skeet shooting was allowed (as soon as I saaw the kid in the across the lake I knew it wrouldn't be) which would have saved her some expense. Youd odn't need a Plan B if you find out before hand that Plan A won't be allowed.
Lenny's a huge jerk, but Theresa deserved to be fired (so did Charmaine for that matter). They lacked a theme and Theresa made false economies by not allowing Tarek to get the artificial turf putting green he wanted. Being project manager is a huge risk - Trump is more likely to fire a project manager than anyone else - and she fell into just about every pothole along that road. She made herself responsible for concept and execution rather than delegating.
As for Charmaine, the first thing I would have told the comedian was that this was an event where you work clean and if she couldn't do that whe wouldn't be paid. Charmaine apparently just assumed that she'd know to work clean and compounded matters by paying her in full. Did they need models, or could some Gold Rush team members have done the jobs in much the same way that the Synergy people did? Charmaine screwed up big time and if Theresa had brought her in both would have been in the cab.
2 - ClubStyleDJ
Don't know if this is allowed but this is a copy of my post in another "Apprentice" area.
Please Pardon the redundancy.
Well this seems to be the only place for Apprentice blogging for the moment.
Ok everybody needs to leave Lenny, Brent and Terek alone. It is proving to be fatal for all those who attempt. Their time will come. I can't imagine what living in that suite is like, but it seems folks are doing a lot of "player hating", and it's only the 3rd week. I see enemy attitudes forming at an pandemic rate. I also can't see said attitudes being productive. I play the fantasy game and have moved from 2189th place to 968th. The fantasy game involves guessing correctly the outcome of certian questions from the upcoming broadcast. It's tougher than it looks. (see below) There is a average pick distribution. (usually not good to follow the masses, cuz they've been kinda wrong).
1. Back at the suite, which candidate will "have a feeling that Brent is coming back" from the boardroom?
10 Allie - correct
2. Which candidate from Synergy will say "if Brent doesn't get fired, part of me wants to go home"? 10 Andrea - correct
3. During the task assignment, which candidate will be singled out by Mr. Trump as "not so hot"? 0 Tarek incorrect Brent
4. During the task, what will Sean refer to Andrea as?
"A control freak" 0 incorrect "A genius"
5. During the task resolution, which candidate will Mr. Trump say is "a hard person to lead"?
10 Lenny correct
6. After the task resolution, who will tell another candidate to "shut up" in the suite?
0 Bryce incorrect Lenny
7. In the boardroom, who will Mr. Trump say has "great style"?
10 Theresa correct
8. In the boardroom, who will be referred to as a "comedian"?
10 Lenny correct
9. How many additional people back to the final boardroom? 10 Two correct
10. Which candidate will be fired?
10 Lenny incorrect Theresa
That's how i did this time. (as if u care) there's no prize for best guess other that rank on a website. that and being interactive with the show for what ever marketing purposes the make us a part of.
Bottom line is: this round the right team won and the right person was RIF'ed (reduction in force) That's PC for YOU'RE FIRED.
Peace
CSDJ
3 - Dynamo of Eternia
Jackie,
You said, "Bryce, barely seen in the last two episodes, agreed with Lenny and was quite outspoken about both Dan and Lee."
I saw the episode last night, and maybe I missed something, but I don't recall Bryce truely complaining or blaiming Dan and Lee for not being there. I do recall him saying that he had a bad feeling out them not being there, since they are both very talented people. That seemed to be more like a concern for the team overall (and on some level actually a compliment towards those two guys) rather than a complaint about them.
I don't specifically recall Bryce making any kind of significant complaints or comments about them at all beyond that, and he ended up just having more of a problem with Lenny over the whole generator issue. Did I miss something and maybe Bryce was more mad towards them not being there? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, so much was going on that he could have complained more and it went right past me.
I don't blame Dan and Lee for leaving for religious purposes. I respect people's right to worship as they choose, and there were plenty of people left to accomplish the task. But still, I can't help but wonder how something like that would have gone over if it was later in the season and the only had a small few people left on their team. I respect their right to worship, but on some level I see Lenny's point, though I do think he took his point too far and just couldn't let it go. They still had plenty of people left on their team to accomplish this task successfully, so Lenny really should have just learned to deal with it and focus on what needed to be done. He has issues with letting things go.
I was surprised that Tarek didn't mention that he originally wanted to put astro-turf down for the golf course while in the board room. Everyone was giving him so much crap over the conditions of the golf field, which there wasn't much he could have done about that in the amount of time they had short of putting down something like astro-turf. Theresa told him no for that, and therefore the fault lies on her shoulders. Granted, she's the one who was fired and Tarek stayed, but they really gave him a hard time over it, and Trump's comment in response to him saying that he will "step it up" didn't seem to show that Trump has much confidence in him. This was the biggest (and pretty much only) blunder that he was specifically getting blamed for this time around, and it wasn't totally his fault. I guess its his own stupid fault for not mentioning it, though.
As far as Brent goes, yeah, he's still kind of a mess. But as I said in my comments in regards to last week's episode, the best thing to do is put him in a position of responsibility (possibly as team manager) and let him sink or swim on his own. From the looks of things, he will more than likely sink, but you never know.
I can understand why his teammates may not like him, but when they were doing the whole shark tank thing, I really felt comments like, "it would be nice if he were to get chewed up by a shark" and things of that nature were just mean and uncalled for. Okay, you don't like the guy. It's one thing for you to hope he gets fired, but wishing physical harm upon him is rather out of line, particularly for people like these who are supposed to be such great professionals.
Frankly they are acting like a bunch of high school kids who sit at the popular table and feel the need to constantly pick on the less popular 'dorky' kid. For successful, professional people, they really need to grow up.
4 - Rodney Welch
Trump is just itching to nail Brent and Tarek. Especially Brent -- I mean, he tears into him at the morning meeting, calling him a disaster. It's like he wants to sink the guy's morale before he even starts. Trump's thinking: Please screw up, Brent. Make it easy for me.
And the cameras are against him, too. All those shots of him eating. I got the feeling he was being set up for a boardroom blowout.
5 - ClubStyleDJ
Agreed with itching to nail B & T
Agreed with dorky kid's table
Being a former picked on/"fat kid"
I love the quote from P'control by Prince...
"She got beat 4 some clothes and her rep
With her chin up, she scolded "All y'all's molded
When I'm rich, on your neck I will step"
And step she did 2 the straight A's
Then college, the master degree"
She hired the heifers that jumped her
And made everyone of them work 4 free.
CSDJ
6 - Jackie
Brent - Had they researched Kahaney at all, they would know her schtick is often off color. Of course, I'm still confused with all they had there - horsedrawn wagon, golf, models, comedian -- all over the place.
I was thinking ... how would I handle the task? Hmmm...
7 - Jackie
ClubStyle - Here's fine! I always like show talk! I think you're right about them starting early on campaigning against some. That can backfire.
The questions on the fantasy game were interesting, as well as your original preshow answers!
8 - Jackie
Dynamo - I didn't tape it, but at one moment near the announcement that they were leaving, I believe he was talking to Lenny and was pretty firmly against them going. Of course, then he had his own brouhaha with Lenny, so I'm sure he wanted him out more than them.
9 - Jackie
Rodney - I think we're seeing a lot of creative editing with Brent. They've made him even more of a character than he already is.