There are only seven contestants left in this season of The Celebrity Apprentice. Which celebs will Trump fire next? Let’s get to it.
After the boardroom, there’s still palpable tension between Kenya and Vivica. But Kenya insists that Team Vortex was on a losing streak before she joined. Even if they keep losing, she has to find a way to win in the boardroom.
The First Task
The Trumps meet the celebs at the International Center of Photography with executives from King’s Hawaiian baked goods. Their task is to create a King’s Hawaiian photo bomb campaign using pictures they take around New York City with strategically photoshopped images of the product. They also have to use original hashtags to go with the photos so customers can interact with the campaign on social media. They will be judged on creativity, originality and brand messaging.
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Team Vortex
Kenya’s quick to volunteer as project manager again. She starts off their team meeting discussing the previous night’s boardroom. She says she knows a lot of things were said, but she just wants to start with a clean slate. Vivica agrees, but in her confessional she says she doesn’t trust Kenya so she’ll keep an eye on her.
Kenya then pitches the idea of using tall, thin models and superimposing pictures of the buns onto their behinds with the slogan “I Like Big Buns.” She also wants to have a baby grabbing for “buns” saying “Baby Wants Buns.” Geraldo likes the first idea but isn’t crazy about the baby idea. He thinks the executives will either love it or hate it.
While they’re shooting their photos, Kenya makes it clear that she wants tall and thin models, not Vivica. Vivica says her ego has never been more insulted than it has been when working with Kenya. So Vivica is relegated to Kenya’s assistant, holding her coat and only appearing in a shot that her face isn’t in. Geraldo also wants to make sure they get a good shot of Kenya’s butt. It’s obviously something he’s quite impressed by. He’s such a creep.
Back in the war room, Vivica loses her phone. She gets a little scattered, and Kenya notices and rolls her eyes. Geraldo suggests that they don’t use the buns photoshopped over the behinds, but instead just place the products in their hands. It’s definitely a good suggestion, but the concept is still risque.
At the presentation, it’s hard to read the executives, but the female King’s Hawaiian exec does not look impressed. Don Jr. also seems a little offended by the #BabiesLuvBuns. Both Vivica and Kenya are ready to take each other down if they’re the losing team.
Team Infinity
Johnny Damon steps up as project manager so he can raise more money for his foundation. Right away, Ian starts coming up with one bad slogan after another. But they decide to go with Brandi’s slogan idea, which is “King’s Hawaiian: We Rise to the Occasion.” Ian thinks it would be a good idea to get a helicopter to take photos of the skyline, and that’s actually one of his ideas they agree to go with.
Johnny and Ian go up in the helicopter to get shots of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and of one skyscraper still under construction. Ian wants to make that look like it’s being built of bread. It really seems like Johnny is PM in name only. It’s clearly Ian’s creative vision.
Leeza suggests photoshopping a picture of her and Brandi into one of the shots to make it look like they’re holding onto a loaf of bread like a balloon. She also really wants to push brand integration into the hashtags because she knows that’s something they could get in trouble for if they don’t include it.
At the presentation, Johnny introduces their campaign and then turns it over to Leeza, who is great at public speaking. The pictures are cute and fun, and it seems like the executives respond to it way better than Team Vortex’s.
Boardroom
Johnny says the star of his team is Leeza. Trump is impressed by her and tells her that her “stock is rising.” Ian and Leeza think Johnny was a great project manager.
Kenya says her star was Geraldo. Surprisingly enough, she doesn’t have a lot of great things to say about Vivica. Vivica says she did everything Kenya asked her to do, but she still felt underutilized and left out.
The executives loved the photo bombs from Johnny’s team. They thought they really complimented the brand by placing the product in an iconic way throughout the city. The did not like that their hashtags were vague and did not resonate with the brand.
The executives thought Kenya’s team was articulate and they thought it had a great viral characteristic that could appeal to a younger generation. But it wasn’t family friendly and they really hated the baby shot.
Team Infinity wins again by a landslide. Johnny gets money for the Johnny Damon Foundation.
That’s five losses in a row for Team Vortex. Vivica says that the responsibility lays with the project manager since it was her creative element. Geraldo says that’s true, but at least Kenya really hustled while he’s not really sure what Vivica did.
Then Kenya and Vivica start bickering. The fight devolves into an argument over who Geraldo thinks has a better ass. Then Kenya brings up how Vivica is menopausal, something she tweeted about a day or so ago. Vivica maintains that she did not tweet that and Kenya must have stolen her phone to tweet it. She calls Kenya a “dirty ass bitch” and a “toxic trick” and Kenya responds by calling her ghetto.
Trump asks if Vivica tweeted that and she says no. But Kenya won’t admit to stealing the phone either. Kenya says this is all ridiculous because she is not about taking it to this disgusting level; this should be about her performance. Trump agrees and says that the executives hated her creative. Kenya can’t talk her way out of this one. Trump gives her the ax.
Vivica is a bad sport when Kenya tries to wish her well. She gives her the hand and tells her to bounce. Trump should have fired her right then and there as well.
The Second Task
The next day, they all head over to the B.B. King Blues Club to hear about their next task. Executive Megan from Anheuser-Busch tells them they have to create a jingle for their Bud Light Rita drinks. They’ll present their jingles to her, Eric Trump and Joan Rivers, but Megan is the one with the final say. They’ll be provided with a sound engineer, a recording studio, musicians and singers and will be judged on creativity, entertainment value and brand messaging. The winning project manager will get $100,000 for their charity.
Before they split off, Trump sends Leeza over to work with the decimated Team Vortex. Somehow, I suspect that this arrangement will work a lot better with Leeza than it did with Kenya.
Team Infinity
Brandi takes the lead on this one and she wants to come up with an original song and lyrics. Ian starts things off sour by getting angry at Johnny for brainstorming too loud. He secludes himself to write a jingle to the tune of “La Cucaracha,” which is just so lame. What’s even more lame is that he doesn’t have an ounce of awareness. He claims to have come up with the music on his own when everyone knows it’s been around forever.
Brandi knows they can’t use his stupid jingle, and she likes the one Johnny wrote, but she isn’t being assertive enough with Ian. She lets the musicians try things out with both jingles, which is just a waste of time.
Then Ian starts pouting when he realizes they’re using Johnny’s jingle and not his. He asks Brandi if he should work on the graphics, and when she tells him to hang tight, he snaps at her to “come on and lead, follow, or get out of the way.” Brandi tells him he needs to stop being so condescending. He tells her to delegate something to him and Brandi says that she needs him to “sit down and shut the f*** up,” which he’s not even doing.
At their presentation, none of the three team members look comfortable on stage. Johnny’s song is creative and fun, but there are a lot of words for a 30-second song. And nothing that really sticks.
Team Vortex
Leeza’s the only one who hasn’t been project manager twice, so she steps up. Right away, she knows that Geraldo’s ideas have not been bringing the team victories, so she knows she has to rein him in.
Of course, she’s right; he comes up with overly-sexualized lyrics to something completely arrhythmic. Instead, she and Vivica brainstorm “Go, Go, Go Lime-A-Rita,” which is admittedly catchy. Geraldo does come up with the lyric “nice over ice” that Leeza decides to go with.
Once they have Geraldo on board, the jingle process goes well. Vivica is impressed with how Leeza handled Geraldo and she’s confident with their song.
The presentation goes well and they manage to mention all of the products in the song as well as nail the hook. The judges seem to like it, but you never know.
Boardroom
Leeza is confident that they won this one and Geraldo says they couldn’t have done it without her.
Brandi thinks they did a good job too, but she butted heads with Ian. She says that he had a strong opinion, and when they went in a different direction he totally shut down. There’s an embarrassing moment when Johnny fails to sing a line from his own jingle. Trump says that’s probably a bad sign. And Ian says he isn’t confident, but he would be if they had gone with his jingle idea.
The executives said that they liked how Brandi’s team mentioned all of the flavors and emphasized that it was nice to drink in summer. But they didn’t say how it was “all new” and they used the word “senorita,” which they thought was exclusive to half of their demographic.
On the other hand, they loved Leeza’s slogan and catchy song that was informative. There really were no negatives, so Leeza wins another $100,000 for her charity, Leeza’s Care Connection.
Brandi doesn’t know where it went wrong, they tried their best and they didn’t win, but she says Johnny shouldn’t be fired. It should be Ian because he’s hard to work with and he’s disrespectful.
Ian insists that his jingle would have gotten them the win. Trump asks him to sing his jingle, so he does. Trump immediately calls him out for ripping off “La Cucaracha.” He says they wouldn’t have been able to use it, so it’s garbage. Ian tried to defend himself by saying that that music was “just the frame” for his jingle, but he’s talking himself in nonsensical circles.
Trump can’t get past the fact that he was so smug about copying music that’s been around his whole life, so he fires Ian (who is shocked, of course).
He tells Brandi and Johnny to sit back down because he’s going to fire someone else.
Brandi doesn’t want to go home, but she can’t blame Johnny for getting the task wrong because she was the project manager. Johnny takes responsibility for writing the jingle that lost, but he doesn’t want to go home either. And no amount of prodding from Trump gets these two buddies to turn on each other.
So Trump fires them both. Are you kidding me? Trump just fired three people who came off of five wins in a row to leave Vivica, Geraldo and Leeza in the final three. What a joke. I feel like this move completely takes away any legitimacy that this show might have had before. Well, at least it seems like Leeza’s got this one in the bag. I’m not even sure if the rest is worth watching.
I’ll be back next time anyway when Trump will narrow the final three down to two.
The Celebrity Apprentice airs Mondays at 8pm on NBC.
(Image courtesy of NBC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
