Apprentice 1/11

[heyang]

I could not believe how poorly Rob performed. He gave up! I think the 'team' pulled together because they had to do something. Their marketing strategy was poor - commuters are just thinking about getting into work mode. They should have passed the flyers out near bridal salons and gotten some of their vendors to pass information.


Sure, Sandy was an advantage. However, Kevin & Ivana recruited Bernadette to help them out. The biggest problem was not having enough traffic.

The diamonds had to be the best reward EVER. Each person got to pick out diamonds worth up to $10,000 (the whole team could spend $50K and there were 5 people on the team.) Wes got something for his wife, Andy got a necklace for his mother and Kelly bought a watch for himself. Sandy chose a necklace and Maria a ring. I hope they let Sandy spend the most since she's the one who really pulled off the task. Based upon Andy's comments, it seems as though Kelly is a bit self centered. It was very sweet of Andy to get something for Mom - I would hope that Mom would give it to his future wife (assuming that they get along).

BTW, I almost wanted the team to lose in order to get rid of Maria. She's done poorly on several tasks and has just gotten lucky.

 

[guinevere]

Do you mean Chris? Chris was the Project Manager who was fired this episode.

I know what you mean about Maria. She is very lucky that the email blast worked without the phone number. Check out Maria's automatic response to stress: every time she's called out on something that's totally her fault (and usually caught lying about), she sits back and blinks her eyes reallyreallyfast. There's a great drinking game in there somewhere!

 

[heyang]

Oops - yes, I meant Chris.

I rewatched the episode and you can see that the phone # was not on the content Maria approved. I think she was also the one who messed up on the printing for the Crest promo which blew the budget. During the QVC task, she claimed to be a wonderful speaker, but was absolutely awful. And who wears stilletto heels for dog washing? I noticed the blinking, too. I wonder if she'd be interested in playing Poker.

 

[guinevere]

I first noticed Maria's blinking tic during the Crest challenge episode (yes, she is the one who blew it big time with the printer). At first I thought she was blinking to keep her makeup from running (if she was getting teary - it works, to an extent), but since then I've noticed that she always does it when she's called out for being in the wrong.

I didn't tape the ep, so I couldn't go back and check the copy - I'm surprised they didn't highlight that she had in fact approved the wrong copy - but I guess since her team won it didn't really matter.

Of the players left, who do you think realistically has a chance to win? There's no way that either Maria or Ivana will win - they may not have been fired yet, but only because there have always been more immediate candidates whenever they've been in the boardroom. Maria has made umpteen mistakes, and Ivana is just mean & petty. Can't see Trump wanting her on the payroll no matter what. Kevin has been in the Boardroom several times and I don't believe he's made the best impression on Trump. To me Wes and Kelly are virtually interchangeable - I hope neither of them win. Sandy didn't really do much of anything until the blast 2 eps, but she kicked butt in the challenge where she was manager, and she basically WAS the project manager for this last ep. I would love to see Sandy and Andy in the final 2 .

 

[Ptichka]

I find I'm not enjoying this Apprentice as much as I did the first one. Too many inter-personal conflicts. Also, Trump's firings seem odd - I couldn't believe it when he fired Pamela while leaving Sandy! Unbelievable! Now, I just hope they get rid of Ivana soon...

 

[heyang]

I wasn't particularly enjoying this season until this week. It's one of the few weeks were the contestants were only operating on a personality conflict level.

I agree that Ivana & Maria will be not be in the final 2. Last week, Trump didn't seem overly impressed with Jen. Not sure how he feels about Sandy, but she did well these last 2 tasks.

As for the men, I think Andy is smart, but he doesn't have enough practical experience for Trump to want him to start off with a big project. However, i could see Trump offering this kids a job somewhere in the organization. Wes & Kelly don't stand out for me either. I do like Kevin, too - he has contributed to problems, but mostly when the PM wasn't clear. He & Wes got blamed for the pricing on the fashion, but the PM chose only him to bring to the boardroom. Kevin was at least proactive about seeking a contractor during the real estate tasks (turned out to not be a good choice, but he was referred to them - not just picking out of the yellow pages) and he was the one who got the wedding consultant to help on the task. He also tried to help Elizabeth and then called her out on her vacillating. I can't remember if Kevin has led a project. His only problem is that he hasn't done anything outstanding, yet.

BTW, the next task is related to Levi's.