Tonight’s Episode: “ARE YOU MY ZULU DANCING MAN?” – When tasked with creating an interactive travel expo for South Africa Tourism, the All-Stars find a former competitor now on the other side of the boardroom table. Down in numbers, one team tries to get the task done with a lame teammate, while the other team’s project manager drops the reigns and their concept gets out of control. Boardroom Advisors: Bret Michaels and George Ross.
Who will be fired tonight from Celebrity Apprentice? Discuss the show here, and later, read Montavilla’s recap.
Brande Roderick’s team lost the challenge. She brought Trace Adkins and Marilu Henner to the board room.
Brande Roderick is fired.
Are You My Zulu Dancing Man?
Trace delivers a second check to the Red Cross at the staging area for Hurricane Sandy relief. The sheer size of the operation is more impressive than anything Donald Trump has ever bragged about. There are dozens and dozens of vans being loaded with supplies. So far, Trace has delivered over $700,000 to the Red Cross and hopes to bring more.
As it turns out, the promos showing Bret Michaels returning are a little misleading. Rather than talking his way back into the game, he walks in with George as one of Trump’s advisers.
Trump explains that Trump Tower is a special place and so is South Africa. Therefore, the task this week is to create an interactive expo promoting South African travel. (I think that, instead of firing a celebrity this week, Trump should fire his writers.)
Penn, as the only person on Plan B to never visit South Africa, takes the lead for his team. As the only person on Team Power who has been to South Africa, Little Jon lets Brande play project manager. The teams flip a coin (unfortunately not one of Penn’s two-sided coins) to determine that Team Power will present the Adventure package, while Plan-B gets stuck with the Romance package.
Team Power is weirded out that none of the five adventure experiences include a safari. The South Africans explain that they wanted to highlight something less obvious. The closest experience to a safari is something called “Glamping,” which is high-luxury camping. Trace thinks it’s for sissies. (I think it explains why Adam Lambert sold out an 18,000 seat stadium in South Africa.)
Meanwhile, Lisa reads through the Romance brief. It highlights wine, culture, and something called “bush massages,” which ignites naughty thoughts in Gary’s brain. When the executives show up, Gary tells them that he once filmed a movie in South Africa. “They put us up in Johannesburg,” he says, his voice basking in nostalgia. “At night, I could hear people being murdered.” The looks on their faces are priceless.
That is to be Gary’s main contribution to the task. He’s useless at finding alcohol, food, or entertainment. Penn comments that he is essentially on a two-person team. Lisa likens it to working with a three-year-old. She also realizes, when Penn not only locates Zulu dancers, but manages to hire Paul Simon’s drummer and a five-star chef, that he’s a formidable opponent in this game.
For his part, Trace becomes more and more embarrassed with each new development on Team Power. He even hates the slogan he comes up with: You + South African = Adventure. “You polish your turd and I’ll polish my turd and we’ll both end up with shiny [bleep],” Trace says. “That ought to be a song.”
When George visits Plan B, Gary tell his people-being-murdered story again. George says the country’s changed since then. “Don’t mention murder in Johannesburg!” Penn begs Gary afterwards.
The next day, the South African representatives show up with about a dozen travel agents. Brande serves them authentic South African tea. Trace describes the golfing in South Africa, Marilu straps Bret into a chair to simulate a zipline. Little Jon guides people into a large shark tank, where they are taunted by a man in a shark suit. Brande invites the executives to a massage to demonstrate the virtues of Glamping. She is confident that everyone enjoyed their experiences and is especially proud because she created a pamphlet describing all five adventures.
In Plan B’s room, Penn delivers a talk about South Africa and its many romantic pleasures. There is another masseuse, plus food, wine, music, and dancing. Lisa is pleased that her team covered all five senses in their presentation. Penn brags that all the guests had a great experience.
We cut to the Board Room, where Brande is proud of her team’s strong presentation. It was a tough task with a lot of moving parts. She reminds Trump that she and Little Jon are the last two members of the original Team Power. Trump’s main question is whether Brande was a good leader or a stressed-out bitch. Bret wonders if the team lost focus from sweating out the details.
The main take-away from Trump’s grilling of Plan B is that Penn has never had a drink in his life. Surprisingly, neither has Donald Trump.
When asked about the task, Gary goes into a long monologue about Africa and women and moonlight. Trump calls it poetic and it is, but it has nothing to do with the question. We then get a little wrangle when Gary tries to claim credit for hiring the Zulu dancers.
George was impressed by the atmosphere of Plan B’s presentation. With the food, wine, music and dancing, he felt like he was experiencing South Africa…
Trump interrupts with a rambling monologue about how George has sold real estate and seen it all. Which has nothing to do with anything on this episode, but I guess Trump thought we should know that.
…George continues. Plan B’s presentation transported the executives to South African with authentic food and dancing, appealing to all the senses. The negatives were that they didn’t offer enough information for the travel agents to sell South African vacations, or present specific experiences. Bret tells Team Power that they went above and beyond their task. Their pamphlet was stellar. However, their experiences weren’t unique and the presentation was juvenile. Plan B wins, giving Penn his second check for Opportunity Village.
Trump asks Little Jon to explain his team’s loss. Little Jon thinks they had the harder task, trying to fulfill the “adventure theme.” Trump points out that Little Jon himself picked that theme. He also points out to Bret that the team Bret picked is full of losers. Bret agrees that he screwed up royally.
Nevertheless, Brande feels loyalty to Little Jon and sends him to safety, leaving Marilu, Trace, and herself to face Trump’s wrath. Trump as much as says he’ll fire LIttle Jon if Brande will change her mind, but she refuses.
Waiting in the lobby, Brande’s only regret is that she never won any money for her charity, Promises 2 Kids. “I wasted a [bleep] load of money,” she mutters. Trace, who benefited from her rolodex in the first task, feels her pain.
As they wait, Trump consults with George and Bret. George thinks it’s going to be a tough decision. Bret thinks the buck stops with the Project Manager.
Once Team Power is back, Trump asks Trace what the team didn’t do that it should have. Trace gallantly says they should have thought up a better slogan (which he came up with). He sells that idea so hard that he almost persuades Trump to buy it.
I get it now. This week, the celebrities are playing a new game, called “Whoever Escapes This Show wins.” LIttle Jon tried to win by putting their team’s loss down to the parts of the task he was responsible for. Trace did the same thing by bringing up his mediocre slogan. But Brande has the winning card and she already played it. She is quickly dismissed with a $20,000 tip that Trace guilts Trump into giving her.
Brande hugs it out with Trace and Marilu in the lobby. Marilu sympathetically tells her to go smell her baby’s head. As she is driven back to civilization, Brande thanks Mr. Trump for giving her kids some money. But, as I figure it, she’s still out about a hundred thousand dollars for the experience.
