The Celebrity Apprentice – Week 9 – Discussion and Recap (UPDATED)

Paul Teutul, Sr. was fired from Celebrity Apprentice

Puppet Up!

Last week: Aubrey and Arsenio clashed. Lisa begrudging noted Dayana’s ability to manage. Clay and Arsenio settled into a bromance. Aubrey was called out by Ivanka. Dayana and Lisa threw Lou under the bus.

After the Boardroom: Lisa and Clay tussle over Lou’s firing. Clay can’t decide whether Lisa’s nasty attitude is the result of losing, or whether losing is a result of her attitude. Aubrey hopes that Clay and Arsenio will be split up on the next task.

Teresa meets with Matthew, a little boy with kidney disease that she’s been trying to raise money for. She hands him a check for $60,000 for The NephCure Foundation. Matthew’s father explains that this will make a big difference.

At F.A.O. Schwartz, Trump toys with Forte a little before placing Clay on their team. He then announces the next task: To give an adult puppet show performance. The teams will be judged by Patrick Bristow and Brian Henson (son of Jim Henson), who are plugging their live puppet improv show, Stuffed and Unstrung. The criteria for judging will be puppet design, overall quality of the puppetry and improv work, and total live performance.

Lisa steps up as the Project Manager of Forte because she’s yet to win any money for her charity. Paul steps up for Unanimous because no one else will. The winner will get $40,000.

Clay mentions that he’s done puppetry in his church. Dayana tells her team that she’s been doing improv for about a year and a half and would like to play a puppet. Lisa finds the idea of Dayana performing an insult, since Lisa’s been doing comedy for 20 years. She tells her team that she hopes they can get through the task without fighting. She then proceeds with her usual strategy of abusing, denigrating, and sidelining Dayana as much as possible.

On team Unanimous, Aubrey is peeved that she can’t step up and take over, since Ivanka called her out last week. She struggles throughout the task with being a “team player.” Meanwhile, Paul’s back has gone out, and he’s physically unable to more than sit, delegate, and give encouragement. Aubrey takes on the role of host, while Arsenio and Teresa will play puppet characters. Arsenio comments that Aubrey has stepped back and become a great team player — which was the only thing he ever wanted from her.

Team Forte has a meeting with Brian and Patrick. It turns out that Penn is too tall to work effectively with the puppets, so Lisa gives him the host role. She and Clay will be the puppets. Lisa assigns Dayana to puppet design. Dayana is upset, but there’s nothing she can do. Except make fun of Lisa telling Trump in the Boardroom that Dayana didn’t do anything… again.

Clay and Lisa take lessons from puppet and improv coaches. Clay finds it challenging to get the basics down, but he has a good rapport with Lisa. Eric shows up and notices that Dayana is quiet. He think she might be uncomfortable being on Lisa’s team. Penn observes that Dayana is great at designing Lisa’s puppet. The puppeteers praise her and say they’d hire her to do puppets in a minute. He ruefully notes that he has had zero job offers that day.

Aubrey suggests giving Arsenio’s puppet a mohawk, which inspires him to make a “rocker” character named Perry Winkle (the color of the puppet). Teresa dithers about naming her puppet, and keeps piling more and more stuff onto it until it’s a bit of a mess. When Unanimous has their coaching session, Teresa has great difficulty coordinating her speech with her puppet movements. The puppeteers painstakingly put her through one exercise after another. The improv coaches emphasize the importance of saying “yes.” Aubrey decides that Teresa is tacky and Paul is lazy. It’s up to her to save her team!

When Ivanka checks in on Unanimous, Arsenio explains that Paul’s back is hurting. Ivanka is sympathetic. She remarks that Aubrey is quiet — afraid to say anything. Aubrey agrees with Ivanka. Ivanka observes that Aubrey will need to strike a balance between deferring to her PM, and contributing to the task.

Before the show, Clay suggests having Dayana help during the show by handling props. Lisa immediately blows up, accusing Dayana of demanding to be used onstage. Clay urges Lisa to be more upbeat, and Lisa starts crying. She then screams at Dayana for doing a task (puppet design) that anyone could have done. Dayana finally leaves in tears. Lisa then yells at Clay and Penn for not stepping in to “handle” Dayana.

Penn goes outside to find Dayana. She vents to him about Lisa, and he listens quietly. In a voice-over, he says that he’s found that upset people often need to talk. “Sometimes not trying to solve things is the best to solve things. ” Dayana calms down and follows him back into the theater.

Finally the shows start! Penn gets the audience pumped up. Clay is very quiet. Lisa is funny, but she’s not as animated as Clay is. They do three sketches. The third one involves improving with props, which Clay and Lisa turn into sex toys. Lisa notes that Penn was a little slow to call an end to one of the sketches.

Unanimous starts their performance. In their second sketch, Teresa immediately stumbles and says, “no” to her puppet partner. Aubrey reminds us that Teresa just broke a “cardinal rule.” Teresa gets better in the prop sketch. By the end, the audience is laughing and applauding. Aubrey praises herself for her skill in ending the comic sketches on a high note.

Eric consults with Brian and Patrick about the performances. As usual, time runs out just before they can pick a winner.

The Chief Chocolate Officer has nothing useful to tell us this week, so she just complains about puppets. Really, Ms. Brown? You’re going to go there, wearing that candy-shell look?

Trump is as grumpy as always. He stirs up a little bad blood between Dayana and Lisa before asking Lisa who she’ll bring back. Lisa starts crying again, saying she’s a comedian and wants to make people happy. Trump commends her on her emotion, then asks Penn if you need a tough side as a comedian. Penn says it’s the opposite, that you need to face fear and remain open.

Trump turns to Unanimous. Paul admits that he doesn’t know anything about puppets. He names Teresa as his weakest player, because it takes her a long time to make up her mind. Ivanka points out that Teresa named her daughter after Trump’s current wife. “How can I fire her?” the Donald muses.

The Trumplings deliver the judges’ feedback. Eric reports that Penn was magic, Clay and Lisa were great, and the judges loved Dayana’s puppet. Penn did miss a couple of cues and the last sketch was too sexual.

Ivanka reports that Brian and Patrick called Arsenio’s puppetry excellent. Aubrey had great instincts and timing. The show was a little on the safe side and the puppets were too complex. Teresa had trouble with the rules of improv.

Final result: Forte wins. Lisa gets $40,000 for her charity, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Lisa says she can finally show her face around the gay community.

As Forte celebrates, we go back into the Boardroom. Paul is confused by the concept of the complex puppets. Arsenio admits that he might have boxed himself into the rocker character. They discuss this so grimly! It’s puppets, people!

Trump asks Paul to send one person to the suite (and safety). Paul chooses Arsenio, as the most valuable and versatile player moving forward.

When Paul, Aubrey, and Teresa return to the Boardroom, Ivanka points out that Arsenio’s puppet was the big problem. That wasn’t very clear before. After a few minutes, Trump gives up trying to get his minions to fight and fires Paul for protecting Arsenio.

In the town car, Paul says he’s usually the guy doing the firing. He’s been humbled before and finds nothing wrong with that. He calls the experience an honor, but all things come to an end.

***

Next week, the celebrities have to launch Trump’s new cologne. Lisa cheats (probably by spying on the other team) and we get another big fight between Arsenio and Aubrey.

What did you think about the show? Has Aubrey turned over a new leaf? Did Donald fire the right person? Sound off below!