Celebrity Apprentice - Episode 5

Episode 5 starts with Omarosa bad mouthing Carol as the apprentices wait to find out whom, of Carol, Jennie, and MariLu, got fired. Oma makes it clear her hate-on for Carol has nothing to do with business: she just doesn’t like her. “Everybody says business isn’t personal, but business is always personal,” she tells the camera. “Carol’s a twit,” she tells the others. When Carol and MariLu are the ones who return from the boardroom, Omarosa is the first one to greet them, giving Carol a hug as Nely rolls her eyes.

We next watch Vince give $50,000, which he earned for project managing Hydra to its most recent win, to his ex-wife for a foundation that raises funds for pancreatic cancer research. Two years ago the disease felled Mitchell Berke, the ex’s 2nd husband and stepfather to Vince’s daughter. Talk about a civilized divorce. Good on both of you.

Cut to the apprentices and Trump’s entourage in the lobby of Macy’s. UFC fighter Tito Ortiz will not be with Hydra this week as he has a prior commitment. Trump tells the women it is their last chance to win a task on their own. If they lose again, the teams will be restructured. He nominates Carol to PM Empressario and the men select Piers to PM Hydra. The teams’ task is to come up with an in-store recycle bin as part of Soles United, an awareness campaign from acrylic shoe company Crocs. People recycle their old Crocs, which will be re-made into new shoes for “people in need around the world.”

The war rooms for this episode are next door to each other, with frosted glass walls that allow people in the office to see shapes passing by out in the hall. Country singer Trace Adkins quickly comes up with a killer slogan – Wear them, Share them. He also hears voices outside the door and quietly alerts the others. Vince sneaks to the door and opens it just in time to see someone slipping back into the Empressario war room (looked like Carol, to me.) Piers and the guys quickly formulate a plan – more of a joke than anything else – to fake a fight between Vince and Piers, have Vince storm out and see if he can’t infiltrate Empressario.

Yeah, I know: the plan sounds like the shoe – a croc. But I’ve overestimated the women. They jump at the chance to add Vince to the team, pushed first to do so by Omarosa. Piers, astonished that the women have fallen for what was intended as a joke, tells the camera, “Donald Trump told the women, I’m going to give you girls one more chance to show the women of America you can do this without the men. And then the first chance they got, they took one of the men. And I think that was a disaster for them because he will see that as a weak and pathetic action.”

MariLu comes up with the slogan “Soles United: Share the love.” Vince insists they use Carol as the spokesperson, Oma comes up with the idea to have the display shaped like a Croc shoe. It’s actually a great idea – you design the shoe/bin to stand upright, on its toe. The strap becomes the receptacle where you place the shoes, you lift the strap and the shoes drop down into the shoe/bin.

Empressario is firing on all cyclinders. Even Oma admits, albeit condescendingly, that Carol is a good PM. Oma is “pleased with her progress.” Things, in fact, are going so well I start to worry that Vince may be pulling a Big Pussy and starting to identify with the Feds. Yo, Vince: no, Empressario will not let you become a woman when this is all over.

Over at Hydra, Piers has again chosen Lennox as the focal point for the campaign. He admits that they’ve been using Lennox as the focus a lot, but reasons that none of the companies know that Lennox has been used in any other campaign. And, hey – who can argue with 4 and 0?

Perhaps tellingly, Hydra, in the form of Trace who is looking like this week’s ass-kicker, considers the issue of the cost of the bin (I hadn’t thought about it till Trace brings it up). They design their bin as a simple cardboard house with a picture of Lennox holding giant Crocs on one wall and underprivileged kids wearing them on the other.

Over at Empressario it is starting to look even more like Vince is going over to the dark side. He tells the camera that Piers should have never wasted a man of his intelligence on being a Sam Giovano.

MariLu picks Vince to accompany her to the business that is fabricating their bin. He steps out into the hallway with the laptop and notes. MariLu, being female, keeps him waiting while she gathers her things. Vince uses the downtime to crumple one of the notes and toss it along the floor to Steven, who is in the hall making phone calls.

Now get this – Steve runs and gets Lennox to pick up the paper because it would compromise Steven’s principles to touch it (evidently allowing Lennox to put his immortal soul at risk isn’t an issue). I know Steve is a born-again Christian, but I never knew about the no-touching-scrap-paper proscription. Is it like pork to Jews and Muslims?

No, it’s the principle of the thing. And it turns out Steven isn’t the only one with moral qualms about spying on the other team (I wrote “women” but “moral qualms about spying on the women” rekindled too much of my guilt from 8th grade): everybody on Hydra but Piers thinks the joke has gone too far.

Cut to Vince in a car with MariLu, on the way to the fabricators in Brooklyn. Oh no – no Vince. Don’t do this; it ends badly for you. Didn’t you watch the Sopranos? Aw, damn. Too late. Vince confesses to MariLu. He thinks he can confess and get Empressario to keep him on as a double agent. Maybe he can pull this off – I’m surprised at how quickly he seems to get MariLu onside. Maybe they can work together to bring Piers down.

Meanwhile Piers lets Ivanka in on what’s up. She thinks it’s hilarious. Piers mentions Steven’s qualms. Steve asks Ivanka how she feels about it. Ivanka, with a come hither smile, says, “I’m sort of into sabotage.” Steve says, “Not sodomy, sabotage.”

Well, not really. But one can dream.

Donald Jr. shows up at the fabricators. Out of MariLu’s hearing, he asks Vinnie point blank, “Is this a sabotage move?” and Vince tells him it is not, he’s playing double agent. Hydra thinks he’s doing their PM’s bidding but he’s double crossing his own team and he wants to help the women get Piers fired.

Bins get made, photos get shot, posters get printed, yadda-yadda. Piers and Steve encounter Nely and Carol doing a photo shoot down the hall. Piers can’t help himself. He asks Nely, “Is Carol going drop them in a green boot?”, letting Nely know he knows the design of the bin.

“You know what you should do?” he asks. “Share the love.” Piers and Steve crack up and scurry back into their office, giggling like schoolgirls.

Nely tells Carol that Hydra knows what their slogan is and they know about the giant green bin, too. The two of course peg Vince as the rat. Carol calls MariLu and tells her, “They know everything.” MariLu, Vince listening beside her, tells Carol, “We’re working with a double agent.” Vince tells MariLu, “You weren’t supposed to tell her that.”

MariLu tells Carol to just keep working and she’ll explain things when they are done at the fabricators. She and Vince agree to just keep working. Back at the office, Omarosa arrives and Carol and Nely take pleasure in telling her that Vince is a rat. Omarosa says she must destroy him. The others agree. Omarosa fires him over the phone. Long time viewers will remember Oma flat out lying to her PM about a phone call in The Apprentice 3 in an effort to sabotage him. Listening to her play the cuckold waxing eloquent about the importance of trust and loyalty is boring.

Empressario make their presentation, with the Donald himself in attendance as well as the Croc execs. Carol delivers the presentation and does so skillfully. Then Trump asks a weird question. “Omarosa, why did you choose Carol for the presentation rather than doing it yourself.”

What’s up? First Trump nominates Carol for PM – a first, now he acts as if Oma’s the PM. And this isn’t the first time he’s sought Omarosa’s opinion on odd elements of the show. Did I miss something? Isn’t Trump engaged?

The guys do their presentation. The suits love slogan and Trace was right about something else – cost per unit is an issue.

Boardroom time. Trump has been briefed on the situation by his kids. He asks Vinnie for his take on what happened. Turns out Vinnie really, really can’t stand Piers. The women win the competition and, for the first time, they get to go upstairs, have a drink and, courtesy of the closed circuit broadcast of the boardroom nanny cam, watch somebody get fired.

And in a way, they are cheated. No one gets fired. It’s looks like Piers was going to get the axe, but Vince says the aggravation of having to work with Piers is too much for his heart condition and resigns. Honest.

Who knew Vince was such a big pussy?