The Apprentice Episode 5: Trading Places

You know, I'm kind of starting to get into this theme music. “So you wanna be the next big thi-iiinggg...” It's pretty catchy. I must be losing my mind.

Nick and Kwame are greeted by members of both teams back at the suite, all of whom are truly in disbelief that Team Versa Corp has lost four straight contests. However, Team Versa Corp is in good spirits, and they are trying their hardest to also build up each other's spirits before everyone goes to bed for the evening. Before we transition to the next day, Nick tells the camera that Donald Trump told him he was going to be the Project Manager for the next task.

The day breaks, and Donald Trump brings both teams into the boardroom. He first announces that George, his associate, will be replaced this week by a guy named Bernie Diamond because George is on a “big, important business trip.” Bernie has “very good taste.” After introducing Bernie, he drops a bomb – he will be performing a “corporate reshuffle” of the teams. “When things [in business] aren't working well, you reshuffle – you mix them up,” says the Donald. I am definitely losing my mind, because I was convinced for a few minutes that reshuffle was a word Trump made up until I Googled it and realized it is clearly a word. Pray for me.

My face as I realize "reshuffle" is definitely a word.

Trump announces that Nick and Kristi will be the two project managers, and, in essence, will be the captains in a draft for two new teams. Nick gets to choose first, is told he must select a woman, and he selects Amy. Kristi then selects Troy. In the end, Team Versa Corp ends up with a team consisting of Nick, Amy, Bill, Ereka, Katrina and Tammy. Team Protege ends up with Kristi, Troy, Kwame, Jessie, Heidi and Omarosa. Trump reveals the task after the teams are selected, and it is a fairly simple one – the teams will be given one thousand dollars to buy things to resell at a flea market. Whoever makes more money wins. 

Kristi.

Team Versa Corp decides to sell women's clothes that they will make themselves. They scour fabric supply stores in Manhattan for materials. Nick is basically letting the four women on the team select all of the materials and decide what clothes they would like to make. Tammy says that she predicts this will shine poorly upon Nick while he has the chance to be a leader, and she makes the extremely bold prediction that this will get him fired. That seems kind of ridiculous to me, especially considering that no team in any competition so far has stuck to their initial plan. Perhaps the new teams will be more organized and steadfast in their plans.

Team Protege (aka Protege Corporation, apparently) is really struggling to figure out what products they can buy in bulk in New York City. Jessie asks if they can buy dirt, kind of as a joke, but when Troy says that they can, she comes up with an idea to sell pots filled with dirt and a pre-planted seed. Troy has lots of ideas that build off of this seed (ha ha ha), such as a sandbox they can sell with gold in it. I guess he believes that children could buy it and dig for the gold. Jessie says that Troy is good at brainstorming but bad with actual ideas, which seems accurate. She actually starts to look very uncomfortable as Troy rambles on.

The Trump “black-screen segment,” as I'll call it, of this episode is called “Stand Up For Yourself,” in which we get a close-up ten-second video of our then-future President rambling on about how you need to stand up for yourself to be successful in business. I don't know if I've been completely clear about how this has been a recurring segment in every episode thus far. At a random point, about ten minutes in, the show will cut to black, and we will get a short statement in quotation marks on the screen which is presumably a quote attributed to Trump. He will then ramble for a short while, on a twenty thousand dollar couch in his stupid apartment, about whatever the topic is at hand. It's kind of amazing. I'll be sure to summarize it in all future episodes.

Team Protege then goes to a flea market to investigate what kind of products are selling well. I don't believe it is the flea market where they will sell their products for the competition. It looks like it's just a random area in Chinatown. Heidi gets extremely negative at this point. She seems very flustered by this flea market. There is nothing there that she would want to sell. Kristi decides that it would be best at this point for the team to split up and try to find products to sell. Both factions of the team head off to different parts of Chinatown to hunt down some products.

Random stock photo of a flea market in Manhattan that I found. Close enough.

We cut to Nick and Katrina, who are walking along and spontaneously decide to dumpster dive. Nick comes out with a wire rack on wheels and Katrina has a bunch of bags. I really have no idea what they got out of the dumpster, but when they return to Trump Tower and Team Versa Corp with their goods, everyone seems very excited.

Kwame, Kristi and Omarosa are in a tchotchke shop in Chinatown, trying to find things they think they would be able to sell. The other half of Team Protege calls them and gives an ultimatum of sorts; they need to find a product now. They can't wait any longer. It's 7:00 pm. It becomes clear at this point that Kristi is really struggling as leader. She is not making any decisions and is showing no strength. She's simply deferring to her team for everything. She states at this point that she “doesn't want to be a dictator,” but a team full of people vying to be a “project manager” for Trump needs to be driven by a single voice, or else everyone will just argue and nothing will get done.

It is the next day and we are inside the flea market. Team Protege is starting out strong. Kwame and Jessie are selling a bunch of random junk at the indoor booth. It is raining heavily outside. They do a lot of sales very quickly. Team Versa Corp is outside, in the rain, and Amy, Bill, and Katrina are trying their hardest not to get soaked under their tent. No one is walking by. They appear to have made a pretty significant number of women's clothes, and while they say that it didn't cost them much, they quickly realize they need to move all of that inventory to actually turn a profit and win the competition.

Heidi and Kristi are in another indoor booth, away from Kwame and Jessie. No one is walking by their booth. Heidi is again getting very flustered and negative. She asks Kristi what they should do, and Kristi just decides to basically do nothing. Troy and Omarosa are pacing nearby, and all four of them are getting brought down by each other's negativity. Finally, Omarosa makes the executive decision to move outside. Heidi follows her. Together, they pull all of their merchandise outside and change their position.

Team Versa Corp's sales are starting to pick up as the weather gets nicer. They appear to be selling plenty of clothes. Nick is getting a lot of praise from his teammates for being a good leader. At the same time, however, Team Protege's sales begin to pick up as well. The sun is out at this point and there is a lot of foot traffic. All kinds of stuff is flying out of both of their booths. There is less than an hour left in the day. Both teams are discounting items to sell quicker. Bill remarks to the camera that “if someone wanted to buy the tablecloth we would sell it.” Team Versa Corp actually sells out their entire inventory. Protege comes close.

The teams go back to Trump Tower to count up their receipts. Omarosa was in charge of the finances for Team Protege, apparently. She tells the camera she always “accounts for every penny.” Well, apparently not this time, O, because it is revealed at this point that Team Protege lost $186! They literally just lost $186 worth of paper currency somehow. Omarosa thinks someone pocketed this money without realizing it. However, everyone has emptied their pockets and no one has any extra money on them. Where the money went remains a mystery.

Did O pocket the money??? What a strange scenario.

The teams both enter the board room with Mr. Trump, Carolyn and Bernie. Carolyn announces that Team Versa Corp had a profit of over six hundred dollars. Bernie announces that Team Protege LOST $75.78 due to their “brilliant” plan to divide themselves up without first establishing a direction. Trump is visibly upset at Kristi's lack of leadership. Team Versa Corp's prize for winning is a trip to Yankee Stadium to meet George Steinbrenner.

In the wake of her team's loss, Kristi is falling apart. She is sobbing in front of her entire team. She holds herself fully responsible for the result of a net loss of money. Heidi is also getting more and more angry by the minute. She is pissed off at their lack of leadership and pissed off at how Kristi is best friends with Jessie and would never even consider taking Jessie to the boardroom. Heidi thinks that she and Omarosa are likely going to be taken to the boardroom. My best guess would be that, yes, Omarosa will definitely go with Kristi. I do not know who the third person will be, however. I don't think Heidi deserves to go, she did nothing wrong, but her lack of professionalism in handling their team's loss isn't going to sit well with Donald Trump or her team. Overall, I believe that Kristi is fully to blame for the loss, and I hope that Donald can see that.

Team Versa Corp arrives at Yankee Stadium with Donald Trump. He leads them into Steinbrenner's office and the first words I hear are “I love you” followed by “I love you too.” I can't see Trump's or Steinbrenner's mouths, but I think they just said this to each other instead of saying hello. That is definitely not what I was expecting. Steinbrenner gives them a little pep talk, which is going pretty routinely, until Tammy says to George, “You've got some serious bling on your hands, what's going on there?” as if she has no idea what a World Series ring looks like. Also she just said bling to a ninety year old man. He sort of chuckles, and the rest of the team just cringes. Trump looks very amused by her comment.

Young Trump, probably one of the Trump kids, and Steinbrenner enjoying a Yankees game a million years ago.

I have to admit, I openly hate the Yankees, but it is really cool to see the tour of the old Yankee Stadium that follows their chat.

“Mr. Steinbrenner guaranteed a victory when he bought the Yankees, and I guaranteed a victory yesterday. So I'm feeling pretty good,” says Nick. This guy cracks me up.

Kristi and Jessie are strolling through Central Park and discussing what Kristi will say to Mr. Trump in the boardroom. Jessie says that Kristi should say as little as possible and not let the others' negativity get to her until Donald addresses her. Kristi seems to take that to heart. Let's see if this strategy pays off for her.

Team Protege enters the boardroom. Trump starts off immediately addressing Kristi. She says she tried to lead by “group consensus.” The whole team seems to agree with each other that it was just bad leadership. It is at this point that Bernie reveals that the team lost money. Trump didn't know this, apparently. He can't believe that they lost the money. He figures out that Omarosa was in charge of the finances and he interrogates her over this loss. She twists the blame back at Kristi. Trump then goes down the line, and every single person on the team blames Kristi for the loss. This will probably make it hard for Kristi, because she can't just pick two people who didn't like how she performed. In the end, she selects Omarosa and Heidi to go with her, as Heidi suspected.

Trump calls Kristi, Omarosa, and Heidi back into the boardroom. He tells Kristi she did poorly, but he still likes her potential. He calls Heidi over-aggressive, but then says that he knows plenty of people who are over-aggressive and that it is what makes them successful. He then gets to Omarosa, and kind of pretends to fire her, as a weird joke. At this point, he calls Kristi out for not speaking up in the boardroom, for not “fighting for herself,” and therefore, he fires her. Jessie telling her to be quiet in the boardroom looks an awful lot like backstabbing in retrospect. But in the end it was Kristi's decision to be quiet. Goodbye Kristi.