Episode 7: Dupe-Lex

In the current tumultuous political climate, significant media attention is being given to Donald Trump's real estate holdings. I was wondering when one of these challenges would involve real estate. Based on the dumb title, I'm guessing real estate is involved here.

Ten candidates are left. Jesus. This season isn't going to be over any time soon.

Heidi and Omarosa return to the suite from the boardroom. Heidi is furious at Omarosa for saying she was unprofessional back there. In all fairness, it was pretty shitty. Let's see if this impacts their team camaraderie.

The teams are to go meet Trump at Trump Park Avenue at 9:00 am. It looks like a luxurious condo development, currently undergoing renovations. Trump is on site, discussing the “big progress” with one of the job superintendents, and there's a lot of footage of cranes going up and down and freight elevators rising up the side of the building. Based on some light Wikipedia reading, it appears that Trump still owns this development and it remains relatively successful.

He meets with the teams on site, and gives them a small surprise. He demands that they even out their numbers. VersaCorp has seven people, Protege has five. Trump gives Protege the chance to select a person to bring over to their team. They select Amy, which seems very intentional, since it pulls her and Nick apart. Is it just me, or does everything this show does seem ad-hoc and completely improvised? They spent five episodes with uneven team numbers, and now every chance Trump gets, he's going to have them even up? Very inconsistent!

Trump brags a lot about how all these rich people are going to come and buy the condo units when he's done renovating the building, including a thirty-five million dollar asking price for the building's penthouse.

For the challenge, the teams will each be shown apartments in Brooklyn by a realtor. There are a total of two apartments being shown. Each team will purchase one of the apartments and rent that apartment out. The one that gets the highest rent wins. The task is simple, while also making no sense once you think about it logically. First of all, you can't buy property in seventy-two hours. That's actually impossible. So clearly this isn't a realistic scenario. Furthermore, two apartments, even if they are across the street from each other, are going to get vastly different rents depending upon their condition and their size. I'd like to think this show would somehow make this contest fair, but based on my experience so far I seriously doubt it.

Nick is bummed out about Amy leaving his team. I think at the end of his little headshot he said that Amy reminded him of his mom? That's weird, yet somehow adorable.

Katrina and Troy are elected to be the project managers. The two of them take a taxi over to their first apartment, which looks like it's in Carroll Gardens or Park Slope or something on that side of Brooklyn. I guess Williamsburg wasn't cool enough yet in 2004. This apartment is being called “Court Street” by the show. It's pretty dumpy. Very small kitchen, extremely crusty bathroom, and boring hardwood floors.

The second apartment is being called “Third Street” and is way nicer. It's still a little dirty, and has a small kitchen, but the floors were pretty nice. In case you haven't yet figured it out, I like hardwood floors. In spite of my opinions, Troy and Katrina still call this apartment a disaster. However, Katrina admits, in a phone call to her team, that she sees the potential in this property.

Troy gets on the phone with his team and they also decide that they want Third Street. Troy and Katrina are at this point forced to confront each other. Neither person wants to budge. Katrina suggests that they write their potential offers down on a piece of paper and show them to each other at the same time. Katrina writes a serious answer, which is not shown to the viewer. Troy writes “I want what you want.” It's pretty obvious that the two of them are on totally different levels of seriousness.

Katrina calls Troy a “sleazeball.” She is very upset. This whole interaction has resolved absolutely nothing. With no other options left, it literally comes down to a coin toss. Troy wins the coin toss. Katrina is still upset. So, to recap, Troy gets the Third Street apartment and Katrina gets the Court Street apartment. There is a lot of TV magic going on here, since obviously you can't just walk up to a property and buy it, no strings attached. It's unrealistic. There would be other people bidding on these properties. And if Katrina had really wanted Third Street so badly, she could have outbid Troy. Most of this was probably pre-ordained by Trump. Or as I like to say – rigged!

Speaking of unrealistic situations, the teams have two days to renovate the entire apartment. It looks like the teams will be responsible for all of their own labor. We cut to Protege, working overnight, and Omarosa is calling for a meeting every twenty minutes or so. She is accused by her teammates of stalling so that she doesn't have to “get down and dirty,” which is most certainly true.

Now Protege is back in the Trump Tower condo. Heidi is on the phone crying. She's talking to her dad. He reveals to her that her mother has been diagnosed with Stage 1 Colon Cancer. She's completely destroyed. She has to decide whether or not to stick around for the rest of the competition.

Black Screen Moment. “God is in the Details.” That's how Donald capitalized it, not sure if it's right, editors? [note: the editors never answered me] “Many times, you hear the expression that God is in the details. When people come in to buy something, especially very rich people, they see details. If something is wrong, they see it! And it reflects in the price. That's why I'm up early in the morning to check every detail of my construction sites. It's a little bit like someone selling their used car and not washing it. You could spend ten dollars washing the car, and get another two hundred dollars for the car. And I've seen guys! They sell cars that are dirty! And I say, that guy is a loser.”

Up in the morning to check on his construction sites? Now he's only up early in the morning to tweet!

Team VersaCorp has a discussion over what they should charge for rent. They're throwing out numbers like 1600, 1700, and Tammy just starts ranting about how they probably won't be able to rent the apartment in two days because there are so many apartments in the city. Tammy is never on the same page as anyone else. She's constantly causing disruptions. Will she be the person to be fired this week? I'm curious to see if she actually does anything productive for this challenge.

Heidi's mom is getting operated on this week, but Heidi has decided to stick around and “be strong.” She says her mother explicitly told her to stay. Meanwhile, Omarosa is just laying on the floor while others around her are working. She says her head hurts. She is not pulling her weight with the renovations. Heidi calls her worthless and useless. Omarosa goes “outside for some air,” and immediately, she starts playing basketball with these two little kids! I guess the headache went away.

Tammy does something! She gets a general contractor to come in and help them renovate the apartment. Only $1500 for everything. They put new cabinets in and renovate the bathroom.

Protege has actually done a lot of good work on their own. They put new tile in in the kitchen and bathroom. The apartment looks nice. Not stellar, but nice for forty-eight hours of work.

Now we're on to the rental showings. Protege's initial rent showings don't go well. Not a lot of people are showing up.

VersaCorp's apartment looks really nice as well. That general contractor hire was clutch. Still though, their showings aren't going well either. There's only three hours left to rent out the apartment.

With forty-five minutes left, a person comes up the stairs, and she clears the credit check for VersaCorp. They need her to sign the lease right now. They ask her first what she would be willing to pay. She throws out the number $1600 and Bill negotiates her up to $1650. Can you imagine getting this apartment for $1650 a month today? Holy crap. Anyway, the lease is signed.

Protege, meanwhile, doesn't believe they're going to find a taker. A woman comes up right after that and says she needs an apartment ASAP. She signs all the papers. She has rented the apartment. No price is given though, which seems strange.

I find it hard to believe that both apartments would not find a renter until forty-five minutes were left in their forty-eight hour window. That TV magic is strong here.

The teams go back to the suite, and they're all cleaning up. Omarosa is still upset because her head hurts. I will emphasize that Heidi's mom is dying from cancer, yet she soldiers on without complaining. Ridiculous.

The teams enter the boardroom. I'm excited to learn who won this competition, because going into it, I have no idea.

Trump walks in. He's wearing a pink tie. He is yelling a lot and wants to get right down to business.

Apparently the metric we are using for this competition is an increase in rent, not just who could get more rent. That makes more sense. Anyway, VersaCorp, with Court Street, got a rent of $1650, and the original rent of the apartment was $1500.

Protege got a rent of $1525 for Third Street. However, the original rent of the apartment was $1200. Therefore they won the competition by a fairly large margin.

Katrina, upon being told that her team lost, immediately lashes out and tells Trump that Troy “didn't play by the rules of the game.” Here, we get a great overdubbed Trump saying “WAIT, you mean in picking the apartments?”

She says Troy was being unethical. He then accuses her of being emotional and attacking him personally.

Trump says “business in New York is a tough deal.” Katrina counters, “Would you ever do business with someone who acted unethically?” Trump basically says yes, which should come as no surprise.

As the winners, Protege gets to spend a night at Trump's house in Westchester, which he describes as the “most beautiful house in New York State.”

Trump confronts Heidi after the boardroom scene. He says she may go home if she needs to go home to her mother. Heidi makes it very clear that she wants to stay. It's weird to see Trump be kind to somebody. They must have needed many takes of that scene. I didn't hear any overdubbing there though.

I believe this is the first time Troy and Kwame have been on a winning team. They are up at Trump's absurd estate in Westchester County, and they get to have a picnic out on his lawn. The house is essentially a medieval castle. It's completely ridiculous.

Katrina and Ereka, meanwhile, are furious with Tammy because in the boardroom, she told Mr. Trump that their team got “duped.” Saying that they were duped, to them, implies that Troy followed the rules and tricked them fair and square. They feel very strongly that they are on the right side in saying that Troy didn't play by the rules. I'm not sure if anyone in charge here actually cares about playing by the rules. Trump certainly does not.

Katrina has a formal negotiation of who she wants to bring into the bottom three with her. Bill is a strong candidate since he was in charge of negotiations for the rent, and he didn't really try very hard. He let the tenant choose her own rent, essentially. Nick says the onus falls on Katrina because she picked the more expensive, nicer place. Meanwhile, the tension with Tammy gets stronger and stronger. She keeps insisting they got duped. I think she's right, by the way. The rules to these contests are kept so vague. I don't think you could actually have any grounds to say someone cheated at them. Trump probably likes it that way too.

In the boardroom now, Carolyn wants to know why Katrina didn't just handle the negotiations herself, since she's a real estate expert. Why did she delegate to Bill? Even Bernie doesn't understand. Katrina states that she was in charge of the renovation aspect of the work, and that she didn't want to be in charge of both that and the negotiations.

Bill says he could have gotten more money with more time or more qualified people showing up to the open house. Katrina says she could have gotten more regardless.

Trump asks why Tammy went so viciously against her own team. Why does she keep emphasizing this “duping?” So that this episode can have a clever title? She says it's because she didn't like her team's attack on Troy's credibility. She thinks his maneuver was smart.

Tammy, Bill, and Katrina will be going back to the boardroom.

When they reenter, Trump brings up all the bad blood flowing around. He names Tammy as one of the sources of this bad blood, for her comments on the team and for her loyalty in general. Katrina interrupts and said she brought Tammy in for other reasons. She says she has to babysit Tammy because she is constantly an interruption. She says Tammy is always bringing the team down. Tammy responds that Katrina is just pointing fingers because she failed as project manager. Katrina is being very dramatic this whole time. I wouldn't say Tammy is being any more down to earth, however. Trump says Katrina should have obviously been in charge of both renovations and negotiations. Trump also calls Bill a bad negotiator. Regardless of those things, Trump says Tammy got in the way of her team. He calls it obnoxious. And he fires Tammy.

Episode 6: Tit-for-Tat

Writer's note: I have really enjoyed putting photos in my posts. However, as my deadline gets closer and closer and I become more and more rushed, I can't put four hours into each post including watching, writing, editing and finding appropriate pictures. It was never a part of the punishment's guidelines but something I wanted to do to make it more fun. I should have known this could never be fun. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled recaps.

In the suite at Trump Tower, Tammy can't even hide how upset she is that Omarosa did not get fired. When she walks in, upon not getting fired, Tammy's progression of facial expressions is wonderful, practically impossible to describe. As we look around the room it becomes clear that, actually, none of Omarosa's teammates wanted her to return.

Taking this general mood into account, Team Protege has decided to elect O project manager. They are taking a similar strategy to what Team VersaCorp did with Sam: win or get the weak link fired.

The teams will meet Donald at the Wollman Rink in Central Park. “There's nothing like it,” Trump says to two random people in the middle of Central Park. Trump quite literally says that about everything he's ever built/paid for. There are other things like it Donald. Come on now. It's a goddamn ice skating rink.

The teams meet Trump, and we transition to story time with the Donald. The city spent twenty-one million dollars over seven years trying to build an outdoor ice skating rink in Central Park. Trump got “tired of watching.” He tells the contestants he got it built in three months for less than two million dollars. “It's all about giving back. Giving back to the city.”

The contest for this episode will be a celebrity charity auction to benefit the Elizabeth Glazier Pediatric AIDS Foundation. I notice that “Elizabeth Glazier” is spoken at a much different volume than “Pediatric AIDS Foundation.” Also, when Trump speaks the former, he is on camera, whereas when he speaks the latter the contestants are shown. Is Trump flubbing the lines and having to overdub himself?

They will be performing the auction at Sotheby's. Each team will each be given five celebrities whom will be “auctioned off” to the highest bidder. The team that raises the most money will win the competition.

Team VersaCorp elects Bill to be their project manager, since he has not yet lead a group. I find this to be quite surprising. He seems like a born leader. The celebrities are announced. Team VersaCorp gets Regis Philbin, Rocco DiSpirito (restauranteur), Carson Daly, Tiki Barber, and Ed Bernero (executive producer of “Third Watch”). This is amazing so far.

Team Protege gets Russell Simmons, Kate White (editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan Magazine), Nicole Miller (fashion designer), the ENTIRE CAST of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Isaac Mizrahi (fashion designer).

The show's producers bring a great amount of attention to the fact that Omarosa can't say Isaac Mizrahi's last name. Some leader, am I right?

The first course of action for team VersaCorp is to call Regis Philbin on speakerphone. It's just as funny as you would imagine. Regis is so loud.

This leads into VersaCorp splitting up and scheduling meetings with all of the remaining celebrities. Protege seems to be taking the “stick together for their meetings” approach.

On the way over to a meeting with Russell Simmons, Jessie and Kwame realize it's probably important to be able to talk intelligently about the charity they're raising money for. They would like to reach out to the charity and find out what they're all about. Jessie calls Omarosa, since she is the leader. O is also on her way to the meeting, in a separate taxi, and completely ignores their request to have the phone number of their contact at the charity. Kwame takes the phone and she immediately hangs up on him, making him crack up laughing. It's a great moment.

Here is the “black screen moment” at the perfect time. Imagine the following in white text on a black screen: “Know what you're up against.” Says Trump, “Negotiation is a very, very delicate art. The big thing in negotiation is to try and figure out your opponent. [b-roll footage of the Brooklyn Bridge] Otherwise, you're going to look like an idiot and lose big.” Dang, a perfect opportunity to use the word bigly Don!!

Russell Simmons is hostile to Team Protege at first. I don't know why he's so confused by this. His office is filled with cameras and he must have been briefed on what was going on. So rigged.

However, Simmons decides that he likes Troy's accent, which helps to break the ice a little bit. Troy closes the deal. He proposes that the winning bidder on Simmons would get to spend an evening out with him. Russell loves the idea.

Ereka, Tammy and Amy meet with Carson Daly. The opening shot of Carson is of him making a big, awkward strum on an unplugged electric guitar, which is ridiculous on so many levels. Their idea is to secure some tickets from Carson as the charity prize for the winning bidder. This bidder would get a limo ride to the event with Carson. They secure this fairly easily. Tammy keeps interrupting the other two women, insisting that another celebrity be involved. It's awkward. No one really listens to her, and that includes Carson.

Next, Protege goes to meet with the ENTIRE CAST of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. This really pins The Apprentice down as having been written and filmed in 2004. The following is so ridiculous I can't believe I'm even typing it. As a strategy to break the ice and get in the Queer Eye guys' good graces, Troy intentionally leaves his belt in the car. He says he will get critiqued by the guys for making such a ridiculous fashion faux pas. And sure enough, right away Carson points at him and says “what's with the belt situation here? You might as well be naked if you don't have a belt on.” Which is amazing and most definitely rigged. But it gets the conversation started. Team Protege initially proposes golf, but the guys say they would rather do something else “with balls, in the city.” By which, of course, they mean bowling. That's that trademark Queer Eye humor. They'll take the winning bidder bowling, with laser lights and an open bar and all the things you'd want from a bowling event.

Nick, Bill and Katrina meet with Tiki Barber. Bill initially proposes a slumber party, and begins to describe it, but then the camera cuts away. Tiki did not seem to enjoy that idea. At the same time, Ereka, Tammy and Amy meet with Ed Bernero. That is a simple one, as they will just give someone backstage passes to his show. Ed also proposes that the winner get to go on the show as an extra. They then go and meet with Rocco at his restaurant on 22^nd and Park Avenue. Tammy embarrasses the team yet again by proposing that Rocco charter a private jet for a vacation to Italy. Rocco is famous enough because of his successful restaurant, but her teammates know that he doesn't have enough wealth to book a private trans-continental flight. Gotta know your limits, Tammy.

Protege meet with Kate White. It's only Omarosa, Katrina, and Kwame, so it looks like the team has split up after all. Heidi and Troy meet with Nicole Miller. Then the whole team meets with Isaac. Jessie has been selected to pitch to him, and she has a tendency to talk down to people. It's just the way she speaks, and she doesn't mean anything by it. But Isaac clearly becomes annoyed with her speaking style. He feels patronized. Omarosa starts interrupting once she realizes this. Regardless of who is speaking, however, he doesn't like their idea of a “fashion week.” Troy proposes that the winner gets a private preview of the year's upcoming fashions. Isaac loves this. Troy is killing it with his ideas and is quite honestly saving this team from falling apart.

Bill, Tammy, and Amy go to meet with Regis Philbin. Their idea is “Spend a day in the life of Regis Philbin.” Regis asks if the winner of the auction will feed his cat for him. Clearly he doesn't like their initial idea. Tammy goes all in and tries to propose another charity vacation. Regis says, “I'm not going to go to the ends of the earth for this charity!” Bill and Amy just laugh quietly. Amy asks if there are any upcoming events that a winner could tag along to. He mentions that he will be performing in Atlantic City next month. They hammer it out, and the winner's package will be a limo to AC, participation in the dress rehearsal for one of Regis' shows, dinner with Regis, and a night's stay.

The teams arrive at Sotheby's. They are all assembled in a sky box looking down at all of the fancy people bidding. Trump is hosting. Who would have thought Trump cares this much about AIDS? Does he even know what it is? I feel like this charity was thrust on him by the show's producers.

The bidding occurs, and it is rapid-fire. I will attempt to summarize it all in short bursts.

Queer Eye goes first. A high bid of $9,000. It seems like that is high based on the applause in the room, but I really don't know the market rate to go bowling with five reality TV show hosts.

Regis goes next. A high bid of $6,000.

Isaac is up. The package being sold is a lunch with a preview of outfits, and you get to go home with eight of said outfits. A high bid of $7,000. That actually seems really low to me. I had to go back a couple of times to make sure they said eight outfits. Wouldn't a high-end designer's clothing be at least $500 an item? And these are entire outfits. Whatever. I'm out of my element commenting on this.

Rocco goes next. The package is a private party in his restaurant with four courses for fifty people. A high bid of $13,000.

Kate White next. “Cosmo day.” It is unexplained what exactly this might consist of. A high bid of $6,000.

Ed Bernero is up. The package is backstage passes and a walk-on part on his show, Third Watch. A high bid of $7,000.

Nicole Miller goes next. The package is fifteen days working as an apprentice (hmmmm) in her studio. A high bid of $6,000.

The next item is simply described by the auctioneer as “Tiki Barber lot.” There is seriously no description of what it is. A high bid of $4,000. Were Tiki Barber and Trump sparring in 2004? Why has everything been so terse with Barber?

Russell Simmons goes next. His package is described as the “opportunity of a lifetime.” A high bid of $7,000.

Carson Daly is up last. The winning bidder will be his personal guest for the Z-100 Jingle Ball. In the front row there is a “young lady,” as the auctioneer describes her, who keeps driving the price up. She is there with her mother and it is made very clear that the mother is footing the bill. Absurd. Remember when Carson Daly was relevant? A high bid of $10,000 to this “young lady.”

This contest is unusual, because both teams immediately know the results. It's being tallied live on the screen.

Trump meets the teams in the lobby. He congratulates both teams for raising money for this charity. They both did well. Protege $35,000. VersaCorp $40,000. Trump says he will not give out a prize this week. He said the prize was the good of donating to charity.

I can't stand this dubbing that I'm constantly hearing now. “But unfortunately someone still has to get fired this week” is said by Trump when he is off-camera, and the volume and tone of his voice are clearly not the same as the rest of the conversation. How many takes of these scenes did they have to take? I've already said it twice in this piece, and I hate to be redundant, but RIGGED.

Team VersaCorp spends the evening in with cocktails. Nick makes fun of Troy which is hilarious. It's a great bonding session. Nick and Amy look at each other longingly. They gonna bang? OMG they are. They leave the room together and disappear. Awesome.

The morning after they're sitting at the coffee table together, talking about what they would name their kids. Amy gives a long and thought out answer. Nick just blurts out “Jake and Brooke” and Amy lovingly cracks up. It's actually a pretty cute scene. She can't believe that he has children's names picked out already. Amy, don't hate. Nick rules.

Meanwhile, Omarosa is trying to decide who to take into the boardroom with her. She has a conversation with Jessie about her negotiation skills. Jessie actually gets pretty upset about it when recounting it later. This type of conversation is most certainly not Omarosa's strong suit.

The whole team goes into the board room to hash it out with Mr. Trump. Troy says that in the beginning he questioned O's leadership ability, but after this contest he has changed his mind. Heidi also defends O. Trump pushes Heidi HARD on who she thinks should go, for some reason. Finally she brings up Jessie. Jessie then states that Omarosa doesn't work well under pressure. O says “absolutely not. I was born to be a leader. She's trying to protect herself.” Kwame says that, in all fairness, Jessie had the “most difficult” negotiation. Then Jessie admits she knew nothing about design, which was probably a bad thing to say. Gotta do your research, Jessie.

Carolyn goes ahead and calls Omarosa out on the fact that she can't pronounce Isaac's last name. Trump then goes in hard on Jessie trying to see if she likes Omarosa. Trump keeps asking everyone on the team if they truly like Omarosa, especially Jessie and Heidi. While these conversations are happening, Omarosa continues to make snide remarks about Jessie and Heidi. Even in saying she likes Heidi, she said that Heidi had no class.

In the end, the final three will be Omarosa, Heidi and Jessie. It's kind of crazy that Heidi keeps being dragged into this. In their private discussion, George says that he doesn't believe Omarosa has all of the proper leadership qualities necessary to work for Trump. He thinks Jessie was outmatched in the negotiation and Omarosa should have known that. Carolyn completely agrees. This doesn't look good for O.

On their return to the board room, Trump immediately asks Jessie why she should stay. She responds that winning is important, but strength of character is also important. Trump asks her if she thinks the other two women in the room have good character. Jessie's response? “Heidi has good character.” Shots fired baby!

Heidi and Jessie both admit at this point that they really don't like O very much. This is radically different than the opinions the two of them were stating five minutes ago. Trump seems very frustrated by their lack of honesty.

So now I am thoroughly perplexed. Trump is starting to go down the path of potentially firing Jessie! He reiterates that he is very unhappy with the way she just rolled over and took so much crap from Omarosa. He then tells Omarosa he is fed up with how rudely she treated her teammates, but in the end, he fires Jessie. Goodnight, Jessie. Can't wait to see what kind of shit Omarosa gets herself into in the next episode.