Hey everyone. Once again a recap and analysis of The Apprentice will be brought to you live starting at 9PM Eastern
After last week it looks like Street Smarts are running away with things. Will The Donald mix up the teams as I predicted and he hinted at last week?
Check out Murtz Jaffer’s interview of Danny Kastner. He started an interesting forum thread about another website. Danny also picked up his guitar and shows off his musical talents with his rendition of Vegetable Porn, which is a parody of episode 4 of the Apprentice.
Make sure to vote in Inside Pulse’s Poll of who will be fired this week. I am leaning towards Audrey going home. No real reason just a gut feeling.
Refresh for updates.
Things are about to get started. I expect big things and possibly a team change up. The votes have Steph in favour of getting fired this week.
Also be sure to catch up on what happened the past couple of weeks by reading Elizabeth Jarosz’z recap and analysis of both episode 4 and
episode 5.
Nick Warnock is back with his witty commentary about what happened last week.
Previously on The Apprentice:
Magna starts a mobile massage business, NetWorth starts a casting business. Michael was a failure in his attempts to sell massages.
Bren brings Michael and Stephanie to the boardroom. Bren goes after Stephanie but Michael interrupts him. The Donald lashes out at Michael for not letting the two of them go after each other. He sends Michael packing.
There are 12 candidates left.
Back in the suite.
Erin wants Michael to be fired. Alex wants Stephanie to be fired. He feels that she has a bad attitude.
Stephanie tells her team she does not take any of what her team said personally. She will not act bitter and a bitch. Stephanie thinks she needs to work on communication.
She appreciates the constructive criticism. She starts to cryâ?¦BOO HOO.
The teams get a call early, no one is up.
They have to meet at some Sony Playstation place. OH YEAH VIDEO GAMES!!
The Donald comes to meet the teams with several guys Sony Playstation executives.
Donald talks about a new urban advertising technique, Graffiti.
They have to advertise for Gran Turismo 4, a car video game btw. They get a 20 foot wall in Harlem and they have to hire a graffiti artist to decorate the wall.
Jill is back replacing Carolyn again this week.
Tana is exempt this week.
Tara is the project manager for NetWorth. She wants to make sure the ad ties in with Harlem. She wants to make sure it’s a sensitive message and does not offend people.
John and Audrey have played the game and want to focus on the racing aspect of the game.
They talk to a Sony exec. The demographic is a hip urban males 18-34.
Alex is the project manager for Magna. He plays video games and is sick of losing.
Alex and two others go to meet three artists. He picks someone called Lady Ping. What is she going to know about GT4? Nothing!!
Net Worth is looking for someone who knows the game and what it is about. They hire Ernie because he is young male and has played the game. Hey that’s pretty much common sense isn’t it? Oh wait it seems university people lack common sense.
Alex talks to Lady Ping about the concept for the piece. She seems out of it.
Stephanie met with Sony execs and says that the Sony people want the ad to be hip and urban.
Bren does not seem to impressed with what is going on.
They are painting a jungle. The urban jungle or something like that??
Bren thinks they can’t go with an abstract concept.
Commercial time.
Well it looks like Book Smarts is about to lose again and Alex will be on the chopping block. I bet he takes Steph with him to the boardroom. I hope he takes Bren so Bren can work him over in the boardroomâ?¦lol.
‘Shut up and Listen’
The Donald talks about how you have to listen to people. You don’t have to do what they say but you have to listen and not always talk.
NetWorth is working on the primer for their mural. The theme is old versus new. It is meant to show the revitalization of the neighbourhood. Tara wants to portray the Mean Streets.
Jill asks how this helps Sony? Tara tries to explain how it can tie in to help Sony. Jill did not seem to buy it.
Craig is not too impressed her idea either.
Craig is left to supervise the painting. Audrey is pissed off because she does not feel she should have to listen to someone who has four kids. Tara backs Craig over Audrey.
Magna starts to paint even though they have no concept.
Alex says that Erin looks like a Hooters waitress. Wow that’s a classy statement.
Alex goes over to talk to the locals and asks them for help. He gets four guys to give ideas of what would be a good idea.
This may be the best idea so far. The guys want to see money raining down.
So it looks like Alex may have saved his but with a nice audible.
The Donald comes over to see NetWorth’s mural. He likes it. It looks pretty cool I guess. But almost too simple. Not enough too it.
Donald shows up to see how Magna is doing. They are still painting.
He doesn’t get out of the car and says ‘that is interesting.’
Alex feels that Donald not getting out of the car means he thinks Magna are losers. He wants to prove him wrong.
Well sorry Alex you guys have been losing.
Commercial time.
So Alex calls the audible and gets the locals to help out. Tara sticks with her visionary approach trying to send a message when she should be selling a video game.
I think I am going to flip flop. It looks like my original pick of Audrey may still be good. Her, Craig and Tara in the boardroom would be fun.
I wonder if Donald will give Alex the mad props the local guys were talking about.
The execs show up at NetWorth’s and ask about the thinking.
Tara tells them the cars are coming from fantasy to reality. Chris is annoyed because she made it sound like she did all the work.
They thank her and bring in the focus group. The focus group is several different people, males and females.
Magna tells the Sony people about their piece. They tried to incorporate the different cities and terrains of the game. Alex tells them they also brought in the idea of money and MAD PROPS of the game and The Drive of Your Life.
The focus group comes to check out their mural.
Sony was impressed with the artistic aspect of both projects but they are in the business of selling games.
The Sony execs both agreed that it was clear cut but it is not disclosed who the winner is.
Donald calls in the teams. He wants to hear the focus group.
Various people talk about the Magna project. They get some good responses.
NetWorth’s response is not good. They don’t feel that it makes them want to buy the game.
Donald tells the Sony people thought that Magna had the better product.
The rewardâ?¦.
Patrick Demarche?? He is some famous photographer. He will take portraits of them all. Wowâ?¦crappy reward.
Back at the suite. Tara wants to analyze how they failed. She does not think she is to blame.
Magna come to meet Patrick. Bren tells one of the assistant about how he has to be confident to wear a bow-tie. Two hot models are flirting with him much to the dismay of Alex who thinks Bren looks like Orville Redenbacher.
They all get GLAMOUR SHOTS!! Haha.
Erin’s picture is hot. They put up all the pictures in the suite. In her picture Steph has big hair which looks weird. The other girl looks pretty but I ask myself, who is she? She seems to blend in too well.
Commercial.
I am expecting a fiery boardroom. Tara should go for her concept. She wanted high-brow when that was not what Sony wanted.
I just checked the other girl is Kendra. Where has she been the pastâ?¦oh month. I am not sure if the blending in thing is a good idea or not but hey she is still around.
Back from commercial.
Tara talks to her team about what happened. Audrey feels like she knew the game and knew graffiti but she wasn’t listened to. Tara feels she should have spoken up. John tells Tara that he knew there was other stuff. Tara wants to take Audrey and John because they did not share the info about the game and how it is not just centered around New York.
You should have ASKED them!!
They enter the boardroom.
Donald asks Tara what happened. She tells them that she did not have the proper information which would have changed the idea of the mural. John said he thought she knew. Audrey says she told Tara about GT3. Tara felt she did not know about the new game. Audrey points out that GT4 has not been released.
Audrey goes after Craig for him being bossy.
George asks who came up with the concept. Tara came up with the plan. George feels that Tara had the concept before they even met the Sony people.
He asks about the term ‘Tear it up’ and why it was used in the ad? Tara says it is a hip-hop allusion.
Jill points out they should have used GT4 terms not hip-hop terms.
Jill says ‘It was a Sony ad not a Community ad.’
Audrey jumps on what Jill just said to go after Tara.
John wants to fire Tara. Chris wants to fire Audrey. Craig wants to fire Tara.
Tara decides to take Craig and Audrey to the boardroom.
Commercial time.
Audrey seems to be the best in the boardroom so far. I think she will keep it up. This girl knows how to get it done in the boardroom.
I think Tara took Craig because she knew John and Audrey would have teamed up against her. Now she can try to get Craig fired by letting Audrey go after him.
Angie and Tana were very quiet this time around.
Back. Donald asks Jill. Jill thinks it is personal as to why she chose Craig. George wants to find out why she chose Craig.
Donald calls all three in.
Tara tells Donald she took in Craig because he was her second hand man and because he had a skirmish with Audrey.
Audrey talks about how Craig.
Craig talks about how Audrey does not like men in charge and how she controls her husband.
Craig tells Donald that Tara failed in this challenge though. She used ‘I’ all the time and did not seem to listen to the Sony people.
Donald tells her she failed the marketing concept.
Tara You’re Fired
Tara is visibly upset and leaves.
Donald says that Tara is smart and tough but she just blew this task. George agrees with that. You go George!
Commercial
Well just another case where when you step up as team leader you are the first and most obvious person to fire if things go wrong.
In many ways the Book Smarts win is quite a large upset when you consider that on the surface this was a task that the Street Smarts should have easily won.
Alex’s audible to get the locals help may be one of the most impressive moves by any candidate so far. I am not sure if this means he will go far or if it was just a fluke.
He reminds me of Nick Warnock. Smart, goes with his gut, not tough handed, willing to listen and adjust his game plan if needed. It will be interesting if he can get a top 4 finish like Nick did.
Tara is in her cab and tells the camera that she does not think the ad was worse then Magna’s. She feels that she should not have to control her team and completely direct them. It boggles her mind that they cannot just step up on their own.
Well that is all for now. See you next week. I guess my predictions of a team shuffle were premature. I think the earliest it could happen is when things get down to 10 people but it looks more and more like Donald may avoid it only to keep the book vs. street concept.
