NBC is only two episodes into The Apprentice 4 and I’ve already got my money on a woman winning the whole thing. Team Capital Edge pulled of a beautiful victory this week on the task of developing an ad campaign for Lamborghini. Team Excel, on the other hand, got their asses chewed out in the boardroom for failing to obey capitalization and punctuation rules. It was a bit embarrassing to watch them fall flat, yet there was a certain amount of satisfaction in it, because they were so damn cocky at the beginning of the task. Sorry, dudes, but testicle ownership is not the sole qualification necessary for making a decent car commercial. Didn’t they watch what happened on last season’s car task? The self-assured testosterone trio of Alex, Chris, and Bren went down in flames when pitted against Kendra, Tana, and Craig to come up with a brochure for the Pontiac Solstice. In a memorable scene, the men were shown rubbing their hands together, Dr. Evil style, as they predicted a win solely based on the fact that they were guys and guys are supposed to know a lot about cars.
This type of gender bias has tripped up other male apprentice hopefuls when they’ve been faced with more girly tasks, as well. Who could forget Chris in the second season as he forlornly stared at the racks of wedding gowns he was expected to sell? The man admitted that he knew next to nothing about the bridal industry, so he basically checked out of the task early and got fired as a result. So what if he was dealing silk and taffeta? It was a sales job, something that he had a background in.
With the Donald is dishing up a fourth season of this show, the current participants should know by now that gender, age, education, and even past experience do not necessarily pre-qualify anyone to win or lose a task. While someone with a successful career in advertising, such as this season’s Chris, might have felt more confident stepping up to manage an ad task, it didn’t mean that his expertise in the outside world was going to translate to a win on a job that had to be done in 48 hours. While he was surrounded by camera crews. In Manhattan. With the group pariah yapping at his heels.
I’m curious as to what extent editing made Chris appear scarily obsessed with Markus or if he was really that fixated on the man. Why? Was he subconsciously sexually attracted to him? Does Markus look like his dad or the kid who gave him a wedgie in seventh grade? Perhaps Freud could help us out here. Chris’s dislike for Markus appeared to run so deep that he seemed incapable of actually managing his group and making good decisions. And although I could see how annoying Markus was being, I think that Trump and his cohorts were correct in their assessment that Chris handled the whole situation very unprofessionally.
As for Markus, his days probably are numbered, despite the fact that his response to that very accusation from Trump was, “I’ll prove you wrong.” Markus seems like a nice person, which is a rarity on this show, and I like it when the good guys win. The problem is that he’s already on the outs with the rest of the frat brothers like Josh and Mark. The next time Markus screws up, as he undoubtedly will, they’ll go after him with a vengeance. It won’t be pretty.
I anticipate that things will get ugly for Capital Edge as well. Although they brought home a victory this week, their triumph didn’t come without some hard feelings. In particular, Kristi was very angry with PM Marshawn for not being more hands on with the entire project. Marshawn delegated the video editing portion of the task to Kristi, Alla, and Jen M., who, lucky for her, pulled through very nicely. However, it was clear that these three harbored resentment toward Marshawn for throwing all of that work on them. I found it interesting that, after being told they won, everyone on Capital Edge except for Kristi voted to grant Marshawn exemption from the boardroom next week. Maybe Alla and Jennifer M. wanted to look like team players, which was a wise move. I can’t really fault Kristi for wanting to be honest, but it may hurt her in the end.
I was very surprised that, for the second week in a row, the project manager of the losing team opted to bring back only one person to the final boardroom showdown. While it made sense for Kristi to take in Melissa last week, Chris’s choice to make Markus his scapegoat backfired miserably. I wondered if Chris decided to do this because it had worked for Kristi or if he made up his mind to take in one person independently. Either way, it was a mistake. Mark deserved to be fired not only for fronting the word Italian with a lower-case i, but also insisting that the italic script on the ad made the capital I look like “a reverse seven.” No, it made it look like a regular seven, and what’s wrong with that, anyway? It’s a lucky number. Then again, no amount of luck was going to help this team, whose leader so adamantly stated that, “The biggest no-no in advertising is using cliches.” That must be why one of the posters said “green with envy.” Brilliant, boys. Just brilliant.
