Full disclosure: this will be my first season of The Apprentice. Most of my exposure to Donald Trump has been secondhand; firstly through Miss Alli when she used to recap this show, and secondly through the Trump-inspired recurring character "Mr. Glass" on my three-year-old's favorite show, the animated series Curious George. Mr. Glass is a jowly, megalomaniacal urban-real-estate magnate with questionable hair and no inside voice, who names his buildings after himself and insists on addressing George as "MONKEY!" And he's still more likable than Donald Trump.
Okay, so apparently this is "Celebrity Apprentice," which is pretty dishonest on several levels. The second-most obvious level is that actual celebrities don't need this shit. Who would want to win an ass-kissing job in an ass-kissing contest when they're already rich and famous in their own right? Which brings us to the first-most obvious level, namely what this show's idea of a "celebrity" is. We've got:
Lennox Lewis. Boxing isn't what it used to be, which is probably why he's here.
Tiffany Fallon. I have no idea who this is. A "playmate" of some variety. Did you know I've been married for sixteen years? Hi, honey!
Tito Ortiz. Another mystery person to me. Apparently he's an ultimate fighting champion. I'm still pulling for the guy Jon Favreau played on Friends.
Marilu Henner. Star of Taxi, Johnny Dangerously, her own talk show. Apparently averse to the letter O, which should fuel some touchy interactions with a certain other contestant (see below).
Trace Adkins. Country music star. I listened to country music sometimes for a while, back in 1994. I don't remember this guy. He describes himself as "the apprehensive apprentice," thus immediately becoming my favorite.
Piers Morgan. Judge on America's Got Talent. Judge not lest ye be judged.
Gene Simmons. Apparently the Kiss bassist isn't getting enough screen time on his very own reality show. Who would have thought that a guy who spent the '70s making himself up like a zombie bat and spitting blood needed so much attention?
Jennie Finch. Softball player. Probably the best-looking one in the league, or team, or whatever, which may be why she's the famous one.
Stephen Baldwin. Apparently got tired of waiting around for another season of Celebrity Mole.
Nely Galan. Boss of Telemundo. Not that I ever watch that channel. We only get Univision where we live, no matter how many times I call up my cable company and berate them in made-up Spanish.
Carol Alt. Either a model-turned-actress or actress-turned-model. Unlikely to be either-turned-Apprentice.
Vincent Pastore. You get offed in the second season of The Sopranos way back in the Cold War, you've got to find some other way to hold onto fame. First Dancing With the Stars, now this. "I've been whacked before, and I'm still around," he boasts.
Nadia Comaneci. Won a neckload of Olympic gold medals, back before most of last season's Apprenti were even born.
Omarosa Manigault Stallworth. Owes any celebrity she has to her participation in the first season of this very show, which she then parlayed into appearances on every other reality show that would have her. Which is an alarmingly high number.
Of course they're all doing it for charity, but nobody's watching for the charities. Not that anyone's watching for these celebrities, either. And every week, one of them will be hearing the catchphrase, "You're fired." And so will you. Wait, where're you going?
Credits.
Manhattan porn. The Trumpster is back home where he belongs. He greets the Apprenti on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange. He tells them they're all commodities -- commodities playing for charity. Tiffany Fallon tells us she's playing for the Walter Reed Society. Presumably this charity for wounded veterans is named after the same person that the famously dissed hospital was. We don't hear about anyone else's charity for some weird reason. Trump announces that the teams will be divided by gender, then will go back to Trump Tower and get set up with team names, projects, and Project Managers. Omarosa cuts in to say she wants to be the first Project Manager on her team, and Trump says that's up to her team. "Nobody likes you but me, Omarosa," he cracks, and she says that's all that matters. Naturally, Trump agrees.
Back at the women's suite, Nely is kicking things off by pulling out silly-looking hats, which Omarosa thinks is stupid. Thanks, Nely, for making me agree with Omarosa right out of the gate. But she redeems herself by floating a few Spanish words as potential names, and eventually they settle on the name "Empresario."
The guys also try to come up with a name, with Pastore floating "The Bada Bing Boys." Gene Simmons, who I think was cast for having worse hair than Trump, suggests Hydra, which he confuses with Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the gates of Hell. "No, that was my ex-wife," Pastore cracks. Piers gets on the web and finds out what the Hydra actually was, and they like the idea of a multiheaded, unkillable beast even better. So they have a name.
Omarosa continues to campaign for the PM job, and gets it. I'm sure it's not because anybody wants to see her fail and get fired first, or anything.
Brian Williams tells us that Huckabee won in Iowa. Do you need to know that? You probably already do, if you're reading this.
The Apprenti all file into the boardroom, as Marilu says that she doesn't think Trump will put celebrities through the stress that he did civilians. This woman was on daytime TV giving people advice for how many years? Trump enters and sits across from them, between his kids -- Don, Jr. on his right and Ivanka on his left. Omarosa and Stephen have been named project managers, and Trump asks if they know each other. "Unfortunately, I do," Omarosa says. "Yes, I think she's delightful," Stephen deadpans, cracking everyone up. Stephen is a tool as always, but at least he's decided to do this in character, which means he's working the slicked-back hair, sharp suit and tie, tubby young executive look and manner. The faking is obnoxious, but since it's less obnoxious than his actual self, I'm all for it. Trump breaks the news that they'll be selling hot dogs in their first task, and the team that makes the most money wins. Can it be so simple? And where does the product placement come in? Trump reminds them that as celebrities, they should be able to sell a lot of dogs for a lot more than the standard price. With a bit of advice on picking the right location, Trump cuts them loose. Omarosa wishes Stephen luck, and he says he won't need it. "Oh, you will," says Omarosa, insisting on getting the last word for what will be far from the last time.
At the Empresario meeting, they take a moment to mock Hydra's name, and then Omarosa taps Carol, as the resident New Yorker, to pick a location. She pitches 34th and 7th, near Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, and a post office. Consensus!
Hydra's discussion doesn't go so smoothly, as they waste time arguing between Rockefeller Center and Radio City before Pastore reminds them they're the same place. Editors, how much did you pay for your lunch that day? ["I'm guessing NBC treated them in exchange for the location placement." -- Sars]
Back at Empresario, Omarosa has gotten out the heavy antiaircraft artillery to shoot down everyone else's ideas about selling with celebrity. She insists that it's all about the product, and with her as PM, that's how it's going to be.
Meanwhile, Hydra is having a similar discussion, as Piers pushes the idea of selling signed photos along with the hot dogs, at $100 a pop. While they're arguing about the feasibility of that, Gene quietly gets on his cell phone and asks a guy named Bob to come and buy a $5,000 hot dog tomorrow. Gene continues on this track, working through his address book. "We've got some money," Gene says pleasantly. Lennox reminds him that it's not in their hands yet. "That's right," Gene agrees with total confidence.
It's the day of, and the teams are getting their carts set up. At Hydra's location, Stephen wants to give a quarterback speech, telling them all to stay together.
Omarosa talks about having all her girls in red caps, white t-shirts, and blue jeans for an all-American theme. They start out at $5.00 each, and when that goes well, they jack it up to $10.00, and Omarosa scores a $20. $100! $200! Things are going better and better. And here comes Trump, accompanied by Mayor Bloomberg. Hizzoner calls himself the "number-one frankophile" in the city before sampling one of Empresario's hot dogs and saying he can't judge until he's tasted the men's. Okay, thanks for stopping by!
With two hours remaining, Hydra is worried about how many hot dogs they have left. Tito and Lennox spar for the folks, which I'm sure is a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle for people who care about guys beating each other up. Piers obnoxiously negotiates high prices with passersby, in case Gene's guys don't show up. He's clearly worried by Gene's Zen attitude toward the whole thing.
More from Brian Williams: Obama wins Iowa. This should be an interesting race if those two end up as the nominees.
Back from ads, things seem to be turning around for Hydra with the lunch crowd, as Piers starts getting his hundred-dollar asking price from people. Trump and his entourage arrive, which Piers quickly capitalizes on by hollering their names through his megaphone. Bloomberg samples a HydraDog, but declines to pick a winner. "And that's why you're the mayor of New York," Stephen tools.
At Hydra, Tiffany is failing to impress (or "empres") Omarosa with her lackluster approach to sales. They're worried about the money they've got so far, so Marilu decides to go over Omarosa's head and call her "contact." Seriously, a guy shows up identified by a subtitle as "Marilu's Contact." No, it's not Judd Hirsch. But he does hand Marilu a $5,000 brick of cash for a bottled water. More customers like this come in, and Omarosa, to her credit, gives Marilu props.
And Tito Ortiz's girlfriend Jenna Jameson ("adult film star," as the subtitle helpfully tells us) shows up to give her support, and also to show us on network TV just how far down her throat she can stuff a wiener. Gene greets a nerdy young man, a "contact" who buys a $10,000 hot dog. A few more five-grand buyers come in, but Piers is still worried that Empresario might come through with one big buyer. Piers worries too much.
Jennie hauls New York Mets player David Wright over to Empresario's site. He offers to treat everyone who shows up in the last ten minutes of the task, and he ends up buying them out. Apparently a donation will also follow, but we don't yet know how much.
Boardroom. Trump asks Omarosa how they did, and she's confident, since they executed a good plan. She says. Stephen is even more confident, and gives credit to his guys, of course remembering to smirk toolishly about Tito's porn-star girlfriend showing up. Trump ribs Tito about getting a pre-nup. Not sure which one of them would benefit more from that. Here are the results: Don says that Empresario sold $17,038.79 worth of hot dogs. Hydra has already begun gloating, but Trump makes them wait until Ivanka announces that they raised $52,286. More than triple Empresario's total, in other words. "That's a drubbing," Trump pronounces, and gives the men credit both for using their celebrity and picking a better location. Stephen credits Gene and says he wouldn't have done anything differently. Trump for some reason asks Piers who Empresario's weak link is, and he says, "Amorosa." She corrects him, and Piers responds, "I know you're a celebrity, I just never heard of you." And then he says Omarosa blew on the first season, which is an odd thing to say for someone who claims never to have heard of her. Omarosa busts on Piers's own celebrity in turn, calling him famous for being "the English asshole." That's beneath Omarosa. She should have called him "The other English asshole." Don reminds Omarosa of her first-season triumph with the lemonade stand, in which she learned that sex sells. Why not do that this time, with the Playboy centerfold and the supermodel and the hot softball player and all? Omarosa says she got criticized for doing that back then, and learned her lesson. Trump points out that she got killed. The real lesson? Chicks can't win.
He moves on. They earned a total of $69,324, an all-time record for the show. And it's all going to go to Stephen's charity, as he's the winning Project Manager. It's the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund, in honor of Stephen's mom. And now Hydra is dismissed, and they will get to watch the impending boardroom carnage from their own suite.
Which they do, on a huge flat-screen. On the hot seat, Omarosa says that some of her team let her down, and some stepped up. Marilu obviously belongs to the latter group. In fact, she raised eleven of the team's seventeen grand, all told. Nely also gets credit for being focused and on-task. Tiffany gets thrown under the bus for being a poor salesperson, especially for someone who has gotten famous, as Omarosa classily put it earlier, "selling ass in a magazine." Don calls Omarosa on her hypocrisy about selling sex, and Omarosa says that's Tiffany's "brand." Watching with Hydra, Gene compares Omarosa's survival skills to those of a "cock-a-roach." Back in the boardroom, Omarosa and Tiffany talk over each other as Tiffany says she's saving her contacts for later in the game. She also makes the point that they weren't really "allowed to use" their celebrity in the game, which Omarosa has the nerve to take exception to. Ivanka chimes in to say that the uniforms were a mistake. Trump puts Omarosa on the spot for missing the celebrity angle, since he thinks that's what it should have been about. Nely admits that Omarosa made a mistake, but she executed and led like a motherfucker. Trump asks who among the women isn't ready to be a leader, and we're back around to Tiffany. She says that if she were a leader, she wouldn't be as condescending to people. Omarosa condescendingly explains to Tiffany why she's so condescending. "Tiffany is toast," Gene pronounces from the Hydra suite. Trump asks who's fault the poor location was, and Omarosa and Carol snipe at each other about that for a while. Trump dismisses the team, and Omarosa announces that she will be returning with Tiffany and Carol.
In the Hydra war room, the screen goes dark. But the consensus is that Tiffany is going down. While waiting in the lobby, Omarosa smugs at her victims about how the part coming up is better than what just happened.
When the three Empresario women return to the boardroom, Omarosa makes some noises about how it's easy to be a follower, she takes accountability, looked to her team, blah blah blah. Carol says she stepped up whenever possible, and deferred to Omarosa as the PM. She mentions Omarosa's experience on the show, and Omarosa interrupts to say they've been drawing on her experience all this time. She's an asshole about it, naturally. Trump notices that Tiffany is looking pretty intimidated by all this sniping. She just claims they all worked hard. Ivanka asks if Tiffany undersold, and she dodges the question. Trump reminds Tiffany that while some people were drawing on their contacts, she passed up the chance to call on a great contact, Trump's good buddy Hef. Tiffany says she was waiting for a future task, which, as everyone points out, might not happen for Tiffany now that she's in danger of getting fired. Trump asks Omarosa who she would fire, and Omarosa picks Carol. Because Omarosa can run Tiffany, not that she says that's her reason.
Time for Trump's decision. He's disappointed by Omarosa's performance as PM, by Carol's selection of location, and by Tiffany's failure to call Hef. So Tiffany's fired. After Tiffany leaves, Trump says that the nicest person is going home. "Oftentimes, in business, that's the way it works," he lectures. Way to call everyone still in the room an asshole. Not that I disagree.
Tiffany takes the elevator to the street and gets in a waiting limo. No taxi cabs for these celebrities. Or for Tiffany Whatsherface, for that matter. And as Omarosa and Carol return to their suite, they shake on their pact to leave their disagreements in the boardroom.
In the limo, Tiffany says, "It's incredibly disappointing and frustrating to be the first one 'fiyahed,'" complete with the hand movement. Poor Walter Reed just can't catch a break.