Once again, as is the case with finales on this show, Trump starts out behind what is supposed to be the board room table. But since the acoustics are all wrong, we know it's another live episode, and sure enough the wall slides up to reveal a studio audience, clapping politely. Here we go.
And then there's a whole multi-minute recap of the season thus far, up to last week's episode. Awesome. Let the filler begin! I've already written about all of it, so I'm just letting it all wash over me. Long story short: it's down to the two finalists, Piers Morgan and Trace Adkins, and we've got an hour and fifty minutes left to get through.
After the titles, Trump tells us that all fourteen celebrities from the season (save one) are hanging out in a green room. After all this time, some of them look only vaguely familiar. Who's the pregnant chick? I don't remember any expectant mothers on this season.
There's a promo during the commercials that tells us that we can text the word TRUMP to to donate to the charities, or something. Don't worry if you missed it, because it's being shown during every break for the rest of the night.
From the live studio, Trump sends us back in time to the night of the charity event that served as the final competition between Piers (with returning team members Stephen Baldwin and Carol Alt) and Trace (alongside Lennox Lewis and Marilu Henner). Seven hours beforehand, we see Piers on the speakerphone with the likes of Sharon Osbourne and Andrew Lloyd Webber (the latter of whom happens to have a camera crew on hand with him at Abbey Road Studios in London, just in case someone calls him and he wants it televised). As Piers and Stephen hit the streets, Piers continues hitting up rich Brits on his cell phone while Stephen just takes up space. In the van, the two of them reach a kind of rapprochement, starting with Stephen recognizing Piers's fundraising talent and Piers apologizing for any personal rudeness he may have directed towards Stephen in the past. It's kind of a nice moment, which Stephen wrecks by singing "Hallelujah." Stephen wrecks everything.
Trace meets up with the Backstreet Boys' road manager, who implies that the band might not go on if everything isn't right, as specified in their contract rider. While the guy has his back turned, Trace gets a call on his cell from BSB, one of whom seems to have forgotten his black fingernail polish. So Trace and Lennox, much to their embarrassment, have to make a nail-polish run to the local Duane Reade. The whole bit is accompanied by the laugh-track provided by the live audience, which is quite disconcerting.
Meanwhile, Piers has assigned Stephen the task of moving fifty tickets to the charity event, but once again, as with racking up celebrities, Stephen's getting nowhere. And, I mean, if Stephen Baldwin called you wanting to sell you tickets to something, wouldn't you change your number? It's actually almost impressive that he's got five people coming as opposed to zero. Piers doesn't see it that way, and goes into a kind of quiet panic.
A bunch of country stars, meanwhile, arrive at the airport and pile into limo vans to show up at the event in support of Trace. I assume Ronnie Milsap isn't driving.
Trump tries to go off-script Olmos-style: "Let's take it up. Check," he says by way of introducing another clip of the preparations for the event. Trace is feeling the time crunch, and is down to his last nerve, when his wife and two small daughters all come in, dressed to the nines. Suddenly all the stress goes away for Trace as he reunites with his family. He's literally moved to tears. Aww. Now get that deathly allergic six-year-old out of there before the shellfish arrives!
With one hour to go, catering is well underway. This is Carol's job, and she's just doing this like it's a regular party. But as with everything, Piers has a strategy: go light on the food and heavy on the drink. "Loaded celebrities means lots of money," he reasons to the caterers. They all seem to be on board.
With 30 minutes to go, BSB arrive just as the red carpet is being rolled out. They start their sound check, but there's another glitch: Trace needs to come up with a knee brace for Howie, who is apparently among the walking wounded. And he still can't seem to wrangle the asked-for wheatgrass. "Looking at the rider for the Backstreet Boys gave me new appreciation for myself," Trace boasts, cracking up the studio audience. He even shares a story about the time he did a show with severe stomach pains, and then went to the ER and got a foot and a half of his colon cut out that very night. "Don't get me started on the BSB," he wearily concludes. Yes, we'd all much rather hear more about your colon.
Commercials. Watch the Miss USA pageant and see somebody fuck up!
Trump reminds us of the criteria for the final competition (ticket sales, auction sales, overall whatever) before sending us back in time with another clip. Which begins with Piers and Trace shaking hands outside the door and wishing each other luck. Piers says something nice to Trace, who acts all surprised to hear it. Now who's the nice guy?
Inside, the party is in full swing, with Trace glad-handing his county folks and raking in checks for amounts like $5,000 and $10,000. He even gets a $5,000 brick of cash from someone. Somewhere in the city is a Fendi briefcase that's a bit on the light side. Piers greets his twenty service people he's brought in to put on display in order to motivate higher auction bids. If he advises them to limp, we don't hear it.
And here are the Trumps, rolling in and greeting the celebrities. The auction begins. The first lot up for bid is a fancy Super Bowl-related thing from Trace's side that starts at $15,000, but goes even higher. Someone really likes football. is Piers's tea with Sarah Ferguson, which goes for $100,000 to the boss of Cantor Fitzgerald. Piers talks about the guy's company being famous for having been decimated on 9/11. Shit, now I have to scrap that joke about how disappointed the winning bidder is going to be if Fergie doesn't put out. That would just be in poor taste. Ivanka buys a $6,000 dinner with Trace. "Sorry, honey, I may not come home," Trace jokes to his wife, who I'm sure finds that fucking hilarious. is the item Piers scored from Sharon Osbourne, namely dinner with the Osbournes and a live gig by Ozzy and his band anywhere in the world. Watching this at home, Ozzy is like, "What, the [bleep] bleeding [bleep] [unintelligible] [bleep] [bleep]? SHAROOON!" Mr. Cantor Fitz drops another hundred grand on that. Trace interviews a bit defensively that he's raising money too, even if he doesn't know people as rich as the people Piers knows. Or as many 9/11 survivors.
Back from the ads, the rest of the auction is edited too quickly to know what's going on, and then we're down to the last item on the list: the shopping date with Ivanka. It's looking like a grinning lech is going to win it with a $20,000 bid, until Piers gets a call from Simon Cowell to bid over the phone. Piers takes over the microphone and the whole event as Simon runs the bidding up to $100,000. Trace interviews that it's "distasteful," but Piers boasts that if you go up against him, he will crush you. And he will crush you with Simon Cowell, so you stay crushed.
With the auction at an end, it's about time for Trace to introduce the band, even though he was never able to come through with the wheatgrass.
Fuck. Suddenly I'm recapping a Backstreet Boys concert. This is what I've been reduced to.
Trace, however, is pleased with how well the band performs, wheatgrass juice or no. In the wings, Trace and Piers congratulate each other, and Piers thinks he's made friends for life. He doesn't say who they are, so I don't feel qualified to question him on that. Trace and Piers describe the magical moment of the six remaining celebrities all standing together and enjoying themselves, as we see them standing arm-in-arm behind one of the catering tables, watching the band. It's a special time, and then I look at the clock and realize that I'm about to have to weecap a one-hour board room. Shudder.
Back from the ads, Trump tells us that that generous Cantor Fitzgerald guy will be matching the text-message donations (you know, the ones I mentioned earlier) up to $250,000. Wow, that dude is dropping like a half-million on this show. I barely get paid that much to write about it. Trump then introduces Erin Burnett and Jim Cramer, complimenting them both on their looks before introducing tonight's Board Room Part One, which took place in the real board room some time after the charity event. Not immediately after, mind you, because they've changed clothes. Or at least Trace has, from the black-on-black ensemble he was wearing before. I'm already spending too much time on this.
The six remaining players return to the board room to face Trump and the Trumplets. Trump starts out by flatly asking Lennox which of the two finalists is better. Lennox talks about their different approaches, then says he prefers Trace's more laid-back style. Piers isn't surprised, since Lennox is laid-back (read: lazy) himself, but he voices his appreciation for Lennox. As for why he picked Stephen, Piers says they won nearly every challenge they had together, which is true. Trump then asks Trace how it went with the BSB, having heard they were difficult. Trace complains about the rider, and tells them the story about the last-minute cosmetics run: "I want[ed] the heavyweight champion of the world to hand him nail polish," he rumbles. Trace says he was briefly concerned that the band might not go on if all their demands weren't met. Piers volunteers that he would have told the BSB from the beginning to shove it, which Trump suspects might have resulted in the show not going on. Trace says he wanted a happy band onstage. And maybe he thought it would be nice if at least one of the two parties in the negotiation showed the other a little professional courtesy.
What about the money? In the final tally, Piers raised $376,000 in the auction, compared to $64,000 from Trace. That is a large margin -- almost four times more (TM Don, Jr.). "And $6,000 of that was mine," Ivanka fails to add. However, Trace raised $38,000 on ticket sales, handily beating Piers's paltry $12,000. Of course, Piers gave a bunch of his tickets away to servicepeople to try to jack up the auction bidding. There's some crosstalk, and Carol defends Piers's decision. Trump brings up Piers's move of bringing in Simon, mainly so he can remind everyone that Simon and Trump are friends. Piers says he raised a lot more money overall, but Don, Jr. calls him on blowing off one of the three criteria, namely ticket sales (the handy thing about having Don, Jr. around is that he rarely says anything of substance, but when he does you can count on it being wrong or irrelevant). Trace makes the argument that his donors don't have as much money to give as Piers's do, which is true, but he goes too far and makes the tactical error of accusing Piers of putting them down. Piers not only gets offended at "the inference that I was somehow belittling your donors," he wants Trace to take it back. And on that note, we go to commercial, which is fine with me.
Coming back, Trump takes Trace's side, accusing Piers of thinking it, even if he didn't say it. Piers still objects, but Trump has already moved on. He takes Piers's team to task for skimping on the food, which Piers defends as a strategic decision: get the donors drunk. Stephen piously says he doesn't approve of using alcohol to separate people from their money. Piers again calls Stephen on his hypocrisy, pointing out that he only ever makes these kinds of moralistic statements in the board room (which I believe is correct, as far as we've seen), and his former lifestyle makes them kind of rich coming from him in the first place. Trump comes to Stephen's defense. "Why are you sweating again?" Trump asks a babbling Piers. "You sweat a lot!" Hee. Ivanka asks Piers if it wouldn't help him more to be a little less rude. Piers once again claims to be fine with the whole evil antagonist role he says he 's been cast in (never get tired of hearing that), which gives Trump an opening to run with the whole good versus evil thing again. "The good, the bad, and ugly," he says. "But who's the ugly?" "Lennox," Piers answers instantly, cracking me up. He says that he's not there to be a nice guy, but to raise money for charity.
Trump asks Trace to respond to that, and Trace says he's there to represent the people his charity is trying to help, and refused to bring dishonor to himself or to that charity's beneficiaries. So did Piers do that? In Trace's opinion, Piers has been "questionable," not to mention unnecessarily rude. Piers continues to defend his rudeness, and Trace admits that he and Piers worked well together to bring the event off. Trump says this decision is the toughest thing he's had to do in a long time. Tougher than the time he couldn't decide at all and ended up firing no one? Because that seemed pretty tough.
And we're back live. Hey, there's George in the audience, clapping away. Of course he's happy; he doesn't have to sit at that table tonight.
Trump calls Trace out to the live board room, and he enters in his three-piece suit and cowboy hat. Which is not nearly the ridiculous affectation in New York City that a touch of black nail polish is. Piers comes out in a poorly-fitting game show host suit. At least the money he's raising is really going to charity and not a decent tailor. He sits down to mixed cheers and boos. Trump's first question is to Trace, asking what he thinks about Piers. Trace says that he doesn't care for Piers much, and reminds him that the strongly business-minded Erin Burnett and Jim Cramer thought Piers should have been fired. Piers cops to being the "evil, obnoxious, disgusting Brit." Think it's getting to him yet? No, me either.
Time to bring out the rest of the also-rans, who come out one by one and take seats in what looks like a jury box, but without the box. Gene Simmons is gone, because he's busy shooting a movie in Japan. Finally, that sequel to KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park that I've been waiting for! And the other missing celebrity? Omarosa.
Cue a montage of Piers vs. Omarosa's greatest hits. I've had some time to think about this since their big blow-up all those weeks ago, and I've realized something. Yes, Omarosa went below the belt with Piers. The meanest, worst, coldest thing you can say to a normal human being is that their family hates them and is disappointed in them; and Omarosa went there with Piers. But the meanest, worst, coldest thing you can say to Omarosa is this: "You're not that famous." And that's where Piers started with her. So take that for what it's worth. Anyway, we're reminded that back then, Piers vowed never to talk to her again. So then she finally comes out in full dragon-lady regalia. Trump asks her why she doesn't like Piers. "Because he doesn't floss," Omarosa says, failing to impress Trump with a diatribe about Piers's poor dental hygiene. Piers just pretends not to know who she is. There he goes again.
Trump then turns to Lennox, who says that Piers could stand to be a little more tactful. Carol says she wasn't insulted at not being picked by Piers for his final team. When Trump asks her about Trace, Carol starts to say that she should have been in the final round. Trump can't have that, of course, so he basically cuts her off. Trump then asks Stephen if he sabotaged Piers in the final task or if he really sucks that much. Stephen dodges the question, but he will say that Trace is "ten times better." The metric he's using is not immediately clear. Trump then asks Vinnie Pastore if he regrets resigning. Vinnie admits as much, and calls out Lennox for turning on him the day after Vinnie took him out for an evening. Lennox maintains that he thought Piers was the best guy at the time. At the time.
Trump asks the resident Apprentice fan, Marilu Henner, how she liked the experience. She just says it was fun. Trump then asks Jennie Finch if she's going to win an Olympic Gold Medal, and points out multi-medalist Nadia Comaneci sitting to her. Like that has anything to do with anything. Finally he asks for a show of hands on who likes Trace and who like Piers. Trace wins by a landslide (and a standing O from Lady O), but I think some of them voted twice. Notice how Trump learned his lesson with Carol and avoided asking any of the other women anything remotely relevant or related to the game? Nely Galan, of course, might as well not exist as far as he's concerned. It's time for more commercials now, and we'll find out Trump's decision eventually, I can only assume.
Returning from the ads, Trump compares himself to Gene Simmons, right down to the "big hair...sort of." Wow, he said a mouthful there. We get a little recap of Gene's losing task, in which he insisted that Kodak was wrong to judge his team the loser. Trump introduces Gene via satellite from Tokyo, CNN-interview-style, in a separate video window. After Gene gives a shout-out to his Japanese friends in seemingly fluent Japanese, Trump asks Gene if he's changed his mind about being wrong in the task he ended up losing. Gene stands by his position. So Trump has the guy back from Kodak, on hand to tell Gene that Kodak was right, and the right team won. Trump then asks Gene who he should pick, between Trace and Piers. Gene says that Piers outperformed in cash, but he rhapsodizes at great length about Trace's all-American qualities. He's in mid-speech when Trump cuts him off and tells him to answer the damn question already. After once again insisting that Kodak will come around to his point of view, Gene picks Trace as his favorite. Well domo arigato for stopping by, Gene.
Time for a video clip about Trace and his charity, the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, in which we see him picnicking with the family. Trace's wife Rhonda is seen making their six-year-old a separate pizza, because that's what the other kids are having (presumably with all sorts of poisonous glutens and dairy items and cooked in an oven that once had food in it), and she talks about how the little girl is literally seven minutes from death at any moment if she comes in contact with a peanut atom. It's very moving and absolutely impossible to make fun of. Moving on.
Trump and the Trumplets stand to one side of the stage like the hosts of Saturday Night Live introducing the musical guest. Which, since Trace is singing his new number one single, "You're Gonna Miss This," is more or less what's happening. Sing, Trace, sing! Actually, Trace, I'm not sure I will miss writing about this every Thursday. I'll get back to you when The Office comes back. Before the commercials, there's another plug for Trace's charity, in the form of telling us we can download the song on iTunes and the proceeds will go to his charity. What, Piers doesn't get to sing for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund? What a gyp.
We're back. Blimey, check out Piers's sourpussed family in the studio audience! Trump introduces the clip about Piers's charity, which shows Piers visiting the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, and meeting the center's director and some veterans with pretty grievous wounds. He meets with a guy with no legs and no eyesight, who says he would go back if he could. "Unfinished business," the man says. Well, at least he's not too maimed to hold a grudge. Kidding! Kidding, you guys. Damn, these charities are comedy killers.
Back from that, Trump and Piers stand to some of those same people, in the studio in dress uniform to accept a standing ovation. Trump steps on the applause to ask the veterans how they feel about Piers, and they say they support him, although one of them qualifies it by saying he doesn't know Piers that well. Trump compliments their courage, and calls for another round of applause. Trace also comes over, hat in hand, to shake each of their hands, and another standing ovation takes us all the way to the commercial. I don't know what to say without seeming jingoistic or flip, so I'll just say that if I were in that studio, I'd be on my feet too.
Finally, we come back, with eight minutes to go. Trump says they've raised a total of a million dollars for charity (half of it from that Cantor Fitzgerald guy, he doesn't mention), and Trump will throw in an extra quarter-mil for the winner's charity. He gives everyone the "no losers" speech, and the lights go down as the final board room begins in earnest.
Trump asks Trace why he should pick him. Trace starts by expressing his respect for Piers's charity, and mentions his own USO award, but insists that his charity is just as worthy if not more so. It's for the children! Trump turns to Piers, who admits that Trace is a good guy, and would easily win on likeability, if that's what this competition were about. Piers says it's all about the numbers, some of which he happily rattles off: he won nine of eleven tasks, raised half a million dollars, pulled the biggest victory in The Apprentice history, and brought in the most celebrities. As far as that last point, I'm not going to sit here and tally them all, let alone their level of fame relative to each other, but let's not forget how Marilu arranged to have David Hyde-Pierce lurk creepily nearby in a hoodie and baseball cap while she was selling Broadway tickets.
Ivanka gets a turn, pointing out that this would be the shortest board room ever if Piers had a better "bedside manner." Piers makes an ill-advised crack about that, which Ivanka says is a good example of what she's talking about. Piers insists that he gave his all to raise as much money as possible, and stands by everything he did. Because time is running out, Trump turns to Don, Jr. for some token input. The kid blathers about something before coming around to a pointless question about Piers's use of his Rolodex. I'm actually glad the question is so pointless, because Trump tells them they've only got a minute left and Piers isn't allowed to answer. I'd hate to think that the answer to an interesting question got cut off. Trump finally tells Piers he played hard and did great. He tells Trace he's a great guy. And here's his final decision: Piers is the Celebrity Apprentice.
Cue the confetti! Cue the clapping! Cue the hugging! Cue the theme song! Flanked by his Trumplets, Trump says to us, "See you season." And then he threatens, "We're going to be around for a[nother] long time."