Fruitless Pursuits

Let’s recap another episode of The Celebrity Apprentice! Your number one show where planet-sized egos clash and embarrassingly insecure celebrities burst into tears and scream at each other!

HULK PASH!!!

Remember all the way back in... ohhhh... episode ONE, where the women made a solemn pledge to buck reality television tradition and be the first female team ever to NOT be bitchy and catty towards each other? And I, like many of you I’m sure, thought, “Golly! Why would obscure actresses, Miss Universe, former pop idols, reality TV monsters, a mob boss, and the world’s most obnoxious comedienne, possibly have any reason to be bitchy and/or catty?” I just assumed that they would all get along great!

Did they succeed? Why not join me after the jump and we’ll find out!

Last week, after the women lost, many of them made a cautious play to oust first daughter of the mob, Victoria Gotti. The ploy failed, and a weary and vanquished Cheryl Tiegs admitted defeat and meekly left the show. On her return to the rest of her team Gotti is super pissed and overbearing, loud, comic bulldozer Lisa Lampanelli has good reason to be frightened, speculating that Gotti might have her murdered in her sleep. A stone-faced Gotti makes it very clear that is now on like Donkey Kong and that they are all behaving like a bunch of - you guessed it! - catty bitches! She even gives a serve to the affable Tia Carrere who seems to be cursed on this show with trying to be nice but getting treated like shit.

Will Gotti literally bury her competition? Holy crap, I certainly hope so!

The Task
If the regular Apprentice is about business, then the Celebrity Apprentice is about bullshit. There is no business acumen here. No spreadsheets or supply and demand curves.

Hard-ass Trump is sending Team Unanimous (dudes) and Team Forte (broads) to ye olde restaurant Medieval Times where they must dress as knights, squires and maidens and put on a 12 minute show for a family crowd. It is the bloated pennant-waving audience - resplendent in their cardboard crowns - that will deem the winner of the task, again not based on any kind of business skills, but rather by voting for the team that manages to humiliate themselves the least. And trust me, there’s no shortage of competitors that are willing to humiliate themselves.

Unabashed pervert Trump gets the humiliation ball rolling by immediately referencing Lady Godiva and suggesting that Miss Universe rides in naked on a horse. Trump says this with an intensely creepy, salacious look on his face which should make him legally required to always have his hands above the desk. We could dismiss this comment as an off-hand joke, but the idea of her riding naked is repeatedly referenced throughout the rest of the episode. “OK, so Mr. Trump said she has to ride in naked.” Even Trump’s duck-arse haired son Don Jr. mentions that Dayana was instructed to be nude as part of the task. Trump, just because you’re rich doesn’t mean that you can halt proceedings while you undress the female contestants with your piggy little eyes.

The Men’s Plan
Team Unanimous is a man down because Adam Carolla is hosting a wedding at his house. Yes. He’s being excused from the task because he’s partying. Not that it matters because the mighty Penn Jillette - my personal favourite and the guarranteed overall winner - takes the reins as Project Manager, and rest assured he is going to breath fire and kick serious ass.

Penn’s not trying to reinvent the wheel here. He’s going to MC a broad comedic show that showcases each of his merry men. Arsenio Hall will co-host. Meaty lunkheads Lou Ferrigno and Paul “The Walrus” Teutul Snr will battle. Clay Aiken will sing. Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider will transform into a pretty maiden. And George Takei will herald everyone in. Oh... and Michael Andretti? I think he just lurks in the background. I think he might hold a door open for something.

Everyone respects the Penn powerhouse so rehearsals go relatively smoothly. They have a few problems with Takei who insists on wearing his costume the entire day and can’t remember lines for the life of him. But damned if he doesn’t read off a script with bravado! Walrus Paul gets a little pissed off at an over zealous something-to-prove Ferrigno who hammers at him with a sword during fight choreography. Ferrigno is basically a sentient slab of beef and is taking his role as a knight way too seriously and seems determined to slice Paul the Walrus cleanly in half. Keep an eye on Ferrigno this episode because he’s beginning to unhinge...

Dee Snider awkwardly comes off his horse and gets his finger caught in the saddle. His finger snaps at the base. Despite being severely fractured Dee soldiers on and continues to get the job done. He is a super badass, and no doubt divinely inspired by the infallible leadership of Penn.

But meanwhile...

The Women’s Plan
Huge-mawed comedian Lisa Lampanelli shoulders her way into the Project Manager position, and boy does that shoulder have a giant chip on it! Lisa is incredibly insecure and this only becomes more and more evident as the cracks continue to appear on her rocky surface. From the very beginning she is determined to overpower everyone and keep control by being the most tyrannical bitch possible. This starts during a mobile phone call to Debbie Gibson where Lisa starts yelling that no one is to ever interrupt her! She reads everyone the riot act! Don’t you ever dare speak when I’m talking, you stupid idiots!

Their idea is pretty cringe-worthy. Lisa will pretend to be Donald Trump and the rest of the team will play the petty, obnoxious, cat-fighting Real Housewives of Camelot who vie for Trump’s affection. Hilarious, right? Except Gotti is banished to the tech desk where she will cue the sounds and lights. Gotti is totally pissed off to the point where she wants to leave the team and is surely just another step closer to planning Lisa’s execution.

She then proceeds to dangerously clash with Gotti again when the latter proves to be a total Internet noob with a hundred word vocabulary. When asked to google “medieval”, Gotti obliviously enters “mid-evil” which makes Lampanelli blow one of her few remaining gaskets.

The women head to ye olde costume store to get out-fitted with wench-wear, and poor old Miss Universe is actually going to be put in a “nude bodysuit” thanks to Trump’s dirty fantasy request.

Lisa Lampinelli’s meltdown continues when she decides she is being interrupted at the fitting. Guys! You must not under any circumstances interrupt the great Lisa Lampanelli! Everything that comes screaming out of her gaping maw is not to be missed! Lisa really loses it this time and yells at Patricia Velasquez like she’s a misbehaving child. Clearly Lisa has zero self-awareness, no idea how to interact with fellow humans, and a tenuous grasp on reality. Any respect she thinks she has is quickly eroded.

The Men’s Show
Admittedly the men’s show is kinda’ crap, but under Penn’s direction it goes off without a hitch. Clay Aiken squeals like a girl, Takei reads like a champion, and the highlight is Paul the Walrus riding in on a beautiful medieval inspired custom chopper. He battles Ferrigno, loses, and just when we think that Ferrigno is going to tongue-lock Dee Snider as a reward, he turns his sword on himself and commits suicide. The cardboard-crowned card take a break from shovelling ribs into their giant gobs and go wild!

You nailed it, Penn!

The Women’s Show
The women’s show is as horrible as you’d imagine. Gotti’s asleep at the sound desk and misses some cues, causing Lisa’s monstrous Trump caricature to pause awkwardly. Miss Universe’s “nude” body suit turns out to be a beige tank-top. But don’t worry - there’s some surprise real nudity! Tia Carrere slips a boob during a cat-fight which causes her chest to be momentarily covered in pixels, and the delightful Debbie Gibson can’t have been wearing much under her skirt, because when she flips backward with her legs akimbo a huge pixel patch appears on the screen and the crowd nearly drop their hamburgers when they see hers.

But is Debbie’s slip enough to win?

Of course not.

The Boardroom
Any imbecile could tell you that the men have won, but Trump still has to go through the scripted rigmarole. There’s no doubt that Penn’s team worships and respects him, but Trump still forces Penn to identify his two weakest links that he would bring back to the boardroom were he to hypothetically lose.

It’s a tough ask for Penn, who clearly cares for his bros, but he grudgingly nominates Ferrigno and Takei as he believes they are fine actors (generous in Ferrigno's case) but might not have many usable business skill's for the future. Takei takes this with the understanding and grace befitting of such a distinguished gentleman - he knows that Penn has been forced to answer this difficult question - but Ferrigno, on the other hand, totally flips the fuck out. Sitting right next to Penn he has a long, lispy, hissyfit about how awesome he is and how this is a "power play". It's really awkward and another fine example of how some of our toughest looking and acting characters are often the most insecure. Even after the men are announced as winners and they retire to the war room, Ferrigno is still going off at a bored Penn who does his best to placate the giant whining baby.

Trump turns his attention to the women, but it's a divided attention because he'll occasionally ignore what they're actually saying and tell them how good they look. I don't know why he bothers going through this entire circus when he could probably just play to have sex with at least a couple of them. I haven't seen every series of the show but he seems dirtier and dirtier as they progress.

None of the losing team seem at all enthusiastic about Lampanelli's dictatorship and she is forced to bring her too weakest links into the boardroom. She of course brings back her arch nemesis Gotti, but also stupidly brings back Miss Universe, who isn't going anywhere because Trump still wants to see her nude. (And yes, the whole nude thing is brought up again). The real battle is between an increasingly hysterical Lampanelli and a pissed-off Gotti and Lamps ends up finally unleashing the waterworks, crying while she screams loudly about how passionate and accomplished she is. And if you weren't already convinced that she was fragile and insecure from her previous outbursts, then you might be mildly amused by her bold statement that she is one of the "top three women comedians today!" Really? Sarah Silverman must find that depressing.

Now this is one of those reality television dilemmas that we've all experienced. We watch shows like this because we want to see evil punished. We want to see someone mean and delusional get their comeuppance, in this case by Don's pudgy digit pointing them towards the door. But is this the right moment for Lisa? Because the most obnoxious contestants are also the most entertaining and if she stays she might have an even BIGGER meltdown later! She might act even crazier in the future if we give her a chance! Can you appreciate my bind?

But passion is a powerful thing, and the general consensus is that Lisa might be loud, but she has a lot of potential, whereas Gotti has one facial expression and can't spell medieval. Gotti is fired - waaaay too early in my opinion, because she was a pretty tough, uncompromising lady who could cut through the bullshit, and I would have liked to have seen her continue to school the more theatrical members of her team. 

Gotti's exit interview is pretty ominous though. Sitting in the back of the cab she says that Lisa may have won for now but this is going to come back to haunt her. My guess is by way of two cement shoes and the  Hudson river. What a crazy season!