I'm really rather excited about the big finale show tonight. Predictions? Preferences?
UPDATE: (Spoiler!) Wow! I can't believe Randal demanded to be the only one when Trump put the question to him whether to hire a second apprentice and include Rebecca! The glory fell apart in an instant as he declined to be magnanimous and to recognize Rebecca, a 23-year-old woman of steel. Randal, you won and then you threw it all away!
IN THE COMMENTS: Lots of comments. Very little support for Randal.
MORE: I recap the last three minutes of the show in another post, here.
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With the way things are going, the (literally) 9 people for whom I left messages several hours ago will all call back during the show (and due to the context, I can't not answer), and one of the dogs will puke again. And my son will need a drink of water. And ... well, whatever.
Sigh.
At least I know you will post about it (and then there's the CNBC reruns--though given the season and my upcoming schedule, I'm not optimistic that I'll catch one.)
A public service you perform, re: apprentice, yes indeedy.
I won't make a prediction, because, given the day, I'm sure I'll be wrong. And who needs that?
Prediction: Double hire. If Randall doesn't get hired, the entire universe will collapse into an infinite singularity. "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together... mass hysteria!"
Freeman: Maybe a double hire on this "Apprentice" and a zero hire for Martha's "Apprentice." Or maybe they could let Martha take one of Randal/Rebecca, not that either seems to fit the Martha place.
I originally thought a double-hire was coming down the road, but, now I think it's just Rebecca. You go girl!
Awww, tell the comics to leave Mr. George alone. George rules.
I have to say that Rebecca really dropped the ball. Yahoo isn't a charity! This was a charity event! She forgot the Elizabeth Glaser folks in trying to please the sponsor. I have to say that Randall did a much better job balancing the needs of both the sponsor and the charity.
I think they’re both ‘apprentice’ material. This is as tough a decision as the first Apprentice season. Perhaps it will be a double hire after all.
You know... qualifications aside, Randal and Rebecca are two of the most mature people I've ever seen on a reality show. Kudos.
dave - I suspect that announcement will come tonight during the show (before the new Apprentice is selected)
Everyone mispronouncing "Glaser" is driving me up the wall. It's "Glaze-er" not "Glazhyur."
I pick Rebecca. Randal is an intellectual and smarter than the Boss--some day Trump may read one of RAndal's books, but he is not a guy that Trump can use now.
What a difference in candidates between this show and Martha's version.
esk- No kidding! Martha really got the short end of the...
of the...
WHAT DID REBECCA DO TO HER HAIR? THAT'S HORRIBLE!
Dave and esk, you guys called it! $100k split between both charities.
Yeah.. could see that coming.
Are we ruining this for the west coast visitors to this site? Perhaps there should be a disclaimer saying there are spoilers in here.
Randal just squandered a lot of good will.
Rebecca will survive... Randal has to live with his insecurities.
I guess Randall didn't want anything to get in the way of his coronation.
Trump was practically asking him to permit the double hire...that was the whole point of introducing the job assignments before the end of show.
So much for friendship.
(Anyone else think that was a less-than-classy thing for Randall to do?)
Ouch. Well, Trump only said he'd only leave it at that for tonight. Rebecca will be hired tomorrow.
I saw nothing wrong with what Randal did. To the victor go the spoils. Rebecca was good, but not good enough.
I should flesh that out a bit. Rebecca has potential and gives good Boardroom, but she's proven herself to be good at details while missing the big picture, and that's not good for an executive (or "executive" as the case may be). She blew the final task! She forced a yooge corporation to make a large donation on TV in order to salvage their reputation because she completely overlooked the focus of the task she was given.
Randal earned this one on his own, and should reap the rewards. Rebecca would make a good employee of the Trump organization, but not as the Apprentice.
Ditto about squandering good will. I liked Randall all right up to now, but that all changed with this ultimately selfish decision. I also feel he was nasty about Rebecca when he didn't need to be to win, while she was as respectful of him as she could be while still advocating for herself. I hope hope hope that Trump hires Rebecca tomorrow.
I hate the way this ended because Randal should never have been put in that position.
This was a woman who really never won a task as PM, didn't get one red cent in donations for her final charity project, and had stayed in the game mostly because Trump seemed to love her spunk in the boardroom.
I really don't blame him for not wanting to share the title with her. He already got a taste of what it would have been like when Trump pulled him away from enjoying the congratulations of his teammates to make him come sit down and talk about Rebecca some more.
It was a serious mistake on Trump's part. Want to hire both? Hire both! Now Randal's victory is going to be tainted with this bullshit "controversy" that never needed to exist in the first place.
I think Randal will fade as quickly as the season 2 & 3 winners did. I have a feeling we'll be hearing more about Rebecca though.
tiggeril, you;re mssing the point. Randal would lose nothing by having rebecca be hired as another Apprentice. Trump's organization is large enough that two execs making $250,000 per year will each run their own show.
With all due respect, my point wasn't about him having to portion out the job like the last piece of birthday cake. My point was that she didn't earn it. If she'd done even a little better on the final task, I'd sympathize with the viewpoint that he should have said yes, but she didn't, and so I don't. She's a great competitor and she doesn't need Trump to go far, but in this case, her performance just wasn't up to par and there was no need, in my mind, for Randal to reward her for that.
Speaking of past seasons, whatever happened to Kelly? We've seen Bill numerous times and I saw Kendra in the audience tonight. But what about The Universal Soldier, Kelly???
I smelled a double hire at 9 p.m. and was surprised that a) Trump left the decision to Randal and b) that Randal didn't endorse Rebecca as a second hire.
In my mind, a competitive job interview isn't the place to be magnanimous, even if it is on television. I'm reserving my ire for Trump on this one, because I think it was a dick move to even put Randal and Rebecca in that position.
I thought I saw the double hire coming several weeks ago and Randal had nothing to lose by leaving it up to Trump. Not a good move. Kinda deflated the show, of course I never like these last episodes anyway.
Randal thought that Trump wanted him to accept Rebecca as another apprentice. Randal should have turned the tables on the offer and said, "I absolutely want Rebecca as my #2 for this task. We work great together, she's eminently qualified, and with her working with me on my project, it will come together better than ever conceived." It allows Randal to be magnanimous without ceding the spotlight as sole apprentice, gives Rebecca an executive position in the Trump Organization with opportunity for advancement, and satisfies Trump's desire to hire both. Win-win-win. Randal's choice was his prerogative, but he could have enhanced his own success.
Big hair must be the new trend. Did you notice how many of those women had big hair last night?
Kudos for Randal for pluralizing "Apprentice" into "Apprenti"...ya think he reads this blog??
Ruth Anne: "Apprenti" is a running joke over at "Television Without Pity." My theory is that his sense that "there can only be one" was a mental distortion caused by looking for too many years at the weird spelling of his own name, with that solo "L."
I'd also like to say that I got tired of hearing all the uncritical praise for his having 5 degrees. I think there's something questionable about that, a real negative that demands an explanations: why did you just keep hanging around in school getting one degree after another? Why didn't you want to go out in the world and start doing something? Have you really used all your degrees in whatever it is you've done since you finally saw fit to stop accumulating them?
And another thing: what was his million dollar "consulting" business? I couldn't understand what he did. It all sounded like double talk. And he had the nerve to insult Rebecca for being a journalist! He actually does things while she only writes about them. What the heck did he do though? And how can he be such a doer when he stayed in school getting 5 degrees? No one ever called him on that. He was some kind of motivational speaker? But he never made much more sense than Markus when he spoke. Everyone was always overly nice to him.
And then when it came time for him to do something nice, he completely refused. Ugh!
To pluralize apprentice as apprenti is just so wrong. Folks we speak English not Latin. Although this word is from Latin, it comes through the lens of Old French, Old English and Middle English. Let us celebrate our own language as the plural is apprentices.
Let us celebrate our language by cracking jokes.
I don't watch the show... frankly I can't stand "reality televion" in general... But it is a competition isn't it?
And given Ann's leanings... I wonder how her post would have differed if the rolls had been reversed and the woman won, and said there shouldn't have been a second winner.
She would have been empowered right?
I couldn't understand what he did. It all sounded like double talk.
I laughed out loud on reading that (not at you, Ann, but the sentences themselves.) Then I got myself right over to Randal's company site, just to see if my instincts were correct.
Yes, indeed!
Ann, welcome to the wonderful world of change management/IT consulting/etc. And the way that vast swathes of corporate America speak and write.
(Pssssst! You're not SUPPOSED to understand it .... You don't have the secret password.
And, really, you don't want to.)
Let's just suffice it to say that, of all the editing/writing work I have done, it's in these specific areas where the allusion "the emperor has no clothes" has popped into my mind with alarming frequency.
Sure can be lucrative, though ...
(Funny that the editing I enjoy most is that which pays least, and vice versa. Murphy's law, and all that.)
Annoying... watched every darn episode, then forget to tape final episode cause I am at work doing data entry on Christmas mail.
Randal sounds like he pissed off a bunch of people here, who all univerally hate him now because he did not opt to give Rebecca a leg up (despite the fact that she won nearly nothing). I agree it would have been nice of him though. He should have.
Maybe Randal, in not being "nice", was getting back at her for dissing him in that previous boardroom? It's so hard to be nice when people disrespect you, or hang up on you, or don't offer you enough money, or don't explain their business plan to you, and stuff like that.
But yea, Randal, for some reason, should just be nice, in case the subplot of his new job involves a stint as Mr.Rogers.
I do wonder, though, how well Randal will ultimately fit in with the Trump organization, because Trump seems much more direct than that. I suspect that he's not much for that kind of corporatespeak b.s., which may partly explain his affinity with Rebecca. Interesting that she's a journalist: As someone who has, and does, work in both areas, I can tell you that the mindsets, and even skill sets, are significantly different, as well as the worldview, generally speaking.
(I'm sort of weird in that I can incorporate and practice both; that's actually unusual. Not bragging, it's just a flat-out fact. Like the way some people can speak multiple languages fluently.)
Trump himself seems to me to have a style that in many ways is far more akin to the "J" mindset than the stereotypic "C" one, which Randal appears to be coming from, all his degrees notwithstanding, at least in terms of business. (Our impression of him is of course pretty superficial; still, I do find it interesting that he doesn't really exhibit all that much of an "A" mindset, at least in practice.)
I think the followup is going to be interesting.
In case I was too obscure:
C=Corporate
J=Journalist
A=Academic
I was a Randal-man the entire season, but that was entirely lame of him.
Does anyone else question the "multi-million" dollar nature of Randal's business? The business offices were a joke (what was that plastic banner behind him in the conference room?), though maybe I'm just comparing it to the law offices I spend most of my time in.
And not to be entirely shallow, but did his house look like a millionaire's house? Or his car?
I'm not saying he wasn't being truthfull. Maybe he gives it all to charity (which I would have been much more willing to believe if he had shown any charity tonight).
I could be completely wrong, I'm just speculating here!
As far as shadycharacter's comments and questions about Randal's business are concerned, just because he's a partner in a business with gross revenues in the millions doesn't mean that he's a millionaire. It just means he's one of the owners of a rather successful small business. Of all the business owners on the show, I believe that Alla is probably the most successful as a business owner.
While I could look at Alla's business history and see why she might be interested in working for Trump (she's looking to learn or try the next thing), when I look at Randal's history, I have to wonder if the desire to work for Trump isn't simply another instance of credentialing, something he seems obsessed with (which goes back to Ann's point about his 5 degrees not being a plus).
And with that in mind, his lack of magnanimity is even more of a turn-off. He had nothing to lose by saying he'd hire Rebecca, no matter what Trump decided to do.
And so, if Trump doesn't hire her, I do sort of wish, as Ann suggested, that Martha Stewart would hire Rebecca, simply because she seems so much more appealing than either of the finalists on that show.
I think Randal just sort of lost his head for a second. The game was over and he couldn't stop competing. I bet he comes out with an announcement of some sort today...
Yeah, Kurt, I think Martha should hire Rebecca! DAwna could be her assistant, and Jim and Betheny could run off together.
Oh, and another thing.
How should Rebecca have handled the fundraising needs versus the recalcitrant execs (who I bet are in trouble today)? Interesting conundrum.
I bet he won't get the "Trump treatment" [private helicopter, limosines, etc.] the next time a relative dies.
Trumps is a huckster with a heart of gold.
Rebecca, a woman of steel? I do not agree. While I agree that she is a strong individual, I would not go so far as to describe her as a woman of steel. I thought the whole bit about her perservering in spite of her ankle injury was TOTALLY exaggerated; particularly, when Trump said something to the effect of she stayed with it when most others would have gone crying home--spare me!
Randal clearly performed better overall, had better interpersonal and/or leadership skills, and superior education and experience.
As far as alleged lack of magnanimity is concerned, I also disagree. Being THE Apprentice surely comes with endorsement opportunities that would be diminished (even if marginally) by being a joint or co-apprentice.
My wife and I thought what Randal did was awesome.
Rebecca, woman of steel? Rofl! I couldn't believe it when Trump said that anybody who broke their ankle would quit the show and go home... WHAT??!?!?!
Then Rebecca says Randal's fatal flaw is he misses the big picture because he concentrates on the details... when she is the one who let the Yahooers scare her into not getting a friggin' dime for charity.
Rebecca's self confidence would be great if it bore any relation to reality. I prefer Alla's version.
Everyone keeps referring to Randal's consistent level of excellence throughout--but really what did he do??? Very few of the episode edits gave you any really idea of what the "excellent" players did because all the focus was on showing what the sub-par players did. I frankly think Randal got by on his pleasing personality and impressive resume. (I agree with Ann, what's the point of 5 degrees? It's overkill.) Sure, Randal was on some winning teams-- but the men's team was far and away superior to the women's team. I know that might be controversial to say but, seriously, how was Rebecca supposed to win with that bunch of clique-oriented women? They were the worst examples of women in business, petty, manipulative, two-faced and exclusionary. They couldn't make decisions without bickering and they were unable to unite behind any leader because they couldn't stop picking at their teammates. Even Randal couldn't even save that bunch from losing! When Rebecca was finally paired with higher quality teammates, her skills assisted in victory.
Also-think about the negotiations for the teams. Rebecca rocked! Randal was caught completely off-guard by her go for the throat style--he seemed to think he shouldn't have to negotiate with her and then, petulantly, when she won the coin toss and some of her choices he tried to steal her uncontested choice, presumeably out of ire.
In the final task, Rebecca did the superior job and I blame Yahoo for limiting her ability to fundraise. Seems like they thought they were just throwing a corporate party rather than sponsoring a charitable event. The customer is the guy paying the bills and that was Yahoo. If Yahoo had felt they did nothing wrong, then why come on and make a huge donation during the live show. They realized they had egg on their face. I don't imagine the Yahoo execs who kept reminding Rebecca not to ask for $ for the charity are in the doghouse right now.
Finally, I agree with the comments about the "multi-millionaire" company and Randal's lifestyle being at odds. His front door opened into his kitchen. That doesn't suggest high quality digs to me.
Rebecca DID do a superior job of getting money for the charity- except that she didn't get any money for the charity because she was not TOUGH ENOUGH. And she was a better contestant throughout the show, except for the fact that she was 1-2 as a leader while Randal was 3-0.
But as a non-leader she WAS better. Well, except every time a team could dump somebody they dumped Rebecca, and every time they could pull somebody from another team they pulled Randal.
"They were the worst examples of women in business, petty, manipulative, two-faced and exclusionary." You mean like Toral, the person Rebecca thinks is great? The person she refused to fire when she deserved it, and then rehired?
Rebecca should not even have been in the final two. She coasted in by being on Randal's team.
Well spoken Harkonnendog.
Harkonnendog,
On the contrary I think that Randal is manipulative, devisive and canniving. The way he handled his victory made me lose all respect for him.
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