Says Donald Trump, attempting to discuss the issue of fairness, presented by one contestant on "The Apprentice," Lee, absenting himself from two tasks in order to observe Jewish holidays. The point is you can't fire him for that. You just have to accept the situation. It doesn't really mean that life sucks, but the message is there. Lee can't be fired. Nevertheless, clueless Bryce chooses Lee, along with Lenny, to come back to the boardroom.
Bryce was pegged from the start to go. There he was blabbing pointlessly when Charmaine tried to tell him that they needed to leave to meet with the execs (and they arrive 25 minutes late). Then he blabbed annoyingly in the boardroom too, even repeatedly interrupting Trump, as he tried to justify his ridiculous decision to target Lee. Fired, he was still blabbing in the taxicab: It wouldn't hurt Trump to listen once in a while.
There was that interlude before the boardroom when Bryce seemed to lead his group in a mutual support session, to the point where he had Charmaine believing that maybe their love would move Trump to keep them all. Bryce mocked Charmaine for her naivity, but then he went into the boardroom and acted as if he believed it could play out that way. Have we ever seen Carolyn smirk so severely at anyone?
April 3, 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
11 comments:
I love it when he tries to be deep. He always ends up going off the cliff of overstatement into the gorge of hilarity.
I'm guessing Bryce was kind of over the whole thing by the time he hit the Boardroom. Why else would he be so stupid as to get sarcastic with Trump? What a trainwreck.
It's his schtick, but I don't recall seeing it until last season in the Boardroom. We got the Uncle Trumpy's Lesson of the Week, of course, but even those ostensibly had something to do with business.
The first time I remember seeing it was the "Life continues..." moment last season.
Professor A: Thank you for this blogging. My "Apprentice" time is spent viewing "24," and, because of your reviews, I don't even waste time taping it.
Bryce was in a bad situation and his only fault was trying to explain himself. He should have just said, this are your rules, fire me if you must but I'm not blaming anyone. These subjective, pick the one you like most, product promotion projects may cause me to check out. Did we learn anything about anybody tonight, except that Lee is devout, Lenny is culturally limited and Bryce is a decent, well meaning guy.
They all respected Lee for practicing his religion, I'm not so sure Bryce didn't do a better job of that, for sure he didn't deserve to be mocked for it Carolyn. Let's all feel good because we throw some charitable event then ridicule someone for being decent.
Wow...I was a little more charitable with Bryce than our host.
He deserved to be fired simply because the team was late, if for nothing else. I think he realized that during the little pep talk he gave before the boardroom, and his analysis was basically correct - we did a good job, they were just better, there really is no one to blame. I think he was ready to be fired at that point. Be the sacrifical lamb, get fired, walk out with pride and reputation intact on network TV - not that bad of a trade-off.
But in the boardroom, he got greedy - he saw a way out. The basic argument was this: "We did a good job, we could have been better if these people had contributed. I can't punish the people who put in the most effort." This way he doesn't go back on his previous commitments, but takes some of the heat off himself.
The problem is, of course, it's not about effort, but responsibility (blame).
I think Bryce could have pulled it off, if he didn't bring Lee, and just Lenny. But Lenny's not an idiot, and he stayed out of the way. Then Bryce started believing in his own nobility and began arguing with Trump, as if sheer moral force could save him.
He wanted to both seem noble and stay on the show, when he really had to choose between the two, and ended up with neither.
Like last week, this was a lame task and it was just as lame when they did it last year.
Bryce might've had a fighting chance if he had brought Tarek to the board room. Trump already thinks Tarek is a joke, and there was the possibility Tarek would've said something stupid. How you perform in the boardroom seems just as important as how you perform on the tasks. I doubt Bryce could've talked his way out of it regardless, as the only two screw-ups (being late, and failing to stress what Arby's wanted in the jingle) were mostly his fault. Nevertheless, putting someone else on the defensive and hoping they say something that irks Trump was his only hope.
I'm just glad Lenny survives again. :)
Do you guys think the producers intentionally scheduled tasks on Jewish holidays in the hopes it would create issues?
Wish they'd come up with something besides marketing tasks for these folks to do. They're only so interesting, and tonight the winner wasn't terribly clear (although the dude with the English accent was ;)).
Charmaine and Tarak should have been brought in... then Bryce could have had the opportunity to say that both of them made errors in the task -- Charmaine in the appointment scheduling and leaving out the wonderful "Arby's is the ONLY place to find NATURAL chicken" line (WTF?), and Tarak in the not so wonderful creative management of the music.
Bryce could have then jumped in and mentioned how he managed to bring this difficult team together. Interesting that both Trump and Bryce were surprised that the team was 25 minutes late to the meeting with the execs.... hmmm... maybe Trump would have been more understanding at Bryce's confidence that morning that Charmaine wouldn't take him in to a late meeting. BUT he didn't bring her into the boardroom. Charmaine should have been dropped.
Instead, the ever-so-gallant Bryce "threw himself under the bus" and chose two people who didn't deserve to be fired because they didn't or couldn't materially contribute to the task. Ah, see ya later Knight in Shining Armor. tsk. tsk.
I liked that Bryce had the balls to kind of give Trump a bit of slap back. He said a few things that showed he had some internal fortitude, and while his defense strategy might have been off (bringing in Saint Lee), he still left with dignity.
The tasks this season are absolutely dull.
I didn't see the first part of the show, just noticed that Lee again was missing because he's devout. I feel like Lenny about this but would have no objection to his time out, if he told the producers and the team members this up front. Did he? These were two of the dumbest tasks ever and I have the feeling the producers are manipulating things too much to make "drama."
Now that I've slept off being hacked at how they treated Bryce, who was deservedly fired but anyway...
Writing jingles for Arby's-that might have "jumped the shark." By working from a promotional motive back into a project, the creativity is limited, maybe this California adventure next season will change that. This week, writing jingles for In 'n Out Burger. wheee
Yes, writing jingles for Arby's was ridiculous. And I'm not a businessman, but would any person in good taste buy Trump ties or
watches??
Post a Comment