Celebrity Apprentice Recap: How Much Is That Celebrity In The Window?



The two hours of product placement given to Ivanka Trump by Celebrity Apprentice last night totally worked because I actually googled Ivanka’s line. It’s basically a line of cute conservative clothes for career girls, “reasonably” priced or downright cheap if you have Ivanka’s budget, but not exactly accessible to those of us who have to shop the sale rack at Forever 21.

I can’t go any further on this recap without mentioning the most memorable thing that happened during the broadcast, which, unfortunately was not even on the show itself, but was the insanely long commercial for Cartier that aired during the first commercial break. If you haven’t seen it, watch it so you’ll have something to talk about at lunch with your co-workers, because judging from Twitter’s reaction, that’s all anyone remembers.

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Last night’s episode featured a challenge with suspicious timing. The project for our little celebrities was to have them dress two windows at classic, New York department store, Lord and Taylor that would showcase Ivanka’s clothing collection. The timing was a bit sketchy given that the previous two weeks saw two consecutive wins by the men’s team, and here comes this challenge, which would obviously be far easier for the women, given their collective backgrounds in fashion and modeling.

Gay stereotyping was alive and well when the men’s team picked George Takei as their project manager, solely because he was gay, as Adam Carrolla pointed out in his talking head. Being attracted to men doesn’t make you an expert on women’s fashion, it makes you an expert on being attracted to men. I smelled trouble immediately when George was picked.

On both of the previous challenges poor George just could not keep up, and putting him in the leadership role was a bad idea, which all the team members began to realize. They stumbled on to their concept of “Ivanka by Day, and Ivanka By Night” and as the task went on, George let everyone else take over.

On the women’s team, Teresa Giudice immediately wanted to be project manager due to her “background in fashion”, but Dayana Mendoza, still reeling from last week’s session in the boardroom, got the job instead. Why do they fight for the job? Aubrey O’Day will just take over anyway, no matter what. Just like last week, Aubrey was very vocal in planning the task, and it pains me a bit to admit, but Aubrey is actually kinda smart. I’ve forgiven her for the time she mentioned her Twitter followers on the premiere. I even started following her, but had to unfollow an hour later when the stream of retweeted compliments gave me a headache. Aubrey is okay, and as it turns out, her quick thinking saved the women’s presentation.

At this point in the game, it’s clear that the producers are beginning to set up possible rivalries and villains. First possibility: Debbie Gibson. Last week, she seemed a bit annoyed with Lisa Lampanelli’s direction, and this week, Dayana called her out for being too old to be a model in the window. Second, I suspect Teresa will be showing us more of the side we know from Real Housewives of New Jersey. While she took losing the project manager gig in stride, there were cracks in her façade last night. When Dayana was stressed and rambling on to Donald Trump. Jr about their vision, Teresa wisely said, it’s one thing to model, and it’s another to dress windows. But could Teresa have done a better job? Would she have put Gia and Milania in the windows?

On the men’s team, Lou Ferrigno continues to be a loose cannon. He tried to help Adam and Paul Teutul, but it was too much. George threw him under the bus while the men presented their looks to Ivanka, and once again, he was very upset in the boardroom at George’s comments that he didn’t take direction well and was annoying the other teammates. I predict Lou will turn green very soon.

While both teams had similar themes (transformation, same women with two different perspectives), the women’s team had a concept that was way more complex, and unsurprisingly, they finally won! It’s about damn time! They completely didn’t trash each other in the boardroom -reminding me of that infamous Real Housewives of Atlanta reunion after season two where the women decided not to argue as a negotiating ploy.

The men’s team wasn’t much different, all sunshine and rainbows and positive talk, and they were all careful to preface criticisms with statements like “HE’S THE MOST AMAZING MAN OF ALL TIME!!” Arsenio Hall was also on the chopping block due to his styling decisions, which included the crime of a trench coat on their red carpet display. He made a nice save by saying that the trench coat was supposed to be worn by an “assistant” but to Ivanka, it was unforgivable and his styling caused the men’s team to lose.

In his typically classy and graceful style, George Takei admitted he would be fired. And look at that – he was! Next week, it looks like there’ll be some fighting and we’ll lose two celebrities. That’s pretty awesome, because it’s time to lose the dead weight.

TELL US: WERE YOU SURPRISED BY GEORGE’S FIRING? WHO DO YOU WANT TO SEE GO NEXT?

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