A10, ep. 9
This episode opened with a seemingly benign visit to the Boardroom until Trump stated that there was a cheater in the group who had broken the rules. Anand was pinpointed as the offender. Anand twice denied that he had cheated by breaking rules regarding coercing people to bring money to buy something. Now, I haven’t seen the official rules in question but I do know that the spirit of raising money for charities has involved a lot of requests to bring money to buy something similar. So, how valid was an attack on Anand? I don’t think it was valid. However, Trump was in charge and he differed with my opinion. He wanted a witch hunt and that is what he maneuvered to get. Anand was forced to admit that what he did was wrong and then he was fired. Liza was sent back to Fortitude to balance the teams.
The episode reopens with a challenge to in-store displays at two locations for the introduction of a new line of Kim Kardashian perfumes. It was Clint, Brandy and Steuart against Poppy, Stephanie and Liza. The PMs are Clint and Poppy. Clint thinks it will be difficult to beat the women on this one. For those who do not remember Celebrity Apprentice history, Kim is the sister of Khloe Kardahian on CA2 who was essentially fired by Trump not for any wrongdoing on her part but for things that had happened about one year prior that did not look good about her veracity. The head of the Perfumania Company perfume company she is working for now, Steven Nussbaum, came to explain to each team what the task involved.
Octane worked well together, defining the necessary work and assigning it within their team to get it done in a timely fashion. Fortitude also worked well together, but they developed inferior concepts such as use of feather boas, rhinestones, and the perfume bottles themselves.
It’s time for the presentation of the fortitude display to Steven Nussbaum and he throws a curve ball by brining Kim Kardashian with him. She will actually be making the decision about which display concept is more “her.” When she goes to the Octane presentation, they took are flustered but let their display speak for itself, which it does eloquently. By the way, as the character Fernando played by Billy Crystal would say, Kim looks fabulous.
The official feedback from Perfumania was delivered to Trump. During the Boardroom, he had his children present it. Donald Jr. revealed the judges’ take on the Fortitude display: cheap and kitschy, the sequins and feather boas were juvenile and conflicted with the sophisticated brand identity because they also were also cheap and kitschy. Ivanka revealed that the judges loved the clean lines of the Octane display. Kim particularly loved the pink and lavender background as it accentuated the bottles and the fragrance. The judges felt that the display was sophisticated and understated, and clearly the winner. So Octane wins and cliff will get to meet with Barry Sternicht of Starwood Hotels.
It looks probable that Poppy will go down with the ship for being the losing PM. She maneuvered to try to avoid that. Poppy explained that she doesn’t like to talk over people. Mr. Trumps response was that she’d better start talking because she’s going to get fired. He goes on to say that she was the Project Manager, did a lousy job, the product was terrible, and that Poppy’s just sitting back and letting Liza and Stephanie fight. Poppy tried to wriggle out of the noose, but there was no particular smoking gun to nail either Stephanie or Liza. Poppy was eliminated.