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The Apprentice 10

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Kacper:
AFTER EPISODE 7

OCTANE
Alex Delgado
Gene Folkes
Wade Hanson
David Johnson
Steuart Martens
Clint Robertson
Anand Vasudev
James Weir

FORTITUDE
Tyana Alvarado
Poppy Carlig
Stephanie Castagnier
Nicole Chiu
Brandy Kuentzel
Liza Mucheru-Wisner
Mahsa Saeidi-Azcuy 
Kelly Smith Beaty


I am so happy Mahsa was fired! :yess:

THEY SWITCH TEAMS NEXT WEEK!

Kacper:
EPISODE 7:

 
from : http://www.nbc.com/the-apprentice/video/week-7/1256702//

apskip:
A10, ep. 7

The members of Octane and Fortitude are chatting just after Liza and Stephanie returned without Kelly from the previous Boardroom. There was some discussion that Mahsa had revealed to Clint roughly how much the women’s team had made before they went into that Boardroom. To me that information is irrelevant, since you will find out soon enough anyway and cannot do anything with that information.

The competitors were brought to meet Donald Trump, Ivanka and Donald Jr. at the historic Schubert Theater on Broadway. Trump waxed eloquent about Broadway and he stated that the task was to take an aspiring Broadway musical and create a 15 minute presentation with marketing materials for potential Broadway financial backers. This task would be judged by a very special set of judges: John Yanover (producer and financial backer of the hit musical Memphis which performs at the Schubert), Daryl Roth (Broadway producer), Kristin Chenoweth (the actress and Broadway star). The criteria stated by Donald Jr. are the quality of the marketing materials and the quality of the presentation. Trump asked who the PMs are. They are Liza for Fortitude (who has never seen a Broadway play or musical) and Steuart for Octane. The teams would have the help of singer/actors and the concept originator, but no designers, producers or director as those was their roles.

The action shifts to the All Natural Snapple Theater (note the nice product placement although Snapple did pay for some real commercials later). A women named Kirsten has a musical that is about an 11 year old girl who meets a 12 year old boy for the first time and the struggles of young love. It is titled “Little Miss fix-It.” Octane has been assigned it to financially market. Composer and lyricist Ryan Scott Oliver has a musical Darling, a “dark deconstruction version of Peter Pan” set in 1929 Boston. Fortitude has been assigned to financially market it.

Each musical has a cast of about 7 or 8 Broadway quality singers/actors. Those songs give each team ideas on how to best market them. The “brain trust” doing this for the women is Liza, Poppy and Brandy. Liza has deliberately sent Mahsa and Stephanie off to do minor tasks because Mahsa is totally disruptive and disliked and Stephanie took too much credit for everything. Stephanie resented this because she has serious music industry background that could have been useful. The men similarly had initially excluded David by sending him to order and pick up food for the cast and for Clint, Steuart and Anand. When David came back and listened to the current state of the musical, he expressed a number of creative ideas, including his 500 foot helicopter view that the presentation should be by the singers themselves and not by members of Octane except for a brief intro and pitch. Steuart decide to put David in charge of the creative aspects of the presentation. David was to effectively be the new producer of Little Miss Fix-It and Steuart was going to give the presentation intro and pitch. As Steuart put it, if David screwed up then it would be easy to get him fired. During all of this, Donald Jr. arrived at Fortitude and Ivanka at Octane. Ivanka observed that things were in good shape and that David was acting much more responsibly. Liza had some issues with the black-and-white poster that Stephanie and Mahsa had taken for printing. She wanted color in it. They fixed it and the final poster was blessed by Liza. However, she gave the distinct impression she was trying to set Stephanie or Mahsa up for “the fall” if Fortitude lost.

Each team made their 15 minute presentation and the singing in particular in both was impressive. The narration by Steuart had a minor stumble on one word at the end. The judges cast their ballots privately to Trump and we move to the Boardroom.

Trump asked Steuart if David had been more productive. Steuart said absolutely and Clint seconded that when Trump asked him if he took back his observations from the previous episode (Clint didn’t but he did support David’s performance in this task). Trump noted that the judges were unhappy with Steuart’s stumble, so Steuart took time to explain how that happened and how minor it was. Trump now had the promotional materials brought out and presented to the other team for comment. The men’s key piece was a Playbill-style narrative on Little Miss Fix-It which I found very impressive. The women’s were much less informative and somewhat stark. The major deficiency for the women’s material was that it had no follow-up information about who to contact. Trump pounced on this. Liza tried to pass it off on Mahsa and Stephanie not proofing it and noticing the lack of that, but they rightly accused Liza of being in charge of the content. They claimed (rightly, I believe) that they were just following orders and the creative side was down by the “brain trust.” Trump tried to pin down whose fault it was but that didn’t appear to go anywhere.

Stephanie was asked by Trump why she had not volunteered to be P.M. if she had a musical background. She first said she did not know it was a musical. Trump did not buy that, as he knew he had told them it was a musical before the PM decisions were announced. I think what happened here is that Fortitude had made their irrevocable decision in advance because they wanted to put Liza on the firing line and Stephanie elected not to question that. Trump accused her of lying to him, a pretty serious charge in the Apprentice. He let her off the hook because this was a minor issue and not going anywhere. He had bigger fish to fry.

Trump announced the decision of the judges on who won the task. Daryl Roth favored the Octane presentation, Kristen Chenoweth the Fortitude presentation and John Yanover Octane. The men had triumphed and were excused to go watch the boardroom action. Trump told Steuart he would get to meet with the CEO of Snapple, Larry Young.

Trump opened the final Boardroom by stating that Kristen Chenoweth really liked Liza a great deal. Mahsa said something about how others on the team had also made major contributions. Trump zapped her with this accurate observation: “everything is always about you, Mahsa.” Brandy chimed in with the statement that she had all she could take of Mahsa (I think Mahsa’s fate was sealed right then because Brandy is clearly one of his favorites) and that Mahsa was lying. Mahsa said that she is a prosecutor and she points her finger at people naturally as a result. Trump told her that in polite company that is not done and people get highly offended by that behavior. Donald Jr. stated that Mahsa always tries to turn what anyone else says into a negative for that person and a positive for herself. He clearly is tired of it, so Mahsa had two big strikes against her. Trump piled on by twice stating that “Mahsa, you are a breaker.” I think he left the word “ball” out of that so it would pass the NBC censor. Brandy said Mahsa was difficult to work with and then she dropped an atom bomb on the proceedings: Mahsa had shared the amount the women had made before the Boardroom with the Men. To me this was trivial, as it was a “so what?” act. However, to Trump it was evidence of Mahsa’s disloyalty to her team. He clearly wanted to finally get rid of her.  Mahsa knew she was in hot water so she predictably tried to deflect the pressure onto someone else, in this case Clint who she had given the information too. She admitted that she had lied, then stated that Clint had shared Men’s total sales with her. Clint, watching from the suite, was incensed and got Octane to join him in returning to the Boardroom to confront Mahsa, reveal that she was lying again and clear his own good name. Clint stated that Mahsa cannot keep her mouth shut, but he had no idea what the men’s total sales were (only his own), so he could have revealed nothing. He verified that Mahsa had told him the women had made $370.  He also said Brandy was there and could corroborate him. Clint said that he is a straight shooter and the men did not know how much they made until in the Boardroom. Donald Jr. stated that the very presence of the men back in the boardroom, where they had nothing to gain and something to lose, spoke loudly. Trump asked David if he was backing Clint and gave what I thought weak support, but Steuart said that he was with Clint and what he said was accurate. Brandy, trying to put the lid on the coffin, then asked if they thought Mahsa was lying.

Trump then added that Mahsa was also disloyal to her team. He fired Mahsa. The Wicked Witch of the West was dead!

The irony here is that the person most responsible who should have been fired was Liza, whose limited leadership skills were not up to this task. She got off the hook because Mahsa stupidly acted in a way to deflect onto herself all the heat that Liza had earned.

Based on what I had seen to date, I am now willing to offer my predictions on who will be the Final 2. I think pretty boys Steuart and Anand will not make it that far. David might, but his performance would have to be exceptional. Clint has shown good leadership and is so solid that he is my first choice for F2. I think Liza will be gone soon, and Poppy is a nonentity. The 2 strongest women are Stephanie and Brandy. I like Brandy’s chances for F2 even though I like Stephanie’s performance a lot. Brandy has caught Trump’s attention in a number of positive ways and I expect her to be able to ride that wave all the way to F2.

TexasLady:
I am delighted that Mahsa is gone! I also loved the fact that Clint went back into the boardroom with the other members of his team backing him. He has a way with words and a manner that is assertive but he stays cool and calm. Good traits for an apprentice. I think Clint will definitely make it to final 2. For the women, Brandy and Stephanie probably are the strongest on the Fortitude team but I like Poppy as well. It  will be interesting to see what happens when the teams get changed.

I agree with you apskip concerning Mahsa. If she had been able to keep her mouth closed Liza would have gone home. Liza was a weak manager and she should have checked the playbill before it was printed, instead she was set up to fail because it was boring and flawed without the contact information.

I want to comment about David. For once he was involved, in his element and did a good job with the musical portion of the challenge. It's too bad he hasn't taken this much interest in the other tasks which is his fatal flaw for the Apprentice position. I think we got a glimpse of what he could be without the attitude and chip on his shoulder.

apskip:
A10, ep. 8

This episode began with Trump rearranging the teams. He sent Anand and David to Fortitude and Brandy and Liza to Octane. It looked like a fair swap to me. Trump next introduced Terry London, President of Macy’s, as part of the task to develop a 4 page advertorial for the Donald J. Trump Collection of shirts, ties and cufflinks, which is heavily marketed by Macy’s. The task will be judged by London and an unnamed female Trump Organization marketing executive based on the criteria of originality, creativity and final presentation of the advertorial. Trump asked who the PMs for the new teams were. The answer was David for Fortitude and Brandy for Octane. I think David was in big trouble because Brandy is clearly Trump’s favorite among all the competitors and she is more competent than he is.

The teams caucused and decided how to proceed. For Octane the first decision was a risky one by Brandy showing a female in a Trump Collection man’s shirt to emphasize sexuality, money and power as the highlight of their plan. Since a photo shoot was involved and time was limited, the selection of models for the photo shoot became priority #1. Clint and Liza were off on a side task as Brandy and Steuart got to the photo shoot location and discovered no models waiting as expected. Brandy made a command decision and decided that she and Steuart would be the photo shoot models. The photos of them were right on the edge, but did not go over the line of tastefulness in my opinion. Octane proceeded with editing and production of a striking ad.

David took a dictatorial approach. Stephanie allied with him, leaving Anand and Poppy to be the figurative water carriers, role that they felt demeaned by. The first decision was that the models would be shot in black-and-white and the clothing in color. That appeared to be a fine decision. David had his image of what he wanted and once he saw the first male model he “fell in love” with him. Anand later likened it to a homoerotic experience. David used that one model as the centerpiece of the entire 4 pages even though his skinny neck did not properly fit the smallest size shirt available. Stephanie later defended this action by stating that the model was 6’2” and should have had a bigger neck, even though it was obvious that he did not. Trump asked David if he was really gay, but he responded NO. Poppy came up with the concept of a back page with photos arranged in a “T” shape for “Trump.” However, that caused the photos to be quite small.

Eric visited Octane and noted that Brandy was not available to do her oversight of other tasks due to being the primary model. Donald Jr. visited Fortitude and noted that the models had not been fed lunch by 5pm due to supposed lack of follow-through by Anand and Poppy. Anand made the observation that “Mr. Trump is not in the business of rehabbing lost causes. That’s what David is.”

Each team made its presentation to Terry London and the Trump executive. Brandy had 2 minor stumbles but was otherwise good. Her presentation showed creativity but she misnamed the Donald J. Trump Collection as the Trump Collection. David did OK in the Fortitude presentation, but the models did not fit the clothes, particularly the front page model.

In the Boardroom, Trump asked his usual questions before honing in on David. He asked Clint if he was glad David was no longer on his team. Clint tried to be tactful, but he clearly was overjoyed. Trump asked Brandy if she was having an affair with Steuart. She responded no and that she liked older men. Donald Jr. interjected with “Hired,” which I think is likely to happen in a few weeks. David explained his vision of the ad. Anand and Poppy attacked him for leaving them out of the decision process and making bad decisions. Stephanie supported him, but when asked who on the team should be fired she said David should. Poppy additionally stated that she felt demeaned and shut out by David’s lack of sharing of team decisions. Anand had the same experience when he attempted to help David in the editing of the photos. Trump finally had the ads of each team shared with the other team and got the usual drivel from their comments about their opponents’ work. Then he told the teams that Octane had won a decisive victory and Brandy would get to meet with Terry London, then excused Octane.

The Boardroom proceeded to its inevitable conclusion. Given the lack of any real involvement of anyone else from his team in the key decision making, David was a dead duck and he knew it. Trump asked a series of questions, then David elected to have Anand excused. Trump was surprised because he expected it would be Stephanie, but I believe David correctly wanted someone who might support him in that final Boardroom rather than someone who totally opposed him. Trump used a feint to go after Poppy, stating that Terry London hated the back page which was her idea. However, it was David’s responsibility all the way and he did not shirk it. He went down as the captain of his ship.

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