Celebrity Apprentice Recap: Bye George

In this week’s installment of Celebrity Apprentice (“How Much is that Celebrity in the Window” – 3/4/2012), Teams Unanimous (the men) and Forte (the women) were tasked with designing and working on two living window displays each at Lord & Taylors. What are they showcasing? The Ivanka Trump Collection of course. Who will be judging? Ivanka Trump of course, and Scott Devine from Lord & Taylor.

George Takei was chosen as the men’s project manager because, Adam Carolla said, No. 1, he’s gay, No. 2, he’s gay and No.3, he’s gay. For the women it came down to Dayana Mendoza and Teresa Guidice, and Dayana won. “What, the Jersey girl can’t get a chance,” Teresa asked plaintively.

Ivanka and Scott meet with both the teams to discuss what they are looking for in these displays. Dayana latched on to the importance of coral and the men’s team thought they would go with a day and night theme complete with twins.

George approved the choice of Arsenio Hall to select the clothes because, he gushed: “Arsenio has elegance and style but he also has panache. That man is amazing!” Arsenio agreed because he didn’t think the gay men on their team were ones who had an eye or appreciation for women’s fashions.

Both teams had their share of drama. Ivanka Trump was happy to be of help to the women by allowing them to use some of her jewelry just because Debbie Gibson got the idea to call and ask. But the two sourpuss Trump boys came by to check up on each team, each finding fault with the leaders. Eric deduced that George Takei was a sucky leader from Clay Aiken, while Don, Jr. was less than impressed with Dayana’s theme and modus operandi.

Despite missing pictures, waffling team leaders and mounting issues, the presentations proceeded with the men going first.

George explained his presentation to Ivanka and Scott, and it was just a freakin’ disaster! He got mixed up, referring to Clay Aiken as Arsenio at one point, and just didn’t seem to know what the hell he was talking about. They did like the twins idea but everyone, particularly Lou Ferrigno, was thrown by George gratuitously informing them that Lou wasn’t a big help on the whole thing. Nevertheless, Michael Andretti and Paul Teutel seemed to think they had a decent chance of winning.

The ladies, on the other hand, greeted Ivanka and Scott wearing things from Ivanka’s collection and their exposition was smooth and fluid. Aubrey said that she was nervous because Ivanka was hard to read and had a “super poker face,” but Ivanka did say that the presentation was beautiful. Then Ivanka and Scott discussed the things they loved about each presentation and the things they didn’t like too much.

In the boardroom, Dayana thought her team won but nerves caused her to suddenly have a bad time with expressing herself. Tia had no such problem until it came to naming a weak player. “Enough with the lovefest,” Don Jr. said, “If you lose, who you bringing back because you gotta bring back two people.” Dayana refused to nominate potential losers and Aubrey went into a big song and dance about how she’d name two people when she was project manager but that wasn’t the case now. “Ah, Let’s just waterboard her and get something out of her, could we please?” Adam Carolla cracked.

George Takei told Trump that the men’s team was very confident that their presentation was outstanding. Paul Teutel was complimented on the branding which was so great, Ivanka wanted to use the signs Paul had made at her shop. Clay said he thought George did “a perfectly fine job” as a leader, but Eric squealed about their prior interaction.

Ultimately, the men lost because of the clothing and a lack of creativity, and probably because they’d have to fire the whole women’s team if the men won three weeks in a row. Dayana’s charity, The Latino Commission on AIDS, will receive $20,000.

During the show, Dee Snider had to go to the doctor where he found out that he had to have immediate surgery on his finger or his bone would heal crooked. Dee went and got it and came back and got madd respect from Donald Trump. In the end, Dee got a pass altogether because he was the walking wounded and for being a trooper.

Chopping block time: Adam was picked on for the midnight blue background while Arsenio was blamed for the clothing choices. George’s leadership or lack thereof was of course a point that could be agreed upon and Clay, Adam and Penn all concurred. Besides Arsenio, George singled Lou out for being unable to take direction.

This pissed Lou off some more and, Lou, you know, is a difficult guy to understand when he gets ticked off. Lou suffered a series of ear infections as an infant and believes he lost about 75% of his hearing at the time, although his condition was not diagnosed until he was three years old. If Lou misunderstands directions to some extent, well, that’s understandable. But if you don’t know that, then you might be sitting there thinking what the hell is Lou talking about? After Lou read him out for not being aggressive enough, George said he appreciated the critique. George also got dinged for not consulting with Ivanka. George could not defend himself and assumed that he would be fired and he was 100% correct about that.

After finding out how much Arsenio and Lou respected George, Donald Trump said: “You know who else has the most respect for you, George? Donald Trump, and George, you’re fired.”

Well, did we call it last week or what?