Celebrity Apprentice Recap: Tyra Beauty Challenge

The debut episode of Celebrity Apprentice featured two separate tasks and two “terminations.” Yes, after being all coy about what new host Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tagline was going to be, it turns out that “you’re terminated” is it. In the first installment, “In Here You Call Me Governor,” the contestants met up with their new boss. Schwarzenegger said he is going to be a tough taskmaster, “but fear” (that’s how “fair” sounds when he says it). He also informs them “We’re in California, baby,” though we’re pretty sure they already knew that.

We’re just going to call Schwarzenegger “the Governor” henceforth since that is what everyone on the show has to call him. When in Rome, and all that… nah, it’s just a lot easier to type than Schwarzenegger.

Getting down to business, the Governor separates the group into men vs. women. The lineup with their occupations is here. The two teams chose team names:

Team Prima are the women: Laila Ali, Brooke Burke-Charvet, Carrie Keagan, Lisa Leslie, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Kyle Richards, Porsha Williams and Carnie Wilson. Lisa suggested the name to reflect that they are strong but feminine ladies.

Team Arete are the men: Eric Dickerson, Boy George, Matt Iseman, Carson Kressley, Jon Lovitz, Vince Neil, Chael Sonnen and Ricky Williams. Ricky explained that the word is Greek and means striving for excellence, dispelling any notions that he was just another gridiron god.

The apprentices met The Governor’s advisers: his nephew Patrick Schwarzenegger, an entertainment lawyer who has represented celebrities for the last 20 years, and “mega super-model” Tyra Banks, a ground-breaking businesswoman. Tyra has just launched a new beauty product line and that is the basis for the first task. The teams must create a 10-minute Tyra Beauty experience presentation to showcase the Tyra Beauty brand. They will be judged on the quality of their presentation and overall knowledge of the products.

The ladies teamed up to get Porsha Williams to be their project manager on this one. The men are all sure that Boy George is the only one who can help them compete against the women since he has the most experience with makeup.

Tyra met with the women first to explain she is selling 6 products that will transform your face with Ty-Glide technology. There are 2 different faces they’re touting: the fresh face and the fierce face. In the men’s war room, Carson Kressley volunteered his face as the canvas for Tyra’s products. “You came, you saw, you contoured,” he quipped. Everyone loved it.

The ladies concentrated on a 5-minute makeover and the “fresh and fierce” thing but totally neglected to show off the products! They were high on energy but low on presenting the individual components. Lisa Leslie thought they knocked it out of the park with their enthusiasm. “There’s no way those guys could have out-thunk 8 businesswomen to create a beauty-tainment experience.” But they seriously underestimated the guys who were forced by that very fact to be as creative as possible.

The guys each used one of the products to feature it. Matt contoured, Vince was the highlighter and so on. They got in all the details, including Ty-Glide not settling in your fine lines and wrinkles, that the ladies overlooked and that is why Team Arete won the challenge. Tyra Banks was very disappointed that the ladies did not use their own faces to promote her stuff. Boy George got $50,000 for his charity Safe Kids Worldwide, a non-profit dedicated to education aimed at safeguarding children to reduce preventable tragedies.

Porsha was tearful and wishy-washy about naming two people to bring back to the boardroom with her. Snooki made herself look weak by her inability to point to anyone who did not do their share. “You guys are ducking more questions than Congress,” the Governor said. Carrie had no reservations whatsoever about throwing Porsha under the bus as the project manager. Porsha was quick to pounce on them as the 2 to save her from getting fired, and they gave her lots of ammo to use against them in the boardroom. First Porsha tried to get rid of Snooki as the one who wouldn’t be much use in the future. Snooki thought that was BS. Then Porsha went after Carrie and took her words out of context about putting it all on the project manager. That worked and Carrie got the boot with “you are terminated. Now get to the choppa.’ And there was indeed a helicopter waiting to whisk her away. “The worst thing,” Carrie said, “was not earning a penny” for her charity, The Humane Society.

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