Digitally Hip Kevin Jonas Fired: Celebrity Apprentice Recap

“Nobody Out Thinks Donald Trump” was the second episode (1-5-2015) of Celebrity Apprentice 7. The contestants had to create a commercial about a company called Neat that has helped millions get organized with their scanner products. But they want this commercial to deal with their new direction– digital clutter. So the commercial needs to focus on their cloud service and the NeatConnect wireless scanner. George Ross and Donald Trump, Jr. were the advisers on this one.

Team Vortex immediately picked Kevin Jonas as the project manager because according to Geraldo Rivera, Kevin is “digitally hip”. Kate Gosselin eventually stepped up for Team Infinity when no one else wanted to come forward. No one said she was digitally hip and she was still in recovery over Brandi’s description of her as “lazy”. Kenya Moore was absent due to a prior commitment.

Kevin lined up Gilbert Gottfried to be the comedy in the commercial. He wanted his TV stars, Ian Ziering and Lorenzo Lamas, as producer and director respectively. Geraldo Rivera was annoyed and felt shut out of the “brain trust.” He obviously needs to be the “go to” guy in every project and complained that it was like “the kids trying to get one over on dad.” Unable to comprehend that Kevin just found him to be a pushy obnoxious pain the ass, Geraldo said Kevin was acting in a jealous and insecure manner. “I’m Geraldo,” he pronounced, “I’m not anyone to trifle with.”

He then proceeded to screw with Kevin on the phone insisting that “Neat — Sweet!” was the best tag line in the world. The more frustrated Kevin got, the more Sig Hansen laughed his head off. Kevin finally cut the call short.

Geraldo continued to act up because he was not the center of attention and Kevin accepted the newsman’s offer to write the script. That wasn’t enough. Geraldo also thought he should be the voice over, not Mike Rowe, and even attacked Kevin, telling him to stop lecturing and grandstanding. Lorenzo attempted to be peacemaker, asking Geraldo to record the voice over in case Mike Rowe didn’t come through. Geraldo shrugged Lorenzo’s arm off. Most of what he said was bleeped out but basically, he appeared to be claiming that Lorenzo was “acting” and pulling some Hollywood phoniness on him. Lorenzo was appalled and said Geraldo has the biggest ego he’s ever seen on a set. Well, that says it all! As the son of the late Fernando Lamas and timeless beauty Arlene Dahl, Lorenzo grew up in a world of stars and has seen egos galore.

Meanwhile on Team Infinity, Kate had no ideas at all but, luckily, Leeza Gibbons came up with a Neatologist and didn’t have a big problem taking over as de facto project manager. Kate found a way to cover her ass by zeroing in on Brandi and her “panic level”, claiming Brandi buckled under pressure all day long. Kenya showed up with very little time left to make any contribution. They got their task done all the same and had to present first.

Leeza made the introduction and Vivica noticed that the advisers and executives actually smiled at them. Kevin thought the Neat executives were approvingly nodding yes after the men’s presentation. In the boardroom, the women find out that they won. Kate’s charity is Camp Barnabas. They send handicapped kids to camp and will be getting $40K in prize money.

The Team Vortex bickering began over who will accompany Kevin to the axing ceremony. The ladies observed that Kevin was about to make a big mistake going up against Geraldo, who was now trying to steal credit for the idea of putting Gilbert in the commercial. Ian agrees that Geraldo needs to go.

Kevin decides to bring Ian and Geraldo back with him in a dumb move that he thought would work in his favor. Ian will be an ally but Donald Trump saw it as an attempt to outthink him. He thought Lorenzo, as director, should have been brought back.

When it came to a choice of firing between Ian and himself, Kevin had no problem throwing Ian under the bus and Ian almost got himself canned because he would not return the “screwing” he was getting from Kevin. Turning the other cheek is not in Donald Trump’s playbook. Ultimately, it was Kevin who got his walking papers. His parting advice for the remaining contestants was “knock out Geraldo early because he is a vicious competitor.” When Lorenzo saw the two returnees, he remarked that he “realized that Geraldo is probably going to be the toughest guy to beat.”

“Knock out”? “Toughest guy to beat”? We found the choice of words fascinating especially since Geraldo Rivera has never been shy about pushing people beyond their limits and ending up in physical fights. We wonder if he knows that Lorenzo Lamas is a black belt.

Previous episode: May the Gods of Good Pies Be With Us