'The Apprentice: L.A.' - Ep. 5 -or- "Marketing and Money, Honey"

After disappearing last week for some football game... okay, the Superbowl, The Apprentice returned tonight. I've noticed that this season is a week shorter than previous ones as Trump calls it the fourteen-week interview instead of fifteen. That's fine by me. While I'm watching, I'm still not thrilled this season with the location and the have/have not theme.

This week Donald Trump had to give one of his overly-expensive motivational speeches in Minnesota. So he left Sean Yazbeck, last season's winner, in charge. There were no signs of Trumpette Ivanka or Trumpling, her adoring brother Donald, Jr. I prefer it that way. I'd rather look at Sean all season than see them. If I can't have Carolyn and George, let it ride with Sean.

I'm a bit ambivalent about the task this week although at least it wasn't surfing or climbing palm trees to prove they're in Los Angeles. The teams had to work with Sue Bee Honey to create and sell honey. They had to harvest the honey, bottle it, then sell their product at two separate Ralph's locations.

I have to give credit to both Kinetic and Arrow for being good sports in the harvesting aspect. Although they wore the big beekeeper white space suits, it still had to be a bit intimidating. I'm allergic to bees and probably would have stood there frozen in place. Stefani was quite outspoken about it and Derek was stung through the suit.

Sean sat in during Arrow's marketing meeting which was dominated by Surya. While his fellow workers rolled their eyes and such, no one really stopped him and tried to take things in a different direction. I agree with them that the time needn't be wasted -- get the product done and sell it. It wasn't a huge corporate decision.
At Kinetic, there were issues in the same vein. Aimee had stepped up as Project Manager and decided that she and Jenn would create the marketing campaign while the rest of the team did the bee harvesting. What did they accomplish? Absolutely nothing in four hours time! By this time I usually have a handle on which team will win the task despite not having the Business Tips as we did in past seasons. But, both teams seemed to do fine with the harvesting, then fall apart from that point forward.

Aimee was useless as PM, at least from the editing we saw. There were lots of shots of her looking lost, getting coffee and other oh-so-important endeavors. But then, Aaron wasn't leading his team much better. At least Arrow had lots of fun on the assembly line. How long will the good times last? Well, at least until the boardroom.

Both teams had a decent price for the product. I actually think that Arrow had an edge on promotions until Derek took matters into his own hands and donned a beekeeper's suit going around the store. That seems to be where the tides turned in the favor of Kinetic.

The initial boardroom was led by Sean with Trump via a conference call from his Minnesota Trump Groupies Cult Meeting. Um. His motivational speech. Yeah, that's it.

I don't know. The crowd looked brainwashed to me. After all, if they think he should be President, something must be in the water.

Both teams had weak leaders, so either could have lost. In the end, Arrow sold 217 jars for a total of $775 while Kinetic sold 345 jars for a total of $836. Kinetic trumped Arrow. For their reward, Kinetic attended a training camp given by the Los Angeles Lakers. Until I saw them there, I wasn't thinking it much of a reward. But the focus was on teamwork and I think it would have been better than a Trump Motivational Brainwashing.

Back at Arrow, two things were obvious. One was that Aaron didn't do well as the Project Manager of the task. He offered little to no direction at all. The second obvious thing was that Surya would be a target as he had just joined the team recently from Kinetic. They liked him when they were winning, but losing is something entirely different. Surya realized immediately that he was in danger and talked over the hedge to Derek from Kinetic. Yep, Aimee (who sits in on the firing as PM of the winning team) would make sure Surya wasn't thrown under the proverbial bus.

Sure enough, in the boardroom, Aaron went for the Surya kill blaming all the marketing ills on him. He chose Surya and Nicole to go with him, but said that Nicole shouldn't be fired. I think he probably thought that the firing field would be down to him and Surya, with the latter the obvious choice to fire.

But his plan backfired. Even Nicole admitted that Aaron hadn't performed well as PM. Trump was still a bit ticked at Aaron for not speaking up when he sat in on the Kinetic firing during the last boardroom. While being overbearing (unless your name is Trump) is a bad thing, sitting meekly is just as bad.

"Aaron, you're fired."

I think both Project Managers should have been fired. I know that would have been impossible, but Aimee's team only won due to last minute luck and Derek's beekeeper suit. At least she went to bat for her previous team member Surya, although I think his days may be numbered. He's got to lighten up and listen now and then. There are hints of a heavy romance next week continuing the Tim/Nicole flirtation. Arrow is back in Tent City and hopefully now that they've tasted the "good life" inside the mansion, they'll work together to get back there.

I'm still not thrilled with this season. Have I mentioned that lately?

Oh? My own caption for the Trump shot? I think he's saying, "Drrrrrr..." Have you anything better?

Dollar bills, y'all...