Celebrity Apprentice Week 2
 

Just thought it would be easier to start a new thread :wink:

I'll leave the recap of the episode to someone else. All I want to say is
CONGRATULATIONS MEAT !!! You truly showed your big heart tonight ... you should have been extremely proud of yourself and your entire team :))

A great win for a truly worthy cause. And say whatever you may about Donald Trump, but he proved his generosity and truly earned my respect tonight.

Couldn't have said it better Vicki. Meat rocked and Trump did show that he is a great guy, which surprised me. Can't wait to make my purchase.

I absolutely agree Cathy :-) I can't wait to find that book too !!

EPISODE 2:

This week kicked off in front of Madison Square Garden where Donald and his sons approached team ASAP and team Backbone to give them the next task. They are to create a children's book and perform it as a play for a group of 4-5 year olds. Project managers were decided on the spot. After deliberation the women chose Lisa Rinna and the men quickly defaulted to Meat Loaf.

This was another 2 hour show. I have to say, there were so many details, I don't want to forget anything. I'm actually hoping the link will pop up in the morning. Because this is a must see episode.

Brief synopsis: Meat delegated important writing tasks to Mark McGrath and John Rich. While Jose seems to be the debbie downer of the group getting hung up on words this early on in the task. The concept was decided, the moral of the story was achieved, and the execution of the character was decided. Meanwhile the women were killing me, they were infighting for near 2 hours just on concept. Meetings took place with a children's author for a bit of brain picking to help them achieve their goals. Meat obtained everything he needed. With the book in full swing, they needed to work out props for the play and wardrobe. Gary and Jose get the task of delivering props. TO A BAD ADDRESS given by Meat. But low and behold after a 2nd bad address. The first one was correct after all, just no one was there to receive the props. Wardrobe: the guys were guys and got a little nutty in the costume shop. The women: MORE FIGHTING, this time over choosing a cover for the book and credits to the author and everyone in their mother for having input in the thing (Star Jones and Dionne Warwick have a bit of an ego). The women finally get a book and they aren't seen until Lisa is giving a pep talk which went over like a lead balloon. The men were excited to get to wardrobe and excited about the play. Meat was shown rehearsing the play and was giving Jose a bit of a theatrical lesson. Hilarious by the way. Showtime, the women went first and their skit was cute. Meat's was next and they did themselves proud. Boardroom: Donald was consulted about the pros and cons of each book and performance before heading into the battlefield. A few questions to the team about Meat Loaf's leadership (and I didn't breath for a while I'm sure) all came back positive and then the ladies went on about Lisa. Meat won the task overall. $20,000 to The Painted Turtle and THEN Donald gave the information that the book was going to be published and the proceeds of that would go to The Painted Turtle as well. Meat gets overwhelmed and his voice cracks with emotion as his lip trembled. My eyes well up for Meat as I held my bottom eyelids. I couldn't express the amount of pride I have for him. He thanks Mr. Trump and says yes, he is an emotional guy.

And that's brief folks. I'm sure others will add. But I could be typing until 4 in the morning about this particular show .

My stance: Meat was smart for utilizing the strengths of each individual person on the team. I know I didn't review all of what he did, but he was the commander in charge, like a good leader does and how it just comes so very natural for him.

2nd: A group of us were tweeting to DonaldTrump Jr. on twitter all night long during the show about various things and questions he was asking. I asked along with a few other's asked when we can get Meat's book titled Not So Little, Jon. He responded and said he would find out and get back to us on twitter. :)))) We were so happy!

Suzieq

You summed it up perfectly Suzie. I can't wait to find out how to get that book. I think Donald Trump, Jr. is a bit of a Meat fan! You can tell he does have quite a bit of respect for Meat, as does his father. I thought that was very nice of him and gracious for him to answer people's tweets. He is actually a cool guy.

Thanks for the great review Suzie :-) Actually Donald said "he" was going to get the book published .. like I said earlier, he really earned a lot of my respect for his generosity tonight.

I absolutely agree with you Cathy :))

Thank you so much Suzie for another wonderful review. Congrats to Meat, well done. Really proud of you!! I can't wait to see this episode.

Carole

in all hoensty, everyone's a real jerk except meat on the show.

i cant see Donald saying "Meat you're fired" after tonight. Meat won. he did.

Great read, Susie! I watching the show last night with some friends. One commented on how hard Meat works at everything he does. I'm actually all for Team Backbone to win this season. Unless they show the PMOY, I really don't care all that much about the other team. And it showed last night, I kept getting up to do chores thru their time on the air lol

Great show. So pleased for Meat. Who got fired?

Meat proved once again last night that you can't fake being "genuine".

Great review Suzanne!

Lisa ... even though IMO it should have been either Star or Dionne Warwick :(

Hopefully you won't have to wait too long Carole :-)

Right you are about Meat :-) I'm really rooting for Team Backbone too ! Those women are getting on my nerves :lol:

I second that :))

Sorry for the omission of the person who got fired. Yes it was Lisa. And Vicki clarified that Donald is the one who is going to publish the book. I tried to write this review twice and it was a bit lengthy such that the forum logged me out twice. For some reason, I couldn't go back and copy paste my review. So the third time I wrote it, the details were a bit abbreviated. The link is posted on the other thread by skybird. Enjoy!

Lisa was certainly not a strong project manager, didn't have the strong leadership skills to manage the attitudes of some of the prima donnas in ASAP, and was out of her depth. Having said that, she did a great job engaging the kids in the performance, and it would take exceptional skills to manage some of that team! Can't help feeling she was probably relieved to be out of the cat fight. Her most telling point, when asked by the game-player Star what support she would have liked .. "Kindness". The insistence of "billing" by Star (apparently successful) and Warwick (not) exemplified what Lisa was up against imo. I continue to like Marlee (and was as taken aback at Warwick's dismissal of deafness as "sad" as she was) and Niki, who pointed out that "be yourself" was an overly advanced concept for 4 year olds, but was ignored, yet it was something the judges later agreed with. NeNe said the choice of Lisa was to get her to fail and be fired .. something three of them worked hard and effectively to achieve imo.

Meat's offer to be project leader was a spot on move in my view. A key part of the project played to his love of and understanding of children, to his strengths as a director, and he led his team well, and to victory :-) He started with a clear concept of what he'd like to see and who should be the central character, but readily went with the character Lil John being a child in the classroom. He delegated well and effectively (no mean feat given the presence of Jose in the team), managed the project as a whole, coached/directed the performance, and wisely decided to read the narrative himself .. I loved the way he engaged the kids by using his "funny" name :lol: The only criticism of the judges was that he didn't keep the book highly visible during the performance .. I think perhaps because he was so focused as a director at the time. We've read so often how well he is liked by colleagues when filming; how personable, encouraging, resourceful he is, ever ready to step in and offer guidance/support whilst remaining respected and liked by everyone. Imo these attributes led to his success leading the team. His intervention to get Busey focused was calmly, steadily and well executed imo. Interesting that Eric Trump described this to camera as "at each others' throats" because I saw no evidence of that whatsoever. To me it shows very clearly that this is what they want to see happen (may even have been added to the edited version after the conflict we saw on that early promo clip; a case of hindsight being used to vamp up and change history!) Meat led a cohesive team (in contrast to ASAP, where cohesiveness is about the farthest advective one could use) and led them well. After showing his colors in the boardroom last week, Jose is exhibiting plenty of unhelpful behaviour .. his rudeness on the phone towards the woman he and Busey were to meet was startling, and his pedantry over one phrase in the story sustained and petulant. Whilst I could relate to Meat's concern over casting him as the schoolmistress, I think it was on balance the wisest choice ;)

Great in the boardroom, Meat praised all his team, defended Jose when Trump criticised his stage performance, and even when at Trump's insistence that he say who was most difficult, he named Busey but kept it diplomatic, clarifying that it was about keeping his focus during the project. Busey had immediately taken offence and defended his ability to focus during a performance, and Meat kept his head and the floor to stress that it was not feedback on the latter. His team praised his leadership of the project, and when asked who he would bring back to the boardroom if his team lost, his response that he'd wait until that might happen and he heard what his team said before making a decision was excellent .. never name anyone unless and until forced to do so, and it should keep them in line until that moment! ;)

He was visibly emotional when his team was announced the winner. Imo Backbone's story was more original, had a "moral" which was spot on for the age group in question, and had the best visual impact both in terms of illustration and font size. I hope it's very successful and brings in a lot more funding for Painted Turtle.

Caryl

Way to go, Meat. The Painted Turtle is such a great cause. I will be buying the book for all the little ones I know.


I'm really disappointed in the women's team. They are presenting themselves as so cliche- catty and bickering.

I just watched it again a second time. I got chocked up. i really did t the end. You have the bitchy woman side and the men are all like brothers! It'll be hard for them though when/if they lose again and have to send three people to the boardroom :(

we still have yet to see meat's outburst, so thats worrying me

The longer we wait to see the Meat/Gary showdown, the longer Meat stays on the show. In this case, waiting is a good thing. The Live season finale is May 22nd, so we will know b4 then.

First, I want to say- Yay, Meat! Well done! :cheer:

I also think it's a good idea to give each episode a separate thread- it's more organized that way.

That said, let me be another one to say that I'm also surprised at how bitchy some members (stress some- I don't agree with Wario's assessment that everyone except Meat are jerks :roll: ) of the women's team are- Dionne Warwick in particular! :shock: I could not believe some of the things she said, for instance calling being deaf "sad" in front of Marlee the way she did. I'm glad that Marlee didn't let that pass unmentioned in the boardroom. I was also surprised by her diva-ness, along with Star, wanting her name on the cover. I agree with Lisa's decision that it was a team effort, thus only the team name should be on the cover. I think an acknowledgment on the inside would have been appropriate, as La Toya suggested. I do think that they threw Lisa under the bus, especially seeing how she didn't want to be project manager to begin with. While Star may be a little overbearing, she did do a lot for the project, so I don't think she should have been fired. IMO, it should have been Dionne- I think many of her team are frustrated with her, but are afraid to say so given her "legend" status and her age (which they respect).

The men's team thus far seems to be getting along better than the women, although I think Jose Canseco needs to lighten up a little! :roll:I honestly thought their book was better than the women's (I'll buy one, too :-) ), and while the women's play was very cute, and Lisa did do an excellent job reading the book to the kids, I liked the men's play better. :D Jose was "a little stiff", but he did OK. I think it was cute that Meat played on his "funny name", but when he asked the kids if he was scary I flashed on that video that was posted a while back of that woman who was scared of him at the show. :lol: (I did think the confetti scared them a little). I think Lil Jon was good, too- I like him. :-)

Never managed to watch a full episode and didn't watch the whole thing this time, too, as the arguments among the women's team were highly annoying. Maybe I missed something and maybe it's due to editing but the way Meat tried to handle Busey and talked about him somehow reminded me of the way Cyndi Lauper was treated by her teammates on the previous (?) season - something I didn't like about it.

Have to say that the men did a great job though. It was an interesting task that gave the contestants the opportunity to use their creativity and actual talents and it was way more exciting to watch than the inevitable restaurant assignment. The men's stage performance was pretty entertaining, they seemed to enjoy it and grabbed the kids' attention. I liked Meat on Bookaboo and this time he was very good, too. I've never been a fan of John Rich but liked his contribution to the project.

I'm a bit disappointed by Dionne Warwick. I've always admired her as a singer but I don't like the way she comes across on that show. That's one of the reasons why I usually avoid reality TV shows that feature "celebrities" - because some of them seem to be eager to shatter the image you have of them.

i read through this interview about next week's installment and Busey/Meat confrontation:

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainmen...wh62ZjtPDzUHhM

it feeds the possible outcome of Meat lasting very very long

Exactly right Cathy :-) We still have a ways to go and hopefully Meat will be on there right up until the end !

The article was dated March 1st, and came out before the show started on March 6th. So they were actually talking about the confrontation coming up sometime on this "season" (i.e. installment) of Celebrity Apprentice :wink: It may come up next week, but we'll just have to watch the show to find out.

yeah. whoops my bad aha. Most likley though, as Busey's project manager.

Busey's very fun to watch, but I feel hes dangerous to Meat