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"It's More than Decor/A Slice of Heaven" - April 10

The Game Continues without Bryce who refused to play. With Lenny the Russian at the helm, can Gold Rush build up some momentum or will their foundation be too shaky to overcome Synergy

This week the candidates will be renovating Boys’ and Girls’ clubs with the goal of pleasing the youth that use them. The best improvements will win.

Gold Rush will be meeting with the execs from Ace Hardware and the Boys’ and Girls’ Club first and Charmaine is kind enough to notify Lenny, the PM, that they will be arriving in 5 minutes

Michael is acting as the Project Manager for Synergy, and seeing how Gold Rush’s meeting went it’s hard to picture things going any worse. Michael actually asks poignant questions of the execs. The problem is that he asks too many questions. So many in fact that as the execs try to leave he asks more questions forcing them to sit down again. You could say he has diarrhea of the mouth.

[Word of the day: Logorrhea = diarrhea of the mouth]

Another person with the same problem is Charmaine.

[Shocker]

Tarek can’t stand her talking relating it to nails on a chalkboard, but really the problem is that Charmaine wants control. She is trying to tell Lenny that they need to hire professional painters and that the job can be done much faster but the Russian will have none of it.

[Looks like Charmaine will actually have to do some hard work for once and paint. Don’t all cheer at once now.]

Synergy is shopping and getting fed up with Michael’s lack of decision making. He can’t pick a color scheme and he delays the shopping trip numerous hours forcing Synergy to shop at breakneck speed to get all of the required renovations materials. It looks as if there might be a chink in synergy’s armor.

Now for the fun part. Andrea is asked by Bill Rancic in front of Michael if Michael is doing a good job as PM. for the first time, we see Andrea is at a loss for words. She simply says that Michaels is doing fine and turns away. Considering she was berating him a moment ago and the rest of the team was laughing at him in the car, Andrea showed amazing restraint.

[She unlike Bryce is playing the game, you may hate her, but she isn’t leaving any time soon.]

As the work wraps up, Gold Rush is having difficulty in finishing on time. Tarek, Leslie and Charmaine are working insanely hard, while Lenny and Lee are attempting to bring back music supplies. It can’t help that they are lost. The tile laying is going smoothly but with time running short and Gold Rush 2 men down, who knows if they can come back.

Synergy is operating fine now that Andrea has taken charge. She may come across as a dictator, but as she tells Sean, all she is doing is trying to make sure decisions get made.

Unfortunately there is no reason for suspense to be maintained. While both teams created wonderful looks that pleased the kids, Synergy followed the instructions of the execs and that is a sure fire way to win every time.

[And yes, the Synergy Winning streak is getting a little old]

As a reward, Synergy will get to treat a young girl to a Toys ‘R’ Us Shopping Spree.

[Even as an adult, that is a prize most of us would relish for ourselves]

At the risk of seeming redundant, let’s see who from Gold Rush gets fired this time. Lee is helping to prepare Lenny for the boardroom, and frankly Lenny seems to have no clue as to how to defend himself. His target: Charmaine. Yes, while Charmaine may be annoying at times, all she did this time around was work her tail off laying down the tile. Can she really be blamed for this?

[Again, apologies for dragging this out, but we’re here to provide thorough coverage]

In the boardroom, Charmaine attacks Lenny. She points out that Lenny neglected the importance of meeting with the executives and Trump adds in the fact that Synergy spent 45 minutes with the executives. Gold Rush spent 10.

[Point Charmaine. 1-0]

Bill Rancic points out that even within the 10 minutes they spent that there was a lot of dead air. Lenny says that he was not there to please the judges

[Penalty Lenny. 1 to -1]

Lenny says he didn’t care about winning; he just wanted to provide a great space for the kids. Lee defends this putting it into better but more futile words.

[Double penalty. Lenny -2, Lee -1, Charmaine 1. Leslie and Tarek still haven’t uttered a word]

Carolyn asks what happens if the instruments break. No good response

Another penalty. [Lenny down to -3]

Trump forces Leslie to talk and admits that she would fire Lenny as PM; Tarek also places the blame on Lenny.

[Score update: Oh, screw it]

Lenny brings back Charmaine and asks Lee to join him as an advocate.

[That's right, try to take out the points leader on this task when you are in last place. Oops]

Let’s end whatever suspense is left. Lenny, Charmaine is right on all points, Trump doesn’t even need to follow your suggestions and ask people to leave. Lenny, You’re fired!

Outside the boardroom, Charmaine is told by Lenny that she has 10,000 faces. The bitterness is nice to see, seeing as almost everyone is graceful in their exit. Competition is tough, but someone has to go. Maybe next week the decision will be somewhat harder.

But wait, this is an apprentice double header. No delay necessary.

Round 2 Let’s Go!

Michael is quickly scolded by his team as they feel they got lucky winning the last task.

[This is why Synergy keeps winning. Even when they win, they aren’t satisfied if they did not perform their best]

As for poor Gold Rush, any team that gets decimated on The Apprentice can know that corporate reshuffling is not far away.

Charmaine has other business to deal with first, however. She is livid that Lee named her to be fired instead of Lenny. Lee basically admitted that Charmaine did do a better job but that to him loyalty is more important. They agree to disagree.

[So let’s get this right, Gold Rush is in admitted shambles and Synergy is dealing with Michael, their sole problem. That leads to…]

Trump’s request. He asks Synergy if any of them think that they can go to Gold Rush and make them a winner. It’s a fools’ wager, and guess who bites. The only person who would want to leave Synergy, Michael.

[Now we pray that this task is not a foregone conclusion, but who are we kidding?]

The teams will be promoting 7-11 this time and have to increase sales of their new sandwich the P’eatzza a sandwich that uses pizza for bread. With the aid of creating a promotion item for Andretti Green Racing (the 7-11 car), the team that increases sales by the greatest percentage will win.

[And we wonder why we have an obesity problem. While you think about that, I’ll be taking a break to get a P’eatzza. Mmm, P’eatzza.]

Andrea will be leading Synergy, and she lets us know that if she had it her way…

[No Burger King promotion intended, sorry Unan1mous.]

…she’d be project Manager every time. So now that we know decisions will be made at synergy, let’s check in on the losers, I mean, Gold Rush.

Leslie is running the show and Lee is pushing the fact that he is the exact customer that they will be selling to, New York City college students. As a promotional item, Gold Rush settles on a foam 6-pack cooler. Not a bad choice.

Gold Rush then goes to scope out the store and Lee immediately begins to cut deals like a mini Trump. He gets the P’eatzzas located at the front of the store and he gets the manager to agree to remove all for the other sandwiches.

[Things are actually looking up. We may have a competition here.]

Finally, Gold Rush sits down to set a price point. Leslie and the rest of the team are pushing for a 7.99 price point with a bonus of 2 for 8.99.

Lee, however, thinks it’s too high and wants to lower the price point by at least a dollar.

[Business lesson: The bonus only aids you if we are judging volume. The 8.99 actually will hurt your goal, increased financially sales/profit]

Very simply, Gold Rush is in trouble.

Synergy is running smoothly with their sales. Tarek, Mr. Mensa himself is trying to stop people out front by asking trivia questions. While this may not be succeeding very much, Synergy’s lower price point of 4.00 is getting them a lot more incidental sales. Ironically, everyone on the team is doing a good job selling aside from Andrea

[Well, maybe not so ironically, after all Andrea does not come across as the best people person.]

As for Synergy’s promotion Andretti Green racing hats, Carolyn Kepcher doesn’t get it. She wonders how a hat relates to a sandwich, and now Andrea may be taking heat for forcing this decision upon her team.

[So, we now have an obvious target should Synergy lose, and more so, we finally have a reason why Synergy might lose. Might our collective faiths be renewed?]

Gold Rush is going to need something big to pull this one out. Fortunately, Lee is thinking big. How big? 1,000 sandwiches big. He is trying to cut a deal to sell the half ton of sandwiches to a local business owner and with and offer of slashing the 7.99 price point to 3.00, he gets countered with an offer of $2.00 per sandwich. Lee quickly retreats to Leslie who authorizes him to offer $2.50, and now we have to wait and see…

The results:

Gold Rush sold very well with their high price point, but the business deal fell through. Regardless, sales were increased 608%.

As for Synergy, the hat was not a great promotion item and their price point was significantly lower. Their strategy however, yielded an increase of 997%. Will this ever end? At least not this week. Synergy extends their winning streak to 4 weeks in a row and will be flying on a private jet to Washington D.C. to have breakfast with Senator Chuck Schumer.

[Now while some may be sad because the loss falls on Leslie’s birthday and the boardroom isn’t a great present, it may be more important that Synergy won. Sean just received his green card 4 months ago and the looks on his face proved he needed to be in D.C. A touching moment.]

Now for another touching moment. Except this is going to be on bad touch. Gold Rush enters the boardroom as their weekly appointment requires. And this time, as usual it is a 2-sided affair.

Leslie chooses her target and it is Lee. While he may have had some successes, his time away from the sales floor that did not result in the 1,000 sandwich sale, cost the team. Lee on the other hand feels that Leslie was not a good manager and that her approval of a ridiculously high price point is truly what cost the team this task.

Lee tells The Donald that the most finicky buyers are college students and senior citizens. Trump does not disagree and further expresses that the mistake made on this task was mainly the price point

[At this point, it’s all over, but Trump takes some time to educate the candidates.]

Trump points out that Leslie arguably brought in Lee for personal reasons, and that even though he may be disagreeing with the team as a strategic maneuver, he was right so it is not an issue. While Trump feels that Lee did not perform to the best of his potential on this task, the decision once again is simple. Leslie, You’re Fired!

The question now becomes, is it possible for anyone on Gold Rush to dig out of this hole and become the next Apprentice. Trump says that he liked Leslie, but with her out of the picture there is no one left on Gold Rush without a tainted image.

Next week we will see if Gold Rush can do the seemingly impossible or if Synergy will win for a 5th consecutive time. Prepare yourselves, more boardroom bloodbaths await.

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