Game Show Newsnet - The Celebrity Apprentice: Season 8

Strife. While this week it’s not marital, that is definitely the word that best describes what Kotu is going through. Even before the next task is charged, Clint and Jesse raise issue with Dennis’ lack of effort on the last task. There is definitely a storm brewing.

This week Athena and Kotu will be throwing launch party/presentations for the brand new ACN video phone. Their goal will be to hype the product and excite the CAN representatives that are attending the presentation.

This week Brian McKnight and Claudia Jordan will be taking on the PM duties.

In order to decide who will present first Annie and Clint have a negotiation… which ends in a coin toss…

Strike that… It ends in Dennis confronting Clint Black, towering over him and eventually chucking his microphone to the ground.

Everyone in the room is legitimately worried that Dennis could seriously become violent, but in the end he walks out. Oh, and by the way, the men won the coin toss and will present second.

As with most tasks, there is going to be a focus on the creative. Kotu is planning out their presentation and Jesse James is the true idea man. He realizes that the presentation needs to be 99% hype and thinks that having Brian McKnight perform is their ticket to victory. To fill that other 1%, Jesse wants to drive out to West Point and shoot/edit and emotional featurette that can be shows mid-presentation.

Business school students take note. That guy who is pimping your ride could probably whoop your arse in the boardroom. Make sure you treat him well.

The ladies are pulling together the Athena presentation and they are waffling between shooting video or doing live action scenes. T-Boz is getting confused by the lack of direction but Claudia seems to resist settling on a singular decision.

Athena makes one firm decision though. Namely, that they need to have Joan Rivers as their lead presenter and emcee. Unfortunately for them Joan has a previous engagement and will not be back until 10:30, a time unfeasible to build into the presentation.

And now let’s take a look at another reason why celebrities are better than the rest of us. While normal person domestic flights won’t get Joan back in time, Natalie Gulbis is able to charter her LPGA jet to pick up Joan and the presentation is saved.

Makes you wonder if William Shatner has actually ever used Priceline himself…

Kotu returns to their old problems when Dennis re-rears his ugly head. Brian has made a concerted effort to eliminate Dennis’ involvement in the task and things seem to be running smoothly as a result.

That is until the order comes in for the audio equipment and the bill totals up $4,800. Clint is worried about the cost and of all people Dennis says that he can get the equipment for free. Brian however refuses to humble himself to Dennis and the offer is declined.

Athena is in the middle of a shoot for their video phone vignettes and there are whining babies (and children crying). Meanwhile, the men’s shoot at West Point is going fantastic.

As rehearsals ensue, the women find themselves lost/ Actors are missing their cues and Joan Rivers who has just recently arrived from her prior engagement is struggling to understand the vision that Claudia and company have created. That might be because the ladies’ vision was crafted by (insert famous blind person here, I’d name names, but I don’t want to offend). What the cure to disharmony and disorganization? Ok, well I don’t normally agree with this answer but in this case, it’s Melissa Rivers. Melissa rises to the occasion by bossing everyone around but her brash style ensures that Athena has a game plan.

Kotu’s rehearsal is smooth, at least to the point that we see very little of it, so let’s move forward to the presentations.

Athena present Joan Rivers and Joan is as funny as every. She is elated to know that using the video phone she now no longer has a reason to go to the gynecologist and better yet, the $150,000 she has invested in her face can now be put to greater use. Add in some emotional on stage acting, including a marriage proposal (fake) involving Brande and you have a very solid presentation.

Kotu definitely focuses less on the product and more on the excitement. Their dancers open the show followed by a live concert from Brian McKnight. The West Point video goes off without a hitch and the crowd… well to be trite the crowd goes wild.

So who wins? The ladies and their emotional and funny plea or the men and their military R&B?

Well, in the boardroom, the men are actually calm and confident while the women are cannibalizing themselves. Melissa takes offense to Claudia saying that she was fully utilized. Her production skills, including her experience producing red carpet specials for E!, was something Melissa had hoped to offer more of.

Then because Melissa can’t fight her own fight, Joan jumps in and calls Claudia the weakest link on the team. Then Joan throws more laudatory praise on her daughter, nearly to the point of making the viewer nauseous.

The verdict. The ACN reps voted heavily in favor of one team over another. In fact with about 85% of the vote, Kotu wins!

Now that’s something that doesn’t happen very often. This time the men can head back to the suite and watch the proceedings.

The women get their first taste of board room pain and everyone is backing up the work done by Melissa except for Claudia. When Claudia is pressed to answer who else was ineffective, Claudia calls out Khloe as being too passive. Ivanka chimes in on this sentiment and Khloe is incapable of defending herself. Annie seems to be the bellwether of the team, knowing exactly who is strong and who is weak and she thinks that Claudia should go. Joan agrees and reluctantly, so does Natalie.

Claudia needs to bring two people back into the boardroom and she chooses Melissa and Khloe. This is when we need to refer back to the tagline of this show. It’s not Personal, It’s just business.

Claudia just committed a mortal sin on the Apprentice and in what is a very short secondary discussion she pays the price. Trump seems sad to have to fire such a gorgeous woman, but Claudia, You’re Fired!

So, the playing filed might finally be evening a bit. Yet the men still have not figured out what to do with Dennis. Then again, maybe the solution is to work without him. The next task should be very interesting.

To see this episode in its entirety, visit the official website at www.nbc.com/the-celebrity-apprentice.