There were two episodes in one this week on Celebrity Apprentice 12. In the first task, the teams had a fundraising challenge. They had to create a New York City guidebook and sell the books for as much as possible. But the real task was to raise as much money for charity as possible.
The guys won by only $18, and Donald Trump almost inexplicably fired Debra (Debbie) Gibson. If looking at the cumulative contribution, it is odd that Dayana Mendoza is still here. In the boardroom once again, Trump decides to save her. In fact, she was in the boardroom both times this episode and is still here. It’s looking more and more like Donald Trump is just keeping Dayana around for ratings. I wouldn’t say this show is blatantly fixed like Project Runway has become, but it is increasingly apparent that some of the decisions are more about creating a story or ratings than firing the right candidate.
Yes, Debbie raised the least money of the three people called back to the boardroom. But that was only because project manager Teresa Guidice did not bring Aubrey back to the boardroom. Either Dayana should have been fired for cumulative lack of contribution or Teresa for exercising such terrible judgment in bringing back Debbie Gibson. Trump made an atrocious decision here based more on luck factors than anything else.
In the second task, the teams were split up, and this created the opportunity for a mammoth showdown between Aubrey O’Day and Arsenio Hall. Aubrey kept trying to take all the credit in the boardroom, and Arsenio laid into her big time. When Arsenio’s team won, Aubrey took off somewhere away from the rest of the group and was not seen for the rest of the episode, teasing that she might quit.
The firing of Dee Snyder was not as obviously atrocious as that of Debra Gibson. Dee was in charge of creating the membership welcome box for the Walk With Walgreen’s campaign. This was so bad that he could be fired just on that alone. And in the end, that is exactly why he was fired by Trump.
As an aside, Lisa Lampanelli is the most disrespectful contestant I have ever seen with the exception of The Sopranos guy that actually physically threatened Piers Morgan. She is really funny, but those comments against Dayana and Teresa are extremely personal, and now Lou is the new punching bag for her vitriol.
The women are so bad this season that Trump had no choice but to jumble the teams. Short of dumb luck, there is just no way they were going to win a task.