Celebrity Apprentice - Episode Eight

This may sound evil, but I'm glad Marilu Henner got the boot last night. She's a very nice lady, but she is also a bit of a flake. I had a feeling things weren't going to go well when the Donald asked her if she was ready to be project manager and she responded with a feeble, "I guess." Not a good sign.

Henner's oddly enthusiastic response to the step ladder/dolly made me wonder if she's on something. Doesn't she pay someone to change light bulbs, dust the ceiling fans and lug tools around? The whole situation was bizarre. What was so great about that thing anyway? I didn't understand why the teams were fighting over it.

But Henner wasn't the only problem on team Hydra. As Morgan pointed out in the boardroom, Lennox Lewis was hungover for the first part of the task. He's just lucky he wasn't in the same helicopter as Omarosa. She never would have let him nap during the planning session on the way to QVC headquarters in Pennsylvania. Carol Alt was useless despite the fact that she worked for QVC for five years. I can't believe she didn't know about QVC's "Easy Pay" option. She's a bit of an empty vessel. Great hair but no brains underneath.

Baldwin was a great project manager yet again. All of his years as a minister have really honed his marketing skills. Kudos to him for asking about alternative payment plans. It was also a smart move to use Trace as the spokesperson, given QVC's mainly middle American audience. I have to admit I thought Baldwin was crazy for putting Trace on air live with no script and no rehearsal. The editors really made it seem like he was going to freeze up when the cameras started rolling. You would think he could handle a cheesy QVC stint after playing live in front of thousands of fans, but he seemed jittery just before the commercial went live.

But, as always, Trace was a consummate pro. I wasn't impressed with the cordless electric sweeper in the beginning--especially since it cost something like $60--but Trace really sold it. Sweeping up the nuts and bolts was a nice touch (much better than the coffee grounds vacuumed up on most infomercials). I also liked how he switched gears and talked about his daughters' messy arts and crafts projects. Adorable! Needless to say, his voice is calming and he always seems sincere.

Then there was Henner. What a nut. My husband said the ladder/dolly commercial seemed more like an advertisement for crystal meth. I was definitely expecting her to fall off the ladder when she was pretending to screw in a light bulb. But what really sealed her fate was the fact that she yammered on incessantly, even talking over one of the customers on the phone! That's a total no-no. She has serious listening problems.

I wasn't shocked at all when Empresario was crowned the winner. The only downside was that Omarosa was on the winning team. I can't wait to see the Donald fire that nasty witch. She's a bad person. As I mentioned earlier, I was happy to see Henner go. I've had enough of her manic "energy" for one season. I know the Donald liked her as a person, but he's been letting her skate by on charm alone for weeks now. Perhaps the choice would have been a bit more difficult if Henner had brought Alt back in to the boardroom. Carol deserved to be criticized for not knowing about the staggered pricing option. But Marilu didn't even realize that until Piers told her, which simply underscored the fact that she's not much of a critical thinker.

There weren't too many funny moments in this week's show, but I loved when Piers called him a "sleepy boy" in the boardroom. I also loved when the Donald asked Piers why he was so sweaty. He might have gland problems. Of course, the best part of the episode was when Henner convinced her QVC co-host to hop on the dolly--only to drop him on the floor. Brilliant.

After two somewhat boring episodes in a row, I'm looking forward to next week's installment. Apparently, the teams put together ads that are so racy they cannot even be shown on NBC. That should be amusing. Right now I'm still confident that Baldwin will come out on top in the end. I guess we'll find out soon enough.