The Apprentice 4 Episode 8 – Store Wars Series

And we’re back. In case you haven’t seen it check out this insane Markus story:
Apprentice Outraged At Seeming Dumb On Television – Defamer

Apparently Markus is convinced he has been shown in a poor light and incorrectly. Look, you go on a reality TV show, you get what you get. Move on Markus. You’re just making it worse for yourself.

As we left off last time, Clay and Adam come back to the apartment. Clay looks to be sidelined. Clay’s team feels he is vindictive. It’s astounding the level of childishness that comes up in this show. Why would you isolate yourself in a team-based reality show. Somebody should write a book on how to win a reality show.

The teams are to meet Trump in the boardroom. Bill has taken George’s place this week. The big sponsor is apparently Star Wars Episode III this week. That franchise has grossed over $13 billion in sales. Amazing!

They are going to create in-store 3-D interactive display and place it in Best Buy. A representative from Best Buy and Lucas Films will judge on the best display.

Clay picks himself as project manager for Capital Edge. Clay doesn’t respect or like his team. It’s tragic.

Randal on Excel knows all about Star Wars. But he is exempt. So Brian becomes PM but he doesn’t know a lot about Star Wars. Let me press pause here for a second. I don’t get why people don’t know anything about Star Wars or for that matter any nationally uniting event. I am a completely non-sports person. But at least when the Super Bowl or World Series comes around, I can have a mildly intelligent conversation about it. Why do you refuse to participate in things that your entire national community is participating in? You don’t have to love it or obsess about it. But shouldn’t you at least know what’s going on. It just strikes me as isolated self-absorption… a totally crappy characteristic for a CEO.

OK, Play.

Capital Edge meets with the judges… Jim Ward – President, LucasArts, Senior Vice President, Lucasfilm and
Gary Arnold, Merchandising Manager of Best Buy.

The executives really help out. The teams are marketing the DVD and the game.

Brian, PM for Excel, doesn’t leave enough time to get the meeting with the executives… even though he is from New York. So, he’s late. Dumb ass.

Today’s lesson is “Loyalty”. A disloyal person can totally destroy a corporation. There is nothing worse than disloyalty.

It’s now 10:30 and they still aren’t at the meeting. It’s painfully embarrassing.

The executives give them no time. “We’re screwed,” Brian says.

Capital Edge has a major advantage… they have a lot more information and Excel disrespected the judges. Clay doesn’t help during the photo shoot, however.

Excel is relying on Randal to get all of the information. Marshawn, who doesn’t know anything about the movie, suggests featuring unknown characters. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like that will pass.

At Capital Edge, Alla does most of the work. Clay doesn’t offer anything.

Clay and Alla set up the display. Bill feels that Clay is out of his element here.

Marshawn is doing the presentation. It looks like this is a strategy to set Marshawn up. It’s sneaky and pretty brutal. They’ve given her an “average” display as Carolyn says. The likelihood of them winning is pretty slim with missing the meeting and making a weak display. Marshawn tries to give the presentation back to Brian.

Wow, Capital Edge has a great display. But Clay takes all of the credit. Clay intentionally doesn’t want Alla to take all of the credit. He is snakey.

Excel is dressed in Best Buy shirts that don’t look nearly as appealing as the Capital Edge look. Jim Ward from LucasArts asks them if they thought about having Darth Vader be more prominent. It’s a total set up because Excel doesn’t know how strongly he feels about Darth Vader. Excel scrambles poorly here. There were a lot of people that dropped the ball on this team. The biggest mistake to me looks to be that they missed their initial meeting. That falls to Brian. He destroyed this project at the beginning and deserves to be let go. There were a lot of mistakes and ultimately anyone could go here (except Randal), but the fairest move is Brian.

The teams meet in the lobby of the boardroom. The executives are in the boardroom with Trump. They say there is a clear winner in this case. We’re left hanging as to who it is. The executive leave and the teams go in.

The executives totally preferred Capital Edge.

Capital Edge does not exempt Clay from firing next week.

Capital Edge goes up to White Plains with Bill to see Trump Power White Plains. Bill says that you need to be creative, passionate, be innovative, come up with fresh ideas, it’s about delivering the winds. Clay feels that this is not about the team anymore… it’s all about the individual. How can someone have so little common sense strategy? What possible negative could there be in being a team player? I can think of many negatives for being completely isolated.

Randal is exempt. Brian says that Randal could have been a good person to be fired because it was primarily his ideas. Brian is grasping here. Brian feels that Marshawn dropped the ball and therefore should be fired. Marshawn was weak. But she was also being strategic. It was risky, however.

Brian lives in Manhattan. Trump says the trip to the executives would take 45 minutes to an hour. Trump is really grilling Brian. Randal hammers Brian by saying that they would have had a better concept if they had the meeting with the executives.

Marshawn says that Brian’s heart may not be in the game anymore. That’s interesting. Looking at him now, he does look defeated. And a couple minutes ago he asked Randal if he should fight.

Brian is mentally beaten. He was fired before he walked in this room.

Trump asks Marshawn why she didn’t present. Rebecca was given a half hour to prepare the presentation. Rebecca took on the presentation. Rebecca also became PM the day after breaking her ankle. She is impressive. Rebecca is smooth and solid.

Bill says the Marshawn abandoned her team. Marshawn says she felt that Brian would have been a better presenter. Trump fires Marshawn and Brian. He hates how Marshawn let her team down. You might as well fire them both. Marshawn should have been more upfront about why she didn’t present. She knew that it was a setup.

Brian and Marshawn are in the same cab together. That’s funny. Marshawn is slamming Brian. And Brian just sits there.