Stacy Schneider Comments on Celebrity Apprentice Episode Eight

I think there was a collective sigh of relief from all Apprentice fans during the last episode when Mr. Trump announced that Omarosa and Piers would no longer be on the same team. I’m sure most of us were waiting with baited breath to see what happened next between these two volatile characters, but it was a good decision overall that allowed both teams to be more productive on the task for this episode.

So when Mr. Trump lined up both teams to give the task assignment and asked Piers how he felt that Omarosa was no longer on his team, I thought Piers’ response was very diplomatic. He said, “Whatever, that was yesterday.” And that clearly signaled that he was ready to move on from the Omarosa debacle and to continue to work on the tasks as diligently as he had been throughout the season. But Piers, in line with his traditional British humor, did make what I thought was a wonderfully clever comment when he described the loss of Omarosa to his team. He said it was like, “Trading the devil for Nelson Mandela.” Regardless of what Piers does, his British charm always seems to come out in the end.

Each team was assigned to create a live sales pitch on QVC for products offered on the network. Each team had to choose from six potential products. And both teams wanted to sell a stepladder that converted into a utility cart. By flip of a coin, it was decided that Hydra would sell the LadderKart. And Empresario, after losing, chose to sell a handheld sweeper. Stephen Baldwin was project manager for Empresario and Marilu was manager for Hydra.

Things looked shaky for Empresario when Stephen decided that they were not going to rehearse their segment on QVC and he was going to allow Trace to just wing it. It was an odd decision on Stephen’s part, because the team appeared to have the free time to run through a rehearsal. But Stephen just decided to rely on Trace’s charm to sell the product. It would have been a wiser idea to do the extra legwork and prep the segment ahead of time.

At Hydra, Marilu was chosen to do the commercial for QVC and Carol Alt made an interesting decision. She opted out of performing in the commercial, even though she had worked for QVC for five years. She felt that she and Marilu did not have the right chemistry to go on air together, because Carol could not keep up with Marilu’s chattiness. When the team agreed with Carol, that also posed an interesting possibility as to whether that was the right call or not. Marilu’s segment came out well. Mr. Trump and Ivanka, who were watching from Mr. Trump’s office, did comment that she was a little too talkative during her segment. But they complimented her energy and enthusiasm over the product.

Trace Adkins continued to display his incredible ability to relate to all people in a very laid-back fashion. He delivered his message for the sale of his product and added a clever demonstration by dumping a cup of nuts and bolts on the floor and picking them up with the sweeper, which highlighted its effectiveness.

When the teams went back to the boardroom, we learned that Hydra had sold 703 units and Empresario sold 716. Hydra claimed victory for outselling Empresario and Mr. Trump began questioning the contestants about their performances during the task. It was interesting to note that Stephen Baldwin said that Omarosa did an “excellent job.” Although we did not see as much of Omarosa in this episode, we’ll have to speculate based on Stephen’s comments that she actually calmed down and participated in the task more, instead of being divisive.

When Hydra was alone in the boardroom with Mr. Trump to review what went wrong, there was a very interesting moment if you carefully observed Carol Alt. The issue was that Hydra admitted they may have lost because they did not know about an Easy Pay plan that QVC offers for the sale of its products. The plan allows sellers to offer customers installment payments for the purchase of items. It was discussed in the boardroom that Empresario may have won because they utilized the plan. Marilu admitted that she did not know about the plan and would have used it, had she been informed. But then the attention turned to Carol, who again has five years of selling experience at QVC. She was directly asked by Mr. Trump whether she knew about the Easy Pay plan, and something very unusual happened. Carol paused a little bit too long and then her facial expression contorted somewhat and she issued a denial that she knew anything about the plan. Her teammates, especially Piers, were very skeptical about her answer and I think the viewers, if they watched her body language and facial expressions carefully, might have sensed that her answer was not exactly credible. I’m an attorney and I know body language very well from cross-examining witnesses on the stand and Carol’s brief hesitation before she responded, and her expression, really alerted me to the possibility that she might not be as innocent as she portrays herself.

There was some humor in the boardroom when Mr. Trump pointed out that Piers was sweating for the first time. I think Piers really felt like his number might be up after the last episode with the fighting and corrosiveness with Omarosa. But you could see that he sincerely wanted to stay and was dedicated to try to earn additional money for charity. So the end result is that Marilu Henner, who is a terrific worker and a very dedicated employee, got the ax on this episode. It came down to a typical scenario where Mr. Trump had to blame the project manager for the failure of the task. He very graciously dismissed Marilu by telling her that she was a terrific woman and then added his comic tagline, “Now get the hell out of here.”

Hydra lost a great teammate and a very dedicated worker. But sometimes when you’re project manager and you don’t pull out a win, the buck stops with you.