Smallscreen Features
Cry me a River: Celebrity Apprentice fascinates this season
By April MacIntyre Apr 27, 2009, 15:28 GMT
01/22/2009 - Joan Rivers - the real estate business, Trump has turned all of his Media-glomming energy into promoting his bright spot TV empire with his pal Larry King, who is the biggest Trump sycophant on the planet. © Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos
Donald Trump has made quite a stir this year.
He has a pack of angry investors suing him for allegedly leading them to invest in a failed Mexican real estate development, and he has his hands full with his existing stressed casino-and-real-estate empire.
The Atlantic City Trump casinos are now in bankruptcy for the third time, and projects in Chicago and Las Vegas are reportedly in big trouble. Given the overall state of the real estate business, Trump has turned all of his Media-glomming energy into promoting his bright spot TV empire with his pal Larry King, who is the biggest Trump sycophant on the planet.
"Celebrity Apprentice" is Trump's continuing reality show on NBC that pits a variety of "celebrities" like Khloe Kardashian and Dennis Rodman against each other in a bid to climb the corporate ladder.
Now another Trump smooch-smooch, Ms. Joan Rivers, has turned into this season's "Celebrity Apprentice" dominatrix and matriarch. She and her daughter Melissa have consumed this season with excessive B-roll airing their tag-team co-dependent opinions and paranoia (insults, really) of all the players Trump cobbled together to make this show fly. Trump's instincts for gnarly behavior exhibited by his "stars" has been a Bull market for ratings.
I have been following the show since it began, and last night's episode was off the charts with both Melissa and Joan Rivers hurling f-bombs and labeling fellow contestants "Nazis" and "Two-faced."
The prime recipient of their ire was cagey poker queen Annie Duke, who is playing all the women like a Stradivarius. You can see why she is so successful in her career.
The confrontation between Joan Rivers and Annie Duke went nuclear as Joan’s daughter, Melissa Rivers, took the hit as a result of Athena team's loss to Kotu for the Right Guard deodorant marketing advertorial challenge.
The Kotu team was headed by Clint Black, who I cannot fathom whether or not I despise or admire, given the difficult personalities he has had to step around and keep from pummeling, especially after a "heels dug in" Jesse James called him "stupid" to his face.
Another beaut is Playboy Playmate of the Year Brande Roderick, whose parroted usage of the word "forgo" in response to Ivanka's assessment of her lack of stepping up and being effective was hilarious last night.
Duke worked that blond like a pro, convincing Brande that she was in charge. Melissa correctly saw through the bluff, but made the mistake of whining the rest of the show.
Duke knew Melissa was her main obstacle to taking the prize for the series.“Melissa came up with some cockamamie idea. This isn’t for Redbook... This is for SI. Men read SI. If that’s her main idea she’s going to offer up, she’s going to be cut out of the process.”
Melissa laid into Annie in the B-roll. "Annie thinks she’s so much better than everybody else – That annoys me. Annie is beyond arrogant.”
Despite Jesse James' passive-agressive to outright agressive contempt for Clint's branding on steroids direction for the promo, which did incorporate James' ideas to an extent, the women claimed the E-ticket of sturm and drang for last night.
Duke attempted to tamp down the Melissa fire, saying to NBC cameras, “... Melissa was having a paranoid fantasy about us conspiring against her, so I tried to make sure I was pulling her in privately. It absolutely made it seem like I wasn’t on Brande’s side. Playing cards is all about game theory, managing your opponents, and trying to figure out very logical strategies to counteract. There are ways to manipulate your competitors.”
Joan Rivers flung it like a monkey when Duke poked her head in to ostensibly say hello to team Kotu. “Annie plays people so brilliantly. She’s so despicable. She’s so duplicitous. I can’t wait for her to get her first face lift because she’s going to need two doctors.”
Don't these people rub elbows at the craft service table?
James, too, lost his usual chill vibe and laid into Black. “You need to pack your sh*t and go home.”
It got worse.
Jon Stewart's pal, “Mad Money,” Jim Cramer was on hand to assess each team's maneuvering, and report back to Herr Donald.
In the boardroom, Ivanka Trump took Roderick to task for abandoning the key elements of the task to Duke. In a cut away shot, Kotu, the winning team for this challenge, had Joan Rivers snap back at Duke, “You'd bury your mother for it.”
Trump and Cramer conferred, and Trump reiterated that the ability to raise money for charity would mean a considerable amount in the later stages of Celebrity Apprentice.
Ergo, the losing team Athena was to retain Duke and Roderick and jettison the controlling and complaining Melissa Rivers.
This did not go well with mom.
The firing of Melissa Rivers ignited a sh*t storm of hurled insults after the announcement. Joan yelled, “You have a Nazi and a follower. I don’t work with scum.”
Melissa Rivers did not do the walk of shame, but ran to mom, telling off Celebrity Apprentice producers, “F*ck you. F*ck you. I’m not doing an interview.”
You can hear the slurs of “whore” and “pit vipers” as Melissa told Brande and Annie, “F*ck you both. Goodbye.”
Joan Rivers always has the last word.
To Brande, she offered a pearl, “You are a piece of sh*t. You are a stupid blond.”
Annie Duke got it too. “ I met your people in Las Vegas. None of them have last names. You’re a poker player. A poker player! That’s beyond white trash. Poker players are trash, darling, trash.”
The chorus of "Lying f*cking whores" was heard from the departing mother-daughter team.
Next Sunday we will find out if Joan continues in Trump's Lord of the Flies saga.
