More US Apprentice

I wondered who was going to picked on by the women next and the answer is quickly revealed – Elizabeth! (the blonde with the funny eyebrows who was Project Manager last week). Everyone else thought that she should have been sacked instead of Stacie and everyone had a go at her when she got back. They all had a bitchy catfight and someone said something about “not coming into your sandbox” - very mature. When Elizabeth started crying, the women said that she was having a nervous breakdown and was mentally ill. God, shut up about mental illness! (to his credit, one of the blokes criticised the women for their mental health hate fest re Stacie).

In other news, Donald’s aging bloke sidekick was away on business and was replaced by a handsome young man who turns out to be the winner of series one. I’m glad to see that Ice Maiden Carolyn was still in full effect though. The task this week was to open a restaurant in 24 hours and run it for one evening (they were provided with a chef and a venue) – the one with the highest Zagats rating (as voted by the diners) would win.

The PM of the women turned out to be Jennifer – a tall brunette with a Betty Page hair do – she instantly endeared herself to the team by snapping ”It’s going to be asian fusion! End of discussion” and calling one of her arch enemies “the munchkin” (Stacy – a swivel eyed midget who earned my undying emnity by saying that Stacie’s “breakdown” was the scariest moment of her life. I think you need to get out more, love). They went to the restaurant and dithered around until Betty/Jennifer decided that she would rather work back at an office – cue lots of eye rolling and bitch facery. The women got home and heard that the men had hired cleaners to get the restaurant ready and were like “doh, we have to clean the restaurant!?” They went back at 1 am and had to clean it themselves for hours. Good planning, Betty!

I am still having trouble telling the men apart. One of them (Chris?!?) who used to be a waiter was quite funny – giving a spiel about how to suck up to the public whilst still loathing them – I think he is something of a tool though. Another one John had to endure jokes about being “artistic” (nudge nudge, wink wink) when he did some generic abstract art for the restaurant walls. John is quite cute so I remember him quite well. Elizabeth started crying again when she was given a flyer distributing task and felt that she was not given sufficient resources and was deliberatley set up to fail. Take a chill pill, Elizabeth.

The restaurants were fitted out as if by magic. The US version does not give nearly as much detail into the process of achieving their goals and tends to focus more on bitching and conflict. That is quite a shame as I enjoy watching all the running around/schmoozing/problem solving (or not) that goes into achieving (or not) these tasks. Both venues were ready on time and they both looked pretty good.

On the night, the men helped with the waitering and were endearingly clutzy. At one point some gay blokes complained that their starters were shit, so they sent out Cute John to mildly flirt with them and butter them up as he was the best looking. He was a good sport about it and none of the other team mates made fun of him or the gays, which was refreshing – if Paul Torrisi had been asked to that he would have literally exploded.

The women hired waiters and all just basically stood about nervously in their best frocks and loomed over people who were trying to enjoy their tea. Not a good move. (Ivana noticed this and tried to get them to be less clumpy – she was not too annoying this episode). There was a hilarious moment when Blinky Maria (wearing a nice black dress and with about 15 yards of green beads wrapped round her neck) was greeting some diners and said something like “I see that your table is currently being prepared and made ready for your arrival so I should be grateful if you would come with me in this direction of the table.” WTF??? At one point two old grannies moaned to Betty that they were uncomfortable etc etc. This is important for later.

It turned out that the men got a higher score – the women were mainly dissed by the diners for the venue design (too abstract, cold and uncomfortable) and for the way the women lurked around and made everyone feel weird. Of course, the women instantly went into super bitch mode. Betty started going on about “those two Jewish ladies” who slagged them off and ruined everything for her – she is a tool, obviously, but I don’t think it was that bad , anyway, apparently she had to apologise on national TV and lost her job etc etc for being anti-semitic. Yikes. Betty moaned that her traitorous minions were “havoc wreakers!” Evil dwarf Stacey went around telling everyone that Betty was (a) rubbish and (b) anti-semitic (Stacey turned out to be Jewish too) while Betty lurked round corners and made hacky faces and literally shook her fist at her. They had a dramatic confrontation and Stacey said she wouldn’t talk to Betty and Betty said that Stacey wasn’t as popular and well-liked as she thought. God, it feels like I am watching ”Clueless” at times.

Back in Donald’s throne room, Robo-Carolyn pointed out that they failed because of their design. She said that the restaurant was in a fairly casual type neighbourhood and that although everything looked brilliant, the restaurant was too smart and the women were too over-dressed and formal. Carolyn and Winner Bloke said that Betty should choose to sack people based on their performance (ie, she should choose the girl who did the décor) not based on personality, so of course dim bulb Betty selects her two arch enemies Stacey and Elizabeth and lets Designer Girl (blonde, ironed hair, happens to be her best friend, Sandy?) off the hook. Elizabeth started moaning that she had been set up to fail on the flyer task and Stacey was all “Bring it on, bitch!”

In the sacking part there was lots of snivelling and back biting. Carolyn asked why the hell Betty didn’t select Sandy and said that all their carrying on made her ashamed to be a business woman. Also Donald and Carolyn had to tell Betty to stop interrupting and listen to them about five times. Betty made an arsey face as though she couldn’t believe she was being told to shut up. Oh Betty, do you want to be sacked that badly? Of course, she was fired and Donald said it was a very easy decision. Ouch. As she drove away in the EE style Cab of Finality, Betty said that Sandy had betrayed her (WTF?) but that she hadn’t lost the ability to trust people. That’s alright then.