The Apprentice L.A. - Aired February 11

Thanks to the Super Bowl, we didn't get an episode of The Apprentice last week, damn their football playing, tight pants wearing hides! My disinterest in sports runs quite high, so in addition to being peeved at a week without this show or a new episode of Grease, something came up in this episode that I'm quite embarassed at missing, but more on that later.
I should also mention that in my last commentary, I commented on Kinetic having one man and Arrow having one woman left. I was mistaken. Arrow has Nicole and Stefani, two women. My mistake.
Arrow was feeling pretty darned good about themselves after their El Pollo Loco win. If you're going to win anything, win the El Pollo Loco task.
"Wow, you sucked on the show!"
"I KICKED ASS WITH EL POLLO LOCO, BUB!"
See? It's much better than winning a task that's all about honey and bees. Maybe.
"The bees... Oh god, the bees..."
Okay, that might not be a bad one to lose. You can use the bee terror as an excuse.
I can understand wanting teams to get an understanding of different parts of a business, but is it really necessary to send them out to personally harvest honey? Yeah, it was cool that they did it, but what if it turned out any of them were allergic to bee stings? Well, if it was Frank it would be funny, but not so much with anyone else. Franky Pants would instead be Franky Swollen Face Can't Breathe. Heh. Ha. Ha ha. Haahahhahh.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
No, seriously, he doesn't annoy me that much.
Arrow, despite Surya's rambling, got off to a good start and seemed to be getting things done in the office while the others were off fighting the insect menace. Not so much with Kinetic, where the bumble warriors came back after four hours to find that new project manager Aimee came up with two possible names for their honey, and got absolutely nothing else done in all that time. What the hell? Throughout this task, Aimee proved herself completely useless as a project manager. If Kinetic were to win, it would be despite her, not because of her.
This was a tough episode to call. Aimee was so useless there was no way she was going to win. What was with the shopping spree?
Not that Aaron was doing much better. No matter what Surya was doing, things did seem to be going well until it came time to start selling sweet, delicious honey. His team was doing well in sales, but the stubby man himself was... there. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while now know there is one piece of advice I'd give to any contestant on a series that's lasted a season or more. Watch the damned show! There are certain things you must always do if you're the project manager. Delegate responsibly and intelligently and work your little butt off! Once the sales part of the task is under way, unless there are little fires you have to put out, get out there and sell.
The biggest fear on the show is getting fired, but if you try to play it too safe, you're not going to win anyway. On Survivor and Big Brother, I will argue tirelessly that flying under the radar is a valid strategy. A lot of people disagree, but not everyone can dominate those challenges. This isn't one of those shows. You need to stand out as someone competent and hard working who can take smart risks.
Back at Kinetic, the team was noticing that something needed to be done if they were going to win (unfortunately Heidi wasn't one of them, or at least we didn't see her really saying anything). Derek and Angela rose to the challenge, that's for sure. Derek put on a beekeeper outfit, which looked silly, yes, but it got attention. He also seems very personable, and that certainly helps.
Angela. Oh, Angela. Remember back at the beginning when I said I'm quite embarrassed about missing something? Kinetic has a friggin' Olympic gold medalist on their team! How have they not used this resource before? Well, not that I thought of her myself. Only Canadian gold medalists matter to me, eh! And she hasn't been getting much screen time, so it was easy to forget she's even there.
If Heidi had utilized Angela properly, Kinetic may well have won the El Pollo Loco challenge. Contact some radio stations, get the word out that an Olympic gold medalist is at the restaurant for a limited time. But they didn't, and now Aimee is the PM. But someone on the team realized that Angela is a definite asset and they quickly set up a table for her with some hand-made signage.
They were helped by another blunder on the Arrow side. With the chicken challenge, their win was aided tremendously by nice big bulk sale of chicken bowls. Hey, it worked once, why not try it again? A good reason not to try it again is because it's a different product and they were trying to get a different client. It's one thing to sell people lunch, something they can buy individually. It's another trying to sell honey in bulk to stores that can't just make purchases like that as a snap decision.
Tim and Nicole spent a lot of time driving around pointlessly, time they could have spent selling at the supermarket. The lesson there is that you have to tailor your strategy to the task. Yes, learn from what came previously (Watch the damned show!) because often tasks are pretty similar, but don't just repeat something and hope it works. At least they got some alone time together. Alone with the cameras, but about as alone as it gets when you're on a competitive reality show.
So despite Aimee's incompetence, Kinetic won. It would be pretty horrifying if they keep winning in spite of her. Imagine if they keep winning, and she stays PM. Yikes. Well, we'll see what happens next week. If Kinetic is smart, they'll use their Olympic gold medalist as an attraction when the tasks warrant it.
The boardroom wasn't the most exciting we've ever seen. The blossoming romance between Tim and Nicole came up, and Aaron brought Nicole back with him even though nobody thought she deserved to be fired. It really came down to Aaron vs. Surya. Surya wasn't a lot of help on this task, but the blame for the loss really sits on Aaron's shoulders and when he was fired, the right decision was made.
I know I keep singing the praises of Heidi in the boardroom at Trump's side, but as we see other people in that chair, it keeps getting more obvious how good she was. Last time Aaron was far too quiet, an issue that came up this week more than once. Now it was Aimee, who went too far in the other direction and she was so aggressive it was getting a little on The Donald's nerves. Sure, she was trying to save Surya, something that was pretty obvious, but in the end it's either him or her so she could have toned it down a little.
All in all, it was an okay episode. It could have used more bees though.