The Apprentice L.A. - Aired March 18

Donald Trump is no stranger to hyperbole, but when the potential Apprentices met him on the set of NBC's soap opera Passions, he reached either a new high or low, depending on how you want to look at it. Either way, it was funny. It's obvious that The Apprentice is pre-taped, and this particular season was done some time ago, when The Donald referred to the recently cancelled Passions as one of "NBC's top-rated shows". As far as soaps go, this one has been a basement dweller since its inception, and now its end is coming.
It was an awesome moment made all that much better by the fact that the task, while related to soap operas, had nothing to do with the goings on in Harmony. Yeah, I watched Passions when it first came out, but the story lines dragged on for so friggin' long I lost patience and now I just stick to Days Of Our Lives.
The task this week was to make a 45 second "webisode" for Soft Scrub Deep Clean Foaming Cleanser. All I want to know is will it make me feel clean again after just plugging it? So dirty... So very dirty... Won't wash off! Now I know how the executives who would be judging this feel.
After he came close to being fired last week, Arrow's James decided the best thing for him to do would be to step up and be the project manager. This always happens when someone has a tough boardroom, but nobody should be letting themselves get into that position in the first place. You shouldn't be stepping into the PM role because now you feel you have something to prove. You should be clamouring for it from the start of the game, and you should be doing your damnedest to make sure Trump has no reason to fire you even if you lose, and I don't mean by covering your ass. Yes, if you have doubts about your team's approach to a task, air them early on, but once that's done, dig in and work as hard and as well as your can.
Over at Kinetic, Kristine got to remain PM after her win last week. She lucked into the half-time show, something she's done before, but now she has to create an entertaining and informative 45 second story, something outside her comfort zone.
The problems she had with Muna last week surfaced again, with Muna questioning things again and not wanting to work behind the camera. Allowing her to be one of the performers was a mistake on both their parts. When trying to communicate with an audience through a webcast, clarity is the most important thing and as cool as Muna's accent is, it's not the right thing to have on camera for this task in this format.
That wasn't Kristine's only mistake though. While Heidi and Muna were busy filming, she and Angela went out to do some shopping. Why? What is it about shopping that Angela couldn't have done by herself? Without a director behind the camera, things were not going well.
The only thing that might save Kinetic was Arrow's particularly lame production. We've discovered from this experience that not only can nobody on Arrow act, their idea of a performance is TALKING VERY LOUD!
"HEY HONEY, LOOK WHAT I DID! I CLEANED THE BATHROOM WITH THIS NEW SOFT SCRUB CLEANSER!"
"WONDERFUL! I'VE JOINED THE FOREIGN LEGION!"
"EMILY, NOOOOOO!"
"ENJOY YOUR CLEAN BATHROOM, BRICK!"
Despite how atrocious their production was, Arrow was very pleased with it in the editing room. No so much with Kinetic, where Muna was so hard to understand in places that they had to edit out quite a bit just to make their webisode someone understandable. I don't know what their time limit was, or what resources they had available, but I was wondering if there was any way they could have dubbed over it all. Heck, if things were so far lost, I would have tried a comedic approach and dubbed the whole thing over in Spanish with obviously mismatched lipsynching then put in English subtitles.
Unfortunately, because so much was cut out, Kinetic also lost a lot of the product placement. If they had Kristine in front of the camera, they might well have won this task by having a more entertaining production, but they didn't and Arrow won this week.
Arrow's reward for winning was to fly to Sacramento in a private jet and meet the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Honestly, there was a time where I thought that would have been cool to meet him, but not so much anymore. They enjoyed it though.
The firing was obviously going to be between Kristine and Muna, though you never know what could set off Trump in the boardroom. For the first time ever, we really saw a crack in Heidi's boardroom performance. When Trump asked her who she thought should be fired, she tried so hard to be diplomatic and not hurt the feelings of anyone she liked, she frustrated The Donald who just wanted her to make a decision.
Considering that he asked her what's happened, that she started out as a superstar but has been on the losing team way too often now, this wasn't the time for her to be diplomatic. When Trump asks you who should be fired, give him a name. If you must, say, "I have a lot of respect for her, but I would fire Muna." Trump liked Muna, and he did see how Kristine cost her team this task. However, Muna certainly contributed to the loss too. So with a tough decision on his mind, let's give him time to think as we look at our weekly feature, How Did The Winning Project Manager Compare to Heidi?
James was another quiet one. He did ask a question without prompting from Trump, always a good thing, but it was just one question. His comfort level didn't seem to be where it could be sitting at The Hair's side. A middling performance, not one that said, "There's The Apprentice!"
In the end, Muna paid the price for the loss this week. She didn't go out as angry as Aimee, but she wasn't as fine with the firing as Derek and Jenn were. She definitely wasn't pleased, that's for sure.
This leaves us with three members left on Kinetic versus five on Arrow, so don't be surprised to see a shake-up on the next episode. While I'd love to see Heidi take another turn at project manager and save her reputation, the way the season is set up for this now means Angela really should be getting that position as she hasn't taken a turn yet and she should fight tooth and nail to get the job.