Celebrity Apprentice: Delusion, table for one

By Collin Kelley
Editor

With Gary Busey gone, last night’s Celebrity Apprentice shifted the drama to Atlanta’s own NeNe Leakes and her upcoming showdown with Star “Yes, I am a lawyer” Jones. The pot has been simmering for weeks and it’s about to boil over, but first let’s recap the sacrifice of La Toya Jackson.

The assignment  was pretty damn dull – coming up with a magazine ad campaign for Trump Hotels –  so it’s no wonder neither team did well. The way the episode was edited, it looked like the women’s team, ASAP, had this in the bag, while the men’s team, Backbone, floundered around. Editing can be deceiving.

Before the women got down to business, La Toya and NeNe kissed and made up (sorta) after their heated exchange two weeks ago. You’ll recall that’s when NeNe called La Toya “Casper the Ghost,” said she’d been living off the family name and needed to start acting her age. After La Toya said she planned to keep in touch will all her teammates except NeNe, our real housewife got her feelings hurt.

“I cannot understand what I’ve done to her personally for her to say that,” NeNe commented. Uhhhhh… really? Delusion, table for one.

Star Jones was named project manager for ASAP and immediately took over. The team’s ultimate failure should have fallen squarely on her shoulders, but more on that in a minute. Over in Backbone’s war room, the artistically and grammatically challenged Meat Loaf, Lil Jon and project manager John Rich received little face time as the drama centered more on the women of ASAP.

Star decided to put Hope Whateverhernameis in a bathtub and have NeNe direct the shoot, but Star couldn’t stop herself from butting in. “You’re not in this, Star,” Nene yelled at her. And for once, Star’s prowess on the computer fell short. The four-page photo spread Star created looked, according to the Trump Hotel execs, like a sleazy brochure you’d find under your windshield for a strip club. BAM!

During the pitches, Star created a script where she read catchphrases and the women did a Greek chorus behind her shouting out “luxury,” “sophistication,” “corny.” Okay, that last one was from La Toya, who hated Star’s whole approach to the campaign.

The men fared no better with a boring campaign that included too much text (much of it misspelled) and the cardinal sin of forgetting to include a website or phone number in the ad. However, Backbone refined its pitch enough for them to be declared the winner despite the Trump Hotel execs telling The Donald both teams did a terrible job.

Star tried to use her attorney skills to bargain with Trump so he wouldn’t fire anyone, but The Donald wasn’t having it. NeNe said a couple of the women – namely Marlee and Hope – had been “crawling up Star’s ass,” but she would never do that because she wasn’t phony and was “keeping it real.” The Donald couldn’t resist making a misogynist joke about how nice Star’s ass was after her weight-loss surgery. Yeah, The Donald would make a great president. Maybe Donald should join NeNe at the delusion table.

Star was able to shift the conversation away from her total failure as project manager to how Toy had consistently been the worst player on ASAP. Despite the ass-crawling and kissing, NeNe agreed with Star, but had second thoughts once The Donald fired La Toya. On the way back to the suite, NeNe told Star she needed to be more flexible and let others have opinions. They seemed to be okay, but then they rolled the trailer for next week’s episode: THE WRATH OF NENE!

In the preview, NeNe screams that she’s going to take Star down, is no longer playing Star’s game and calls her an “evil fat lady.” Oh, dear…