Trump splits the candidates into the usual male and female teams and tells them to come up with names. He adds a twist: Each team is to pick the other's captain.
- Rocksolid:
The men (Rod Blagojevich, Bill Goldberg, Michael Johnson, Bret Michaels, Sinbad, Curtis Stone, Darryl Strawberry) select Cyndi Lauper to head the women's team on the assumption that the others will find her annoying and become uncooperative. However, they tell Trump and the women that it's because they think she'll be a strong player. - Bret Michaels suggests "Rocksolid" as the team name, and everyone agrees. He predicts that the women will pick him as captain for the men on the assumption that he'll be too flaky to lead a team after years of smoking pot.
- Tenacity:
The women (Selita Ebanks, Maria Kanellis, Cyndi Lauper, Carol Leifer, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Summer Sanders) quickly choose Bret Michaels to head up the men's team for pretty much the reason Michaels himiself predicted, except they attribute his potential loopiness to the fact that he had gotten only one hour of sleep the night before. - For a team name, Lauper lobbies for something with historical significance, but is outnumbered. They agree on the name "Tenacity" when Summer picks it out of a thesaurus.
Each team will take over a Burger Heaven restaurant in Manhattan and run it as their own diner. Whoever raises the most money in sales and tips will win the task.
The women go for a typical burger place menu, since the task is about raising money and not fancy food. They set pricing at a modest (considering it's for charity) $20 to $100. Osbourne enlists an ambient paparazzo to take pictures for flyers, and she and Lauper appear on a radio show to publicize the diner; however, it seems (but may not be the case) that they don't start calling their wealthy friends until later. Regardless, they end up with a line of prospective customers around the block. But in order to keep up with the demand in the restaurant, they feel they can't spare anyone to go scout the line and prioritize for deep-pocketed donors. Service is also slowed when customers ask for autographs, photos, etc.
The men get on their phones right away to start inviting donors. Chef Curtis Stone gets a deal on truffles and arborio rice; their menu pricing starts at $100, and the truffle risotto goes for $250. Stone gets nervous when Ivanka questions the fancy menu item and high price, but Michaels tells his team to forget about it and forge ahead. In contrast to Tenacity's long lines, some people walk out of Rocksolid's restaurant because the prices are so high, but the team still manages to keep the restaurant full and an impressive line outside.
Bonus: Joan Rivers stops in at both locations to check things out. Whichever team's restaurant she likes better will get a $10,000 donation from Burger Heaven. Curtis Stone's masterful creations are cold by the time she gets them, thanks to waiter Blagojevich's constant chatting with customers, so Rivers judges in favor of Tenacity.
Outcome: Tenacity raises $29,559, plus the $10K bonus from Burger Heaven. Rocksolid raises $57,905. Rocksolid wins!
Boardroom:
For several minutes, the women hesitate to blame anyone for their loss, but Trump wears them down and gets them to pick someone. Maria Kanellis (who seemed to be smirking expectantly through the nicey-nice phase of the discussion) finally breaks the ice by throwing Carol Leifer under the bus. Holly quickly joins her, and Sharon also becomes vocal in her criticism of Carol. (All they can really say about her is that she continued to attract people outside even after a long line had already formed; however, she later worked the counter in the restaurant.)
Although Lauper doesn't say anything about it, she seems taken aback by how quick they were to jump on Leifer once Kanellis got the ball rolling.
Leifer tries to deflect blame, saying that Holly Robinson-Peete didn't get her hands dirty. However, since Holly brought in the most donations, Leifer's claim falls flat. Leifer also defends herself on the grounds that she's the most creative person on the team and can produce TV shows, but this doesn't help her either.
Lauper just can't bring herself to choose two teammates to put on the firing line. Instead of firing Lauper on the spot, as he's done before when faced with a softhearted losing captain who couldn't decide, he tells her to skip it. He'll just make a decision.
Fired: There's no closed door meeting with Ivanka and Don Jr., and no further discussion; there's no analysis of the fact that Lauper had earlier accepted the blame for the low pricing that probably cost them the task. Honestly, Trump just seems to tired to go through with the usual rigamarole. He fires Carol, basically because her teammates all seemed to agree that she was their weak link.
Donation:
Trump kicks in some money of his own to round up the total winnings to $100,000 for Bret Michael's charity, the American Diabetes Association's camps for kids with diabetes. Michaels, who endured a frightening woozy diabetic moment during the task when his own blood sugar got low, is stunned with gratitude.
Upon being fired, Leifer asks Trump to make a personal donation to her charity, the North Shore Animal League America, which claims to be the world's largest no-kill animal adoption and rescue organization. Trump agrees to donate $10,000.
Remarks:
The show starts off with Trump emphasizing that this is a time of greater need. He backs up his talk with real money, adding a couple thousand to round up for Bret Michael's charity and making a personal donation to Carol Leifer's as well.
I've always suspected that Trump made personal donations to the charities of candidates who got fired before winning anyway, but I don't really know.
Overall, this episode was more enjoyable than most of last year's shows. Except for a few pained facial expressions from Goldberg and some "private" (to us) remarks from Sinbad, I didn't detect much strife on the men's team. There were more snide remarks on the women's side, but these were also kept to the "private" remarks rather than open hostility. Even the boardroom scene wasn't comparable to what we saw from the very first episode last year.
I have no doubt that it will become more contentious and annoying in the coming weeks, but this wasn't bad.
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