That’s it, we’ve reached the end all in the blink of an eye, literally. And I was wrong about it not being new, they just saved the newest of the new for the end.
Within the last couple of episodes Arnold has gone on a firing spree and widdled the celebrities down to two: Matt Iseman and Boy George. The carnage began when Ricky Williams was word-blasted into oblivion by Laila Ali and Brooke Burke. Ricky Williams didn’t do too bad for himself on the show but he was so quiet I sometimes forget he was there. He was like a ghost that haunts a location at random: you’d forget he was there and then out of nowhere he would appear in the next camera shot. Anyway, next to go were Lisa and my #2 pick to make it to the finals, Carson Kressley. I almost quit watching after his departure.
We were down to the final four: Matt Iseman and Laila Ali ( Team Arete) and Boy George and Brooke Burke (Team Prima), and hilarity ensued. Let me tell you, if you thought Boy George had forgotten about the time Brooke was project manager and spent the majority of the time giggling and prancing around, then ultimately deciding to “wing” their presentation, if you thought he forgot about that you were wrong because he pretty much adopted the same attitude during the second to last task. We were treated to watching a frustrated Brooke try as hard as she could to wrangle in Boy George long enough to get a clear plan together for their presentation (promoting products from Jessica Alba’s Honest brand) – Brooke was now working with her very own Brooke. Even though their presentation was primarily improvised Boy George and his magical singing voice led his team to a victory, which then led to the best boardroom scene of the season: Laila’s argument on why she shouldn’t be fired. I still haven’t decided what my favorite part of her defense was: when she referenced her former female teammates as losers, or when she threatened to physically fight to make it to the finals – which, had that threat been carried out, would’ve made for a more interesting finale. Her argument falls flat, however; she’s terminated and sent to the choppah, surprisingly without extra security escorting her out.
But hang on, we’re not done yet. There can’t be three finalists, that would be TOO new for the New Celebrity Apprentice. The final three are brought back to the boardroom, and despite being told her 5-6 record was good (It’s not. It’s a losing record, the exact opposite of good) Brooke is finally fired.
Now that we’re down to Matt Iseman and Boy George it’s time to bring in the terminated celebrities who will make-up their new respective teams. Boy George is granted a power team that consists of Carson Kressley, Porscha Williams, and Laila Ali. Matt on the other-hand is given Carnie Wilson, Carrie the YouTuber, and Kyle Richards – the losers I believe Laila Ali was referring to.
The final task is to create an ad campaign, host a party, and deliver a 15-minute variety show, all promoting four different Carnival Cruise lines. Matt gets to work generating ideas, generating donations, working out party details, basically everything. Boy George lets Carson, Porsha and Laila take the reigns on the party and the ad campaign while he works on the variety show and does what he does best: writes and produces a couple of tunes. Aside from going diva on the producers and threatening to quit the show unless his assigned keyboard player is fired, things are running pretty smoothly for Boy George. Meanwhile Matt is trying to put together an incredible presentation while the rest of his team cackles in a van, shutting up just long enough to come up with the idea of renting animals for the party.
Just when you’ve decided that Matt’s chances of winning are being sabotaged, presentation day arrives and Matt’s fundraising efforts appear to have paid off as person after person drops off thousands upon thousands of dollars. In an attempt to drown out the sound of him losing Boy George begins to chant; panic-chanting is the technical name, I believe. Then come the performances: Matt does some comedy, talks about arthritis, and from there it’s all Wilson Phillips this and Natasha Bedingfield that (fitting since I assume performing on a cruise ship is what they’re doing these days anyway), and then some “Karma Chameleon” sprinkled in. By the way, even though Boy George sang his way to the finals and went out with “Karma Chameleon” he’s still 387 times less annoying than Debbie Gibson was during the season where she insisted on singing Only In My Dreams during every task. If you don’t believe me look it up. She’ll annoy you to the point where you’ll want to pull her through the screen and toss her back to the 80s.
And now we’re at the end, the newest new of the season: no live audience finale. No cheering, no confetti, no former cast-mates offering fake congratulatory hugs. Nothing. In fact, it was so anti-climatic that me simply writing “Matt wins!” is about 63% more exciting than the actual announcement from Arnold.
Next Season (if there is one, which there probably won’t be) I vote NBC take it one step further: rather than offer 7 episodes set on fast forward why not package an entire season into a 2-hour recap show where they begin with a shot of a cue card announcing the winner and then work their way backwards. It won’t get much newer than that.
Photo by: Luis Trinh/NBC – NBC.com
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