Matt gets Magical on Celebrity Apprentice
I’ve heard of cord cutting before, but this is ridiculous!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Get it? Cord cutting? Like refusing to continue to pay ungodly sums of money for monthly cable television? Only Chael Sonnen actually and literally cut a cord with scissors on this week’s Celebrity Apprentice. Did I ruin it by over-explaining, or was it simply not that funny to begin with? A little bit of both?
Look, you can’t blame me for getting excited. Finally we had some real old school Celebrity Apprentice drama, and we had Cutty McGee to thank for it. To recap (since this is, after all, technically a recap) Chael’s team had only two minutes left to finish their Universal Studios Harry Potter digital presentation. They weren’t going to make it, so Chael picked up a pair of scissors and literally cut the computer cord, thereby kicking in some little-known technical difficulties clause that gave them an extra 10 minutes.
It was shady. It was sketchy. It was poor sportsmanship. It violated the entire spirit of competition. And I loved it. Didn’t like, but L-O-V-E-D. This is exactly the type of activity I have been begging to see for years on this show. I have always said I would love to see a Russell Hantz-type figure who would come in and sabotage his own team to get ahead.
For example, let’s say there was a task where someone on the team’s job was to make and hand out flyers. A sneaky S.O.B. could find those flyers, throw them in the trash, and then guarantee that the person responsible would be fired if the team lost. There are a million other ways to secretly sabotage your own team to make sure the target stays off of you. Make no mistake, the host and producers would know all about it, yet pretend they didn’t and let you coast through from week to week just because of the immense entertainment value and water cooler buzz it would provide.
To be clear, you would never win, but it would guarantee you would make it far in the season. This unspoken arrangement would be similar to the one made each season between Bachelor producers, contestants, and the Bachelor himself, where the “villain” who is there for the “wrong reasons” always makes it far into the game even though she will never win, just so viewers have something to talk about each week.
Now, this isn’t exactly what Chael did. He attempted (poorly, it should be noted) to exploit a loophole in the rules. It was ridiculous, to be sure. As it was pointed out, you can’t claim technical difficulties when you intentionally create the difficulty by breaking your own equipment. I mean, at that point, instead of cutting the cord why not just pick the computer up and smash it down on the floor like you’re in the freakin’ Octagon?
But we need ridiculousness on this show! Celebrity Apprentice is supposed to be ridiculous! We tune in specifically to be exposed to ridiculousness! Would it have made any sense whatsoever for the Governator to have kept Chael after this blatant rules violation? Of course not. But guess what? I DON’T CARE!!!! I could point out a million firings in this show’s history that made no sense, and I loved every single one of them. Bottom line: We neither want nor expect Celebrity Apprentice to make sense. If I am a producer, not only do I not fire Chael in this situation, I tell him to keep it up! And as long as he keeps it up, I keep him on the show. And then you set up a final between the insanely likeable Matt Iseman and Chael the Cheater at the end. Good vs. Evil. Or, in Iseman terms: Gryffindor vs. Slytherin.
Unfortunately, they did fire Chael. And all our hopes for absurd team self-sabotage walked out the door with him. “I will not tolerate cheaters in my Boardroom,” said Arnold before dismissing him. WRONG! Not only should you tolerate cheaters, you should encourage them. Because you may have served the people of California as Governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger, but now you serve us, the viewers, and we demand stupid, idiotic stuff that makes no sense. It is the Celebrity Apprentice raison d’être.
Okay, here’s what else went down on this week’s Celebrity Apprentice.
Brooke Burke-Charvet is obsessed with her butt
To be fair, Matt Iseman is also obsessed with Brooke Burke-Charvet’s butt; however, that’s another story entirely. Brooke was Project Manager for the first task of creating a PR stunt for something called Lorissa’s Kitchen, and she had the notion to put her butt into motion. “I do the booty burn on the beach,” she explained, completely unaware of the oddness of that statement. “I teach a class in Malibu. In my class we do everything from booty-popping to shaking to rolling.”
Hold on… booty-popping, shaking, and rolling? Da-yum! Iseman was definitely feeling it, offering to change workout positions with Boy George so Brooke’s booty could pop, shake, and roll right in his face. (I’m sure this positively thrilled David Charvet to no end, although Charvet refused to go behind her last week, so he can just file that one under T for tough noogies.)
Brooke was not the only one to insist on everyone checking out her ass. Over on team Arete, Porsha was busy shaking her rear to and fro while announcing to everyone that, “It’s all about the boo-tay! The boo-tay!” Honestly, I haven’t heard this much ass-talk since Sir Mix-a-Lot and Nicki Minaj had their big backside summit of 2014. I don’t want to make it sound like I’m complaining. I’m definitely not. If some NBC cameraman wants to move in for a close-up of Porsha Williams’ butt while she celebrates “the boo-tay” then more power to him. And it’s not like we had actual strippers at this task or anything. Or did we? Because…
Vince Neil Does the Most Vince Neil Thing Imaginable
So what is the best way to draw in women to learn about a healthy snacking option great for moms on the go? If you’re Vince Neil, the answer naturally is “chicks in bikinis on the roof.” Yes, the man who last week brought in big donations from Hooters and the Déjà Vu strip club opined that ushering in a bunch of cage dancers from his latest Motley Crüe tour would be just the thing to sell more Lorissa’s Kitchen snacks.
Even more bizarrely, Project Manager Lisa Leslie let him do it! There Vince was up on the roof of the shipping container while breast-implanted babes grinded (ground?) all over him like it was the champagne room at Buns & Roses. It wasn’t just off-brand. It was off-everything. Also, where was Carrot Top? Bad timing, Carrot Top. You showed up last week and had to pay in the form of a donation to get an overpriced box of chocolates you probably didn’t even want when you could have showed up this week and been on the receiving end of a Lorissa’s Kitchen Lap Dance as Arnold Schwarzenegger watched from above Peeping Tom style while leaning over a railing awkwardly.
Still, Vince seemed safe in the Boardroom after they lost, as Lisa and Chael railed against each other and how terrible they were. But then the Governator asked Vince whom he should fire. “Just looking at the task today and my performance, it would be me,” Vince replied. SAY WHAT?!? Vince Neil just terminated himself on national television… which probably makes it sound more disturbing that it actually was.
It’s not all that surprising to watch Vince bow out. Remember The Surreal Life? If you do, then I am truly sorry for you. But you should be even sorrier for me. That’s because I actually went into the house for a few days back in season 1 when Vince was a cast member, and half the time the dude looked like he would rather be anywhere but there. Now, in his defense, he was sharing said house with Corey Feldman, Emmanuel Lewis, and Gabrielle Carteris, but he just was not into it. There was one task where they had to run around Hollywood & Highland pestering people about something, and Vince just sat down and refused to do it. Here he probably figured he had made a boatload of money for his charity already and was ready to head home, sweet, home. It’s a shame, really, because it means we never got the opportunity to see Vince Neil dressed up in a Hufflepuff robe, but easy come, easy go, I guess.
A Harry Potter Rerun
Look, I love Harry Potter. I mean, not as much as Ginny Weasley. Or Matt Iseman. Nobody loves Harry Potter more than Matt Iseman. But I read all the books. I saw all the movies. I have strong opinions on the best tasting Butterbeer (cold, not frozen). And I almost hurled after going on the Forbidden Journey ride… but then immediately went on it again anyway.
All that said, however, it was kind of a letdown to see another Harry Potter challenge. I mean, a Universal Studios task is always going to be on the menu because NBC and Universal are one and the same and corporate synergy demands it. Okay, but another Potter-specific task? We already had one of these back in season 3. How could we forget celebrity chef Curtis Stone telling a young boy “I’m gonna let you use my wand just once. Now do you think you can take control of the wand?” The answer is never. You can never forget it. (And neither can that poor boy, who is no doubt still in therapy.) Plus, how could we top this brilliantly absurd Boardroom back and forth between former and future politicians Rod Blagojevich and Donald J. Trump:
Blagojevich: The Wizardry World of Harry Potter.
Trump: You know, it’s actually The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Blagojevich: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Trump: Wizarding.
Blagojevich: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Trump: Wizarding.
Blagojevich: That’s correct.
Don’t worry, I have no idea what happened there either. Anyhoo, I would have enjoyed something a little more fresh when it came to the Universal challenge, but they recently opened The Wizarding World out in L.A. and that’s what they wanted to promote, so I get it. Plus, it afforded us the opportunity to watch Matt randomly slip in and out of an English accent for no particular reason. I joke about Iseman, but how can you not love the guy? His enthusiasm is infectious. And he was totally on his game here. His idea of creating a Daily Prophet was genius, as were all the extra little touches he put into the presentation.
Is Matt Iseman going to win this thing? He would certainly be the lowest wattage celeb to ever do so, but who has been better so far? Boy George has been good but was MIA for this task, and Carson has been great but really struck out this week. He seemed about as enthused during that presentation as I would be presenting an in-depth look at the Zubaz pants fashion craze of the early 1990s. I guess that makes Iseman the current frontrunner, especially considering he is such a massive Schwarzenegger fan and is probably the only person on the planet Earth who would agree with me that Last Action Hero is a totally underrated movie. We’ll see how it all plays out.
Arnold Starts To Find His Stride
The problem with Schwarzenegger — other than Hercules in New York — is that he’s seemed a bit stiff on the show. Even some of his best lines — like “Porsha, your name is perfect because your mouth runs a 100 miles an hour,” or “Matt, there are two things I know about you: One is that you’re a big Harry Potter fan, and the other is that now I know why you’re not married.” — seem painfully scripted. But you can see him gradually becoming a bit more comfortable.
Once again, he found a way to awkwardly reference his bodybuilding career — “If I would have just basked in the glory of being the bodybuilding champion, the most muscular man in the world, and the power lifting champion and all those kind of things, I would have never worked my way up in the acting career and do politics if I just enjoyed the victories” — which is always appreciated. And it was fun when he got faux angry at Lisa Leslie, staring her down when she kept speaking over him, explaining, “There’s only one talker. Thank you.” (Also, note to Lisa: When the boss is busy insulting the job performance of one of your rivals, keep your yap shut.)
But where you saw Arnold get truly annoyed was listening to Porsha. You can tell Arnold is annoyed when he starts speaking to his nephew in Austrian German. “I should just fire her,” he murmured to Patrick at one point, while at another juncture noted that, “Again, she says the exact same thing.” He also threatened to fire her for talking in circles and not answering when he asked her who should be fired. And he eventually did fire her for having such a bad track record (although this came minutes after Lisa Leslie was praised by Patrick for being “a tremendous force; you’ve done incredibly well,” even though she has the exact same track record as Porsha).
Look, I don’t know if Arnold will ever get there in terms of achieving unintentional comedic gold because I don’t know that we will ever see this show again after the current season concludes, but he could get there. He’s getting there. That creepy stare-down from the balcony during the Lorissa’s Kitchen task was a good start. Now, well have to see how it all finishes.
Speaking of finished, that’s me. At least for this week. It’s time for me to apparate — that one was for you, Iseman! — out of here, so until next week: Cluck, cluck…Splash!
Article from Entertainment Weekly
