The two-hour premiere episode of NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice debuted on Sunday night, with an additional two episodes airing Monday. We’re going to recap the premiere below, with Monday’s episodes coming later this week.
Before we get to the episode, here is a rundown of the cast:
Brandi Glanville, 42
Geraldo Rivera, 71
Gilbert Gottfried, 59
Ian Ziering, AKA Steve Sanders, 50
Jamie Anderson, 24
Johnny Damon, 41
Kate Gosselin, 39
Kenya Moore, 43
Keshia Knight Pulliam, AKA Rudy Huxtable, 35
Kevin Jonas, 27
Leeza Gibbons, 57
Lorenzo Lamas, 56
Shawn Johnson, 22
Sig Hansen, 48
Terrell Owens, 41
Vivica A. Fox, 50
The first challenge immediately puts the group of men against the group of women. The challenge is to create and sell pies at Pie Face shops. Whoever makes the most money wins. As a bonus, the Cake Boss will pick the team whose pie he likes best, with the winner getting extra money towards their total. The advisors to The Donald in this episode are his daughter Ivanka and former winner Piers Morgan, who I kind of love a lot — don’t judge me.
When the ladies sit down to pick out a team name, Keshia immediately suggests Trojan Horse, which makes no sense, and why would you name your team after a condom? Kenya throws out Infinity, which people like. Not one to be upstaged, and because this is The Battle of the Bravo Bitches, Brandi suggests Team Gold, since they have two Gold medalists in the room and no one strives for second place. Team Infinity ultimately wins, and Brandi throws lots of shade.
Now time for the guys. T.O. has one interest and that’s taking selfies. Geraldo suggests the team name of Vortex. Ian Ziering doesn’t seem to love that, so asks others to throw out ideas. Geraldo is so gung-ho about his suggestion that Lorenzo says, “Why don’t we just call this Team Geraldo.” No matter what, Lorenzo should automatically survive another week for that epic troll. Vortex ultimately wins though, because no one can come up with anything even remotely comparable.
Back in the ladies suite, the next order of business is designating a project manager. Mama Kate of Eight says, “Raise your hand if you desire that task,” and the response is silence and then laughter. Keshia says she is up for it and since no one else is, she automatically wins and pick Shawn Johnson as head of social media. It’s 2015, y’all — can’t do jack shit without the help of Twitter and Instagram! Piers then sashays into the suite to dole out some advice, such as beware of the backstabbers and make sure everyone knows their role because if not, they will throw you under the bus in the boardroom (very prescient and also good editing). Keshia says the plan is to hit hard on social media. Piers is all, this is about money, you can’t win with social media alone and get the high rollers involved. We’ll revisit this advice in a bit.
It takes about ten seconds for the guys to decide Geraldo is their project manager. (Does anyone else think Maury Povich should be on this season? You are NOT the project manager. I’ll see myself out.) He has the contacts and they quickly establish this is all about the Benjamins. Ivanka makes an appearance and ask who has what skills. Geraldo screws up the pronunciation of Ian’s name (NO ONE PUTS STEVE SANDERS IN A CORNER), Ivanka interviews that she is going to hit Ian up for 90210 secrets, and then peaces out.
When the guys get to Pie Face, all poor Kevin Jonas wants to do is get to the kitchen and start baking, and all Geraldo wants to do is listen to himself talk and make sure they’re set with social media. “When in doubt, get the word out.” I wish Steve Sanders was project manager. He’d be so much better.
Geraldo then informs his team that he will be dialing for dollars. Kevin really just wants to get the party started in the kitchen and start making pies. He thinks Geraldo is being redundant. I am actually surprised at how with it Kevin Jonas is. I expected far less.
The task is to make two pies — one sweet and one savory. For the gals, both ideas come easily, but then they argue for an amount of time that is ASININE over what to call the savory pie because Keshia and Kate can’t agree on taco vs. enchilada and my god does it even matter?
Kate has to remind us that she cooks three meals a day for nine people, so mass producing food is no big deal, you guys.
The guys burn some of their pie crusts. First world problems.
Keshia starts calling people to ask for money, none of whom are Bill Cosby, which you can’t blame her, even though this episode was filmed before all the shit hit the fan.
And all the chicas are clearly wearing fake eyelashes, which really bothers me. But I digress.
And all Geraldo does is talk about being a war correspondent while Kevin Jonas bitches that he’s a bad project manager.
Keshia starts name-dropping all of the people she has hit up for money so far. When that list does not include her TV dad, Kenya takes immediate issue. The excuses for why she didn’t call him range from “I’m only asking people who are local” to “I reached out to people who I felt could deliver the quickest.” Even though this episode was filmed before all the horrible allegations against Cosby surfaced, maybe Rudy Huxtable knows something that we don’t.
Meanwhile, Geraldo tells Gilbert to supervise the balloons he ordered. Kevin is not impressed. The girls are not impressed with their project manager and interview to that effect. Cake Boss comes to taste things.
Someone says she’ll donate if she can throw a pie in Kenya’s face — so she and Brandi throw pies at each other instead.
Ian Ziering says this challenge is like working at the Peach Pit, and that reference made the entire episode.
Mama Kate starts crying because she has brought in exactly zero dollars.
The teams go to the boardroom and are in there for what seems like an eternity — or the length of a Jonas Brothers concert, whichever is longer. Keshia thinks her team did a great job, which is interesting because the feeling was not so mutual.
how long until people start saying that they didn't think Keshia did a good job as PM? oh…already happening! #CelebApprentice
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) January 5, 2015
Also, when Trumpet asks her who the rock stars are outside of Leeza, who raised the most, she says Jamie, Kate and Shawn, which is also interesting because she winds up bringing two of those people back into the boardroom with her to potentially get fired.
Kenya does throw Keshia under the bus as the weakest link, and she is the one who pushed her to call Bill Cosby and uses that against her. Which brings me back to Piers’s initial advice to make sure everyone knew what their role was and to call the high rollers. As project manager, Keisha failed on both those accounts. Even though Kate raised nothing — like literally not one penny — she worked her ASS off baking pies, though Kenya throws her under the bus too, saying she was standing around doing nothing. Kenya is an expert bus thrower and I wonder how long it will take for this to come back and bite her.
When it comes to the guys, Trump starts grilling Geraldo on who raised what and who he would fire if the guys lost. Poor Lorenzo Lamas raised the least — $100 — and Geraldo says Ian Ziering raised the second least amount, when it was actually T.O. Kevin Jonas takes this opportunity to call his ass out for not knowing who raised what, and Piers totally agrees.
Cake Boss awards the bonus to the ladies for their sweet pie, Jamie’s concept, which brings in $25,000. It’s nice to see all the ladies instantly give credit where credit is due, and Jamie is humble about it.
Piers also points out social media was not the way to go for the ladies. All their Twitter followers combined are only half of Kevin Jonas’ alone.
Keshia says that a fundraiser is about bringing in funds and she expected everyone on the team to reach out to people they knew for money. Ultimately, the girls lost by bringing in almost $100,000 less than the guys, and that was WITH the bonus added.
Trumpet asks her to pick two people to come back into the boardroom with her. She picks Jamie, which makes no sense because they got the bonus because of her pie, and Kate, which at least makes a little sense. But Keshia is ultimately railroaded for not calling her TV dad and gets the ax thusly. And he wants you to know that he stands by his decision:
This show was taped just before the terrible Bill Cosby revelations came to light.She still should have asked him for money-goes to charity.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2015
To me, the biggest surprise was Kevin Jonas, who came across as smart and well spoken and was not afraid at all to call out Geraldo in front of Donald Trump. Cajones.
The biggest disappointment was that Ian Ziering didn’t get more screen time and that Johnny Damon didn’t call Jeter and ARoid for some moola.
