What a difference a mop makes.
Lou Ferrigno, who had faced getting fired just about every time his Team Unanimous lost a battle on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” stepped up to become project manager this week — and the men won the challenge. Even more impressive: Lou got lots of support from teammates Arsenio Hall, Dee Snider and Clay Aiken — who actually confronted Penn Jillette this week, telling him he was acting “condescending” toward Lou. (He was.)
This week’s project was to create an “original theme” for Cedar-O’s Pro-Mist Spray mop, then make a video with the goal of having it go viral.
The women chose the theme “What’s your number?” The idea was to suggestively link the question associated with sexual partners to the number of mops that people have used before finding perfection in the Pro-Mist. But the connection got a little lost in the execution. And worse, the members of Team Forte were more fractious than ever, with Lisa Lampanelli, Debbie Gibson and Aubrey O’Day trying to take over, as usual, even though Tia Carrere was project manager.
The escalating level of cattiness is truly disturbing to watch. Lampanelli and O’Day may indeed be creative, as they keep telling Donald Trump in the boardroom, but their bitchiness is bad for the team. If viewers could overrule Trump’s decisions, one or both of them would probably be gone by now.
O’Day, gunning for Carrere throughout the episode, said things like, “This brand has been around for 100 years. Just like Tia.” In the boardroom later, she stressed that she’s 27 and essentially said that (45-year-old Carrere) is in her fifties and over the hill. Even Trump seemed shocked at her nastiness.
Meanwhile, the men’s team filmed Lou wearing and apron and dancing with a Pro-Mist mop. His opening line, “I’m gonna mop the floor with you.”
It was amusing, but didn’t provide roles for everyone. Paul Teutul Sr. could be seen in the background in several shots, just lying on a leather couch.
Jillette, who had come across so well in many previous episodes, looked like a bad sport this week. After Aiken chewed him out, Jillette only sulked more.
“Penn is a bull in a china closet with a superior attitude,” Lou later told Trump.
In the end, though, the men won. And the women stayed in the boardroom for Trump’s Inquisition.
That’s when things really got nasty. Lampanelli continued to call the beautiful Dayana Mendoza useless. Aubrey backed up Lampanelli. And vice versa. They are a truly divisive duo.
O’Day should have been fired just for the ageist and derogatory comments she made. Among other things, the flaming redheat said of her supposedly less talented teammates, “Sometimes when you’re beige paint, you have to own that you’re beige paint.”
Patricia Velasquez stood up for Mendoza, a fellow Venezuelan, and, out of nowhere, singled out Giudice as the weakest player. But nothing much came of that.
Ultimately, Carrere nominated herself to be fired, after making sure that Trump would not oust an additional person as he did last week when losing project manager Adam Carolla essentially did the same thing.
“I must say, I’m happy to leave now with my head held high,” Carrere said as she was driven away.
That’s something that would be hard for Lampanelli or O’Day to do, even if either succeeds in making it to the bitter end.
Next week’s challenge will involve throwing a party. But at this point in “The Celebrity Apprentice,” is anyone really in a festive mood?
