If there's a lesson to be had here, it's that you don't insult Donald Trump. Despite being, according to Trump, the "best guy in the room," Bradford gets fired for impulsively giving up his immunity. Trump thought that was really, really stupid. Really.

Personally, I didn't think it was that stupid. In any other game, it would have been a calculated risk. A good performer who accepts the same risk with the rest of team should earn an increased level of trust and credibility with his colleagues. Bradford's thinking was that he did well enough such that he wouldn't get fired, but this was an opportunity to earn the respect of the women. However, in Trump's game, not taking Trump seriously earns you an instant boot. Bradford thought that his performance was enough that he could avoid getting fired (I agree), but he didn't count on Trump being pissed at Bradford's hubris. Goodbye. The Apex team will really miss him.

Meanwhile, Kelly did a superb job leading the Mosaic team to victory. Congratulations, Kelly. I think he also scored bonus points with Trump (unintentionally) by asking to donate the whole profit to the charity.

It's very interesting to see the editing decisions they make on this show. They opted to show some key leadership choices Kelly made, while they constantly showed the other team being indecisive. Kelly also had to pass the moral test about how much money to donate to the charity. Since they hadn't specified up front how much to donate per sale, it was left up to Kelly. [Cut to Kelly grimacing over the decision]

One person who actually moved up a notch in my book was StacieJ. Her idea to hire temp workers to shovel out the ice cream could have been a huge plus. She's an entrepreneur who's done this sort of thing before - e.g., hire people to sell food for her profit. Too bad she has no people skills and didn't include anyone else in on the discussion. Why these Apprentice folks think they are "adding value" doing that kind of on-the-street marketing is beyond me. Each team could easily have fielded several carts and made a lot more money by paying the temps $6 an hour ($48 total for the eight hours) with bonuses for performance. Maybe there were some technical rules we didn't get to hear about that would prevent that sort of thinking. Not that it matters, she's damaged goods. Everyone hates her and she got killed in the boardroom - everyone said she should be fired. She won't last very long.

posted by Tim at 8:34 PM