All-Star Celebrity Apprentice Recap S6 E8: Trump Fires Brande Roderick

Dancers for Plan B's South African Experience, All-Star Celebrity Apprentice

By A.D. AMOROSI

For season 6, episode 8 of NBC’s All-Star Celebrity Apprentice titled “Are You My Zulu Dancing Man?”, Celebrity Apprentice 3 winner and this season’s first casualty, Bret Michaels, returns to judge and mentor the teams. In a classic brains-versus-beauty battle, Project Managers Penn Jillette (Team Plan B) and Brande Roderick (Team Power) compete to create an interactive travel expo for the South Africa Tourism Bureau. Roderick’s exhibit is considered juvenile,  and Donald Trump fires her.

The episode begins with Plan B’s Gary Busey, last week’s boardroom survivor, getting dissed by his teammate Lisa Rinna. Her overall feeling is that Busey is talented but too unfocused to be a true team player. This is important as Rinna’s team has been reduced to three members. That’s why it’s crucial that Penn Jillette take control. “For the first time, we’re outgunned,” Jillette says of Team Power and its four strong players.

Before this week’s project is explained, Donald Trump welcomes his pal George Ross (one of the original judge-mentors on The Apprentice) and Bret Michaels. “It’s better to be hired than fired,” says the Poison singer.

Jillette (who has never been to South Africa) and Roderick (who lost this season’s first task) become Project Managers for their respective teams. Ross explains they have two options for their expo’s package: Romance or Adventure. In a coin toss it’s decided that Plan B gets l’amour while Team Power gets action.

Team Power gets their first surprise when they discover that safaris aren’t part of the Adventure option (because they are already well-known; the tourism bureau needs help in other areas). “The coolest thing they have, we can’t talk about,” says Trace Adkins, growling (as usual) about golfing, shark sighting, and glamping. “Glamping is for sissies who want to go camping,” says Adkins with a sneer.

In Plan B's meeting with the South Africa Tourism Bureau’s bosses about spas, art, and cuisine (the Romance package), Rinna says she’s never had “a bush massage” (ba-dum-bum) and Busey recalls filming in Johannesburg while natives were being murdered. Hey-O! For the first time in his life, let alone this show or this season, the usually nonplussed Jillette was shocked.

Each team does their best to come up with amusing slogans, but only Plan B’s Busey comes up with a Bacronym (Jillette’s term for what the actor does) for “Romance” with the phrase, “relying on magnificent and necessary compatible energy.” Jillette looks at the camera and says “we won’t be using that.” Throughout Plan B’s workroom process, Jillette drops the f-bomb more than a few times due to Busey’s bumbling.

A celebrity working a connection is something Trump loves to see, so Jillette finds the drummer who played with Paul Simon during his African-inspired Graceland sessions, a genuine Zulu dancer (“Okay, he’s from Brooklyn” Jillette admits), and also a five-star South African chef and restaurant owner. Rinna is impressed by Jillette’s brains and savvy. “He is too strong,” she says. Gary’s job during the task is simple: don’t mention murder, don’t throw chicken bones like he did during lunch, and keep his pith helmet on straight. Bret Michaels is so inspired by Plan B’s proceedings that he starts dancing with the Zulu masters.

Nice shoes, shark!

Team B – Lil Jon in particular – comes up with dumb ideas like putting a comedian in a shark suit and having Marilu Henner push people around in a chair to simulate the high-line experience. Adkins not only calls their concepts “juvenile,” he can’t help but laugh as Team B goes about its exploits. Ross takes one of Henner’s chair rides and looks visibly uncomfortable.

In the boardroom Trump finds camaraderie with Adkins, as both men are golfers. Beyond that though, neither Trump nor the judges liked what Team Power did. They thought Roderick’s team did dopey things that didn’t compare to the focus that Plan B showed.

“Plan B’s event felt as if you were in Africa,” says Ross. The judges loved the authenticity of every aspect of Plan B’s experience. The South African executives in particular felt as if they were home. While Trump praised his pal Ross for being the “best real estate lawyer in New York City,” Trump and Jillette bonded over the fact that neither of them has ever had a drink. Plan B win hands down and Jillette nets $20,000 for his Opportunity Village charity.

Brande Roderick

When it came to the boardroom, Roderick should have brought Lil Jon back as it was he who came up with silliest of Team Power’s ideas. Instead, she brings back Henner and Adkins. Trump recognizes that Roderick is as unfocused in defeat as she was during the project, and fires her, but not before Adkins prods Trump into giving her $20,000 for Roderick’s Promises 2 Kids charity.

Next week on All-Star Celebrity Apprentice Joan Rivers and James Lipton are judges as Gary Busey and Lil Jon take on the task of making a promotional video for LG's Smart Home and Home Entertainment Systems.

To see all of our All Star Celebrity Apprentice coverage click here.

All-Star Celebrity Apprentice airs on Sundays 9/8c on NBC 

Photos ©NBC

Posted on Monday, April 22, 2013