Friday, December 16, 2005

Trump to Randall: You Blew It

My dearly beloved PROJECT RUNWAY deserves its own post, so I'll save my thoughts on that for another day as I feel the need to vent about the bizarre finale of THE APPRENTICE last night. I was so upset that this morning I even called The Trump Organization to tell them how disappointed I was.

Up until the last two minutes, I would've been happy with either Randall or Rebecca, although I leaned towards Rebecca. Her street smarts, her ability to think fast, her tenacity, her loyalty, all in my mind, made her the perfect Apprentice.

Randall, for all his celebrated book smarts, showed an appalling lack of common sense. Let's not forget that Randall was the one who put the wrong radio frequency on a poster during one task, and in his final task, had no backup plan in place when the charity softball game was rained out.

Let me also point out that even though the guests at the Yahoo event failed to pony up cash for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, that wasn't Rebecca's fault. The Yahoo execs were skittish about directly shilling for dollars. But in the end, Yahoo did the right thing and donated $100K to be split equally between the two charities. So a case could be strongly made that due to Rebecca, the Autistic charity got an extra $50K.

However, I was willing to let all that slide...up until Randall showed his true colors in the selfish, embarrassing way he declined to co-share with Rebecca. Even more disheartening was Trump's reaction. He seemed pussy whipped, totally befuddled as he stammered. Worse was the way the audience booed. It was a dismal end to an otherwise fine season.

Was I the only one who thought Randall reeked? I guess not, because at MSNBC, the headline was (to paraphrase) "Randall Proved Himself To Be A Selfish Lout And Asshole." Not the headlines Trump was hoping for.

I was also stunned by the vicious remarks by some of Rebecca's female teammates. Allah was so out of line, even Trump cut her off. Marshawn's critical remarks wasn't surprising, because Rebecca had been the one to step up to the plate when Marshawn declined to give a presentation because she was afraid that if her team lost, she'd be blamed. Trump saw through Marshawn's phony excuse and fired her sorry ass.

Even at the end, with the audience booing, Rebecca maintained her poise and grace while Randall cavorted like a greedy buffoon. Her two words to Trump summed it up nicely: "That's unfortunate."

If I had been Trump, when Randall came out with his lame explanation of why there should only be one Apprentice, I would've stopped the show, admitted that I had made a blunder, stripped Randall of the win and awarded it to Rebecca.

A pox on both Trump and Randall. An entire season down the drain in the last two minutes due to Randall's boorish behavior and Trump's waffling. Good going, guys.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i agree what ajerk and i liked hi until that moment

Anonymous said...

i think randall made an amazingly independent decision, businesswise. a lot will debate his decision for months to come. in the end you will have to agree that he bravely did what nobody else would have: he went against the tide, and made a decision he knew would be unpopular, but stood firmly by it.

PJ McIlvaine said...

I think Randal showed an amazing lack of consideration for the woman he called his "lil sister." He didn't even acknowledge Rebecca at the cast party after the show. What class.

Scott the Reader said...

Well, what seemed to have been going through his mind was, if he says yes suddenly it's all about Trump naming two apprentices, which takes away from his moment.

Still, he blew it.

MaryAn Batchellor said...

Amen! Amen! Amen! Loved Randall up until that "it's called Apprentice, not Apprentae" comment.