Episode 804 | Season 8 | 03/22/2009 
Brande meets with Chris Eaton, executive director of California Police Youth Charities, and her designated cause. He's thrilled when Brande presents him with a check from last week's combined efforts selling wedding dresses. She hands him a check for $166,680.
The contestants gather at Capitale, a high-end event space in Manhattan. Mr. Trump arrives to explain this week's challenge: help fire up the sales team of videophone maker ACN. The company is hosting a sales meeting and each team will have ten minutes to make an inspirational presentation about a new model, the Iris 3000. The sales reps will watch both teams' presentations and then vote on which was more effective. The women's team, Athena, will be missing Joan Rivers for the day (she's out of town at a charity function), but she'll return the next day for the presentation itself. The women choose Deal or No Deal model Claudia Jordan as project manager, while KOTU picks R&B singer Brian McKnight. Trump explains that the winning project manager will get $20,000 for his or her charity.
Both teams meet at Capitale, and then choose representatives to negotiate which team will present first. As Annie Duke and Clint Black are working out a coin toss, Dennis Rodman launches a loud tirade at Clint. The 6'6" NBA star confronts the diminutive country crooner face to face. In an outburst that is increasingly angry and incoherent, Rodman accuses Clint of not being a team player. Clint keeps his cool, not flinching, not getting excited. Dennis grows further enraged and storms off. Fearing that the confrontation would erupt into a full-out fistfight, the crowd is relieved that Dennis has left. Everyone is shocked.
Back at Trump Tower, team leader Brian chooses to keep Dennis out of the group activities -- explaining that he's just too much of a liability to the team at the moment. KOTU meets an executive from ACN, the videophone's maker, to hear what their sales team is expecting. The execs leave and Jesse James explains that product launches require showmanship -- the crowd wants excitement. He suggests that Brian perform live on stage. Brian's excited by the prospect; Clint feels a little left out, since he's a concert veteran with 20+ years' experience in crowd pleasing. Brian puts him to work on logistics, arranging dancers and gear.
Team Athena meets with ACN's executives, who explain that they're looking for a high-energy presentation that will excite their sales team and answer the question, "Why would I want this phone?" The women spend a lengthy brainstorming session trying to create an emotionally powerful presentation. They decide that Joan Rivers should perform, weaving a series of real-life vignettes into the stage show. The only problem? Joan won't get back from her charity performance in time to make the presentation. Golfer Natalie Gulbis comes to the rescue, arranging a private jet to pick Joan up and get her back in the wee hours of the morning. Donald, Jr. stops by and likes what he sees; Claudia's feeling confident.
Jesse James suggests that the men augment their presentation by shooting a video segment that will showcase the phone and underscore its value. He hits on the idea of shooting a video with a soldier calling home; he explains that the Army's military academy, West Point, is just 50 miles away. He starts making calls, arranging for a shooting crew, an editor, and access to the base.
The women's team grows confused over the production details of the stage presentation. They're beginning to feel under the gun. Melissa steps up to try to take control, but is soon shot down by Claudia. Melissa persists, telling everyone that she's the one person in the group with the hands-on technical experience to pull it together. Claudia sees it as a power play and dresses her down publicly.
Dennis returns to team KOTU after being AWOL. Clint avoids him, while Brian has the unenviable task of evaluating whether Dennis can contribute. As he and Clint are conferring, Ivanka shows up, wondering what's up. She talks to Dennis who explains that he's not a quitter and that he's there for the team. He offers to pull strings and get some of the necessary technical gear for the presentation donated, but Brian's gun-shy. He decides that Dennis is persona non grata. "We don't have a babysitter for Dennis," he tells Ivanka.
Athena's troubles continue when they try to shoot some video elements for their vignettes. The scene involves a very young child, who grows upset, disrupting the production and throwing things into further chaos.
Melissa, Natalie, and Khloe begin working on choreography, while Claudia, Brande, and Tionne Watkins head to the edit room to work on the vignette video. As they ride in the van, a frustrated Claudia openly mocks Melissa Rivers, making fun of her looks and speech; Brande and Tionne crack up.
Next morning: the women have just a brief period for rehearsal. Joan Rivers arrives looking very tired; she landed in New York after 4:00 a.m., exhausted. She refreshes herself and does her best to be a trooper, but as the rehearsal unfolds amid myriad technical problems, it's clear the presentation is in danger of flopping. Athena's spirits sink and the team starts to lose faith in Claudia.
Melissa takes control of the technical execution and the show takes shape, just as the CAN sales team starts to arrive. Donald Trump explains the challenge to the sales execs and then introduces team Athena. Joan comes out and does some material. She explains how happy she is: her friends can now talk to her on the phone and see her face, a face, she explains, that she's spent $150,000 on in plastic surgery. The audience eats it up and she tosses to the first of the informational video vignettes. The vignettes are a bit forced, including a contrived piece where an actor portraying Brande's fiance proposes to her on stage. Joan finishes up and the audience gives the team a warm round of applause.
The men are up next. Their presentation starts with a high-energy dance number, is followed by a warm welcome from Clint Black, then the video piece, which features a heart-touching motif of a deployed soldier staying in touch with his girl. The performance is capped off with a sizzling performance from Brian. The audience is on its feet, clearly caught up in the spectacle. The presentation goes off without a hitch.
Boardroom time. The teams assemble and Mr. Trump begins his inquiries. He asks Brian why he chose not to use Dennis for any part of the ACN presentation. McKnight explains that after he witnessed Dennis's confrontation with Clint, he felt he was unreliable -- and a potentially destructive force on the team. Trump asks various team members about it -- and no one can figure out why Dennis would go off as he did. Trump asks Rodman about it and Dennis minimizes it all, saying he's his own man, that he's friends with all of his teammates and that he can't control the actions of the team leader.
Trump turns to team Athena. He asks Claudia who her strongest players were and she points to Joan Rivers. Trump offers that he heard Melissa also was a star, at which Claudia bristles. Melissa explains that she doesn't think she was used to her full potential. She has 16 years' experience producing for TV and thinks Claudia completely devalued her expertise. Annie chimes in that, if Athena lost, she'd place the blame on Claudia, since she was the project manager. Claudia isn't surprised.
Trump reads the results: by a vote of 386 to 61 the men's presentation was judged better. Donald congratulates the men on their work and lets Brian know that, as team manager, he's just earned $20,000 for his charity, Youthville, USA. He releases the men to Trump Tower to watch the grilling of the women and enjoy a night of champagne, fine food, and relaxation. One of the women is about to be fired.
Trump tells Claudia and the women that the vote was not close -- they were beaten by a factor of 6 to 1. In particular the on-stage vignettes (the baby, the mock proposal) scored poorly. As they try to explain their failure, various team members weigh in. Trump wonders why Claudia didn't have Tionne sing; she explains that she thought the vignettes would sell the product better. Joan Rivers places the blame squarely on Claudia, explaining that she's a "musher" -- someone who is too soft and unorganized.
Claudia tries to defend herself and feels that Melissa undermined her. Trump asks Claudia who she feels was the least productive member of her team; she fingers Khloe. Khloe's surprised and tells Trump that she was waiting to be told what to do, that the team had no real leadership under Claudia. Natalie and Annie agree that Claudia should be fired. Trump tells her to pick two team members to come back to the boardroom for the final interview.
Claudia, Khloe, and Melissa return. Claudia faults Melissa for being obnoxious, disruptive, and sarcastic and Khloe for having no initiative. Melissa apologizes if her style offended, but Claudia won't let it go. Finally Melissa lashes out at Claudia, telling her to stop lying about her. Claudia lashes back; Trump counters that the rest of the team supports that Melissa did a good job and most agree that Claudia is the one who should be fired, not Melissa. He goes on to warn Khloe that he doesn't like people who don't take initiative.
Trump tells Claudia that he's a big fan and knows that she'll be successful, but that he really has no choice. Her failure as a project manager, the overwhelming choice of the sales crowd, and the comments of her teammates have all convinced Trump that Claudia's the one to go. She thanks him and walks out to the elevator and a waiting car. On the ride home, she accepts responsibility for the way things turned out. "You win some, you lose some," she adds.
Brande 贏得上次比賽，獎金$166,680給予California Police Youth Charities。原來Brande已經結婚了......殘念阿~~
這次的比賽是替ACN公司做視訊電話的簡報。由公司同仁投摽選出優勝組。
在決定上半場下半場簡報的時刻，兩隊不一而同選擇下半場，所以擲骰子定結果。最後由男子組得到下半場。就在此時Dennis Rodman，突然對Clint Black大肆咆哮，滿口粗話，兩個人身體幾乎要黏在一起，Dennis Rodman指著Clint Black的鼻子大罵，差點快打起來。在場所有參賽者全部嚇到，包括女子組。這樣的不和諧替男子組埋下一個不定時炸彈。Dennis Rodman離開時將麥克風收音器，重重往地下一摔，然後揚長而去，留下驚嚇錯愕的所有人。
兩隊隨即進行內容腦力激盪。女子組做三個小短片，男子組做一個小電影。Jesse James超厲害，能讓男子組進入西點軍校，進行電影拍攝。默默無聞的英雄莫過於如此。在美國的社會，軍人是個非常受人尊敬的職業，不像台灣是徵兵制，每個人都是被迫去當兵的，美國則是募兵制，有榮耀，有榮譽。讓我想起在Prison Break裡面T-bag逃亡時一度化身成軍人，因為軍人，讓他逃過好多死劫。
此時已雜亂無章的女子組，Melissa挺身而出試圖將內容改變成他想像的樣子。但這樣的出現讓Leader的Claudia非常不滿。參加Celebrity Apprentice都是在社會上已經由一定的知名度，有一定成功的事業，所以當事情進行到某人的專業領域時，某人都會變的比較"專業"一點。覺得自己說的都是對的，因為我是專家。這種現象再學術界亦是如此，尤其當自己是大師時，更會如此。不用說學術界，自己日常生活中也是這樣。如何領導，以及如何被領導，都是一門大學問。
Dennis Rodman厚臉皮自稱我還是組員的身分，回歸隊伍。這的確是個很令人厭惡的精神。川普說過，有人不忠一次，就不要給他第二次機會。所以我覺得Brian做的很對，儘管也有人覺得它應該利用Dennis Rodman的資源。
女子組的精神領袖Joan Rivers搭乘專機回到紐約，一下飛機就進行彩排，接著上場。再彩排時完全一整個混亂，此時Melissa跳出，進行導演的職責，將整個簡報作起來了。正式簡報時，Joan Rivers真的很風趣，不過影片就很爛。男子組很簡單，用音樂進行簡報。
最後結果出爐，男子組以85%的得票比率壓倒性贏過女子組。這也證明，音樂是無國界，是個共通語言。男子組利用音樂加上軍隊的象徵，將ACN的員工換起自己對公司的向心力。結束時在場所有員工一直重複大聲唸書A.C.N三個字母。甚為壯觀。
還好男子組贏了，不然Dennis Rodman真的要掰掰了。
當Trump問Claudia，要帶哪兩個組員進去的時候，毫無疑問的是Melissa和Khloe。Joan Rivers對Trump辭辭嚴厲的說，Claudia是全隊最軟弱的女人，從Day1就是，而且此句重複講很多次。試問，這句話從德高望重的Joan Rivers口中說出，Claudia還能活多久。Claudia因為個人厭惡喜好，把Melissa帶進會議室，不管Melissa今晚做的有多傑出，想當然Melissa不會被Fire。最後當然是Claudia走人，Melissa和Khloe繼續比賽。
個人覺得Khole，也快走了，呵呵呵。
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