Celebrity Apprentice: Egos From Hell

This week's episode of Celebrity Apprentice was difficult to sit through. First of all, the damned thing was two freaking hours long! (Yes I understand it was "trying" to compete with Lost. Hahahaha!) Secondly, the playground antics from such successful grown men were annoyingingly ridiculous. Thirdly, well I just want to rant further about it being two hours. Like I'm going to miss Lost? I don't think so! So I had to stay up and.... Never mind. I'll stop my ranting now and get on with it.

The teams gathered on a rainy New York City morning in Macy's for their next directive from the Donald. Along with Don Jr and Ivanka, he was also joined by executives from the Crocs shoe company. They working on an awareness campaign called "Soles United" that involves people giving away their old Crocs so that the poor people around the could partake in the exciting plastic shoe experience as well. Teams Empresario and Hydra were to design a campaign for this worthy cause and the Crocs execs would judge their campaigns and determine the winner.

Both teams then went to two conference rooms (right next to each other) so that they could begin their brainstorming. Carol from Empresario (the Project Manager) suggests that the recycling bin be a huge Croc shoe and Omarosa agreed. Trace from Hydra came up with their slogan of "Wear Them, Share Them" and Piers suggested Lennox once again be the face of their campaign. Then the guys started getting paranoid believing the girls were listening in on what they were coming up with. So Piers (his team's Project Manager) asked Vinny to go spy on the ladies himself.

Vinny whole-heartedly took up the task and, after a pretend fight with Piers where Piers threw him off the team, left the room. The ladies heard the ruckus and went to go check on Vinny. They completely fell for the double spy scam (even Omarosa!) and Carol welcomed him to their team. So Vinny and the girls came up with their slogan of "Share the Love" and began getting more into the design of the bin. Meanwhile, Stephen and Piers were slapping each other on the back for this fine double spy plan they had going on.

Unfortunately for them, Vinny began to really help the ladies. He said that he thought Piers made a mistake in asking him to be the rat. I guess out in that hall he found a spine or something. That didn't stop him from throwing Stephen a piece of paper that detailed the ladies' design concepts on it though. And then Stephen developed his own backbone (in part due to his being born again) and decided not to look at the paper and threw it down. Lennox went and picked it up and brought it to his leader though where Piers ran with it. Then Piers and Stephen got into a tiff over whether or not what they were doing was wrong. Whatever!

Vinny later told Marilu what was happening when they were at the bin designer's. She wasn't sure exactly what to believe but said nothing to the other women about it. While Trace and Lennox were off at their designer's, Ivanka dropped in on the other guys to check out how they were doing. They told Ivanka they had Vinny working as a spy for them and Ivanka was shocked that the ladies actually fell for it. She was OK with their little plan of sabotage as it happens all the time in the business world. Donald Jr dropped in on Marilu and Vinny while they were at the designers and Vinny spilled all to him. When Jr asked him if he was indeed sabotaging the ladies, Vinny told him that he's actually pulling a reverse and helping the ladies.

At the photo shoot for Empresario's campaign, Stephen and Piers decided to drop in and knock things out of whack for Carol. Silly men! Don't they know she was used to having people around at photo shoots? They failed to unnerve her so opted then to tell Nely what they were having Vinny do. Nelly was understandably upset at the news and immediately phoned Marilu to tell her. It was priceless when Marilu told them that she's known what was going on. It was even more priceless when Oma said there's nothing worse than a snitch and proceeded to fire him from their team. Hmm, I thought Carol was the Project Manager.

So Nely thinks that Piers and Vinny should be fired by Donald for corporate espionage (yeah right!) and Vinny was fighting desperately to get Marilu to believe him in that he really was on their side. It didn't work and Vinny scampered back to his team's headquarters where him and Piers began arguing. Poor Vinny didn't like being ratted out. The fight continued the next day and ultimately Piers kicked Vinny off of their team. Now Vinny was without a team and tried to get a word in with Donald before the teams' presentations about what had happened but Donald told him to save it for the board room.

Both of the teams' presentations went well but the Croc executives seemed to really like Empresario's giant mock Croc shoe bin (me too!). In the board room, Vinny entered after the other two teams and stood alone. Donald then entered and so began the mud-slinging. Piers admitted to the sabotage idea. Vinny didn't like being ratted out. Piers called Vinnie a very fat Italian. Nely said Stephen wouldn't have been part of this plan if he was a Christian. Stephen and Trace wanted Vinny to stay if their team lost while Lennox wanted Piers to stay. Vinny said he'd rather go home than deal with with all of this. Stephen suggested the ladies forgive Vinny. Trump didn't think that was appropriate. Vinny felt Piers was kicking the girls when they were down.

Enough already! Who won the damned task? Team Empresario did! Crocs has agreed to give 10,000 pairs of their plastic shoes to impoverished people in Africa in Carol's name plus $20,000 to her brother's charity.

The ladies went back to watch the ensuing carnage among the men in the board room while drinking their champagne. I would have choked on one of those strawberries though when I heard Vinny ask to resign from the show. He was disappointed that he wanted to quit and when asked if he'd stay if Piers went, he said he would. Stephen wants Piers to be fired. Piers pointed the finger right back at Stephen calling him a hypocrite. Vinny said he wasn't quitting and wanted to resign. Donald wouldn't fire him but did accept his resignation. Piers then lovingly hugged him and told him it wasn't personal. Whatever fella.

As the music of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" began to play, Vinnie walked out of the board room and was whisked away in the big black car. Then boom! Blackout.

Next week, Stephen wants to meet with Donald. The fallout from the Vinny fiasco continues and Donald tells Piers not to go home a loser. While the men's team is in disarray, the ladies are "pouring it on for victory". Did Omarosa just dump champagne on Piers' head? She most certainly did!

What did you think about this long and drawn out episode? Did you think two hours was really necessary? Do you think the impoverished people in Africa will like their plastic shoes? And what did you think about Vinny's resignation and the show's ending?

By the way, I would like to thank the sweet baby Jesus in advance for next week's CA being just an hour long.