You thought Celebrity Apprentice was over, didn’t you. You thought that I, and Inside Pulse, had both moved on in our lives.

But you thought wrong.

It seems that I have prevailed in a vicious battle with procrastination, as I am finally here with you for one more recap. One more glorious Celebrity Apprentice recap.

We’ll pick up at the beginning of the final, two-hour episode.

It’s incredibly entertaining to watch the Trumps on live television. The extra-rehearsed, extra-scripted, ultra-stiff dialogue is always wonderful to watch.

The three of them break down the super-oversimplified storyline: Trace is likeable and impressive at times, Piers is unlikable and incredibly good at tasks.

After Trump’s kids say their scripted opinions, Trump says, “But I want to just ask, what do you think? What does everybody in the audience think?!” and the cameras whip around to reveal…a live audience!!

I love this show.

The NBC narrator says, “And now, here’s the biggest celebrity of them all…Donald Trump!” I wanted to make a joke about this, but it’s kind of true. Not many people out there more famous than Big T.

They recap the season. Like me but much, much less long-winded. Then they review what happened last week. Basically:

-Trace and Piers will be auctioning things off for the final task.

-Trace has Lennox and Marilu on his team, Piers has Baldwin and Carol.

-Both are trying to get as many contacts as possible to come, Piers creates some rare auction items from his network of celebrity friends.

-Trace interacts with The Backstreet Boys, which is incredibly high comedy.

-Piers strategically gives away 20 of his tickets to wounded soldiers.

-Stephen Baldwin is a huge douchebag.

After we’re all refreshed, we head back to the final task and into Piers’ war room. Piers is getting help from the Osbournes and Andrew Lloyd Webber. How does Piers Morgan know all these people?

In the cab, Piers reconciles with Baldwin, who he can’t help kind of liking, and Baldwin later stabs him in the back anyway, because he sucks.

Next we see Trace again dealing with The Backstreet Boys. This could be its own reality show. Trace is at his most homophobic as he heads with Lennox to buy black nail polish for the band. Good times. Trace is kind of a caricature of himself.

A bunch of scenes pass showing how much pressure everyone is under, and then Trace’s wife surprises him with their two daughters. His two little blond daughters run into Trace’s arms, as the sentimental music plays and Trace sheds tears. On the other side of the TV, I am furiously wiping my own tears away. F*** the caricature comment– Trace Adkins is a wonderful man. Wonderful goddammit.

Piers strategizes by deciding to hold the food in favor of more alcohol in order to get the celebrities as drunk as possible so that they’ll spend more money. Pretty clever he is. More of Trace and the BSB, as he calls them, as he looks for a knee brace for one of them and talks about how soft they all are.

So the bidding begins, and the contest ends, when it becomes apparent that Piers has a billionaire bidder there who pays $200,000 for two items. To ice it, Piers later gets Simon Cowell on the phone, who bids $100,000 for a shopping spree with Ivanka Trump (quite a scene that would be).

Trace is noticeably shaken up, and interviews that he thought the phone thing with Cowell was distasteful. Contrived storyline or not, Trace genuinely despises Piers.

Back to the live audience, Trump tells us that his favorite part of the show is the boardroom. Not surprising since that’s the part he’s in. And with that, we enter our final boardroom together. Here’s how it happened:

Trump: Lennox, you’ve been my friend for a long time. You and I are good friends. If someone asked you who your top 5 friends were, I would be among them. Who is better, Trace or Piers?

Lennox: Their styles are different. Trace is more laid back and Piers is more aggressive.

Trump: Which do you like better?

Lennox: Trace, despite the fact that Piers carried me through this whole show.

Trump: Trace, tell us about the Backstreet Boys. We have gold here with this.

Trace: Well, the nightmare scenario was that they wouldn’t play and the event would be a failure.

Trump: We don’t care about the event, dammit– tell us about the wheatgrass juice.

Trace: Well, they wanted wheatgrass juice.

Trump: And the nail polish???

Trace: And they wanted black nail polish.

Trump: Ha! That’s the good stuff. Homosexuality is frightening, huh Trace?

Trace: Completely petrifying.

Ivanka: Trace, why were you The Backstreet Boys’ bitch. Have you no pride?

Trace: I could beat all five of them up with one hand.

Ivanka: You’re so much man in one body.

Trace: Thank you, darling.

Trump: Carol, who did better, Trace or Piers?

Carol: Piers. He raised much more money than Trace. This should be obvious. Even if this show has 1% integrity, Piers should win.

Don Jr.: Aha! But there was another criteria: ticket sales. And Trace won there.

Piers: That’s because we gave away half our tickets to wounded soldiers.

Carol: Oh snap.

Trace: F***.

Piers: And I didn’t just beat the other side, I pulverized them. I’m significantly smarter than the other people here.

Trace: It’s as hard for my country music friends to donate $10,000 as it is for your billionaire friends to donate $100,000. Piers is belittling my friends and my donors.

Piers: You kind of just made that up, huh?

Trace: Yeah, I had to come out with something.

Piers: Cool. We’re friends in real life, right?

Trace: No.

Piers: Cool. Me neither.

Trace: Huh?

Piers: British banter.

Trump: What? How about the food? Where was the food, Piers?

Piers: I hid the food so the idiot donors would get drunk.

Trump: The f***? Stephen, what do you think of this strategy?

Baldwin: I think that strategy in general is immoral. In fact, Jesus and I had coffee the other day, and he was saying that strategy is the work of the devil.

Jesus: Yeah, see that’s not true. We never had coffee.

Piers: Like his brother said in episode three, Stephen’s just completely full of shit in general.

Trump: You’re kind of a sweaty dude, huh Piers?

Piers: Yeah. Is that really necessary to call to attention here? And maybe if the producers turned off the f***ing heat lamps above me I would sweat less.

Trump: You are not permitted to ever mention production on camera. Like the time I asked Tim why he wasn’t sitting next to Nicole in the final boardroom, to add some drama, and Tim, who was sick of the whole show at this point, said “We’re sitting in pre-assigned seats.” Ivanka and I immediately turned away and talked to someone else. It was a really awkward moment, but it was a very amusing and satisfying moment for Tim.

Piers: Well I’m sick of this damn show too. Trace is more likeable than me– sure. But I demolished him on all the “Apprentice” criteria. As likeable as he is, he was kind of overrated on tasks.

Trump: This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. Hard decisions are a 51 billion dollar industry.

[flash to the live event]

Highlights from the live part of the finale:

-It’s really wonderful watching watch Trump at a live event. He’s stiff as a board, he reads from cue cards, and he talks like you would talk if you were talking to a hearing impaired 80-year-old from Russia who spoke very little English.

-After bringing Trace and Piers out, Trump calls on the other 12 candidates. Everyone comes out except Gene Simmons and Omarosa. Simmons because he’s in Japan, and Omarosa because NBC wants to milk one last drop of drama from her heinous personality before she fades into oblivion. They build it all up, and then she walks out in the most loathsome manner possible, and sits down. Trump asks her why she hates Piers and she responds, “Because he doesn’t floss.” She had four months to think of an answer to that inevitable question and this she came up with. She was basically trying to be funny and likeable, but it didn’t work. Trump gets angry and tells her she “blew it,” just like when Surya from my season made a joke that Trump should hire Sanjaya at the finale, and Trump told him afterwards that Surya had embarrassed himself and that he had lost respect for him.

-Poor Lennox Lewis was petrified on live national television, and could barely get a sentence out. I remember when Trump called on me at the finale, and it’s pretty bizarre. You’re sitting with the candidates, watching the show, and you kind of feel like you’re sitting in the audience or watching on TV like everyone else, and then he calls on you. And suddenly, you’re talking live to 10 million people. Pretty f***ing insane.

-Carol was pretty bitter about not being in the finals, and for good reason. Still, it’s always better to bite the bullet after the fact with reality television and act above it all.

-The Gene Simmons cameo from Japan was pretty great. I could watch him and Trump interact for days on end happily.

-The charity close-ups were pretty emotional and well done. Trace has completely sold me on food allergies. It sounds pretty horrid to be a parent of a kid with severe food allergies. And all the Piers stuff with the soldiers with missing limbs was pretty powerful.

-Trace singing his single was weird. Even though I’ve known the whole time that singing is what he does, it was weird to see him singing. I’m gonna miss this.

-So finally, after an hour and 53 minutes, the candidates make their final arguments. Piers is attacked again for his lack of tact. Frankly, every time he’s being “untactful,” I find myself completely in agreement with him. He simply isn’t afraid to call people out when they deserve to be called out– like Baldwin for his absurd pious act or Omarosa for her heinous personality.

-I’m very happy Piers won. Sure, he has his whole petty, mean side, but he is the obvious winner of this show and I’m happy that the outcome sticks it in the faces of Omarosa, Baldwin, and everyone else who rooted against him. I love Trace, but he came off like a god this whole season and will benefit hugely from all this, and it would have been ludicrous if he had won over Piers.

Anyway, I didn’t even see the finale live, because I was visiting friends in New York, but Frank (Frankie) and Aaron from my season and I crashed the finale after-party. All former Apprentice cast members were invited to all former finales and after-parties, but no former candidates were invited to the fancy celebrity one. So we crashed.

As far as parties go, it was pretty lame. Our after-party was 24 times more fun. But having the cast of Celebrity Apprentice at any party makes it an exciting and highly amusing event. Some highlights:

-I had a cordial interaction with Piers, and thanked him for being the voice of reason on the show.

-Stephen Baldwin was too cool for school, and showed up for ten minutes with two guys, was on the phone the whole time, and left. That guy is the worst.

-Lennox Lewis is 8′11″ in real life. He also has the exact laid-back, smiling demeanor he has on the show in real life. He’s immensely awesome and lovable. He had no idea who I was but was very friendly. When he was talking to us, Frank told him that we were on last season and that I had made out with a girl in the hot tub, and Lennox said, “That’s hot! What a pimp!” If you asked me a few years ago if heavyweight boxing legend Lennox Lewis would ever look me in the face and call me a pimp, I would have said no. I would have said, “No, I don’t think heavyweight boxing legend Lennox Lewis will ever look me in the face and call me a pimp.” But I would have been wrong.

-Marilu Henner came over to me and gave me a huge hug when she saw me. Big past Apprentice viewer. She’s pretty great, and we had a fun chat about the show and the editing and everything. Apparently she came up with the winning idea of making the Clogs container a big shoe, not Omarosa.

-Jennie Finch did not come over to me and give me a huge hug when she saw me. As she was walking by, I caught her attention and reminded her that I had interviewed her. She had no memory of this and our interaction was short lived. The one that got away.

-Carol Alt spent the whole night taking pictures and talking to fans and was the most affable of the bunch.

-Omarosa will not be sending me a Christmas card. Let’s just leave it at that.

-George Ross has no idea who I am.

-Ivanka Trump does know who I am. She gave me a big hello and asked how I was doing. Then she said that she had a bone to pick with me, and suggested that she was not, in fact, scary and intimidating. Petrified and intimidated, I asked her why she would have thought that I thought that, and she apparently has laid eyes on these recaps. Her thoughts may have something to do with this quote (about my glee after Gene Simmons disrespected her):

“There are so many phenomenal things about this scene I can barely contain myself. First, I spent the entire summer of ‘06 (while we filmed) being scared of Ivanka. We all did. A) She’s incredibly scary, and B) She has this immense power on the show, as Daddy’s precious little girl, and ‘the person with the most influence over him.’ She completely prides herself on being ‘the real decision maker on the show.’ As such, everyone has always completely kissed her wonderfully-shaped ass in these little entrances, and she has grown very accustomed to being The Ice Queen of Terror and Omnipotence. Second, Ivanka is absurdly hot, and every straight guy on the show inevitably becomes thoroughly attracted to her. Third, there was always a sense of, ‘Wait, I’m actually more accomplished than Ivanka in the real world– why the hell does she have all of this power over me?’ So my emotion toward her is some combination of attraction and resentment with a dash of intense fear.”

Yikes.

-I had a chance to reunite with old Donald. Our interaction went as follows:

Me: Hi, Mr. Trump. I was on last season.

Trump: Hi. How are you doing?

Me: Well.

Trump: And how’s your business?

Me: It’s good. How’s yours?

Trump: Very good. You’re gonna do very well.

Me: Thanks.

And that was that. He might remember exactly who I am, and he might have no recollection whatsoever. It’s unclear.

And that’s where we’ll wrap up all the fun we had this season. We had fun, right? I know I did.




Check out Tim’s website, at www.timurban.com, where you can listen to samples of his new album, Turning Home, see pictures, and contact Tim. You can find Tim’s blog at www.timurban.blogspot.com.




Sir Linksalot: Celebrity Apprentice