All-Star Celebrity Apprentice Power Rankings: Art And A Villainess

The status of Celebrity Apprentice may not be so hot. This week, NBC’s competition series was cut down to an hour to make room for a rerun of The Voice, which is kind of sad for an All-Star season. In this week’s one-hour episode, the two teams were given the chance to raise funds. Since the teams are pretty uneven, the team with the smaller numbers got to choose someone from the other team and the group members chose trace. Lil Jon took on project manager for the team that recently acquired Trace and Lisa Rinna took on project manager for the other team.

Stephen Baldwin was a ridiculous individual, calling an art dealer and hoping that someone would show up to drop mad amounts of money on art that he says “matters.” As usual, he made a few phone calls and dithered about, actually getting angry when Lisa made some money and sold some of his pieces for him. His theories about playing the game are almost as wild as Omarosa’s, but unfortunately, only one of them could go home this week.

Most of the art ended up looking like a craft project; however, Dennis Rodman actually created a few extremely unique pieces (weird, but certainly a statement). On that team, Lil Jon managed to bring in some big donors and pull in $80,000 despite being “a rapper,” which I guess means it can be difficult to squeeze money from his contacts. Trace and Brande also did well. On the other team, Penn crushed with money from the Blue Man Group and Teller and Marilu and Lisa also puledl their weight. Neither Gary nor Stephen actually brought money in. However, Penn had plenty of money on hand and basically won it for the team. He really should have been the project manager this week.

Despite saying early on in the episode that the person with the worst monetary track record should go home (to help her case, she did raise more than Dennis by $2,000 thanks to bribing her friend) Omarosa immediately penned the blame on Lil Jon, which was foolish. On the judges’ side, Piers Morgan ripped her a new one, reminding her that those who had worst track records should go home. It’s hard to blame a project manager who brought in $80,000 dollars, contributing nearly half of the overall money the team brought in. Obviously, Omarosa talked herself into a hole this episode and it didn’t even take long for Trump to fire her. Good riddance, former wife of Michael Clarke Duncan.

The Celebrity Apprentice Power Rankings are an ordered compilation of weekly lists put together by TV Blend writers Mack Rawden and Jessica Rawden. Each week after viewing the episode, they each rank the competitors in order. Fourteen points are given for a first place vote, and this week, six were given for a last place vote. Five competitors have already been eliminated; therefore, those already eliminated automatically occupy the bottom slots. Here is how this week’s voting panned out, complete with analysis on how the celebrities might fare moving forward.

The Favorites

#1) Trace Adkins (26): Poor Trace was not a happy camper when the Donald told him he’d be switching teams, but he was able to curb his mental frustration and actually contribute to his new team a la Adam Banks in The Mighty Ducks. Unless there’s something unseemly underneath that cowboy hat, it would be a shock if he didn’t at least go through the interviews to make it to the finale.

#2) Lil Jon (25): Lil Jon may have lost as project manager this week, but so much about fundraising tasks boils down to who is on your team. He raised more than eighty thousand dollars on his own, and he managed the personalities of his team members quite well. Consequently, I really don’t hold this loss against him. Apart from maybe Penn, he’s the single best idea guy in the entire competition.

#2) Penn Jillette (25): Penn was a key player this week and probably should have been project manager. He brought in a big bulk of the money for his team during the fundraiser and had they lost, it’s highly unlikely he would have gone home. Penn’s been one of the best players all season, but he hasn’t had a shot at project manager, yet.

#4) Marilu Henner (24): Gary may have tried to claim Marilu’s twenty-five thousand dollar donor as his own because of his wild sculpture, but that was clearly her money that came in. Consequently, this was just the latest in a long series of tasks in which Marilu has quietly pulled her weight and been a good team player.

The Contenders

#5) Brande Roderick (20): Brande has actually been a solid player over the last several weeks and during the fundraising task, she redeemed herself from the first challenge by keeping tabs on all the money that came in. She hasn’t shown any real leadership skills, but she does seem like the type of person who can be a great asset as a sidekick and could stick around in this competition for a while.

#6) Lisa Rinna (18): It clearly doesn’t speak well of Lisa that she won her task this week and that she’s still this low in the rankings. Honestly, however, this is only occurring because Lisa never seems to do much. She seems like a friendly, nice woman who doesn’t really want to make reality TV waves, but she didn’t really delegate this week and she doesn’t seem to be able to contribute either leadership or ideas. I’m not sure how much longer she’ll be able to stay a player in the game. #7) Dennis Rodman (16): Dennis actually contributed great artwork this week. If you give him a task, he can capably accomplish it, but he’s the exact opposite of a self-starter and he hasn’t signed up as a project manager, yet. It seems like any opportunity to show teamwork and leadership will go horribly, but maybe Dennis will find something inside himself to earn the win.n

#8) Stephen Baldwin (14): You know what’s frustrating about Stephen? He smiles like he’s the smartest guy in the room with a wild scheme in the back of his mind, but he’s not the smartest guy in the room and his scheme is always transparent. He seems to be under the impression that he needs to outthink everyone, but really, if he just acted like a genuine human being and was a team player, he wouldn’t need to be so underhanded.

#9) Gary Busey (12): Just Gary being Gary. I mean what else are we supposed to say at this point? One of these times in the near future, he’s going to need to be project manager, and when that day comes, he’ll either rise to the occasion or sink like his damn Hang Brain sculpture. Let’s be honest. It’s probably going to be the latter, but at least it’ll be entertaining as hell.