All-Star Celebrity Apprentice Power Rankings: Gary Pretends He's A Dog

Joan Rivers and Ivanka show up to mentor this week and all I can think about is the former saying not so nice things about Adele. Luckily, we don’t spend much time with Joan. As it turns out, this week is a marketing campaign for LG phones. The winning project manager will get $40,000 plus another sum up to $35,000 from the company itself. Lil Jon takes over for project manager on one team and Gary Busey, with his acting skills, is chosen as project manager for the other team.

Both teams look at various LG products, including a TV, a tablet phone with multiple functions, and a refrigerator with a grocery list function. The meeting with the executive goes pretty well for both teams this time around. While Lil Jon’s team begins to work immediately, Gary seems to immediately lash out, shushing both Penn and Lisa and taking the brunt of it out on Lisa. As Lil Jon aptly put its “You gotta think it’s Gary—I know they gonna be a mess.”

It is. Busey goes batshit crazy throughout the entire event, while Lil Jon works hard at getting different camera angles and at branding, paying attention to the closest details. It’s no surprise when Busey’s team is the one that loses, but it is a little surprising when he blatantly blames Penn and Lisa for the loss, saying they contributed nothing. If I earned a dollar for every time Busey shushed his teammates during the episode, I would probably be able to pay my cell phone bill with the cash.

Somewhat surprisingly, Ivanka sort of defends Busey, stating that Lisa and Penn did seem “checked out” during her visit. Luckily, Penn is a wordsmith and talks his way out of that critique and it becomes obvious Gary is getting sent home. Honestly, Gary’s wacky shenanigans have been getting wilder and wilder throughout the competition. This week, they were pretty heartbreaking—he even pretended to be a dog during the episode—but it’s high time he heads back to his real house and sleeps the entire Celebrity Apprentice season off.

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, nine were given for a last place vote. Eight 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) Penn Jillette (28): During Penn’s first run on Celebrity Apprentice, he was far more forceful with his ideas. In fact, he was fired for being too aggressive. This year, he’s far more comfortable with moving on if his ideas are shot down. That’s helped him get this far, but it did his team no favors this week when he was forced to accept Gary’s idiotic ideas.

#2) Lil Jon (26): Lil Jon finally won as a project manager this week. His other time as the team’s lead didn’t end up working out for him, although he did pretty well as a project manager and avoided getting axed. Now that the rapper has won a little money for his charity, maybe it will give him the confidence and drive to get it into gear and win the whole competition.

The Contenders

#3) Marilu Henner (23): Marilu is a total professional. She learned her lines in a matter of minutes for the commercial, and she was singled out by the executives as a total star on her team. As a supporting piece, she’s one of the season’s best players, but given how much she obsesses over details, it’s unclear whether she would be able to handle a giant production like she’ll need to if she gets to the finale.

#3) Trace Adkins (23) : Trace finally got called out for blending into the background this week. The man hasn’t seemed nearly as invested in recent episodes, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t contributing. Oftentimes each week, his ideas are used once or twice by his team, but since Marilu and Lil Jon are both brainstormers themselves, maybe he’s just been content to sit back and ride it through to the finale. As long as he picks it up in the coming weeks, that’s alright.

#5) Lisa Rinna (20): Lisa deserves a serious round of applause for not going apeshit on Gary this week. He was so aggressive and disrespectful to her throughout the task, even shushing her when she tried to get out ideas. She put the team first, however, and played nice until they got into the boardroom and let her feelings be known. I’m still not sure she can win, but I’d gladly take her as a partner in crime anytime.

Here’s how the ballots shook out this week…