HOUSTON – This week we were down to the "dirty half dozen," and Teams Unanimous and Forte really seem to have this whole apprentice thing down to a science!… Sort of. If by "science" we mean vague idea of how "business" works. And if by "business" we mean being manipulative on camera/how to make pretty things happen on the computer machine.
The task this week was to write and produce a 90-second jingle for Good Sam's roadside assistance product, and then to perform said jingle in front of a live audience. For some background, Good Sam is "the largest organization of RV owners, anywhere" according to Donald Trump (and I mean, is there a greater Truth than the Trump Truth?), an organization that offers road side assistance, kind of like AAA. The project managers were Arsenio Hall for Team Unanimous and Dayana Mendoza for Team Forte. Let the lunacy commence!
Things started off with a race-infused BANG, thanks to one ignorant Aubrey O'Day and one over-sensitive Arsenio Hall. There was an argument about tap dancing, racial implications were made, Gregory Hines was brought up; it wasn't a cute look for either celeb. The moral of the story is: Arsenio Hall and Aubrey O'Day are both idiots.
On the other side, Dayana Mendoza faced some tough challenges that resulted from her not really knowing that much about American music history. Or knowing the meaning of the word "jingle." Or really speaking English in general. Problems abound on Team Forte!
The teams did eventually agree upon a theme each, with Team Forte going with a 1960's, sock-hoppy sort of idea and Team Unanimous going with… cheerleading? Gwen Stefani meets Black Eyed Peas? This is all according to the incomparable genius, Aubrey O'Day, so I wasn't sure what the final product would actually look like until, well, it actually happened.
Things on Team Forte continued to deteriorate when Don Jr. came to visit. Dayana apparently didn't give Lisa her props on the amount of work she put into the project, telling Don that Clay was the mastermind behind everything. Well. Whatever traces of sanity or dignity Lisa was hanging onto by a thread are officially gone. Homegirl went CUH-RAZY, yelling, screaming profanities, crying, screaming profanities… once again, it was not a good look. But to be fair, from the very beginning of the challenge, it was Lisa and Clay trying to marginalize Dayana. And they successfully kept her out of pretty much everything, since the final performance happened as Dayana watched from backstage, not really participating in any of the performative aspects of the task. The jingle itself was actually pretty cute and catchy, and Clay Aiken was a dream, as one would expect. My little, ginger-headed, peach-farming, Georgia Dreamboat.
Alternatively, on Team Unanimous, things were pretty ok teamwork wise. But you really haven't seen scary until you've seen Aubrey bouncing around inappropriately in a two-sizes-too-tight cheerleading uniform. I'm still having nightmares.
In the boardroom, it was Dayana vs. Lisa in the battle of who can cry less. Obviously, Dayana won since Lisa is nothing but a puddle of tears and f-bombs these days. The challenge ended up going the way of Team Unanimous, and Arsenio took home $45,000 plus the profit from all future sales of the Good Sam mascot. And it was no surprise that the final call from Trump was to axe Dayana—it was just time.
We're down to the final five! Only a few episodes left… I'm rooting for Clay to take it all home. How about you?
Thanks for reading, and as always, thanks for watching KPRC Local 2!