Weekly Recap: The Celebrity Apprentice


We are finally in the last full week of The Celebrity Apprentice! “Full” is such a great adjective to describe this show, when you think about it. It’s bland and unpoetic. Also, the show is full of people who are full of themselves. You get it. “The Fullebrity Apprentice”. I’m a marketing genius.

This is the final week before the grand finale, which is happening next week, I think? It’s not clear. What is clear, though, is that this week will involve intensive blasts of both Jason Coleman and Deni Hines being as Worst as they can possibly be, so if you enjoy that kind of thing (“that kind of thing” is squirming in your chair because you hate another human being SO MUCH) this is definitely a great week of reality TV for YOU.

For the first challenge, the two teams have to stage a pantomime for the 7-year-old children of Bourke St Primary School in Sydney’s Surry Hills. The number of celebrities on the show has dwindled due to Mr Bouris’ insatiable appetite for firing, so a fresh injection of celebrities is needed! Pauline Hanson and Jason are joined on their team by Lara Bingle and Jono Coleman. Haha. It’s great to see that the producers are adhering to their very loose definition of “celebrity”. You know Jono Coleman, right? The old guy from that radio station no one listens to? Him. I guess it’s lucky he’s so handsome.

The other team is made up of Shane Crawford, Julia Morris and Jesinta Campbell, and they’re joined by Catriona Rowntree.

Both teams have to write a script for their pantomime, create a song based around a nursery rhyme of their choice, buy props and act in it themselves. Obviously, Jason is VERY keen to be project manager. He casually mentions that he runs the biggest dance school in the world, which definitely sounds like a very valid statistic. “I called up all the dance schools in the whole world and checked and they’re all smaller.” For an intensely unlikeable person, he is very convinced that he is going to win the challenge for them and casts himself as the star of the show. Literally! He will literally be a star! He rewrites “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” so it goes “Twinkle twinkle I’m a star / You look at me from afar.” He tells the others they can take advantage of his “physical humour”. Haha. This fucking guy! The thing about this show is that everyone says so many stupid, hilarious things so often that it’s impossible to keep track of EVERYTHING, but let’s all take a moment to consider the fact that in his own mind, Jason Coleman is a master of slapstick humour.

Anyway! Next they go to the primary school to gauge what the children might like to see or hear. Jason raps at them (of course he does). Lara Bingle asks some of the 7-year-old boys if they have girlfriends. Ugh. Lara Bingle, you are gross. Pauline and Lara head off to Target, because today’s challenge is sponsored by Target, to buy props and costumes. Pauline is unable to not call Lara “Laura”, which is brilliant. She’s also super stressed out that she’ll get the wrong things and Jason will get mad because he’s a nightmare? Great. These are all great people. At one stage, Pauline picks up a Christmas tree and everything falls off it, so she says “I’m lose my tree!” Lara Bingle makes a bunch of menopause jokes. What? Forget about it.

Meanwhile, on Julia, Shane and Jesinta’s team, things are going MUCH better, with the exception of some gross flirting between Julia and Shane. Jesinta meets Catriona Rowntree at Target and they do their shopping. Jesinta is super organised and actually everything goes very smoothly. There’s almost nothing to recap here. Sorry! I’m trying.

Jesinta suggests that Catriona Rowntree should be their narrator instead of Julia, but Julia gets all fierce about it like this is a very big deal for her! “When you’ve got a seasoned comic who does this sort of narration pretty much every day of the week…” That’s what she says. The diva of comedy, Julia Morris!

It’s the day of the show, and Jason has come up with a hilariously dopey song for them to sing and a script which we are yet to fully understand the full terribleness of. He tells the camera “Two months ago I was directing a $10 million show in Moscow. What happened to my life?” Full of great, relatable insights, this guy.

Julia’s team is the first to stage their pantomime for the children. I guess you could argue that there is a slightly negative tone to these recaps, but in fairness they basically smash it out of the park? Children LOLing all over the place. Plenty of slapstick. Plenty of very blatant Target product placement, but what are you gonna do? The whole thing ends with them getting foam all over their faces, which is just the best imaginable outcome, really. Great job!

Team Unity – Jason and Pauline’s team – go next. Straight away there is no laughing. Nothing. The kids hate it. They drop an awful tree pun which nobody likes, and there are many different, personal reasons for that. Lara Bingle forgets her lines, walks on early, comprehensively blows it. Naturally, Jason is a very cool guy about it: “Lara was a waste of space out there,” he says. “I was a fussy baby bitch out there,” he does not say.

At the end of their performance, Jason is handed a thong with a star on it and they “thing a thong”, which all of the old people think is very inappropriate. Things get even better when the kids start talking and he just shuts them down with a hugely unnecessary shoutfest. There’s a bunch of great reaction shots where kids are like, “Jason was being mean.”

Yes he was, child. Jason is a douchebag. Their show ends with Pauline saying “Jason, you’re right on TARGET,” which is so disgusting that I vomit, black out, and when I come to Pauline Hanson has been fired and is sitting in the car, talking about she stood by her principles and left on her terms, etc. Ridiculous.

In the final challenge of the first season of this terrible show, the remaining four contestants – Shane Crawford, Jesinta Campbell, Julia Morris and Jason Coleman – are charged with putting together a promotional event for Mr Bouris’ new business, Yellow Brick Road financial management. “This is personal,” he says. He says it a bunch of times for emphasis. He explains that “Our people on the street believe every Australian deserves good quality financial advice”, which is JUST WHAT THE 1% WOULD SAY, but anyway their job is to create a TV ad and print material and organise a launch event. They’re split into two teams – Shane and Jesinta, Julia and Jason – and told that the winner of the grand prize of $100,000 will be awarded to one member of the winning team.

Just for kicks, some of the eliminated celebrities are brought back. Max Markson and Polly Porter join Julia and Jason’s team, while Didier Cohen and the worst person in the world, Deni Hines, join Shane and Jesinta’s team.

Oh boy. Straight away, Deni is all “I’m back, bitches!” Ugh. Horrible. Then, “My strategy is I’m just here to help my team. But don’t piss me off.” Ugh again (Ughain). Shane regrets his decision to pick Deni almost straightaway, which is fair enough, especially since Jesinta and Didier are immediately having a very fun, sexy time together.

Both teams drive over to Naked Communications, which is obviously a gold mine for Julia Morris the Comedian. “Let’s get naked!” She says. Then: “I’ll show you my Yellow Brick Road if you show me yours!” Gross. You’re fired, Julia Morris. Fired for being gross. Everyone has a big, annoying discussion about concepts and strategies, during which time Jesinta says that she’s bad at breaking the rules because she’s very conservative and never got detention at school. Deni weighs in with “The difference between Jesinta and I is I have been suspended from school. She never got suspended. She’s the kind of girl I would have beat up at school,” which is just the most amazing sentence! Wow. I’m sure that Deni had a very rough childhood, what with being the daughter of a reasonably successful singer. I’m sure she was beating bitches up all of the j, no question about that. The only thing I’d quibble with is that this is THE difference between her and Jesinta? As far as I can tell, Jesinta is not a self-obsessed maniac. But I could be wrong!

Both teams lock in their garbage concepts. Julia and Jason are gonna have a Yellow Brick Road manager following her around doing all of the mundane stuff of her daily life. Shane and Jesinta are a husband and wife who try a bunch of “madcap” get-rich-quick strategies before settling on Yellow Brick Road. Whatever. Lots of organising: Jason hooks up some pikelets with yellow food dye in them. He acts constantly annoyed with Max Markson, who looks like is just having the best time on this show! On their ad shoot, he eats a litre of ice cream, runs a bubble bath and puts the bubbles on his head and pretends to be a “punk”. Haha! Good for you, Max Markson.

The big news this episode, though, is definitely Deni Hines. They should have called this episode “The Denibrity Apprentice” or something. I’m spitballing. I don’t know. I feel a little bit ashamed that I ever thought that Jason Coleman was the absolute worst person in this gallery of terrible people, because now it is clear that the once and future queen has come to take her rightful place. And she has a big problem with Jesinta!

There’s a lot of groundwork that goes into the hilariously desperate, childish confrontations that Deni insists on having with EVERYONE later on in this episode, including the phrase “THE YOUTH OF TODAY!”, but it’s when the team has to record their jingle that Deni Hines really lets her Worst pedigree show. There’s a conversation that goes exactly like this:

JESINTA: Music is really, really powerful!

DENI: REALLY? REALLY? DON’T WORRY, THIS IS WHAT I DO FOR A JOB. WHAT I REALLY NEED YOU TO DO IS JUST TAKE A BACK SEAT AND WATCH ME WORK. I only want to do four bars of singing because you’re not paying me enough to sing any more.

Haha. Genius! I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the world of professional singing, but I’m sure that professional singers will do more than four bars when the job calls for it and let the client use as much or as little as they require. And if a professional singer can do it, I see no reason why an unemployed former pop singer can’t do the same? That just seems like good logic to me.

Anyway, there are so many more great Deni Hines moments (including the return of the phrase “THE YOUTH OF TODAY!” and her tantrum when she’s handed a prop baby with white skin during their commercial shoot) but there are other things to say about this show, so let’s move on!

After a pretty shaky start for Julia and Shane’s team, with the forgotten camera crew, their ad comes together in a way that everyone seems happy with. Their printed material is done in time. Everything is looking great! Over on Shane and Jesinta’s team, though, things aren’t looking so good. Shane and Didier hate Deni’s jingle. They’re worried they might not get their commercial done in time for the launch event that afternoon. Everything gets very tense and – naturally – Deni Hines is the one who has a huge tantrum. She storms out of their meeting and tells the camera, “Honey, you’re messing with the wrong black woman today. I don’t know how many sisters are in this universe. I don’t know how many sisters you’ve met before, but you need to step away from the vehicle before I go off like a SCUD missile!” Who is she talking about? We don’t know. Then she gets mad at Jesinta: “You need to leave me alone before I possibly do something to you where you might never model again.” Oh boy. I’m sorry, I know I said we were going to move on, but these ramblings of a legitimately mentally unstable person are too good to not transcribe.

The episode ends just as the two teams are about to head off to Taronga Zoo for their respective launch parties. So tense! Who will take it? Who will win the $100,000 for their nominate charity? God, who cares. Can’t wait for you to be over, Celebrity Apprentice!

Max Lavergne lives in Sydney. He tweets here and blogs at Really Really Really Trying and Rose Quartz.

More Stuff From PEDESTRIAN.TV