Niki Tehranchi

Apprentice Recap, Season 10, Episode 7, Thursday, October 28, 2010

I knew this was going to be an explosive episode when Mahsa and Brandy started throwing F Bombs at each other while their teammates were still duking it out in the Boardroom over last week's task.  The women behaved cattily as usual throughout the entire task. Taking a page out of Mahsa's 3 million mentions of her 15 year experience as a receptionist at her mother' salon during the doggie daycare task, Stephanie made sure she had at least 3 million and 1 mentions of the fact that she had thirty years experience as a musician. And the despicable Poppy (no, those fake nerd glasses did not make you look smarter) and Brandy (yes, that perpetually frozen smug smirk did make me want to smack you in the face) were snickering together at Mahsa like a couple of prissy sorority girls blackballing the girl from the wrong side of the tracks.

I am not even going to bother talking about the actual task this week except to say very briefly that it involved putting together a backer's audition and promotional materials for a new Broadway show.  It's worthless to analyze what each player did and what the winning strategy or fatal mistake was simply because the person who got fired this week was fired not for something having anything remotely to do with the Broadway show but for some weird behind the scene event that was not even caught by the Apprentice cameras.   

Basically, what went down in the Boardroom was that Brandy accused Mahsa of being disloyal to the team because last week, she had divulged to Clint, from the opposing team Octane, the amount of money the women's team had made from their pedicab tour of New York, before stepping into the Boardroom.  While Mahsa admitted that she said that, she also said it was only in response to Clint telling her the amount the men's team made.  Lost yet? So am I.  And bored.  To tears. 

First of all, who cares? It was the end of the task anyway.  What the hell is that gonna change at the Boardroom if the men already know they won. How would that give them any upper hand?  I don't understand what Ivanka meant when she said Mahsa changed the "dynamic" of the game.  She was just looking for an excuse to jump on the I hate Mahsa bandwagon. 

Secondly, this was last week's issue.  If Brandy did not think it was worthy of being brought up last week, then in her own oh-so-classy words, she should shut the F up this week. Plus, that makes her a tattle-tale.  I have seen more mature behavior from the kids at SweetPea's pre-school. 

Third, I find it very suspicious that this is one of the "best-produced shows" (Mahsa's words, not mine) and the cameras are running 24/7 and the producers are watching every contestant like a hawk, monitoring even their private phone calls to their significant other, and yet, this infamous conversation between Mahsa and Clint was not caught on tape, leaving the two of them to get into a screaming match of he said-she said at the Boardroom.  It was really brutal the way everybody ganged up on Mahsa, including Trump himself who, though he had had some weird psychotic moments with her in the past, had basically been championing her since the moment she auditioned for the show.  Seems like a pretty transparent producer-created drama if you ask me.  That being said, this was not the first time we saw a hysterical hyena-like massacre in the Boardroom and Mahsa had been the instigator of quite a few Mahsa-cres herself.  What's good for the goose is good for the gander, I guess.

Finally, if Mahsa had broken some important production rule that forbids the contestants from talking to each other about certain subject matters, then she should be penalized under the terms of her contract with NBC.  I don't know what the penalty would be.  A fine? Being disqualified from the rest of the game?  Getting a slap on the wrist?  Any of it would make more sense than what really happened which was that Trump fired her on the spot.  Trump should have fired the person responsible for the women's team losing their task.  It was very debatable who, out of Mahsa, Liza, and Stephanie, was to be blamed for messing up their promotional materials for the Broadway show.

In the end, this is just a game and Mahsa had served her purpose which was to drum up a little publicity for a show that has otherwise failed dismally in the ratings and is far from the watercooler conversation starter that it was when it first started ten seasons ago.  The producers decided it was time to let her go and this is exactly what happened.

Good luck Mahsa in your future endeavors either in front or behind the camera.  I enjoyed watching you and rooting for you, even though sometimes I did not agree with you.  You were a fierce competitor, an enjoyable TV character, and a cute dresser :)  Too bad the Apprentice is an NBC show, cause I think you would be a very good addition to the ABC show the View, as a breath of fresh air and a representative of our generation who is not nearly as cringe-inducing as the Hassle-Beck.

And as the Apprentice journey for Mahsa ends, the Apprentice recap journey for this blogger ends too.  Thank you to all of you who read my recaps and took the time to comment.  These were my first ever recap blogs and your participation was much appreciated.  Now back to regular programming :)

For those of you who still care, the Apprentice continues to air on NBC on Thursdays, 10/9 c.  Mahsa's twitter and blog can be accessed at this site:

//mahsawho.com/