Here we go kids. After 15 weeks, It’s finally over. Almost. This is a long one so fix whatever drink is appropriate for the time of day, grab your snacks and come on this crazy ride with me one more time.

The show opens with Trump on the phone to his secretary telling her to get  him the fastest driver available. He has to get to the live show. He reminds us on the way out that the finalists Are, Arsenio Hall and Clay Aiken. The Don gets to the street and finds that his ‘driver’ is Mario Andretti, in his Formula One car. I’ve never seen one of these cars with 2 seats but I guess this one does for the occasion. Trump climbs into the back of this rig and Andretti tells him he’ll get there with little muss to his hair. I don’t think a jackhammer could muss that comb over of Trumps. They race through the streets of NYC at break neck speed and arrive at the American Museum of Natural History and not a hair on Trumps head is out of place. Yes, I know, It’s all CGI made for TV fun and I’ll let it go at that.

The Don opens the live show by giving us a review of the season. We are reminded of some of the She Devils’ nasty comments about her cast mates, the one sided argument Clay had with Penn, The Arsenio explosion (but not the whole thing (dammit)), and other low lights of the season. At the end of it all though, Arsenio and Clay are Friends.

We pick up with Arsenio and Clay where we left off with them last week. Arsenio is in the video editing room looking at the screwed up footage of Magic Johnston. Adam notes that his crew may have let Arsenio down. Never to fear folks, we all know how the editing on these cliff hanger two parters go. Did anyone Really think Arsenio was screwed with that footage? There were still two more clips to come in and in one of them, Magic turns and faces the camera and gives his spiel. They have footage they can use. Arsenio can see both of Magics’ eyes. He’s happy. Over on Clays’ side of things, Debbie is still upset that Clay insists on seeing a sketch. She is on the phone talking with her cousin, Clay notes that he thinks the mural is a great idea but he just wants to see what she plans on doing so he doesn’t have some graffiti looking thing on the wall. After all, it is only HIS neck on the chopping block (as he notes later) when it comes to this task. There’s no one to blame but him if it goes wrong. After all the self insulted drama, Debbie finally has her cousin send photos of past work. She tells her cousin that she is being micromanaged even while talking on the phone to ‘family’. Why she didn’t just ask for pictures to begin with, is beyond me. I think there are many, or maybe it’s just me, that wish Clay would have just pushed half his team in front of a moving truck. The scene ends with Debbie complaining that all this stress is too much for her singing voice and she needs to relax it. Sweetie, there isn’t enough relaxation in the world. In the van going to the event space to set everything up, Debbie finally shows the pictures of her cousins stuff. All is good for now, the mural is a go. Again, Did you really think it would end differently?

We are shown the event space as Arsenio describes what is going to happen. The performance areas are curtained off and the rest of the space is divided between Arsenio and Clay. They will have their parties, the curtains between them will drop, and then they’ll give their performances. The team is discussing the comedy show and what to do. Adam says he’s going to write stuff for Paul and Teresa because let’s face it, they aren’t ad-libbers. Then Adam goes into the idea of a Roast type show. Arsenio is shaking his head the entire time and says ‘things have changed’. He doesn’t want any negativity type stuff in the show. Adam spits out a few more ideas and Arsenio knocks them down. Arsenio doesn’t look too confident feeling right now and Adam notes in TH that he feels he’s being rejected at every turn (My words, not his) after Arsenio asked him to help. Over in Clays’ space, things are coming together for the event. Debbies’ cousin shows up, With a Scaled sketch, and Clay approves it. I suspect, that cousin works with a scaled drawing all the time given the huge size  of the work she does. Have any of you ever shrunk the size of your handwriting so you could fit a sentence on the last line of the paper you were writing on? Same thing. No one wants to lay out a 30 foot mural (or however big that wall is), get to the end, and find they have to start over because something doesn’t fit. I use to airbrush T Shirts and ruined More than one by not planning and sketching it out first. This woman has been at this for quite some time. Just sayin, Clay. I do think that Debbie was right when she said a little bit of faith and trust goes a long way when you assign a task to somebody. Clay however has to have his hand on everything as it’s his neck on the cutting board. Over on Arsinios’ side, things are coming together as well. Teresa is in charge of the decorations and Arsenio has chosen an LA club scene atmosphere for his party. There’s no real ‘Theme’ to it other than a party. Teresa shows him some of the things she’s brought in and he’s impressed that she even thought of things like that. Teresa says in her TH that she loves to give parties and have people talking about them still, several weeks after. That’s how she knows it was successful.

Someone, I don’t know who, that the She Devil knows apparently, because she hugged him (was this one of the guys on her blackberry that she was showing Teresa? I hope not) and she begins to walk the guy through her plan and what’s going on (she also later tried this with Trump). Clay immediately jumps in and says ‘May I?’ (or something like that) and takes over. Clay, at times throughout this task seemed a little, I don’t know if Desperate is the right word her but I’ll go with it, in Aubeys’ presence to prove he was in charge of Everything. TH time for the She Devil, if it weren’t for her, there would Be no show, because that’s the task he gave her to do. As much as it pains me to say it, She’s partially Right. He gave her a job to do, he knows she can handle it, he should keep an eye on her but should just let her do it. If she wasn’t constantly trying to steal the spotlight, I would say she was Completely right. In stark contrast to this, we don’t see Arsenio micromanaging Teresa. He recognizes her strengths, gave her a task that that he believes suited her, and he’s letting her do her job. The mural is well underway and Clay decides the painting crew needs more help. So he commandeers the entire crew, including Teller who has arrived to help Penn with the show, to paint. He says he doesn’t want his event starting with wet paint on the walls or a half finished mural. I don’t know if anyone else caught this but you all know what I think of Aubrey- She Devil. On one of the ladders being used by the painting or decorating crew was a number, probably just to ID the ladder for inventory purposes. The Number was 666, the number of the beast. In the very next frame, The She Devil. A trick of editing or coincidence? Maybe it was actually 999 and we were just looking at it upside down. You be the judge.

Time for a break in the show action. At the live show, Trump brings out all of the fired contestants who are Not participating in the task. Lou, Dayana, George, Tia, Patrcia, and Victoria. Where are Cheryl and Michael Andretti? Not invited or chose not to participate? I guess it doesn’t matter, they were both kind of unceremoniously fired. At least Michael was the same week as Adam. Cheryl kind of quit the show after task 1. Anyway, We are treated to a montage of Lous’ 110%. Lou says 6 weeks ago, he had an implant operation that improves his hearing to the point where he no longer needs a hearing aid. Lou says he has an additional $41k for his charity that he’s raised and he hands it over to Trump. Victoria Gotti is polled about her experience. She says with a couple exceptions on the womens’ team, she would have given anything to be on the mens’ team. She called the She Devil a cartoon character and Jabba the Hut and over bearing troll. Dayana is asked about Jabba and she says that LisaL has no respect for herself (or anyone else, I would guess she’s thinking) and doesn’t care to acknowledge she exists. She thanks Trump for the opportunity. Patricia is still very disappointed that she got none of the money she raised. Says she raised 90% of it herself and had to give it all away to the other team (I think that was rather shitty as well, and still say that Paul Sr bought that win with a bullshit $305k single donor 🙄 ). Says the school she wanted to build with the money still isn’t built. Trump says he knows she has raised a lot of money since but doesn’t say how much. Tia Cararra, (remember that 50 year old hag?) says that the women were too catty (My words, not hers), there for their or rather HER own camera time and when asked who that was, She answers that it’s quite obvious. Wouldn’t name her but she let the audience do it. You guessed it, Aubrey. She also noted that the final 2 were Men and that speaks Volumes about the women. We aren’t the only ones who recognize a she devil fame whore. Maybe with the information that came out over the weekend, I should just leave Fame off of that moniker. George Takai, says that since he was let go, and it was graciously handled by Trump, dozens of people have donated to his charity, The Japanese – American Museum and he’s raise $10k since he didn’t earn any charity money on the show. George adds that he’s pumped $50k of his own money in as well. So, to summarize this, The men are happy with their appearance on the show and satisfied as can be given being let go, the results of being on the show. The Women, are bitter about the whole experience though none really came right out and said it.

Back to the events. It’s ready to go and the people are lining up at the door. Clays’ people are anyway. A whole bunch of Clay-mates Arsenio notes and about 6 people in His line. Don’t shoot the messenger here but, I’m only writing what he said, Arsenio notes that his people must be on CP time, Colored People time. The event starts at 7, See you at 9:30. He says even his white friends are on CP time. It’s all good though, they show up, presumably before 9:30 😉 The PMs are taking the big money donors in the door first and as they show it, a woman in Clays’ line has a $20k check that she’s collected from a bunch of other people and she’s the first in his space. Lots of 10 and 20 thousand dollar donations coming in that side of the room. The Clay-mates appear to be coming through. Kelly Clarkston sent $10k. The way the donors are shaking out shouldn’t surprise anyone. The comics are supporting Arsenio and the singers are supporting Clay. Marco Andretti arrived at Arsenios’ event and coughed up a $10k dontation, I assume from the Andretti family. We don’t actually see any of these celebs, they’ve all sent representatives with the checks. Jay Leno sent at least two to Arsenio. Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, George Lopez all donated to Arsenios’ cause. In the midst of all this, A LisaL lookalike drag queen walks in. Somehow, he and Lisa slip out and go deliver a $10k donation to Clay. She says it’s because he made some of her time on the show bearable. Okay, Fine. You get the point. People are coming in with money and the ticket capacity of each event is 75 people. Whoopi Goldberg actually was there at the event for Arsenio.

The parties are shown. Arsenios’ event has quite the party atmosphere going on. Teresa and Jabba did a decent job  I would say. Clays’ event is a carnival atmosphere complete with stilt walkers. The Mural got done. The included kids are having a good time and we are reminded by Clay that the overall theme of his event is ‘Let’s all play, together’. The Trump family walks into each of the spaces to inspect and judge (in their minds). The parties are going on and the time comes to drop the curtain between the two rooms and make it one big bash for the performances and presentations. Both video PSAs turned out well and seemed well received by the crowd. For the performances, Arsenios’ is a comedic routine that was okay. Paul Sr decided not to go with his pre scripted line and he called Adam a Dick. Adam says he didn’t remember that part of the rehersal. Arsenio does his bit. The End. Clays’ team did their performances and actually sounded pretty good. Dee and Debbie do Baby Love much to Dees’ chagrin. Says if someone told him 30 years ago this is where he’d be doing That song with Debbie Gibson, he would have punched them in the nose. I’ll say all day and every day that I cannot stand the She Devil but the girl Can Sing. Too bad she really effed that career at Bad Boy and I think she may have permanently screwed herself during her time on this show. Primarily because if no one understood why she was fired from Danity Kane, they understand it now. Anyway, her song was I Will Survive. On the line ‘thinking how you did me wrong’ she says she stared straight at Trump as a check to him for firing her. Debbie did whatever song she still thinks she’s famous for but is interrupted by Dee showing her how it was done during the 80s with the Twisted Sister anthem, We’re Not Gonna Take It. Clay and Aubrey finished it out with a duet, I’ve Had The Time Of My Life. Overall, a good performance. Actually better than Arsenios’ I thought.

The helpers for the teams are brought on to the live show for comment as with the other cast offs. She Devil has gone back to blonde. She must have dropped the Crystal Light diet because she was about to bust out of whatever she had stretched onto her legs. She was also wearing one of her bedspreads as a dress. Each is asked who should win, each speaks up for their team PM. Okay.. Final (prerecorded) boardroom time. Everyone on Arsenios’ team thinks He should win, Everyone on Clays’ team thinks He should win. It comes out, apparently only rumored to Arsenio that Lisa donated $10k to Clay. Adam says that’s a little effed up but what the hell, it’s for charity. The She Devil doesn’t see a man when she looks at Arsenio (She thinks he’s gay according to stuff I read late last week and over the weekend), and never will see a man. Tell me again, She Devil, what Charity You were playing for? The totals raised are given. Remember last week that I half feared that Lisas’ donation might put Clay over the top? I’ll note again, that on last weeks’ show, Lisa also gave money, $50k, that she had raised for Her charity in the event she was final 2, to Arsenio. His final total was $167,100. Nearly a third of that, I’m noting, donated by Jabba The Hutress. She’s rude, she’s a pig, and I still don’t like her but both donations were nice generous gestures on her part. Even when Trump played back the reel of Lampanelli meltdowns, ending with Dayanas’ impression of them, she said it’s all in good fun. I’m noting all this time that the She Devil is on the far side of the table basically pouting it looked like because she wasn’t final 2. Anyway, Clays’ final total was $301k and change. Clearly Lisa helping Clay had no real bearing on the final totals. I’m thinking at this point, a lot of numbers have been deleted from Arsenios’ phone. The rejects are excused and we are now at the Live board room.

Here we go. Final Live boardroom. Woops, Not Yet. For Some odd reason, The Don and CA thought it would be a good idea for Clay and Arsenio to sing a Duet. Once in a lifetime performance they teased as throughout the show. The song was Lean On Me. We all know Clay can sing. We all know Arsenio is a comedian. He didn’t do a half bad job on the song but he’s not really a singer. I’m going to leave that there and chalk it up to the spirit of the show (and prolonging it needlessly to 2 hours).

Now, it’s time for final Q&A from Trump to Arsenio and Clay. Why should Clay win? Well, He believes he’s worked hard, shown he’s a good manager, creative and all that jazz. Besides, Since his mom is in the audience and she’s already seen him take 2nd place, he thinks he should win (joking of course). The big question for Arsenio is in regard to the statement, of spending the rest of his life Being, the Celebrity Apprentice. He says that past winners are seen all the time and that moniker always goes with them. Peirs Morgan, Joan Rivers, etc. Turns out, Arsenio thinks he’s getting back into late night TV and believes that he can be seen that way. He always played second fiddle to Johnny Carson, tried to magic as a kid but was always second best. He wants to be the Best now. Trump polls his kids, Ivanka and Eric (Don couldn’t be there for some reason) and they give their opinions. Not much help if you ask me but whatever. Bottom line, Arsenio Wins!

Clay doesn’t walk away empty handed though because the $301k he collected, still goes to his charity. He fought long and hard for it and I think it’s only right that these two get to keep the money they collected. I still say Trump did Patricia wrong on her task by making her give Paul the money she raised. I think it has been wrong every time it’s been done.

My final thoughts. I tuned into the show this season because I wanted to see Teresa as well as Paul Sr. The ‘reality’ stars. Most of the rest of these people mean very little to me and other than the show, I would not know who they are (Dayana and Patricia for instance). I had long ago forgotten Tia Carrerra whose claim to fame for me is the Waynes World movies. Truthfully, I didn’t even recognize her until I looked up who she was. I’ve trashed a few of these people all season long and I stand by everything I said. I’ll give Lisa L some credit in the end though because she did show that she gives a shit about the charities. I can’t take that away from her. She will be forever however, in my mind, Jabba The Hutress. The She Devil will always be the She Devil to me regardless of what prepared speech she gives. If she had kept her mouth shut while Arsenio was on The View last week (saw it on a posted blog link, will NEVER watch the show) and stayed off of Twitter about it, at least with what she said about Arsenio, I might have had some forgiveness in my heart for her. However, she just continued to show how evil she can be by trying to out him as a gay man. I don’t know if he is or not nor do I give a shit. Tell me again what her charity was? I thought so. BuhBye Bitch. I hope you never assault my eyes again on my television screen.

I will close this out with this. I’m happy to have shared the season with all of you in both my comments at other sites as well as these recaps here at The Farm. I thank Empress once again for giving me the forum space to do so and look forward to sharing other shows and ‘stuff’ with all of you. I’m humbled and sometimes even stunned by all of your kind comments, regardless of how they come, and I cannot thank all of you enough. They really do mean a lot to me.

Peace.

MTH