‘The Celebrity Apprentice’ episode 8 review: Did Chael Sonnen’s computer sabotage get him terminated?

Last time on “The Celebrity Apprentice” we saw Neil Vince fall on his own sword and go home (after raising an obscene amount of money for his charity of course). It was his off brand decision of putting dancing girls on top of a shipping container to bring in a target audience of “moms” that got them a seat in the boardroom with Arnold, so seeing him go home wasn’t a shocker. Wasn’t the most exciting episode, but we have more faith in this episode.

The brand the teams are working for is a brand that has been part of “The Celebrity Apprentice” universe before – Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. They want the teams to create a celebrity inspired digital brochure advertising the theme park and if it’s anything like it was when Curtis Stone was last on the show creating an interactive Harry Potter experience asking kids to come into the castle and touch his wand then we know it’s going to be a fun project to watch.

Team Arete: Matt knows everything there is to know about Harry Potter so he jumped at the chance to lead this project. He wants to create a “newspaper” called the “Daily Prophet” and knowing as much as he knows, there is no way they aren’t going to win this task. Real fans will eat this up. On the other hand Laila is suggesting that there are people that don’t know much about Harry Potter and that it should also be able to reach those people, but for us we think the more details about Harry Potter they can put in there, it will be an advantage since the other team knows nothing about the books or films. Matt’s presentation was thrilling and we are ready to pull our Harry Potter DVD’s off the shelf and fire them up!

Team Prima: Even though he doesn’t know much about Harry Potter, Carson was picked as the project manager. His idea is kind of brilliant which is that while they are big celebrities, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is an even bigger star then them. Lisa feels that they aren’t focusing enough on Harry Potter and that the real fans will be able to call them out on not knowing much about it. Chael decided to do something really weird to buy them more time because they were getting really far behind – he cut the cord to their computer in hopes that having “technical difficulties” would give them a bit more time to organize themselves. No one is really talking about what Chael did at this point, but the stunt worked and it bought them enough time to get everything together. Unfortunately, the team is not going to be able to stay silent forever and this is going to come to the surface.

In the boardroom, Carson decided to speak up for the group about the Chael situation saying that they are all uncomfortable with him cutting the cord to the computer. Chael admits that he did this and that it wasn’t against the rules since “technically difficulties” was the only way that they could get a little more time. They needed ten more minutes and because of what he did they finished the project. Arnold makes it very clear that this isn’t a grey area like Chael wants to think it is and fires him on the spot for cheating – but this isn’t the only firing happening tonight. This is really the first time we can remember in the history of this show where someone bent the rules to gain an advantage.

With Matt Iseman knowing so much about Harry Potter it was clear to us from the beginning that he was going to win this challenge hands down and it wasn’t even close. With Chael gone Carson had to bring back Lisa and Porsha since there were no other choices. It was hard to figure out who was going to get fired for this challenge since everyone was equally involved in this, but for Arnold this was the end of the road for Porsha since she was in charge of the creative and she has lost 6 of her 8 challenges… really she got terminated because she talks too much.

While the last episode of “The Celebrity Apprentice” may have been a total snoozefest, this episode was probably the most fun we’ve had all season. Watching Matt Iseman nerd out made gave us a serious nerd high and we are now hoping for a Matt win as the only major nerd on the season. If we could see Matt at the end with Carson and Boy George we would be thrilled. Episode grade: B+

What did you think of tonight’s elimination on “The Celebrity Apprentice”? Leave us a comment in the box below. If you want to know what’s coming up next time on “The Celebrity Apprentice” then just head on over to the link here to check out a preview. (Photo: NBC)