‘All-Star Celebrity Apprentice’ rankings: Is it now Trace Adkins vs. Penn Jillette?

Over the past several weeks, all we’ve heard most “All-Star Celebrity Apprentice” fans talk about is how this season is really just a competition between a pair of boardroom titans in Trace Adkins along with Penn Jillette. For a while, we’ve been resistant to the idea thanks to the fact that Trace had missed out on a full task, and that he was in the boardroom for a legitimate reason recently along with Dennis Rodman. Are you really going to hire someone who doesn’t make sure that Melania Trump’s name is spelled correctly?

However, Trace’s second win as Project Manager this past episode changes things, and those salivating for this showdown may now be closer than ever to getting what they have been ultimately waiting for. Challenge performance is of course the most-important factor in our rankings, though we do considering editing and (even still) the Trump factor, though this diminishes somewhat at this point in the season.

The rankings

7. Brande Roderick (last week: 7) – Surely, Brande probably would hate being ranked lower than Gary Busey, but the truth here is that Trump had a perfect chance to get rid of Gary last week, and didn’t. With that in mind, what is it really going to take? Considering that Brande is already 0-1 as a Project Manager and hasn’t brought much entertainment to the season, she’ll be gone soon.

6. Gary Busey (8) – Now, we go back to Gary. We don’t know if we see him outlasting either of his remaining team members in Penn Jillette or Lisa Rinna, which makes us think that if the team does lose, he’s the next one to go at this point. It’s true that he is ridiculously entertaining, but we can’t see Gary making it to the final four stage of the competition.

5. Lisa Rinna (4) – Lisa hasn’t really done anything wrong to deserve this spot, but the problem for her is that there are other team members that have really done more to rise to the occasion. Lisa did win a task, but most of her other standout moments have been in doing something that we knew she’d be great at: acting.

4. Lil Jon (3) – We’re not ashamed to admit that we root for Lil Jon probably more than anyone else in the competition, mostly because he completely blew our mind when we saw him the first time on the show with how different he is from his persona. He’s a smart, savvy guy, and the only thing working against him right now is that he hasn’t had many chances the past few weeks to show off.

3. Marilu Henner (2) – Marilu slips out of the top 2 this week for us, with the only real reason why being that Trace rose to the occasion last week. If she becomes the next PM and wins, we’re almost sure to see a switch again.

2. Trace Adkins (5) – Thanks to win-loss record alone, we’re not going to put Trace ahead of Penn. But he is still one of those guys that you can rely on if you want to get a task done, and 99% of the time he’ll do a pretty darn good job at it. He also has probably the deepest pockets of anyone, and is the only two-time winner so far.

1. Penn Jillette (1) – However, Penn has won more tasks in total, and played a key part in almost all of them. While he was brought back to the boardroom this past week, even Trump admitted that he had no business at all being there, and sent him on his way. With the smart, savvy way that Penn has made sure to stay out of trouble all season long, it will be a stunner if he is not in Trump’s final two.

Who do you think is the most likely to win “All-Star Celebrity Apprentice”? Be sure to vote in our poll below, and you can also watch a preview for the episode over at the link here.

Photo: NBC