Rivers of blood

Although The Apprentice boulders along in fine form, its celeb-tinted US godfather is even more watchable.

Yes, I appreciate there’s little audience here for dispatches about NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice, but last Sunday’s episode (which I caught up with last night) gave us perhaps the finest boardroom battle ever staged across the franchise’s global turf. Don’t read on if you’re worried about spoilers…

Having lost on an advertising task, well… this happened.

So, that was poker player Annie Duke and Playboy model Brande Roderick – to use the show’s vernacular – throwing Melissa Rivers (daughter of fellow contestant Joan) under the bus. The background here is that Melissa has felt excluded by her teammates (it seems she’s had issues in high school which this has brought to light), while Joan has fallen out with Annie in a previous episode, comparing her to Hitler.

Of course, the real joy of this sequence is not Joan’s rant to Annie about “money with blood on” nor her observation that when it comes to poker players “none of them have last names”. It’s not even the bandying about of the wonderful phrase “whore pit vipers”. Nope, it’s clearly and squarely the bit where Melissa stomps through the fourth wall, bringing the show’s production staff on to screen, and prompting the wonderful snippet where we come back to the boardroom and Ivanka Trump squeals, “Guys, Melissa’s screaming!”.

All credit to the everyone on the show for keeping the cameras rolling, and laying on these insane, epic episodes week after week. Brentwood is slightly – ever so slightly – diminished by comparison.