I love The Apprentice. Last night's episode was kinda boring, and the highlight came near the bottom of the hour when Amy was cut: a huge surprise to me, and probably just about everyone else.
I think the Don was smart to drop her though, and here's why. She seemed competent, but Mr. T's advisors caught on to what was obvious to the viewing audience for a long time: she's all donut and no creme filling. Not only that, but as one of the men who interviewed her said, her loyalties weren't to Donald Trump.
One perfect example of her disloyalty took place a few weeks ago in the episode where Katrina was cut, in which the teams had to develop plans to convince gamblers to sign up for a players' club at the Trump Taj Mahal. Amy's team's plan was stupid, but that wasn't her biggest failing. About halfway through the episode -- when she realized her side was losing -- she started using a bullhorn to call gamblers who were already playing away from their machines and tried to get them to sign up with her team.
This may have helped her score, but there's no question that the tactic cost Donald Trump money. Those people were already gambling, and by calling them away Amy showed that her first loyalty was to herself, not to her boss. Donald Trump wants to make money, and any scheme run by a subordinate should further that ultimate goal. Amy was concerned with winning the competition, even if it hurt her boss' business.
No one on the show really mentioned Amy's actions, and Katrina ended up getting Fired. Not a big deal, because Amy was still more valuable than Katrina, but I knew then that she'd never make an exceptional lieutenant. Without loyalty, all the brilliance in the world is useless.
So we're left with Kwame and Bill. Based on how the final competition is going it looks like Bill is going to win, but there's no way to tell for sure. I'm pretty confident that Trump is purposefully encouraging the contestants' co-workers to cause trouble and sabotage the events, but I'm not sure if that will be revealed next week as part of the show, or if the audience will instead be allowed to think everything is going wrong on its own.
A final thought: the men ended up winning largely because, as a group, they were older and more experienced. Many of the women on the show were in their early 20s, but the men were almost all in their late 20s. Those few years make a huge difference (in a lot of ways).
