Review of Celebrity Apprentice Finale

I follow professional poker and love Annie Duke! While I have watched The Apprentice in the past, I specifically tuned in this season to watch Annie. I have been rooting for her all week and really thought she had what it took to win this competition.

However, I thought her first mistake was picking of the teams. Melissa and Joan Rivers had a smart strategy; Joan did not pick Melissa until the end, knowing that Annie would never pick her competition's daughter. Joan was able to use her first pick to add Herschel Walker to her team who, in my opinion, proved to be the most helpful player of the bunch.

Annie ended up with Tom Green, and Dennis Rodman on her team, however, in reality, Annie didn't really need anyone other than herself. She distracted Tom and Dennis early with "busy work" while she focused almost entirely on fundraising.

I believe this was her second mistake. Annie has always prided herself in being the number one fund raiser, but has repeatedly been reminded that this is not the only aspect of The Celebrity Apprentice. This challenge had different specific aspects: the contestants had to host a silent auction for their charity which would be judged by the amount of money raised, and the celebrities in attendance. They also had to create a fairy tale celebrity experience for average every day Americans that they captured on their Kodak digital picture frames (the brand they were promoting).

This is where Herschel Walker's genius stepped in. Each team had show tickets they had to sell to the average person, and where supposed to capture pictures of normal Americans having a "Kodak moment" (all part of their fairy tale experience). Instead of wasting time selling all the tickets individually, Herschel got a friend to "buy" all the tickets. Then he and Melissa shared the tickets with people on the street, and were able to capture images of this generosity (which they included in their Kodak picture frame).

Annie, on the other hand, had delegated this task to Tom and Dennis and basically left them to it, the picture frame the furthest thing from her mind.

In the end, Annie did win the money aspect of the challenges, but lost when it came to the fun atmosphere of the silent auction. Her auction was nice, but was filled with a lot of poker players who weren't that recognizable as celebrities. It seemed like a small party of her personal friends and although she really shined in it, but it wasn't enough. Joan's auction had more of a fun vibe to it and really hit the Kodak theme of having an unpretentious party for everyone to enjoy.

The board room didn't disappoint as Annie was accused of being friends with the Mafia, but it seemed early on that Joan's celebrity status had cemented her the win. I felt bad for Annie right at the end when Donald Trump teased her with, "You know what I'm going to say Annie?" For one split second her face lit up before she realized that she had lost. But in the end, this was a show about charity so it's hard to feel as if anyone really lost.