"Celebrity Apprentice" Finals Analysis - Annie Duke Versus Joan Rivers

The final episode of NBC's "The Celebrity Apprentice" will air this coming Sunday night and it is arguably the most eagerly anticipated season finale in the show's history.  The bad blood between Annie Duke and Joan Rivers has been epic, creating a clearly defined line between fans of the UltimateBet poker pro and fans of the legendary comedienne.  As a writer for a poker website, I obviously had a strong interest in the show, but I went into the season with no rooting interest.  I mainly wanted to see how Duke performed, whether she shined or fell flat on her face.  As the show went on, I did get into it a bit, becoming more and more fascinated at how some of the celebrities played the game.   

Now that the finals are upon us, I want to take some time to analyze how both Duke and Rivers have performed to try to objectively determine who deserves to win.  So, let's have at it.

Fundraising 

Annie Duke destroyed Joan Rivers in fundraising.  It's not even worth discussing.  

Attitude/Personality/Gamesmanship 

This is where the most controversy lies in the show, so let's look at both players. 

Annie Duke was clearly better than everybody on the show at playing the game.  She studied last season and learned that the celebrity version of "The Apprentice" is more about fundraising than it is about task performance.  She also was able to strategically position herself to avoid the boardroom even if her team lost. 

Duke's biggest problem was her lack of diplomacy.  This showed up mostly in the first couple episodes when she was all business and did not care to take the time to treat teammates with kid gloves.  This, combined with her incessant chatter, particularly her self-focused chatter, caused her teammates to become irritated by her quickly.  She did improve on this throughout the middle portion of the show, seeming to gain allies who appreciated her no-nonsense, intelligent approach to the game.  In the last couple episodes, the "I, I, I, me, me, me" attitude reared its head again.  Duke is not, however, mean to anybody, and in my opinion, has not lied or played the game unethically.   

Joan Rivers' gift is her quick wit and she has used it to her advantage on many occasions this season.  She has endeared herself to her teammates, Donald Trump, and even some opponents at times with a well placed joke or self-deprecation.  As the oldest competitor, she has also played the role of caring mother (or grandmother) at times. 

Rivers, however, also has a nasty streak which does not require much explanation.  Her over-the-top, inappropriate viciousness aimed towards Duke and Brande Roderick was completely uncalled for and if it wasn't good for ratings, should have gotten her fired.  In my opinion, her problems with Annie Duke stem from her inability to understand that "The Apprentice" is a game.  She admittedly had never seen the show before, so it seems as if Duke's skill in actually "playing" the game took Rivers by surprise.  To Rivers, anything anyone does in the game to work against her is personal.  Any time her daughter gets slighted, it's personal.  She was never able to step back and realize that Duke (primarily) was just playing the game. 

The odd thing about her personal issue with Duke is that is all based on Rivers' belief that Duke told her that Roderick was "stupid."  Duke refutes that claim, obviously.  When you think about it, it wouldn't make sense for Duke to say that, and since she is such a good game player, it is unlikely that the conversation took place the way Rivers' said it did.   

What's funny is that Rivers has continually said that Duke is "two-faced," "conniving," and a "snake."  In the meantime, look at how Rivers has acted.  Throughout the show, she rarely had anything nice to say about anybody.  She would say something nasty about someone in the side interviews just about every show.  And though she tried to come across as a team player (and she was at times), she had the tendency to let her teammates hang themselves.  The Schwan's task was a great example of this.  She essentially opted out of the project at the onset, saying she didn't cook, and let Herschel Walker act on multiple bad ideas.  Clint Black tried to get Walker to realize where he was wrong on both the chicken dish and dessert, but Rivers never back Black up on it.   

Rivers has also contradicted herself.  When laying into Roderick and Duke, she said that she didn't care about winning money for charity, whereas when she interviewed with Piers Morgan, she said she would pull out all the fundraising stops.  She said that Duke would "bury her mother" to win, yet told Morgan that she herself would "kill" to win.  And, in a famous rant, Rivers told Duke that poker players are scum, yet in an interview with PokerNewsDaily.com, she claimed to love poker players. 

Task Performance 

Cupcakes – Rivers’ team won with her as project manager, but she had virtually nothing to do with the victory.  She split the team into two groups, one to make the cupcakes, one to decorate the truck.  The truck decoration had no influence on the final results.  In the end, Rivers was lucky that the other team’s cupcakes were terrible, causing them to lose the taste-off.  The $15,000 won from that made the difference in the competition.  Annie Duke led the vanilla cupcake creation and made great cupcakes.  She also raised a significant amount of money for charity through her connections.  Advantage: Annie Duke. 

Zappos.com – neither Duke nor Rivers made significant contributions to the project.  Advantage: Push.

Wedding Dresses – Duke got Full Tilt Poker pro Perry Friedman to fly out from the west coast to purchase a gown for his fiancée.  She, along with Melissa Rivers, was singled out by project manager Brande Roderick as a star on the task.  Joan Rivers was not available to participate on the first day of the task and contributed the second day by attempting to poach the other team’s customers.  Advantage: Annie Duke. 

ACN Video Phone – Duke did not provide any significant contribution on this task.  Rivers missed the first day because of a prior commitment and was going to miss the entire task, but admirably flew back in the wee hours of the morning on the second day when Natalie Gulbis found her a flight.  Rivers came in, was given notes by her team, and did a fantastic job as the emcee for her team in their presentation to the ACN sales reps.  Unfortunately, the women’s team lost.  Advantage: Joan Rivers. 

Loews Hotels – Duke served as a jack-of-all-trades, doing several jobs, and doing all of them well.  Of note was her success as a member of the room service staff, during which she was specifically requested by a room full of very demanding guests.  Rivers performed well for the most part, but made a critical mistake more than once when she failed to inform guests of the high prices of some hotel services and entertainment.  One of those guests who was upset at this was Stephen Baldwin, whose customer service evaluation didn't count.  Had it counted, team Athena might have lost.  Additionally, team Athena was lucky that Dennis Rodman's alcohol escapade hurt his team significantly.  Advantage: Annie Duke. 

All Laundry Detergent – Duke and Rivers were now on separate teams and both teams failed the task.  The All execs decided that Athena's commercial, while better at discussing the product, was inappropriate in its use of the word "midget," as well as off-color language.  The idea for the video was largely Duke's, but she was not taken to the boardroom.  Clint Black essentially locked his team out of the task, not listening to anyone.  Rivers did come up with a decent possibility for a video, but once Black stone walled her, she did nothing except bitch and moan.  Advantage: Push or very slightly Joan Rivers. 

LifeLock – This was the episode when Rivers began to fly off the handle at Duke.  As for the task, Rivers contributed very little.  Her idea for her team's LifeLock display was not used by her team, which ended up winning.  Duke got very frustrated during the project that her team was not going to meet its deadline.  She did her work satisfactorily, but was a obviously positioning herself to not get fired when she complained about having to do work that was not her responsibility.  Advantage: Annie Duke. 

Jewelry Auction – Duke was the project manager on this task and performed exceptionally.  She got Andy Bloch and Perry Friedman to fly in, raised a ton of money, put together an excellent strategy, delegated responsibility appropriately, and was a great auctioneer.  Rivers was the project manager for the other team and failed miserably.  She had Natalie Gulbis choose the jewelry when she herself should have, since she has her own jewelry line, her team's strategy was completely wrong, resulting in embarrassment for the Trumps when not all of the jewelry was sold, and she had Clint Black be the auctioneer when he clearly was not good at it.  Rivers was the obvious candidate for firing, but television ratings won out and Gulbis was thrown on the grenade.  Advantage: Annie Duke. 

Schwan's – Rivers basically sat out because she claimed she didn't know how to cook.  Duke came up with the idea for the winning main course and cooked all of her team's food.  Advantage: Annie Duke. 

Right Guard – Again, Rivers did not do much on this task.  She did come up with one idea for a magazine ad, but it was pretty racist and had no chance of being used (David Lee surrounded by and scared of big black men?  Oh, dear.).  After it wasn't used, she just let Clint Black do his thing and watched as Jesse James lit into him.  Duke was charged with doing the bulk of the project, namely the concept and copy.  She was none too subtle in her positioning of herself when she said on more than one occasion that she never asked to be given so much responsibility (project manager's fault if they lose, Duke's triumph if they win), something that got pretty annoying.  Duke's team lost, but the Right Guard execs liked the concept, just not the layout and photography, two things that were not Duke's responsibility.  Right or wrong, Duke caught no flack in the boardroom.  Advantage: Annie Duke. 

Chicken of the Sea – Rivers was the primary creator of her team's thirty second radio spot.  It was humorous, but didn't blow anyone away.  She had a couple terrible ideas that she thought were hilarious.  Duke wrote the winning jingle, one which was deemed better than Clint Black's.  She also co-wrote the radio spot which the execs preferred, as well.  Advantage: Annie Duke. 

After reviewing all of the projects throughout the entire season, it is painfully obvious that Annie Duke has far outperformed Joan Rivers.  It is not even close.  Joan Rivers did seem strong to me in the beginning, but at this point, it is hard for me to understand why Donald Trump thinks she is one of the best two contestants and it is even harder for me to understand why fans think she has been so good.  It seems to me that Joan Rivers has somehow ridden the goodwill she earned on the ACN task all the way to the final round.  For the most part, Rivers had had very little to contribute to tasks.  The task she won as project manager, the cupcake sale, was not won because of her.  Rivers should have been fired after the jewelry auction debacle and had she not lucked out with Stephen Baldwin's review not counting in the Loews task, as well as Dennis Rodman's sabotage of his own team, she might have gone home then, too. 

Annie Duke, on the other hand, has significantly contributed or at least made a solid attempt to contribute on almost every task.  She was by far the most conscientious when it came to her client's needs, always aware of target markets and desired product message.  Even in losing efforts, she usually did her best to make an impact.   

Overall, Annie Duke should become the second Celebrity Apprentice without much thought by Donald Trump.  The only possible way that she could come close to legitimately losing would be if she performs embarrassingly poorly in the final task and gets trounced by Joan Rivers in the fundraising department.  That's not to say that Rivers won't win.  Trump has made firings that make sense only if seen in the context of what is best for ratings, so it isn't out of the realm of possibility that he might name her the winner.  But if he makes the right decision, it has to be Duke.  She has outperformed Joan Rivers in every aspect of the game.