The Celebrity Apprentice

The Apprentice: Celebrity Edition finale (coming Thursday) is not just merely a battle between a reality TV show host and a country music singer.  No, it is a battle of ideals, of world views, between good and evil, between the Old World and the New World, between rural and urban, between facial hair and non, between sarcasm and blunt truth.  Trace Adkins, country music star, versus Piers Morgan, reality TV host.  One British, one American, one arrogant and crass, the other modest and kind.  You can understand why Donald Trump wanted these two men to duke it out on the season finale of The Celebrity Apprentice.  While Carol Alt or Stephen Baldwin would have been worthy entries, they stood for nothing, they represented nothing.  With Trace Adkins and Piers Morgan, an epic struggle is upon us.

Piers Morgan is a perfect villain, so he was an easy choice.  You may disagree and say that Omarosa was a perfect villain.  You'd be wrong.  Omarosa is no such thing (she's not perfect anything) because she lacks authenticity.  After watching her pathetic antics on The Apprentice all season, I firmly believe that she was, and always has been, putting on a show.  There was no grace in her villainy; she was one-dimensional and, in the end, was destroyed by the real bad guy – Piers Morgan.  Omarosa was the underling, the impostor, the henchman, the Oddjob to Morgan's Goldfinger.  She was evil, but narrowly so; she had no game plan, no end game.  Omarosa was evil for the sake of being evil. 

Piers Morgan is smug, he's charming when he has to be, he's whip smart, he's ruthless, he takes joy in crushing his opponents, and he genuinely is concerned with making money for his charity.  So, not only is he contemptible to his competitors on every level (which is super annoying for them), outside of the game he's probably a good guy who does good things (which also has to be super annoying for the competition).  He's a great villain because he's not really a bad guy, he just sometimes acts like one so he can make money for charity. 

Trace Adkins is the perfect foil to Piers.  Trace is quiet, reserved, modest and humble.  He thinks before he speaks.  He is unwilling to subvert his morals to better his chance at victory.  While there may be multiple reasons for Piers' appearance on The Apprentice (relationship with NBC, personal competitiveness, fame, charity), Trace has been clear in saying that his charity is the one and only reason he's on the show.  I believe him.

For any reasonable person, rooting for Adkins is the obvious choice.  Maybe I'm not a reasonable person.  I've been secretly rooting for Piers all year, and I can tell you that it's for the same reason that I've rooted for Dick Donato, Will Kirby and Rob Mariano on other shows: Reality TV is not real life and the way you act on a televised competition is not indicative of your true persona.  I respect anyone who fully realizes this and competes accordingly. 

While Trace stands for purity, America, and facial hair, I'll be rooting for the clean-shaven, villainous Brit on Thursday.


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of NBC)