'Apprentice' winner refuses to share title

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That audience booed, feeling as betrayed as Rebecca must have, and as Randal jogged to the end of the stage to wave at the crowd, he was facing a group that had lost some of their respect for him; their clapping and cheering was subdued, and boos were still audible.

Rebecca just shook Trump’s hand and said, “That’s unfortunate.”

And it was. Because yet again, Donald Trump made an arbitrary choice between two competent, talented individuals. Randal unquestionably should have been hired, but Rebecca should have as well. What Randal has in education, he lacks in foresight; what Rebecca has in competency and loyalty, she lacks in experience. They complemented each other well — and both fit in well with Trump.

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With his three wins and no losses as project manager, and with his impressive education and work history, Randal has nearly always earned only praise from Trump. And with her aggressive loyalty and unflinching determination, Rebecca has proven herself to be a younger, female version of Trump, which has clearly impressed him. From the time she defended Toral in the boardroom, it was clear he was enamored with her.

Would Rebecca have made the same decision that Randal did? The world will never know, but those final, awkward moments, when Randal chose selfishness over selflessness, were the most dramatic in a bizarrely produced finale. We should be grateful that "Apprentice 2" finale host Regis Philbin was nowhere to be found, and that the two hours (not three) were relatively filled with actual content. But while the prerecorded episode stretched until nearly the end of the two hours, it was interrupted constantly by live segments, and accompanied by an announcer who sounded more like he was selling cars than narrating “The Apprentice 4”’s finale. (“Coming up, Randal’s got a solution, but will Donald Trump buy it?” the announcer said. “Coming up, at Rebecca’s comedy event, it turns out the joke’s on George!”)

During those prerecorded segments, Rebecca looked consistently more competent as she completed her final task. At least in the shots the editors chose to include, Randal often appeared surprised, baffled, and bewildered. But as she’s done most of the season, Rebecca never stopped smiling — even as she solved crises while hopping around on one foot, the product of a broken ankle she had for nearly the entire season.

Randal made a number of mistakes, starting with his failure to check the weather for his charity softball game. Apparently, the only degree Randal doesn’t have is one in meteorology. And when the rain came, he had no backup plan. “There should have been a contingency plan in place, and it just completely eluded me,” he said. “I banked on the fact that we’d get good weather, and that was really my oversight.”

Rebecca, on the other hand, planned an event that came off almost flawlessly. One of the biggest problems came when Donald Trump caused the comedy performance to start a half-hour early. “It is kind of humorous that out of all the things, Trump ended up being the biggest wildcard,” Rebecca said. More damningly, though, she also failed to raise a single dollar at the actual event for her charity, mostly because of pressure from Yahoo! executives, who didn’t want their clients to be harassed at their event.

Even Donald Trump, whose television show has essentially defined product placement and selling out to the highest bidder, was appalled. “In the meantime, Elizabeth Glaser, the foundation, got nothing,” he said during the final boardroom. “If I were Yahoo!, I would make a major contribution to the Elizabeth Glaser AIDS foundation.” That reaction led to some rather predictable damage control during the live finale; a Yahoo! executive stood up and told the audience that Yahoo! was donating $100,000 to be split between the two charities. All of Rebecca and Randal’s mistakes, though, were essentially trivial, which Donald Trump, Carolyn, and George all acknowledged.

This season, Trump famously hand-picked all of the 18 candidates (except one). Despite the fact that many of them turned out to be completely incompetent on the show (cough ToralMarkusJenniferMClayJenniferWAdam cough), he ended up with the two most impressive candidates he’s ever had. It’s just a shame that the one Donald Trump picked first was too selfish to recognize that.

Andy Dehnart is a writer and teacher who publishes reality blurred, a daily summary of reality TV news. Since this story was published, he has written more on Randal's choice.

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