The Apprentice 3's season-long booksmart vs streetsmart battle ended with the last remaining booksmart team member winning over the last remaining streetsmart team member, as Kendra Todd, a 26-year-old real estate broker from Boynton Beach, Florida edged fellow finalist Tana Goertz to become the third person to hear Donald Trump say "You're hired."
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Due to the uninterrupted length of the broadcast's opening recap, the live portion of the finale appeared to be long on commercial and short on substance. Despite that, The Donald managed to set the stage immediately by putting Tana, the 37-year-old sales executive from Des Moines, Iowa, on the defensive by hammering her about the mismanagement of her final task team. In a vain attempt to put Kendra equally off guard, Trump also hammered her about the fact that she cried in the final boardroom session -- although before the broadcast was over, Trump would later concede that it was a "good" cry.
After that -- and another commercial break -- it was time for the previously eliminated team members who helped on the final task to comment. To her credit, Tana, who had repeatedly bad mouthed her team during the actual event, had smoothed over the hurt feelings with some of her team, and took responsibility for making bad decisions in regards to how she treated them on the final task. On the other hand, Kendra appeared to once again become a bit emotional after one of her former teammates heaped yet more praise on her.
Following another commercial break, it was time to talk to previous Trump hires Bill and Kelly, who have taken on various roles outside of their originally assigned tasks -- especially Kelly, who if one believes the Trump-voiced segment, appears to have taken on a huge organizational role in which he's juggling no fewer than four different projects.
The next item of business -- after (of course) another commercial -- was determining what task each candidate would be assigned if they were selected as Trump's next Apprentice. In a move that will no doubt revive talk that he's sexist, rather than presenting them with the opportunity to assist in constructing large buildings or manage the development of ritzy gold courses (opportunities that The Apprentice's first two editions offered their finalists), Trump decided that his two female finalists could choose from between more traditional "women's work" responsibilities -- redecorating a big new house that he recently bought or assisting in the running of a beauty pageant.
Given the choice of either assisting in the management of Trump's Miss Universe pageant or working on a $100 million renovation of a Palm Beach, Florida mansion, Kendra -- who is from Florida and deals with real estate -- stated that should she win, she'd opt for the mansion project. Meanwhile Tana -- a Mary Kay beauty product saleswoman -- stated that she would prefer to run the beauty pageant if she were to win. While neither decision was particularly surprising, it would be interesting to know if the projects were predetermined before the competition began or selected after Trump knew that he was dealing with two female finalists.
After that, it was Carolyn and George’s turn to give their final takes on the contestants -- interspersed with more commercials of course. Carolyn praised both finalists, but faulted Tana for her team management on the final task and Kendra for initially taking so long to step up and become project manager for her Magna team. George claimed to be glad not to have to make the decision because both were so well qualified. He specifically praised Tana being so creative and enthusiastic and Kendra for putting forth her best performances when the pressure was the highest.
Finally, The Donald said the magic words that all of the viewing audience was waiting for -- "final commercials." Upon returning, Trump praised Tana for her outstanding work throughout the season up until the final tasks, even going so far as to say that she had outperformed Kendra during that timeframe. Then he moved to Kendra, who he praised for finishing strong but most importantly for getting her final task team to work so well that her task went off without any major problems -- and that was enough for him to say the other magic words, "You're hired." With his final comments, The Donald encouraged viewers to come back for not only his The Apprentice 4 show in the fall, but also for Martha Stewart's edition as well.
