Follow TV Tropes

Following

Characters / The Apprentice Martha Stewart

Go To

Dawna

  • The Ace: Had a 3-0 as a project manager, and never found herself in the final boardroom.
  • The Spock: At the car showroom task, Bethenny considered her as this when narrating the Freudian Trio dynamic, stating that she's more focus on doing things the methodical way to the point of being conservative. This also shown in the final task, where Dawna put all the fashion decision to Amanda while she and Carrie did the administrative work.
  • Tempting Fate: When watching the now 3-team Primaruis after the Tide challenge, Dawn admitted that she didn't want to be on their team, come next task...
  • What the Hell, Hero?: In the coffee maker task, Bethenny and Jim gave her this reaction after she hired a promotional company without attempting to negotiate a discount.

Bethenny

  • Bash Brothers: With Jim. When Martha decided to have a team regroup, she felt that along with him, they are the ones did some sort of contribution in the Epic Fail team.
  • David Versus Goliath: What she (David) considered she situation when facing against Dawna (Goliath) in the final task. Where she has far less competent candidates that's happy to work for her, and had a shorter timespan (her tasks starts by afternoon while Dawna starts at night) in doing an arguably harder task.
  • Ice Queen: What she came across as in the final task, especially when she decide to half-heartedly thanks her team before driving off, which mostly cost her the victory.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After she decided to not bring Dawna into the final boardroom when they lost the QVC task, she immediately regretted it and tried to change her decision, but Martha rejected it since Dawn didn't do a horrible job.
  • The Kirk: She boasted herself as this when narrating the Freudian Trio dynamic, stating that she has both the creative skills and discipline to become the person with ideas.
  • One Degree of Separation: She used to be room-mates with boardroom judge Charles's daughter. Which, in complete fairness, Charles mentioned this at the start of the season, and she openly admitted to everyone (along with dating his son for some time).
  • The Runner-Up Takes It All: Post-show, she is well known for being in Real Housewives of New York City, and had a short-lived talk show.

Jim

  • Bash Brothers: With Bethenny.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: When he sometimes tone down his antics, he's usually one of the strongest candidates in this season. After losing the Tide challenge, project manager Sarah even lampshaded that she felt Jim did the best and therefore safe from being in the final boardroom.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Go ask Dawn, who he teamed up with to eliminate Jeff. And then decided to team up with Chuck to eliminate her because she disagreed on the decorations in the flower shop task. He even tried to pull it on Dawna in the second-last task.
  • Epic Fail: At the interviews, where all the executives thought that he was treating the process without respect. Martha immediately fired him without making him defend himself.
  • The Id: Bethenny considered him as this when narrating the Freudian Trio dynamic, stating that he's more wild and having a lot of creativity, but didn't have a sense of social discipline.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Due to the combination of his Manchild antics and the bland cast.
  • Pet the Dog: Gave a pet talk with Marcela after she lost the coffee maker task as the project manager for the 2nd time. Granted, some of it came from the fact that Jim is confident that he can beat her.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: One of those "playing Survivor when it's a Talent Show decided by judges" people.

Ryan

  • I'll Tell You When I've Had Enough!: In his final task (airplane advert) and the PM, he somehow decided to get drunk and did a lot of adjustments that's not in favor of the target's demographic. It ended up with him losing horribly to Primarius.
  • Only Sane Man: Was easily the most level-headed and competent of the male candidates from this season. Unfortunately, he self-destructed spectacularly in the final regular task.

Marcela

  • Crippling Overspecialization: Aside from cooking, she never seemed to stand out in any other tasks.
  • Mercy Kill: By the end of her time on the show it was clear that she was feeling defeated and really didn't want to be there at all, so Martha sent her home in a double-firing with Ryan.
  • The Runner-Up Takes It All: Aside from Bethenny she's had the highest profile of any of the candidates from this season, with her own cooking shows and cookbooks.

Leslie

  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Prior to the boardroom that ultimately saw her fired, she got Marcela to agree to gang up on Ryan. Then, for no apparent reason, Leslie decided to throw Marcela under the bus when they were in the actual boardroom.
  • Epic Fail: The 2 times she becomes project manager:
    • The 1st (Fantasy Suite), saw her taking until 6 p.m to finally create the concept. Causing the team to rush the execution and ended up with a unfinished room.
    • The 2nd (Car Showroom), had her botched up the execution on the dinner concept.

Amanda

  • Alpha Bitch: A trait where started to appear around the QVC task.
  • Dragon-in-Chief: In the finale task, Amanda did all of the fashion decisions while Dawna and the others did the administration.
  • That Came Out Wrong: She made a fatal mistake in the boardroom where she was fired, by saying that she "didn't support" Marcela's decisions. In context it seemed pretty clear that she just didn't think Marcela was making the right decisions, but Martha took this as Amanda admitting that she had actively tried to undermine Marcela, and fired her for it.

Howie

  • Badass Decay: Initially stood out in the first two tasks, but after a fight with Sarah, he started to get more and more impassioned and ended up being The Load in the QVC task and helping with Dawna in the final task.

Carrie

  • Bystander Syndrome: After winning as project manager on the second task, she spent most of the time in the background doing minor tasks, presumably to avoid being blamed if the task went wrong. Martha eventually cottoned onto this, and fired her for it.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Sarah, which ended up blowing up in her face when Martha fired them both after the Week 7 fiasco.

Sarah

  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Refused to listen to any of the advice that Bethenny and Howie were giving her when she was project manager, then tried to blame them both for the massive defeat that resulted. Charles immediately called her out on this.
  • Dumb Blonde: In Week 7, big-time. Not only did she refuse to make a single decision about their promotional event until literally an hour beforehand, she didn't even seem to fully understand the task, and thought the idea was to just give away all the stain removal pens they were advertising.
  • Epic Fail: She oversaw a truly colossal fiasco of a promotional event when she was project manager. The advertising executive who was judging the teams said that had he commissioned an event like that for real, it would have instantly destroyed his reputation.

David

  • Epic Fail: Lost all but one task, and his sole stint as project manager ended up with his team making zero sales (a first for the American franchise by this point). That said, he seemed like a reasonably capable guy overall, and Martha even indicated that she might someday employ him outside of the show.

Jennifer

  • The Generic Girl: She was so bland and unmemorable in this bland and unmemorable cast that Martha's farewell letter was only two sentences long, and said nothing of any real substance.
  • Just Ignore It: In her final task (Salad Dressing) and as the PM, she simply chose to ignore Jim's attitude that got complaints from customers. Martha saw this as being cowardly and this fired her.

Dawn

  • Chew Toy: Chosen for the final boardroom for 4 straight times mostly because of her attitude, Martha even felt that 2 of them (flower shop and wedding cake) weren't really deserved.
  • Lazy Bum: What her team accuses her of, though with some evidence:
    • The first task, despite having a writing experience, she quited the task due to disliking the loudness of the team. And the next morning she wanted to eat something when the team is at a meeting.
    • The fourth and her final task, she refuses to help painting the suite, and at the next morning woke up late at the deadline.

Shawn

  • Attention Whore: Martha considered her as this after hearing her newscaster excuses and fired her, thinking that she's here for promoting her media career.
  • Distaff Counterpart: To Bradford from the second regular US season, in that she seemed a decent candidate, but demonstrated a suicidal level of over-confidence.
  • Tempting Fate: In her last task she bragged to Charles that should be fired if they lost, and when they lost (with a huge margin no less)...

Chuck

  • Nervous Wreck: His last task (flower shop) and being the PM, the chaos in his team ended up making him trying to quit the show.

Jeff

  • Pointy-Haired Boss: Actually seemed like a pretty good leader at first, but totally went to pieces after Dawn bailed out on writing the team's book. After that, he insisted on doing every part of the task himself, making it impossible for him to assign the blame to anyone else.

Top