by David McAlpine

Last time on The Celebrity Apprentice, the teams were give the task of redecorating VIP apartments. Sharon Osbourne finally took the reins for Tenacity while Holly directed Rocksolid's effort. Sharon and Maria clashed with Curtis, but they pulled off the win, sending Holly, Bret and Cyndi, who Holly deemed "unmanageable," into the boardroom. It seemed to be a deadlock until Cyndi gave some credit to Holly, giving Trump free reign to fire her.

Last night, the final five were called back into the boardroom, where Trump said he wanted to fire one more person before the first Apprentice, Bill Rancic, and Trump's second Celebrity Apprentice, Joan Rivers, were going to conduct interviews. The heat was turned up on Curtis, who Trump said seemed to be sitting back in the challenges. Maria jumped on that train, calling Curtis arrogant. With that comment, though, everyone started to turn on Maria. After Maria's crass comment and the bandwagon, bus-throwing party, Maria was shown the quick way out of the boardroom.

Then, it was time for the interviews with two of my favorite contestants, Bill Rancic and Joan Rivers. Joan absolutely loves Sharon and Holly because they both seem to have the passion and the fire she's looking for. Meanwhile, she doesn't think Bret has the want to win and she thought Curtis was a little flat. Woman power, much? Not to mention Sharon broke down in tears during her interview and openly admitted she might feel terrible beating Holly because she has such a personal connection to her charity.

Bill, however, liked Holly and Bret. Bill thought Sharon wasn't strong enough, while he thought Bret was a really strong ideas man. He thought Holly was an ass-kicker and he also didn't get much, if anything from Curtis. This led Trump to, again, turn the spotlight on Curtis. Curtis tried his best to defend himself, but to no avail, and he was left in the dust by the other three.

Then it was a sobbing showdown between Sharon and the other two. Holly said Sharon should be the next to go because she missed a couple of the tasks. Bret turned on Holly and Sharon sat there, crying, refusing to pick between the two. Instead, she defended herself saying she did and came back from the ashes. She wanted a chance to stand up for colon cancer and she thought she needed the chance to redeem herself. Trump, however, didn't think she deserved the second chance and fired her, too, leaving Holly and Bret as the final two.

The final task brings a new meaning to celebrity, literally. This time, it's "celebri-tea"! Good pun, right? Well, NBC came up with that one, not me, but I wanted to share it with everyone, though. Bret and Holly each had to utilize themselves and two other fired celebrities to create their own flavor of Snapple then sell it by creating a w-page print ad and a 30-second commercial.

It became abundantly clear that Holly had a step up the minute the teams walked into the room: Holly had Maria and Curtis, while Bret had…Summer and Darryl? Really? After Sharon said she wanted to give back, she couldn't even come back and help? Interesting.

The first step was getting the flavors of tea set down. After trying all the different flavors, both teams wanted the passion fruit base, while Holly wanted to go with a strawberry twist to make a "Compassion Berry" flavor, while Bret wanted to add cinnamon to give it a diabetes-friendly twist. It came down to Curtis and Bret negotiating for the flavors and Curtis walked away absolutely victorious because Bret can'r ague his way out of a paper bag. So, Bret made two new flavors for the taste testing: a pear/plum/nutmeg flavor and a tropical vanilla flavor.

At the mall, Holly's team is getting rave reviews for their passion fruit/strawberry/sweet basil tea, while Bret's team is getting a little more mixed reviews. His pick, the "Pear Plum Nutty" is getting weird faces and comments like, "It tastes like my grandpa." So, his team opts for the "Trop-A-Rocka" flavor, leaving Bret to redesign his entire campaign.

We're left with the teams trying to complete their ads and getting ready for the presentations. On Holly's side, everything seems to be going swimmingly with her autism charity being integrated seamlessly into her ad. Everything seems to be coming together and she gets every shot she needs and heads into the editing lab with her head held high and her confidence level way up.

Bret, on the other hand, is trying to do too much at once. Because he's not sure how to take the commercial (as serious or funny, because he's incorporating his charity, too), he wants to shoot two 30-second commercials, one with each tone. However, for his serious one, all he wants is a 30-second dolly push-in shot. One problem: the camera crew NBC gave him has no dolly, so he's left to try and find one on his own, which seems to be proving harder than he thought. Cliifhanger!

Who will win the Celebrity Apprentice: Holly or Bret? Tune in next Sunday to the season finale at 9/8c to find out--only on NBC!

(Photo courtesy of NBC)

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