Orthodox Apprentice Episode 2 observations

• Lee Bienstock - one of the Orthodox Jewish Apprentice candidates - was project manager for this week's task. The goal was to get people to send text messages to create a buzz for Gillette's new Fusion razor. We first saw Lee leading a productive brainstorming session. He appeared to be comfortable as the facilitator. He's probably participated in similar meetings with Accenture consultants.

• Lenny didn't like the slow pace of the planning phase. He wanted to get out and start collecting text messages, so he took control and recruited a couple others to leave the meeting with him. From the street, Lenny called Lee and demanded that he go outside immediately. Lee was portrayed as if he lost control of the meeting and the team. Lenny hung up the phone (battery was dying - who's to blame for that?) and Lee is left shouting into the phone, "Hello?.... Hello?.... Hello?" Fade to commercial.

• The next morning, Gold Rush got an early start while Synergy slept for another hour. Could it be that Lee and Dan (the other Orthodox Jewish Apprentice candidate, Daniel Brody) were up early for shacharit and then woke the rest of their team?

• Lenny picked a location by the TKTS booth and Lee agreed with it. Then Lenny guaranteed Lee a victory. Appears that Lenny didn't hold a grudge from the previous day's conflict.

• Dan was portrayed as having a low profile during this task. We didn't see him or hear him much. We didn't see him doing anything to help or to hurt the team. Historically, candidates with a low profile early on have been able to stay in the game for a while. Previous Apprentice winners and runners-up weren't seen much until the season progressed to the midpoint.

• We didn't see any bad blood between Tarek and Lee or Lenny. We didn't hear anything about Mensa. It seems like Trump's final words last week put Tarek in his place.

• Lee's team won the task by almost 50%!

• Trump announced that the reward is to help clothe men who are attempting to return to work. (Using Trump's line of men's clothing, of course.) Trump remarked that this reward is better than the typical reward. Dan agreed, "Absolutely more important, sir."

• We saw more of Dan during the reward than we saw during the task. Dan appeared to be very excited to help the men choose new clothing to prepare for job interviews. We also heard a soundbite of Dan from an interview. He was clearly happy to participate in this mitzvah. It would be a kiddush hashem, if any viewers knews he was Jewish!

• We didn't hear anything in this episode about Dan being a father.

• Religion had no part in this episode. The show has not yet dealt with kashrut, prayer, shabbat or yom tov.
  

• Next week's episode airs on Purim night so prepare your Tivo.

Some other random observations:

• A toy companany should manufacture a Lee Bienstock bobblehead doll. Seriously, Lee's head doesn't stop bobbing. (Sorry Lee.)

• Brent Buckman is a nut case. It was nice to hear him say so himself. However, he was not the reason Synergy lost this task.
  

• Ivanka Trump is an intelligent, young (24 years old) woman. In her closing comments, she remarked that Pepi and Stacy were not "apprentices". She pluralized "apprentice" correctly, in direct contrast to Randall's final remarks during the Season 4 finale, "It's not apprenti. It's Apprentice."

One other note:
The Orthodox Apprentice site was mentioned in this article in last week's Forward.