National Beat: As Shameful As It Is For Us To Admit It, We Can’t Believe No One Is Talking About The Dennis Rodman Intervention On Celebrity Apprentice
What does it say about the networks that two of the most riveting pieces of television this season have been Dancing With The Stars, where poor Steve-O seems like he’s been in the fight of his life to merely assimilate into normal society, and Celebrity Apprentice, where the pathos surrounding Dennis Rodman‘s obvious and howling substance abuse problems finally culminated on Sunday night, when he was summarily fired? But where Steve-O’s reality plotline has a warm, gooey heart (we kinda think he should marry that girl he’s dancing with because we can’t imagine anyone in the world being sweeter to him, ever), the whole of Dennis Rodman’s appearance on Celebrity Apprentice has been troubling and difficult to watch. Sunday night’s big finale of the show — where cast members generally throw blame around and each other under the bus until Donald Trump has finally had enough and then fires whoever he didn’t like anyway — was hardly a traditional “you’re fired” moment: It was, for all intents and purposes, an intervention. Joan Rivers shed real tears, which is in itself a miracle, since you would have figured layers upon layers of plastic surgery would have covered up her tear ducts long ago. And that wrestler dude (Jesse James) came off like telling The Donald the truth about Rodman was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, like he was checking himself into rehab all over again. The elephant in the room, of course, was that Rodman’s “drinking problem” actually felt like something perhaps darker and more dangerous. If we could put our Dr. Drew hat on, we’d say there was a whiff of the white stuff all over Rodman’s behavior: He’s been that kind of jangled all season, and though it might have been funny in the first episode or so, it quickly became apparent that here was a guy in a lot of fucking pain. And when he was sent off in the limo, you could finally see the dude’s sadness lurking beneath a tacky pair of $500 shades. We can’t believe that limo could have gone anywhere but to a rehab.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I thought the episode was hilarious. I thought they were going to send him to rehab and let him comeback real world style.
The boardroom scene was a little sad. His argument was “How could I have won five chapionships if I am an alcoholic?”