Craig Williams gets fired as NBC's 'The Apprentice 3' selects its final two contestants

With its teams dissolved at the end of last week's episode, last night's NBC The Apprentice 3 broadcast featured the show's final three contestants, Craig Williams, Tana Goertz, and Kendra Todd, facing a series of interviews. Craig, the 37-year-old high-school educated shoeshine business owner from Conley, Georgia, failed to impress the executives, causing Donald Trump to fire him midway through the episode. Afterwards, as in previous seasons, the final two contestants were given their final tasks and assigned a colorful group of former contestants as "employees."


The Apprentice 3's fifteenth episode began with the contestants summoned to meet with The Donald, during which they were told the identities of the four executives who would be conducting their interviews. The executives were David Brandon, Chairman and CEO of Domino’s Pizza Inc., Darlene Daggett President of QVC, Howard Lorber, Chairman of Douglas Elliman Real Estate (the largest residential realty firm in New York City and the same organization from which Apprentice 2 contestant Jennifer Crisafulli was fired), and Greg Brenneman, Chairman and CEO of Burger King. Through a series of one-on-one interviews, the executives came to split decision, with David and Darlene favoring Tana, while Douglass and Greg favored Kendra. In the boardroom however, no one appeared to favor Craig -- and that was sufficient to seal his fate, making him became the sixteenth contestant dismissed from the show this season.

After Craig was fired, high school-educated Tana and college-educated Kendra went back to the suite where they found chilled champagne and a Survivor extinguished torch-like scrapbook containing candid shots of each of The Apprentice 3's eliminated contestants. As they toasted their success, they took a trip down memory lane, remembering the highs and lows of their interview process and the contestants that they had "outlasted" on their way to becoming the show's final "booksmart" and "streetsmart" contestants.

The next morning, the women were assigned their final tasks. Kendra was assigned to run the Best Buy Video Game Championship, featuring EA Sport's new Fight Night 2 boxing game while Tana was given the assignment of running the NYC 2012 Athletes Challenge an event intended to promote New York City’s bid for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. To assist them in their event, six former contestants were brought back: Erin Elmore, Danny Kastner, Michael Tarshi, Kristen Kirchner, Brian McDowell, and Chris Shelton.

Since The Apprentice's final two candidates were comprised of one member of each original team, the employees were also split along those lines, with Kendra being reunited with her original college-educated "booksmart" teammates Erin, Danny, and Michael, while Tana was given high school-educated "streetsmart" former teammates Kristen, Brian, and Chris. In a candid moment after the selection was announced, Tana asked if it would be possible to replace some of her team and was told "no" to her disappointment, but was also told she could use or not use them as she saw fit, a feeling that based on her own reaction, Kendra also seemed to be considering.


As they prepared for their events, both candidates encountered issues with their employees, prompting Kendra to comment that she was assigned employees with "a degree of incompetence," and Tana to refer to her team as the "three stooges." Despite that, both women showed they had a good idea of what it will take to get the events running and which one is best able execute to that plan and to deal with their less than ideal "employees" should have the upper hand in becoming this season's new apprentice. Next week's Apprentice broadcast will feature more footage of the two events tasks, with the show culminating with a May 19 one-hour live finale broadcast that will name this season's new apprentice.