Gene Folkes and Wade Hanson became the fifth and sixth candidates fired from NBC's non-celebrity revival of The Apprentice during Thursday night's broadcast of the reality competition's fifth episode.

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The Apprentice star Donald Trump fired the men after their Octane men's team lost the season's fifth task, which required Octane and the Fortitude women's team to each organize and execute a fashion show for a shoe company.  

Since the company produces shoes for both sexes, Octane was assigned the mens footwear and Fortitude was given the womens line.  Stephanie Castagnier opted to serve as the project manager for the women while Wade volunteered to lead the men. 

Fortitude's show ended up turning out great when Stephanie chose well-spoken teammate Brandy Kuentzel to serve as their emcee, however Octane's show became a disaster when Gene struggled to get through the lengthy presentation script he had prepared and David Johnson -- who had volunteered to co-emcee the event with Gene -- quietly snuck off-stage and left Gene to muddle through the rest of the show on his own.

"It was really disappointing because I felt I had winner all the way up to the runway show... we've absolutely blown this task," Wade remarked afterwards.

"It was awful.  It was almost like watching a horse die out there," Octane member Anand Vasudev added.

Trump agreed with the men's assessment and declared Fortitude the task's winner before he even began questioning Octane once the teams returned to the boardroom.

"I've never done this before, ever, but your team so blew away the men that I don't even want to waste a lot of time with you," he told the women.

But after the women left the boardroom, Trump quickly zeroed in on Gene and Wade, and once again gave David -- who Trump previously called a "wiseass" after he swore at his team's project manager while they were speaking with their customer during the season's third task -- a pass for his behavior.

"[Gene] was talking about [product detail] crap that nobody wants to hear... [and] like every other word was mispronounced," Trump said.  "David wasn't great, but Gene was terrible.  You talked about every aspect of these shoes... every damn shoe.  I don't want to hear about 'odorless,' I want to hear that they're beautiful."

"Oh, he did great -- he picked two guys who shouldn't have been chosen!" Trump added when Gene attempted to defend Wade's project management. 

"David and Gene said they had emcee experience," Wade replied.

"Excuse me, don't you test them?  I mean you test them!" Trump snapped back.  "[Gene] couldn't f--king read!  He couldn't read!  This is the worst job I've ever seen as emcee."

"How do you pick David to go up there?  This isn't about comedy."

David also attempted to accuse Steuart Martens of "harassing" their female models after Steuart attempted to support Wade's claim that David had pushed for the emcee role.

"He wanted to harass women," David told Trump, referring to the fact that Wade had tasked Anand and Steuart with styling the eight female models who had participated in the men's fashion show.  "He didn't want to do anything else but go shopping with women for he could pick up bras and clothing for them."

"That's completely incorrect," Anand replied.  "Wade immediately came to both of us because he apparently thinks that we're the two stylish ones in the group, which I don't think has anything to do with harassing women... that's a very harsh accusation."

"You're saying he likes women, you don't mean harassing. That's a pretty [harsh accusation]," Trump agreed.  "He's not harassing women."

Gene then offered to accept responsibility and be fired and Trump immediately accepted the offer.

"Alright. Gene, you're fired!" Trump said.

However Trump still wasn't done swinging his axe.

"Wade, you're fired," he added.  "Go.  Good luck.  Go ahead, thank you."

"The rest of you guys, go back to your suite.  You were terrible.  Terrible!"

Both men took the news well.

"Unfortunately I think I got fired because I put too much trust and confidence in someone else, and I swore to myself I wouldn't do that.  But I had fun working for Mr. Trump it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I tried to have as much fun with it as I could," Wade said afterward.

"It is never a good feeling getting the axe.  But I let my project manager down, and my team down, and I got fired.  It's a bad feeling," Gene added.
About The Author: Steven Rogers

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