'The Apprentice' Week 4 recap: Girls products, Alex? Let's just shut this down and give Kayode the prize

This week the Apprentice hopefuls were roused from their beds at 5am for a briefing from Lord Sugar at The Royal Albert Hall.

That got us all guessing what the tenuous link to the actual task might be. Something to do with music? Making miniature Union Flags for Proms devotees? Persuading piercing enthusiasts to have a Prince Albert?

Come on. This is The Apprentice. the last guess was, against all rational expectation, the closest. Body modification was the theme. Or…at least…body enhancement. This week Team Typhoon and Team Collaborative would be competing to see who could rip off some seriously ripped people.

Everybody gets a turn on Kayode

There was also some team enhancement, with super-salesman Kayode being reassigned to Team Collaborative. Presumably to balance out Team Typhoon’s solid win last week.

Sarah had a simpler suggestion for success. She thought the team should just give ‘a hundred and fifty million per cent.’

That isn’t how percentages work Sarah. Would it be an idea to stay away from the numbers this week maybe?

No. Because as we soon discover, Sarah is Collaborative’s Project Manager this week and is totally fixated on the figures.

When she talks to the vendors of the products that the two teams are competing to secure a franchise on, she asks so many questions about discounts that she completely alienates everyone.

But it’s only sensible that she’s leading on the fitness task because ‘she goes to the gym.’

Which is a shame because Rick really wanted the job: “Who votes for me?” he implored, as tumbleweed blew through the Albert Hall.

Kayode was pretty disappointed with his assigned role too, but he was appointed Sub-Team Leader to take the sting out of that.

And what will the Sub-Team be doing? Giving massages. Which somehow, Kurran With The Bad Arm was wildly in favour of.

It’s already clear that Kayode is now, on the basis of his donut prowess alone, everybody’s favourite.

Daniel’s love/hate relationship

Daniel showed some enthusiasm too. Talking to the Sauna Guy: “I like the product.’ And, moments later, talking about the Sauna Guy: “I don’t like the product.”

But we can’t judge Apprentice candidates by our rules. When the owner of the tanning equipment they’ll be using starts explaining ‘crotch socks’ no one cracks a smile. Not one of them.

Camilla is rightly concerned about the tanning gun, worried that there might be a ‘Ross from Friends’ incident.

Khadija is more sanguine. “It can’t be that difficult to spray evenly,” she says. Have you SEEN Donald Trump?

Sabrina’s extreme enthusiasm for every product she sees pays off when she manages to score the exercise equipment franchise for her team. Sarah’s team end up with the unfancied sauna business. “It’s a blessing in disguise,” says Rick, gamely. Pure Spïnal Tap.

Dance like no-one’s watching

Daniel gets into selling the weird exercise rope things. No-one says ‘money for old rope’ at any point.’ We really can’t judge Apprentice candidates by our rules.

Have you noticed how the voiceover never says ‘Camilla’? It’s always NUT MILK PRODUCER Camilla.

Team Collaborative get to do an onstage presentation. There is dancing. OMG…Kurran With The Bad Arm. Who wasn’t at that point praying for Lord Sugar to announce that next week’s task would be based on choreography?

This week’s task was, in fairness, a better test of entrepreneurial flair and sales ability than we usually see on The Apprentice, which was starting to slide into Generation Game territory. Rick didn’t seem that confident of his ability to sell under pressure and Alex was just woeful, seemingly much more interested in insurance.

No-one could quite handle his attitude to what he was selling:

Sabrina remained resolutely upbeat throughout the task. There was no way she could lose…was there?

Yes there was. While the big-ticket sales were almost neck-and-neck, the neck massages were the deciding factor.

Bye, Alex. ‘Wirral’ happy you’ve gone…

One interesting little detail as the winning team left the boardroom: Little bit of post-match needle? Jasmine appeared to ‘accidentally’ bash into her team’s dead weight; Kurran With The Bad Arm.

Who predicts he’s going to be PM for the next task. And win it. And make Lord Sugar eat his words.

Meanwhile, Alex is confidently averring “I will win this process.”

It’s hard to decide which of them is wrongest.

Well, it’s not. Claude has had quite enough of Alex. And so, it appears, have we.