The Apprentice Week 5 recap: No-one can quite believe what happened there

This week The Apprentice delivered its biggest shock so far.

A pleasant if somewhat hapless candidate got the chop while arguably the emptiest suit in the show’s thirteen-year history somehow managed to avoid Sir Alan’s stubby firing-finger.

Let’s see how we got to that with a quick recap of The Apprentice episode 5.

At last we see what Kurran is made of

We kicked off at the Adelphi Theatre. Kurran was itching to be chosen as Project Manager as soon as he found out the venue, convinced that whatever the task was, it would be an opportunity to showcase his acting talents.

In the car to the theatre he announced “I’m going home right now.” From your mouth to Lord Sugar’s ears, Kurran old son.

As soon as it was revealed that the theatre was just another 3-2-1 style tenuous link to the task Kurran, The Apprentice’s emptiest suit, backed away from the PM job like a scalded cat.

No we don’t

The task was to design and market shoes. That’s no job for a handsome halfwit with a crocked arm. The PM gig went to Jackie.

Kurran promptly started campaigning for a role on the shoe design team. Minutes after he’d told his team-mates that he knew nothing about shoes. Somehow he managed to look surprised as well as disappointed when his request fell on deaf ears.

Pretty much every viewer soon wished they were deaf, rather than hear the word ‘urban’ used more than a hundred times in a minute.

Over at Typhoon – now featuring Tom – Siân was in charge. She demonstrated her authority straight away by giving in to Daniel and Camilla’s suggestion that they should develop trainers rather than heels.

As it turned out, weird pink baby-shoe looking trainers with a removable bow.

Everybody ‘loved’ them.

Sabrina said they looked like something you’d give to a four-year-old girl. Four seems a shade old, if anything.

Meanwhile, in modesty news, Daniel thought his team’s shoe design should be named after him. “Any other ideas?” deadpanned Jasmine.

Accentuate the positive

Kurran, still sulking about being passed over for the design team, was resolutely negative about absolutely everything. “The last thing I want to do is bring a negative energy about this project” he said, negatively.

It doesn’t matter if Kurran doesn’t like anything though. What matters is how the public feel. Let’s do some market research.

The public don’t like the shoes. Both teams got some solidly negative feedback.

As well as being a game show and an accidental sitcom, The Apprentice is increasingly a cookery show. As well as designing some shoes, the candidates also need to lash up some canapés. Khadija really shines here. She is absolutely hardcore.

It’s safe to say that Jasmine and Rick didn’t bond over the cookery segment. Or, indeed, over anything.

Launch events planned and catered, it was time to invite the retail buyers in and sell sell sell.

Absolute cobblers

You knew, as soon as there was a clear discussion about sticking to a fixed price point, that somebody was going to break that rule.

That someone was Daniel, who dropped his price almost before he started selling. To say that his team-mates were unimpressed would be to understate the issue considerably.

These days, almost half of the show is given over to the boardroom finale. Some weeks that’s great. This week for example, where we get to learn that Lord Sugar has somehow never heard of Hip Hop, find out that Daniel has managed to be proud of the pink bow on his team’s baby-trainers, and appreciate just how much Kurran has the knife in for Jackie.

Plus, that means that there’s more scope for Lord Sugar’s gag-writers to pop out of zingers such as “I was looking for shoemakers. All I got was a load of cobblers.”

Not one of the Apprentice candidates got that joke. In fact they didn’t seem to even understand that it was meant to be a joke.

The unbelievable result

Actually, both teams did surprisingly well. Collaborative pulled in £61k, mostly through Jackie’s big sale, and Typhoon did even better – selling £86,000 worth of their ugly pink trainers.

When Jackie’s asked who she’s bringing back she selects Kurran, who by his own admission is perennially useless, and Kayode – who is outraged at being selected.

It seems that Lord Sugar isn’t pleased at Kayode being brought back either: he demands that the whole team is returned for a massive argument that calls back to last week’s task as well as deep, deep recriminations about this week’s.

Kurran vows that he will be Project Manager next week, no matter what the task is. Which is almost exactly what he said just as this week’s farrago started.

Throughout the episode, social media is positively melting with the calls for Kurran to go.

Amazingly, Rick is the one to be sent home. While he didn’t exactly cover himself with glory this week, no-one can quite believe Kurran escaped the chop.

The entire house is astounded to see Kurran to return. And so are we.

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