The Apprentice Week 9 recap: A generic mug, a lost brush, and things get serious

Another week, another episode of The Apprentice.

But this was no ordinary week. Not only did we get a double firing, we lost someone that a lot of smart money said was going to be in the final three.

As always, pay attention to the inconsequential chat that the editors of The Apprentice leave in.

Two bits of inconsequential chat in particular:

First Daniel, as soon as he’d got over answering the phone with his shirt off, said “gotta be a double firing this time.”

And Jackie, in a fit of that hubris that The Apprentice candidates do so well, saying “Two more tasks, two more boys.”

And so to the iconic BBC Television Centre, where we get a short lecture about shopping channels. And a brief reshuffling of the teams even though not even the people who are in them can remember which one is which.

For what it’s worth Daniel and Sarah-Ann went to Typhoon and Tom was reassigned…fatefully… to Collaborative.

‘We’ve had enough of experts’

Everyone on Collaborate wanted to be Project Manager, but in a sudden twist Jackie threw her weight behind Tom – even though he was by his own admission the only person on the team who had never bought anything from a shopping channel.

Over on Typhoon, newcomer Daniel became PM, because he demonstrated during the art task that he was “great at talking rubbish.”

Sîan was typically insightful about the best way to win: “If we can get [a product] that can sell pretty well and it’s high value then we’re already winning.”

Well, Sîan. One hates to say it but… DUH.

Sîan follows through on her plan by plumping for a seriously pricey item – much against Sabrina’s wishes.

Tom was put through his paces as an on-screen salesman and it’s not unfair to say he stunk. A sample piece of patter: “It’s an absolutely solid mug. It’s so generic.”

Everyone is missing Kayode so much right now.

Running Tom close for the Worst Project Manager prize at this point though was Daniel. Typhoon had booked a show-home to use as a studio to record the promotional video about the motorised scrubbing brush they hoped to sell.

Daft as a brush

The video was planned to perfection. They only forgot one thing. The motorised scrubbing brush.

They ended up shooting their video in a car park. And the sound quality was so poor it couldn’t be used.

Ah well. When Sabrina and Sîan asked about the promo video Daniel straight-facedly said it was really good’ but that it was more important to ‘get on with everything else.’

Cue the TV professional coming in to tell them that the promo was garbage.

Still, they ‘got on with everything else.’ Daniel was as good on screen as Tom was awful, but he wasn’t especially helped by Sîan barking ‘bring the energy’ at him every time he paused for breath.

…and Sabrina trying to undercut him by dropping the price after he’d announced a ‘final’ reduction.

Best friends forever

Meanwhile Jackie and Camilla, who have throughout the series been BFFs, were having a reasonable and thoughtful discussion about how they would avoid talking over each other and getting argumentative in a live TV production environment.

What? Foreshadowing?

Because once they got to the boardroom their previous camaraderie was entirely forgotten and they were talking over each other for England.

In fact, the two teams’ cash totals were quite close, largely due to buyers pulling out of sales on those big-ticket items that Sîan was so keen on.

Did he know it was coming?

But with Collaborative losing the task, however narrowly, the axe was sure to fall on the Project Manager.

Who, Jackie had ensured, was Tom.

The axe fell before anyone could even blink. Tom was in the Taxi within second of the result being announced. Had he brought his overnight bag to the boardroom on spec?

But the drama wasn’t over. All three of the remaining team members had to plead their case – which in an admirable display of positive thinking leant mainly towards them all pitching their own business ideas.

And Lord Sugar pitching his own ‘beetroot lemonade’ idea.

The Apprentice gets serious, at last

Nut Milk supremo Camilla talked her way out of trouble, and shocked all of us by revealing that she was only 22.

Khadija given that she was absolutely dreadful at selling on screen, might have been the obvious choice to go. Especially as her emotions seemed to be getting the better of her in the boardroom.

But the increasingly popular idea that Jackie had set Tom up to fail meant that the Canadian entrepreneur and author was ousted.

First double sacking of the series. And the last? Who can say? All the really silly characters have gone. And now Jackie. It’s getting serious now.

Read more

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

The Apprentice Week 7 recap: You’ll NEVER guess who got fired…

The Apprentice Week 6 recap: At last – The Kurran Show!