Sunday, 30 October 2016

The Apprentice 2016: Week 3 Review

16 candidates sitting in the boardroom,
16 candidates sitting in the boardroom,
And if one of the candidates should be told ‘you’re fired’
There’ll be 15 candidates sitting in the boardroom

Week 3 and we have a food manufacturing task (isn’t this one usually towards the end, like task 9 or 10?). Something that you think would favour Sausage Man and GBBD, but then you hear that they’ll be creating sweets. Oh.

5am, and Smug Git answers the phone. Drury Lane Theatre Royal, 30 mins. Paul calls his team losers as he tells them to get up, and the lesser spotted Frances chides ‘Karthik, you’ve got 30 mins’. To his credit, Special K stood still then meekly replied ‘yes’ *’yes mom’ he means*.

At the theatre: the tenuous task link this week is that ‘Charlie & the Chocolate Factory’ is playing at the theatre, although LAS seems to think that Willy Wonka was the main character *methinks he only saw the Johnny Depp version*. The candidates’ mission this time is to design and manufacture their own range of sweets, selling to public and trade in Brighton.

GBBD, Jess and Trishna move to Titans, whilst Sausage Man, Paul, Special K and McEye head over to Nebula *don’t worry guys, Paul will be getting his own nickname by the end of this ep*; GBBD and Sausage Man are appointed as PMs by LAS due to their food production experience.

GBBD tells her team that she’s a self-taught chocolatier, and that Brighton people like ‘unusual’ stuff so goes for cocktail flavours. Sausage Man on the other hand likes traditional sweets, and decides on a ‘by the seaside’ theme *albeit with some dissent from Paul*. He does also struggle to say the word ‘pitching’ when trying to tell McEye what he’s doing *ah yes, trying to soften the blow for the rest of the team given how bad McEye’s pitch was last time*. He attempts to put Paul with the trade team, but Paul tells him he wants to be in the kitchen to be near him *keep an eye on him more like*. Sofiane tells GBBD that he’s not comfortable in the kitchen as his wife does the cooking, and she duly disappoints feminists everywhere and appoints him as sub-team leader, Trishna and Teen Titan aren’t happy.

The teams head to confectioners’ kitchens. On Titans: Jess says ‘pillows would be biggest profit margin’, GBBD goes with pillows and toffees. For Nebula: Sausage Man likes rock, and Frances wants to go for fudge but Grainne tells her that it’s about what the public want rather than what she wants. *see the start of the bitch edit Grainne gets this episode* Sausage Man goes with the fudge.

Flavours: cappuccino for the toffee, and strawberry/champagne for the pillows (Titans/GBBD). Salt and vinegar fudge and ice cream flavour rock (Nebula/Sausage Man).

In the kitchen and poor Sausage Man is having trouble making the sticks of rock. Grainne forcefully steps in to help, but Frances and Paul are busy bitching at the back, with Frances wondering how Sausage Man can make sausages but not rock. Over at Titans, Jess and Dillon are working the pillow machine *that just sounds wrong, I’m sorry*, and on the whole they seem to be getting on well with it.

Titan sub-team of Sofiane, Teen Titan and Trishna head out to Brighton & Hove Albion FC to try and make a corporate sale. Sofiane gets off to a bad start making out as if he’ll definitely get an order, and gets the clients’ backs up further by trying to charge above their stated maximum of £300 (33% above in fact). The client tells him that he’s not listening to them, Teen Titan asks Sofiane if he wants him to step in, and Sofiane agrees. Teen Titan comes in with a reasonable offer of 190 units at £307 (around £1.61 per unit), so still above their maximum by not by much; but he’s countered with 160 units for £300, which he has to accept.

Rebecca is leading the pitch at a winery for Nebula’s trade team. £75 for 50 bags is offered by McEye, which is branded reasonable by the client. Grainne is taking over in the kitchen, but the team keep interrupting Sausage Man whilst he’s trying to talk to the other team, so he doesn’t find out how many units the trade team got.

GBBD has a breakdown (for the second week in a row) after one of the machines doesn’t work, JD and Samuel comfort her. The team decide to change the moulds to make sure they got the sweets for the football club ready on time.

Titans have called their sweets ‘Guiltees’, Sofiane doesn’t like the baby pink of the logo but Teen Titan says it’s on trend. Nebula have called theirs ‘Suck it and Sea’, which has blue and white packaging.  Sausage Man is being blindsided by Karren and Frances over the pricing, and Special K doesn’t want to go to trade, so Paul offers to go instead. Sofiane asks GBBD for someone to join his team, JD offers to go.

Sofiane is told at the football club that the sweets didn’t match what they agreed but the client agrees to buy. Sausage Man and Special K do a comedy skit to try and entice people to buy their sweets (‘What should I do Karthik?’ ‘Suck it and see!’ *it just sounds so wrong*), the team are all selling at different prices, but they are selling. GBBD struggles for sales and proclaims ‘I literally just repulse people, I repulse them!’ The winery try the sweets, and McEye offers them another 50 bags but then agrees to sell the whole lot (so 100 bags) for £107 *this was after Rebecca tried to negotiate the 100 bags for £120*; so 50 extra bags for another £32. Paul is not happy about this *but all he was doing here was packing the van, he can’t really talk. Also, although they lost 40p from their original price per unit from Mukai’s deal, they would only have gained an extra 10p from Rebecca’s price, so they were on to a loser from the start*.

GBBD has a team huddle and decides to sell at 2 for £6. They are selling but Samuel decides to change the price to 2 for £7 (GBBD almost has another breakdown over this, worried that people would come back who Samuel had sold to saying they had seen them cheaper elsewhere – for £1? Whoever did that would be a Scrooge of the highest order). Over on their trade team, Sofiane says sell high to trade, Teen Titan contradicts him but is told ‘stick to my plan, don’t interrupt’ *see someone else who is starting to get a villain edit*. Sofiane hounds the vendor until he agrees a sale, then insists to start high and then go low like he did in task 1.

Smug Git meanwhile is leading a pitch at a shop, but she gets the prices mixed up and McEye jumps in to save her. McEye does get the sale for the rock but not the fudge. Paul is stood outside whilst this is going on, looking through the window of the shop and wondering why it’s taking so long *you and me both my dear, you and me both*

Teen Titan and Sofiane agree a deal, Rebecca fails on fudge. McEye also fails to sell some fudge.. Samuel and Jess seen selling. GBBD calls Sofiane asking for the trade team to head over to her, but Sofiane wants to go back to trade and promptly cuts off the call when she asks what stock they still have. Teen Titan and JD disagree with what he’s done, and Teen Titan forces Sofiane to call GBBD to tell her what they still have. Special K is seen selling fudge, and he thinks he’s the best salesman in the universe *of course he does, see, I told you he has to be special at all times*

Frances gets a sale, and GBBD starts a firesale for the remaining stock *exactly like week 1 then*. Paul chucks the remaining box of fudge as he leaves a shop, Smug Git calls it all a disaster. Paul rants but McEye tries to blame him. Paul says he stood back, calls McEye ‘crap’ and walks off *henceforth Paul shall now be known as The Incredible Sulk, and to be fair, he had shades of this last week too*

In the BR: Nebula – Grainne jumps in when Sausage Man is confused about what they did in the kitchen *no change there then*. Sausage Man admits he was more of an Oompa Loompa than Willy Wonka. McEye explains the sale to the winery, but Incredible Sulk contradicts him when he tries to make out he made the second sale for the initial price of £120. Karren corrects Sausage Man when he tried to say he made the decision to move Incredible Sulk over to the trade team on day 2, and he is also struggling to say what their pricing strategy was. His team say he was not a good PM *you didn’t allow him to be though did you guys?*. Titans – Jess trying to explain their sales strategy, has to stop for water *another episode of ‘The Galloping Conversationalist’ concludes*. Claude tells Sofiane he irritated the football club *think he already knew this as GBBD warned him not to go after them for more money on day 2*. Samuel getting called out on changing the price, but LAS seems to somewhat agree with what Samuel did *as do I actually*. Sofiane called out on not heading back to GBBD when she asked him to. GBBD is called a good PM by her team.

Titans - £1215.09 sales, £429.43 spent = £785.66 profit
Nebula - £822.83 sales, £207.75 spent = £615.08 profit

Titans treat: trampolining and parkour *Jeez I’d rather lose if the prizes are this awful*

Over at the Café of Shattered Delusions with Nebula: Incredible Sulk says all went wrong when Sausage Man became PM *blame LAS for that, not Oliver. Bet you won’t though will you?*. McEye blames Smug Git for mixing up the pricing, Incredible Sulk agrees *good point boys, although McEye did still get a sale despite that*. Smug Git blames Incredible Sulk for not making a sale *again, good point. Why was he left outside both times rather than with the team?*. Sausage Man says you can’t be in two places at once *that’s what your sub-team leader is for, who was it on this team actually? Don’t think it was mentioned at all beforehand but I’m guessing Mukai?*

In losers’ BR: Sausage Man mixes up pricing again, he admits he didn’t set any prices in stone. He blames the trade team, and LAS tells them that the lucrative product was the fudge but none of it was sold. Rebecca blames McEye for that, Sausage Man points out that his side of the team sold all their fudge *1 point to Hufflepuff*. LAS calls out McEye for making a sale for less money than initially agreed, Smug Git basically says ‘told you so’. Smug Git was asked what she did on the task *aside from getting prices mixed up of course*, Incredible Sulk mentioned for not selling. Smug Git reckons Sausage Man is afraid of Incredible Sulk *well he does look like a rugby player after all*, while McEye blames her for getting the pricing wrong. Sausage Man decides to bring back Incredible Sulk and McEye.

LAS aside with Karren and Claude: Sausage Man – basic fundamentals not grasped, Claude says has strong business acumen *where was the evidence of that?* but couldn’t manage his team *rather, they didn’t let him manage them*. McEye – Karren says has air of superiority *you’re telling me, if it wasn’t for the fact that Aleksandra was already christened Smug Git then that would have been my name for Mukai*. Incredible Sulk – Karren says bright guy but lacked energy.

In final 3 BR: Incredible Sulk brought back as he made no sales, Sausage Man says he still sold even though he was the PM *LAS says he’s waffling but he made a good point there* and also brought him back because of his disagreement with McEye, but Incredible Sulk claims that it didn’t upset the team. He then goes on to argue that Sausage Man was carried through the task and that he, Frances and Grainne were the ones making decisions *Grainne yes, but the only decision you made Paul was that you wanted to be in the kitchen team initially to be near Oliver (see why I think Paul’s the next Neil Clough in the making?), and after that you offered, repeat, offered, to go over to the trade team on day 2, where you did sweet FA as far as I’m concerned. As for Frances, when did she make any decisions as they weren’t shown here?* Sausage Man says that he didn’t want to bring in McEye but the sub-team leader has to look over that part of the team *oh so it was McEye after all?*, and states that LAS needs someone who can sell, but LAS points out that Sausage Man didn’t sell *hold up, didn’t you say earlier that he did? Or at least only Paul was called out for not selling. Methinks either bad editing there or LAS made some BS up to fire someone, which wouldn’t surprise me*. 

LAS summary: Sausage Man – taking his word on his own business, wonders then why he failed here; Incredible Sulk – alarm bells from aides on his mood during this task as he has no time for it; McEye – has an explanation for everything but this one doesn’t add up.

Sausage Man is told that his best hope for £250k is to buy a scratchcard, and is FIRED. McEye told that he’s not far behind and to explain why he shouldn’t be fired also, but both remaining candidates are told to go back to the house.

Taxi: Sausage Man feeling upbeat, says that maybe he’s not ruthless enough, but he has learned a lot that he can put into practice with his own business.

Back at the house, the other candidates reckon Sausage Man and Incredible Sulk would come back; Special K is surprised that McEye returned.

My take: Oliver went, but I’m surprised Mukai didn’t go instead. 2 weeks in a row where really he should have been fired. I did feel for Oliver as it seemed like his team (and Karren) were ganging up on him: Grainne, Frances and Paul in particular (funny how Paul mentioned these 3 were the ones making decisions). Oliver made a good point when he said that his team had sold all their fudge but the trade team hadn’t. I actually agree with Jamie and Konnie on YF that Oliver shouldn’t have gone. Yes he was flustered and indecisive, but some of his team were trying to take over and wouldn’t let him speak to the trade team to get their numbers, saying he needed to concentrate on what was happening in the kitchen. Well if he doesn’t get the numbers then how will he know how much stock needs to be saved for that deal? I thought though that he made the wrong decision in bringing Paul back rather than Aleksandra, and I wonder if she might have gone instead if she were brought back. Mukai did have to keep jumping in to save her when she muddled up the prices (actually, when Oliver was blasted for not knowing his prices, he should have said something like ‘well Aleksandra didn’t know either and she was trying to sell to trade’), and I don’t know, we haven’t really seen all that much of her. We have seen our villains of the series tonight though: Grainne, Paul and Sofiane. Paul should have stepped up to help out the trade team on day 2, not just looked through a window (although why did they let Aleksandra keep pitching when she didn’t know the prices?). Sofiane let his week 1 success get to his head – he allowed Courtney to help when it was looking like they were going to lose the sale at the football club (day one), but then Sof shut him down on day two. Courtney looks like he could be a contender too: he did manage to convince Sofiane to call Alana back to tell her how much stock they had left. Grainne just kept trying to take over in the kitchen, and jumping in in the boardroom, I’m getting slight Selina vibes from her……

Next week: the candidates are let loose in high-end department store Liberty of London, where they have to run a personal shopper service and also launch and sell their own product line. I already feel sorry for the people who were shopping there whilst this task was filmed…..

Tonight’s cast:
The firee: Sausage Man
Dead Man Walking: McEye
The Incredible Sulk: Paul
The One that Got Away: Smug Git
The Breakdown: GBBD
‘Do as I say’: Sofiane
The Challenger: Teen Titan
The Coup de Fail: Grainne
The Pillow Makers: Jess and Dillon
The Comforters: JD and Samuel
Talked a fair bit but nothing concrete: Rebecca
The One Line and Done: Frances
The Forgotten: Trishna 

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