Thursday, 17 November 2016

The Apprentice 2016: Week 6 Review

Only 12 candidates sitting in the boardroom
Only 12 candidates sitting in the boardroom
And if one of the candidates should be told ‘you’re fired’
There’ll be just 11 candidates sitting in the boardroom

This time: it’s the treasure hunt task. Who will triumph, and who will have an X marked in their spot by the end of the show?

2.30pm, Courtney and Trishna are in the garden playing footie, where Jess is face-painting Dillon *for no particular reason apparently*. Karthik answers the phone ‘good afternoon, Karthik here’ *has to be special as usual*. He’s told that the need to get to the 69th floor of the Shard, cars will arrive in 20 mins. Courtney gets further into my good books by asking ‘So he’s taking us up the Shard?....Nice’ *purely on sense of humour alone he’s just behind Karthik and Jess as my favourite candidate* Paul says he’s a human iron to which Courtney responds that he’ll iron him out in the BR *see?*

In cars: Grainne reckons it’ll be an all-nighter *good girl*, Karthik tells us he doesn’t do manual labour *he eats, drinks and makes love apparently. I swear he’s getting more and more like Raj from the Big Bang Theory every week*. Frances doesn’t want to PM, Paul says Rebecca’s been told to do it.

At the Shard: LAS tells us that the task is about negotiation and stamina, confirms it’s a night shift and says it’s about when to buy and get the best deal. Trishna is moved to Nebula, and the teams are told that the least money spent wins, but they will need to be back by 6am, and they will be fined for being late. They have business directories, maps and £1k of cold hard cash.

The 9 items that they need to find are: a rambuttan (a fruit), a lengha (Indian formal dress), African black soap, 10 Robusto cigars, 200 rainbow bagels, a bird of paradise, an American-style pool cue, a tagine, and a photograph of the night-time London skyline then made up as a poster.

Trishna volunteers to be PM as she knows London well and knows estimated timings for locations. Teen Titan decides to PM for Titans *been waiting for this moment all series*, and then splits the teams up. Special K and Samuel seem to know what the foreign items are. GBBD and Samuel make some calls.

In cars: Teen Titan has deliberately chosen to go to nearby places, he reckons they’ll be done by 3am; but it’s taking a while to get to their chosen destination (he mistakenly thinks SE2 is next to SE1; in all honesty I would have thought the same as I don’t know London whatsoever). Dillon heads to get the American-style pool cue while on the way to get the lengha *Karthik brings up a good point here about why would they go to the pool hall that closes at 2.30am first when the lengha shop closes a few hours earlier*. In Hackney and Frances asks Incredible Sulk if ‘it’s like the ghetto’ *I know she’s young but …… I do despair of our younger generation sometimes*, he then gets a deal on the rainbow bagels (35p each for 200 = £70).

Samuel struggles to get a discount on the African soap; whilst Sofiane is a disruptive influence on his team *when isn’t he?*, but does get a 20% discount on the print (£30 down to £24). Frances gets smug about the fact she wore a lengha to an Indian wedding and can speak some of the language. Special K also tries to get the lengha, but isn’t happy with 30% discount, and he tells us that you can’t be abrupt like in Western culture *yes Karthik, but at least we get things done, rather than spend all day practicing our chit chat skills*. Contrast Frances getting the lengha for a good price (£25, child size); here’s Gary’s dinghy for this series. Special K gets it for £55. Karthik/Dillon/Grainne hug. Trishna sub-team (her/Jess/Sofiane) struggle to find tagine and rambutan. Incredible Sulk tells his team to keep putting phone down and calling numbers – Rebecca gets a lead on tagine and black African soap.

After midnight: Teen Titan goes to a restaurant in Belgravia to get the Robusto cigars, GBBD leads the pitch there, tries to get 10 for £140 rather than £200, manages to get them for £145 *Karren hates the ‘pathetic, girly’ way she gets them; hey, if it works, it works*. Jess tries to get them as well, gets a lead and Sofiane takes the phone from her *he really can’t stand to see her do well can he?*. Jess tries the sob story and it eventually works, although is criticised by Claude for getting them for a high price. Sofiane tries to get the tagine, but is told to leave it as Incredible Sulk’s sub-team is getting it. They’re at a 24 hr supermarket – Rebecca leads it but it seems the shop owner didn’t understand her on the phone, and they end up with tahini paste and African soup.

2am: Courtney’s team need 5 more items. Rainbow bagels – Teen Titan gets them for 40p each, but criticised by Karren for doing a deal at the first shop he visits *they’re 2/3 of the way in by this point Karren, cut them some slack*. Special K struggles to stay awake and starts snoring. Grainne starts singing ‘All Night Long’ with him and Dillon and it works *Grainne is surprisingly upbeat this episode, keep her with Dillon and Karthik I reckon*. Trishna doesn’t understand how Paul’s sub-team didn’t get their 2 items *Chase. Goose. Wild – please rearrange, Trishna*. GBBD – ‘is Morocco in Turkey?’ *facepalm. Lots and lots of facepalm*. Grainne looks to get Bird of Paradise – goes for a used one for £5. Karren calls out Teen Titan for being laid back with no sense of urgency, they get the photo. Rebecca gets the pool cue for £30. Jess gets a lead on rambutan, she buys it for £19, in comparison with £15 for Karthik. Jess gets a bit fruity in the car *my kind of girl right there*. Incredible Sulk asks Trishna about getting the last 2 items as they’ll struggle getting back in time. Teen Titan gets the print for £7.50, but not much time left. Frances gets bird of paradise for £9.

Trishna/Sofiane/Jess fail to make it back in time. All of Titans are in. Special K does a piece about how Courtney didn’t execute his strategy well, reckons he will have a lot to answer for if they lose as they missed the tagine *for one item? Somehow my dear I think they’ll go off at you for spending so much time and money on that lengha*.

Initial BR: LAS says the task was based on negotiating/logistics/time. Nebula – Trishna goes west, Incredible Sulk east as he knows East London *of course he does*. She admits that she didn’t know what a rambutan was initially. She was asked to describe what the team did next, LAS interrupts to ask Sofiane about the picture *what was the point of asking her then?*. LAS then calls Jess out for using sob story in negotiation *if it works then it works*, Trishna criticised for not going to 24hr printers, and also for not walking out of cigar place. Incredible Sulk describes what the sub-team did, LAS confirms didn’t specify size of lengha. LAS likes the photo. Rebecca admits they wasted a lot of time on tagine/soap. Titans – Teen Titan states that he had to make a decision between soap and tagine, got the soap, then admits he messed up on geography. Karen criticises GBBD for begging, GBBD makes a good point by saying it didn’t matter how she got to the end point; Karren counters by saying that nice isn’t how you do business *maybe it’s not how YOU do business Karren….*. Neither team got the tagine. Special K asked about lengha. Grainne talks about bird of paradise. All the team said Courtney was a good PM.

Titans – 8 items for £333.11, fine of £75 = £408.11
Nebula – 7 items for £362.80, fines = £157.75 = £520.55

Treat is a pampering session at the house from Carol Joy. Karthik – ‘that’s how you do it!’ Courtney – ‘4 in a row’ *boys will be boys*

LAS points out that Frances and Rebecca still haven’t won a task.

Special K admits that he has changed his behaviour during the process.

Café: Sofiane goes on about the tagine, Trishna says that’s all he’s interested in (Jess agrees, reckons Sofiane didn’t contribute). Rebecca thinks her one mistake didn’t cause the failure and she’s sick of being rounded upon.

Losing BR: 5 of 7 items they bought were more expensive.

£24 vs £7 on poster
£30 vs £20 on pool cue
£9 vs £5 for flowers
£19 vs £15 for rambuttan
Circa £200 vs £145 on cigars

Jess gets criticised for the cigar negotiation, which she admits was not the best. Trishna is asked why her strategy went out of the window, admits that she went for nearness over relevancy. She’s informed that they wasted an hour with the print, and that the team were all over the place. Rebecca admits that the shop owner didn’t understand her, but claims Frances and Paul backed her up over what she said on the phone. Sofiane is called out for not listening, Trishna says she and Jess were doing all the work, and Sofiane was just desperate for the tagine. Sofiane replies that it is about negotiation and Karren says he over-negotiated too on the print. Trishna chooses to bring back Sofiane and Rebecca. LAS keeps Frances back to tell her that she needs to be on a winning team - ‘I’ll try on the next task’ with the sourest face possible *her age is showing here*

LAS aside: Trishna – lost control, main focus was negotiating and didn’t do it. Good plan but didn’t execute it. Sofiane – Sofiane looks after Sofiane. Rebecca – people don’t respect her.

Final 3 BR: Rebecca pointed out for not being PM, Trishna says that she brought her back as she diverted team for 90 mins, Rebecca replies that all 3 of them made the decision, not just her. Sofiane wonders why Jess isn’t back when she overspent, Trishna says Jess had good ideas and supported her. She claims Sofiane was working in his own team. Karren criticises Rebecca for the pool cue, Rebecca says she doesn’t do negotiation *is there anything that she actually DOES do?*. She blames Trishna, who calls her the ‘weakest link’, and claims that she’s the only woman that hasn’t crumbled under pressure, and is better than most people in the process. Sofiane says that he was full of ideas, blames Rebecca. Sofiane – concerns ‘no smoke without fire’ does own thing, no respect for others. Rebecca – asked for opportunity to PM, good talker. Trishna – failure lays firmly on strategy not being adhered to, hard not to put total blame on her. Needs to think about past performance, Rebecca FIRED.

Sofiane is given a strong warning not to be an autocrat, but both allowed back.

Taxi – Rebecca says other people have done less but happen to be on winning sides *wonder who she’s referring to here?*. She then becomes my favourite candidate ever by claiming that not being a twat is her downfall *I loved her purely for that sentence, and then she was brilliant on You’re Fired as well*

Paul reckons Sofiane has a reputation *already in the narrative Paul*, Dillon reckons Trishna has potential *really?*. Sofiane reckons we will see more business acumen from him *somehow I doubt that*.

Next time: the candidates need to sell some water-themed items. Who will sink without trace and who will have everything going swimmingly *ahem*

Tonight’s cast:
Firee and not a twat: Rebecca
The Lone Wolf: Sofiane
Potential for…..?: Trishna
So Laid Back he’s Horizontal: Teen Titan
Raj from The Big Bang Theory: Special K
Future X Factor entrant (sob story): Jess
Sourpuss: Frances
Pathetic and Girly (supposedly): GBBD
King of the East End: Incredible Sulk
The Organisers of Karaoke for Special K: Dillon and Grainne

One Line and (basically) Done: Samuel

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