In the meantime, thank you for virtually holding me through the last hour. It was, as always, awful but not as awful with all of you here.
Come back next week so we can gawp at the final 10, whittling themselves down like contestants for the Darwin Awards. Hooray! I’m @jnraeside on Twitter if you want some sort of counselling in the meantime.
Next week’s throw-forward sees Alan utter the immortal, “I’m cranking up the action now” which means he’s probably going to let rip a feisty guff and then challenge the contestants not to mention it, mid-boardroom next week. So we can all look forward to that.
April, Elle and Mergim have all found a satisfactory justification for their firings which enable them to get up and start again tomorrow.
From 13 to 10, the cull is complete.
April is next to get zapped. Three firings in one episode. Is that the big reveal? Crikey. David quivers and shakes as Alan ponders his fate. He is finally sent back to the house but the others are booking a triple Uber to hell.
You're fired...
Alan tries to soft soap it, but he’s kicking Mergim’s arse to the curb. “We’ll stay in touch,” he adds uncharacteristically in a way that makes my tongue feel furry.
April is still talking and accuses Mergim of being immature. He plays the refugee card for the second time this episode. I’m not sure whether Alan will go for it or not. Which way is the wind blowing?
Right, so David fugged up some measurements briefly but came good in the end. April, on the other hand, is doing what Alan hates which is trying to blend into the background.
Her self defence speech mentions something vague about “getting her hands dirty” but he doesn’t seem swayed. Mergim is the guy he usually keeps in for a good long time just for the chutzpah alone.
Lord Sugar will see you now...
So it’s Mergim, April and... it’ll come to me. Is is David??!!!
Somehow, Charleine misses Mergim’s panic decision and is sent back to the house but Alan doesn’t let her speak to thank him.
Mergim brings back April (for no reason at all) and a man whose name I literally cannot remember.
Mergim looks quite scared because now it’s up to him. Elle was literally so lame - and this is in the context of a bunch of Apprentice numpties - that she didn’t even make it to the final execution. It’s like Henry VIII handed Ann Boleyn the axe and just told her to cock off to a ditch and cut off her own head because he couldn’t be bothered.
Alan waves his usually doom-mongering finger and places it upon Joseph’s brow. Her verbally forbids Elle from bringing Joseph back.
And what’s more, he fires Elle without recourse to due process. I told you not to get your hopes up. It’s not exactly a major narrative twist. But who else will go?
Back in the boardroom
Mergim is the first to fight for his life but he can’t defend why he charged so little to clean corporate windows. Everyone tonight just grabbed prices out of the air because none of them are able to charge proper money for something they can’t do.
What did Alan expect? They can’t do useful things. He doesn’t want an artisanal craftsperson, he wants a paper juggler. What is he on about?
In the sad cafe, Elle pointlessly tries to decide who to bring back, like a terminally ill woman trying to decide who to shoot with the last of her energy as she travels towards the bright light.
The prize for the winners is a visit to a Russian spa. No idea why it is specifically Russian but the whole “bush in face” modus operandi appears to be a thing. Have a massage but if you have a massage with a load of tree in your mush, it’s Russian.
The results are in...
Versatile £530.01 profit
Connexus £1,050.08 profit
So the cursed team finally win a task. Brett and his grateful minions make their exit and Elle thinks about all the different ways she can thank Alan for the opportunity.
Selina detonates a depth charge under Brett by undermining his decision to make her scrape chewing gum off the terraces. Vana tries to push her market research and Alan scoffs like she’s talking Martian.
Alan says Sam would probably have preferred to be at Stratford-upon-Avon rather than Stratford, east London. Why, because he loves Shakespeare and wants him to be his boyfriend?
April’s power bun is taller than the Shard. How did she get it up there? It has clouds around it and a little light flashing on the top so planes don’t crash into her.
“I laid on two big jobs,” says Alan, almost challenging the candidates to laugh at his use of ambiguous language.
Elle tries a new tactic by actually hurling congratulations at Joseph for pulling her arse out of the fire.
Alan bangs on about his “complete all-rounder’ status and goes straight for Elle and her leaflet cock-up. “I designed my own flyers,” says Mergim but Alan isn’t impressed.
So from all the pre-publicity we’ve been lead to believe that tonight’s boardroom is like WAY rad and off the hook. What do you think Alan is building in there, behind the frosted glass?
“I’ve shown my leadership, squeaks Brett as his team’s fee is knocked down and down.
Elle’s team try to charge their last client more and she flat-out tells them to do one. It’s the final, desperate flurry of the day and everyone is losing the plot. “There’s too many weeds,” yells someone. “Too much bush,” replies another. It’s 6.30pm, guys. It’s over.
Brett realises that his team won’t have time to finish gussying up the football stadium. Elle’s lot crappily paint the floor in the last room in the theatre and convince themselves that it’s all good. Not one of these bozos has delivered what they promised.
This is The Apprentice, whatever the indicators, novice Elle is going to poo all over experienced Brett isn’t he? I hate the producers because they ALWAYS get this right. Darn them.
In Islington, Mergim cocks up yet another job and his sub-team has to hand some money back due to damage caused.
To be fair, the final result of the garden make-over is impressive. They’ve cleaned up. I can’t fault them.
Another blue sky moment - I think Richard and Brett are the same person. I cannot differentiate no matter how hard I try.
Back in Rachel’s garden, Vana levels with the client and says they can’t re-design her garden in one day. They promised her the Eden project but what she’ll actually get is some leaves swept up. Claude makes a point of noticing Vana’s realism. So she’s staying.
“Elle’s the project manager but you wouldn’t know it,” says Karrrren. If she doesn’t verbally rugby tackle Elle to the floor during the boardroom evisceration and flick her earlobes with criticism, my name’s not Julia Raeside. And it is.
Brett’s team have won the football business and are going at the terraces with a power wash. The boys soak the concrete and then Selina whines that all the chewing gum is too soggy to chip off afterwards. This is a metaphor for men and women, no? Not really sure how but if someone with more time could join the dots for me, that would be super.
Elle furthers her cause when the corporate client calls back and flaps like a beached stingray. “I have no experience of negotiation,” she whimpers, her eyes going like massive saucers as the boys step in to rescue her. You’re a disgrace to all businesswomen, Elle. Romi and Michelle do NOT think you should order the businesswomen’s lunch the next time you go for an executive toastie.
I think Gary has just called one of his mates and offered to clean up her garden. Vana and Scott accompany him and the three of them launch into a full garden landscaping pitch which involves him bulldozing her entire house and chucking down some crazy paving where her kitchen used to be. They have three minutes to achieve this. Go, Scott.
Elle arrives at the Stratford theatre with her team. Joseph is a “plumber” apparently and offers his expert opinion. Karrrren has just informed me that Elle actually does work in construction but I have to agree with K-face. I haven’t seen a single sign that Elle knows what the heck she’s doing. Elle is going if her team loses. I mean, the flyer thing was bad. But she is not on top of this at all.
Brett’s team quote for the football club and offer them a price which is £20 less than the other team. They’re all as stupid as one another.
April - hi again April - is casting doubt on the sub-team leader and trying to tout her team’s services for buttons. Do any of them have a clue about this stuff? Mergim merrily “screws in a nail” and says the shelves are “meant to lean to one side” like all shelves. Don’t tell me YOUR shelves are horizontal. If shelves were meant to be level, god would have sent us an invention to make that easier to judge.
Mergim, Charleine and their sub-team are cleaning windows and think they’re amazing. Look at us cleaning windows. The windows start off dirty and then we chuck water at the glass bit and wave our hands around and LOOK. We cleaned the windows. The queue of angry tradespeople containing children’s authors and pet product salespeople adds some window cleaners to their number.
Firstly, they have corporate clients to please. Then they can shill their meagre wares to all and sundry. Both teams quote to do up the costume department at the Theatre Royal in Stratford, east London. Brett’s team are measuring and sounding like they have seen wood before. I’m impressed. Brett quotes confidently and tells the client that is he all, like, well professsional and things.
Elle’s team start with a south London football club. DHFC? They want their seats cleaned and their white lines re-painted. David pulls the figure of £500 literally out of his butt cheeks. No one knows what to do afterwards so they all just stand there.
We have our answer. Elle’s team have missed their deadline for printing flyers so they have no marketing material. At all. None. Mergim suggests putting creepy notes through individual front doors.
Brett seems to have a massive advantage here. Either producers don’t want a fair fight this week and are setting Elle’s team up for a gigantic Buster Keaton-style fall. OR they know Brett is all gob and they’re setting him up for the whole shooting match to cave in on him.
Brett the builder is given the PM job and he’s visibly delighted. I had no idea that was his name. I suppose Butler-Smythe is a nom de plume.
Elle is also shoved into the PM role and looks thrilled. Her team are completely clueless about building things. “Simplicity is key here,” she says to them as they nod cluelessly.
Mergim has been “dying for it” as she gives him a team leader role. His sub-team will be cleaning windows. I think.
It’s 5.30am as per and the corporate weevils throw on their steel toe-cap boots and high vis street wear in readiness for the DIY task. Please, Alan, arm them all with nail guns and let the Pacific Heights hijinks begin.
Instead of people carriers, the teams are met with white vans. Let’s call them tool boxes, because that’s what they’ll be carrying. I bet I’ve just stolen Alan’s thunder there. That’s one of his zingers neutralised right there.
Before we continue, everybody high five for making it to the halfway point without bottling it. We are the hardcore. We are the post-bomb cockroaches of the reality TV world.
Need we really relive the children’s book task? I’m sad to say, several of my friends made a beeline to GOSH comics in Soho following last week’s episode and bought the children’s books the two teams made. What they plan to do with now is anyone’s guess but I imagine they’ll be handy if they run out of bog roll.
A quarter OF a million pound investment is at stake, no matter what the narrator says. I had previously missed Selina’s (checking the chart) sniffy “Pedestrians, out of the way,” from the recap. Oh, she’s endearing herself to us beautifully.
Is now a good time to admit I still haven’t learned the candidates’ names and I have to refer to my week 1 chart every time someone says something risible so I can credit them with it?
A War and Peace trailer, there. Should be the subtitle for The Apprentice. It lasts about as long.
“You can never un-see it,” says Reece Shearsmith in that Dr Who trailer. Should be the tagline for The Apprentice.
avenueman has introduced the topic of what to call a collection of Apprentice candidates. His suggestion of “a thicket” is superb. Any others?
I’d just like to leave this here for you all. I think it might qualify as a sonnet. I think this person may be our new leader.
Tonight, the dullards must run a handyperson business. (This is the Guardian - the software literally won’t let me type the gender specific old-fashioned term for it.)
And rumours are rife that Alan is going to do something quite off-book during tonight’s boardroom session. Seeing as how Al’s version of “really mixing things up” is to put a boy in the girl’s team and so on, this will probably be on a par with Julian Fellowes suddenly detonating Lord Crawley’s head at the dinner table, only for him to be quite all right again a few minutes later. Don’t get your hopes up.
Join me here just before 9pm in protective clothing and we’ll literally watch paint dry together.
Updated
Q. How many candidates does it take to change a light-bulb?
A. Eighteen.
One to give the candidates a unifying name ripped from cod-Latin quotes appropriated from the back of a beermat.
One who has vast experience in changing light-bulbs but can't recognise one when he see's it.
One to attempt to buy a light-bulb from the butchers shop next door to B&Q.
One to find a light-bulb then offer over the odds for it in desperation because it is already dusk.
One to interfere in the purchase by asking whether they can pay a penny for each bulb if they buy 300,000 units.
One to complain that the idea of energy efficient light-bulbs is stupid, but is nevertheless convinced they can be sold for a hundred pounds each from a stall in Camden Market.
One to shout over the phone that despite spending the day toying with the idea of buying a children's version of a light-bulb made entirely from plasticine that the others should have already bought a fucking light-bulb.
One to sit next to them in the car, pulling stupid faces contributing nothing.
One to give 110% but who exhausts themselves running around in circles holding the light-bulb still under the socket in an attempt to look busy.
One to pretend that that they can say 'light-bulb' in a foreign language.
One who thinks that all light-bulbs pale in comparison to the light that shines out of Lord Sugars arse.
One who knows exactly how to attach a light-bulb, has vast experience in lighting, but who is ignored in favour of the woman who knows how to sell cabbages and who wants to turn that into a billion dollar internet start-up.
One who sees a light-bulb and wants to 'smash it'.
One to oversee the candidates who has gold plated walls and servants who do 'that sort of thing' but still like to think they can criticise others efforts, usually based on little more than favouritism and potential ratings.
One to chase them with a camera all over London apparently because the rest of the country is too deprived to afford electricity and thus has no need for light-bulbs.
One to put the light-bulb in, second-guess themselves and take it out again.
One to blame everybody else for the failure of this task in a poor effort to take the light off themselves.
One to get fired, allowing others to feel better about their own failures, and the audience to feel smug.
And the only thing that has had a spotlight shone on it is the future of the capitalist system, the bulb is back in the box and darkness endures...