Next week looks fully Carry On or a particularly lively night in Hi-De-Hi’s Hawaiian ballroom. I won’t be missing that. If you think you can stomach it, join me here next week at the same time.
I must go, my jet ski is waiting. Good bye.
So, and then there were nine. Did you predict the leavers? I certainly didn’t. I mean I predict Karthik’s departure every week but he just seemed unkillable as the weeks went on.
Back at the house, Alana and Dillon waltz back in to screams and shock as a lone voice calls out weakly, “Samuel? Samuel?” Samuel’s gone, friend. And he’s not coming back.
Oh the sailor’s hat is from NEXT week. That’s something to look forward to.
I fall for it every time, like a labrador being dummy-thrown a ball. How on EARTH is Samuel leaving for knocking a couple of quid off a snorkel? Or whatever it was.
Is it Dillon? No. It’s Samuel.
Dillon knows it’s Dillon. We know it’s Dillon.
Dillon’s a nice guy but we know what happens to those types on this show. Alan doesn’t want to hear anymore and the piano arpeggios of expectant doom rise on the soundtrack.
Oh the finger it moves and Alana is let off this time. So, Samuel or Dillon. It’s obviously Dillon.
Karrren tells Alana she’s too quiet and softens it with a bit of praise, but she’s basically using her enormous hair to dominate her. Alana cowers.
Samuel must, however, defend his record on independent price-setting first. Maybe Alan really doesn’t want a loose cannon. Or perhaps he’s just throwing shade at Samuel first before firing the other two into the sun.
Grainne and Courtney are sent back to the house and the other three are told to go outside and think about what they’ve done. Karthik is in the taxi of no hope, saying it should have been Sam-yew-elle. Funny pronunciation.
Karrren, Alan and Claud discuss who to kill/fire next. Or maybe just keel-haul? And back they come - Alana, Dillon and Samuel. It can’t be Samuel.
Grainne is asked to choose two colleagues to bring back into the boardroom instead. Zoinks!
Dillon talks up his visual flair but can’t put his finger on where things went wrong oh wait, yes he can. It’s Karthik’s fault.
Alan makes some dreadful quip about the skipper skipping his duties and then goes all serious. I think he’s going to actually chop his head off he’s so angry.
He does! Karthik is fired! No bringing two team mates back, he’s gone. Who is next?
If it’s a straight fight between Karthik and Samuel, I’d bet the farm on Sam staying. Meanwhile, Alana is embarrassed at her £42 worth of sales and says it’s only for the lack of “two more fish”. Those two fish may have cost her the game.
Karthik calls it a “very horrible day in business” in an attempt to come up with something as iconic as the Queen’s annus horribilis.
Claud says the team should have “approached customers” during the day to ask them if they’d like to buy a jet ski. Yeah, cold-selling jet skis. That’ll work. Oh Claud.
At the sad cafe, Courtney is furious to be drinking “shit coffee” as well he might. Samuel’s early blame-shifting is recalled efficiently from his rolodex memory while Karthik flails wildly, telling him he’s a snake in the grass. Hey, it worked for Trump. Just shout, It’s rigged. It’s rigged, until someone lets you win.
Fran thinks the curse of Nebula has now been broken, before getting into the boat and presumably watching it sink beneath the waves. We are informed that Jessica’s arse is absolutely killing after rowing. Someone get her a drink.
Fran’s team wins a trip to the Leander rowing club to meet James Cracknell and presumably try not to crack her entire face in twain with the sheer joy of not being a loser.
Fran’s team made over £40k in big sales.
Karthik’s team didn’t shift a single jet ski. Alana looks like she’s been slapped. Fran is in tears because she didn’t lose. She didn’t lose! She can’t believe it.
£2,580 - small sales for Fran.
£188.90 - small sales for Karthik.
Paul talks up Jessica’s energetic selling in a way that makes me think he’s sweet on her. She told big fat whoppers. But he does also bring in Trishna for commendation so maybe he’s just being generous.
Right, the money.
Fran drops the first “myself when a simple my would do” of the episode, and she’s fired. Well, she is in my imaginary company.
Alana says her watersport boards were a bit of a tough sell but Claud assures her that her lack of sales was not down to bad product. He says it twice which is a good indication that it’s time to shut and stop talking over Claud.
“I managed to sell some of the fish pillows,” says Dillon weakly like a man who will probably look back as fish pillow selling as the high point of his career.
Karthik is already in full flow, looking like a man who has an arse that needs covering. Alan says his team were facing the wrong way to start with which is a fundamental error if you think about it. The punters are that way, guys.
The teams sit in the boardroom, ready for battle. And for battle read pissy blame-passing and scowling.
Once, just once, the sound editor could cut the sound of a flushing loo in just before Alan opens that glass door. One day.
The boat show has to go on, says Alan, warming up his zinger muscles. Oh, there is goes. And it’s gone. The zinger. Something about the Cote d’Azur? No. I missed it.
The weather is now openly laughing at them as the gazebos fly away and trading ends for the day. Fran plays the hearts and minds game with Nebula, ending things on a sweet note by thanking them all for their work from the bottom of her heart. They can’t be mean about her now, can they?
Paul tells his teammate that she looks like something out of “a Stanley Kubrick movie”. Name one Kubrik movie, Paul, and I will give you this biscuit.
Fran, somehow, sells a boat to a man. For like £18k or something. How the blithering heck did she manage it? Who buys a boat from an Apprentice candidate? At a boat show full of people who actually know their stuff? This man will turn out to be a passing performance artist with an empty bank account who did it as a comment on capitalism.
Grainne has the sniff of four sales on the jet skis and passes the customer on to the dealer to see if they can work out a discount. Right thing to do? Wrong thing to do? Honestly, you cannot win in this situation. If you delegate, you’re weak. If you put your tackle on the table, you’re cocky.
Alana and Dillon clash like Hera and Zeus. The pathetic fallacy is splendid here. The rain, their thunderous faces and under-breath swearing.
Karthik struggles on as the rain seems to get heavier and heavier. He invokes the gods, telling punters this is some sort of sign from up there. What is it the gods are saying, Karthik? Is it, buy waterproof clothing?
“Are you into watersports at all?” asks Samuel who either knows this will make the edit or is quite quite clueless about sexual slang.
Alana cowers in the rain, head bowed, lipstick clinging tenaciously to her lips and sports her now traditional “who are these idiots” expression. I like her.
Karthik is modelling the Jedi robe and saying personal things to punters about their bodies, which quite puts them off.
Meanwhile, Fran tries to sell a massive boat to a man who knows so much more about boats than she does. The punter sits in the boat and says it feels too much like a hot tub. Sofiane is convinced that “he wants it” and says this to the man’s retreating back as he disappears forever.
Dillon sells the watersport board thing (almost 300 quid) by saying it’s “extremely floatable”. Oh my god, I didn’t know he was an EXPERT. I want one. How can I carry on without one? I want to be extremely floatable.
Fran has scraped her hair back today to show she means business with a capital bun. She is on Sofiane’s case from minute one, filling his tiny brain with the tech specs of their speed boat. It’s not going in.
The sub team are trying to sell brightly coloured tat to old ladies who are just out for a walk. To give her her due, Jessica is giving it her all, making up sales figures and inventing imaginary family members in a bid to shift one sodding snorkel. No deal.
Samuel gets stick from Claud for making up his own prices. Surely big Al will see this as initiative.
Dillon is visually merchanding their stall which basically involves hanging fish everywhere. No sign of that captain’s hat yet.
Paul boasts about his prowess at blowing stuff up and I think he means inflating rather than TNT. No one is impressed.
Courtney and Grainne inspect their £15k jet ski while they go through the instruction manual. Claud stands there with his arms folded, smirking away like he’d have done it quite differently. I suppose they shouldn’t be reading the manual while potential buyers are strolling past.
Samuel is like this focused, articulate torpedo of good sense and Karthik is a clown in massive shoes. How is Karthik still here?
“I’m not gonna lie, I’m a natural at this,” says Fran, regaining a modicum of confidence.
It’s the next day and Karthik is hugging a fish cushion. Know how he feels. If he’d knocked those out on November 9th in New York he’d have sold out in seconds.
Grainne wins the business she wants and waltzes off with the jet skis. Then Fran calls to get the same item and the rotter, Nigel, tricks her by asking her to tell him the spec of the jet ski she wants. That was a bit mean. She immediately reassures the camera that the failure to get hold of some jet skis is all Sofiane’s. Nice.
The high end teams now swap jet-ski for speedboat and vice versa. Fran thinks she’s won over both sellers is guaranteed to get both items. Everyone thinks they’ve nailed it.
Ooh, there’s Jessica but she is no longer allowed to speak in case the spirit of Jim Carey leaps back into her face and tries to claim it as its own.
Courtney asks some pertinent questions about the pricey items, almost like he knows what he’s doing. Sofiane gets slated by Karrren for just jazzing with his vendor but not getting the detail he needed.
A man comes out of a building holding a “watersports board”. Come on, that’s not a thing. A watersports board? Is this a trap or a joke product? A paddle board is brought out and it’s the same thing. Short, fat surfboards, all. What do they take us for? Wait, of course. These are Apprentice candidates. They would totally pay £250 for a short, fat surfboard.
Alana is leaning towards the snorkels, mostly in a bid to push Karthik into any kind of decision. On anything. CHOOSE something, man.
Meanwhile, out in the harbour, the high-end teams, tasked with selling the big potatoes, are trying out the merch - speed boats, jet skis, you know the sort of stuff. Still no sign of a big blow-up banana.
Off they go to Dorset and Samuel gets his first dig in at Karthik, telling him he’s cocked up job distribution. Note that down, moderators.
The teams go to a place that has stuff and begin to choose their stuff. Rubber fish, dangerous retractable fishing rods, some kind of underwater Jedi robe. And there are the snorkels! Paul sounds somehow better in a plastic mask. Team it with the Jedi robe and he could be a shit stormtrooper.
Karthik rallies his team like a kid trying to choose pick and mix. There’s no method to it but he tries to make it look good, showing his workings.
Fran doesn’t like Paul’s personality, but thinks she can work with him as long as he’s a long way away. Logic there.
Al makes Frances PM for Nebula and Titans will be helmed by Karthik.
His job done, Alan slopes off to do whatever he does when the teams are out busying themselves with his bullshit errands fetching long stands and tartan paint and the like.
Fran really hopes this is her week to not be on the losing team because she’s tried every sodding herb tea in the Bridge Cafe and she’s developed a permanent metallic coating on her tongue.
Down at the docks, Karrren and Claud flank Al in the trad fashion on the “super yacht”. He is keen to point out its superness. No ordinary yacht this.
They must go to a boat show in Poole and sell boaty stuff to boaty sorts.
It is week seven and 11 candidates blunder around their Habitat showroom in curlers and pyjamas, muttering about the docks. They’re going to the docks to meet Alan on a yacht. Like millionaires.
Rebecca looked so angelic bathed in the golden light of a pre-Trump sun. More innocent times. “Do you have African black soap?” she asked into her upturned smart phone as a man in a soup shop shrugged and said yes, probably.
Courtney’s team won last week’s challenge. Seriously, who is Courtney? I’m kidding. (I’m not kidding.)
I think I just saw someone in a captain’s hat. It’s not too late to switch to I’m A Celeb...
As the smoke of a thousand volcanoes engulfs the earth, settle down for another hour of The Apprentice where no one is here to make friends and everyone is here to publicly display their lack of brain.
The accompanying picture of Paul trying to talk to Trishna while they’re both wearing snorkels. Indoors. Is peak Apprentice isn’t it? You have to admit, the producers have a nose for amusing comic tableaux.
Who is left? Who looks shaky this week?
Last week we bid farewell to Rebecca who believed that being nice in business was a winning tactic. We live in a post-truth, Trump-led world now, Rebecca. It’s kill or be killed and currency has been replaced by dead rats.
The remaining contestants must try to focus on the task ahead and pretend they can’t see the darkening sky or hear the approaching thunder of end-times hooves.
It’s boat show week! How I’ve LONGED to hurl nautical puns at you while the world burns. Finally, the remaining cabin boys and girls are off to a trade show in Poole to sell stuff they know nothing about to punters who do. Avast! See you here just afore 9pm (pirate talk creeping in) and we’ll spend another pleasant hour judging the dizzy fools as they scurry about like beach balls caught in a whirlpool.
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