One of these weeks I'll actually manage to get a blog post written a day or two after the episode is broadcast, while there's a chance the events are still fresh in people's minds. Not this week.
We start with the usual early morning phone call "It's the middle of the night!" moans one of the boys - I didn't see who - summoning them, this week, to posh food emporium Fortnum and Mason. On the way, Melissa tries to work out what the task will be. They sell food hampers and Fortnum and Mason. Maybe they'll have to create a food hamper, suggests Melissa. One which really speaks to people. Yes, Stuart agrees, laughing. A speaking hamper. They both find this hillarious. With jokes like that, you might be thinking, it's going to be a LONG episode. Brace yourselves; it's going to get a whole lot worse.
Lord Sugar arrives. There's not a hamper in sight (or sound.). But that's OK, because the thing which Fortnum and Mason are REALLY famous for, apparently, is their afternoon tea. Between you and me, I think Fortnum and Mason could do with a better marketing campagn for their world-famous afternoon teas. I had no idea they served them. Perhaps what they need is some exposure on a nationally broadcast, non-commercial television progra....... oh. Carry on.
Anyway, the task is to make and sell various baked goods of the sort that might be served at one of Fortnum and Mason's world famous afternoon teas. Or, as Lord Sugar says, looking very pleased with himself, turning FLOUR into SERIOUS DOUGH! Hahahahahahaha. The teams pretend to laugh.
Next, Lord Sugar mixes the teams up a bit. Because there's been so much fighting, he says, before moving Joanna and Melissa, who have spent most of the last two weeks fighting with each other, over to the other team. Yeah, that should work.
It's time to picke a project manager. Jamie wants the job. Melissa wants the job. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Melissa tells them she has all the right skills for the job. It's a task about food manufacturing. "That's my bag" she says. There will be some selling. "That's my bag" she says. Everything is her bag. Melissa has a lot of bags. This task, she says, "speaks to her bag". Just like the hampers they won't be making. The team vote Melissa in as team leader, and Jamie turns into the incredible sulk. On the other team, Shibby decides he wants to be team leader and no one else puts themself forward. Bo-ring.
(I think Melisssa and Stuart Baggss the Brand should get together. Then, when she looks at him she can say "that's my Ba...." - oh no, wait. That doesn't quite work. "THOSE are my Ba....." - no, never mind. They probably wouldn't get on, anyway.)
The first job is to pick what they're going to bake; Shibby's team decide nice and quickly giving us more time to watch Melissa flap about indecisively. Jamie, who has been taking lessons from Nick in the face pulling department, pushes her for a decision and she finally mutters something about bagels. That nice Lord Sugar has found each team a bakery to use, and they split into two groups, with one group doing the manufacturing and the other pitching for orders from some commercial clients.
Shibby's team seem to think this means they are now competing against each other, and not against the other team. On team Shibby, Chris, Liz and Sandeesh are the bakers; they are making muffins and bread. Or more accurately, that's what Chris is making. Liz is making some sort of bright purple stuff and Sandeesh is whining.
Meanwhile Mel is still flapping about, and starting to look more and more like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights of a large lorry. Jamie is driving the lorry. (There is no actual lorry.) She still doesn't seem to know what they are going to make, let alone what to charge for it. They go off to pitch for business at a hotel. "What would you like?" Melissa asks the customer. "Bread rolls," he says. "A thousand please. What can you do?"
Melissa giggles nervously. "We can do many things," she says. Except, as it transpires, some basic maths. We see an excruciating sequence of shots of Melissa tapping away at a calculator and scribbling numbers in a notepad, the customer looking irate, Melissa doing some more scribbling, and the rest of the team shuffling about nervously behind her. Eventually she comes up with a price of 1.82 per bread roll. Not surprisingly, the hotel declines. They're not Fortnum and Mason, you know.
Shibby and Paloma are pitching for the other team and accept an order for a million (or thereabout) muffins and croissants. Then Paloma pushes to customer to order a few more muffins.
Sandeesh has a hissy fit when the order is phoned through. She doesn't want to make stupid little rolls and stupid muffins and everything is STUPID. At the other bakery, Melissa's team get all sarcasatic about the amount of orders they have received (none) and Stuart Baggs the Brand moans about being stuck doing the cooking and not selling because he's an AMAZING salesman in case we had forgotten.
Melissa, meanwhile, is in the car on the way to the next meeting, and asks the others if one of them could do the calculations for her next time. I couldn't POSSIBLY learn this half way through the process, says Jamie, from behind the wheel of his imaginary lorry. Alex finally volunteers and in the next meeting, at a cafe chain, he steps in and actually manages to get an order. Yay for Alex.
Shibby and Paloma are also offered another order at their next pitch but Shibby turns it down, worried aboout them taking on more work than they can handle. Which is probably just as well, since Sandeesh is about to spontaneously combust from the amount of baking she is being expected to do. "All that WEIGHING!" she moans.
The next day sees them delivering the goods which have been ordered, and no one is impressed. Not the hotel owner, who only gets 16 of the thousand rolls he ordered, or the coffee shop who think the other team's cherry muffins look cheap and nasty. Shibby is wearing the world's most stripey jumper, which I can only assume he has chosen deliberately to distract the hotel owner's attention away from the missing bread rolls. It doesn't work. Shibby offers to pay him compensation money.
The rest of the day is spent selling to the general public in various locations across London. Shibby impersonates the child-catcher, Chris is dressed like an oven, Sandeesh does bugger all and Melissa still fails to make a decision about anything. Did you know, by the way, that Alex tells has 11 A* GCSEs? No, I don't know why it's relevant either.
In the boardroom, Lord Sugar makes some more bread jokes. We are reminded about Melissa's background in food retailing, and she admits she messed up the hotel pitch. The conversation about Shibby's team is more positive; could this mean his team have won?
Of course not. Lord Sugar reminds Melissa AGAIN that she was a rubbish team leader even though her team won. Their prize is dinner at a Moroccan restuarant where there are snakes, belly-dancers and a nice display of two-faced-ness (is that a word? I'm sure it's not a word. Oh well.) from Jamie, who talks smugly to the cameras about how awful Melissa was, and how she'd definitely be leaving it their team had lost, and how she needs to learn from this; before proposing a toast to her on behalf of the rest of the group.
Meanwhile, the other team are in the boardroom and we meet someone who I expect we'll see a bit more of in the coming weeks: EVIL PALOMA. After bread jokes AND doctor jokes from Lord Sugar, there's a bun-fight (ha! see what I did there? That wasn't even one of his) between the whole team, and Shibby decides to bring Paloma and Sandeesh back with him.
Evil Paloma comes out fighting; she attacks Shibby, clearly isn't scared to talk to Lord Sugar and then blatantly lies to save her own skin. I liked her up until this week; I'm not quite so sure now. Sandeesh, who has been accused of sitting on the sidelines pulls out a classic Apprentice get-out-of-jail-free card and explains that she hasn't had a chance to show Lord Sugar her best side yet, and if he keeps her in next week she can be team leader and show him what she's made of.
Lord Sugar's having none of that though - I'LL pick when you are the team leader, he says, not you. But Sandeesh lives to fight another day; Lord Sugar squeezes in one last joke about doctors before telling Shibby he's fired. Then back at the house Paloma squeezes in one more BIG FAT LIE about what hapened in the boardroom.
Will we see Evil Paloma unleashed again next episode? Who knows. My money, for what it's worth, is still on Sensible Stella to win.
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