Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, you’ll have heard that the highly anticipated bloodbath of eagerly suited entrepreneurs is back and it’s better than ever. This year the selection of candidates are perhaps more eager, feisty and success-hungry than ever before, and already we have seen some heated rows and classy back-stabbings take place in the boardroom.
We love nothing more than to sit down on a Thursday evening and shake our fists angrily at the television muttering that we could do a better job ourselves and quaking in fear whenever we hear Claude’s soft but extremely sinister voice. We get a thrill from watching these highly educated and successful business people dash madly around London wearing ridiculous costumes and desperately trying to fling whatever they’ve been tasked to sell to the bemused British public. It just makes great television.
Last week’s instalment had it all; tension, arguments and a good old fashioned back-stabbing, all set against the backdrop of a fashion retail task in the infamous Liberty of London. The episode started with the dramatic departure of Aleksandra, for whom the process was just too much. Still recovering from her shock departure. We see Sofianne and Grainne put themselves forward and address their teams. At this point things are civil and friendly, but are about to rapidly descend into a dark hole of passive aggressive.
Sofianne chose handbags as her item for sale, whilst Grainne’s team opted for the more traditional scarves that Liberty is famous for. But for reasons unbeknown to the rest of us, they went for some questionable cat scarves with cut out faces and a long stretched body. They are clearly targeted towards a select, small market of eccentric cat-enthusiasts and did not sell well at all.
Jessica, who has been a strong candidate throughout the past few weeks showcased her talent by flitting between being a live mannequin and also being the top seller of the day. Karthik transformed spontaneously into Gok Wan and released the fashion-guru we all knew was inside him while Sofianne embarrassed himself by making zero sales despite claiming to be the best salesman on the show.
Mukai and Grainne later locked horns over the live-mannequin debate and ultimately Grainne made the call and decided against it – the move that would ultimately lead them to lose the task.
Mukai turned on Grainne in the boardroom as we knew he would, and suddenly Karthik went from camp fashion king back to Apprentice Candidate and in true Apprentice style, he swiftly stuck his knife in too and claimed that he had been wrongly placed. Which is true, he was side-lined by Grainne who saw him as a bit of a loose cannon, but he sure did work it.
Mukai’s desperate attempts to shift the blame onto anyone in a five-meter radius however, failed. Lord Sugar made another terrible joke that everyone felt obliged to laugh at: ‘So you know your Helmut Langs from your Vera Wangs’ *pause for ripple of awkward chuckle* but ultimately still fired Mukai, criticising him for not utilising any of the skills he claimed to have by putting them into practice.
There was then the classic scene where all the candidates sit together in the house speculating about who they think should go, and then having to pretend to be absolutely elated when the person they hoped would have been fired saunters back in and they a very fake looking hug. Tensions certainly ran high this week, and will continue to rile up and divide the candidates as the week’s progress and the competition gets tighter. And if next week’s preview is anything to go by, it’s going to be a drama filled instalment that I can’t wait to devour.
Edited by Susan Akyeampong
Sources:
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