The Apprentice 2013 Week 6 Review

This week saw the teams put together away days for business clients that would involve them taking part in team building exercises, motivational speeches, learning activities and all the sort of stuff middle management dorks like. Lord Sugar Daddy was quick to point out that these away days should be business related and not a jolly, but let’s face it, all business days out are just jollys.

After switching the teams up, he made Fran the PM for Evolve as she had experience in the area (which meant she was going to lose) and he put Leah in charge of Endeavour because she kicked up a right stink about not being in charge last week. Rebecca was visibly quite upset by this as she had made big plans this week to be Project Manager. Sucks to be her I guess (more on that later).

Funnily enough, both teams came up with using a school theme for their event days which I can only assume is the ‘go to’ option. However Leah wasn’t happy with something too gimmicky and instead opted for a History tour as it would be educational and stimulating (not to mention as dull as her). Went put to the group, she was outvoted 4-2. She still went with the idea. What a good team leader eh? After being laughed out the meeting room for her History idea by the bankers she was supposed to be ‘motivating’, they then went with a military themed day that also included sumo wrestling. Which, of course, isn't gimmicky at all.

Fran’s team stuck with the school theme and decided to also throw in wine tasting, a motivational speaker and cupcake design while not dressing up as school teachers or pupils. But they did have a pink flamingo. In a complete act of madness, her team just threw together any ideas they had and then threw money at it for no discernible reason.

Can you see why this was a difficult episode to sit through?

I’m not even sure where to begin. Do I talk about Fran’s horrendous opening ‘motivational’ pitch? Do I start with Myles and Neil’s pantomime opening before revealing Alex in full military gear and aviators? Do I discuss Rebecca and Jason hosting a wine tasting event without any knowledge of wine or how much each cost? Do I then talk about Rebecca clutching at straws trying to link wine tasting to selling holidays? What about the clients asking what the relevancy any of this had to their jobs? Even they knew it was utter tosh! Or do I open with the military day being rained off so they just had Myles and Neil hit each other in sumo suits?

I’m honestly not sure. I’m not even sure I saw all the things I saw - I was too busy hiding behind my hands.
Thankfully the day came to an end and they headed back to the boardroom. Lord Sugar Daddy pointed out everything they did wrong – which was a lot – as well as hear some home truths from Luisa who said quite loudly during the day that she was not a fan of the corporate world.

That’s right. Someone who applied for The Apprentice, a show about corporate business, is not a fan of the corporate world. That would be like applying for X-Factor and hating music. But, I actually turned a corner on Luisa on last night’s show. Sure what she said was daft, but she made some valid points. The business world is full of waffle, corporate speech, ‘blue sky thinking’, ‘taking things offline’, middle management pretentious idiocy and she is like a breath of fresh air. It's like she watched The Apprentice last year and said to herself, 'I am not going to be like them' and then stuck two fingers up at the TV while swigging a can of larger. She’s loud, obnoxious and doesn't care what she says. Plus, people only hate her because she's beautiful. Or something like that...

That said, Neil, Alex and Kurt are still my favourites. She at least makes the Champion’s League 4th spot.

When the figures came through, it was revealed that both clients asked for refunds and Fran’s team lost by around £500. While they went off to the Sad Face Café, the winning team went to a relaxing spa where we got the pleasure of seeing Alex get his eyebrows waxed. It was a beautiful sight.

Back in the boardroom, Lord Sugar Daddy noted that the reason they lost was because they spent too much money on pointless things like £300 on decorations that didn't matter and 600 quid on a motivational speaker that they could have done themselves. Although Luisa offered her services for cupcake making - which did save the team nearly a grand - it couldn't keep her from being brought back for the bottom three along with Rebecca who pushed for the £600 speaker.

I actually forgot Jason was in the boardroom with them. I figured he was in the back still peeling carrots.

For a while it looked like Luisa’s number might be up, which seems a shame now that she’s among my favourites, but it was Rebecca who met the Fingerpoint of Doom for being pretty lazy and useless. Perhaps now she can return to that plan of hers to capture those 101 Dalmatians…

Despite the Twitter outrage at the decision, I felt like she was the right person to go. For this task in particular, she cost them £900 while Luisa saved them £1000. Fran probably could have gone as well as she has shown nothing in this entire series to the point where I struggled to remember her name today.

We’re now halfway through the process, so my predictions for the final four have come down to Neil, Myles, Luisa and Kurt. As much as I’d like to see Alex make it to the end, I get the feeling his brash outbursts of “you’re utterly clueless” might be his downfall. I’d at least like to see him in the interview stage just to see how he’d react to people putting him down…