u/rachelf1990

So after my previous post of reviewing the first 3 episodes of series 20, I am going to look at episodes 4, 5 and 6.

Episode 4. Water.

Another good episode which saw contrasting fortunes. Karishma took charge of her team and came up with an excellent advert that she and Kieran did a brilliant job at.

Megan tried to chime in that she had an A Level in media studies which meant she should be involved in the advert (but unlike Melica last year she didn't give us what grade she got) but Karishma probably had the previous task in her head and declined to Let Megan take control (understandably).

The tik tok video was poor compared to the other team but Karishma wasn't thst involved with that, nor with the bottle which was a big disappointment but the pitch sealed the deal with getting the win. Lawrence even said that Karishma and Kieran were the reason they won which was nice.

What was less nice was the Other team. Connor led the team and branding was led by 'expert' Roxanne who came to prominence this task. Which either meant she was going to be brilliant or get fired. And as soon as they created the name North for a commuter drink with a compass on the bottle, it was certainly the latter.

The advert was little better. Karishma's advert had a punch and a clear message. Connor made another mistake of having him and Pascha (her first episode of prominence as well) be co-directors which led to conflict and a boring advert that for me made little sense.

However what could have saved them was the tik tok video which was full of energy and was really good and was the only thing they did better than Karishma's team. But it wasn't enough to sway it.

Connor bought both Rajan and Roxanne in from the branding team. Rajan was a little surprising as I thought he would bring in Pascha. But there you go. And Roxanne was rightly fired for the branding.

Episode 5. Flowers.

Selling flowers went right back to the very first episode of the apprentice (though they only sold them on the streets and didn't do this corporate order crap. I hate those so much).

Rothna was PM and was excellent from the start (despite having I think the weaker team). She got the message that it was a low spend, high profit task and she spent as little as possible on flowers, her corporate display was pretty good and she made an overall profit of over £2000. And she even managed to get a good performance out of Megan and Andrea. Very impressive.

Vanessa put herself forward as PM and was doomed from the start. Mainly because the two people who had been strong performers up to this point, Karishma and Lawrence chose to have a collective lets screw this right up task.

Lawrence first. His pitch to the corporate client was dreadful and he didn't get across to Vanessa what the corporate client wanted. So they created a flower wall that the corporate client couldn't use. I think the corporate clients were extremely generous to even give them £1000 for that. I thought they would refuse to pay!!

Now Karishma. Karishma told Vanessa to add flowers to the bouquets which made them look nicer but far more expensive. Okay Vanessa didn't need that much persuading but still. And then Karishma convinced Vanessa to pay some extra for extra bouquets that they didn't make. Oh Karishma.

Anyway Vanessa's team lost and while Vanessa brought in Lawrence, she didn't bring in Karishma but instead she brought in Pascha which was completely wrong and even Lord Sugar called Vanessa out on this choice. Overall Vanessa had been a disaster as Pm and was out the door.

Episode 6. Egypt.

Ah the corporate away day and this would be the episode when a lot changed.

Lets start with Priyash as Pm. Meh. He was okay ish but was greatly helped by Karishma putting episode 5 behind her and once again being her ace self. Lawrence also did an okay job (once he got the price down when talking to the corporate client) and didn't promise luxury (this will be brought up again)

Connor led the tour of the Desert and while they didn't bring snacks along for their guests, it was still very good and the guests clearly enjoyed that part.

The cooking side was mixed at best. Levi decided that he would finally be noticed and noticed he was by throwing away the wrong part of the Parsley meaning the curry was nearly ruined. Priyash has to try and rescue it by improvising and made the curry very hot. But the guests managed to eat it.

However the rice pudding was screwed up by Levi and Priyash actually went out to apologise to the clients which went down well. So its not all bad. In the end they got a 20% refund which meant they still made a profit. So not bad.

Now to Megan's side. Megan Put herself forward as PM and it was a near car crash. She basically promised a luxury meal to the corporate clients (never ever use that word) and failed to tell them that they would be kayaking to their meal. Which meant the clients were ill prepared to get wet. And also 2 hours late for the meal.

Before we get onto the meal, Kieran was negotiating for the food, then little miss positivity Andrea piped up and ruined it (learning nothing from week 3). Then during teh discussions for the pottery which would be the treat after dinner (Priyesh's team did coffee making), Carrington, Rothna and Kieran were discussing what they could do to get the costs down and Andrea just kept coming up with problems not solutions. Great team player.

Anyway back to the meal, since Megan's side were 2 hours late they had to rush the food and Carrington undercooked the potatoes. Not great. But too much fuss was made over it. Then Kieran screwed the fish up. This was barely mentioned. At least Rothna gave them a nice pudding. God knows what Andrea did.

Anyway the clients were pissed and asked for a more than Generous 50% refund which meant Megan's team lost and also they made a loss.

Megan brought Carrington and little miss positivity (Andrea) back into the boardroom and Lord Sugar fired all 3 in a triple firing. I disagree with Carrington (personally Rajan should have been in the final 3) but Megan and Andrea were 100% deserved.

So 6 tasks in and 70% of the women fired. Not looking great.

It's been two weeks today since the apprentice final of series 20 and I have reflected on the episodes and what I thought of the series. So here are my thoughts of each episode of series 20. (I'm going to do it in chunks since I realise I have a lot to say here)

Episode 1. Hong Kong.

Absolute chaos. I think it was a ridiculous idea to get 20 people who had never gone to a country like Hong Kong to try and buy 9 items with a very restricted time frame and production clearly holding them back as well. No wonder that out of 18 items both teams as a whole got a grand total of 5 items.

But. I would also say that there was too much focus on trying to get 1 item. 50% of the girls team seemed to get obsessed over fish paste. After going down someone's shed there should have been a discussion of okay lets move on and come back to it. But who knows, I wasn't there.

The boardroom scene location was incredible and looked stunning. I can't deny it. But I also can't deny that I felt having 6 candidates in the final boardroom felt too much but a double did feel necessary (I would have been fine with Nikki, Georgina and Andrea as the final 3).

Episode 2. Story book.

Well we had progress. 50% of the girls team looked competent. Roxanne came up with a good story and her and Karishma did a brilliant job on the design team and the character looked great. The other 50% led by PM Andrea on the other hand looked crap tbh and the story was nearly not completed and Andrea decided that she wasn't to blame. Lucky victory there.

God the boys on the other hand were a mess of biblical proportions. Marcus seemed to have no clue at all. The idea was terrible, the character was meh and the book was incomplete. And then Priyesh tried to sell 50000 of them. Both sides were a joke and then Marcus backtracked about who he was bringing into the boardroom. Meant nothing as he was rightly fired.

Episode 3. Chicken vs Egg.

The first really good episode of the series. Dan lead the chicken team and did okay as PM. They got a good price for the corporate order and while they sold okay with the public it was competent but nothing special.

The main focus was on Carrington's team. I think she did okay with the pasta despite her picking a taster team with so many restrictions. But her subteam tanked her team so hard.

Karishma (the only person on her subteam with any sense) started her corporate negotiation by going up. Megan then instantly dropped the price to £12 (Karishma went up to £27), the corporate clients couldn't believe their luck and Tanmay closed on £11.80 just to make matters worse.

Then in the car ride back, Karishma was telling Carrington the low price, Andrea (who was silent during the negotiation) decided to try and throw Karishma under the bus by saying she had promised luxury Salmon as well and Megan tried to Deny that she wrecked the negotiation. Poor Karishma.

Anyway onto Cooking. I actually get not knowing how to boil an egg. The smell of boiled eggs makes me sick. (Literally). But. Andrea did know but didn't know how to do it in industrial scale. Which isn't great. Megan didn't know either, annoying Carrington big time.

Carrington was partly saved by her sales team, in particular Kieran and Lawrence doing a brilliant job selling the pasta and they sold out for a high price. But guess who was wrecking the corporate event.

Megan was topping off a great task for her lol, by deciding to host the corporate event rather than help Karishma in the Kitchen make the canapés which led to the food not being great. Karishma had to grab Megan in front of guests to get her to help. They had to give away an 8% refund (which was only that low because they paid such a low price. The corporate clients were willing to pay £20 a head)

Anyway, much to No-ones surprise Carrington's team lost and rightly she and Karishma in particular pointed the finger at Megan and Tanmay. And Carrington brought them both into the final boardroom. (Kudos to Karren here who spoke up for Karishma in both the debrief before the results and the first boardroom after Megan and Tanmay tried to change the narrative to say that the client was getting frustrated which was a lie.)

But strangely Tanmay was fired instead of Megan. Tanmay did close on £11.80 but Megan put them in this mess in the first place but going straight down to £12 stuffing them over. And then doing the above. God almighty.

Anyway After a very poor start, the series did kick off well. Would episodes 4, 5 and 6 continue the trend...