The Apprentice Episode Four: Neil Clough puts all of his faith in Kurt Wilson’s milkshakes while Luisa Zissman and Myles Mordaunt clash
In my review of last week’s episode of The Apprentice, I complained that the episodes were starting to feel a bit similar and that the teams really needed a refresh. Thankfully, that’s what we got in this fourth episode as some of the girls joined Endeavour while a trio of lads went over to Evolve. Last week’s survivors Natalie and Uzma were the lucky recruits to the boys’ team while Jason, Myles and Jordan joined the remaining girls.
Before the team shake-up, Lord Sugar announced the task where the teams would have to source fresh produce before opening a farm shop. The idea was to bring a bit of rural life to the city, with each team having one day to buy produce and one day to sell their wares in central London. I was interested in this episode almost straight away when two of this series’ biggest characters put themselves forward to be project manager. Luisa put herself forward as project manager due to the fact that she runs her own shop and sources local produce. Though Rebecca also wanted the job, it was clear that the majority of the team were happy for Luisa to be the boss, which left the award-winning saleswoman with a scowl on her face. Jordan, who apparently went to a school that served ostrich burgers, championed buffalo meat as he felt that people would be drawn to a shop that stocked unusual produce. Luisa’s other idea was to buy a load of potatoes and sell both soup and jacket potatoes as takeaway products as she felt that they would produce the most profit. Over on Team Endeavour, Neil Clough had taken the reigns and really really wanted to win the task. It’s a shame then that there were some really silly suggestions, including Alex who thought that the team should be selling cheese on toast. In the end Kurt, who is in the smoothie business, suggested that milkshakes would be a big seller as the profit margins would be high. Instead of hearing any other ideas, including one from Uzma, Neil decided to go with Kurt’s idea and never looked back.
One of the reasons I think this task was developed in the first place was to get these city types to experience rural life. So for example we saw Jordan getting over-excited while snapping pictures of cows while Luisa was surprised that there were some less-than-pleasant smells emanating from the fields. The worst offender of the bunch was Natalie who didn’t even know what a cow looked like, referring to the animal in front of her as both dog and a horse. Only Alex seemed to be in his element, apparently because he was from Wales, and revelled in his task of milking the cows. Obviously not all of what went on on day one was plain-sailing, as it seemed that both teams had issues with spending. Evolve’s subteam of Jason, Myles and Francesca were bemused by the fact that Luisa had given them such a small budget to spend on the fruit and veg that would fill up the shop. Eventually, the team got the money they wanted and were able to buy a sufficient amount of cabbages and beetroot from the very friendly farmer. However, Luisa ended up sending the trio home after feeling that they were spending too much of the team’s money on apple juice. Meanwhile, Kurt was hesitant to spend money on anything that wasn’t to do with his precious milkshakes. This meant that his subteam hardly bought anything outside of the fruit that he needed to make his drinks on the next day. Because of this, Neil and his other team members had to buy a lot of produce at cost price and blew more of the budget than they needed to.
The next day, both teams were given their shops, which were located quite near to each other on Broadway Market. Evolve’s Buffa-local was the first to open, as Luisa’s favourite colleagues got to sell in the job while some touted the takeaway products on the street. However, it was Rebecca and Jason I felt sorry for as they spent the entire day peeling potatoes and making soup. Despite Buffa-local’s first customers complaining about the prices, it eventually seemed that some punters were willing to pay a lot of cash for high quality produce. The biggest issues came from selling the takeaway items as Myles struggled to tempt any passers-by with the poorly-seasoned soup. Eventually, the lunchtime rush hit and more and more customers wanted to buy the reasonably-priced soup. However, Jason’s attention-to-detail meant that the production line wasn’t as efficient as it could’ve been and several of his team-mates commented on how slow he was. The quote of the episode came from Luisa when she said of Jason, ‘I don’t know how he goes about his everyday life.’ As the day wore on, it was clear that the jacket potatoes weren’t going to sell so Luisa decided just to get rid of the spuds in large sacks. But, she did feel that this change of strategy could’ve cost them and she wasn’t sure if she’d done enough to win the task.
Though Endeavour’s Fruity Cow took a while to open, mainly due to Uzma’s insistence to make the shop look as good as possible, Kurt’s milkshakes looked to be instantly popular. Indeed it looked as if his estimate of making two-hundred milkshakes in one day, may not have been just a boastful promise. The team’s only problem was that the focus was purely on milkshakes meaning that none of the other products really got a look-in. Kurt later hit on the idea of diversifying their product range by creating a number of juices. But I found it strange when he decided to buy some cheap concentrated apple juice from the local Costcutter, rather than use the apples that were readily available to him. As the day wore on, Neil began to despair over Uzma’s lack of contribution and her unwillingness to make a fool of herself in order to win the task. Somebody who wasn’t afraid to make a fool of himself was Alex, as he shouted at people on the street and at one point started singing for no reason. With one hour to go, Endeavour realised that they still had loads of milk leftover and so set about selling it at a ridiculously low price. As the day finished, Neil was fairly confident that he’d led his team to a resounding victory but I for one felt that he was heading for a big fall.
In the boardroom Myles criticised Luisa’s leadership skills, telling Lord Sugar that their were flaws in Luisa’s strategy throughout the day. Meanwhile, Kurt had similar words about Neil’s strategy especially when it came to the distribution of the budget. Ultimately, Evolve won by a comfortable £90 difference leading Luisa to snidely tell Myles ‘I wasn’t that bad after all.’ But Lord Sugar quickly brought her back down to Earth by suggesting that the victory had more to do with the fact that Myles’ subteam actually grasped the fact that they needed a lot of stock to fill the shop. Lord Sugar also chastised the increasingly irritating Jordan after he got a bit too excited after finding out that his team had won the task. As his team were banished to the Bridge Cafe, Neil felt in no uncertain terms that Kurt was to blame for the failure of the task. Back in the boardroom, Kurt argued with his project manager saying that the team wouldn’t have made as much money without his milkshakes – which I felt was a fair point.
Predictably, Neil brought back Kurt into the final three, alongside a bemused Uzma. Apparently Uzma was there because she contributed nothing throughout the day, which was fair enough seeing as she hadn’t been that good at selling. At the same time, I felt that Neil had been victimising Uzma from the very start and didn’t let her speak once during the opening brainstorm. Both Neil and Kurt felt that Uzma was the weakest candidate, but Neil still felt that Kurt was to blame for the failure of this particular task. During his summation Lord Sugar felt that Kurt shouldn’t have been as focused on the milkshakes as much as he was but felt that not all of the blame should be laid at his door. Meanwhile he felt that there must be a reason that Uzma’s colleagues constantly feel that she doesn’t contribute to any tasks. Sugar also felt that Neil was brow-beaten by Kurt and that he but himself in the firing line when he decided to take the helm on this task. After making both Neil and Kurt believing that they were the one who was going to leave the process, ultimately it was Uzma’s last chance and she was fired.
I personally feel that this episode of The Apprentice was the best one since the series opener. I felt that the pace of the episode was just right and that the shake-up of the teams created some fresh dynamics. There’s still no clear favourite for me but Alex’s enthusiasm marks him out as a strong favourite while Leah and Francesca both show promise. On the other side of the coin I’m really starting to detest Jordan, from his ‘quality costs’ ethos to his over-excited behaviour in the boardroom, there’s really nothing about him to like. Despite winning the task, I’m still not warming to Luisa and I feel the success of the task came down to the subteam’s persistence to buy more produce. Ultimately I’m excited about this series once again and I’m looking forward to next week’s instalment which sees the teams head abroad for the first time in years.
Did you enjoy this week’s instalment of The Apprentice? What did you think to the changes in the teams? Leave Your Comments Below.
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