Episode 8 of Series 19 aired on Thursday evening, and it was certainly a dramatic one – featuring the second double firing in just two weeks, although this one proved to be slightly less controversial than the previous episode's axing.
In other news, Jordan continues to provide viewers with all the laughs; the very first scene opened with him casually answering the phone to ask 'what's the story?', and he was the only candidate featured laughing out loud along with Lord Sugar in the boardroom after watching the other team's hmm, well, interesting, advertisement video.
Entertaining viewers isn't the only thing the (then) 21-year-old can do either, as he created some top quality branding for his team's hot sauce, which I believe ultimately saved them from losing on their own.
I must say, I think if things continue the way they have so far this season then The Apprentice will begin rivalling MasterChef for views, as it feels like every other episode is just testing how well the candidates can cook at the moment – a slightly unfair advantage for those actually in the food and catering industry.
Amber-Rose was a very good Project Manager once again, allowing others the opportunity to contribute ideas, but ultimately putting her foot down when it was (very badly) needed. It turns out if you have an A in GCSE Drama, you can quite literally do anything – who knew?
Max and Dean were a great subteam and worked really well together – I thought they came up with a fantastic product that accurately fulfilled the brief – if having the hottest pepper in the world in your product isn't a USP then I really don't know what is. I also thought that it was a great name that fitted what they'd created, although the logo was rather questionable at best – it gave me Pizza Hut restaurant walls vibes.
And then there was the video – almost a perfect replica of the advertisement that Ryan Mark created for Carina Lepore when she won the 2019 final – well, not quite, but it certainly felt like that's where Chisola got her inspiration from. Overall I would say that it was a brilliant concept, just very poorly executed.
It was made to look good though when watched after Mia's team showed their advertisement – they had the perfect excuse that it was because Anisa and Jordan hadn't sent them the hot sauce bottle, but ultimately their video was rubbish anyway, and one close up shot of a bottle wasn't going to change that.
Liam is treading on very thin ice in my opinion, as he's messed up a couple of weeks in a row, and while there haven't been any outstanding errors, his contributions when he makes them are weak – it's nearing the time for interviews; with nowhere left to hide, I do feel like he is simply a ticking time bomb before getting fired.
Anisa did perform badly in this task if we're being honest, considering the fact that most people couldn't even get her product out of the bottle, however she has such an amazing track record that Lord Sugar would have been an idiot to fire her – that ultimately was Emma and Melica's downfalls.
They might not have been the worst candidates ever, but they haven't been consistently putting themselves forwards, leading, doing more than is asked of them, which made them appear weaker than their rivals.
You would also have thought that Melica might have learnt from seeing how both Carlo and Nadia got fired for being disruptive, that the trait is not looked kindly upon in this process. Yes there's a time to disrupt and ask questions and put opinions forward, but there's also a time to sit back and realise you're being more of a hindrance than a help during tasks.
So should both Melica and Emma have been fired?
I would say yes, I don't think either of them brought anything that special or innovative to any task, and they just didn't contribute enough strong ideas and show they were capable of running a successful business.
It was very telling that the only negative thing Lord Sugar, Tim and Karren were able to say about Dean in the boardroom was that he's 'too laid back', which I would actually argue is one of his greatest strengths – he doesn't lose his head in the boardroom, he knows when to pipe down if everyone else agrees with an idea he thinks is wrong, and he calmly accepts his mistakes and tries to build and improve from them for the next tasks – that is the sign of a great business candidate.
With just two more weeks to go until the final five interviews stage, things are getting very interesting. Next week's episode is the TV Selling which always delivers the goods, so don't forget to tune in on Thursday evening for that task.
BBC's The Apprentice is aired every Thursday evening at 9pm on BBC1.
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