The Apprentice 2011: Episode 11 by shoutingatco.ws

As it’s the penultimate week, the teams gear themselves up for the traditional Interview episode.  However, Lord Alan’s pals can’t be arsed to get off the golf course to help him out, and so they’re selling fast food instead.  Hopefully none of them saw that incredible Southern Fried Chicken episode of Undercover Boss last night.  Not that it matters, as they filmed this ages ago.

Helen and Tom go head to head with Susan, Natasha and Jim.  Susan is pleased that they have three minds: Natasha’s vacant stare disproves that.  Jim and Helen put themselves forward as PMs, and they’ve all but given up having names for the teams.

Susan and Natasha head out to pick up some generic lazy Mexican flair to deck out their restaurant, while Jim asks a Mexican restaurant worker what foods they serve.  It’d be good if someone invented something like a list of all the foods that a restaurant serves.  The girls struggle over branding, and Jim comes up with “Caraca’s”, in tribute to the Venezuelan capital city, with a misplaced apostrophe.  Taco Bellend.

Tom wanders through some shops, while brainstorming ideas – “Pie in the Sky” and “My Py” being particular low points.  They decide on a British branding theme, headed up by famous British explorer Christopher Columbus.  The one from Genoa.  Oh, and they’ve gone for “My Py”.

“Was Byron a vegetarian?”

The teams get their first glances at the restaurants.  Jim can’t help but say “Caraca’s” in a standard cod-Mexican voice.  Caraca’s looks cheap, like the place where Mark ended up working in Peep Show.

Hewer drops the Columbus bomb on Tom and Helen, of course waiting until after they’ve had his name prominently printed on the large menus.

Branding error ignored for now, the teams open for business.

Caraca’s are selling cold wraps and gunk covered nachos in wee cardboard boxes, but with a queue forming out of the door, things rapidly fall apart and the customer comment cards are overwhelmingly negative.

Tom and Helen’s team run with dull smoothness and appreciative customers.  So we see lots of pissed off people at Caraca’s, instead of happy pie fans.

Day two, and they’ll be feeding Lord Sugar and his influential food pals, including a honcho at Domino’s and one from McDonald’s.  Like Alan has any idea what it’s like to queue for fast food, or what to do with the small round metal things that Natasha gives him with his receipt.

There’s lots of mildly disturbing footage of Alan, Karren and the Colonel munching through their lunches.

“We tried to introduce a little personality into our brand, with the sombrero”

Jim gives a presentation to the assembled foodies, and paints himself into a corner where he has to solve 60 x 7 under pressure.  He doesn’t.

Over at My Py, Lord Sugar seems unimpressed with the slightly sorry looking py, sat in a plastic pot.  Helen provides detailed stats and figures about margins, while Tom suggests cold pork pies for the summer.

THE BOARDROOM

Jim finds out that Caracas is the capital of Venezuela, and steadfastly refuses to acknowledge that he thought it was a made up word.  Of course he didn’t! He had actually got it mixed up with maracas.  After a cursory glance over Helen’s massively superior venture, it’s on to the results.

Caraca’s averaged a score of 4/10 from the 13 foodies, but My Py stormed into the lead with 7/10.  Tom and Helen are through to the final!  The Pys have it!

Despite that abysmal pun, we’re still going to blame Jim for an uninspired, cliché brand.  It was like a “Name Something Mexican” round on Family Fortunes.

Susan admits that they don’t have anything resembling a business plan.  Or, er, any sort of plan whatsoever.  They had giant cacti, though!  Natasha’s degree in International Hospitality Management gets brought up, since she couldn’t really be bothered to use it.  She probably spent the day sat out the back, chain smoking and playing Snake.

“You did say you were Macho Nacho, didn’t you Jim?”

Alan shit-stirs a bit, asking Susan directly who she thinks should go.  She and Natasha both point their fingers straight at Jim.  Jim disagrees, bringing up the Hospitality degree.  It sounds like a blast:

Hotels, resorts, conference centres, cruise ships and visitor attractions all over the world, need effective, innovative and culturally-sensitive managers to run them.

Alan counters with a theoretical First Aid degree – for people who want to work in medicine, but are too scared to deal with anything scarier than a church fete.

Jim is praised for his charisma, BUT… it also has its downfall.

Susan is determined, BUT… doesn’t get on with people.

Natasha started well, BUT… is lacklustre.

Susan is rubbish, BUT… she’s in the final.

Jim has good spirit, BUT… er, AND… he’s in the final.

Natasha figures out that she’s fired before he says it, and is halfway out the door before the finger gets waved.

Back at the flat, Susan HILARIOUSLY pretends that she’s the sole survivor, before Jim does his Darth Vader walk into the room, saying “Did anybody order a final four?”, which he’d clearly been practising the entire way home. The git.

Next week: Interviews, init.

Comments

1. Ricki says:

   July 14, 2011 at 12:36 pm

   I couldn’t help but think of that peep show episode as well! The actual branding was very poor though, I think a team of 4 year olds could have done it. So unoriginal.
2. Tim says:

   July 14, 2011 at 1:13 pm

   Oh. I thought Sugar’s “lacklustre” comment was in reference to Natasha’s hair, not her performance. ;-)

   Knowing that Helen worked for Greggs I thought it was fairly obvious that, even though it was 2 against 3, she and Tom were likely to come out on top. The key decision was Tom convincing Helen to let him do the branding and get her to focus on the menu. He did a great job there, while Helen’s knowledge of the industry paid off handsomely in the kitchens and with the business plan.

   The fact that Natasha and Susan effectively cancelled each other out to leave Venture as a one-blag team only made it worse.

   Watching Tom’s face drop when Nick innocently – but oh so knowingly – asked whether Columbus was actually English was priceless.

   It’s still Tom all the way for me, though. Anyone who can turn his dyslexia into an advantage and come up with something as wacky (and really quite good) as MyPy is alright by me.

   http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/2011/07/14/the-apprentice-fast-food-as-easy-as-pie-or-chilli-con-carnage/

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