The Apprentice Week 10 Review - Gabrielle & Stephen In Double Firing

Not even The Joker could put a smile on Gabrielle’s fired face...

By Luke Stevenson /

Greetings all, this week€™s review of The Apprentice could be cannily timed to both avoid spoilers and also prepare you nicely for tomorrow night€™s episode with a borderline humorous recap of what went on during week 10. I would rejoice in telling you that this was intentional, however it isn€™t, unfortunately the real world has caught up with me and I€™ve only just emerged from my revision heavy and self-loathing filled cocoon of self-destruction to visit this weeks Apprentice, which can hopefully cheer me up by showing me more real world things. Oh...This week€™s task involves finding luxury deals for an online website which they sell for a day, so in fact it€™s making it cheaper for upper class people to do upper class things whilst saving money to do more upper class things, brilliant, real world at its finest. So despite the rather evil nature of trying to find bargains for self-impressed, chauvinistic expensive life livers that appear out of holes in the ground from Prince Charles funded communities, this task does promise a lot of fun. For one, €˜And on the 8th day I invented God€™ Stephen is project manager for Sterling after his assertions that he would win the next task last week, I know over exposure to Stephen€™s face isn€™t something you would usually rejoice in, however there is a good chance he will cry. Which is what we all want to see really isn€™t it? He leads Snake Hips Ricky and Smiley Gabrielle. Over on Phoenix, Husky Jade takes control to which Misogynist Adam gives his 100% backing, one can only assume that this is a smokescreen for a planned bringing down of a females regime. Sterling€™s campaign for their first victory since England didn€™t embarrass themselves at an International Football Tournament starts in a flurry of energy, Stephen sends off his troops to make bookings along the way, and try to get multiple deals from each place they go to. Conveniently for the BBC Editing team at making this look embarrassingly comical, Jade does the opposite, they sit in a room and call people for bookings, planning to get the high end, luxury products for the high end, luxury website. Eventually everyone is on the move a couple of early deals happen, Stephen gets a couple of dentist deals because upper class people love white teeth, whilst Jade and Floppy Haired Nick manage to get 50% off of a luxury spa day and deal, leading to a lot of impressed head nods from the appropriately impressed people. Meanwhile Misogynist Adam and €˜I have a dream€™ Tom swan around doing very little whilst Snake Hips Ricky gets taken on a very long winded tour of a high quality restaurant before being told they don€™t do any deals at all, oh. This time wasting convinces him it would be futile to go through with Stephen€™s plan of driving an hour out of London to see a person about one deal and his time would be better spent going to a few places. Stephen is passionate about this pitch, but clearly not passionate enough to go himself, so he lets Ricky do that with a great deal of success. He visits the home of self-righteous, self-impressed and €˜better than everyone€™ people in the form of several Michelin Star restaurants, which is an odd accreditation to give when the name is so closely associated with tyres, obviously the food isn€™t that nice. He gets several impressive deals here, whilst Stephen and Gabrielle run around like headless chickens walking in to any shop that will have them. Once this embarrassing chase across middle-upper class London ends and everyone is left very puffed out and the string master of The Apprentice orchestra is revitalised, they hand in their deals, Stephen€™s Sterling giving in 9, Jade€™s Phoenix gives in 6 and sprinkles feathers on the CEO of the company (That was poor, I apologise). These deals are left to be accepted by the company, and then put on the website for 24 hours to see how well they are taken up. To the boardroom! And Lord Sugar reveals that Phoenix only had two deals accepted, both of which were the ones worked out by Nick and Jade, Tom and Adam€™s pitch of giving discount candles to rich people apparently not having the success that nobody expected. Sterling had 3, two of which were Ricky€™s, and they managed to make £6,400 (ish) in sales, £6,000 of which came from Ricky€™s deals. It€™s impressive, but not QUITE as impressive as the £14,000 made my Phoenix. Which is Karmic retribution for Stephen making a visible smug twit of himself in front of them by laughing at their business plan. His smug nature continues throughout the rest of this boardroom debacle as he apportions blame to everyone whilst not realising his head is clearly for the chop, he talks over everybody, including Snake Hips Ricky who he seems to forget used to be a cage fighter and Smiley Gabrielle, who hasn€™t looked so devoid of happiness since she met Stephen. Lord Sugar directs blame at Stephen and Gabrielle who had the least money and were supposed to be the stronger duo whilst Ricky, who did make mistakes, makes himself bulletproof by having sold the most. Stephen must be gone, he must be, please Lord Sugar, I€™m begging of you, he fires Gabrielle! Oh my god! Lord Sugar you absolute tw- Oh...He fires Stephen, and the world stops crying. Who was fired: Smiley Gabrielle, €˜And On the 8th Day, I invented God€™ Stephen Was it the right decision? Yes, Gabrielle had been weak for a few weeks now and failed to bring any real impact to her team, whilst Stephen was just being a general abomination of a human being. This week€™s valuable business lesson: Not even The Joker could put a smile on Gabrielle€™s fired face.