Does anyone feel my feeling of awkwardness when the last person is left during the two finalists picking their teams? I did!

Mind you, I would leave Paloma last myself

Not really. There's always going to be someone last.

I would have picked Paloma first

It's excrutiating to watch, god knows what it must have been like to be Paloma!

She didn't prove all that useful in the end anyway. What was she going on about: "youthful professionals"?!

Alot of editing goes on, so we don't really know how useful Paloma actually was, but what we did see was that she helped Stella write her pitch.

Is she thinking - Young suggests an age a bit more and excludes older people. Youthful suggests people who feel youthful or want to be seen as it - so includes that market too ???

If you ask me, Paloma's only real credential is her way with words, she is a gorgeous girl but comes across toxic

I was expecting a Melissa/Alex final 2, because I think that Paloma has something a bit more to give than Alex, and is very slightly more likeable than Melissa.

That being said, it was awfully awkward when Paloma smiled and laughed. xD So fake that smile.

I'm with you Jake.

She was very eloquent but there wasn't much substance to what she said. Her decision making was always quite poor.

I thought Stella's team was the weaker. It had Paloma and Melissa, who are two of the worst candidates in my view, and it also had Joanna, who I was a fan of but who doesn't get on well with Melissa.

There was indeed a scene where the women got fractious. It was interesting to see that Stella dealt with it better than Laura had; made me think maybe Stella is as good at leading as had been claimed.

Took the words right out of my mouth Sid!

My team would have been Joanna, Jamie, Liz & Laura if I were a finalist

Remember all you Joanna bashers that Stella picked her first. This was not a selling task but one that required almost everything. Ideas for a product, for the bottle, for the film. And of course a good pitch which Stella did extraordinary well. They only asked her one question whereas chris got two. They knew she could give better than she got. She was fantastic all the way through.

Thats partly an age thing though. The older lioness v the young cubs - compared to the youngest trying to control the pride.

The reported job selects the winner, if its an administrative job. I can't see anyone but Stella controlling older people and being meticulous, Laura and Joanna and Sandeesh are young and the people who might adapt to do it, like Liz, Chris, and Paloma, might find it too dull.

We don't know how many questions they were asked after the pitch. They just chose to show us one question for Stella and two for Chris.

I cringed at the moment they had to choose their teams. Reminded me of P.E. I was always crap so was one of the last to be chosen!

Must say, I was shocked when Stella chose Melissa.....why????

Bless! I was quite competitive in P.E now I play no sport what so ever

I think its because Stella had only worked with Paloma and Shibby once and both went fairly early and therefore not likely to be particularly good. Whereas she'd worked with Melissa a few times so probably had a way to handle her. Better the devil you know and all that.

I thought she was just being kind so she wasn't left as one of the last two.

Her picking Joanna seemed entirely normal (Joanna as a team member would always be a plus, it was as team leader she had flaws). The first four picks were easily predictable.

Having fewer questions can mean the audience are less interested. Even worse to have no questions at all.

Brings back nightmares for me too, though it was usually in playground games, not PE. Never used to care which side I got picked for as long as I didn't get picked last.

Surprised Paloma was last. Thought she was a candidate to win until she turned nasty in the boardroom. But I suppose they might not think of her as good support. But still... Melissa?? Joanna??

What I'm NOT surprised by is that Jamie was picked first. Throughout the whole thing he seemed like the most head-screwed-on person, the best team player, the best at rounding up the troops, the best at dealing with clients... he was very unlucky really. Didn't understand the stick he got for trying to have more input on the DVD task. Sandeesh made a complete meal of it, and when he finally told her 'something needs to be changed, like your outfits' instead of taking his advice she listened to Liz or someone and dropped the price, which cost them the task. then he gets blamed by everyone including Karen for negative feedback

Me too.


Well, you couldn't have had Laura.

In that position as far as possible I would pick people who I was confident would support me.

Stella is clearly a good manager, maybe she felt she could use Melissa's energy and enthusiasm while not letting her take over..

Chris complained that Shibby and Liz changed the colour of his drink, and implied they were not that motivated to help him win the task.

In fact I think Liz showed up on this task that she wasn't really able to deliver - it was almost as if she forgot what she had been asked to do and got caught up in the prettiness of the colour rather than how that would fit into Chris' plan.

I think Stella chose Joanna because Chris had just chosen Jamie and in the sequence of firings Joanna was next. If she had gone for anyone else it could have looked like she disagreed with Sugar (and would have wound up Joanna) so it was the easiest option. Not to say that Joanna isn't capable but if Stella hadn't picked her then but she had ended up on the team then she would have been facing a hell of a few days.

I think that was a tactical (or shrewd as LA might say) move on behalf of Stella. She was going to get lumbered with Melissa anyway so to pick her then was a way of making Melissa feel like she'd been chosen and maybe keep her more amenable on the team. I thought we might then see a clip of her quietly telling Paloma that was why she was last to also keep her 'on team'