She was the best seller in the first two tasks, even if she did make a mistake with some suggestions. This week, I thought that her suggestion about the motivational speaker was a good one. That was what brought the away day back to business; otherwise it would just have been a day out.

Didn't the team spend about 2,000 on the task?
Why was it specifically Rebecca's bit of the money which was to blame?

Surely the problem with the task was that it was a disorganised shambles and it should have been of a standard in the first place where the people on the away day didn't demand a discount?

From the looks of it the motivational speaker they hired was probably best part of their task and if they didn't get him in then they could have been looking at a loss of a 100% discount?

He did appear intent on getting Rebecca brought back in. It was there to see in the boardroom part of the episode.
he practically told Francesca that if she didn't bring Rebecca back in she would be getting fired instead.

If anyone disagrees with that, watch the episode again. Francesca pretty much had no choice and had to bring Rebecca back into the boardroom.

This was probably the clearest example I've ever seen on the show where Alan Sugar has hinted to the project manager in the clearest terms, without literally saying their name, who he wanted them to bring back in.

It's so arbitrary isn't it?

I've seen candidates on this make the most monumental balls ups, but Alan Sugar just says that they've been a naughty person, but that he sees potential, and that he's keeping an eye on them from now on.

It was like this last year when I remember many people on here being shocked at up to the first 5 candidates getting fired.
Of course Alan Sugar can fire who he pleases, fair doesn't need to come into it, and frankly he can do whatever he wants. But with those first firings last year especially, it just didn't even seem to make sense based on what we watched.

Actually, I thought it was the other way round. Sugar did provide some clear direction, but I took it as meaning that Fran shouldn't bring back Luisa just because of the obvious animosity between them.

I took it as that, but he did hint pretty strongly that Rebecca should be brought back.

It was the same situation here as it was in the beer task, only there wasn't a Tim to be the fall guy. I'm surprised Luisa didn't go for the jugular with Rebecca actually, considering she defended Tim against her in the beer task but yet the same situation and she's having a go at Fran instead.

Also, did anyone else happen to notice that Fran actually apologised to Rebecca for bringing her back in? (It was when Fran was asked who she was bringing back).

But preceding that he did what has become a habit of his now. He'll point out what he believes are a certain candidate's failings, then straight afterwards ask the project manager "Who do you want to bring back in?"

It's become apparent now that he tries to hint specifically towards who the project manager should bring back into the boardroom.
In this episode though he actually threatened to fire Francesca if she didn't get the hint. So I don't think it was about Louisa, otherwise Fran would be a goner (as Sugar promised she would be) it was more about Francesca not bringing Rebecca back because she was her friend.

Bizarrely Lord Sugar told Francesca she would be fired if she brought the wrong person back, and then didn't when she did with Luisa , but fired someone else.

Luisa had the sense not to attack two of them strongly - that would make it look as if she couldn't work with anyone. Her job was to look docile and controlled enough for Lord Sugar not to take fright.

Luisa's analysis was right though. if you judged it on spend to achieve, Rebecca should have gone for suggesting spending .If you started at the point that they had lost (though actually the other team did no better) the question was more what they did wrong strategically - and that was more Francesca's fault. Lord Sugar reverted to norm and got rid of the quieter one who had made less impression ,on him

What I noticed at the start of the task is that Sugar specifically made the point that this task was not just about profit and that it was equally about providing a quality service. He really emphasised this very strongly at the time.
Which made it appear at the start like one of those ambiguous tasks where an arbitrary decision is made.

But then when it came to the boardroom stage that quickly evaporated into thin air when he stressed the point that if they had spent less then they would have 'romped home'. Implying that the task was purely about profit.

He always seems to move the goalposts in order to fit a situation he wants to occur.

I think (just an idea) that Francesca made her boardroom choice because she knew that Rebecca and Luisa didn't like each other at all, and she was hoping that they'd have a fight and therefore one of them would talk herself out, leaving Francesca safe.

He did, but I wouldn't read too much into that. Remember a lot of what is said in the boardroom ends up on the cutting room floor. What we saw was an explanation for why Fran chose Rebecca. But equally Sugar probably critiqued every member of her team, but as she didn't choose Jason etc we didn't see what was said about them.

Personally, while I don't think Rebecca's a great loss, she spent £600 on the one part of the day that did work. It seems odd that this was painted as the *only* reason Evolve lost. What about the lack of business content? Or the invisible theme? Or the shoddy execution of the rest of the day? Or those blasted flamingos?

I think Rebecca was slightly ambushed as she said on YBF, and wasn't really "up for a fight" plus I think she has more dignity that to enter into shouting matches with "gobby" brats.

I thought she came across really well on YBF!

I think he kept Francesca and the awful Luisa because they clearly loathe each other and that makes for good telly. It is a tv show after all.

Feel bad for Rebecca though, as she was clearly the best candidate out of the three of them

She was fired because she wasn't as pretty as the other 2 that were in the boardroom with her.

To be honest I thought Rebecca was very good looking, especially on YBF a very classic look as opposed to the chav that is Lusia.

I doubt that. Anyway, I thought Rebecca was the best looking of the three. Francesca is quite ordinary looking and Luisa is cheap and chavvy looking (despite the fact that she obviously thinks she's stunning).

It was a very strange boardroom last night. LS seemed to give himself plenty of wriggle room by stressing that he would be judging on quality as well as profit - but then he focussed totally on profit for no apparent reason. His warning to Francesca was really blatent and it was obvious that she really didn't want to bring Rebecca back in but felt blackmailed into doing so. I have no idea why LS was so anxious to remove Rebecca from the process but there seemed to be something going on. She didn't deserve to be fired; she came up with ideas which was more than some of the others did and the motivational speaker was the best part of their day so was hardly a waste of money.

I think like you Philip, she is lovely. I liked her haircut. Still thinking that the prettiest girl was Sophie.

All of them had proper reasons to be fired; it's just... normally Lord Sugar gives second opportunities to people like Rebecca that get into the boardroom for first time, and this year, for some reason he's giving too many opportunities to some of them, and too less to others. Rebecca's idea of wine guessing was terrible. They should've learned from a professional (professional: http://25.media.tumblr.com/0a85d2fbe...ukmxo1_500.jpg). But I still think that Francesca's leading was the final responsible for the failure of the task, and therefore she should've been fired.

Francesca got lucky.

You could argue that Rebecca cost them money for the motivational speaker, but the clients said he was the best part of the day, and the only motivational thing about it, so how much of a refund would they have demanded had the team not done that?

The wine tasting was a bad idea, but that's what the brainstorms are for, to weed out the bad ideas. It was like the theme was set, then forgotten about. Fran wanted to have chocolate making too, and Luisa saved her from that folly.

And the final cherry on the cake (pun intended), Fran brought back the wrong person, the only one who saved her from a bigger fiasco, instead of Jordan who as finance should've been haggling every crisp, like Leah did.

But I assume they are given a list of tasks and themes available to them, so it didn't seem there was a lot of choice. Yes they could of done their own and saved money, but they lacked any focus.

Yeah, she pointed that out in the boardroom, and she was right. She was just suggesting things. The ones choosing her ideas are the ones to blame aswell.

Jordan had more reasons to be there than Luisa tbh, even with me not liking her at all and criticising her idea on another thread. Although I think it was too childish and botchy to be considered, at least it was cheap and pointless instead of expensive and pointless...

Seemed like the only person who was initially critical of her suggestion to hire the professional speaker was AS, himself, and the others just realised which way the wind was blowing and jumped on the bandwagon.

She really didn't get any criticism until he made a big fuss about it and that ensured she got brought back so he could fire her.

Obviously rigged. Still, good TV I suppose.

Quality was judged by allowing the clients to get refunds if they so desired.


This was Rebecca's second time in the boardroom. She was there on Week 2.

No way should she have been fired. Lusia dissing the whole corporate world should have been enough to get rid of her on the spot.

Why, though? It was an idiotic thing to say, for sure, but did it have a negative impact on either Luisa's performance or the outcome of the task? Francesca's failure to make her awayday coherent or relevant was a far bigger failing.

I can't believe I've just defended Luisa!

Of course, in the long run Luisa's attitude is going to undermine her credibility with Sugar - we could see last night it already has.

She's right though. All that corporate-speak is just BS.