The speed and vehemence with which Mark reverted to scorn with Daniel in the boardroom did expose that he was deliberately trying to conceal his personal feelings. The question is, did he disguise his feelings as a sign of maturity and professionalism as you suggest or was it a tactic to placate Daniel and Lord Sugar?

I think both.

I don't think he'd have brought Daniel back if he'd delivered. And I do think Mark wanted to be seen as a supportive PM. But anyone who's watched the show knows Sugar hates witch hunts and personal feuds. Of course Mark knew this too. All that "with regret" and "he gave 100%" was blatant over-compensation to avoid those accusations. And all his "I'll support you 100%" was arse-covering should Daniel screw up and try to make it personal. The evidence of that was the speed Mark's claws came out when Daniel hit back. Facade dropped. A momentary glimpse behind the curtain.

But I think Mark actually had Lauren as his fall guy and knew that a bit of flattery with a narcissist like Daniel could get him onside. And it did. Despite their boardroom conflict, ultimately the two rounded on Lauren.

This expands upon what I was saying earlier and sums it up brilliantly

Lord Sugar and his team have already picked the 3 for the final and these will be safe. He may even have picked the winner.

Not sure you can say that, what if one of the chosen one's drops an absolute clanger and is on the loosing team. It's safe to say LS has an idea of who'd he like to be in the final, but I don't think it's ever a safe bet.

That's far too simplistic. I'm sure they have a rough idea from the business plans as to who the likely favourites are, but Sugar himself has said there is often someone who will emerge from the process who surprises them.

Frankly, if Sugar made his decision based solely on the business plans and CVs and ignored the data he gets from the tasks, he would be an idiot. He's many things, but he's not an idiot.

Never the less the Business plan will save them for some time in the process.

Even winning it (Tom)

It can be both ways, you can be an outstanding candiate in the tasks, but if your business plan is rubbish, then you have no chance as it happened with Nick last year. However, if your business plan is good then you can almost get away with everything in the tasks as long as you are okish.

Sugar looks for a balance of both things, a good business plan which is crucial, but a person that responds to certain behaviours and competences. Whether you are in the winning or losing teams doesnt really matter as long as you show you are competent. If I am not mistaken Rciky was in the losing team several times two years ago, however his individual performance was by far the best out of all candidates.

What is disappointing me this year is the complexity of the tasks. No way can you come up with a new brand of soft drinks, a logo, a label, a commercial and a sales pitch in the short time allowed. I think this results in us the viewer not really being able to tell who did what. The editors can skew it whichever way they want for whatever they choose to do.

I prefer the simpler tasks where it is clearer who had good ideas and who did what.

By the way there is a very popular brand in the US called AriZona. They started out with iced tea and spread rapidly to other kinds of soft drinks. The logo and label are done in pale colors, much like the brand(Aqua whatever) whose label LS said was a disaster.

https://www.drinkarizona.com/

Mark was a dreadful leader; in a lot of ways, he was the same as Pamela last week. He had no creative input and just watched as everyone else did tasks. I think Lauren was scape goated and Mark played it in such a way to give her little input and watched as Felipe flummoxed. He is a very good sales man and pitcher though so he was in all ways superior to Daniel and Lauren in that sense. Daniel is my Ben from Series 5 and Steven from Series 8 where you basically shout at TV so that they get fired.

Sadly the wonderfully stern Margaret has not been asked to take part in the interview round this year.

They may use pastel colours but the logo is clear, distinctive and readable. The Aquafusion logo was a small yellow blob and that combined with the pale colours would make it invisible on the shelves. It wasn't just Sugar who said it was a disaster. The industry reps said it too.

Actually they had a lot of time to create the product and branding (in Apprentice terms anyway). Four days IIRC. The US team only had to create the ad and the pitch in that time. It should have been possible to come up with something (albeit not a completely polished result).

I didn't enjoy this episode much though, it felt a bit flat, like the pitches. Not as entertaining as some others in this series.

Well, to coin a phrase, I agree with Nick. I thought Mark was effective as PM. He delegated well and he listened to feedback. Good leadership is often hard to see, whereas bad leadership is obvious.

He delegated the video direction to Felipe but was prepared to step in if he hadn't got it done. The main creative work happened in London and it would have been hard to contribute to that from NY. He did give some direction to it, though.

I agree Lauren was scapegoated to an extent. Mark clearly felt she hadn't done enough but was her failure in the pitch really enough to bring her back? I don't think so. The failure was down to the product design so on that basis he should have brought Katie back with Daniel. Mark must have known Lauren was vulnerable to being fired for not being visible enough and so he put her in the boardroom to give Lord Sugar a target to aim at.

It's Dawg eat Dawg in the Apprentice.

whats ur definition of a Geordie then?

Is she from Sunderland? Her accent sounds south shields-ish to me

Edit just checked and it does appear she's from Sunderland and is therefore a Mackem

It entirely escaped me why Big Dowg won. I kept waiting for LAS to say it sounded like a portable pet dog drink and to ask how with that name it be thought of as eligible for human consumption.

I must be the only person to have preferred Filipe's ad but whatever the industry experts told him nothing had to measured against anything it was just a choice LAS made. It's not like either drink was intended for anything except a trip to New York for some members of each team and those staying behind working at a distance and not bitching about being left in London.

He could just as easily gone for a citrus drink with zesty colours without any pet animal connotations and we'd have believed in his choice.

Big Dawg is a relatively common expression in the US. When applied to a drink, to me it would connote an energy drink possibly geared towards athletes.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...erm=Big%20Dawg

Thanks but it is two years since I was last in New York.

Without you I'd still think it was a drink more suited for pooches than humans and who knew two nations divided by a common language would be solved by LAS making use of urban dictionary.

LAS is all knowing. I watched a bit of a show on him on YouTube and he has a home in Boca Raton, Fl. Maybe all the old geezers there read the Urban Dictionary while playing dominoes.

Nope, I think *everyone* preferred Felipe's ad as the less terrible of the two. The panel said as much and Sugar agreed.

Hilarious.

Love it so far.

So funny lol none of them liked the taste of their own teams drinks.

Lauren is such a air head lol

Not sure if this has been picked up on in this thread, but I've just got round to watching You're Fired and Dara states that Bianca's only won 4/7 tasks which is incorrect

Bianca's won 5/7. She only lost in week three and five. It's appalling that the show can't even get its facts right! If they're going to do a stats board, then get it right, FFS.

Was it intentional to make Roisin look good (having the most wins to herself) or to make Bianca not look as good? Possibly even both?

It's been mentioned elsewhere already. I suspect it was just a genuine error by someone in the production team. It would be extremely bad form to deliberately misrepresent the facts like that (not that it makes any difference to the outcome of the series as a whole, of course).