I don't think Elle was an idiot at all. She was literally told by Vana to buy that dinghy.
She also spoke rather well in the boardroom, which was something which took me by surprise.

Having an autocratic style has been a complete disaster for the female project managers for three weeks in a row, so I'm a bit confused why you are describing it as a virtue.

I wasn't describing it as a virtue, but that I thought it was probably better than standing around on the verge of tears not knowing what to do or where to go, and not being decisive in any way, shape, or form.

I think Elle seems very mature and sensible. She admits when she makes a mistake and she was very professional in the boardroom - saying that ultimately the project manager should be fired in a task like this, but without twisting the knife and attacking Vana personally.

I am surprised that Elle was dragged over the coals for 'ignoring her business instincts' and buying the boat when a) the boat wasn't what lost them the task - the penalties for missing items was - and b) she decided against buying the boat from the outset, and only bought it in the end because Vana, her manager, outright told her to buy it. What else could she have done in that situation?

Fair enough. I reread your post and it appears that depending on the tone of voice you are reading that sentence in it can change the meaning of it.

I liked this about her. Zero cattiness in the boardroom and actually took responsibility for her error in the task. You rarely see that. In fairness Vana took responsibility too but not so pleasant.

I'm not sharing the love for Elle, who did not know where Dover is, or Ireland. She seemed to run the English subteam just as shambolically as Vana ran the French one. There was no thought that mussels might be time-limited, no consideration of the penalty structure, no point of comparison from another shop on the dinghy price, even if just on the phone, so they had no idea if it was cheap or not.

Perhaps what saved Elle and Vana is that they both screwed up equally and more or less identically.

Karren was wrong, incidentally, about seeing the chef for the mussels. OK, maybe the chef or manager might have been open to persuasion but the women should have swallowed the fine rather than even approaching hotels or restaurants.

Even if the chef or manager had sold the shellfish, they'd have needed to charge an amount to compensate for their lost profit, which would have been more than the penalty price. That is without taking account of the time wasted which could have been spent looking for other items.

Re: sharing the love for Elle, personally I'm going by the way she appears to handle herself in conversations and to camera.

Last week she rightly called it on that god-awful presentation and this week in the boardroom, she told it like it was without any hint of 'I'm better than these other two / let me show you what I can do / I'll make you lots of money, LS / blah blah'.

Of course you can always point out she didn't get the mussels, bought the wrong dinghy, etc, etc, but then that's the 'they build themselves up, we knock 'em down' nature of the programme. We don't generally see them in their finest moments - last night they weren't so much covered in glory as some other stuff ...

There was a bigger idiot in the room.

This week Elle looked like she was actually learning something.

Perhaps Loralun has become too used to firing Jennys and can't restrain himself.

It was obvious the youngster was going to go. She's a student for goodness sake... full of enthusiasm but no skills. Didn't buy anything so bye bye. She showed how immature she was by keep banging on about the manure and in the taxi saying how one day Alan will come to me, you mark my words. Childish and immature.

Elle is a bit unfortunate, as her default expression appears to be stroppy. but she is a rare example of someone who improves her chances when she speaks.

We all know the producers can manipulate things a bit, and last nights episode certainly presented Vana in a bad light. Maybe she will survive long in to the process, and is being lined up to be the major irritant that everyone wants to see the back of.

Jenny was crap though...no? I mean, yes, she's very attractive, but she did sod all in the task, and you have to get noticed in these early weeks.

I'd have fired both her and Vana.

Elle, aside from not realizing that you don't get to Ireland from Dover, did well in my view, and spoke up for herself well.

I'll speculate but it wouldn't surprise me if Vanna is kept in for a while, to appeal to the American TV audience when sold across the pond.

You're right, Karren was wrong- you can't buy 10kg of mussels from a restaurant. Might as well get on a bus and ask the driver if you can buy all his petrol.

Jenny wasn't given a chance to redeem herself!

She suggested quite correctly that there were antique shops in Canterbury (in fact lots of antique shops in the East Kent area) and that they might be able to get the mirror there - the English team had just handed over the responsibility for buying lace to the French team, so there was no reason why Vana couldn't have at least let them try instead of point blank refusing to let them at least call?

Vana should have gone - yet another useless and overbearing PM

They were in another country anyway, Jenny could have made that call if she really wanted to, but she seemed happy to suggest things without the intent to do them.

This. Shes does come across as a bit thick to be honest. The comment about "does anyone sell mussels in this place?" was also a bit stupid. A point driven home by the cameraman as he zoomed out to show that they were by the sea.

To me she did not look so stroppy today. Particularly in the boardroom. She looks to me like someone who is catching on as to how the process actually works.

I don't understand why Jenny didn't bring up the lace or the fact that she wanted to look for the mirror in Kent when in the boardroom (or did she bring the mirror up? Maybe, actually).

It may not have saved her but they're certainly points worth considering, since it was Vana who sent the wrong group to look for the lace and Vana who would not budge on the mirror and ultimately ended up not finding one!

Elle and Vana were both useless this week and yet they survived. Speechless.

No, that was because he was useless.

Well, except that he wasn't, was he? His opinions on what they were doing generally turned out to be accurate, he had good instincts. The problem was that he had such an aggressive way of expressing himself that no one wanted to listen to him. So surely by the 'we keep in people who cause arguments' logic, Steven would have stayed for ages - like everyone thought he would.

But there's been an American version of the show for years?