Day Two of the Apprentice opens, as ever, with a phone call at an ungodly hour to the candidates. This time, they're told to meet Bill at the Failte Ireland HQ, where they are intoduced to Fiona Gatter (? sorry; not sure about the surname), who is the Managing Director of Unislim, and Ray McKeown, Sales and Advertising Director of Today FM. They are told to devise a one-day original slimming plan, with an eye towards the busy business professional, healthy (obviously) and original, while also creating an advertisement to be broadcast on Today FM, as well as outlining a budgetary proposal for the station, based on a figure of 10,000 Euro. They're told that Today FM is known for its fun and interactivity, so they should bear that in mind when preparing their ad.
Bill warns them that it is a huge task he is setting them, and he wants to see "effective time management as well as military style teamwork". Each team has been provided with a sound engineer and a kitchen, a professional photographer and designer, as well as 250 Euro seed money. Ciara remains with Elev8 and they pick David O'Byrne as their PM. David has just come back from the USA, and describes himself thus:
"I consider myself a strategic thinker, pretty analytical. Use that mode of thinking to get the big ideas that can help win a task."
TASK TWO, DAY ONE
On Fusion, Nagaite fights off competition from Niamh McDonald and Sarah O'Brien to become the Project Manager. After only 20 minutes though, their rival team has already divided and half of them have headed off to buy the ingredients for their menu, while Fusion remain talking and brainstorming for a further --- wait for it --- three hours! Barry, Dave Cashman, Ciara and Kieran take on the task of shopping, despite Barry's protestations that he would be better utilised working on the radio ad. David flatly turns this offer down, and off they go.
A WORD FROM BRIAN
"This is a great task. A huge amount of work to be done on this and little time. I'm glad to see David O'Byrne stepping up to the plate straight away. He came up very strongly, badly wants to do this task and prove himself. However I do question the amount of experience he has. This could cost his team badly."
"I'm really impressed with the food team. They got off the blocks very quickly this morning, got out shopping, got all their ingredients. They seem to be ticking all the boxes as regards ingredients: their fats, their carbohydrates. So I'm really impressed by them. Barry's doing a great job, seems to know what he's talking about. However I am a little worried about Ciara. She seems to be a little bit isolated, and isn't really joining in and seems not to be making her intentions heard. She seems to be isolated from the guys, they don't seem to be interacting with her, she seems to be sulking a little bit, so she needs to up her game, because the guys are really pushing ahead of her and she's not showing herself up as she should."
A WORD FROM JACKIE
"Nagaite and the team spent three hours this morning strategising, with very little action, so so much for Bill's instructions to them re a military-style time management, because there's very very little of it. Quite frankly I would have been expecting an awful lot more from them. This should be a walk in the park for those girls!"
ANOTHER WORD FROM BRIAN
"This team is broken up into two totally different types of dynamics. On one side you have Barry, he's buzzing, he's got a great team going, time management spot-on. He knows what he's doing and he's very confident in his abilities. On the other side we've David, Will, Panos and Jamie and honestly, there's more humour inside of a funeral parlour!"
As Brian mentions above, Team Elev8 have split into two, Barry taking the other three off to do the shopping, and it seems to be going well, except that Ciara is being, well, ignored for some reason. She's not looking happy, and each time she tries to contribute or make a suggestion she's blanked by Barry. On the other half of the team, David and his guys struggle with the concept of humour, as if it's something totally foreign to them. Brian's quote above is very apt indeed, and you can't see anyone liking this ad in its current form. It's also too long: the slot is 30 seconds and at the moment it's 48. The subteam are back now and helping out, but the ad is woeful. David O'Byrne doesn't seem to be able to see that though, and thinks it's funny. Well, that's ONE person who thinks that!
A THIRD WORD FROM BRIAN
"Despite the fact that David has been told that his radio script has absolutely no humour in it whatsoever, he's still stubbornly persisting with the same script. His lack of experience is really coming to bear now."
Finally, Fusion swing into action and are well into their radio ad. With the provisions bought they're trying to work in a humourous angle into the ad, and have decided to throw in a jingle. It doesn't sound too bad, but then again, if David's ad is the competition, they have already won! When Elev8 arrive at the Today FM studios to record their ad, it's still too long. David's solution: change the ad slots! Panos worries that the PM is being led by Jamie and Will, scared that if he doesn't take their advice he will end up being fired. Panos thinks David is not a strong leader, and he is most definitely right. When the "humourous" bit of the ad (which is about as funny as a mortgage demand) is threatened to be cut to make the ad fit, he fights to keep it in, unwilling to let go of his creation. He is not thinking of the good of the team and is being selfish and immature, sacrificing the possibility (however remote!) of success for personal aggrandisment.
ANOTHER WORD FROM JACKIE
"After a very slow start this morning Nagaite seems to have got her act together very well in the kitchen. She's very competent, she's very confident, the team are competent. Completely different picture from this morning where she seemed to be very hesitant, didn't seem to be very confident in the marketing brief. So I suppose she made a very good decision to send her marketing team off to do the marketing task while she's very competent in the kitchen. So that was a good decision on her behalf."
THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S VERDICT ON FUSION'S MENU
"All in all, I think they did pretty good, considering there was a time factor involved. Some of the garnishes were a bit wilted, and tired looking. I was holding back, biting my tongue all the time. I was tempted to push them out of the way and say no, this is how you want to do it."
The teams have to make up two complete sets of food, one to be tasted tomorrow by Unislim's Fiona and one to be photographed for the presentation, so they're up against it. Niamh Humphreys is delighted that everyone is working so well together, however on the boys' team things are not so congenial, and Barry's somewhat acerbic style ends up affecting Ciara to the point of tears. You can be sure THAT scene will be replayed for some weeks to come!
TASK TWO, DAY TWO
With the menus all done (for better or worse), today it's all about the radio ad and the actual presentation to Unislim and Today FM. Elev8 continue to fail to impress, having arrived with a handwritten script, on which there are many corrections, and the sound engineer, Sinead Buckey, is not impressed. The amount of changes on the script does not help either. Fusion on the other hand are getting on a lot better with their ad, including their jingle, and it seems to be working well. Keith Cunningham, their sound engineer, seems impressed, particularly with the professionalism of the girls, and the fact that the recording session took a lot less time than was booked.
VOICEOVER ARTIST'S OPINION ON FUSION'S AD
"They seemed happy with it, you know. In the studio you probably take 15 or 20 takes, chop and change with different ones, pick the best one. But no, they seemed happy with the first take."
MORE FROM BRIAN
"The pictures and the overall graphics for the presentation look really well, and I think this is probably down to Kieran's input. He's made a big difference to the team on that side of things, so I'd be hopeful for the presentation later on, because it's going to go down to the wire. Everything's been safe up to now, and they really need a good leap forward, to get more marks and try to win this task."
From this task we start to understand that one of Barry's favourite phrases is "Listen to me!" However, on this task, at least at this point, he seems to think he's the PM, rather than just the sub-PM David appointed him as, as he argues with Dave Cashman and gets hot under the collar. It will be interesting to see what his own management style is like, should he survive to lead a team in future episodes....
On Team Fusion, Niamh H, in charge of menu design, is not happy with what they have, says it lacks creativity, but is not putting forward any suggestions of her own. She will no doubt later (should they lose the task) complain that she questioned the design of the menu, and hope Bill does not ask her what she did about it!
GRAPHIC DESIGNER'S OPINION OF FUSION'S MENU/OF NIAMH HUMPHREYS
"Well, after Niamh's ideas were shut down she just seemed to slump and didn't really partake after that."
Niamh H is quickly revealing herself as someone who will complain about, fight with and question every decision, but offer no alternative, and probably rely on that opposition to the original idea when she ends up in the boardroom. Bill's not going to like finger pointing without any backup.
THE PRESENTATIONS
Elev8 are first in, with their humourless overlong ad, and in addition to Fiona and Ray there is another Ray present, well-known Irish radio and TV broadcaster and presenter, Ray Darcy. The ad is run, then Jamie presents the budget, showing the panel that they have also chopped up the ad into a ten second clip to be run in some of the radio slots. Barry then utters the quote of the series so far: "Ciara is a woman." Yeah, thanks Barry, wouldn't have known that otherwise!
The execs seem concerned that the team have not allowed any slots for the busy lunchtime radio period, but David backs this up by saying that he believes busy professionals don't listen to the radio at lunchtime. Hmm. Fiona also has some questions about their menu selection, none of them particularly complimentary. Ciara, despite being part of the presentation, doesn't get to speak a word, lending more credence to her ostracisation from the team.
Next up are the girls from Fusion, where Nagaite almost immediately makes a gaffe by referring to "Unitrim", with the CEO of Unislim sitting in front of her! Her presentation doesn't get much better, with a lot of "ahm"s and "excuse me"s, not very concise. Fusion's plan for the ad however seems to meet with approval from the Today FM boss.
TASK TWO: THE BOARDROOM, PART ONE
PRE-BOARDROOM THOUGHTS:
ELEV8
DAVID O'BYRNE:- "I think a lot of people in the house still don't know a lot about me. I think taking the PM position has allowed me to take more control, so I think that has actually helped. I felt a lot more comfortable with them over the last two days. I would consider myself creative. I think my creativity though is usually informed by research."
JAMIE (On his PM): "He's a very structured guy, he's very do this this and this. Probably lacks a bit of flair. You don't always get creativity and flair in a person."
DAVE: "Barry's a good worker. You can't take a strip off him for saying he doesn't work hard. But he can be tough, in some senses. In my opinion if we lose this task, David needs to bring back two member of his team, but I would say it will be Jamie and Will, or Panos and Will."
WILL: "I do think Dave might bring me in to the boardroom with him, but I think that would be a mistake on his part."
KIERAN: "I can't see how Dave would possibly bring me back into the boardroom. If he does, he'll get crucified. I will kill him and send him home."
BARRY: "Maybe I am difficult to work with, maybe I am. But when someone doubts, not so much your integrity, but your knowledge, that bothers me."
FUSION
NAGAITE: "I was really really happy with how the task went. I thought it was very strong, from minute one right to the end. Everybody gave 100% into this."
SARAH: "Purely based on performance in this task, definitely I think Caroline didn't input anything to it. On the first day, on the way home, Caroline said to me I've done nothing on this task: my contribution has been shit."
CAROLINE: "Sarah is very hard to work with. I find her very hard to work with."
MICHELLE: "I think if anyone tries to pull me up on something it will have to be something I genuinely didn't do correctly, and if they try to lie or try to pull me up on something that isn't true then I already have a list of things I'll be getting them back for."
INTO THE BOARDROOM
Bill tackles Elev8 first, and asks David why he put himself forward as PM. David says he is the only one in the team with a marketing background, and that he chose Barry as sub-PM due to his experience in regards to weight loss. When asked, Will supports David as the PM, and Bill turns to Barry, questioning him on his performance in the kitchen. Jamie also says David was a good PM, but puts a rider on his comment to point out that he did not like the original radio ad: it was too long, and lacking in humour.
Turning to Fusion, he gets nothing but good comments from the others as to Nagaite's leadership style, although Niamh H says her PM fell at the second fence, or on the second day. Bill is amazed that the team spent 3 hours talking at the start, and Jackie underlines this as a very bad use of their time. Back with Elev8, he's disappointed in the selection of porridge on their menu, even though Barry gives him a crafty compliment: Bill says it's not original, which it isn't. The rest of the menu --- chicken and tuna --- is as uninspiring. He turns to Brian, asking him if this menu is new and innovative, and gets the expected answer from his right-hand man. However, Fusion don't fare much better, with porridge, crackers and cottage cheese, equally boring. Bill brings into question their time management, and also says that Fiona was unimpressed with their selection.
He has better things to say about Elev8's printed menu, whereas Fusion's is little more than a blank page. This kicks off an argument between Nagaite and Niamh H, predictably, where Niamh says she was turned down for the job of designing the menu, and Nagaite says she did no such thing. She oversteps herself though when she tells Niamh to be quiet, as she's speaking, and is immediately reprimanded by Bill, who reminds her she is essentially talking to HIM, and he will make any comments like that which are needed. Totally unimpressed by the menu Fusion have made up, he crumples it in his fist and throws it in the bin.
He then reveals who is the winner. With good and bad points on each side, by both Today FM and Unislim, the eventual choice of winning team is Fusion, and so the girls win. A visit to the K Club is their prize, a fine wine-tasting laid on there for them.
TASK TWO: THE BOARDROOM, PART TWO
Bill questions the sense of blowing 75% of the budget on the Ian Dempsey show. Jamie complains that he had too much to do, and says he felt he had no help. David says he basically wrote the script for the radio ad himself, but this will probably turn out to be a poison chalice, as Jamie quickly reminds him how bad, and how overlong, the ad was. He also mentions David's intransigence in refusing to shorten the ad until he simply had to. Barry is caught out when Bill says to him "The menu. Tusa?" and Barry seems not to understand, though in fairness he probably didn't really hear what was said. Bill has used the Irish for "yourself". So he restates. "Excuse me," he says, with a knowing grin. "That's you." Barry's old Irish teacher must be spinning! Barry refuses to listen, saying he stands over the menu, which does not impress Bill. He prefers people to recognise their mistakes, not defend them.
Having listened to all he's going to, Bill asks David for his decision, and it's Will and Jamie who are to accompany him back into the boardroom. There's a disbelieving shake of the head from Will.
TASK TWO: THE BOARDROOM --- THE SHOWDOWN
Bill is already angry with the shaking hands and hugs as the survivors leave the Boardroom, which is never good news for potential firees! It's actually a bit weird the way it was orchestrated. Usually the three are picked, everyone leaves and they say goodbye outside the boardroom, then the trio come back in. This time, whether they didn't understand, got confused or misdirected I don't know, but after they've said goodbye to their mates Bill has them sit down and then sends them out anyway! So perhaps that little annoyance could have been avoided had they all just walked out in the first place?
Anyway, eventually Jamie, David and Will are back in the Boardroom, and Bill asks the PM why he has brought Will back, and David says he feels that Will contributed the least to the task. Will does not help his case by supporting his head on his hand, which Bill tells him sharply to remove, rather like later on in the UK version, where Dan is told to sit up straight. You're supposed to have respect for the boss!
Will does his best to redress the situation, saying that he was on the radio ad team, not the menu, when the latter seems to have been the bone of contention for their team. He is actually surprised that no-one from the menu team has been brought back. Jamie attacks David over his overlong and unfunny ad, and his unwillingness to agree it had to be cut short, and more, his attempts to try to modify the ad slot so that the whole ad could fit in, effectively trying to let the tail wag the dog. He tells his PM he is " a structured guy, not a creative one", and he wishes now he had not supported his bid for Project Manager.
David has a very weak defence when asked why he should not be fired, Jamie claims he is being penalised for doing too much work, and Bill reckons Will dodged the responsibility of taking the lead. Bill is incensed with the waste of money Jamie presided over, and it looks like his number may be up. But in the end, responsibility falls on the shoulders of the PM, and it's David O'Byrne who is fired.
Before the other two leave, Bill tells Will he is not impressed by talk and hand gestures, but by results. He tells Jamie that the thing that saved him was his presentation, which was very good.
AFTER THE FIRING : THE VERDICT
Bill says that David just wasn't the man for the job, Jackie agrees that he's one of those people who won't change his mind once it's made up, and that can frequently be a bad trait.
THE FIRED CANDIDATE : CLOSING MONOLOGUE
David: "Long term, I think Bill certainly made a mistake firing me. It is only week two, and I would definitely say there's people hiding in the long grass in there. I know that there are people left in the house who are weaker than me, and they're the same people who are flying under the radar at the moment, which is easy to do in bigger groups. But they'll be found out as the show progresses."
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