Last week! New York vs the UK! Battery acid vs Piss water! Bianca vs Mark! Daniel vs Mark yet again! And Lauren leaving in yet another 'I ENT SEEN YOU DO MUCH' firing! This week: country matters!
Credits! I feel safe enough to watch them now we're close to the end. I can't even remember half of these people. #thejoysof20candidates
5.30 am and the candidates are to meet LdSralan at Chiswick house. Mark wants to go back to Sommat and James tells him he's bad luck. In the cab, Sanjay and James note that the girls have been dropping like flies, whilst Bianca says those that remain are still strong. Sanjay says there are still six strong boys. James says he thinks there's one. I'm guessing... Felipe? All that fitness training must have paid off, surely?
LdSralan greets the candidates at Chiswick House and says it used to be countryside until London took over, so their task is to do countryside things. Makes... sense? He says the rural market in the UK runs to £200 bmillion a year. I checked twice, he really does say bmillion. I am guessing that's... a lot? The task is a basic selling one - one high-end, proven to sell, product and two new items - selling at the Bath and West show.
Over at Tenacious D, Katie wants to be PM because she's good at sales and Felipe wants to be PM because he's good at
On the way there, Katie gets in the obligatory 'Combine Harvester' but with no resemblance to the original tune which makes Daniel crack up.
The products are on display in a sparse room somewhere and the vast empty chasm of the place only serves to emphasise their rubbishness. Bianca and Solomon dismiss a £250 gutter cleaning robot that doesn't seem to work too well on the grounds it'd probably cost less and be more effective to just pay someone to do that job. Solomon likes the idea of a ridealong trailer for a bike. Felipe likes a big outdoor chair and some folding wellies although Solomon thinks the wellies are a bit flimsy to cope with mud. In a reversal of the usual 'laugh at the forrins' schtick, Felipe and Mark (two of the longest-serving forrins in this process, surely?) take the piss out of the English by waving around a bag formed from flat-caps and saying this is how they imagine all English people dress. Karren is not amused. None of them are amused by a £280 flushing cat box (flushing to... where, exactly? We're never told). However, another pet device is more of a winner - a £65 tracking device.
Tenacious D's sub-team of Solomon, Bianca and Sanjay negotiate prices with the vendors of the bike trailer and homing device. Mark and Felipe from Sommat flatter the designer of the flat cap handbag but fail to negotiate a price, something immediately picked up on by Daniel and Katie when they ring back as they moan that they need to be able to negotiate prices down for last-minute sales montages. Mark mutters that it could be an oversight. Mark and Felipe then negotiate a price for the trailer, which would be expected to sell 25-40 units a day.
Tenacious D's subteam tell James they fancy the pet finder and the trailer. Sommat also want the trailer and like the flat cap. James says he 'takes all that into consideraiton' but because it's a 'nice area' he wants the hanging chair and wellies. Solomon interviews that James is an idiot who has mucked it up. James patronises 'well done, keep working' as Roisin pulls a face of disbelief alongside him.
Countryside porn! James is excited at all the wellies on sale. Daniel and Katie for Sommat and James and Roisin for Tenacious D go to look at the high-end products. James and Roisin talk to a ride-on tractor man and both like the product. Daniel goes to a barbecue seller and the tractor man talks about how much his life's work is to sell their products, he's in love with them, he wants to marry them and have sex with them because he's heard that's what you do in the countryside and he'd even consider selling himself to represent their brands. The men look... somewhat scared. Karren interviews that he's very pushy and people don't want to hear it there. The men tell him they're not interested in hard-selling and Katie takes him aside and tells him to calm down before someone gets a restraining order. Daniel agrees and they go to see a hot-tub seller and Katie sells their personalities. They get excited at the prospect of selling five and making twenty grand.
James and Roisin meet Anthony the hot-tub guy and James calls him Derek twice. This may be of importance later. James rings the sub-team and tells them hot-tubs are nice because they're round. He decides to go 'fuck it, hot tubs'. You can just see his brain going 'one might be a time machine'. Anthony rings both teams back and says Katie was intelligent and has great product knowledge so he's going with Sommat. He tells James he kept calling him Derek and he was worried James might not have attention to detail. James snits 'sod him, if he's going to get all funny about a name I don't want to work for him anyway'. My favourite FUN FACT! from this week's YerFiyud was Dara revealing that James' real name is also Anthony. The levels of wrongness about this whole thing are kind of astounding. James and Roisin agree that plan B is the lawnmowers. Some time later (because they get the call in daylight and this next scene is at night), they discuss ringing the others in the car. James decides to lie because 'does it really matter what's happened?' Roisin says she isn't going to lie to them. He says he'll tell them tomorrow but he wants to keep his team in good spirits and have them back him as a PM and a leader and think he made the decision for a reason. Roisin says her advice will be to tell the truth. James, verbatim: 'yeah, might be your advice, but what do I wanna do. At the end of the day, it's important what I wanna do, innit?' Roisin's open-mouthed expression says it all. I mean, there's been no end of boys with bravado who talk bollocks on this show, but the majority of them tend to have at least one redeeming feature or else a smidgen of self-awareness. Having seen all of this episode and YerFiyud, James seems to have no idea of how much of a tantrum-throwing, aggressive dick he's being and still seems to be labouring under some misapprehension that he is a bit 'loveable' or a 'cheeky chappy'. Ugh. He is LOATHSOME. And I didn't even mind him too much in the opening couple of weeks.
James rings the sub-team and says he changed his mind last minute and made a business decision to go with the lawn-mowers and is all 'I'll see you later'. Sanjay says he was desperate to get off the phone. The look of murderous rage on every single member of Tenacious D's face is a joy.
On the way to sell, Katie and Daniel discuss how it would be best if they stuck to selling the hot-tubs because they had a rapport with the vendor and have a good relationship. Daniel says selling big things for a high price is what he does best. Bless him and his whole edit which has thus far been all about his total inability to sell anything. In the other car, Mark tries some sub-Jedi Jim manipulation on Felipe by saying he's a better salesman than Daniel. Felipe says he can see Daniel asking why and Mark says he's not here for Mark Wright, but for the team, and he's the best salesperson. Felipe says he needs to think about it because this is where the game (apparently he's either picked up Mark's habit of using football analogies or he isn't taking this process seriously) will be won or lost.
At Tenacious D, James sets sales targets for the sub-team of Bianca, Solomon and Sanjay: a chair and ten pairs of wellies each, which will equal the price of a lawn-mower. Their faces say it all about how important these small items are likely to be to the task outcome. At Sommat, Felipe assigns Katie and Mark to sell hot tubs. Daniel snarks that it makes no sense because he understands the product more and Felipe says he knows. Daniel says he's only swapping them because it's what Mark wants. Felipe says it would be 'nice to have somebody like... a boy and a girl'. Oh, Felipe. Daniel says Mark is there for no logical reason. Felipe says there is a logical reason, but fails to say that the logical reason is Daniel not being able to sell anything to anyone ever. Oops.
With Tenacious D, James is sticking to his story about the lawnmowers. When Solomon tries to push him on it, he shouts 'It doesn't matter now! Deal's done! Get it out of your head!' Gotta love that cheeky chappy charm, right?
Daniel is still snarking about how he is a 'salesman' and can't be expected to sell low-end products. I mean, I am team Daniel to quite an extent here because he did meet the guy and Mark's being a total
Time to sell! A delapidated marquee with a solitary mannequin holding a flatcapbag in each hand and having one unceremoniously dumped where its head should be! The ennui! Felipe asks Daniel which he'd buy for his girlfriend. Daniel: 'a hot tub'. Ha! Cut to a beautifully framed shot of lovely jets of water gushing from a hot tub.
People are interested in hot-tubs! They don't want bags or chairs! James can't remember the details of his product! Someone buys a bag after all! A medieval horse knocks its rider off! No-one wants wellies because they're too expensive and the quality is rubbish! No-one wants an enormous behemoth chair! Sanjay, Bianca and Solomon bitch that there are dogs and families everywhere and they would have been able to sell their first-choice products. James rings them and they snark about how the other products would have been better. James snaps 'I don't wanna hear that, I don't wanna hear about other products' and tells them to get over themselves and sell what they've got. Roisin, throughout, has the face of a mum who has seen one too many tantrums. James snaps that he doesn't want to hear negativity about the past. Roisin says he was being negative to them. He snaps that he wasn't, end of story, let's sell lawnmowers. Roisin sighs that she'll shut her mouth then. James grunts, 'yeah, stop trying to undermine me'. She sighs that she's not and he says she's patronising and he knows what he's doing, right.
Katie and Mark sell some hot-tubs with free upgrades at a discounted rate and Mark negotiates a sale to a father whose teenage daughters have clearly been badgering him non-stop. Helpful voiceover man says we won't know final sales until we get to the boardroom although even at this stage it's looking like a fait accompli.
Felipe fails to sell a trailer, Daniel gets bemused responses to the flatcapbags and Felipe gets the classic 'I haven't got any money with me today' brush-off. They have an argument about which is the worst and Karren says if you walked past their stall you'd just see them bickering and the products are hard enough to sell as it is without that. Daniel tells Felipe Mark has got in his brain some more and bickers some more.
More country porn! Solomon and Bianca sell some wellies! Sanjay is told he's a very good salesman but not enough to get a sale! Sanjay interviews that he's sold the least even though he's tried hard. He says he hopes James has sold lots of lawnmowers - cut to a forlorn James getting no interest. Roisin then explains a product to someone whilst James struggles with not having learned his patter. Nick interviews that Roisin's calm style is paying off and she sells one. Roisin interviews that James isn't taking it well. Cut to James telling Roisin she interrupts him and patronises him and to 'stop it'. She interviews that he is being 'borderline' offensive and we cut to him patronising her with a 'well done, keep working'. God, if James was in real BSNS he'd either have all his employees quit, be facing a series of tribunals or both. He's so nasty to 'his team' that it isn't just borderline offensive, it's basically actual bullying. There is some pleasure in watching candidates snip at each other in this show, obviously, but his behaviour is almost unwatchable tonight.
Katie and Mark ring Felipe to say they've secured some sales and have more appointments later. Daniel whines that it doesn't matter who takes Katie's appointments (but it does for Mark's?). Daniel snaps that he could say he has people coming back for his *spits* bicycles and caps and they coould do his sales. Mark gets Katie to hang up and Daniel whines some more, much to the amusement of passers-by. Felipe says he prefers Mark's selling technique to Daniel's as Daniel is too arrogant and then they get into a 'my business is bigger than your business' fight and way to go REPRESENTING BOYZ IN BSNS.
Last-minute sales montage time! Solomon gets into a bit of a negotiation stand-off with a young man, James tells someone about a tractor, Mark gets someone a leaflet, James sells the tractor. Solomon gets a man to consider buying the enormous chair, Roisin sells a tractor, Bianca sells some wellies, the man buys the chair, Mark makes a man an offer on hot tubs and the man reveals he isn't buying one, but seven, as he has a holiday park. Selling ends!
Boardroom time! LdSralan says the secret to the task was to know which products to choose, especially the big ticket items which can blow the small products out of the water. We start with Tenacious D who talk about the products they chose and LdSralan says Katie was basically the team mum and they had to ask her what to do. LdSralan says business is about getting the right price and Mark says he disagrees and LdSralan shuts that down as well he might. LdSralan says the feedback was that Daniel was a bull in a china shop. Katie says she had a chat to him. LdSralan 'so mummy calmed you down a bit'. This is giving me some... uncomfortable mental imagery, let's just say. We cover Mark selling hot tubs instead of Daniel and Felipe says this was based on Mark's style of selling compared to Daniel's. LdSralan says if he put Daniel on a team of one he'd still have an argument and Daniel accepts he probably would. The men all start to fight and LdSralan brings up the 'whose business is bigger' argument and says his is bigger than all of them. Mark says they sold well, and LdSralan reminds them that, like the caravans last year, it's subject to contracts going through. He asks if Felipe was a good team leader and Mark says he's nice but at some point in the process you have to stop being nice. Felipe says he won't stop being a nice man.
Over at Sommat James says they have one chance to prove they're good enough to be LdSralan's bsns partner and other people don't get it. The sub-team say which products they wanted and James changed it without consulation. James snaps that it wasn't like that and LdSralan says it was. James said he had an instinct. LdSralan says the others might have well done nothing. Sanjay says James didn't listen to them. James sulks that he had a gut feeling. Any guesses as to whether LdSralan is in a trust your gut feeling or don't trust your gut feeling kind of mood this week? They move onto the high ticket item and James lies that he chose the lawnmower as Roisin gives an 'I'll let him bury himself' smirk. He says it was an agricultural area. Roisin tells him to tell the truth. Bianca says he told them he wanted a hot tub. James says he was torn between the two. Sanjay says they got a phone call saying he wanted the hot tubs and then it changed with no reason. James said that sometimes in business you make mistakes and he made one and didn't want it to effect the team. Sanjay says he lied to them. James says he didn't lie and the reason they didn't get them is because he called the guy Derek instead of Anthony and he thinks it's stupid as the guy should have corrected him, as both teams respond with a mixture of agog faces and giggles. Sanjay says James told them he'd made a decision and Bianca says he could have just told them. LdSralan says his application says he's like Del Boy but he's more like Trigger who got Rodney's name wrong. James says they had a tough day selling lawn-mowers.
Figures time!
Sommat sold £3598 of lawnmowers, 1 each for James and Roision, and £1159.50 for miscellaneous tat, making a total of £4757.50.
Tenacious D sold £500 of small products, but £30115.25 of hot-tubs - ten in total, including Mark's sale of seven to the holiday park owner. TENACIOUS D-STROY!
LdSralan reminds Daniel that his team won and he's still in the process and their prize is a boxing lesson with Anthony Ogogo. Felipe says they just needed to play like a team and it was easy. He sends Sommat out and tells Roisin he wants to hear from her. She says she has a lot to say.
Time for some aggression as Mark and Daniel punch the crap out of training dummies and pretend they're each other, then Mark, Daniel and Katie pummell Anthony Ogogo. Felipe stands and watches the whole time despite his commitment to fitness earlier in the series. Ogogo declares Daniel the winner and he wrestles Mark to the ground and Mark beams. So it was good old-fashioned sexual tension all along, eh?
Loser cafe and James says he made a mistake but it would have effected his team's minds thinking what could have been if he'd told them. Roisin interviews that she's going to call him out on his crap. James says it's a sales task so he won't be fired. Sanjay says he sold the least. James bragterviews that he's a leader, he isn't afraid and that makes him a great businessman. There's a difference between leader and egomaniac but which of those is better in bsns is perhaps up for debate.
Roisin launches into a mega rant about James' immaturity, inability to listen to feedback. James mutters that she's always bringing him down. She says when things go wrong he throws a tantrum and then he pouts 'I don't fwow a tantwuuuum waaaaah it's so unfaiiiiiir.' Roisin says he leaves a field of destruction behind him and the evidence supports everything she's saying. James snaps back that she doesn't have it when it comes to business decisions because he wanted to do the best for his team and ends with a 'you're rubbish, Roisin'. LdSralan says sometimes you might hold back information for a while for the good of morale but when was James going to tell them? James says the next day, but then he stopped himself. Solomon is picked up for being quiet at last (despite LdSralan saying Roisin is quiet, she's had a fair few vocal episodes, whereas the highlight of Solomon's journey so far seems to be getting the other men to do his tie for him). He says they saw the products and James made decisions without any facts. LdSralan says Sanjay only sold three pairs of wellies. Sanjay says he tried to put himself forward in this task and in previous tasks and that he has shown initiative in the past. Nick snarks that Sanjay's name never features in his notes, because he doesn't stand out. Nick says, in a voice that could come straight out of a creepy horror film 'Nameless'. Sanjay asks him to repeat and he says 'Nameless' again and it's a proper shivery moment. God, wouldn't making horror films be an AMAZING task for this show? Or, you know, running a ghost train or
James says he's bringing back Sanjay for sales and Roisin. Roisin says she sold the second most and asks if he's bringing her back because she's pointing things out and he says absolutely not. The other two are dispatched to the house and LdSralan reminds them that he could fire more than one. Karren says she likes Roisin's style but wonders if she's left it too late. LdSralan wonders if Sanjay does anything. Karren says James hasn't developed into the businessman he thinks he is. Nick says James has still got something.
LdSralan asks James which of the others should go. He says Roisin has strengths but doesn't know if she can make hard decisions but he doesn't think Sanjay has any business acumen or puts himself forward. Sanjay says he puts himself forward and asks what James has done. Roisin says James tries to be decisive just to show LdSralan he's decisive rather than making sound, informed decisions. Where has this BOARDROOM GODDESS Roisin suddenly come from? I always thought she was good apart from that time she forgot about the holy margins, but she's taking James down in the most effective showdown all series so far since we were denied the full on Steven/Sarah crazy I was hoping for with their early boots. James says sometimes you make the wrong decisions and that's how it is. Roisin says she rescts his enthusiasm but she doesn't see what he's contributed except the name 'Big Dawg'. Sanjay says he was disappointed that Nick didn't see anything in him because even though he's not the best salesperson he does try hard. LdSralan says he has a feeling he hasn't heard from Roisin. Roisin says she's passionate about being an accountant but is more than that and the successful board game means she's also creative.
LdSralan says there's a big tick against James' statement saying he rubs people up the wrong way. James says people mistake his enthusiasm and he's never had an education. Now, there are people who haven't had an education because they had difficult life circumstances and there are people who haven't had an education because they were cocky little shits who didn't listen or do any work at school. Now James might also be the former, I don't know, but I suspect very strongly that he was the latter. He says he's all alone in this big wide world and he needs someone like LdSralan to guide him and take him under their wing. On YerFiyud, Nick made out like this was the epic speech to end all speeches rather than just another replay of the tired old 'I'm just like you LdSralan' speech. Also - can you imagine James letting anyone tell him what to do? Or LdSralan wanting to be a mother hen rather than a silent business partner?
LdSralan says James has sparks of entrepreneurialism but is immature; Sanjay has worked in banking all his life and is rubbish at sales; Roisin is intelligent but it's not good news when he hasn't heard from her. LdSralan says it's hard because he doesn't want to demoralise someone with fighting spirit. He tells James to cultivate the bit about him that's good, but 'with regret' he's fired. That's it, a patronising nod on the head, no evisceration? Roisin and Sanjay gave good boardroom but so disappointed in the sugarman.
Coatwatch: beige with high collars. James cabterviews that maybe he's better off on his own in this big wide world and he's a survivor and one day he'll achieve what he wants to.
Back at the house, Solomon says it kicked off between Roisin and James and Roisin found her voice. Bianca sighs that she thinks James will come back. Roisin and Sanjay come back and Mark gloats that he'd heard Sanjay was a dead man walking and Sanjay says James gave an impassioned speech and Roisin says everything he did she fundamentally disagreed with.
Next week! Buying tasks! Something involving diamonds and skeletons! And I hope that shot of Tenacious D celebrating wasn't a spoiler! Join Helen then to see what happens and whether or not this will be the week Mark and Daniel both get fired after one fight too many!
