We all know by now that The Apprentice isn't even pretending to be a serious business show – and thank goodness for that, because if it's legit, then we have real reason to worry about Lord Sugar's judgement.
After all, this is a man who gathered the candidates at a theatre to set them a task involving sweetie-making and advised them all to aspire to being Willy Wonka.
"He was creative, he was a risk taker, and more importantly, he understood what his customers wanted," Lord Sugar announced.
Really, though? Willy Wonka? A man who lured young children to his factory, bumped off a bunch of them in some sort of extra-judicial vigilantism, handed over his business to a kid and relied heavily on what we can only describe as slave labour? This is the kind of person you want your candidates to be?
If so, perhaps it explains the continuing presence of (admittedly non-child stealing, non-slave labour using) candidates like Karthik, who was determined to be calmer this week, passive-aggressively smiling that he didn't want to be seen as a "disruptor".
And maybe it accounts for Mukai, possibly the only Apprentice candidate in history to actively urge a client to pay LESS for their product. Perhaps these are the Willy Wonka-esque eccentricities that Lord Sugar is looking for in his new business partner – and in that regard, poor Oliver Nohl-Oser never stood a chance.
Sausage magnate Oliver certainly is a little off the wall, but in a very British bumbling and blundering sort of way. Clearly out of his depth, Oliver began as he meant to go on – stumbling over his words and getting confused; agreeing to manufacture frankly disgusting-sounding salt and vinegar fudge. Really, there was no doubt he would be fired by the time the episode was out, but we can't help but feel that's at least partly because he was just too nice for the process. Seriously: sausages? Oliver couldn't have chosen a more humorous business if he tried, perfectly encapsulating his down to earth but slightly comedic appeal. At one point, he decided it would be a good idea to ride his sweet-stall bicycle down to the beach while wearing a boater and a candy-striped outfit; the fact that he reached a dead end and almost rode into a series of bollards was almost too cruel a metaphor.
Anyway, Oliver's team always looked doomed to fail, with grumpy Paul Sullivan the only saving grace. Paul had a face like thunder throughout, largely because it was slowly dawning on him that he'd been lumped with a bunch of candidates with less business acumen than a gobstopper (or, as he more prosaically put it: "They're a f**king shambles, this lot"). Chucking cardboard boxes around and dubbing Mukai "crap", we began falling in low-key love with Paul in tonight's show.
On the other team, Alana Spencer managed to – mostly – hold it together after apparently losing the ability to speak in the Boardroom last week, aside from one moment where she took herself off to the toilet for a little cry (though not quite in such a dramatic fashion as Jessica last week).
Admittedly, her project-managership seemed largely fuelled by wide-eyed panic and some form of energy drink, but it must have worked as she managed to overcome obstacles like a sweet machine breaking and being stuck in the same team as Sofiane Khelfa, who proudly announced that he didn't want to be in the kitchen because he has "a wife who cooks" for him.
We have to assume that's because she's the only one in the relationship who can be trusted around sharp objects. Certainly Sofiane seemed to lack some basic skills this week. We could only watch with open mouth as he almost managed to piss off a football club owner so much that they refused to buy sweets. In the end, thanks to an intervention by Courtney and, of course, the fact that no-one can turn down a bit of candy, the day was saved.
But there was really no contest between the two teams, unlike last week, when they were both so horrendous that we genuinely wonder if Lord Sugar considered packing in the whole thing. And it wasn't quite as crazy as last week, either, with Jessica and Karthik notably toned down (with only Karthik yelling: "SUCK IT, WHO WANTS TO SUCK IT!" at passers-by to reassure us that he hadn't lost his voice or his complete lack of self-awareness). Still, it was an entertaining watch even if the eventual outcome was all too obvious. Even Oliver appeared to have given up by the time he entered the Boardroom, instead focusing on the lessons he could learn for his sausage empire – his words, not ours. To be honest, though, if Oliver got fired because he's not enough like Willy Wonka… Well, we think that's probably an endorsement of his suitability for business.
LORD SUGAR'S BEST BIT: His brutal goodbye to Oliver. "Your best hope for £250,000 is to buy yourself a scratch card." Ouch. Although to be honest, we don't know why the candidates don't just all pop down the newsagents. It would save them a lot of bother.
BIZARRE BULLSHIT OF THE WEEK: Not so much bizarre bullshit as trying-to-be-tactful question-dodging, but we loved Grainne's take on Oliver as a project manager. "I think he did try his best. His best was just in a different direction."
The Apprentice airs on Thursdays at 9pm on BBC One
