I'm a few days late as I was out on Wednesday and have finally caught up with this episode.

Episode 11 saw the five remaining candidates go through the "inteview stage", where three of Sir Alan's henchmen give them a verbal battering and see who comes out on top. From the clips shown, the interviews all seem quite hostile and designed to trip up and embarrass the candidates.

They gave their findings to Sir Alan who had to whittle the five down to two ready for next weeks final task.

Sir Alan didn't waste much time in firing Lohit, or putting him out of his misery as SAS put it. He seemed to have decided that Lohit wouldn't fit into his organisation. Lohit acknowledged that he hadn't been able to communicate to Sir Alan the value he had added to the tasks and sadly, the journey was over for him. I think Lohit did great to get so far without getting involved in the bitching and back biting that was common amongst the others.

Next to face the boot was Tre. Despite being on the winning team more times than anyone else, he lacked commercial experience - having mostly worked for a family business - and he stood accused of being argumentative, aggressive and I think I heard Margaret call him a bullshitter.

Now the real drama really unfolded. Sir Alan offered Katie a place in the final but then picked up on the fact she didn't seem overjoyed. The stumbling block seemed to be the issue of relocating her family and she decided ultimately to stand down and let Simon and Kristina progress to the final. Some will question whether Katie was only ever in this for herself and never wanted the job that was on offer, but the series wouldn't have been half as good without her, so I don't think the producers can hold it against her if that was her motive.

So, Sir Alan is left with Kristina and Simon - two candidates who both seem to really want the job. My money would be on Kristina, but next week we'll know who has failed and who will be... The Apprentice.

Labels: apprentice, review, tv