The Apprentice review: Phil's fate hangs in the balance as Bognor baker faces the sack if he can't get his first win

In last week’s episode of the hit BBC Series, Lord Alan Sugar made it clear that, if Phil loses this week’s task, he’ll be packing his bags and heading back to his pie shop in Bognor Regis.

So, it was an extra layer of pressure that Phil took on the mantle of project manager this week, siding with sub-team leader Tre, the always-capable Flo and dentist Paul. Facing off against them in a challenge to design, market and pitch a vegan cheese to leading retailers, was Team Supreme, led by Rachel, alongside Steve and Foluso.

With an extra man on his team, the ball was in his court, and he set off like a man on a mission, laying out his vision for a gourmet cheese spread with the kind of ‘sleek’, sophisticated marketing which, he hoped, would wow industry experts. This was Phil at his very best – better than at any point prior to this – and it was refreshing to see him take charge, especially when he’s spent the last few episodes spinning his wheels and, to me, burying his head in the sand. He had an excellent grasp of his team’s strengths and weaknesses, and he deployed them with an authoritative aplomb. It’s clear that Phil has always had leadership potential – in early episodes, he made easy work of the catering tasks – and it was a pleasure to watch him shine.

Things were a lot different over in Rachel’s camp, whose leader had taken charge only reluctantly, by virtue of being the only person who had actually ever tried vegan cheese. Opting for a cheese wheel, she and Steve would design the cheese itself, leaving Foluso to handle the branding all on her own.

In the kitchen, things got off to a predictably rocky start, with Steve suggesting a strange curry flavoured combo that somehow stuck, leaving Team Supreme with a very rocky base from which to build their product.

In his comfort zone, Phil did much better, piecing together a truffle, vegan bacon and black pepper combo that went down a treat with industry pros, even if most of them thought it didn’t actually taste much like truffle.

The packaging is where they dropped the ball. Led by would-be media mogul Tre, it all felt a bit straightforward, with antiseptic blues and plain fonts that didn’t so much scream ‘culinary sophistication’ as they did ‘prescription hair cream.’

Still, Rachel’s team had a similarly tough time with the packaging, too. Left to sort the branding all on her lonesome, it all felt a bit arbitrary. Her video, cobbled together at the last minute with very few concrete details about the product itself, didn’t feel especially relevant, and her packaging failed to actually describe the product itself. Most of the show’s industry experts were left wondering what it was they were actually holding.

With a bad product, and worse packaging, it all went down about as well as you might expect. Rachel’s team failed as unambiguously as its possible to fail, selling a grand total of nothing to any of the industry giants interviewed.

In a series first, Phil’s team did much better, selling 18,000 units based on two successful pitches, all, apparently, down to Phil’s sophisticated palette and clear vision for the product.

A win, then, and a very well-deserved one. He struggled a but during the initial pitches, and he could have been braver when it came to designing the product’s flavour profile, but it’s hard to blame him for playing it safe. Ultimately, this week’s episode showed Phil in his element; pulling his team together around a strong product with a workable, common sense identity. It was easily one of the most convincing wins of the series so far, and a stand out performance from Phil; one can only wonder where this version of the Bognor baker has been all series long!

Unfortunately, though, someone always has to go. And this time it was branding maestro Foluso who left the board-room for the last time, shouldering the blame for Team Supreme’s less-than-stellar packaging. Leaving alongside her was Steve Darken, who put his neck out with the curried-cheese idea, only to have it sliced in two by a no nonsense Lord Sugar.

All quite unfairly in this hack’s opinion. Foluso and Steve made their mistakes, but it seemed to me that Rachel set them up to fail by forcing Foluso to fly solo on the biggest, most important part of the project. It seemed to me she should take the fall for failing to allocate her limited resources properly but, as ten episode and 18 seasons have proven so far, Sugar works in mysterious ways.

Watch The Apprentice every Thursday on BBC One at 9pm.