Lord Sugar had a tough task tonight, showing his impatience with the entire Phoenix team, after they failed to recruit the urban artist of their choice, and come up with a convincing Plan B to turn urban art into hard cash.
From the losing team, Jade, Tom and Laura were all "disheartened", and flinging the blame around, with team leader Tom standing by his decisions, and Jade and Laura enmeshed in accusations of each other. According to Lord Sugar, Tom made wrong decisions but at least he was prepared to take a gamble, and Jade wasn't decisive enough.
But, ultimately, Laura, the self-processed good salesperson, and her long, expansive dissertation of her relevant skill-base, she just didn't sell enough.
She concluded "I just didn't work smart last night," but Lord Sugar concluded that "you're certainly a good talker, but I'm not convinced you should remain in this process."
And that was it. "Laura... you're fired."
Laura was evidently shocked, but summoned enough good manners to wish Lord Sugar a final "take care".
However, Lord Sugar had stern words for Phoenix project manager Tom as well, saying the team's problems had started from his inability to recruit urban artist Pure Evil, and losing him to the smooth-tongued Gabrielle of Team Sterling - "she flattered, she listened" was how Karren Brady saw the smoother operator of the pair.
Tom admitted that he had probably used the wrong tack in attempting to recruit Pure Evil - "not enough enthusiasm," reflected observer Nick Hewer. "Too busy proving how much you knew," was how Lord Sugar saw it.
Gabrielle, Team Sterling's project manager, proceeded smoothly through once again, earning pretty much universal praise from her team-mates for her smooth talking with their key artist Pure Evil.
But Gabrielle didn't fare as well on the corporate side of things, with a shocked Lord Sugar informing them the client had a lot more money up their sleeves than they realised, a whopping £10,000 - and Gabrielle hadn't even asked for a budget, a huge wasted opportunity, and nor had her team schmoozed enough with the punters on gallery night.
Observer Karren Brady wasn't impressed, to put it mildly - “I’ve just witnessed a master class in how not to treat a corporate client. A complete and utter ridiculous chain of events.”
Excusable, surely - aren't gallery openings all about free drink and a canape?
Here are this week's candidates in action - banking on a Banksy...
