Lord Sugar pulled off a major shock at the end of this week's episode of The Apprentice with an unexpected double firing.
Next week's interview stage of the process traditionally has five candidates but this series there will only be four after Sugar decided to let two of the last six go.
Furthermore, the final four is now all-female as the last two men standing, Aaron Willis and Akeem Bundu-Kamara, both received their marching orders.
This week's task required the two teams to develop a healthy new baby food brand, including creating a dish and designing the packaging, before pitching the product to two major food retailers.
Aaron - the only parent among the candidates - led his team and decided to go for a Moroccan-inspired dish, which was criticised for being bland and stodgy.
The other team was led by Harpreet Kaur, whose salmon meal drew praise, but the branding team of Akeem and Stephanie Affleck had a nightmare with their packaging for the brand, which was called 'First Time Foodies'. The pair decided to substitute the double-O in the word 'Foodies' for pictures of two woks, creating the unfortunate side-effect of having the word 'Dies' on the label.
"The biggest issue is from this label, it looks like we want to kill children," Harpreet admitted afterwards, while Iceland MD Richard Walker said that the brand name read to him as "First Time Fuck Dies".
Lord Sugar was unimpressed with both teams and after neither managed to receive any orders for the products, he brought all six candidates back into the board room, first firing Aaron and then Akeem.
"Do you know what, I'm actually quite at peace with it because I do think it was my time," said Aaron afterwards.
"It was one of those moments where I felt I'd peaked and I'd rather have been fired for something which was justified, so I've got no complaints. At the end of the day, I messed it up, so I can't really argue with that."
Akeem, meanwhile, said he was "feeling extremely gutted" at being shown the door, adding: "To technically make the final five, but not to make it to the interview stage, well, it's unfortunate but I feel like I've done well. Two wins as PM, so I've definitely got things to be proud of and now it's all about advancing with my business."
The Apprentice continues next Thursday at 9pm on BBC One. body check tags ::
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