The Apprentice - episode 8 review: Lord Sugar makes big call on 'disruptive' Melica after hot sauce task

Melica, who is proud to be representing Worthing on the series, is the ambitious owner of a thriving AI tech recruitment business.

Looking to connect her passions for business and travel, Melica’s goal is global. This driven and skilled salesperson is set on her biggest challenge yet, to recruit business tycoon Lord Alan Sugar as her next business partner.

There are spoilers in this article.

You can see what her latest odds are of winning here and you can find out about all the contestants in this year’s series here.

These are our thoughts on episode 8 of The Apprentice 2025.

The task – Melica’s highlights

Day 1 – making the sauce and the advert

Melica still yet to answer the phone. The teams had to meet in Los Moches where traditional cuisines are given a modern makeover and Lord Sugar gave them the task of creating a hot sauce. The market of spicy food is thought to be worth £100 billion a year. They have to come up with the recipe, brand and then pitch to market experts.

There is team switch and Liam, Emma and Jordan moved to Ascendancy and Dean and Melica moved to Parallel. Mia and Anisha put themselves forward for PM in Ascendancy – and Mia triumphed.

Amber-Rose took control of Parallel and they went for a fiery sauce. Dean was offered sub-team leader but he didn’t want it, so Max stepped up. Melica quiet so far – and she was put on the advert team with Amber-Rose and Chisola.

Amber-Rose asked Chisola to act in the advert – Melica piped up straight away and said: “I think you [Amber Rose] would make a great actor but I thought you would pick me. I got an A in drama.”

But Amber-Rose stuck with Chisola. Melica then did a talking head saying she did a lot of acting when she got an A in drama and said she was ‘funny and quirky’ and said she had no experience in directing.

The boys on Parallel made a sauce with honey, tomato and garlic with Carolina Reaper. Amber-Rose didn’t seem particularly pleased and wanted it more ‘experimental’. Melica was interrupting a lot during the advert and director Amber-Rose was clearly annoyed.

Day 2 – the reveal and the pitch

Melica questioned the boys’ recipe. And Amber-Rose pointed out the missing punctuation in Bangin’ on the logo.

On the other team, the taste and consistency of the sauce was questioned but the bottle looked nice.

When asked about the advert, Amber-Rose called out Melica for being disruptive. Melica brought up her A-grade again. Max said he sensed tension between Melica and Amber-Rose. On the way the focus group, Melica said she might need a big pint of milk as their sauce was quite hot. In the focus group, they said it lacked ‘sexiness’ and the branding looked like a ‘GSCE project’.

They then pitched in front of a panel of advertising and hot sauce supremos, including Peri Peri legend Levi Roots. Melica was not in the pitch – but we heard her comments as they watched, including spotting Karen struggling with the heat.

Levi Roots said the sauce did not grab him and labelled it ‘boring’.

The other team’s advert did not have the bottle in the advert and that was pointed out in the pitch and the thickness of their sauce was a problem.

It seems like Melica’s team had the better sauce.

The Boardroom

Lord Sugar revealed straight away he doesn’t like hot sauce. He focussed on Parallel first. Melica threw the boys under the bus and criticised the choice of the Carolina Reaper. Karen highlighted the fact that all aspects were criticised by the experts.

With Ascendancy, the thickness of the sauce was highlighted. Then Lord Sugar said the advert was more ‘Gor blimey’ than ‘Gourmet’. And the fact the bottle was not in the advert was a big problem.

Lord Sugar said he would make the decision because it was an advertising task...

The result

Lord Sugar said both adverts were poor and said Ascendancy’s was pathetic. Parallel’s advert was called ‘more pathetic’ and Lord Sugar declared there was no winner. They were both ‘garbage’. He said he would get both teams back and decide who would be fired.

Result: No winner!

The cafe

The focus is on Max and Dean in Parallel for the sauce before Chisola called out Melica’s action during the action and said it slowed them down. Melica claimed she added value. Amber-Rose said: “I can’t tell you one thing Melica added. You have to be a team player.”

Who got fired?

Lord Sugar started the final speech by saying not one contestant is ‘shining through’ and as fuming – ‘it was less tabasco more like fiasco’. Mia blamed the failure on the task on the sub team.

Amber-Rose said the advert could have been done better without Melica and said they had to manage Melica’s ‘behaviour’. Lord Sugar said: “Melica you are a bit disruptive.” She replied: “Correct."

Amber-Rose brought Melica and Dean back. Mia brought back Anisha and Emma.

The contestants were sent out and Lord Sugar discussed with Karen and Tim. Karen said all the contestants had the same complaint against Melica. “No smoke without fire” she said.

Lord Sugar asked Melica who on her team should be fired, she said: “Both of them.” He said he couldn’t ignore the fact that she has admitted she had been disruptive, so on that basis, you’re fired!”

On the other team, he fired Emma for not seeing much her in past eight weeks.

Verdict on Melica

Melica focussed a lot on her A-grade in her Drama GCSE, which was odd but maybe Amber-Rose should have taken notice and used her skills in the advert.

But Melica should have let Amber-Rose do the directing instead of interrupting. There was clearly tension between the two. Melica didn’t appear to contribute too much to the task other than making comments and disrupting the making of the advert – and that was decisive in her downfall.

The Sussex contestant had a good run but it seemed like she was not the strongest candidate and this was probably the right time for her to go.

Maybe she does need to think before she speaks in future.

Next week’s task

Eight candidates remain – next time they have the live shopping channel task.

You can read our review of episode one here, episode two here, episode three here, episode four here, episode five here, episode six here and episode seven here.