Ranking the S20 Final Five - Part 1: Karishma Vijay

Let’s go over the S20 final five and see how they performed in the process and how I’d rank them as candidates overall. I think it’s fitting to start with what most people would consider the clear frontrunner: Karishma. Also side note but people will certainly bring up “oh but the editing” and I will try to look past that and judge the candidates on what they overall contributed to each task.

Episode 1: Hong Kong - **Good**

This was a task where nearly everyone was bad or invisible (considering the girls team only got two items and the boy’s team only got three, that isn’t a shocker) but Karishma was able to get in a very good negotiation for the mahjong which means she is able to escape from those negative rankings.

Episode 2: Children’s Story - **Good**

While the writing of the book was a total mess, the design team of Karishma, Roxanne, Vanessa and Carrington all did an excellent job and were a key reason why they won this task. It’s funny to think Roxanne of all people was the MVP though.

Episode 3: Chicken V Egg - **Good**

Her negotiation was sabotaged by Megan/Tanmay so I don’t really fault her that much for it going wrong and she was able to properly manage the catering for the corporate client event so yet again another good task from her.

Episode 4: Advertising Water - **Fantastic**

Took full control as PM by giving a clear brief and direction while also creating an advert that received unanimous praise from the clients and Sugar himself. She also excelled in the pitch too. Definitely came across as a little controlling but the results don’t lie do they?

Episode 5: Flowers - **Awful**

Easily her worst task. She had a huge part to play in the overspending of the flowers which was a major reason why they lost the task and she was stuck behind the market stand organising the flowers under instruction by Lawrence so didn’t get much time to shine in terms of selling. She truthfully should have been in the boardroom this episode over Pascha although Vanessa was always going to get fired here no matter what anyway.

Episode 6: Egypt - **Good**

Kept calm and rational in the kitchen while Levi and Priyesh were being chaotic messes. Not too notable otherwise though.

Episode 7: Gamified Fitness - **Fantastic**

Hard carried this team to the win all by herself. Came up with the concept of the game and led the creation of it as well while Kieran and Conor kinda sat back and let her do everything. Harry cut her from the pitch because he didn’t want it to look like she was carrying the whole task is my bet haha

Episode 8: Discount Buying Take Two - **Good**

Not much else to say here other than again she had some solid negotiations. Kieran didn’t even think about bringing her back into the final boardroom.

Episode 9: TV Selling - **Mixed**

I was really torn between Mixed and Good for the ranking here. On one hand she actually did have the most to do with this team winning as she sold a lot of the products (her solo segment was actually cut out in the edit in which I guess the reason for this was to prop up Pascha who was the PM more) but on the other hand she messed up with the high value item and failed to sell any of them. Considering this team only won by £100, I do think this is close enough to label her performance as Mixed despite her selling the most as the high value item was a clear error that could have easily led to the team’s defeat.

Episode 10: Pet Product - **Mixed**

Honestly the voice activated dog bed was a pretty flawed invention all around and while I give Karishma props that she did well in the pitch and sold quite a few of them, this again wasn’t a blowout victory and if Dan had just pushed a bit more during his sale on the other team, her team would have most likely lost instead. Am I the only one who thought the cat tree wasn’t even that bad?

**Rankings:**

Fantastic - 2 Episodes

Good - 5 Episodes

Mixed - 2 Episodes

Awful - 1 Episode

Overall a clear top tier candidate and very deserving of the frontrunner title. Sadly it looks like frontrunners usually fall at the last hurdle (the interviews) in these modern seasons but hopefully Karishma can avoid that curse for once!

Next up will be Dan! Predictions for his rankings?