You might think, it being the final episode of this series of The Apprentice and all, that I'd have more important things to think about than that opening sequence I've been banging on about. Well, you'd be wrong. I mean, really - the same intro? For the final? ARE THEY FREAKING KIDDING ME??!

It's ok. I'm calm now.

It's week twelve, and the remaining four applicants - Lee, Claire, Helene and Alex, all went for a meal with Sir Alan. Claire thought he might be taking them to one of his old stomping grounds in Hackney, but no such luck, it was boring old fillet steak with truffles I'm afraid. During this happy scene there was an exchange between Sir Alan and Claire that was almost endearing (I can't believe I just wrote those words in that order): Claire: "Are we having three courses, Sir Alan?" SA: "You can have whatever you like - Lee's paying." Oh how we laughed.

The jollity stopped at precisely 6.20am the following morning, however, when the candidates were woken by a call telling them they'd be picked up in half an hour. They were taken to an empty art gallery, but true to form, this week's task had nothing to do with art. They'd simply be using the space to launch a men's fragrance, with commercials and ads for press, and hopefully a few dancing girls. An Apprentice final just isn't an Apprentice final without a few dancing girls. As we have come to expect, a few of the past candidates joined the finalists, with Jenny, Michael and Simon backing up Lee and Claire, and Raef, Jennifer and Kevin joining Alex and Helene. The losing team would get fired, and the winner would be chosen from the remaining two.

In the car, Helene said that she was happy to have been put with Alex, and that she would have chosen him given a choice - but that apparently positive grounding didn't prove much help in the long run. While Alex and Kevin went off to meet with the packaging designers, Helene was put in charge of thinking up a name, or at least a vague concept. She did neither. Of course she didn't, and you know why, because Helene's rubbish. She has always been rubbish, and why Sir Alan didn't get rid of her last week, let alone when she woefully "managed" the photography task weeks ago, I'll never know. Alex told her not to panic, and calmly went with the designer's idea of having a small take-away bottle contained within a larger bottle you could keep at home.

It has to be said that Claire and Lee were having a much better time of it over in Camp Alpha. After some quick market research, they'd come to the conclusion that - Lee, Alex and pretty much every other Apprentice candidate aside (apart from Simon) - the age of the metrosexual is dead, and men now "want to smell like men". They brainstormed calmly and productively, and came up with the name Roulette, which gave them an instant look and concept to tap into. Sure, it's connected with gambling which can ruin lives, but details schmetails, eh?

On day two, the TV adverts had to be filmed. Shockingly, Raef got in on the act, and helped Alex shoot Renaissance's commercial for the newly-named Dual. It "conveys the duality of human existence" said... well, do I really need to tell you? Helene, meanwhile, went off to the perfumery to decide on the scent. She went for a rather unconventional, sweet smell which, we would later learn, was not too dissimilar to the perfume she wears herself. Funny that. For Alpha, Lee and Jenny directed the Roulette advert, and Lee had a whale of a time getting into the whole "give it to me baby, that's it, really sell it!" thing.

On the final day of the task, it was all about pitches and presentations. Claire was in her element, Lee was struggling massively, and Kevin felt he needed to step in to sex up Alex and Helene's pitch which did look, you have to say, pretty darn dull. Jennifer said it was the worst presentation she'd ever seen, but then she looked bored, angry or a mixture of the two during the whole task.

Launch night came, and Alpha had dancing girls (told you!) with feathers to introduce their casino theme. They also had trance music on in the background, which rather spoiled the atmosphere somewhat... Both Claire and Lee pitched well, though, and Claire dealt admirably with the inevitable questions about the negative connotations of gambling. With Dual, Alex and Helene presented their product much better than their rehearsals suggested, and they got some great comments from the professionals in the audience. The worry that the bottle would just be too expensive to manufacture, however, did keep cropping up.

And so to the boardroom, where Simon, Jenny and Michael were all profuse in their praise for their "superb" team leaders Lee and Claire. Nick soon stopped the back-slapping though: "Roulette equals gambling, equals debt, equals misery" he said sharply. Feet shuffled and eyes shifted for a moment before Sir Alan took a breath and ploughed on. He pointed out to Renaissance that this task was partly about seeing whether the finalists could pull together, which of course, they didn't.

In summing up the task, and therefore coming round to announcing his final two, Sir Alan said that he had to look who had "ticked the most boxes". In other words, he was as vague as possible in his firing criteria so that he could chose whoever the hell he wanted. And a good job too - Claire and Lee were clearly better overall on this task, but if Sir Alan had left it to the professionals to decide on the basis of the product alone, it could have gone either way. With Sir Alan free to do as he pleased, however, he got rid of Helene and Alex. Woop!

With those two gone, it was a straight fight between Lee and Claire. Not that, in the end, it was actually a fight at all - both were forthright but coherent in their own defence, and neither sought to belittle the other. It was all rather polite, to be honest. "It''s been a long, long journey" said Sir Alan, and he wondered out loud whether Lee's just a one-trick pony, and whether he'd be able to put up with Claire. Eventually, he made his decision: "Lee" he said, "you're very convincing. You're hired."

This probably came as a surprise to a lot of people - it did to me initially - but when you stop and think about it, Sir Alan probably felt that Lee simply has more to learn and more to gain from this opportunity than Claire does. Claire's learning has already been done during the process - we all saw her as a manipulative bully a few weeks ago, and while she still has that fight in her, it seems to have been channeled into her work. As for Lee, I have no doubt at all that he will work tremendously hard for Sir Alan, and that he genuinely wanted this job. For once, I think Sir Alan has got the right man.