David stumps himself

After entering the lab and not spotting a task brief, David asks Alex “What do I need to do?”. When Alex tells him that it’s up to him, David immediately turns around and leaves the lab again.

After returning to the lab, David says “Let’s start again”, and then asks Alex “What would you like me to do?”. David then has to put on his glasses to read the initial task brief.

David decides to put as many surgical gloves as possible onto just his left hand, eventually balling it into a fist and then stretching the gloves around that, turning it into a stump. He eventually notes that he is starting to lose the sensation in that hand. He also hangs one glove over his right ear, and then wears one of the goalkeeper’s gloves on his right hand.

After Alex blows his whistle, David asks if he can start removing the gloves (presumably concerned about losing the use of his left hand). He holds one of the cocktail glasses full of sand in his functioning right hand, and encourages Alex to balance the other on his begloved left fist.

After Alex informs him that the first task brief was not the actual task, and directs his attention towards the hand on the wall, David carefully approaches the edge of the room, but the glass on his left hand falls to the ground. He then uses his glove-encased stump to pivot the hand on the wall out of the way, so he can read the real task brief.

After reading the line about not ‘putting’ down the glasses, David gestures towards the glass on the floor and argues “I didn’t put it down, I threw it down”.

David grips his left hand between his thighs and is eventually able to remove all of the gloves from it using the friction.

In the studio, Greg admits that he’d found David’s decision to wear almost all of the gloves on one hand “intriguing”. Alex reveals that David had put on a total of 40 gloves, with 38 of them being worn on his left hand. He also reveals that David had been able to remove all of the gloves and put them back in the briefcase in just 35 seconds, but had spilled 473 grams of sand, giving him a final time of 8 minutes and 28 seconds, and earning him 2 points.

(Written by Karl Craven and proofread by M3 / Andres Sanchez)

(Illustrations collected by Jenny R and adjusted by Karl Craven)