Mona uses a blender

To unwind the string, Mona decides to try to use a blender. When Antoine questions if Mona’s intended method is safe, she jokes that she “grew up on the streets”, and has “played with blades” before.

Mona acknowledges that the set-up for her technique is slow, but argues that the speed of the subsequent unravelling will make up for it.

Mona holds the reel of string on a spindle, and lets the spinning blades pull the string off of the reel. While this method works for a short while, the blades soon cut up the string, severing it from the reel, and Mona has to admit that her idea was a failure.

Mona has Antoine hold the spindle, and starts pulling the string off the reel herself, sticking with this method until all of the string is unravelled, after nearly five minutes.

When she notices that Antoine has not stopped the timer, Mona picks the task brief up and flips it over. She refuses to roll up the string again, so leaves the room in search of a different reel.

Mona eventually returns with a short length of rope (‘corde’ can mean ‘string’ or ‘rope’), wraps it around the empty reel, in a neat ball, and places it on the cushion.

Mona completes the task in 7 minutes and 39 seconds.

Despite the fact that Mona takes the longest time to finish the task, Louis rules that she was the only contestant to re-roll the string neatly (as dictated by the task brief), so he awards her the win.

(Written by Jenny R and proofread by Karl Craven)

(Illustrations collected by Jenny R and adjusted by David Fuller)