Sophie invents the name ‘Apoppo’

Immediately after reading the first line of the task brief, Sophie observes that she had just shaken hands with Alex, as she’d arrived at the scene of the task. After reading more of the brief, she admits that she’s actually quite scared about the situation.

As she squeezes one of the first few hands, she observes that it’s “squishy”, and Alex responds that “Some people do have squishy hands”. She decides to move on from the hand, stating that it’s “unusual”, and she’ll come back to it.

She comments that another hand is “weird” and admits that she has no idea what another one is.

Returning to the start of the line, Sophie grabs the scissors and cuts off the fingertip of the first hand, correctly identifying its contents as “Acorns”.

She then incorrectly identifies the contents of the third glove as “Oatmeal”, and the contents of the fourth glove as “Rulers” (though she also records additional words on the board for this hand which are not legible to this author).

After shaking hands with the fifth glove, she exclaims “Oh god! That’s a real hand.”, correctly identifying its contents, but recording it on the board as “Real person”, rather than ‘Hand’.

After squeezing the seventh hand, she incorrectly guesses and records on the board that it contains “Water”.

Approaching the eighth hand with the scissors, she observes that it definitely isn’t a person, and snips a hole in one of the fingers. As the contents begin to fall out, she correctly identifies them as “shredded fake nails”, and records this on the board as “Nails”.

She correctly identifies the contents of the sixth glove as “Pickled onions”, which is how she records it on the board (rather than just ‘Onions’).

Although not seen investigating the ninth hand, she correctly records on the board that it contains “Eggs”. However, she incorrectly identifies the contents of the second hand as “Pens”.

With only three answers correctly worded on the chalkboard (even though she had correctly identified the contents of five of the gloves), she struggles to identify the person with whom she has shaken hands, based on the first letters on each line, which lead her to guess “Apopawatapo” and “Apoppo”.

In the studio, Alex reveals that Sophie had also guessed “Apocalypse”, “Apostrophe”, and “Apropos”, prompting Greg to say “Apropos of Apoppo” (thus coining the episode title).

After Nick’s success at the task is subsequently revealed, Sophie high-fives him. When Greg questions her on this, she states that she and Nick are usually at the bottom together, so his victory also felt like a win for her.

Alex confirms that Sophie had correctly identified the contents of five of the gloves, but had not identified him as the individual she’d shaken hands with, so she earns 2 points.

(Written by Karl Craven)

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