Joanne, John and Sophie see clocks everywhere they look
As John prepares to read the initial half of the task brief, he flips it over, and advises his team-mates to “Always look on the back of the task.” Having spotted that the additional text on the back of the brief involves numbers, Joanne states “I’m numerically dyslexic, so I’m gonna tap out now.”
In the studio, before the teams’ attempts are shown, Greg checks in with Joanne on her numerical dyslexia, then states “I love the idea that you can just tap out of things you don’t like.”
Back in the house, the team initially makes the same mistake as the team of two, assuming that the numbers on the back of the task brief refer to times on the clock, investigating the grandfather clock, and even finding “Sam’s clock keys”, though they do not go as far as removing the pendulum.
After Sophie suggests that the clock is a red herring, they attempt to think of what else the numbers could mean, but then Joanne suggests that they should “go and see other clocks”.
After heading outside the house together, they investigate Ollie (the decorative knight statue on the driveway), after Sophie mistakenly identifies his shield as a potential clock. John then misidentifies a bee hotel which is sat on top of one of the oil drums as another potential clock.
The team wander around to the hutch and check inside, where Sophie quickly spots the second half of the task brief poking out from behind the framed vinyl record on the wall. Assembling the two halves of the brief on the shelve outside the hutch, John begins reading it, but decides that they should all relocate to the lab before he’s finished reading, so they head back inside the house together, still holding hands.
In the lab, after John re-reads the complete task brief, Sophie immediately declines to eat any of the cake, insisting that her team-mates take care of that instead. The team actually keeps holding hands throughout most of the cake-eating process, until Sophie lets go of Joanne’s hand to investigate the clue they find inside of the cake. Eventually, John realises that he no longer needs to be holding Joanne’s hand.
Holding the uneaten half of the cake, Sophie then leads the team back out of the lab and back to the hutch, unaware that the clue in the cake is directing them towards the second half of the task brief that they already possess, and apparently instead under the misapprehension that it is directing them towards the post-box.
Wandering back around the front of the house, they eventually spot the post-box outside the caravan, and place the remaining cake inside of it. Joanne then finds a flower inside the caravan, and places it on top of the task brief on the concrete driveway, before all three team members sit down on top of it.
After stopping the clock, Alex asks the team what all the numbers on the back of the task brief had meant, and Sophie responds that they meant nothing, and “were there to throw us off”.
In the studio, Greg informs the team of three that “You’re not all going to get invited on Bargain Hunt, I’ll tell you that.”. After Sophie acknowledges that it had been “chaos”, and Joanne admits that “We didn’t know what we were doing.”, Greg sarcastically exclaims “No way?!”. Greg also observes that John had looked like he was in charge for the first part of their attempt, but that after “someone gave him cake… It was all over”.
After explaining the meaning of the numeric clue to both teams, Alex reveals that the team of three had completed the task in 10 minutes and 5 seconds. Greg therefore awards the team 5 points each.
(Written by Karl Craven)
(Illustrations collected by Jenny R and adjusted by David Fuller)
