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If you’ve been following The Traitors, you will already be aware that it hasn’t exactly been a vintage series. What felt fresh and exciting last year has now become slightly rote; something not helped by an intake of contestants who seemed to have been chosen based on their innate annoyingness.
One problem is that they all kept saying ‘yourself’ instead of ‘you’, which is a harrowing thing to have to hear over and over again for a month. But the bigger problem is that everyone is wise to the game now. Almost every contestant rocked up to Andross Castle with a honking great sense of self-interested superiority. And maybe that would have been fine, if it hadn’t made them all atomically insufferable.
There was Joe, a man who perpetually looked like a toddler who had just been told he couldn’t have any pudding. Or Leanne, a Wizard of Oz character on a quest for her missing sense of perspective. Or Freddie, who voluntarily applied to be on a show that required him to lie, despite not appearing to fully understand the concept. Or Jake, who said ‘yourself’ instead of ‘you’ so many times it made me burst a blood vessel. I’d never watched a reality show where I found myself actively hoping that nobody wins, and yet here we are.
But forget how occasionally ropey things were until now. Reality shows are remembered for their finales and, miraculously, The Traitors just about managed to pull this one out of the bag. After three weeks of repetitive missions, and round tables dominated by some of the most lunkheaded reasoning heard on British television since Brexit, the show finally found its feet with the announcement of a ‘Seer’; a contestant with the power to learn if someone is a Traitor or not.
Francesca was granted this power and happened to pick the sole remaining Traitor; Charlotte, a Londoner with a fake Welsh accent whose spectacular last-minute heel turn finally kicked the game kicked into hyperdrive.
Their initial confrontation was easily the highlight of the episode. Francesca sobbed and shook as she discovered her closest ally was a Traitor. Charlotte, meanwhile, grinned chillingly as she realised it was her word against Francesca’s. The Traitors had turned into a brutal cat and mouse between two former best friends. It was Walt and Hank in the final season of Breaking Bad, except with a couple of dingleberries in a castle on a show that isn’t as good as it used to be.
After a frustrating interlude where all this delicious tension evaporated for a pointless mission where people hung out of helicopters like a cut-price I’m a Celebrity, the contestants piled in for a blazing showdown at the Round Table. Only, this being The Traitors, it was less a cunning game of chess and more a screaming 2am kebab shop punch-up. Everyone instantly turned on each other, howling accusations of lies in each other’s faces, on a show that is specifically designed to reward lying.
But at least the cat and mouse game was resolved. Charlotte put up a good fight, but she got the chop. It was a stunning victory for Francesca, or it would have been, had she not also got the chop a few moments later.
Ultimately the winners were Leanne and Jake, who felt more like stunned bystanders than active participants. But that doesn’t really matter. What mattered was that, right at the death, The Traitors remembered exactly how nasty and paranoid it could be. If it can locate and sustain this tension in 2026 – and impose a blanket ban on the whole ‘yourself’ thing – we’ll be back in business.
