If you’ve been following The Traitors, you’ll already remember that it hasn’t precisely been a classic sequence. What felt recent and thrilling final yr has now change into barely rote; one thing not helped by an consumption of contestants who appeared to have been chosen based mostly on their innate annoyingness.
One drawback is that all of them stored saying ‘your self’ as a substitute of ‘you’, which is a harrowing factor to have to listen to over and over for a month. However the larger drawback is that everybody is smart to the sport now. Virtually each contestant rocked as much as Andross Fort with a honking nice sense of self-interested superiority. And perhaps that may have been positive, if it hadn’t made all of them atomically unbearable.
There was Joe, a person who perpetually regarded like a toddler who had simply been instructed he couldn’t have any pudding. Or Leanne, a Wizard of Oz character on a quest for her lacking sense of perspective. Or Freddie, who voluntarily utilized to be on a present that required him to lie, regardless of not showing to totally perceive the idea. Or Jake, who mentioned ‘your self’ as a substitute of ‘you’ so many occasions it made me burst a blood vessel. I’d by no means watched a actuality present the place I discovered myself actively hoping that no one wins, and but right here we’re.
However neglect how sometimes ropey issues had been till now. Actuality exhibits are remembered for his or her finales and, miraculously, The Traitors nearly managed to drag this one out of the bag. After three weeks of repetitive missions, and spherical tables dominated by a few of the most lunkheaded reasoning heard on British tv since Brexit, the present lastly discovered its toes with the announcement of a ‘Seer’; a contestant with the facility to be taught if somebody is a Traitor or not.
Francesca was granted this energy and occurred to select the only real remaining Traitor; Charlotte, a Londoner with a faux Welsh accent whose spectacular last-minute heel flip lastly kicked the sport kicked into hyperdrive.
Their preliminary confrontation was simply the spotlight of the episode. Francesca sobbed and shook as she found her closest ally was a Traitor. Charlotte, in the meantime, grinned chillingly as she realised it was her phrase towards Francesca’s. The Traitors had changed into a brutal cat and mouse between two former finest pals. It was Walt and Hank within the closing season of Breaking Dangerous, besides with a few dingleberries in a fort on a present that isn’t nearly as good because it was once.
After a irritating interlude the place all this scrumptious pressure evaporated for a pointless mission the place individuals frolicked of helicopters like a cut-price I’m a Superstar, the contestants piled in for a blazing showdown on the Spherical Desk. Solely, this being The Traitors, it was much less a crafty sport of chess and extra a screaming 2am kebab store punch-up. Everybody immediately turned on one another, howling accusations of lies in one another’s faces, on a present that’s particularly designed to reward mendacity.
However at the very least the cat and mouse sport was resolved. Charlotte put up a superb battle, however she received the chop. It was a surprising victory for Francesca, or it could have been, had she not additionally received the chop a number of moments later.
In the end the winners had been Leanne and Jake, who felt extra like surprised bystanders than lively contributors. However that doesn’t actually matter. What mattered was that, proper on the dying, The Traitors remembered precisely how nasty and paranoid it may very well be. If it could actually find and maintain this pressure in 2026 – and impose a blanket ban on the entire ‘your self’ factor – we’ll be again in enterprise.