The Traitors - BBC (& other networks in other countries) reality gameshow

Everyone agrees that this is the best thing of its type on TV, so let's give it a thread.

https://i.imgur.com/WglAP1Y.png

(even if just as a safe place to say that parliamentary advisors must be eliminated on principle, and this one in particular does not seem to be an exception)

psyched for this, season 1 was great

just hope they haven't brought in a load of "characters" and oddballs this time to "liven it up" like BB did. S1 was great partly because the folks in it were so normal.

Halfway through the first episode (first three are now up on iplayer) and seems like a reasonable mix of people - only big difference from S1 is that they all have arrived with gameplans, but that's unavoidable I guess.

Having said that and having finished episode one now, I do kind of hate two of the traitors. One of them in particular.

Kind of hard to see how this thread is gonna pan out though. Obviously I want to avoid spoilers but if the thread is a spoiler-free zone then I don't really see that there's much else to discuss. Ofc we could use spoiler tags but I don't trust myself not to click on them lol. I'll probably end up avoiding the thread altogether tbh. Great show though and I've lined up the first three episodes for watching.

Just finished ep 3. Is it reverting to one per week after this week? At which point surely the episodes are fair game for discussion after airing on BBC 1 and anyone wanting to avoid spoilers can stay off the thread until they've watched?

I was late to the party first time round and binged the entire thing in about three days - waiting for new episodes is torture

think maybe the best way would be to consider episodes "already spoiled" as soon as they air?

or as soon as they are on iplayer, which means I have 1.5 to catch up on.

Not as soon as they're on iPlayer, please. We don't have iPlayer in Ireland, and I want to chat with fellow Traitor enthusiasts.

Is it my imagination or do the contestants seem a little bit more telegenic this time round? One of the things I really enjoyed about the first UK series was how they were all different shapes and sizes and abilities. People seem a bit fitter and a bit more generic-reality-contestant this time? It could just be my imagination, though. I have only seen one episode.

Someone said something on social media the other day along the lines of "watch all us gays go all in on someone without checking their social media first" and I wondered what that might reference.

Broadcast plan is to stick to Weds/Thurs/Fri each week and have that weeks shows availability at 10pm on Wednesday. I broke and watched ep3 last night, but I'm not in at primetime on a Friday.

it's on TV tonight - so maybe safe to talk (with spoiler tags) from tomorrow?

watched the first three episodes - incredible ending to episode 3, cannot believe they would leave us for a week on that cliffhanger!

I have mellowed a lot to the contestants, still dislike two of the traitors though.

End of ep3 had me actually screaming at the telly, the utter bastards.

Ok, going with the spoilers now

Ash is just useless at being a traitor, she is lucky to have survived this far. If she isn't going out now then it's going to be an extremely awkward meeting (we're going to start an episode with a banishment THEN a kill aren't we?) but the clips showed them being fairly jolly so she may well be out? Paul has me concerned that the correct strategy for this game is to be a straight-up psychopath, the shock around the table when he received a single vote was the funniest moment so far. The mother/son twist is a good one, but I think there will be another secret ready to be revealed next week.

Agree with all of that. I think the next secret reveal is that Evie and Tracey are mother and daughter. There's been very little contact between them and very little focus on them - both are from Inverness (though Tracey's clearly not from there originally judging by her accent) but that hasn't come up at all

Stacey Dooley made the point on the Ed Gamble podcast show - which isn't really worth your time if you were wondering - that accent is a much bigger signifier that you would expect in picking these things out, that her and her mum never get identified as such because she's got a really strong Scouse accent so if true it could go unnoticed for a very long time.

I just thought with Evie and Miles chatting about both being vet nurses, she was quite inquisitive and would have sussed that Tracey and her were both from the same place. Likewise Tracey would surely have clocked the Inverness accent on a stranger...

I'm sure this is all above board and everything but I'm still intrigued by how they film it. They say everyone has their own "living quarters" but we never get to see them or what the layout of them is like. How do they film the bits with the traitors in the tower and the straight-to-camera interviews with them? How do the programme-makers manage to keep the filming of these parts secret from the faithfuls?

Guessing there is a diary room, like in Big Brother, and everyone has a turn to visit it each day.
I always wonder why they don't stay in the castle, but I guess they want to eliminate any chance of the contestants seeing each-other moving around, especially in the evening.

That was what I was wondering, because I assumed they do stay in the castle. Has it been shown that they don't?

Footage strongly suggests that they are taken away by jeep every night to somewhere else, and then brought back in the morning for filming.

Ivan and Rayan from last series are on Twitter and one of them said that they stay in a different hotel. You do occasionally see living quarters, am sure last series there were shots of people in showers and in their beds.

It's the Marriott at Inverness Airport, Alan Cumming said it in an interview.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/alan-cumming-enters-his-bond-villain-era-as-host-of-the-traitors

Anyway I'm assuming they employ some kind of Circle type lockdown in the hotel, all brought in individually and all doors shut while people are moving.

If room occupants are anonymised then you can't tell who's walking past your room, but you would expect some people to be (Traitors, victims) so footsteps wouldn't be weird. I assume victims are alerted through some kind of pager in their room.

I haven't watched the American one, didn't realise it was filmed here too, but that'll explain why my mum saw Alan Cumming wandering around the town one day.

I assume they all do some generic location shots of sleeping and getting up and stuff at a fancier location (maybe even the castle) to be inserted into the show at some point.

I think the precedent was set by The Circle, because the American one is filmed in the same flats in Manchester.

I really enjoy the staged shots of them in their "room", combing their hair, reading a book, sitting on the bed etc.

I'm watching the second season having not seen the first (so reading this thread peeking through my fingers in case of spoilers). Brian's completely inexplicable meltdown* made for some excellent TV.

*said with the disclaimer that I'm sure I'd behave in a similarly inexplicable way

Spoilers for series 1 which Merdeyeux can read at his peril:

Brian's behaviour reminded me a bit of Aaron's complete overreaction in S1 but that actually provided some humanity and redemption for him in the end

Nice to see they abandoned the iPlayer format I posted above after the first week despite me typing it the day after the BBC guy had said it.

Anyway, I'm enjoying this year but it's leaning so hard into social media trends and likes that I'm finding the editing super weird - which is making me notice other things.

The funeral episode last night must have been an editing decision after week 1, right? There's no way they could have known Diane was going to be such a twitter sensation before the first episodes aired and I find it hard to believe they would have centred any other contestant that way. So was it re-edited last week?

The inserts this year have been crazy, last Thursday there was a 5 second shot of a topless Charlotte in a bath. Wtf? In week 1 there was a similar shot of Andrew in the shower. So someone in the production staff persuaded them to strip off on set in the big house for... why?

The strangest piece has been in the Ed Gamble show. There's a section where the two latest contestants out read the list of Traitors for reaction faces. They're then interviewed. So last night, in the interview section, they made a big play and talked to Diane about being a social media sensation and read out tweets. Which means it's new/current. But... they're wearing the same clothes in both those sections so either they've been told to and the reveal was during filming, or the surprise at the reveal is fake and they're relying on the acting skills of an entire show comprising members of the public to be convincing (which they seem to be managing). Either of which are baffling decisions and only needed if you're pretending the main show is being filmed live (which the weather makes a nonsense) or that none of the contestants talk to each other between filming and broadcast.

Think Paul will come a cropper tonight, pretty hard, and maybe set up for it by Harry, who I think will win.

took me until episode 5 or 6 to realise that Charlie and Evie are two different people.

My guess is they tell them to wear the same clothes, but I guess we will find out from podcasts when the whole thing is over, because God forbid any detail of a television show go unpodcasted.

I only say that because I remember a big article someone wrote about their experience on Masterchef in the US, and how they had to wear the same clothes (and not wash their hair!) for a week while they filmed their episode and all the reactions and retakes and stuff.

I suspect the production team knew the value of the central contestant in the funeral task - it might actually be that they had a couple of tasks up their sleeve and may have decided not to waste the funeral task had it fallen on a weaker or duller player (and it's their editing pushing strong player narrative anyway to a certain extent).

The companion show is already a "visualised podcast" with additional podcast available from the same recording so pop is very firmly eating itself there.

What I can't work out is why the pretence it's the same time unless it is because surely everyone alive knows shooting and screening are months apart and all the contestants meet up after shooting is done - gbbo even makes a virtue of it FFS with the 'after filming' roadtrip montage after the final.

It would have been impossible not to have done the funeral task otherwise because it was all based on the slow death so they can't have switched it round; my assumption is that for someone less giffable they would kind of race through it and have extended the round table. Which brings us back to 'current' editing.

Well, no, they could just have delivered the murder letter and made it a regular murder and come up with another ruse to use the cemetery area at a later date, no?

(Am not watching tonight's live as my other half has had the audacity to make other plans)

No spoilers on tonight's, but what a great show.

I see what you mean about the funeral but it kind of needed the volume of contestants to make it a thing. If their remaining missions are divide and dissolve like tonight's then they're completely biased for late tasks so not sure when it could have swapped in.

surely everyone alive knows shooting and screening are months apart

I guess if you sat people down and said it to them, they would agree that they know it, but people are willing to suspend disbelief when the programme helps them to. I mean, realistically we all know the Hootenany isn't live, but you allow yourself to forget when you're watching it. It feels like they've opted for a more Big Brother-y feeling to make it more of an appointment show, to make people forget they're not watching a live show. But I agree that it isn't always coming across very clearly - it seems a bit muddled.

For me, it just feels a bit more forced this year, and not in particularly clever ways. Look into each others' eyes and say "I am a faithful,"? Not very subtle or imaginative as a way of ferreting out suspects, is it?

it's one of my least favourite bits, but they did exactly the same last year

It was spectacularly bad though, because all the Faithful said it normally, and all the Traitors overemphasised the 'AM' so they sounded like Sean Connery introducing himself in Highlander.

Lol. They did! Yeah, they are not playing it cool at all.

Some brave knitwear choices from Claude this evening.

Hi Uncloaked editors! Charlie and Charlotte wearing different clothes in the two segments last night.

Not sure Ross' strategy is going to work. Harry still playing a blinder.

Interesting nugget over the weekend that the British and American versions are basically shot concurrently so they don't need to break the sets up - so the funeral, say, was filmed one day for the Brits and the next day for the US. Makes it a fascinating set of logistics and arguably makes the airport hotel easier to manage if you don't know whether it's someone from your show or the other one next to you.

Have people been following the breakfast thing? Basically, it seems that in series 1 the traitors always had a shortlist of two or three faithfuls they were thinking of murdering each night. For the sake of building tension for the viewing public, these two or three were always the last to come down for breakfast in the morning (minus the one who was murdered, of course). The thinking goes that an astute faithful would have been able to work out that the last one down to breakfast in the morning would always be a faithful. It's a bit of a stretch to me, but it seems significant enough that the programme-makers have changed it up this time.

"Jasmine is getting really emotional." Yes, Zack, because you are extremely annoying and she is trying not to murder you for real.

I KNEW Ross was going to completely fumble his revenge

My god Zack is annoying.

the worst

This is so addictive

There are so many permutations and possibilities for how tomorrow is going to pan out, I honestly can't wait.

Also Paul is currently on BBC2 Newcast and honestly hate that he's going to have the post-Traitor z-list celeb career that nearly anyone who isn't him should have. He's going to be on I'm a Celeb within three years, guaranteed.

Predictions then?

I think Andrew will follow through with Jaz on getting rid of Harry, and pull Evie into it because it would explain the whole shield thing she's so wrapped up in. They will then get rid of Mollie because of how much she's defended Harry and when exposed as faithful decide that Harry was probably the last traitor meaning Andrew wins.

I think I have to focus on basically Wilf giving up last year and letting them win, I'm not sure faithfuls would ever manage to out a traitor round the fire to get it right.

I found out today I've got a Traitors Number of 3, a friend of the daughter works with Jasmine.

I've been trying to work out if Andrew is my cousin's son - same name, similar age, haven't seen him since 1986. He isn't.

Wilf had very little left to defend himself with last year after Kieran threw him under a bus in a tantrum.

much like Ross, I don't think Andrew is ruthless enough

He should already be moving on Harry but he isn't

Wow

Well that was absolutely tremendous television

Holy shit. Still reeling. My heart rate has just about returned to normal.

(When we can talk about Harry turning up to Uncloaked dressed as Bernard Manning?)

That was the perfect ending. Bravo!

I think my poor dogs thought I was having some kind of fit.

Also when can we just put Claudia in charge of everything? I love her so much

As my dear departed stepmother used to say to her third husband: the fuck’s off (mate).

I avoided all social media and news sites (and this thread) until I could watch it with my younger son this morning, then had it spoiled by the cover of the sun when I popped into tesco. not that I needed another reason to hate them but ffs!

Oh, turns out I think my mum's friend's daughter works with Evie. My mum was out with her friend last night, whose daughter was staying in to support someone on the Traitors. This daughter is a vet nurse in Inverness.

even if just as a safe place to say that parliamentary advisors must be eliminated on principle, and this one in particular does not seem to be an exception

I actually quite liked Zack by the end of it.

Anyway, still a very enjoyable last episode. I think this series has been very interesting / telling about how (British) people decide who to trust, and afraid we don't come out of it very well. Obviously talking about Jas here, not only was he the only one on to Paul and Harry, but he also knew that nobody would believe him. I think there's an impression that "untrustworthy" means someone who is nervous or weird and "trustworthy" means someone who is slickly confident, and in my experience this is exactly the wrong way round. In 2002 I was living in a hostel in Prague when there were some thefts from the dorm, and an extremely confident guy from LA called Chandler tried to pin it on a nervous/shy Scottish guy called Mark, and I knew Mark very well and spent a lot of time with him, and there was absolutely no reason to suspect him at all, it was just "he's acting nervous" - because he was just a shy, nervous person! - now I think about it, maybe it was Chandler who was stealing. If someone is nervous / lacking in confidence they're much easier to know, you have a window onto their soul, a very confident person has a wall up, you really don't have a clue what's going on there. Also obviously this ties into the prejudice that all ND people (except psychopaths) face and have to deal with throughout their lives, and I just wonder whether this is a British problem or a general human problem.

Saw a lot of online chat about unconscious bias playing a part, which absolutely figures in who was murdered, who wasn't trusted, who was murdered just to "cause confusion" (Harry's second most annoying thing to say after "I've nominated yourself")

Yeah it was interesting to say the least that the most trusted people throughout were two white men, who were both traitors, and there were a couple of votes where POC seemed to be treated as intrinsically untrustworthy. When Zack went for Anthony on the basis that he had bad vibes rather than he suspected he was a traitor that was particularly concerning.

Claudia calling them on their patriarchal traitor recruitment policy was an underrated moment of awesomeness in a spectacular series.

I tried to watch the US version yesterday and was very disappointed, Alan Cumming is fine but the cast are all either reality TV stars or wannabe reality TV stars, and this completely spoils it.

I watched the first 5 and the producer's story about missions being filmed back to back is bollocks - they're the same ones but they're in a different order.

But yes, they suffer from the fact they already have established 'characters' and have to play them rather than be themselves. Two basic examples are Dan drawing heat pretty much for no other reason than "you won Big Brother so you're the sort of person that manipulates others for popularity", and the clique around Real Housewives which seems stronger than Traitorhood.

That said, you've got to love competitors repeatedly saying Johnny Bananas with a straight face like these are serious people.

There are Canada and NZ English language versions that I might try and find.

drinking game whereever someone on any version of the traitors, in any language, utters a phrase about being thrown under a bus

Also discovered another connection to Traitors in that one of my best friends played against Ivan from series 1 on Only Connect

I've just finished watching the second season of Traitors US, and I've realised that the real traitors in any season of The Traitors are the faithfuls left at the very end who KNOW there are no more traitors but decide to banish again because they don't want to split the prize between more than two people. Of course everyone else knew this already.

I tried watching the American version but the vibe was all wrong.

First episode of the new series just finished. No spoilers but was a good one.

Spoilers for episode 1:

The bit with three having to get off the train was obviously a setup for something later on - guessing not just reintroducing them like in series 1, there will be some sort of extra twist. As far as the traitors go, appreciated the all-female line-up after last year's boys club, but Linda was floundering straight away, and am assuming she will be voted out first. Armani is overdoing it, she won't survive more than a few rounds. Minah is playing it perfectly so far, she could go all the way. As far as the others go, wtf is Charlotte doing with her fake Welsh accent? Convinced that the producers picked her because it was such a terrible idea, still pretty funny. Also kind of gutted that Yin is out already, her appearance on Uncloaked has me convinced that she should be on every episode.

This is the first season I've watched! It's fun. I'm still not sure about Claudia Winkleman - I find it hard to gauge what her essential Claudia-ness is, when she's separated over so many shows with different formats and approaches - although she's not like, annoying or anything.

I lol'd that the reasons behind the first two evictions were "she's too smart" and "he's too nice". I agree Minah is the best, she seems to have the right attitude - i.e. having fun, taking it seriously as a competition, but not taking it seriously as a show with "moral dilemmas" - c.f. "I was really looking forward to murdering someone!"

I like that the game is cruel, but the tone of the show is not. I don't really enjoy Apprentice-type shows where it's just laughing at dopes. I love the girl who's faking the Welsh accent - it is a brilliantly stupid idea, and she seems to be enjoying the stupidity of it.

Yeah it felt to me that the producers have put some of them up to it this season xp

Like why would you try and fake a Welsh accent when it's obviously going to slip occasionally when stressed etc? And then you're almost guaranteed to get voted out

Still great fun though

Absolute peak episode.

Rail replacement. Learn Welsh. Armania. Harold fucking Shipman

I'm uncomfortable with the shower/bath shots, I have to say. One of the things I liked so much about the first series was how normal everyone looked. The more successful it becomes, the more TV-looking people they have on it, and I feel we already have that in the American version.

Also Claudia's clothes are not as good so far this year as they were last year. Bring back the lovely jumpers (that we could all then knit for ourselves if we wanted).

I commented on the shower and bath shots last year.

But yes, ep 3 was great. I'm not as bothered as other people seem to be about the returnees - I don't understand the logic they were "bound" to do something with them as I don't think they did with the ones thinned out on the doorstep last year (and in series 1?). I quite liked the NZ version where the first one to a pile of money could choose to take it and not take part, which they did.

Or did I imagine that? I distinctly remember the contestants lining up in front of the castle and two of them agreeing not to take part but a quick search doesn't find any evidence?

No I found it, happened in S1.

yeah but they came back halfway through the game (and lasted about two episodes lol)

so yeah episode three was fantastic, watching Armani on Uncloaked she STILL will not accept she was overdoing it, though she did say that she was just being herself and would have done the same if she'd been a faithful. Ultimately she and Minah were playing completely different games, and it was a case of sooner rather than later. The challenges have been better this year because of the extra jeopardy to the traitors, and this episode's was fantastic, definitely an improvement.

Tried the NZ series but yet again they've chosen to populate the show with influencers and minor celebs and that just ruins it for me.

I hope they're not doing that for our one.

Actually, one of the contestants that came back became a traitor and made it all the way to the final episode xps

Looking at this page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Traitors - and how many of the names have blue links, is there any other non-celeb version out there?

Minah is the new nation's sweetheart. Playing it perfectly.

watching the three in the cages my main feeling was don't want any of these on the show.

a thing i don't understand about this show. why do they all vote in bunches? like is it not worth just voting for a random person sometimes to see what happens or how they react?

Also it's the third season now and surely the contestants have watched the first two, so how come none of them have realised that the last 1 or 2 people to come in to breakfast are the ones the traitors were considering murdering and so therefore must be faithfuls?

i was thinking exactly this.

absolutely huge mistake choosing anna to convert to a traitor when it obviously gives her the perfect opportunity to refuse and this clear all suspicion, plus they even wrote a clue as to who they are

Also it's the third season now and surely the contestants have watched the first two, so how come none of them have realised that the last 1 or 2 people to come in to breakfast are the ones the traitors were considering murdering and so therefore must be faithfuls?

Saw a thing the other day from a S1 contestant with stats showing this wasn't actually true at all, following wouldn't have been statistically better than a guess.

this is quite a nasty group, really putting some people through the ringer who lack the confidence or edge.

Most have them have had annoying moments by now, except Minah who we love and want to see win.

This is the first season I've seen, so I don't know if contestants always do this - but how do they always remain *so* unwaveringly sure about who's a traitor, week after week? It's like, every episode they seem to get it completely wrong, but no one ever seems to think "Well, if my assumptions were completely wrong this week, maybe my other assumptions are wrong too?"

Also - agree the group (some - not all) can be quite nasty. It could be such a fun experience, a fun game, and so many of the contestants are so heavy and unplayful about it.

And given that Minah is one of the few that seems to be having fun with it, I really want her to win! The two remaining caged contestants haven't turned weird yet either.

There are a couple (Alex, Lisa until tonight, and to a lesser extent Francesca and Leon) who are just *there*. I agree some of the overall vibe is mean and I really felt for Kas when he was all "yeah, you don't want to talk to me, I'll just leave, shall I?" and just resigned himself to his fate.

Minah is great though. I hope Jake remembers that he was between Tyler and Linda, and remembers why he was so certain it was Linda. I think Minah left on her own being shit at recruiting could be fun to watch from a narrative point of view.

There's a weird and slightly distasteful sense that the groupthink amongst the faithful is that the Traitors have chosen to be traitors because they're bad. But But who knows what kind of tricks immersion in that environment would play on the mind.

Yes it's my first season.

Yeah, that's weird but it happens every year. And I don't know why because they've clearly all seen the show before

Also editing could be responsible

Right and also the faithful are the “good” ones

I hope the BBC have decent therapists on hand! Contestants should get at least a year’s free therapy after the show ends – this is the sort of stuff that comes back to bite you on the ass way after filming, not just during it

Absolutely - I know this is your first season, but last season one contestant was done over so ridiculously badly by a ruthless bit of gameplay that I genuinely wanted to climb through the telly and give them a hug. I can't imagine having to go through that and then sit and wait months for it to air and relive it all over again.

Kas taking the piss out of Joe then mic-dropping his way out was glorious though. It's shit when potentially great players like him and Yin get thrown out because the ability to form a coherent sentence and maintain a logical thought process is "traitor behaviour" - I suspect Fozia is about to get the same treatment.

Yeah it seems even more brutal this year, and they are so young, some of them. You'd feel for them watching it. Thought Freddie did brilliantly to take attention away from himself but he had to pay the price of a lot of older, more confident people attacking him.

I agree with Chuck's point about why they don't seem to try to question their instincts. Or like who don't they have open discussions of "is it you" in a more freeform way even just to see the look on people's faces.

Cos with Linda I honestly think a smidgen of suspicion and it will be incredibly obvious. She also seems determined to kill Fozia even after going on a big rant about her to a faithful.

Lastly, kinda feel Anna not telling everyone she was recruited is a huge help to the traitors. I can't really understand her strategy apart from she thinks people won't believe her.

Seems the biggest chance of being believed was the morning when nobody was gone, if she's keeping I as a thing in her back pocket that won't be believed.

Sorry phone has a crack on the screen hence all the typos, traitor behaviour.

lol

Hoping Joe gets voted out soon as he just seems genuinely nasty

Minah is ace obviously but there was a slight sense last night that she was getting a bit too confident which is usually the precursor to a downfall (cf Armania and others in previous seasons)

Yes I feel Minah might be about to get a bit cocky.

But you would if literally no one had brought you up as a possibility.

It's extremely entertaining watching how much of a better actor she is than Linda.

Is the recruit or murder mechanic new to this season?

No, but it's now called "seduce", which is way more creepy than "recruit".

This season is not as much fun as previous seasons. Several of the faithful are aggressively thick and argumentative, and just seem to be taking it way too seriously. Livi getting upset because Freddie "keeps looking" at her is WTF, as is her insistence on shouting "it's the perfect alibi" about things are not alibis. Her wrongness is a gift to Minah in one way, but it's not entertaining television.

a thing i don't understand about this show. why do they all vote in bunches?

Because there's safety in invisibility on this show. The worst thing you can do is be the ONE person who votes for someone, because then people wonder what you know.

Without anything to compare it to, I’m finding this season really fun (albeit increasingly unethical). I agree that Livi, apart from being no fun to watch, seems too - if not fragile, then too easily discombobulated – for this process. And a few of the men are just total berks that no one should have to be locked in a room with

This is what Minah has done perfectly; just got everyone to like her in a lowkey way. She doesn't stick out, just everyone thinks she's a decent sort.

xpasy

And she seems very good at drawing on her genuine emotions in her reactions to things, unlike certain other traitors who are all overdramatic gasps.

Because there's safety in invisibility on this show. The worst thing you can do is be the ONE person who votes for someone, because then people wonder what you know.

they need to tackle that head-on tho. vote for a random person and say 'i suggest we all start voting for randoms if we want to', and not judge for it. going with the flow, or there being a flow to go with, benefits traitors.

also in past seasons they were smarter at saying 'this person speaks too little/too late' - that seems to be completely lost on this bunch

Freddie trying to talk Livi round was just pointless, he tried to stay so calm and explain to her and she was just absolutely not ever going to listen or even attempt to understand, just keep yelling louder and louder at him.

It's really missing a Paul or a Ross/Diane type dynamic this year. Paul was a knowingly campy bad guy, as opposed to just being mean and nasty like Joe. I can't imagine anyone having fun with it like Ross last year - can you imagine any of this lot doing a knowing wink to the camera?

they definitely are a bit more joyless. also kind of influencery. i also don't love the sort of packaged thirty-seconds of 'here is a humanising detail from my life usually to do with mental health or trauma' bits, not that people's lives are not important, just the kind of prefabricated feeling to it.

"I've got a really horrible statistic, you have now lost eight of your own"

Could you repeat that statistic please, Claudia? I can't quite parse the numbers.

I'm always watching this a day late as it's on too late for my son to stay up, so would appreciate a bit more use of spoiler tags.

Sorry!

Did anyone ever play the party game version of this, like Werewolf or Mafia or whatever?

Used to have some absolutely epic games of it when I lived in Dublin. Hours and hours of it.

Very much here for Alexander's range of posh lad spy bloke knitwear.

Today's was a much more old-school episode, I thought. Bit of crap editing to try to escalate the tension in the murder scenario, but the mission was fun, the narrative went forward, battle lines are being drawn, stupid decisions still abound. Will save proper thoughts until I can dispense with spoiler tags, hopefully this is vague enough. I

Found the round table very frustrating.

However it shakes up, it still seems the only way to win this game is to be a good traitor or a sheep. I look forward to being proved wrong.

Also, FFS, it's not pronounced click.

I've not seen all the international versions of the show but I guess they would never allow the faithfuls to win with a bunch of people left? Like it obv can't end after three episodes, not that that would be likely, but it can't end after five or six eps either. I feel like even tho the factions and people are v different the way it's playing out is not that diff to last year?

I think they'd somehow have to force recruitment if one traitor was left on their own, because if they were banished, that'd be the end of the game. I've only seen one season of US and Australia so not sure if that scenario has come up before.

In fact, wasn't Kieran in season 1 given a "be a traitor or be murdered" choice, so essentially forced into helping Wilf or knocking it down to four contestants left and the others going into the final without him? Am sure there are plans in place to finagle it. Or they could just play missions with shields and the remaining faithfuls wouldn't know there weren't attempted murders due to lack of traitor, just failed attempts due to shield.

Yeah is it new that you can turn it down? Feel like it might be but can't remember.

Even who they pick at the start must be done way more carefully than the little Claudia chat it shows.

No, they sometimes get the chance to turn it down, but I think towards the end it becomes compulsory to accept it, I guess the recruitment terms depend on the stage of the competition.

I think someone in season one turned it down then got murdered anyway.

Yes, just looked it up, it was Alex. The terms then shifted to basically recruit or die when it came to recruiting Kieran.

Ah that makes sense.

Did anyone ever play the party game version of this, like Werewolf or Mafia or whatever?

Used to have some absolutely epic games of it when I lived in Dublin. Hours and hours of it.

― LocalGarda,

There are a few good commercial versions available, the decent One Night Ultimate Werewolf, and the excellent but pricey Blood on the Clocktower

we used to just play it with an inherited or remembered set of rules. would love to give it a go again sometime.

i can remember games going on for hours and hours as there was no time limit on deciding who to banish etc, just mad negotiations and swings in the balance of power.

Thoughts on episode 6:

Quite disappointed in Dan, he should know that you don't fuck with a black girl's hair, they spend hours on that shit, he could have saved it maybe by fessing up earlier, but the mood had shifted hard against him. A shame as he seemed like maybe the only one there with the right attitude towards the show. Minah made a massive error trying to recruit Anna instead of Fozia, and now Fozia has a 50/50 chance of being out of it completely, she would be the ideal recruit. Linda is insanely lucky to still be in it, just keeps somehow surviving, the tears at the breakfast table, fucking hell. They should have put her in the game to try to deflect some suspicion. And I was really glad that they murdered Livi, just seemed clear that this was a bad environment for her to be in and she needed to be taken out of it, just taking everything way too personally.

Have never really understood the become a traitor or be murdered ultimatum. Like, it's a gameshow you're trying to win, so why would you ever choose "murdered please"?

I don't think you would, which is why they only bring it out when they're down to the last traitor, right? Although people get funny notions about honour and their good name in this game.

The goth-trance-pop cover versions aren't quite as good this year. Also wonder if the budget for them has been cut as they don't seem to play the bits with the words for very long.

Was wondering last night - is this group more stupid than previous years? It feels that way but then the game has been more unpredictable also tbf to them.

One thing I didn't get (last week, so I assume we're beyond spoiler territory?), is the idea that a faithful rejecting the offer to join the traitors was TERRIBLE NEWS for the traitors, especially if that faithful then told everyone at breakfast time. But it's not as if they gave away their identities, so surely there are zero consequences?

it was a minor setback, but yeah, not the disaster they were advertising. I think there could have been a clue in the wording of the note, but it has completely failed to land.

Agree about the note, was a big mistake. But also Anna didn't tell anyone or make any kind of big deal about it. In general I find her fairly annoying by now, like "they've had it in for me since day one", well not really since they have actually booted out a load of other people. Serious case of nothing happens unless it happens to me.

Traitor behaviour tbh

I was hoping they'd find the names on the picture (especially as my daughter pointed out to me - via TikTok - that Linda's "Z"'s are written very distinctively - but no, fucking clueless

i think it's funny/tragic/human that the greatest threat to Mina's victory (so far) might be the completely unrelated and accidental thing about Anna's drink?

Other spoilery stuff: In terms of recruitment, Charlotte seems like an excellent choice. Maybe not as shrewd as Frankie (the Welsh thing alone...) but she appears to be clever, controlled, not impulsive, and you don't have the sense Charlotte would backstab Mina. Then again, I can't decide if Mina is the type of person to backstab her own fellow traitor for total victory , or more girl-power at heart.

xpost that too.

Would it be worth Charlotte telling the group that Minah tried to recruit her and she turned it down, having accepted it? Maybe too bold but would be funny, like going for the Minah banishment instantly then recruit someone else. Would prob get you banished eventually but I was thinking if she had picked someone people already suspect in order to implicate and then turn on them straight away then that might be a good move for that person, or at least a last resort.

it's a good gambit, but i don't think that would work: even if the faithfuls generally believe Charlotte and vote out Mina, the following options follow:
1) Charlotte is obliged to recruit the following night; the fact that the game continues implies the continued existence of Traitors, and the Faithful vote out Charlotte to be safe;
2) they go into "endgame mode" and players are given the chance to decide whether they think there are any Traitors left... For the remaining players, it would only be logical to reduce the group even further, eliminating anyone with major doubts around them (ie, starting with Charlotte).

Yeah I think too risky for Charlotte who currently has no heat on her really, but if it was Alexander or someone it could have been worth a shot. I do think based on how it's gone so far suspicion can swing away from a person so she could have pulled it off. Tho I guess with Alexander or similar the existing heat would make the scenario you suggest more likely. With Charlotte I think she would have a chance of getting away with it but maybe only for a time.

at the very least it could be worth threatening Minah immediately with that to cement your position

There was a pretty good Radio Times article this week on what's gone wrong with this series of The Traitors UK.

Alas, this tendency the 2025 line-up has, of deciding their banishments by going Mindhunter on the show's producers, runs a real risk of breaking the game altogether – or at least it would, if they weren't so bad at it.

At best, it has led to some truly strange and irritating pile-ons in this season that have little to do with any tangible evidence, but at worst, it's lowering the tenor of the show and turning it into something meaner.

The roundtables have always had a tendency to get heated – particularly towards the end of any given season – but the misery we've witnessed elsewhere in the castle feels new for this year. I, for one, dislike it.

Talking of Frankie genuine lol at her misreading VII as 8 on the tombstones and them all wasting precious minutes trying to excavate the wrong fucking coffin xps

one thing i've been wondering about is the way every challenge seems to end with just seconds left. are the producers really that good at predicting these things, or are reality shows allowed to just totally fake the clock? any inside info?

had to lol at the the shitty 'challenge' with the map etc last night. trying to think what age child would have failed that one and it's prob like, 5-year-old? 'i am not used for alcohol anymore, my name rhymes with hilary', 'is it the fetid lake, oh no wait it's the old distillery'

also i was sure that frankie failure would come back to haunt her but nobody ever pays her any attention. some people have a sort of blameless aura for reasons that are hard to pin down.

Haha yeah they were ridiculous

At least the riddle one last year was a bit more challenging

i thought they were going to make them scour the house and find the painting, but no, that'd be too interesting.

on the radio times piece i do think it's been more mean but think it's just a quirk of the group. a few too many aggressively 'normal' people forming cliques maybe? as annoying as she was they immediately banished the academic person, and kas also seemed to be targeted based on being slightly posh/educated.

weirdly frankie goes under the radar, i guess if i was to pretend to be the kind of 'psychologist' that talks about these shows i'd say something like the group needs a matriarch.

are the producers really that good at predicting these things, or are reality shows allowed to just totally fake the clock? any inside info?

I assume they run them with staff first to check that they are achievable within some notional time limit?

With something like the card game, do we reckon they played it out first then when someone won/lost they restaged it so it would take longer and have tension in it?

personally i think minah should have recruited jake. he is now very powerful as a faithful given he had linda named from day one.

not a bad shout at all, i wondered that. tho i also wonder if that huge level of attention is just an express train to some goon calling him a traitor

...but that power could make it easy for him to backstab Minah

it's quite hard to find consistent rules or methods that work, isn't it? only one i can think of is i would be keeping an eye on people going with the flow in banishings. traitors tend to go with the flow, that seems fairly consistent. obv so do other people but they often seem to highlight deviant behaviour when traitors are not gonna be going out on a limb generally, whereas faithful might be. i can't think of many others tho, the game always plays out a fair while in favour of traitors and then becomes a real face-off at the end, in real life party versions or in the tv version.

It’s a bit Deal or No Deal - a lot of dramatic business to gussy up the fact that it’s a luck-based guessing game.

I get the complaint in the Radio Times article (I haven’t seen the other seasons) but I’m still finding it a fun watch. I sense my enthusiasm will abate if Minah gets booted though.

I knew Leon wouldn’t go yesterday as soon as he mentioned being in it for his family.

i felt he wasn't going when it became clear the last person to be saved was going to be in a coffin, in a (faux) graveyard. maybe i'm wrong but i would have been surprised if someone who isn't christian or just anyone devout of any faith would have been okay with that. maybe they wouldn't care, idk, but that defo came to mind

If you can manage to avoid spoilers, you should definitely watch the two earlier seasons Chuck xp

Also good fun and so many OMG moments

Just watched episode 7 so yeah FINALLY Linda got out of there, living on borrowed time for ages, and finally some heat on Minah, I don't think it's just the wine glass thing, they are getting a sense about how people are positioning themselves in discussions and now there are fewer people, eyes are just on everyone. They are still taking it a bit too personally, but this seems to be increasingly performative. Not sure I agree with the Radio Times article, this is just a side-effect of the group of people they have, the ones to steer it another way have been mostly eliminated.

Also would like to say that I cannot stand Joe, can not stand him. Something about the way he curls his lip and sneers all the time, and JFC his voice! Hope he is murdered tonight, if he gets to the final week he'll be on all the time.

agree on Joe, he's so annoying

re the graveyard thing : would the shows producers REALLY have buried someone underground !?
of course not (psychological repurcussions aside, but basic logistics/practicalities), and the fact that no-one actually thought this was just baffling to me.

me and mk2 don't like joe at all - he seems rather nasty.
that voice is just painful to listen to - and he is a teacher !

I thought maybe they just stuck a bit of soil on them like five mins before they all arrived but yeah you're prob right would never have happened

They have been pretty cruel in the missions this time, the black gunk in the hair, the cages and now the coffins. Perhaps notable that all the contestants are fully able-bodied this time?

I am still cross about the black gunk in Minah's hair!

Concur on Joe

Looks like Alex is fucked tonight but hoping Joe gets some heat from getting it so wrong (again)

Joe is the Colin Robinson of this programme.

It’s a bit Deal or No Deal - a lot of dramatic business to gussy up the fact that it’s a luck-based guessing game.

Ha ha, yes, that's it exactly.

Someone on BSky was saying that for all they make a big deal out of banishing traitors, it actually doesn't make any difference to the game whether the person banished is a faithful or a traitor. Is that right?

Their reasoning was that the producers are never going to let it go to the final episode with no traitors in the mix, hence the ultimatums.

The recruitment mechanic lessons the impact somewhat but if they didn't banish any traitors there'd still be three left at the end which would seriously reduce their chances of winning xp

can i just say, this welsh accent thing... there's no difference between her 'actual accent' and whatever way she is speaking in the show. or a v v negligible one anyway. and now i've realised how gaslit we've all been by this i have turned against her.

Someone on BSky was saying that for all they make a big deal out of banishing traitors, it actually doesn't make any difference to the game whether the person banished is a faithful or a traitor. Is that right?

I guess the longer a single set of traitors are together the more chance they have of coming up with a plan or order to pick off the faithful and actually deliver it, but otherwise makes no difference (unless they're stupid enough to banish the best traitor spotters).

The portraits this year are totally fucked up, they just cut direct from Chris McCausland to the portrait of Minah on Uncloaked and their eyes were the same.

it's not quite deal or no deal tbf, like there is human behaviour involved not just pure luck.

another horrible random pile-on tonight, these are such a grim bunch of humans

The portraits this year are totally fucked up,

There's also something weird about the whites of people's eyes in the confessional bits. Minah's in particular, and I noticed it on a couple of the Black contestants on the US version. They look like they've been filled in with a white marker to be super gleaming.

Leon's starting to get on my nerves banging on about the coffin, surely they stuck them in there just before the other faithful arrived? Seems like a (successful) sympathy ploy.

Why are they so sold on the idea there must be a traitor who was made to play the card game? Like has anyone tried to raise the fact that that would have meant the traitor could have lost and been murdered, so would have required a traitor to nominate themselves to be killed? Just a nonsense idea.

A traitor wouldn’t have got killed - they said the last faithful left would be killed. So if a traitor didn’t get out in the first two rounds, they’d just have revealed ‘I’m a traitor and you’re dead’ to the final faithful

But there’s still no reason a traitor has to have been in there. They’re just so shit at playing the game that they’ll cling onto anything.

In previous years traitors have put themselves up for the game to avert suspicion so perhaps they think that a traitor definitely did this year too. It seems to be beyond them to work anything out, and apart from Jake, to hang onto a suspicion for more than one round table at a time.

This is my first series watching and can't believe what an exhausting/hilarious combo of dumb and truculent these Faithfuls are.

Looking forward to going back to S1&2 so I can conceive of what the game looks like when played well.

Season 2 is excellent. Season 1 is also really good as they're coming at it with fresh eyes. This is by far the worst season, I'm not even angry at the end of an episode that I have to wait for a new one.

Anyone watching US season 3 at the same time?
Spoiler for ep 4: Boston Rob move was extremely enjoyable television!

I'm watching US version!
Spoiler-chat: Wild move by Rob, liked seeing Wes is onto him tho. Sad to see Bob go, he had some great lines

US3: i'm not really a tv watcher (besides Traitors lol), so i did some homework to catch up on who Carolyn is - am now firmly, and to an unusual degree, rooting for her to win the whole thing. i like to hope that she can slyly somehow unman all these clever bros.

It seems to be beyond them to work anything out, and apart from Jake, to hang onto a suspicion for more than one round table at a time.

Yep they are so capricious this year.

Tbf to them, they have voted most of the smart ones out

I'm also watching the US one, but I might change my mind now. I don't like Rob, and I don't enjoy him just telling everyone what to do and everyone doing it because they're all afraid of him. Also I'm very loyal to Bob the Drag Queen, and am not sure the game will be worth watching now that he's not in it and it's just scared women and poker-playing bros.

Fair fucks to Charlotte, bringing up Minah's name all the time as a possible traitor

absolutely, she's done brilliantly, i'd say she's usurped minah as the most in-control now. guess there's a risk in picking someone everyone is so sure of as a faithful, charlotte only has to stay under the radar for a few more nights. also minah appears to genuinely trust her.

Yeah, without bothering with spoiler tags, just going to say the game got interesting.

Not so sure about the dinner party sob story altruism dickwaving thing, though I get that it's nice to try to make Traitors feel guilt - though enjoyed tonight's murder victim on Uncloaked mocking the whole thing and being all "ha, that's all very worthy, I just wanted some home improvements"

I fear it's ony a matter of time before Charlotte eliminates Minah now.

It might be worth trying to get rid of a few others first.

Not so sure about the dinner party sob story altruism dickwaving thing

They really went big on all of this all at once. I think I said earlier itt I find the sort of packaged televisionised version of people's 'trauma' very weird. And it's like everyone has to have 'a piece of trauma' but it must be a neat story and you can only have one, and ideally in a group of TV people there'll be a range of different ones so the audience can feel nicely involved but mainly in a way that fits a preconceived understanding of a condition or situation.

The worst offender at that sort of thing is that piano playing competition show, which is also presented by Claudia Winkelman, I think? That really is nauseating.

I've never watched this show before but I'm visiting my sister and she watches it religiously. My God, these people are so stupid!

It's funny how on the Traitors they get the trauma dump all done at once close to the end at the dinner party. On Drag Race, whenever a queen opens up about her particular trauma or her difficult road to the werkroom, you know for sure she's going home that week.

there were a few hamfisted lunges a few times earlier in the season but yeah, dinner party was the big one.

quite a weird vibe which i've seen replicated in the workplace before. like if you're sitting there unwilling or unable to share some neatly packaged story of trauma, you would feel quite pressured/excluded.

propagates the idea that people are not human until they have shared something tragic, or your life as lived visibly needs to be justified or rounded out somehow with the story of a trauma, and everyone has one. but it can't be visible because then there's no big reveal.

can i just say, this welsh accent thing... there's no difference between her 'actual accent' and whatever way she is speaking in the show. or a v v negligible one anyway.

Strongly disagree! It's a gentle accent she's doing, but certainly different to her real one - and sounds extremely convincing to my English ears.

I (lightly!) suggest that being able to talk openly about IVF difficulties isn't "trauma dumping"

I thought it weird/convenient that Jake disclosed his cerebral palsy (to the viewers) via a conversation with Alexander during the task, which was a nice moment of realisation and understanding and empathy, then he brought it up again at the dinner party and not one person reacted or had any questions for him, just seemed like a thing they'd all known from the start except Alexander who'd come in late but had found out just that afternoon so that Jake could openly mention it. It very much framed his condition for the viewer and Alexander in a timely manner just for the purposes of this "personal reasons to need to win" thing that was meant to bring the emotions to the table. Editing, eh?

I remember reading that the editors always edit the roundtable first and then cut the rest of the show afterwards, so they can choose what to build up to

I was just thinking – why are you amiably strolling down the hill and chitchatting when it’s a short timed challenge

Meanwhile, yesterday was the nearest show has come to multiple scenes of annoying people arguing, a la the apprentice, which was less fun

I (lightly!) suggest that being able to talk openly about IVF difficulties isn't "trauma dumping"

I hear you, I won't use that phrase again. I don't know what they call it -- whatever they told the researcher was their reason for wanting the money, which in some cases will make a big difference to their lives, and in Joe's case will mean a nice holiday.

I remember reading that the editors always edit the roundtable first and then cut the rest of the show afterwards, so they can choose what to build up to

Can you remember where you read this? I am always interested in articles or snippets about how the show is put together.

It was here: https://joelmorris.substack.com/p/the-traitors-agatha-christie-and

From Joel Morris’s newsletter - he’s one of the Screenwipe/Cunk writers. He’s good in analysing TV comedy, although, imo, he sometimes edges into pub bore mode (but don’t we all)

Groovy, thanks.

(lightly!) suggest that being able to talk openly about IVF difficulties isn't "trauma dumping"

That is fair, tbf also I didn't call it trauma dumping. FWIW I'm not saying people's experiences are not real or valid more that the way they are harvested by this show is sort of weird. Not going down the man up route or whatever just to be clear!

Yeah, agree the total shift is weird, but I quite enjoyed hearing the contestants’ stories — not so much the content of their stories but how they told them.

Also, most of the final contestants are overly aggro weirdos – I guess the producers must be desperate to humanise them a bit before the final week

There is an issue with the smarter contestants being eliminated this time because either the traitors see them as a threat or the dumber faithful pick up on non-NT behaviour and decide it means they "would be a good traitor" - a much better strategy would be to check who the last three people arriving at breakfast are, don't know how they haven't figured that out yet.

Apparently that isn't what they see on the show, it's for TV only or similar, I read somewhere.

Think I'll be rooting for Alexander if Minah gets the boot

Yeah, I mentioned that upthread and someone posted what LG just said xps

I don't see how that works though as they always show them saying "Who's left? Alex, Charlotte and Kas" (or whoever the last three were that morning).

So the only way I can think is that they get them to film multiple takes naming different people each take and then just show the correct one on the broadcast?

hat tip to Charlotte. fair play

well done, Leanne, really well played there, lol

Haha, yep

felt a bit sorry for Charlotte having to recruit as think she would definitely have won it otherwise. Now you can't help but think Freddie must realise she only chose him as a sacrifice so surely he won't go down quietly

i think she has a decent chance because it's quite hard to swing the focus back to a fellow traitor at the roundtable, usually traitor v traitor is quietly joining a pile on. also leanne revealing she had the shield and them perhaps killing her is gonna create massive confusion which will help charlotte. i guess freddie's survival is the main threat to her. can he survive based on being the one who picked minah? maybe. but in yet another case of 'the group that likes to invent baseless stupid theories every episode', they genuinely now believe one traitor 'must be a man'

when charlotte so quickly betrayed Minah i decided i want her destroyed. and so i was thrilled when she so obviously encouraged Freddie to go for Lianne. If that's really who they try to murder, then when Lianne reveals that Charlotte *knew* she had the shield, Freddie will flip his lid. He'll hopefully turn on her completely. Though there's still a good chance that the group will just gradually vote out all the men and then (after Freddie's revealed as a traitor) decide that the job's done - thereby making Charlotte the winner - i still think this was among the clumsiest possible plays for Charlotte. If she hadn't betrayed her fellow traitor, I think she'd almost certainly make it...

then again, she will also have the Seer to grapple with...!

maybe i'm wrong but i'd be surprised if they manage to cleanly assess Leanne telling people she has the shield. they will come up with some moronic theory again, most likely led by Jake. Or just boot Freddie out.

done with charlotte two mins into tonight's episode

liquid telly

as far as watching telly goes, it honestly increases my heart rate in a way only sport does besides.

Dunno how to hide text so I’ll just say that those two are both now fucked, as is the one who has always been fucked, so the other two will win imo

Aw, man, from heartbreak to screaming to "shit, now what..." in like under five minutes? Absolute quality.

Such a dumb move by Charlotte to influence Freddie to choose Lianne. She was completely without suspicion before that. Her only play now is to claim Frankie is lying and must be a traitor. But then if they banish Frankie they'll realise she was telling the truth and then just banish Charlotte anyway.

It doesn’t get revealed whether banished ppl are faithful or traitor from now so they wouldn’t have that certainty

but they won't know, because exiting players don't reveal their traitor/faithful status in the final, so surely the only play is to get rid of both of them

Oh, yeah, xpost, but with spoiler tags. I reckon you enter this thread after live BBC broadcast it's on you anyway.

idk if it was a bad play by charlotte, without the seer thing she would have won. i feel sorry for freddie a bit as they all think they were right all along but they weren't. tho it's a lot of fun all the twists and turns i think they kinda fucked the game a bit with too many in the end. i know we talked above about it involving luck but it does have some skill to it yet they just made them chase their tails too much. i don't even think anyone suspected charlotte, frankie seemed to have some bizarre logic of 'if i know one person is a faithful then i can form an alliance'

I was told about this show recently and my response was 'lol they've turned the parlour game Mafia into TV'. It's just that isn't it

xxp Claudia announced that rule change in episode 1 so didn’t think it would count as a spoiler

I was told about this show recently and my response was 'lol they've turned the parlour game Mafia into TV'. It's just that isn't it

yep with some twists that aren't in the original, some sort of outdoor challenges in the daytime, and a general veneer of bougie/sexy prosecco o'clock at the lite-goth interior design shop

Looking forward to the finale. Last night was so twisty and riveting - and since my favourite contestant left the night before, my blood pressure finally got a rest, because, enjoyable as it is, I don’t care who actually wins. (As long as it isn’t Leanne.)

not a huge fan of any of them at this stage. alexander seems okay. charlotte became annoying p quickly once a traitor. minah, freddie seemed nice i guess.

lol LG xps

lol

i know we talked above about it involving luck but it does have some skill to it yet they just made them chase their tails too much.

As a game it's awful - really poorly figured out, way too arbitrary. There's not even a particular advantage to voting out a traitor, as there will more than likely be a new one, so one less Faithful anyway.

As TV it's riveting, however.

I guess a more pure version of the party game might be more boring but I would quite like to watch an eight-hour drunken version of the real game, no fancy stuff, haha.

If anyone here has never played it I cannot recommend it enough.

There's not even a particular advantage to voting out a traitor

The later it gets in the tournament, the less I believe this. Especially if the producers have decided that the final round has to have a traitor in it. So you end up having to recruit from a pool of people who've become comfortable with their position as as a faithful and may not do what you want them to do.

It must be fun to be a producer on the show, not just the high-wire act of making sure the show has enough story to make it through nine episodes, but because you basically have a carte blanche to break the rules and make it up as you go along, because that’s “part of the fun”. Like, it’s’ the opposite of the Twin Peaks fandom tendency to shoehorn meaning and motive into everything; instead the only way to really enjoy The Traitors is accept that it’s meaningless and broken - find that shark and get jumping.

I assume they must have to keep gerrymandering it to stop a bland conclusion or whatever?

I felt like the dolls thing last night was maybe a way to try to guarantee who would be seerz or at least who definitely wouldn't be, but idk if that's a bit tinfoil hat of me.

Nah, I think you could be right.

Or, at least, I thought that as well, so maybe we're both over suspicious.

Haha, it did seem mega iffy.

Charlotte is a horrible person, normal people can't falsify emotions like that

why did frankie vote out the one person who wasn't going to boot her out. she also played the whole seer thing disastrously

Yeah. You think she would have wondered why Alexander would ask her to pick him (if she won the seer) if he really was a traitor. Although you do have to think at the end that the motivations for banishing again are driven more by fewer people to split the pot with, rather than catching actual traitors

I dunno if that's it. I think I'd be more just paranoid about losing it all. But yeah, it's an interesting calculation, because every time you vote to banish again there's a risk it's you who will be banished.

I'm wondering if we'll ever see two Traitors share the money. I don't think I've ever seen that in the eight series I've watched (though it's possible I've forgotten - it's amazing how quickly I find I forget it all after being so invested in it)

I feel like last year there was actual discussion and debate in the final banishings etc? This year it all seemed to go very quickly and in silence. Is that a new thing that they don't discuss it in the endgame bit?

Yeah it’s annoying to spend time on the tasks (which surely nobody enjoys watching?) rather than more round table stuff.

Yeah, I think they underestimate how amusing the round table is.

I've just been rewatching the first two seasons with the husband, and one of the things that's great about the first season is how joyous the final mission is. They were so excited about being in a helicopter, then jumping out of a helicopter, then going on a really fast boat. It was so much fun! This final mission was absolutely miserable, partly because of the seer business, and partly because Leanne was so busy keeping up her pretence of being a brainless girly-girl nail technician (really insulting to girly girls and nail technicians, btw) that she ruined it for Jake and cost them money.

I don't like being critical of ordinary people who choose to go on reality television for my entertainment, but I do not like that woman. Her energy is bad.

Was she really only pretending to be shit at that task? I'm not convinced. She only claimed the squealing and bad aim was part of her act after the event, and that's exactly the kind of excuse you'd expect her to make.

First segment felt like they were having to do a lot of work with the edit and with the talking heads to try and stretch out the idea that people were unsure whether to believe Charlotte or Francesca, when in truth it really looked like everyone found it pretty obvious it was Charlotte who was lying.

I've never watched this before so I don't know whether it always ends with repeated banishments down to the final two, but I don't know why it would ever end differently. There's zero incentive to keep anyone other than the minimum number of players to the end, any more just increases risk and reduces reward.

I do think some sort of financial penalty for banishing faithful would help (should do that from the start imo - would stop it feeling so pointless when banishing a traitor who then just gets replaced anyway)

She only claimed the squealing and bad aim was part of her act after the event,

Whatever about the bad aim, she did say beforehand that she wasn't phased by it at all, so would have to put on an act to keep up her front.

I've never watched this before so I don't know whether it always ends with repeated banishments down to the final two, but I don't know why it would ever end differently.

There is a real danger in the UK version that if you insist on more banishments even though everyone is happy that there are no more traitors left, then you will be perceived as sneaky and you will be the one banished, leaving you with nothing.

I think there's clearly a risk to going for more banishments in that you can be the one banished. I think the ending might work better if it was inverted and you lost money for banishing faithfuls or similar.

sorry just saw chap saying that exact thing, lol

I didn't like either of the winners unfortunately. Alexander blew it with his clumsy interventions in the roundtable and because Leanne just didn't like him.

I feel like last year there was actual discussion and debate in the final banishings etc?

lol. did anyone else think the fire wasn't red enough to indicate the decisions? i am slightly colourblind but i was glad of claudia's deadening interpretation for once.

ideally the fire would turn a very bright red, then scream and emit tortured shade-like images representing past contestants as flames

Whatever about the bad aim, she did say beforehand that she wasn't phased by it at all, so would have to put on an act to keep up her front.

She didn’t say it beforehand though, because she said it to camera. They showed her saying that before the mission, but she must have actually said it afterwards.

I guess I’m potentially just reaching though because I didn’t like her.

Yep. For a former diplomat, Alexander was really bad at round tables xps

Has it always just been two left at the end in the UK version? I know before this series it was one apiece in terms of Traitor and Faithful wins but can't remember how many were left each time

There were three winners in the first season.

Recap

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/entertainment/reality-tv/the-traitors-season-1-recap/

Finally caught up, so I can open the thread again safely, managed not to see anything online or on the news stand at the supermarket this time.

Am I happy with the winners? Hm, dunno, they'll do ok. I was obviously hoping for more drama at the end, and there was no way Charlotte was making it there, though to be fair she did have a good try. If I understand correctly (she did say "girlfriend" didn't she?) the winners are a lesbian and a disabled man, which is nice I guess? Dunno if clutching at straws here. Agreed that the tasks in the last two episodes weren't great, but on the whole I've found them a lot more constructive and meaningful this time, the one with the dolls and recording the messages backwards was a genius piece of work, that was one of the highlights (lowlight would be the black gunk in the hair of course.) It really is a shame that Minah didn't make it all the way to the end, her fatal error was in her terrible recruitment choices, she should have picked Fozia and wtf was she thinking picking Anna? Also understand them murdering the smartest people for gameplay, but it would've been a much better endgame with maybe Yin, Keith, Kasim and Dan in there instead of these four. I was also pleased to see Alexander fuck things up for himself, nothing particularly against him, but would've been a bit of a bitter pill to see a posho walking away with the money.

So, curate's egg of a series, think I'd rank it even to series 2 which was better overall but much more annoying because of the general air of misogyny from the traitors and the way they treated Jaz. Series 1 still the best of course. They had Wilf and Harry on Uncloaked the other night and it was night and day between lovely guy and prick.

I instantly went off Frankie when she tried that all mothers together crap with Leanne.

Yeah there was way too much of That Sort Of Thing this year.

Bad energy otm. Oh well. What’s a good season of the not-UK versions to watch, then?

I've seen first two of US, first of Canada and the two Australia and by far my favourite has been the Aussie ones. Sadly there won't be any more as they've cancelled it but both seasons were cracking

The US one is weird as they have half celebrities in there, though by celebrities I mean influencers and stars of US reality shows that I've never watched.

I like it, but in a different way. I don't know who any of those people are, unless they're drag queens, but I like how they all know how to behave on camera, they form cliques based on the shows they were in, or their relative levels of fame, and they're all simultaneously enchanted by being in a Scottish castle AND miserable because it's fucking freezing there.

they form cliques based on the shows they were in

This is the thing I found strangest about it.

It was kind of amazing that S2 Australia had an almost identical plot to S2 UK, although imo the Austrian version played out better.

New Zealand S1 was really great and Colin is a challenger for best contestant of all time.

Really want to watch Traitors NZ next. Of the English-speaking world there's a Traitors South Africa too, but haven't investigated how to get it (I had to torrent the Canada one). We need Traitors Ireland

they're all simultaneously enchanted by being in a Scottish castle AND miserable because it's fucking freezing there.

Same castle?

Aye, it's filmed at the same time too to reuse mission setups and cut costs. They all stay in the Marriott(?) at Inverness airport.

But with a different host instead of Claudia (presumably not deemed Scottish enough).

Their host is Alan Cumming, who is the next best thing to Claudia, in fairness.

Ooh, there is indeed a Traitors Ireland coming

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8q7jz4725o.amp

checked out a little of the NZ version and though it looks better than the US one in terms of people, it is hilariously just in a slightly large house.

I’ve never watched Strictly and thought she was rubbish on the Film show, so have been agnostic on Claudia until now, but I feel like I finally get and like her. I think I might have also spent a long time confusing her with Jenny Powell. I

I don't particularly like her, Traitors or otherwise

Big Suze's irl sister, mind.

I think Claudia is awesome in everything she does. I love Alan Cumming but can't really get on board with him as a Traitors host. Big fan of Rodger who does the Australian one.

Big Suze of course married to Kendall Roy a Windsor, so maybe she can use her connections to do a royal version, like they did in Nepal in 2001.

Speaking of state-level traitors, I have to say listening to the Stakeknife podcast about state-sponsored double agents in Northern Ireland while watching the traitors in the evenings definitely caused the odd impromptu connection in my mind.

"I am, and have always been... a member of... Sinn Féin"

We're up to episode five, and my two favourite things about The Traitors Ireland so far are: people are not going round saying they love each other, which drives me MAD on the UK version, and everyone is swearing just as much as you would expect them to.

we're just finished Ep5.
watching on VPN.
Cant spoil anything other than when Patrick goes (if he goes) it'll be a fine day....

but Ep5 was a great one... I wonder how long that round table actually went on for?

and enjoyed the task requiring good knowledge of the gaeilge, cant see anything like that working in UK/US versions.

and totally agree about the swearing its very authentic and different from other versions., my irish partner thinks they must edit out all the bits where they work out if they are related/have cousins in the same town...

otherwise, its a winning formula.

The other thing I like is how the faithful talk to the traitors, like when they murder someone popular and a faithful will address the air and go "Jesus, that's cruel, why would you kill him? What did he ever do on anyone?"

Oyin on the Irish show is probably the best Faithful ever? Apart from when she briefly lost the head with the whole Joanna business

Where can I watch the Irish version?

RTE player with a VPN i guess?

But I believe it's supposed to be coming to the BBC shortly

Apart from a couple of sticky roundtables, the Irish Traitors was great. People were funny, the low-budget missions were hilarious -- I think nearly all of them were "run fast and collect things" -- Slane looked lovely, and everyone was clearly freezing their arse off during the endgame.

Much more interested in watching this than the UK celeb version, which I believe is on next month

First celeb to episode was a bit boring IMO, although I fell asleep ten mins before the end so there might have been a HUGE TWIST

I don’t mind Ross particularly not really interested in him this context

I guess it will be interesting if the nice-guy-celebs like Olusoga get forced into the position of being bad guys. But being mischief-makers doesn’t seem like a big stretch for Ross and Carr. There’s a bit more mystery attached to the lesser celebs/unknowns because I have no idea what to expect from them.

Otherwise this seems like a useful late-career vehicle to move Celia Imrie to National Treasure status, which is fine

Stephen Fry is driving me to distraction already with his wittering. I wish they'd made one of the nice guys a Traitor, would love to see what Nick or Tom or Lucy, for example, would make of it.

Huge twist is that the traitors have to murder in plain sight on that first murdery night. The other two have left it entirely up to a fairly tipsy Alan to do it himself *roll end credits*

Unless he's on his own with the victim I can't see how he pulls it off, especially as you assume everyone there will have watched The Traitors and so remember the poisoned chalice etc from previous seasons.

Unless he's on his own with the victim I can't see how he pulls it off, especially as you assume everyone there will have watched The Traitors and so remember the poisoned chalice etc from previous seasons.

it is a strange bunch of people, like some very well known, some sort of, others prob never done anything this big. paloma faith, why is she dressed like that? i guess why is a big question for her career in general. random influencer bloke seems a bit out of place also but guess they had to have someone younger than forty.

wondering if alan carr's total alan carrness could somehow allow him to operate as an effective traitor, like just the sense of nothing he does being serious, but i guess more likely he will just make a complete hash of it.

Paloma Faith always dresses like that. I was more worried for Charlotte's laundry issues after digging around in a graveyard in a white floaty number.

Random influencer being amazed anyone knows who he is quite cute - a reminder that not all celebs know all other celebs. Cat is the youngest though, and Charlotte and Tom also that side of 40 despite having been in the public eye for forever.

Tom's a mere stripling at 31.

Just had this on this morning. I am completely smitten with Charlotte Church. Wossy is a prick (and a TERF), hope he's out soon.

Very low-key ending last night considering it's not back on until next Wednesday

Otherwise this seems like a useful late-career vehicle to move Celia Imrie to National Treasure status, which is fine

I'm hopeful that over the course of the series there'll be enough Stephen-Fry-As-Himself footage for everyone to finally realise what an awful nob he is and we can all formally remove his NTS. Balding already seems to have trashed her own, or at least dented it heavily. And meanwhile if Charlotte gets to cement hers then that'll be a nice bonus.

Re: Wednesday's episode's opening murder: nooooooooooooo!

It's amazing how wedded they all are to the idea of Stephen Fry as super-smart and super-leader guy, when he's just RUBBISH. "All this talk of strategy and gameplay is arrant nonsense," except that's exactly what the traitors have been doing.

Yeah. I don't know if it's the celebrity dynamic in that lots of them knew each other before hand but it's surprising how thick some of them appear around the round table.

Alan dropped a real clanger by forgetting he had a shield and yet none of them jumped on it

They did show them talking about it later. Possibly he's being voted out next time and in the editing they downplayed the reaction so that it doesn't look too much of a foregone conclusion. But having said that the "oh, he'd surely never murder Paloma" card has been very strong.

It isn't any news that celebrities are no smarter than the general public, but good to have it confirmed I guess.

Joe Marler has been the real surprise, no idea who he is as don't follow rugby.

Yeah he’s in an odd spot, loads cleverer than everyone expects him to be, loads less clever than he thinks he is.

It was just good to see him go in studs up at Wossy

David Olusoga fanboying Stephen Fry for being super-smart is so weird.

I wish Ruth was still in, she was funny. Nick's gameplay is good but admitting it to people who don't think the same way as him really isn't.

Yeah, earlier in the episode I thought "Clever Nick" for keeping close to the Traitors, then he totally blew it by fessing up to sabotaging the task.

I still find it amazing that the first murder was done in plain sight and not one conversation was had about it afterwards.

anyone watching Traitors Canada? the first episode of the new season aired last week, several clever twists that I like that I won't spoil

I like how Traitors Canada seems to be the Traitors innovator, to my knowledge they were the first edition to use the "finale won't have reveals for the eliminated" twist

trishyb at 11:54 23 Oct 25

It's amazing how wedded they all are to the idea of Stephen Fry as super-smart and super-leader guy, when he's just RUBBISH. "All this talk of strategy and gameplay is arrant nonsense," except that's exactly what the traitors have been doing.

Just catching up with this show. Stephens point was that it's nonsense for the faithful, no? Just prior to that he said the traitors know everything and the faithful know nothing.

So frustrating when David nearly got voted off - the standard line is "all I can say is I'm not a traitor" and it's usually true, but he had a really good argument - why would he have raised his head above the parapet when all the fingers were already pointing at Mark? But no-one acknowledged it.

It's mad that David survived over Mark on what was basically a coin toss. Then everyone forgot all about it the next day. I was listening to Mark Bonnar and Kate Garraway being interviewed on Romesh Ranganathan's show on Radio 2 this morning, it was a great insight into the dynamics of the programme, definitely worth a listen. I find the whole thing endlessly fascinating.

seems like Nick and Joe pretty much have this in the bag? Only thing that could scupper them is David (who has awful instincts) not getting on board

I still worry that Joe could be seen as being too forceful which could scupper the faithful. Nick seems the key to it all.

For anyone who does not watch Uncloaked, please find and watch the Mark Bonnar banishment one. His section as he gets the traitor reveal is the season highlight.

Nick has said once that he thinks Joe could be a traitor. I'm not sure whether he'd stop at just Cat and Alan.

That theme still reminds me of "Roobarb"

Every
Damn
Time

David is such an archetypal worthy ditherer. I always hated Marler as a player and his persona was similar but I find him a bit less irritating now I've seen him on this, and he does seem pretty good at it. I thought this group seemed about as bad at it as I've ever known. Jonathan was exposed completely when they murdered Ruth Codd. If he was not a traitor, and obviously Ruth wasn't, there's no way the traitors would kill her because you'd want two faithfuls taking pot shots at each other. It was a flimsy bluff and one he had to make cos she was onto him. And none of them seemed to realise.

Weird also that until now barely anybody ever even noticed Cat or suspected her even slightly, apart from one time when someone said she was napping a lot, perhaps due to the fatigue caused by being a traitor, and she said it was because of ADHD and it was immediately binned. Like, you can have ADHD and be a traitor.

Kinda felt generally this was quite a boring group. Alan is pretty funny in his usual way but it wasn't as amusing as the non-celeb ones maybe.

The stakes are too low for them to bother upsetting each other, fundamentally, and only a handful of them seem to be willing to really get stuck in. They kind of remind me of your aunties playing board games at Christmas, where, oh, it'd be lovely to win but I don't want to upset anyone or make anyone cry. Whereas the American "celebs" mostly come from competitive-reality backgrounds (and they get to keep the money) so they are much more willing to make enemies.

It also doesn't seem to have occurred to any of them ever that if you're the producers of a Celebrity Traitors with Alan Carr on it then of course you're going to make him a traitor

Some of the editing is quite weird and bad this season I thought. Like a few episodes start in a really jerky strange way, I assume cos of some sort of need to split the story at crucial times and failure to get enough filler footage or something, but kinda hard to be sure.

I think they were so fixated on "you'd pit Ross v Fry" that they forgot to consider any other options. There was a huge dollop of misogyny in the big dog theory as well - could equally have been Balding v Garraway for long-standing TV mainstays, or any combination thereof.

I mean, I'm dying for next season when they inevitably cast Bob Mortimer and don't make him a traitor and it blows everyone's minds.

Also interesting, I think, that none of the traitors are actors and that hasn't really registered with people who seem to earlier think that being able to professionally inhabit a scripted personality would allow you to put a traitor mask on unnoticed. I suspect that's why Mark was gunning for Tameka early doors.

What do people think are the good ways to play this game?

It seems to me it's good to cast suspicion on people in a systematic way, especially someone nobody has talked about, mainly just cos it seems like groupthink acts as if someone's personality is a preordained part of whether they could be a traitor or not.

Beyond that not really sure, tho I did think someone should have picked up on Ross's fairly obvious tactic of talking about one person at the round table then voting for someone different and saying he changed his mind.

xpost

I feel like holding onto an idea for more than one day would be nice. I think hiding in the herd is safe though, and if all the faithful are happy to coalesce around a different idea each way, it's easy as a traitor to let them and go with it too. Or even to direct it.

it feels like, particularly at the beginning, you can get punished for having an opinion or singling someone out. but somewhere along the way that sort of flips and people realise you need someone who at least is trying to work it out, or capable of it.

Yes, by focussing on Tameka, Mark very much let himself down. But people couldn't decide between him or David, but when Mark turned out to be faithful none of them remained focussed on David, it was "oops, let's go back to square one"

I mean, we know David is faithful, but they didn't, so perhaps they should have gone with that next, realised it was wrong too, and considered what got them to that stage. But it's like they wake up with a clean slate ready to be remanipulated every morning.

I think Joe and Nick are playing fairly consistently and well but both have shown their hands a little too soon.

yeah, you're right that there has to be some kind of logic to it. they really flipped to banishing some people for seemingly no reason at all this time around. like charlotte or whatever, probably others also.

I still can't believe that in the round table where Mark & David were the two main names brought up, neither of them voted for each other.

a problem with the format is that any faithfuls who demonstrate any skill at the game get murdered, so at the end you tend to be left with only the most gormless faithfuls and any wily traitors are obviously traitors. seems like the best faithful strategy is to act dumb, keep your head down and make sure you vote out other faithful so that you know who to get rid of in the final.

another divide is people who treat it as the game it is vs people who take it all too personally. Claudia does all she can to nudge people into the latter group, because I guess that's better TV. if you are a faithful and recognise it is a game and nobody is really getting murdered, you instantly come under suspicion.

I feel Nick and Joe M are bucking that trend of gormless faithfuls by actually being canny. I worry Joe is going to be the Jaz though.

yeah I feel like this is just down to the traitors' tactic of picking the most unexpected person to kill every time, decent traitors would have finished both off a while ago and kept people like Lucy around instead.

Jonathan was exposed completely when they murdered Ruth Codd. If he was not a traitor, and obviously Ruth wasn't, there's no way the traitors would kill her because you'd want two faithfuls taking pot shots at each other. It was a flimsy bluff and one he had to make cos she was onto him. And none of them seemed to realise.

A couple of them said something along the lines of "Jonathan has the bravado to go for murdering the person who picked him" (David, maybe Celia?) but then the game has no shortage of theories. And honestly, it doesn't really matter much if you cotton on to someone yourself – it's mostly about the way the wind is blowing.

I guess I feel what was missing was the two situations of if he was or wasn't and that decision, because it falls apart pretty quickly when you think of it that way. Still, at least it got rid of Ruth.

Stay close to the Traitors then turn on them when the time comes, as Nick said, seems to be the smart strategy. But then if you stay too close you run the risk of being banished. It's a good game!

There was a huge dollop of misogyny in the big dog theory as well - could equally have been Balding v Garraway for long-standing TV mainstays, or any combination thereof.

Jonathan said exactly this on Uncloaked.

Ah, we're a bit behind on Uncloaked - just watched Tom Daley's one there.

I've just binged all of these having never watched a series before. I think the editing is pretty "tight" (haven't watched any Uncloaked but will now). It's fascinating for me as someone who likes to understand people's thought processes and motivations.... because it's eye-opening how ostensibly clever people just talk themselves in circles and never (seem to) take a step back and look at everything?

like once they knew JR was one did anyone go "ok now we have a stake in the ground - let's look back at interactions knowing that and see what things the traitor did " other than "well he voted for David"?

I did love it when Cat shut down suspicion with "I'm autistic so find this stuff hard" but come on, she was so under the radar she must have raised flags just for that?! I really like her btw but I suspect we share some traits....

I would have loved if someone said "what would you behave like if you were a traitor"

The traitors were a bit handicapped in this one with the two 'in plain sight' murders, where they couldn't tactically choose who to murder at all. For the best I think, or the faithful would have had no chance.

If I were to play the game I'd try to get people to stick with their gut and not get sucked into groupthink, at least at the first couple of round tables. Since the traitors are the only ones with any information (and all the information), it's too easy for them to push everyone towards a faithful, or just jump on the bandwagon if one's already going.

Are they allowed to make notes or keep a diary or whatever? I feel like that would help a lot.

On Uncloaked Lucy talked about staying up at night looking through notes, does not seem to have helped her.

Stephen tried to instigate a "just vote without discussion and see where it leads us" and Kate said no and just started talking a lot and the entire concept was never revisited.

That would be interesting, tho BBC probably would find a way to stop it.

You could still have the discussion - people giving their reasons for who they are voting for - just try and stop everyone going "oh yeah" and piling in for the flimsiest and stupidest of reasons.

Yeah, it wouldn't make for a fun round table, but the whispering and recriminations and paranoia afterwards possibly would..which we'll never know. Maybe someone could try it in the civilian series? Though guaranteed to be "why don't they want us talking about them? Classic traitor behaviour" - I thought given how much they all seem to think Stephen is some sort of wise old genius, that would have been the best time to try something new.

one of the most successful Faithful on the Irish edition talked about keeping notes and referring back to them

And she was definitely less susceptible to the usual amnesia

It would make sense, like it's hard to remember it all when you see it neatly packaged on telly so for them it would be a hugely valuable thing.

One other dynamic shift this series is that because the faithfuls are all rubbish, there's been no need to recruit so there's been no need for anyone to focus on changed behaviour.

Are they allowed to make notes or keep a diary or whatever? I feel like that would help a lot.

Also it kept reminding me of Chang on the paintball ep of Community - "Anyone have an alliance I can join? I'm really loyal!"

I hadn't realised until listening to that Romesh radio show (thanks Ailsa) that if they said they'd like to be a Faithful then they wouldn't be chosen as a Traitor. I'm not completely clear on all the rules of the game, especially when they kept going 'if there even ARE three'.

Even though he mentioned it a few times, it annoyed me that Joe didn't keep hammering the Alan forgot he had a shield thing

In a show with very little to go on that's one of the few decent bits of "evidence" they actually had

Which Joe - Marler or Wilkinson? If the former, he still has time to bring it up.

btw what's with the "eyes eyes eyes" chanting when toasting/clinking glasses? Seems it's a european tradition to maintain eye contact that's making its way over here but does the chant come from anywhere?

maintain eye contact when toasting, that is.

I've heard people say it for many years here, not every time but just to mean you should make eye contact and for some reason they say "eyes" in that manner.

weird, I've never heard it before. seems quite aggressive, or it did on the show, and obviously superstitious.

btw what's with the "eyes eyes eyes" chanting when toasting/clinking glasses? Seems it's a european tradition to maintain eye contact that's making its way over here but does the chant come from anywhere?

It is a thing that some luvvies do, for sure. I have been around luvvies who do this.

Nobody here has heard of the superstition around not making eye contact during a toast? If you don’t, seven years of bad/no sex?

Probably many people have, I think the discussion was just about people shouting "eyes" without referencing that superstition, whether because of it or otherwise.

I kind of knew it was good form but not that it was an actual superstition. 7 years of bad sex sounds like it could be a fairly recent invention.

a real dilemma for people who hate eye contact but like sex

AFAIK people have been doing the eyes or bad fuck-luck thing for 20 years so it must be shorthand by now?

I have learned that the correct answer to "do you make eye contact?" for neurotypicals is not "yes, I have developed a number of strategies to make eye contact for the acceptable amount of time"

Nobody here has heard of the superstition around not making eye contact during a toast? If you don’t, seven years of bad/no sex?

Nope, never heard this. I thought the eye-contact thing harked back to some old Scandinavian thing about not being able to trust everyone at the table unless you looked them in the eye, or something. The only proper superstition I ever heard connected with toasting was that it's bad luck to toast with water.

I first heard the eyes while toasting thing in Finland 25 years ago fwiw

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/nov/06/notes-slid-under-doors-southgate-reveals-englands-traitors-obsession

Nobody here has heard of the superstition around not making eye contact during a toast?

Never heard of it. Mind you I don't, er, toast very often!

Well that was great television, but fucking hell. David you absolute fool. And Nick too, not as smart as we thought.

That was properly tense telly, that.

Yep. David saying he'd never had any doubts about the guy who forgot he had a shield and couldn't even keep a straight face when saying "I'm a Faithful" was incredible. And Nick, nooooooo

yeah wtf Nick! but Alan deserved to win tbh, or perhaps the others deserved to lose

I had a suspicion that someone (Nick?) might think Joe steering the narrative towards Alan and Cat might be seen as trying to save his own skin, and so it turned out. But I thought they'd go for Cat and Alan first before David and Nick get rid of Joe at the last round of the firebag thing. They were absolute Mollie-levels of deluded to scrap everything at that last round table

Amazing telly. Did David ever make a single correct judgement? I know it's easy to be all superior when you know what's going on, but to ignore all the red flags against Alan! I'm not sure why they picked on Cat first instead of him. And when he lost it at the end! Imagine how Nick would have felt if this had been a regular show for real money.

I do think the final would have been very different if they needed the money themselves. I mean, you would eliminate anyone giving you even the slightest hint of doubt, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?

Not doing hidden tags any more cause if you click on this thread now having not watched the finale you've asked for it.

Baffled when Claudia said "Alan started as Linda and ended as Harry” – had to Google. Speed with which my brain ejects contestants, or their names at least, after a series is over is quite ruthless.

I feel like David has squandered any credibility he may have had - impossible to now watch his BBC2 Empire series without constantly thinking, you ponderous, deluded twat - how can I possibly trust you on the machinations of the East India Company?

Felt a bit sorry for Paloma sitting in the front row of the final uncloaked. She could have feasibly engineered a mini career revival and some income out of a decent showing.

Paloma is hilarious, and I suspect Alan killing her was probably his finest hour, I don't think he could have kept up the pretence with her around.

lol xp

It did make me wonder what it would be like to have Jonathan Meades in there, obvious answer is that he would never agree to be on it.

Poor old Olusoga, his programmes are front and centre on my iPlayer home page today but I’m never going to be able to watch him again now I know he actually talks like that all the time, even when making (extremely dull) small talk.

I actually think David is the worst contestant of all time

Not just consistently wrong but a cause of wrongness in others

Knew he was crap though, so Nick was the big disappointment. Quite apart from him completely misinterpreting Joe's doublecross, I don't understand why he wouldn't choose to banish one more time for safety (although the point about it not being their money is fair)

Joe the true hero of the series

Wtf was Joe wearing though?!

joes odd socks in the final task was proper lol.
as per has been said, hero of the series.

Yeah, agree with Number. David at least was always "hey, don't ask me, I haven't a clue", whereas Nick thought he had it all figured out.

Joe the true hero of the series

Hmm. There was a way that Joe spoke to people sometimes that raised my hackles a little bit. Maybe I am oversensitive to these things, but I was a bit wary of him.

yeah he has that intense masculine aggression, physically and intellectually. it's all fine as long as he uses it with self-awareness and lack of prejudice, but it would be so easy for that to slip into bullying. to be fair I never saw a hint of that except to give Jonathan as good as he got, but it doesn't sit easy with me all the same.

No revive for the Traitors being Keir Starmer's favourite film?

That would involve giving a shit about what he says about anything

https://pictures.tribuna.com/image/81a9bb48-c5c0-45e6-b53f-ae529ef79300?width=1920&quality=70

Blimey, hating films. Belongs on the "hate / not accept" thread.

ok i just watched uk celebrity traitors over like three days and loved it.

i tried to give the us version a try when it first aired here, but i was put off by all the annoying reality show contestants and never watched more than an episode or two. maybe i should go back and watch the uk civilian seasons (sorry, series).

How many of the celebrities were you previously aware of?

Six? Have known Stephen Fry and Charlotte Church for many years, knew Nick Mohammed from Ted Lasso and Celia Imrie from The Diplomat, recalled that Tom Daley was an Olympic diver, and had the vaguest memory of learning about David Olusoga a while ago (maybe from this NYT profile or something similar).

The US Traitors is hands-down the worst. I guess some execs couldn’t commit to casting complete unknowns, and the reality contestants ruined it. They’re now doing Traitors Civilians, coming in 2026.

I still enjoyed it but less that the UK and Australian versions.

All the "big dog" stuff about Jonathan Ross must have been quite funny when he's an unknown to you.

you should definitely watch seasons 1 & 2 of the UK Traitors (3 less essential imo)

and the Irish Traitors if you can get it

xp I got enough of an impression of Ross from the show that it made sense to me. I presumed he was the equivalent of someone like Stephen Colbert.

More Conan than Colbert I’d say.

Ah yeah that does seem like a better comp

fwiw 6 is also the number of contestants I recognize on the upcoming US season 4 (Donna Kelce, Johnny Weir, Tara Lipinski, Kristen Kish, Ron Funches, and Michael Rapaport).

(though that is more than the previous three seasons combined)

Am I imagining it, or weren't only half the US contestants (in the first season at least) celebs and the other half Joe Public?

looks like you are right, but yeah only in the first season

What an odd set-up.

I think it's quite a good concept - civilians with preconceptions about TV personalities and personalities having to deal with those preconceptions - but it didn't really work.

The main problem with the American one was (particularly for Real Housewives) they aligned themselves into unshakeable voting blocs based on their franchise early on and that really stopped the gameplay.

Well, here we go again...

You love it

I absolutely do!

Laughing already at two people announcing how great they are at making people trust and like them, completely unprompted, and instantly coming across as the two least likeable/trustworthy.

excited to watch this, hopefully it won't be too long before peacock adds it

I never really get into it till episode 2. Too many unknown people to get used to. No wonder I don't like parties.

Hugo and Rachel both bad though. Hugo repeatedly calling Claudia a queen is getting on my tits.

yeah really dislike both, also the account manager bloke.

Yeah awful, also the guy who said ‘honey I’m home’ when he arrived in the castle and since then is being ‘the wacky one’. And is the retired detective woman not telling people about her old job? Cos she needs to stop talking like a retired detective if so.

lol exactly what i thought. i don't really get why you wouldn't just say you're a retired detective, idk.

kinda disappointing/annoying that nearly every single person wants to be a traitor.

oh and i have a crush on netty after five mins of this.

I never really get into it till episode 2. Too many unknown people to get used to.

This

From Hugo's Q&A:

Why did you apply to be on The Traitors?

I really love the show. I'm obsessed with The Traitors - I think I've seen every episode in the English language, UK, US, Australia and New Zealand

Ireland and Canada erasure!

Tbf, the Irish one aired after his was filmed.

anyone have thoughts on the secret traitor identity?

Roxy. Tbf this is the last episode I'll watch cos I'll be back home tomorrow

i think fiona

i like the secret traitor thing so far. mainly manly because it's pissed on the chips of the other 3

manly

I thought Fiona too, the handwriting looked like the handwriting of an old woman

Well it's hard to believe she's as daft as she was presented

Feel like some kind of drama is meant to be generated by the mother/daughter pair tho

The family tree thing they kept cutting to made me wonder if there are fucking loads of secret family connections in there. Episode was fairly boring so spent most of it trying to pair them all up

fiona also was smiling in that sort of guilty way just after the traitor shoulder tap summit.

the secret traitor's three picks were pretty weird.

xpost

Well Fiona said something about "feeling like she had a secret enemy" after she was one of the coffin placements, which is either stupid - why would you think that? You were part of the process and obviously the choices were basically random - or it's the kind of thing somebody trying to divert attention from th3mself might say

wonder how ross and netty know each other. it did seem like maybe romantically? felt awkward enough to possibly be that.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the contestants probably don't actually sleep at the castle but I still feel a bit cheated

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/scotland/traitors-ardross-castle-scotland-inverness/

I took an instant irrational dislike to Fiona, more than any other contestant, but it wouldn't surprise me if she turns out to be more than she initially seemed.

Fiona seemed like she was playing ditsy rather than being ditsy - too similar to Linda for them to have cast the same sort of person, I'm sure there's more to her than we've seen. There's also way more to it between Ross and Netty - surely one of them has engineered this "coincidental" bit of casting.

Retired police detective is straight from central casting, as pointed out by the entire internet and Ed on Uncloaked. She looks like Ted Hastings in a Jane Tennison wig.

Absolutely agree about Fiona.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the contestants probably don't actually sleep at the castle but I still feel a bit cheated

The logistics of setting everything up and having everyone stay at the castle would be absolutely insane though.

Bit bleak that they're all back to some airport Hilton every night, reading the Art Of War or whatever as a substitute for their phones.

I read recently (maybe on Popbitch?) that the celebs all got the Courtyard Marriott and the crew got a crappy Travelodge. Until then I assumed they were staying in cottages in the grounds or something. It definitely does kill the romance a bit knowing they’re in an airport hotel.

Then presumably all taxied there each morning in individual cars. Environmental disaster zone. Or do they come in a minibus and just pretend to be greeting each other for the first time in the breakfast room? Or blindfolds and earmuffs in the minibus.

Gags

Must be a bit like going to work every day xpost.

Prob not even those Land Rovers either, just a crappy old bus.

The castle is AI, they're all in a conference room.

they're gassed and just wake up there, like in the prisoner

Or it's the inside of Claudia's mind, like Stranger Things.

The "family tree" image gives me the impression that the cast is actually a set of secret pairs (ie, everyone there is related to one other person).

LocalGarda at 4:42 2 Jan 26

Bit bleak that they're all back to some airport Hilton every night, reading the Art Of War or whatever as a substitute for their phones.

No surprises it was cunt Hugo either

I have a hunch that black people are significantly more likely to be voted out at the round table in UK series, may have to put together a spreadsheet to look into the data.

lol Ailsa I said exactly that to my other half just now... Amanda reminds me of Ted Hastings!

wonder if there's any production engineering going on to stop the secret traitor being banished early doors. because that would be very deflating.

my son watched ep 1 with subtitles on and we caught Roxy saying "mum" on the boat. but no-one seemed to clock it... until that chat about family pairings.

btw I don't think it's actually that weird that two people on it might know each other. I run into acquaintances all over the world. Feels like it's that birthday phenomenon - you need a far smaller group than you might expect for two people to have the same birthday.

it's not that it's inherently unlikely, it's that if it was a bug rather than a feature the producers wd've done something about it

omg they killed netty :/

heartbroken tbh.

joking aside, these traitors haven't even a smidgen of charisma. just three creeps.

hey Reece could you leave the room for a moment while I talk about this picture in private with Stephen

amazing move

It does seem screamingly obvious the secret traitor is Fiona now, right?

yeah although she did vote for Hugo.

Stephen didn't seem to realise the secret traitor also had to be in the room for Ben's comment.

How do you figure that out? idgi

Do you mean that the secret one had to be in the room? I guess not absolutely necessarily but given they pick the three names and picked Ben it would sort of strike me that they probably were there.

Yeah I don't follow that at all, but this game does my head in anyway so

also, Jade <3

secret traitor only shortlisted Ben, among 2 others. I assumed mainly to stir the pot. Don't think it's necessary they were in the room?

I've only watched the Celeb one and this, but Cat seems to be one of the few who always talks sense and lives it too

Maybe not absolutely certain but idk, it seems too big a coincidence after Ben saying what he said.

xpost

Ross explained it at the round table - if Ben was murdered because of it then someone else must have taken it into the turret because Ross wasn't in there. Otherwise it genuinely is just coincidence and they're not encouraged to believe everything is deliberate.

I agree Fiona is being flagged as the secret traitor and it's absolutely in their interest to get rid of other traitors - it means it's not them being voted for, it makes them look good if they bring up the name, and finally traitors will always get renewed so there's no risk.

Rachel asking Reece to leave so she could talk to Steven was just insane.

Yeah secret traitor seems a p good position to identify traitors from also.

Also think Rachel voting for Ross was pretty stupid.

(I should point out I was typing that on delay so before it was clear the regular traitors would find out who the secret traitor was, which seems like a massive throwaway of the serious twist)

*watching on delay, about 30 minutes*

same, i couldn't resist posting while viewing. agree it's a bit weird they're just binning it now.

I assume the producers weren’t expecting the first traitor to be booted so quickly

Good cliffhanger for the first week, though

My guess for the secret traitor is the psychologist or the stutterer

I can't get over how much that one bloke looks like Ross from the other year. Every time I see him, I think oh look, it's Diane's son.

My two looky-likeys have already gone: Ben (Edmund White) and Judy (Anna Deavere Smith).

My husband has pointed out that Sam looks like a young Tony Blair and I can't unsee it

Trishyb, yes! Been thinking the exact same, do they have to have one bloke who looks like this every year?

Seemed very odd to be getting rid of the secret traitor novelty… unless there is an extra twist to this.

My two looky-likeys have already gone: Ben (Edmund White) and Judy (Anna Deavere Smith).

There's still Amanda (Bertrand Russell)

Well that was fun.

Before getting into the detail I feel like this season, more than in the past, there's a sense of the traitors enjoying their role because it allows them to know more than others or have power over them, not because it's a fun game or they enjoy playing it. Find that a bit unpleasant, like Rachel exudes it in general but also Fiona in the mission.

Rachel prob the most unpleasant person I've ever seen on this show. I can't believe nobody has pointed to her yet but I assume more due to fear.

With the banishment, did the concept of "it happened in plain sight" land at all? I don't understand how the Rachel/Stephen meeting was forgotten. I also don't get how Reece was so much under suspicion having been up for murder a few times, unless I'm mistaken.

I think it's mentioned upthread somewhere for a previous series about the last 3 at breakfast being those up for murder when you watch but that it's not the case in reality for the contestants.. So they won't necessarily know he's been up for murder several times

Ah of course, yes. He kind of just nodded when people cast suspicion on him, which obviously doesn't help his cause.

I can't understand how nobody flagged Rachel's 'what's Hugo like in the turret' thing. It was so unbelievably weird and out of tune with the conversation. Then like 'he must be a traitor cos he said what turret'.

the Uncloaked this week is pretty fun re Ross and Nettie

yeah the turret thing was a blatant shot across the bows. a shit-stirring move.

like you I'm also baffled as to how Reece holds the key to the whole thing but is totally oblivious. Stephen's "let's think about who we saw last near the picture" was a very risky gambit and yet no-one was interested in that bit of basic policework!

It really feels like that whole thing must have been edited to look way more blatant than it was in reality, because otherwise it makes no sense that he didn’t raise it.

Fiona’s doing way too much - she maybe got used to having special unique power but now she’s just a big standard traitor (along with two traitors who are already very suspicious of her).

Saying that, I enjoyed her just blatantly throwing the task as at least it gave people something to think about (why was she not trying?) as opposed to most tasks where the traitors have no reason to really do anything other than try their best like everyone else.

*bog standard

I was actively willing Reece to be voted out for being so dim re the "please go away from this future murder scene while we do murders" but I'm hoping his reprieve will give him time to remember it.

The Fiona reveal was so meh that it ruined a potentially decent twist. Hugo's early banishment didn't even need to unveil her so early, surely Rachel and Stephen could just have been given the opportunity to recruit and the producers could have some sort of contingency had they tried to recruit Fiona.

And her task performance was ridiculously hammy.

All the traitors seem like overactors this year - Stephen’s hammy looks of surprise or dejection; Fiona throwing the game and transparently shit-stirring; and whatever the Hugo-level fuck that turret comment was

And Rachel's "ifyeratraitorsaywhat" moment. Poor old Ross has to be one of the most bumbling self-incriminating contestants ever, though you'd feel for him a bit as it seems to mainly be because he's prob a nice, fairly open person.

Agree the Fiona reveal was dull enough, idk it just seemed screamingly obvious it was her. Also the fact none of us have even mentioned the Ross/Ellie thing is I guess because it is pointless? In general I hope that's the last of the hidden connection thing, it's cheap and I don't actually think real-life relationships or their politics would improve the entertainment of the game.

Agree with everyone on Reece. I know what crisp means about editing though I did wonder if it was more that Reece didn't even see the family tree and nobody properly explained it to him. It was a bit weird how Amanda called him away as that was being noticed and the editing made it seem like he maybe didn't see it as a result.

It made me wonder if Amanda and Rachel have some connection but I can't think of how that would be.

yeah the turret thing was a blatant shot across the bows. a shit-stirring move.

Maybe, but the turret thing was also exactly the sort of joke they were making on the Irish show all the time (although I think the timing is wrong for her to have seen it? I can't even remember when it went out). "Oh, were you tripping over your cloak?" or "Was it hard to use the fountain pen when you're left-handed?" kind of thing. Although if she did mean it as a joke, she did completely botch it, because she was pretty aggressive about it. That interaction was so weird that I would've switched to Rachel straight away. It is odd that people didn't.

I also don't know how people haven't clocked Stephen. His face is SO RED all the time, like he just stepped out of a sauna. He just looks so guilty!

yeah he is sweating like a racehorse indeed. there was a nice clip at breakfast with rachel wiping the palms of her hands with a tissue, i mean, come on! i didn't even think guilty people's palms sweated profusely in real situations tho i know it's based on a truth, but if i saw someone like wiping them down...

Well if they didn’t notice Allan Carr…

trishyb, ah that makes more sense. just seemed like a weird "psych!!" thing that felt a bit flat.

agree it wasn't at all clear whether everyone including Reece knew about the picture before the round table? as it wasn't discussed at all really

What confused me is also is didn't Reece say he'd been up for murder every night or something. Is that just like paranoia or did he know? I can't even remember if there was another night where they knew who was nominated besides this current cage thing.

Like he can't have known I guess, but it was odd.

Did he just mean that he hadn’t had a shield? I can’t remember who has and hasn’t had a shield tbh.

oh yeah I remember thinking the same thing then concluding it must have been about the shield.

Yeah perhaps that was it. He's a funny chap, sweet shop assistant or whatever it says makes me think he either deeply loves sweets or is a drug dealer.

I like how he keeps going on about how super confident he is, I hope at some point he talks about how shit-hot he is at selling sweets and does a bit of sweets patter

Hahaha, Alec Baldwin Glengarry Glenross but for sweets. He doesn't seem too confident, like when they grilled him at the roundtable he just sort of smiled and nodded.

I wonder if he's another one of the contestants with A Secret?

He's actually the CEO of Nestlé, secret millionaire style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AawNTL5hB-A

lol

I watched the first episode again last night with a friend who hadn't seen it and it was funny watching their interviews with Claudia in retrospect. At least half of them claim they're next level strategists, three steps ahead etc and playing chess everyday or whatever and yet they can't even pick up on simple clues or reactions

Can't even remember that the last killing was done "in plain sight".

Also every single one of them wanting to be a traitor.

Every time someone announces "my job means I have a very particular set of skills. Skills that make me a nightmare for traitors" you just know they're going to be absolutely clueless

I actually had some hope for the crime writer lady but she went straight back to the stupid Ross theory which is emblematic of one of the more infuriating tendences of contestants - where someone who was murdered says "if I go tonight then look at such and such" and the rest of them all take it as holy writ even though the murdered person had no more information than anyone else. Every fucking series.

I think, in the first episode, two contestants - Sam and Rachel maybe? - said something like "I'm good at getting people to do what I want."

I always take this to mean "I am a total cunt and people usually submit to me out of fear and/or exhaustion"

Yeah that was a huge red flag for me, also coming forward on national TV to announce how likeable and clever you are when that clearly makes you look like a dick seems a strategy that makes a lie of that belief.

Sam in particular seems to have waltzed in thinking everyone will love him and he's a bit of a pariah.

Strip her of her police pension

Shame it came down to those two. Both good entertainment

Fiona is good

Crazy episode lol

Looking forward to seeing Amanda’s face on Uncloaked when she realises she made her confession to a traitor.

Fiona is a bloody brilliant nightmare on legs.

Just watched that. She's literally clueless

Why was Rachel dressed as a Minion? Why is everyone still hung up on who Ben said to Ross in front of whom, when there was a plain-sight shortlisting very recently?

I will never understand this show!

that wholw tangent after the cages with Matthew (?) going "but aha, how did you know Maz would be left after you went" ??!

Fucking hilarious episode. Obviously people getting excited about Fiona but I’m a bit creeped out by her tbh and have been since she became a regular traitor, either she is a delusional narcissist or (more likely) she’s just having a great laugh, which did make for good tv on this occasion, but for me part of the enjoyment of stuff like this is all this ridiculous camp silliness is going on but all the contestants take it incredibly seriously. If everyone on it just started fucking about and doing stuff to look ‘iconic’ or whatever it would get boring very fast.

Funniest moment by far was Amanda solemnly divulging her big secret to Rachel like she had some kind of amazing superpower and then 30 seconds later she falsifies evidence against a random person and tries to banish the same ethnic minority woman she has been persecuted for absolutely no reason since day one. Fucking polis man, can’t help themselves.

*persecuting

I keep forgetting Matthew and Adam exist. They're so nothingy, though I've decided Matthew looks a bit like Shay Given which helps me tell them apart when they're just nothinging about.

Fiona has entirely blown her ditsy persona with her decision to try and turn the tables on Rachel, surely.

I can't fathom why she went off like that. Was she just raging that Amanda didn't confide in her? Is she genuinely suspicious that Rachel is going to try to boot her?

Very disappointed that Rachel didn't call Amanda a peeler.

halfway through I thought that this was the worst episode, but I was wrong, just insanely backloaded. both of them are kind of fucked now, maybe one could claw their way back, but trust has truly broken down.

I think she has absolute main character energy and probably thinks if Amanda genuinely was a detective (which she doesn't know is true, remember) then she'd tell her. Therefore Rachel must be lying so she has to do *something* to turn people against her. Thing is, Rachel saying it didn't put anything on Fiona other than exacerbate her own paranoia/need for control.

I honestly think it was a deliberate tactic by Fiona. She has played Rachel like a banjo. Absolutely brilliant, just making her lose her cool completely. It'll surely come back on her but it doesn't matter because it will bring down Rachel. Rachel steaming into the room to tell everyone may seem like the normal response but the main thing about the show is anyone who is experiencing anything or in the limelight in any way is soon blamed or targeted.

I also don't get how people haven't learned by now that there's always somebody nobody whatsoever even gives a hint of heat to that is a traitor. Like you may as well just go fish and try to ask that person questions, and it is Rachel this time.

Likewise, Trish, I was chortling as Rachel lit a bonfire. Wonder what month the show was filmed in.

the only error I think was accusing her outright of being a traitor. she should have just kept needling about it being a lie as rachel is now furious.

Amanda gunning for Jade from the start really showed up her detective skills, and reinforced my idea upthread that the show reveals how people (in this case the police!) are naturally prejudiced against the neurodivergent and mistake their "weird" behaviour for acting guilty. (no I don't have confirmation that Jade is ND but come on now of course she is)

Fiona has put a target on her own back here if Rachel plays it straight. But of course someone will do something odd like eat a croissant rather than a banana and it'll all be forgotten and they'll all randomly gun for someone who's doing fuck all like Roxy.

I am basically dying to see Stephen being the spare wheel in the turret.

I think a huge row will bring both of them down in the end. If a traitor is winning this I'd say it's someone who's currently a faithful.

I know it always feels like this but this group really does seem the worst at this game.

xpost the unconscious bias towards people of colour and neurodiversity and a hint of intellect in this show is so obvious. Being an Adam is absolutely the way to coast through.

you have to think about the endgame, can any of these three survive it? you need people to really trust you at that point.

(no I don't have confirmation that Jade is ND but come on now of course she is)

i'm a bit befuddled by this, xposts

she just reminds me strongly of the autistic women I know.

I think Rachel can get through this unscathed. From the faithfuls point of view she has no reason to tell anyone Amanda's secret other than to cement her friendship with her and justify Amanda's behaviour. Fiona, on the other hand, is all guns blazing in with "she's lying", like what does Rachel actually have to *gain* from this "lie"?

I don't think it's the accusation she made it up that will bring her down, because it's sort of ludicrous. I just think this noise around her will make her part of a huge conflict, and now that Fiona has gone all in on saying she's a traitor, it will come up again. And we'll also see how she handles it. She definitely seemed a lot more flustered from a previous position of huge power. We haven't seen even the slightest bit of pressure on her yet and she still has made several gaffes that everyone just forgot about.

what does Rachel actually have to *gain* from this "lie"

a lot tbh, if you believe she is a traitor? means suspicion moves to people amanda targeted. same thing she has to gain from it being true.

maybe fiona should have just said why is she telling us

The smart move now, I think, is to protect Jade. Her immediate murder would look like trying to shut down whether or not Detective Amanda was right, and her unveiling as a faithful would absolutely show that Amanda is a shit detective and consequently was she even a detective anyway?

My impression is that Fiona was just trying to sabotage Rachel’s position as the under-the-radar traitor.

Puts Rachel in a weird position I guess, if others go for Jade and she defends her then she has to sort of abandon the whole Amanda is Scotland Yard's sharpest mind thing.

Gonna be some fun in the next episode!

xpost I kinda think so too

My fear is that if Fiona gets banished they will all think Rachel is a Faithful

Definitely that. There's a fair chance Rachel or Fiona gets banished tonight and whoever is will stand up and say "I'm a Traitor" which will then probably make them think the other must be Faithful

Someone might come out with maybe it was traitor turning on traitor but with this group they're likely to forget that and randomly pile on Reece or Sam or something next intsead

I think that's true but there will be factions now and people will keep an eye on Rachel in a way they haven't been. It might ease off for a bit so I guess just a question of how long or whether it's enough time for her to see it out.

My guess tonight is there'll be a few Stephen truthers who are the people that might also develop doubts about Rachel, so that'll split the vote and mean Fiona goes.

I assume btw you aren't allowed to say "Rachel is a traitor and I know because I am one too"?

Yeah they take their daft wee oath when they become traitors - tbh Fiona is skating pretty close to breaking it by shouting about Rachel being a traitor.

Can’t really see anyone but Fiona going given how bizarre that all was (and I think that fucks Rachel too - if they know Fiona was a traitor sure the next question is ‘why would a completely un-suspected traitor have a meltdown in front of everyone against a random faithful?’).

Saying that they might just say ‘we have to look at Jade now’ and all vote for her.

'the british police are the best in the world, jade must be stopped'

I'm way more autistic than Jade and I'm not* autistic :D

*tbc

Jade was 100% going before Fiona's outburst

the world's greatest detective condemned her with her dying breath!

My fear is that if Fiona gets banished they will all think Rachel is a Faithful.

I think that someone - possibly Jessie, who is the sharpest of the Faithful - would then work out that Fiona's outburst against Rachel could only have been traitor-on-traitor backstabbing.

Yeah, Jessie will be key, she was smart enough last night to point out they both could be faithful. I genuinely think some of them wouldn't even realise that.

there's lots of secret chats between 2 people that no-one bats an eyelid at. I've not seen the other civilian serieses so don't know if that's common but would have thought that's a bit suss?

I think they've learned that from the American series, personally. They do it all the time on that one.

Whatever it was Jade did or said to make people suspicious of her (other than being a bit "different"-looking) clearly passed me by as a viewer, because Amanda's laser focus on her seemed so weird, especially when good old Stephen is right there boiling and sweating away like a Guilty McMurderer. The main thing I've noticed about Jade is that she has one of those cardigans by that Northern Irish knitwear designer and I bet she bought the kit and made it herself, because she seems like a crafter.

Mind you, whoever it was who said something to Amanda about a husband or a boyfriend is even less observant.

Jessie seems to be the smartest one there

The main thing I've noticed about Jade is that she has one of those cardigans by that Northern Irish knitwear designer and I bet she bought the kit and made it herself, because she seems like a crafter.

Haha yes, I immediately said, “That’s Tom Daley’s cardigan!”

I keep forgetting Matthew and Adam exist.

I like Adam! He hasn't had much of a chance to shine. Haven't got a lot to say about Matthew other than I like one of his jumpers.

Oops, meant to quote not hide.

Amanda said she thought Jade looked different when they took the blindfold off after the traitors were chosen and that was pretty much her entire thing she couldn't get away from.

Adam is quite amusing when he occasionally gets sixty seconds to chunter on with astonishment about whatever incident. Also some good shocked faces at the round table.

I think my answer to everything on the Traitors, as it is in my real life, would have to be "That's just my face. I can't help my face."

hard to know if it was just the way it was edited but there was essentially no response to Jessie's well-reasoned speech at the round table but then a few people did end up voting for Stephen

and that after she was saying how hard it was to make her voice heard

I feel it was cut fairly short last night? Also there were scenes of her telling others she thinks Stephen and them agreeing. There are defo a few people who think it's him.

Weirdly, Fiona going ham on Rachel may well mean people forget about him for a while.

Stephen's face when it all kicked off in the kitchen was priceless

It really was!

Fiona has entirely blown her ditsy persona with her decision to try and turn the tables on Rachel, surely.

I agree she's been in control until now and I genuinely think she reacted emotionally and actually lost it yesterday. Really odd. It doesn't really help her and I agree, if they think she's a traitor it makes Rachel look innocent.
I don't like Rachel but I think she knows what she's doing and feel a bit like with 'Amanda's a detective' was a) trying to associate herself with a Faithful and b) trying to give genuine reasons for people acting 'oddly', which actually isn't a bad thing imo, to point out how people might act because of their background (however misguided). It really got under Fiona's skin I think, because there won't be much coming back from that that leads people to conclude they're both Faithful. (I mean obviously no-one acts logically so who knows?!)

Amanda solemnly divulging her big secret to Rachel like she had some kind of amazing superpower and then 30 seconds later she falsifies evidence against a random person

https://i.postimg.cc/3wRZGpGF/image.png

Ross is so funny on Traitors Uncloaked, feel like we never saw this side of him.

Yes, it's a shame he went so soon.

Where is Matthew? Taking arty shots of his butt in fields apparently: https://archive.ph/flE5V (NB. Archive.ph Daily Mail link)

Yeah that was quite odd, obviously she totally mis-remembered about Sam saying Reece was really tired or whatever it was.

I don't think she misremembered anything. I think she's the kind of person who is so used to just having her version of events be the one that's believed that she feels she can make up any old shite and people will go along with it. I wonder do people on the Traitors sometimes forget that this will all be shown on television, so we will actually be able to know for sure what was said.

I do not like Amanda. I wonder if that is obvious.

It's quite striking how confident and sure of herself she is as she consistently dips no more than a little finger into the her own consciousness, while still convinced that yes, my process is working as logically as ever, even as she is wildly changing her mind, forming strong opinions based on nothing, missing flagrantly obvious clues in front of her nose, and still all the while looking down on her impulsive, hot-headed fellow humans.

Yes! That dissonance between her self-image as an open-minded investigator, and what seems to be a complete inability to observe, listen, or synthesise new information.

In her confession to Rachel, she appears to confuse "being a detective" for "having a detection superpower". Nope -- it's a just a job, which you're sometimes good, and sometimes shit at, like everybody else.

Also like as much as I sort of worry and laugh along at all the memes about her wrongfully convicting loads of people, another part of me just thinks like in her job she was working within set procedures with fixed goals, and probably a huge amount of the time in fairly routine cases that may require technical knowledge to complete but are hardly like what we see on TV.

Even beyond that like people are more than their jobs and this show is more about self-knowledge I think, a trait that very, very few of the contestants have.

That plus a lot of group psychology that seems to create situations where certain people are never, ever considered as traitors.

Like idk interrogating yourself and your hunches seems so much more important than interrogating others.

even as she is wildly changing her mind, forming strong opinions based on nothing [...] and still all the while looking down on her impulsive, hot-headed fellow humans.

Good thing none of us would assume things about the contestants based on watching approx 30 mins of interactions ;-p

Also like as much as I sort of worry and laugh along at all the memes about her wrongfully convicting loads of people, another part of me just thinks like in her job she was working within set procedures with fixed goals, and probably a huge amount of the time in fairly routine cases that may require technical knowledge to complete but are hardly like what we see on TV.

I see what you're saying here, but on the other hand ACAB so fuck her

Yeah that's less me defending her/police and more just speculating as to why being a detective isn't some guarantee of skill at this mostly random game.

Good thing none of us would assume things about the contestants based on watching approx 30 mins of interactions ;-p

We were right about Fiona tbf :)

re: Matthew - my reaction was also "hold on, who the fuck is this?". Like a new feature of the show: the secret faithful who just stays in a cupboard all day until the round table.

re: Ross - he was undone by the sheer fluke* of Netty turning up and recognising him right at the start and then his hopelessly-worded explanation about having "planned" not to react.

*I'm this was just an unlikely coincidence and not something set up by the producers

(I'm assuming, that should say)

Lol xps

Also apart from when there's a murder in plain sight there's basically fuck all evidence to go on. All you've got to go off is body language and reactions and people's sometimes odd decisions/votes

So someone like Ellie who's a psychologist is probably better placed than a detective anyway

This is why I think people are stupid to go in with these ridiculous ‘secrets’ - it increases the chance of behaving unnaturally and offers very little benefit. I assume Ross being weird and garbling his explanation of Netty was at least partly because his girlfriend was right there when a random woman ran over and jumped all over him, and he couldn’t react in a normal way.

Yeah, he said as much on Uncloaked!

Really recommend watching his episode as discussed above, that particular bit was so funny.

Just started tonight's. Rachel is the absolute pits, the worst.

I dislike Fiona more, so this is gravy

Hang on, doesn't "fairest of them all" famously mean best looking?

Matthew in the church, perhaps cos of the jumper and his incongruous mien, reminds me of Father Dougal's face appearing in Father Ted's flashback montage, terrified and confused.

Thank God for Harriet but I fear it won't be enough now. They'll go down some Detective Amanda tangent probably. Jessie about as steady as a balloon in the wind, when it came to it.

I don't like Rachel but she's doing a good job of this, with the huge exception of "Reece I need to talk to Stephen in private about the family tree picture, yeah it's nothing it's fine"

glad Fiona's pointless gambit blew up. Faraaz saw Amanda ask to speak to Rachel in private so that bit was verifiable. wish Fiona would have kept calm and really gone for the win, though, as she could've made fools of a few more of them.

Claudia's lipstick matching two of the Traitors' jumpers....?

what do we think of this 'ask the traitors a question' thing? i kinda feel this must be heavily controlled to the point of bordering on fixed? like it obviously can't be just open-ended ask them whatever you wish.

also what's the killer question? are you allowed to ask them who they are? or one of those riddle type questions.

I don't see why they couldn't ask what they want, given that the Traitors are under no obligation to tell the truth (unless I missed that part).

I thought Matthew's questions were mire useful a strategy than anything I thought of. Best I could come up with was "If two of you make it to the end, will you trust each other to split it", just to poke the nest a bit.

you have to assume one will lie and one will tell the truth and pull some 3-d logic...
"if I asked your least-liked Faithful who the Traitors are, what would they say?"

i just felt matthew's gambit felt a bit like he'd had some help. idk. i think i mean controlled more for entertainment reasons than game integrity. like if someone thought of an absolutely dense, boring question i feel that wouldn't have been allowed. traitors truther here.

xpost yeah that's the kind of thing i was thinking of.

Yeah just felt like scripted fluff, there’s no actual substance - what leverage does he have to make a ‘deal’? In fact he’s given them more information than they’re likely to give him.

further to my dougal comment, i saw someone on bluesky compare him to eoin mclove, which feels even better.

it would be funny if they murdered him

Spent the first half of the episode trying to work out who I disliked more, and decided on Fiona in the end, so all good - and Rachel seems to be convinced that she is out of danger, which is very much not the case.

Matthew looks like Jonty Bravery.

I think Rachel has been fine tbh. Fiona was good value around the castle and that but in her interviews I thought she came across as a bit of a wank.

idk if it's like to do with being irish and that weird thing of recognising stuff in people from your own country or something but i detest rachel. i'll stop saying it now, lol.

i didn't really like fiona and her reasoning for the big attack is prob she was annoyed not to be included in the ex-police inner circle, but she has a bit of charisma/humour at least.

Rachel feels like a bit like a minor character from Game of Thrones, one of the crap ones from the last few series who weren't in the books.

Fiona's wardrobe gave off strong Lady Captain vibes, which I didn't love.

The fact they're all calling him Matty after everyone not everyone on the social media even remembering a Matthew makes me suspicious.

Also he's so Irish and Rachel so isn't. There's stuff going on there.

Eh? Now I'm intrigued. You mean you think she's putting an Irish accent on?

I don't really get the social media thing about Matthew being invisible until last episode. Sure he wasn't super prominent but he was there enough for me to notice all his jumpers and there are often characters who don't get that much air time in early stages. It's not like that hilarious case in Traitors Australia where there was genuinely a guy they tried to cut out of the show – you just saw glimpses of him, like that fifth housemate in The Young Ones.

Matthew looks like Jonty Bravery.

Glad I'm not the only one who thought this!

Oops, hidden tag instead of quote again. Too much time on the Connections thread.

would be a good twist.

I have no idea what I meant about Rachel and Matthew there. I think I started with one thought and changed my mind and didn't change my words.