The second episode of The Traitors proved how the BBC’s bold move to plant a secret Traitor among the cast has completely changed the roundtable.
*Spoilers below for episode 2, you have been warned!*
The highly anticipated game of murderous deception returned to screens on New Year’s Day with a new 22-strong cast for its fourth series.
Proving that the celebrity iteration has onboarded a huge new swathe of fans, the first episode of the series was the most-watched debut episode for the show, with an average of 6.4 million people tuning in, according to overnight figures from the BBC.
The second episode dived straight back in with Netty the first contestant to be dispatched by the conclave of Traitors – barrister Hugo, head of communications Rachel and cyber security consultant Stephen – in the turret.
This resulted in suspicion falling on Ross, who had a shock reunion outside the castle doors with the nursery teacher he’d last seen 15 years ago – which for some reason piqued suspicion, despite the fact host Claudia Winkleman hadn’t even selected her Traitors at that point.
But going into the roundtable, it wasn’t just Ross’s name in the air, but Judy’s – despite her secret (to the players) daughter Roxy’s best efforts to divert attention away from Sam’s campaign against the Doncaster child liaison officer.
Having made a start on building up the £120,000 cast prize pot in a mission, the contestants made their way to the packed roundtable for the first round of Traitor hunting.
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Ross had previously admitted he was grateful that Netty had been voted out already, despite it then throwing suspicion on him again – although his ‘shocked’ face could have worked a bit harder to hide some of that relief
Ultimately, the result wasn’t quite what the batch of mostly-Faithful had hoped, with Judy voted almost unanimously to be one of the Traitors in their midst.
But for the first time, the moment where the axed contestant stands at the end of the room and shares whether they’re a Traitor or a Faithful was tense for everyone in the room, as well as the viewers at home.
BBC viewers at home dubbed the twist in the format ‘top tier’ and enjoyably infuriating – although not everyone was convinced.
‘Not enjoying this secret traitor twist. It really makes the role of the actual chosen traitors completely redundant. Not sure this will be popular with viewers to be honest,’ theorised viewer Stewart King on X.
‘It gets too predictable if they don’t change the dynamic – I love how furious this has made the traitors!’ replied fellow fan Jim Fraser, clearly filled with glee.
‘Yeah sorry this secret traitor role is top tier, wasn’t convinced at first but it’s produced some tension even for the audience, it’s great,’ agreed another viewer, while Ez Smith chimed in: ‘Isn’t it great that we, the public, can react to finding out if the banished player is a faithful or a traitor!’
Francesca also shared that she loved viewers being ‘in the same boat as all of the contestants’ when it came to the Secret Traitor.
‘Waiting in angst to find out if they’re actually a faithful or not,’ she added.
But how long will this go on? Surely not for the whole series – viewers during the first episode predicted that the murder shortlists might be the secret Traitor’s kryptonite.
It will give the flank of Traitors a means of narrowing down who the scarlet-cloaked individual is, since their name will not appear on the list.
The contestants were immediately frustrated by tonight’s revelation, with Roxy immediately condemning the table for allowing themselves to be swayed by the ‘herd mentality’ – but she later vowed her mum’s early exit would spur her on.
At the end of the episode, the Secret Traitor put forward retiree Ben, sweet shop worker Reece and civil servant Maz – again – as the next three candidates for banishment.
This has given Hugo, Rachel and Stephen the current working theory that the Secret Traitor could be a woman.
Former Traitors star Maddy Smedley backed up this hunch, tweeting: ‘The red traitor should’ve kept James and Maz and only changed the final one cos it narrows it down more each time for the traitors to work them out. And they’re right, definitely a woman!’
The Traitors continues tomorrow night at 8pm on BBC One.
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