The Traitors star Rachel has no clue she’s just jeopardised her whole game

Rachel looked like she was finally cracking under the pressure when Harriet turned a firehose of fury on her last night – her still face blanched and she hid shaking hands under the breakfast table in the picture of someone on the ropes – before that gambit saw the former barrister banished.

Despite this, Rachel had initially looked to be the strongest player this series of The Traitors has to offer. 

The head of comms has played the role of Traitor flawlessly, proving herself to be simultaneously the alpha in the turret and a ‘Faithful’ who is above suspicion in the castle below. 

Seeing off Fiona and Harriet at the roundtable only added to her unbeatable credentials. So too when nobody took heed of the fact successive banishments followed on from Rachel being accused of donning the green cloak.

Even when Harriet sacrificed herself in an ultimately fruitless attempt to prove Rachel was a wrong’un, the Faithful remained unconvinced. ‘I don’t think anyone’s thinking Rachel… It just doesn’t feel like it’s Rachel at the moment,’ Ellie said.

Harriet chose a hill to die on – and was sent packing.

This apparent invincibility left me fearing the Faithful might be sitting ducks.

Until tonight, after the banishment of Sam, when I saw potential cracks really start to appear. 

Rachel’s rogue decision to shoot a broadside in Faraaz’s direction, by publicly labelling him a Traitor after the roundtable, could be the makings of her demise.

And she didn’t just do it once in front of her other cast members, but twice. ‘Goodnight my Traitor son,’ she said to cap it off at the end of the night, inadvertently offering fresh catnip for sleuths pedalling the ‘everyone-is-connected’ theory.

While we haven’t learned a massive amount about Faraaz, the internal auditor has bedded down in Team Faithful and is one of a select few who has never had their name written down at the roundtable.

And that’s why, in going after him, I think Rachel put her first foot wrong. 

Because this unprovoked attention is causing Faraaz to reconsider the previously beyond-reproach ‘Faithful’.

Afterwards, during his library sit-down, Faraaz said that Rachel’s behaviour has prompted him to cast the eye of inquisition over her, because he has exhibited ‘no Traitorous behaviour’. Too right. 

The safest thing for Rachel would have been to leave this job up to someone else.

But rather than tread carefully, biding her time until watchful eyes inevitably turned on Faraaz without her involvement, I think Rachel’s scorched earth approach could very well be the undoing of her.

Sometimes it feels like they will never learn. 

Publicly accusing someone under so little suspicion has not worked once this series. Fiona, Harriet and Hugo all went home for failing to shut up and play the game on the periphery.

You would think Rachel would realise that, since it’s how she’s clung on at the roundtable.

Instead, she’s issued a bizarre challenge based on nothing more than an ageist hunch that the youngest player in the game might be gunning to get all the oldies out (never mind that they both banished Sam at the roundtable, undermining this entire theory).

Maybe the suggestion they start looking at bandwagon-hoppers prompted Rachel to throw a theory out there. After all, saying too little is the trap Jade keeps tripping into. But the key is to say just enough, like Minah in the last civilian series or Cat in the celebrity version.

The other explanation is, like Fiona, Rachel might be getting too arrogant for her own good. Rachel knows the hob is cranking up underneath Stephen – go on Jessie! – and her limp defence of him proves she’s ready to turn on her own if needs be.

But it might soon be Rachel that needs Stephen to swoop to her defence. Faraaz is one of the three names up for murder and Rachel seems completely unaware of why this could be a problem for her, irrespective of whether he goes or stays.

This has been acknowledged as a pivotal point in the game. Rachel could not have picked a worse moment to unnecessarily bring suspicion to her own door, from someone who is above it.

As long as the Faithful don’t suffer the short-term memory loss they’ve exhibited at points during this series, Faraaz’s murder would turn eyeballs towards Rachel because she accused him in front of others. She’s linked to him.

And if they decide to murder Matthew or Jessie instead, Faraaz is a presence in the castle who has said he will be looking at Rachel after she unexpectedly accused him of being a Traitor.

Casting Traitor aspersions in front of the group when you are the only one who harbours such misgivings has often ended badly this series. Doing so when the evidence doesn’t even come close to adding up makes it even worse.

Rachel has so far dodged a grenade from Fiona and a kamikaze move from Harriet. What a turn of events if the thing to take her down is blasting a bullet into her own foot.

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