January is almost over, but regrettably that means that so too is The Traitors. Watching the Beeb’s televised take on wink murder has become a bright spot in this gloomy portion of the year for many, but at 8.30pm tonight it all ends with a tantalisingly setup finale. You can follow along with our liveblog on the Guardian, where there’s also plenty more Traitors content, including pieces on how it has revolutionised reality TV, and why it’s so ruddy middle class. Here on the Guide, we’re trying to answer some of the most pressing – and, OK, not so pressing – questions about tonight’s finale and series three as a whole. Spoilers ahoy, so of you’re not up to speed with this series, perhaps wait until you are before reading on.
Who’s going to win?
Five contestants remain: four faithfuls – Frankie, Jake, Leanne and Alexander – and lone traitor, Charlotte. In normal circumstances, Charlotte, who has been excellent at remaining undetected since becoming a traitor midway through the series, would stand a very good chance of taking the prize money. But an almighty spanner was thrown into the works with the introduction of “the seer” power, which allows one contestant to learn the true identity of another. Frankie, the resident seer, has chosen to find out – gasp! – Charlotte’s identity.
I suspect that will count against both of them: Frankie will reveal Charlotte to be a traitor and Charlotte will claim that Frankie is lying because she is a traitor herself and the other three will banish both of them to be safe. Should that happen, there’s a chance that the remaining three will split the prize – though a new rule, whereby the true identity of banished contestants – traitors or faithfuls – isn’t revealed to those remaining, might lead to two of the three ousting the other to be safe. So I think Jake and Leanne will banish Alexander – who has had the finger of suspicion dangling over him through much of the series – and take the prize for themselves.
Who should have won?
Minah (with Linda and Fozia, above) was a terrific traitor: clever, ruthless and able to turn the waterworks on at will. (Side note: hasn’t there been a lot of crying this season! Barely a banishment seems to go by without the roundtable awash with salty tears.) It’s a shame she didn’t make it to the final, though she only has herself to blame for the recruitment of the mendacious (and fraudulently Welsh) Charlotte. The other star of this season was, of course, Linda. The retired opera singer somehow managed to remain in the show for weeks despite being perhaps the most hilariously inept traitor in history. You found yourself cheering her on as you would a novelty Strictly contestant.
What was the season’s best challenge?
I’d opt for the “creepy dolls sing nursery rhymes backwards that contestants then have to memorise and sing down a phone before the others reverse their caterwauling by singing it back into a record player” challenge, which was memorable, funny and just a deeply strange idea.
What was Claudia Winkleman’s best entrance?
That’s easy: carried aloft to a challenge by her “sons”: two hulking masked executioner monks, one of whom is the World’s Strongest Man.
What was the most sacrilegious song cover this season?
Traitor pop shows no signs of going away – or getting better – any time soon. (FYI: you can listen to weekly playlists of the soundtrack on BBC Sounds … though I don’t know why you’d want to.) This year there were moody, high-camp covers of everything from House of the Rising Sun to Beethoven’s fifth symphony, but the absolute nadir came in the very first episode with a dirgelike Smells Like Teen Spirit cover that should have had Gen Xers protesting outside the BBC’s head office.
Has this series been any good?
Not as good as the last series, a lightning-in-the-bottle triumph of casting, plotting and execution. It featured two truly brilliant traitors, a host of cult contestants, had a marmalade-dropper of a twist (“wait, Diane is whose mum?!”) and a really great final episode. This season by comparison has been a shade underwhelming. While there have been a handful of breakout stars, there was also quite a lot of unmemorable room meet, particularly on the faithful side (gold stars to anyone who can remember who Tyler or Livi were).
And the show seems to have overcompensated for this with endless MacGuffins: contestants removed at the outset of the show and reinstated halfway in; a death game; and the aforementioned seer element, which is in danger of rendering the final a massive anticlimax. There’s a slight feeling that the show has forgotten its strongest element: people lying brazenly at each other around a huge table. But for all that griping, it’s clear that The Traitors is still great entertainment; a rare monocultural TV event and terrific escapism for these cold winter nights. We’ll miss its camp and sense of mischief when it’s not on.
Is the format fatally flawed?
Perhaps! There have been suggestions, by Richard Osman and Marina Hyde on The Rest is Entertainment among others, that The Traitors rewards ineptitude among its faithful cohort – because of course if you were a traitor you would murder the keen-eyed and keep the simpletons in. There’s also the fact that – as outlined by Donald Clarke in the Irish Times – despite all the talk of how important it is for the faithfuls to unmask the traitors, for most of the show it scarcely makes any difference whether they do or not: one or two more will just be created, by coercion or force, which lends a slight sense of redundancy to the show’s early episodes. And of course the show’s format allows for the mother of all letdowns should the final traitor be ousted before reaching the last three – though that decision by the show’s creators to remove the reveal of whether a banished contestant is a faithful or traitor in the final episode might help with that.
But for me part of the fun of the show is watching how its makers try to zigzag around the game’s fundamental flaws. It’s a high-wire act on par with a traitor trying to smuggle a cup of “poisoned” wine into a faithful’s hands, and while the show’s creators might have overdone the gimmicks this time around, it’s good to know that they are as conscious of the format’s drawbacks as everyone else. With that mentality, I don’t think The Traitors is going anywhere anytime soon.
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