The Traitors UK discussion thread *SPOILERS*

[Daaaaaad!]

6 hours ago, Dai said:

Bit shady of Acaster going against the spirit of the game to say he didnt use the spray. That essentially ruined it for the other two. 

Haven't watched back so I may have misheard, but didn't he say "I didn't spray him"? That would technically be true and also not necessarily point towards the other two directly.

[topuriataylor]

My first ever viewing of Tratiors this series and on the whole I thought it was decent and would proberly watch another series.

 James Blunt really cocked it up though at the end 😆

[RedTwoster]

23 hours ago, Daaaaaad! said:

Haven't watched back so I may have misheard, but didn't he say "I didn't spray him"? That would technically be true and also not necessarily point towards the other two directly.

No, but by saying anything like that at all, it created the paranoia that was needed to make sure both Maya and Kenny had no chance of winning. 

[CTXRussomark]

It was always going to be hard to follow the incredible first series but this just didn't end up coming close.  They did manage to build some good drama in the final game but the weeks preceeding that were all pretty forgettable. There was the odd highlight (paranoid Ross Kemp) but otherwise it all felt really uneventful.  Richard fucking himself over on day 1 and James A just not being up for being a traitor didn't help matters.  Just an unfortunate mix of events and personalities. 

[Arch Stanton]

Yeah, the lack of chatter on here about the final certainly points to an underwhelming series overall. I still enjoyed it, it's good appointment viewing, but this edition definitely suffered from heightened expectations after the first brilliant celebrity one, then some unfortunate moments and decision making from the contestants.

[hallicks]

Maya folding faster than Superman on laundry day after some fairly gentle questioning was enjoyable. I loved Romesh and Bash’s little conflab after the split vote, and then James B’s facial contortions after he realised he’d fucked it in the final final vote were phenomenal. Great last episode, shame about the rest. 

[wordsfromlee]

This was the first proper time I'd seen James Blunt out of his normal context. I reckon if I didn't know who he was and Celebrity Traitors was the first time I'd ever encountered him, it would take me a million guesses to get to "singer/songwriter". Never mind "one of the biggest selling albums in UK chart history".

[DavidB6937]

I really enjoyed it overall. I try not to compare any of the series really because you're never going to replicate anything with a completely new cast each series so fairly pointless. Was it one of my favourites? No, mostly because it didn’t have the drama I've enjoyed in some of the other series. It's more self aware in the celebrity version, certainly this time, and while it's interesting it can cause issues such as Richard being Richard and then James Acaster being made a Traitor which wasn't going to work out for him. Even stuff like Joe saying he wanted to be recruited. I get it's a laugh but I do prefer it when people take it seriously.

[FLips]

We enjoyed it but aside from Kenny, it was a shocking group of Traitors.  Richard E Grant just admitting to being a traitor, Hannah never standing a chance and being a drawn out sacrifice, Maya coasting to the end and becoming weirdly aggressive the first time any suspicion is on her, and James Acaster who quite frankly isn't mentally fit enough to have been there in the first place. If you have a mental breakdown baking cakes for charity then maybe an often intense game of deception isolated in a castle isn't the best thing to be doing, and sure enough he also broke down at the first sniff of any suspicion on him, halted filming and accidentally gave up his fellow Traitors and lost the game for them. 
The faithful weren't much better but paranoid Ross Kemp was a laugh and some of them at least tried to play the game properly. A weird amount of deliberately not voting for traitors because you're mates with them even though everyone else is voting for them though, and also whatever strategy Joe Lycett had.

 

[Jazzy G]

I think the traitors ruined it for themselves by killing Sharon instead of Romesh or Bash the first time suspicion fell on Michael. I'm sure James Acaster's breakdown didn't help things, and maybe they've then created and edited themselves a series of events to make it look like he didn't throw Maya and Kenny under the bus depending on what happened before they had to stop filming, but at breakfast that morning Maya had raised a glass to "killing them" before quickly correcting herself to "banishing them" and people appeared to be starting to suspect her anyway. 

I woke up on Saturday morning to a notification telling me about Romesh winning, which really annoyed me. I was gutted James Blunt cocked it up by going for another round of voting as I'd love to have seen him winning it as well, but it's great that the prize money went to helping really vulnerable people. Kudos to Nash as well. He did brilliantly the whole way through. I watched the last episode with Vicky as she'd managed to stay unspoiled and I wanted to see who'd make it to the end along with Romesh, along with how they'd pick off the traitors. 

I can't stand Blunt's music, but for him to have more than likely been through and seen some stuff during his time in the army and have such a self-deprecating, down to earth demeanour I think he's great. I can totally see why people wouldn't like him, but from what I've seen of his TV appearances and social media he seems like a decent enough chap. 

I can also imagine gammons' heads exploding at the "woke BBC giving our licence fee money to rapists and paedos" and it being some kind of establishment stitch-up. 

[RedTwoster]

12 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

I really enjoyed it overall.

I did too, particularly the final few episodes. Ultimately, it's a broken format (there's really no point getting rid of Traitors until the end as you just make the game harder for yourselves - get rid of shitty players instead) but it's more about how people respond to the role they are given rather than the game itself. Maybe you don't find out much about the personal lives of these celebrities, but you do get an insight as to who they are as people. 

I don't quite understand why James Acaster signed up for the show in the first place though, knowing he could become a Traitor. And then when he was offered a spot in the turret, I don't know why he didn't just turn it down. That said, he was very interesting to watch throughout and his moral conflict (even though I'd argue that the moral thing to do is play the game to benefit your charity) added a different dimension to the show that we've not seen before. 

Ultimately, I'm glad that the two people who won did; the money going entirely to refugees was just lovely. And good on Maya Jama for donating the sum to her charity anyway. She seems a good sort. 

[Arch Stanton]

5 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

I don't quite understand why James Acaster signed up for the show in the first place though, knowing he could become a Traitor. And then when he was offered a spot in the turret, I don't know why he didn't just turn it down.

To be fair to him, he wasn't given that option. He was recruited as a Traitor in a game that saw him and Amol placed in coffins and the other two Traitors had to decide to kill one and recruit the other. Other than walking away from the show entirely at that point, James did not have the option to decline the role.

[RedTwoster]

14 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

To be fair to him, he wasn't given that option. He was recruited as a Traitor in a game that saw him and Amol placed in coffins and the other two Traitors had to decide to kill one and recruit the other. Other than walking away from the show entirely at that point, James did not have the option to decline the role.

Didn't they have to plead their case to become Traitors rather than be murdered? I may be misremembering, but he could have been open and simply said he didn't think he could do it. Having said that, maybe the reality of it was more difficult than how he envisioned it in that moment. He had very little time to think. 

I don't think he 'Wilfed' the other Traitors intentionally either. I imagine he didn't really think about the consequences of his perfume comment. He may well have meant that this wasn't actually how he murdered Ross Kemp, which is true. I'm not convinced by the idea that it was him throwing Maya and Kenny under the bus, even if that comment is what doomed them. 

[Arch Stanton]

10 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

Didn't they have to plead their case to become Traitors rather than be murdered? I may be misremembering, but he could have been open and simply said he didn't think he could do it. Having said that, maybe the reality of it was more difficult than how he envisioned it in that moment. He had very little time to think.

Yes, he had to plead his case, but it was face-to-face with the Traitors. They were going to recruit one and murder one, there was no option to return to the game as a Faithful from that point.

[BomberPat]

1 hour ago, RedTwoster said:

I don't quite understand why James Acaster signed up for the show in the first place though, knowing he could become a Traitor.

I think this is unfair. He wanted to be a Faithful, sure, but that doesn't mean he would have known how much pressure he would feel being a Traitor. We've all had things we thought we could manage but turned out to be too much for us (kennethwilliams.gif), and he held it together for a while, who knows what else was going on that didn't make the edit. If nothing else, a Traitor actively giving themselves up at the Roundtable made for some good telly. 

I didn't think it was as good as last year's, but still had enough moments. It was disappointing seeing a lot of my favourites and the bigger characters voted out early, and most of the challenges were completely forgettable, but the finale came together well even if it was predictable.