When Alan Carr won The Celebrity Traitors back in November, I wondered whether the success of that series had salted the earth for its civilian sibling. Just 56 days after the Carr supremacy (only a week longer than a Liz Truss premiership) The Traitors returned at the start of this year with a groan. Did the country have the enthusiasm for another month-long obsession? Wouldn’t Traitors fatigue set in? But it was New Year’s Day and, with nothing else to do, I, like many others, threw caution to the wind. Along with almost 12 million Brits, I started another round of the parlour game that’s gripped the nation. And – dammit – again I got sucked in.
Whether it was traitorous Celtic duo Rachel and Stephen forging an unshakeable bond in the turret, rogue “Secret Traitor” Fiona self-immolating, crime novelist Harriet also self-immolating (this was a season typified by interesting decision making), or side-burned gardener James delivering mixed metaphors and malapropisms like they were going out of flavour, season four delivered. And then some. When, with stifled delight, Stephen revealed his final board (“for reasons that will become clear”), he brought the curtain down on something quite rare in the world of reality TV: a genuinely impressive performance. This isn’t The Apprentice, where ill-equipped buffoons stumble through simple tasks, or I’m a Celeb, where the public torture former politicians and footballers for their onanistic viewing pleasure. This is a competition that was won by two traitors who did really, really well. That their skill is lying and deceiving is beside the point. They have proven themselves to be the Willliams sisters, the Pelé and Garrincha, the Torvill and Dean, of subterfuge.
