“There’s no easy way to say this,” declares Claudia Winkleman, channelling more than a hint of campy panto villain as she swans into the first breakfast of the newly-returned hit show The Traitors. “You are sharing marmalade… with murderers.”
A kind of reality telly spin on Cluedo, The Traitors brings together 22 contestants in a spooky Scottish castle for an immersive murder-mystery game – each one hoping to get their hands on a cut of the prize fund.
Series one proved a surprise, word of mouth smash hit for the BBC, with an average audience of 5.4 million tuning in to watch Maddy's madcap prophesies, Aaron's many blunders, and Amanda promising to turn into the dragon from the Welsh flag if Wilf dared to throw her under the bus. It set a high bar, but can its successor live up to the substantial hype? Though it'll take some time to get to know this year's batch better, the show seems to have the same magic. Once again, cocky contestants repeatedly state the obvious ("it's just a game," and so on), exhibit borderline terrifying displays of herd mentality, and round on their new friends for the most innocuous reasons imaginable.
After a tense and cinematic steam train ride up to the rural Highlands, this year's cohort are blindfolded and take their seats around a Illuminati-style roundtable - the place that later forms the core of the game’s most dramatic banishment scenes - before a handful are secretly identified as Traitors.
The task of the remaining Faithfuls? To root out all dissenters before the end of the game by banishing a treacherous suspect every day; meanwhile, the Traitors wreak chaos by killing off their most formidable opponents one by one. Unsurprisingly, mind games, meltdown, and paranoia follow.
While the debut series’ troupe were a relatively friendly bunch, often failing to hold back the tears as they betrayed their new friends, a decent chunk of season two's cast seem totally ruthless. The line-up includes Tracey the clairvoyant, parliamentary affairs advisor Zack, disability model Mollie, veterinary nurse Miles, and ex-army soldier Jonny. Though there's a handful of particularly wide-eyed, innocent contestants who will very obviously serve as perfect pawns in the Traitors’ game plan later on, poor things, majority of the cast make series one's original Traitors Wilf, Amanda and Alyssa look like saints.
Though their motivations for winning the cash differ â from marriage and bills, to getting out of shared living and onto the property ladder â nearly all of them seem to love the idea of being the bad guy.
Before this year’s batch has even been chosen, 66-year old knitting enthusiast and instant gay icon Sonja heads into the dining room, and mimes shooting at her fellow castle-mates' portraits with gun-fingers.
Retired shop owner Aubrey, who has a cat named Luther Vandross, proudly describes himself as a heartless assassin. Several others declare that they're not here to make any friends. Many have clearly done their homework and brushed up on previous iterations of the show: from the Dutch original, to the first UK series and other international spin-offs.
Striking new abundance of evil aside, The Traitors retains many of the hallmarks that made season one such a hit; there are more sweeping aerial shots of stunning Scottish countryside, and a pyro-fuelled team challenge that involves a Houdini-esque escape, and building a giant flammable shield in the middle of a lake.
Winkleman is in great form once more, swanning about the place in her usual fingerless gloves, and making withering remarks about one group of contestants who seem completely incapable of steering a rowing boat. "I don't have enough words for what I think about the green boat," she deadpans as it twizzles about like a fidget spinner.
Producers have also made a couple of subtle tweaks to keep contestants on their toes. Instead of obtaining protective shields (to prevent being murdered by the Traitors) in a secret armoury, contestants can now piss off their fellow castle-mates by selfishly going after them rather than earning prize money for the group in the daily challenges. Winkleman now has a highly trained owl called Barry as a sidekick (he’s mostly there for atmosphere)
They also play on the expectations of contestants who will now have a far better idea of what to expect the second time around. Winkleman toys with their nerves early on by asking them to form an orderly line based on how much they fancy their chances of winning the show.
In season one, the two contestants at the bottom of the line were axed before they even got a chance to set foot in the castle (though returned later on) so this year’s batch are understandably jittery. “As if we’d do the same thing again!” Winkleman declares, relishing in the evil of it all after letting them sweat a bit. “Get in the castle!”
After a lot of clip-clopping around the roundtable to ramp up the anticipation, Winkleman finally appoints her Traitors. Army engineer Harry, who plans on playing dumb in order to stay under the radar, is so visibly delighted that he theatrically licks his lips like a lion appraising a carcass. Channeling a slightly more subtle brand of menace, Londoner Ash is fed up with shared living, and will clearly throw anybody and everybody under the bus in order to win her deposit. Emerging as an obvious leader early on, smooth-talking business manager and board-game enthusiast Paul cackles maniacally as he imagines what it might feel like to murder his fellow contestants.
Then, in an early twist, our trio of Traitors are tasked with immediately recruiting a fourth, based on early impressions alone. It's a shake-up that could shape the course of the entire game - and their final decision is left dangling as the credits roll.
It's early days, of course; the contestants will make or break the show, and with so many to cram into the very limited airtime at this stage in proceedings, a few naturally fall by the wayside. Over time, individual personalities will find more space to provide the comedy gold, and between a greased up Andrew weightlifting in his bedroom for literally no reason, and Sonja knitting while also appearing to be asleep, I suspect that won't take long at all.
Ending on a big cliffhanger, I was immediately gripped; rather than messing with the formula, this sticks with the same pacing that kept season one so addictive. Capes at the ready, murder mystery fans, this is shaping up into another deceitful doozy.
