The Traitors Final Review – Incredibly grueling and bloodthirsty…until the last second | Traitors

forIt’s a damp sneer, this year’s traitors. At its best, it was still capable of surpassing the preposterous heights of the previous series, but I spent a long time living with the growing realization that cracks in the format were beginning to show.

One of the main reasons, as always, was the mid-episode challenge; A slab of filler designed to kill any trace of intrigue, like the version of 12 Angry Men where the jurors wake up midway through to spend 20 minutes wandering around the park. The new set of mods also didn’t matter much, as the secret traitor was revealed too early, and the secret connections (Jodi, Roxy, Eli, and Ross) fizzled out unresolved.

However, the biggest accusation that can be leveled at The Traitors is that it is a show designed to reward the dull. There were some amazing participants this year – James was bewildering, Harriet was explosive, and Fiona somehow managed to be both at the same time – but they were all banished the moment they showed any tangible signs of character. Instead, the final five contestants were traitors and a bunch of people who couldn’t say more than 500 words between themselves in the entire series. Doesn’t look great.

After James was accidentally banished in a cliffhanger from the previous episode, we’re left with Jade (whose default trait was defensive), Faraz (who was mute, then hyper-perceptive, then mute again), Jack (who suddenly announced himself three episodes ago, like a redshirt in Star Trek) and the remaining traitors.

They were Stephen, who was passive and fond of big collars, and Rachel. Honestly, thank God for Rachel. She was, of course, the character who managed to bend the show’s entire gravitational field around her. This was the woman responsible for turning Traitors into – if I may quote Logan Roy – a fight for a knife in the mud.

For better or worse, Rachel’s machinations meant that this year’s entire series was shaped in her image. She was, and is, terrifyingly cruel. Even in the final, her plans remained at the top of her lungs, working overtime to convince anyone who would listen that Jade was a bad egg.

And while this is a terrible trait for a human being, it’s an amazing trait for a reality TV contestant. Rachel’s innate lack of confidence means we’re kept in trouble until the end. She promised Steven all along that they would work as a team, but who in their right mind would believe anything she said?

Fortunately, for her at least, it was very effective in dispatching the competition. Poor Jade – who had been unfairly maligned since the first episode – was banished and fled the room in tears. Poor Faraz followed him, and did not realize what had happened until the post-exile interview. The traitors then gang up on Jack, at which point the game is over.

The traitors won, and Rachel and Stephen split the £95,750 loot. Interestingly, the other finalists did not join them in the end. Perhaps this was because they felt betrayed by the people they thought were their friends. The moral of the story? It’s easy to cheat your way to the top. What a lesson 2026 has to learn.

For all of the show’s flaws, Endgame is still effectively exhausting. Objectively speaking, none of the finalists were worth the money – they were either useless or downright disingenuous – but the final fifteen minutes were properly sweaty viewing. I once watched a man put his head inside an alligator’s mouth, and watching Stephen worry about how much trust he could put in Rachel in those final seconds was almost a rewarding sight.

We hope to see some of the other contestants again. James appears to be treating the show as a test for a bizarre, unmade CBeebies show about a vomiting gardener, so hopefully he gets his chance. I’ll be interested to see what Jade is like when she’s not crushed by boredom. I’m sure Stephen will soon be available to rent for parties as a sort of animated reaction.

But more than anything, this year’s Traitors made me nostalgic for the more innocent version of celebrities, where everyone was too concerned about their reputation to become as debilitatingly bloodthirsty as this group. An uneven series saved (but only) by an excellent ending.