Welcome to the castle - Sometimes we get burned, you’d think sometime we’d learn | 2026 Celebrity Traitors Thread 8 [Post Final Chat]

[CaveMum]

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5594538-welcome-to-the-castle-when-your-fears-subside-and-the-shadows-still-remain-2026-celebrity-traitors-thread-7-tv-pace?page=1

This is a post-Final thread so if you haven’t seen it do not read on!

Finalists
Maya Jama (Traitor)
King Kenny (recruited Traitor)
James Blunt
Leigh-Anne Pinnock
Romesh Ranganathan
Sebastian Croft

Murdered
Amol Rajan
Bella Ramsey
Rob Beckett
RossKemp
Miranda Hart
Sharon Rooney
Michael Sheen

Banished
Richard E Grant (Traitor)
Myha’la
Julie Hesmondhalgh
Professor Hannah Fry (recruited Traitor)
Joe Lycett
Jerry Hall
Joanne McNally
James Acaster (recruited Traitor)
Maya Jama (Traitor)

For these that want to keep up with Claudia’s outfits: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/lifestyle/a73628412/celebrity-traitors-claudia-winkleman-outfits/

Going back a step futher, not choosing REG as a Traitor would have been better.

Because they only chose between Amol and James A because of the 'heat' on REG. It all leads back to that.

I blame REG for it allll 😆

I still believe he didn't realise the game had 'started'. For a fan, he really didn't understand it at all.

Of course, I may be wrong and there may be another reason he gets called Bash, but that’s how nn develop, from Mis-pronunciations, etc.. For example, Bear Grylls real name is actually Edward

The Traitors is always a treat, but I did find the finale last night a little underwhelming (after the cool mission part had ended). It was hard to really root for anyone, only Bash showed any kind of consistently astute gameplay.

The endgame was a bit meh for me, compared to some we've seen (Alan/Nick/David, Rachel/Stephen/Jack, Harry/Jaz/Molly) and for me lacked a big "of my GOD" moment when a traitor wins and a Faithful realises their huge error, and strong alliances fall apart at the last hurdle.

A couple of interesting things to come out of this season;

• We've learned the importance of casting Traitors who are half decent at being Traitors (ie not REG) and actually want to be Traitors (ie not James A).

• It's shown that Faithfuls are waking up to the tried and trusted gameplay where Traitors fly under the radar and avoid playing too much of an aggressive game or stand out in any way. This is probably a good thing for future series as it opens the game up a bit more.

Just catching up on the posts from last night after I went to bed.

Banish again is the sensible option when there are 3 of you left and you have a tiny doubt. Ironically it’s actually a nailed on guarantee that you are a Faithful because at that stage of the game a Traitor is happy to end because they know they will win.

James was hoping Bash would vote with him as they previously talked about Romesh but Bash had already decided to trust Romesh because Romesh had trusted him in voting for Kenny.

I think James A and his agent need to be a bit more careful what programmes he appears in. Not only for his sake but for his colleagues in said programmes. They have a right to fully enjoy the production, but if someone is so needy it jars the experience. I feel sorry for his discomfort, but he has had issues on Bake Off and House of Games. He needs programmes where he knows there is certainty, not undetermined outcomes. I suspect production companies will avoid him for these types of programmes in any case.

What I don’t understand is what else James A said at the table when he eventually outed himself to make the rest of the faithful convinced that there was a second traitor in the library. James A clearly said something because it became an even stronger theory after he left that there must have been a second traitor in the room and therefore either Maya or Kenny must be a traitor.

Not celeb version but I have just booked tickets to see Hugo from S4 in a pints of knowledge talk. Should be interesting.

He said something like " I didn't spray the perfume in the library" thereby implying someone else did.
It was a fatal mistake to have all 3 Traitors in the library and not murder Michael early on.

He said something like good luck you will need it.

To be fair to Claudia/the producers, she has always said that they would never pick someone to be a Traitor who didn’t want to be one. The issue is that they have no control over who is recruited once the game starts.

That was Maya who said that! James specifically mentioned the perfume. Because he cannot lie.

Agree

I don't understand why Kenny allowed this bit of history to be rewritten, though. Perhaps he forgot himself. He was barely in the library. He was with Sharon for most of the time, sitting outside the library. She called him over and he had to leave. He was very relived at the time to leave it to James and Maya. Maybe he felt he couldn't contradict Maya, as it was her who kept listing him (and Sharon) as people in the library.

I thought it was interesting on Uncloaked when Sharon said she asked Kenny how it felt to murder people. That wasn't aired which made it seem like only Michael and later Bash and Romesh had any suspicion over Kenny.

I think some suspicions and theories were defiinitely edited out. I feel sure players were suss of Maya.

ah, yes. I think likely he doubled down on that so that he could strictly say he never lied and that created the strong (and correct) belief with the faithfuls that the perfume spraying was part of it and another traitor in the library did it.

So James did throw them under a bus. Not deliberately as there isn’t much doubt that he was really struggling, but I do think he basically gave it away and made it essentially impossible for either Maya or Kenny to win. In the final vote, Bash even said that he didn’t think Kenny was a traitor but he had to eliminate everyone associated with the library just to be sure. And that was because of how James A played it. I don’t blame James A for ducking out bc it got too much for him, but I do think he ruined it for the traitors which was unfair.

Having been underwhelmed by the middle of the series, I loved the finale.

It was so lovely to see Bash really come into himself as the hero on the mission (and what he said about being the gay kid who never felt he was able to enjoy being masculine like that was really moving) and then carry that confidence through to the end. To lead Romesh (who's much older and more famous, and who was quite certain in his opinion) in voting out Kenny like that was really impressive.

But I'm a teacher, so I'm a total sucker for a "quiet young lad makes really good decisions, earns respect of others and unlocks new level of self-confidence" character arc 🤣

I think that’s probably one of the things we find hard to understand as viewers — we’ve just watched something happen, precisely because it’s been chosen as significant enough to be in the edit, and often then see it discussed on here and/or on Uncloaked, plus we have the capacity to record and rewatch.

Whereas a contestant has only had it happen once, and as part of a whole series of things they did all day etc. I think it’s also why quite a lot of the time people in the game struggle to recall exactly what someone said that constituted a slip-up, or something significant said in the banishment speech. They’ve got no way of taking notes, either, until they get back to the hotel.

I don't think the women themselves can do anything. Production needs to stop making a point of choosing them as traitors. It's obvious why they do it and in theory it's good, but in practice it's led to metagaming that means they cannot win.

Choose traitors by lottery is my suggestion. The cast is always diverse so it shouldn't get samey.

Metagaming has become a problem in general with the show, which is inevitable really. I do wonder if it's a format that just doesn't work very well once it's very familiar. I may be done with it now. Then again, I always say that.

Are they? Just had a quick look because of your comment and the excitement in the last thread's 'predictions'. The few comments I've read and I'm not wading through hundreds of comments to prove a point, are mixed. Some have a different opinion of course but there's no FUMING.

I agree they should be chosen by lottery. But then it won't be as diverse.
It was very clear to me why Leigh-Anne and Maya were being targeted. It wasn't misogyny. It was metagaming.

James A apart from being exceptionally moany was a very lazy boy indeed.

I agree, his agent should keep him well away from game shows.

But they both stayed in virtually to the end! It’s far more sinister when older women of colour are often among the first to be banished in civilian versions.

Barbie and Ken did not succeed

Or both?

They reflect common social attitudes and biases really. There is a pattern in these shows of minorities and older participants being banished early and the dominating voices at the table are often the louder more confident men.

Michael and Blunty loudly and confidently led the banishment of faithful after faithful (much like Joe did last year, whilst the more accurate Claire was talked over) and most of their targets at the table have been women.
I looked back over the banishments before last night's final and the run of women wasn't quite as continuous as I remembered but Michael in particular was consistently gunning for the women. The only time Michael correctly identified traitors was REG and James A who both gave themselves away and the only other man he seriously went for was Joe Lycett.

Myha'la, in her misreported interview made the point that a) the wink was unthinking but obviously a mistake and was the main reason people voted for her b) in the early rounds she was one of the less known to the other participants and in the early rounds players know little about each other so suspicion is easily pointed where it aligns with common biases.

And that might be prejudice, conscious or not, or it might be people targeting those who they think scored a lot of diversity points with production and were therefore likely to be chosen.

It's a tough one. On the one hand, I want representation and diversity. Traitors are by far the most powerful in the game and I don't want the same profile all the time, for them or the full cast. On the other, if deliberately selecting for diversity means minority players are getting targeted for that reason, we have the problem that we are seeing now. Ironically, it's making it impossible for them to win.

It looks as though the show is going to run for a long time. As long as the cast is suitably diverse overall, does that mean that, over time, we could expect roughly fair representation over all series as a whole if selected by lottery?

Need a mathematician/statistician. Hannah Fry, get in here!