Another corking episode of what has been an excellent first series of Celebrity Traitors which frankly is not long enough.
After tonight’s episode 8 (30 Oct) we now have the line-up for the finale, and the emergence of Joe Marler as now firm favourite to win the series.
The episode began with a murder in plain sight by the Traitors, which has become Alan’s ‘speciality’. After he killed his best friend Paloma Faith in the first episode by touching her face, at the dinner party to celebrate the exit of Traitor Jonathan Ross, Carr was given the task of killing someone by directing at them the phrase ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’ from Romeo & Juliet. He covered this up by pretending Stephen Fry had said it to him once, as he recited it at the table to... Celia Imrie.
Not Celia! Our beloved farting Queen of the Castle...
Imrie has been a firm favourite of the show, but this was typically ruthless Carr in Traitor mode, revelling in the shockwaves each murder causes.
Her absence the next morning and the revelation from Claudia Winkleman that she was killed in plain sight, should have resulted in them analysing what happened over that obviously central dinner party.
Instead, as always happens, the Faithful began “overthinking” (as Burns chortled), and quickly stopped going over the events of the dinner - which would surely have led them to that awkward moment when Carr said something Shakespearean to Imrie and almost kissed her in his nervousness - and instead became distracted by thoughts of all the times that day when Celia was alone with someone... Kate Garraway suggested maybe Ross had done it before he was banished.... eh?
Now Garraway has been quite frustrating to watch in this series, and apparently to be in the castle with. The other contestants have been complaining to her that she never has opinions on who the Traitors are and just follows the crowd. At the roundtable, Marler went old school and said she wasn’t being her professional broadcaster self, she was being ‘ditzy’. Can you say that anymore about a woman? Seems so, or at least rugby players can.
In fact the whole roundtable became a spectacular self-own by Garraway. Nobody was discussing her as a Traitor and yet she began proceedings by stating that she knew everyone thought she was one and they need to explain why? David Olusoga ended up getting into a little spat with her over why they both thought each other were Traitors and it all became so weird and tedious that everyone forgot what they’d been discussing during the day. Namely that Carr was prime suspect. Instead, seemingly because Garraway was being so annoying, they banished her.
Only Nick Mohammed stuck to his clear thoughts, that it was Cat Burns, the young, cool, quiet one who was a Traitor. Her reticence to speak out being a ploy to keep her true self contained.
Can we now talk about the way Burns raised her ADHD and autism to defend her quietness a couple of episodes back? While it was a slightly uncomfortable weaponisation of her neurodiversity, it was also undeniably a work of genius. Who was going to pressure her at the roundtable again after she brought that up? Nobody. And so it has proved. Genius! She kind of did it again this evening when Mohammed brought up his suspicions of her... she immediately went teary-eyed, utterly wounded. Mohammed ended up apologising... but brilliantly still wrote her name on the board.
But it was Garraway’s time, and as soon as she was gone it was like everyone in the castle began to get focused.
Earlier on in the episode we saw one of the most satisfying tasks of the series, as the contestants had to negotiate a roomful of lasers - like Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment - to put dummy heads of one another on a set of mannequins at the far end. It was very funny. Carr sliding along the floor talking to his own head for reassurance. Olusoga taking off his shoes and socks, only to trigger a laser with his massive bare feet. Joe Marler attempting to make his hulking frame dainty. It was such a hoot Winkleman declared it, “better than my wedding day.”
But that was then, and this is now, and it was down to business. Marler business.
“It’s Cat and it’s Alan,” he said to camera, and confided the same to Olusoga, and to Mohammed, both of whom he trusts as Faithfuls.
And this is the final five: Joe, Alan, Cat, David and Nick. Can Marler keep his Faithful friends on his side while he attempts a plan to get close to Carr and Burns, before turning on them at the end?
Well, it might not even need that much effort, considering the episode ended with Winklemen gathering the final five and asking them to say “I am a Faithful to each other.” When it came to Traitor Carr, he simply burst out laughing.
Oh Alan, your nitwittery has been a great cover, but surely next week will come the day the laughter dies.
