Well, that’s that. After a massive episode two cliffhanger, we get our first roundtable banishment: poor old Niko Omilana.
You have to feel sorry for Niko. Barely in the show at all, and then falling victims to the machinations of the Traitors within the first two episodes. “I sincerely hope I’m right,” Jonathan Ross tells him with a straight face.
“How stupid are we? Seriously,” Clare Balding says to the appalled group as he reveals that he’s a Faithful.
But there’s no time to waste, because the Traitors must murder again – and oh boy, do they. Seeing Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr and Cat Burns together is always a joy, but of course it’s Carr that steals the show. As ever. How long do we have before he implodes under the weight of his own nervous sweat?
Maybe a while. “Breakfast tomorrow, I want them to be running scared,” he declares, before volunteering to sign Tom Daley’s death warrant: “I’ve got a taste for it now.” Looks like he’s getting into it.
Of course, there’s a task to do as well. But let’s face it, nothing can hold a candle to the gloriously camp scene of Paloma Faith lying down in her own coffin and then being ‘buried’.
The Traitors excels at those over the top kind of moments, when they come around: this time, we get to see people in masks and gold cloaks pulling the celebs out of their cars and into the woods. It’s scary enough that when they’re chained up inside a saggy old wooden hut, Celia Imrie farts, which sends the group into hysterics.
“It’s just nerves, but I always own up,” she declares. Very noble. Ten minutes later, the celebs are screaming as water pours through the shed roof as they attempt to free themselves.
“Nothing like the sound of screaming celebrities,” Claudia says. Tee hee. After that, we’re treated to the ignominious sight of Clare Balding up to her elbows in stinking water in search of a Shield. Is it just me, or have the tasks become even more degrading in the Celebrity Traitors?
Either way, things are heating up for the Traitors. “There’s no way there won’t be an absolute massive legend in the Traitors,” Kate Garraway says at one point; Joe Wilkinson points the finger at Jonathan Ross later, as “he’s the only one who would have the gumption to murder Paloma.”
It might be Joe Marler, though, who ends up being the show’s master detective. “I keep thinking Claudia might have chosen to wage a war between two big dogs. One leading the Faithfuls and one leading the Traitors,” he says, before pointing the finger at Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross.
I mean, he’s cracked it. If only the Faithfuls didn’t follow it up by voting out Tameka Empson. Egg on their face; Ross calls himself the “luckiest Traitor in the land” for getting away with it.
Even the other Traitors are worried. “We don’t want Jonathan to drag us down, and we will get rid of him if we have to,” Carr says at the end. He’s certainly developing a mean streak; future roundtables look like they might get interesting. They’ve not voted out a Traitor yet: third time’s the charm?
The Celebrity Traitors is streaming on BBC One; episode four will air October 16 at 9pm
