At long last, the Big Dog is no more.
That’s right: Jonathan Ross has finally been caught by the Faithful players on The Celebrity Traitors after a gruelling three weeks of lies, deceit and misleading round table discussions.
Wednesday night’s episode (29 October) saw the Faithfuls banish Jonathan, who had been working with comedian Alan Carr and singer Cat Burns as the treacherous Traitors trio.
Since the beginning of the series, the Faithfuls had been operating under the “Big Dog theory” – an idea initially proposed by Joe Marler that suggested host Claudia Winkleman would have selected at least one very famous male celebrity to be part of the Traitors crew, meaning that players had their eyes set on both Ross and Stephen Fry, who are arguably the most well-known contestants this year.
But somehow, Ross survived several round tables as he led the Faithful astray and became their unofficial leader.
Here, we look back at his biggest and best moments on the Celebrity Traitors….
Alliance-gate
During the first episode of the series, Ruth Codd suspected and confronted Ross about a claimed alliance he'd tried to form with her, Clare Balding and Niko Omilana on their way to the Traitors castle. At the first round table, Ross voted for Omilana, which Codd saw as a form of deceit, as he was supposedly breaking their “alliance”.
Ross was steadfast in his denial that he had agreed to any sort of alliance, but it was revealed during Uncloaked that while he did not explicitly agree to an alliance, he had told Codd and Omilana that they had “two older allies” in him and Balding. He added: “I’ve got your backs.”
Ross, along with Traitors Carr and Burns, eventually decided to “murder” Codd but tricked the rest of the players into thinking it was a double bluff.
The eccentric outfits
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“High camp, high reward” was likely the styling brief for Ross’s Traitors wardrobe. For one challenge, he slipped into a pair of huge orange-lensed shades and a fighter pilot jumpsuit that fans initially thought was modelled on Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell from Top Gun. It later emerged that the unexplainable look was, in fact, a replica of those worn by the cast in Paul Anderson’s 1997 sci-fi horror film Event Horizon.
Let’s also not forget his leopard print look, which Balding compared to Fred Flintstone, or his sombre all-black sunglasses look at the “funeral” for Paloma Faith.
For his final look on the programme, Ross went out in style, donning an emerald green suit and matching blazer with a black shirt (it’s giving The Mask).
Jonathan asks Alan Carr to speak at Paloma Faith’s “funeral”
At the faux funeral for Paloma Faith, Ross urged Carr to make a speech, even though it was Carr who had “murdered” her in plain sight.
“Alan, you know her the best, you say something about her,” he said.
His (tenuous) bond with Alan Carr and Cat Burns
The moment that Ross, Carr and Burns all burst into laughter when they met in the turret for the first time will arguably go down in Traitors history. The trio seemed like the perfect group, but it was only a matter of time before they began turning on each other.
Jonathan constantly saying that Alan Carr is ‘flying under the radar’
During private conversations with Faithful contestants, Ross consistently backstabbed his fellow Traitor by suggesting that Carr could be “flying under the radar”. Still, he never raised it at the round table – unlike Cat Burns.
‘See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya’
After the Traitors “murdered” Lucy Beaumont in plain sight during Wednesday night’s episode, Ross grinned and shouted: “Bye Lucy! See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!” Ouch! The rest of the Traitors at least seemed remorseful.
The dramatic exit speech
When Ross was eventually banished, he gave a suitably dramatic exit speech, tricking the players one final time.
“I've got no idea what everyone's doing wrong. I cannot believe you've done it again,” the chat show host said before his fellow contestants. “I cannot believe that I'm standing here for no good reason, so I don’t want to be rude, but you’re idiots.”
Then he delivered the punchline: “I am now, and I have been all through the game completely Faithful... to the Traitors.”
The players all began cheering at their victory, as Joe Marler remarked: “That was the most ridiculous bow out.”
The Celebrity Traitors continues on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9pm on BBC One.
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