It’s all getting a bit much. “Chests of chance” and a national treasure banished, Alan Carr’s Christmas card list was reduced in size again, and everyone enjoyed a delicious chilli beef after a game of giant chess.
There has barely been a chance to draw breath this week in The Celebrity Traitors. The temperature has gone up and everyone has become much more aggressive and shouty (led by a tetchy Joe Marler). It makes for fun TV, but it puts me off booking that castle retreat I had planned for half-term.
Right, let’s start at the beginning. After the uber-cliffhanger on Wednesday night, the David Olusoga v Mark Bonnar stalemate was decided by a good old-fashioned game of “open the box and see what’s inside”. Our historian chum got the shield and Mark said goodbye as passionately as he played the game. “We knew it,” Stephen Fry cried, looking at Jonathan Ross. “How did you know?” Lucy Beaumont piped up. No one knows anything, it seems, and the faithfuls continue to drop like flies.
Up in the turret our terrible trio did me a massive favour and killed off Joe Wilkinson, tearing apart the Joe Squared alliance and leaving us with just one Joe, which, from a reportage perspective, makes life a lot easier. Thanks, guys. Sadly, Joe M (that’s the last time I’m using the initial) didn’t see it that way and was pretty irritable at breakfast, claiming he was grumpy because the traitors “had ruined the game”. Come on, Joe, it’s not as important as rugby.
Celia Imrie and Stephen Fry have a national treasure catch-up
EUAN CHERRY/BBC/STUDIO LAMBERT
Out in the field the producers did their bit for the environment by recycling the big chess game from the civilian series. It was an opportunity for Joe to complain about the teams and for everyone to politely agree that Kate Garraway is the weakest player. To her credit, she was a good sport and came out of it looking better than Joe, who stood, arms crossed, staring at Jonathan for most of the challenge.
The grand finale was the emergence of a new faithfuls supergroup — Nick Mohammed and Joe (Noe, or maybe Jick; I’m not sure either will stick) — as they shockingly colluded to fix the chess game in a utilitarian attempt to maximise the safety of the greatest number of faithfuls. This alliance developed further when they were back in the castle, over a hot dinner they ate off their laps. Could this be the beginning of the end of the traitors? Of course not, but at least Noe are having a go.
The celebrities in a moment of unity
EUAN CHERRY/STUDIO LAMBERT/BBC
Accusations and misdirection across the castle teed us up for another fine round table. The gloves were off and everyone went in swinging. David made a good case in his defence after staying in the game by box-opening, and Joe shouted at Jonathan and anyone else who wouldn’t agree with him. Nick dropped the bombshell that he’d thrown the challenge and everyone raised an eyebrow, except Joe, who shouted more. Alan forgot he had a shield, which was a bad error in a game that had been going so well, and Celia Imrie warned the group that Stephen is not a traitor. But despite an eloquent defence (and an attempt to point the finger at the traitor Cat Burns), the Big Dog Theory finally played out and the gang banished an innocent Stephen, instantly halving the collective IQ of the faithful.
In the dying embers of a shocking week, we watched as the three faithful not protected stood in the dark on a chess board opposite a crudely mechanised traitor that would indicate their fate. Will it be Kate, Lucy or Nick whom our traitors knock off next? We’ll have to wait until next time to find out.
But now it’s time for my famous player ratings.
Celia Imrie
Rating: 8.7
We have a new leader. The castle is imploding around her, accusations flying back and forth and tempers fraying, but somehow faithful Celia stays cool and retains the respect and trust of almost all the players. While others are going out on a limb and making mistakes, her considered — and seemingly filterless — personality is working to her advantage. She says what she sees, farts when she wants and is game for a laugh, playing to her crowd. “I say people are nice and I don’t necessarily believe it,” she admits when the players name her the most two-faced. There is still very little suspicion around her and she is suspicious of Jonathan and Alan, proving she isn’t just taking shots in the dark. If she stays true to herself and avoids the squabbling, Celia could come through the middle and surprise everyone.
Cat Burns
Rating: 8.1
While Cat no longer looks like the runaway traitor favourite she did in the first few episodes, in a turbulent group she still doesn’t have as much public heat on her as many. Stephen went for her in the round table, accusing her of sleeping a lot, but her defence shut down that theory fast. Yes, Nick thinks Cat is a traitor and is trying to stay close to her, but he’s a long way off being able to take her down and may be murdered imminently. Joe seems to think Cat is a “hundie” and is asking her opinion, so it seems unlikely momentum will move against her. She is otherwise still in a good position, but there are clamours from the group that she needs to speak up more about who she thinks are traitors. After voting for Stephen over and over and now it turns out she was wrong, where does she go next? She knows that Alan or Jonathan must be sacrificed to give the faithfuls the taste of blood. Could she be about to make Alan pay for his error on the shield?
Alan Carr
Rating: 7.5
Oh dear, oh dear. He forgot he had a shield. That’s a textbook mistake for a traitor. After spending much of the past two weeks riding high, Alan has become too cocky, it seems. He’s been taking such relish in killing and delivering pithy one-liners that he forgot to keep his eye on the ball. After going hard at Mark at the last round table, he didn’t follow his own advice and wasn’t quiet at the most recent event. Instead, he got into a ding-dong with the volatile Joe, which no one comes out of looking good. Celia already has suspicions about Alan and after shield-gate Lucy is mentioning his name too. Cat even joined in a little at the end of the show. There’s so much chaos in the post-Stephen world that it may be forgotten, but that error could end up coming back to bite Chatty Man very soon.
Joe Marler
Rating: 7.1
Bereft after the killing of his namesake, confidant and friend, Joe is playing like he has nothing to lose any more. He is on a rampage. Subtlety and diplomacy have been disposed of and he is now agitator-in-chief at the castle. While he still thinks Jonathan is the head traitor, he’s not managed to get many people to follow through with him. His boldness is raising suspicions, with Lucy calling it out and Alan doing his best to highlight it at the round table. Now in an open alliance with Nick, he’s put all his cards on the table. He could be in big trouble from both directions. While his shield will save him from the latest murder he has to be a target for the traitors, but likewise, his head is so far above the parapet that when the faithfuls go looking for a banishment, his name won’t be far from many people’s lips. Perhaps the traitors may try to set him up …
Jonathan Ross
Rating: 6.6
A cat with nine lives? The luckiest traitor ever? Whatever Jonathan is, he’s still standing after a tumultuous few weeks in the castle. At some point he has been suspected by everyone, but even the Big Dog Theory led to Stephen’s exit rather than his. Joe is certain Jonathan is a traitor and Celia has her suspicions. Both Nick and Lucy have also voiced concerns. It wouldn’t take many more to turn their attention back to him for a banishment to occur, especially if there’s a nudge from Cat or Alan, who can see trouble coming. However, with the castle in turmoil, he continues to stay calm (most of the time) amid the madness and that may take him further still.
David Olusoga
Rating: 5.5
After surviving the box-off with Mark, David assumed he was a dead man walking. “Statistically I’ll be voted out tomorrow,” he told Lucy, who reminded him, “We tend to move on, to be honest.” And she’s right. They do and they did. The next night they banished Stephen while Jonathan roamed the halls with impunity. With nothing left to lose, David is now just saying what he sees and hoping someone listens. He thinks the faithfuls are doomed because they keep making the same mistakes. And he’s right. It’s hard to see how he climbs out of the hole he’s been put in, but if anyone has the intellect to form a new strategy in a rapidly anarchic castle, surely it’s David. With a shield in his pocket he’ll be there tomorrow — and anything can happen after a murder.
Kate Garraway
Rating: 4.1
Poor old Kate. She seems to be the butt of quite a lot of jokes in the castle and now she has been unanimously voted the weakest player in the big game of chess. She also seems to be up for murder every night, but the traitors don’t seem threatened enough to kill her. But could they kill her tonight to cause chaos and misdirect the players? She claims her journalistic background means she tries to provide balance and see both sides of the argument, which leaves her in a pickle when it comes to pointing the finger. David thinks Kate and Stephen were plotting together, but now faithful Stephen is gone, that theory falls apart. She’s pointed the finger at Nick, but if she can survive and get on side with his new faithfuls alliance, maybe she could coast along in the slipstream.
Nick Mohammed
Rating: 4.0
Nick looked like the man to beat until halfway through the show. He’s worked out Cat and Jonathan are traitors and his plan to keep them on side until the last minute is of course the correct one. But it all unravelled when he decided to fix the chess game and reveal his plan to Joe. This put him in an alliance that began to spiral over a chilli beef dinner and at the round table led him to own up to the chess shenanigans. The other players are now left thinking he’s a bit dodgy again (remember he has form after the Celia grave incident) and his main ally is the volatile Joe, who is about to blow. A victim of circumstance and admitting defending Joe was “the right thing to do” at the round table, Nick is perhaps showing he’s too nice to win this. He’s maybe a little too obvious a target for the traitors to murder tonight but they’ve been blunt before. Even if he does survive, he needs to build a broad faithfuls alliance fast or he’ll soon be out one way or another.
Lucy Beaumont
Rating: 3.2
Lucy was not happy that Nick didn’t pick Stephen in the chess game. She smelt a rat and, as it was later revealed, he wasn’t playing fair. The comedian has turned up the volume several notches in the past few episodes. She’s saying what she thinks and she has suspicions about Jonathan, telling Cat she thinks he’s double-bluffing everyone, and also seemed to think Alan could be a traitor for his faux pas on the shield. If that gets back to the turret, she could be an obvious target for murder tonight. In other news, Nick thinks she’s a traitor alongside Jonathan and Cat, so if he manages to build a coalition of faithfuls she could be banished as part of a misdirected attempt to break that trio. It’s all looking a bit bleak at Beaumont Towers.
Banished
• Stephen Fry
• Mark Bonnar (by tie-break)
• Clare Balding
• Tameka Empson
• Niko Omilana
Murdered
• Joe Wilkinson
• Charlotte Church
• Ruth Codd
• Tom Daley
• Paloma Faith
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