The claws are straight out at breakfast on The Traitors Ireland on RTÉ 1, and Traitor Katelyn is the main course.
She’s barely buttered her toast before the others start circling, muttering about how upset she got with Nick the night before.
Model Oyin is keeping it cool, while Patrick explains his silence at last night’s round table with all the gravitas of a fella revealing state secrets.
This guy. It’s like if Fr Stone came to stay in Slane, he’s painful.
Ben, meanwhile, tells us to camera: “We’re doing terrible, but the mood is good.”
It’s possibly the most Irish pep talk ever.
It’s Joanne’s birthday and Traitor Eamon is clapping like a seal that’s been promised extra mackerel, bellowing the song louder than the rest. Hmm, too much, dude, calm it down.
The focus shifts to Katelyn and Paudie. Christine tries to defend Paudie with a well-meaning but wildly agist: “Sure, God love him.”
She can’t see past the little grandpa pot belly and round neck sweaters. At your peril, Christine.
John, a 53-year-old firefighter from Cork, is the latest Faithful to be murdered.
Meanwhile, Katelyn is sweating buckets when Jo lets slip that everyone is talking about her. She’s definitely rattled.
Then comes the gut punch: Andrew and Vanessa stroll into breakfast … but John doesn’t. Murdered in the night, so he was.
Eamon, to camera, declares it his “favourite murder so far,” like he’s auditioning for a pantomime villain. Mark my words, we’ll see that fella in the Gaiety come Christmas. Oh yes, we will!
John takes it on the chin, as magnanimous in defeat as you can be when the game chucks you out twice.
Christine, true to form, makes it all about the county. “They got rid of another Cork person,” she fumes.
“I don’t think that’s a pattern,” says Kelley gently and sensibly, spoken like a right non-rebel.
Christine claims the team needed John’s “strength, mindset, and skills”.
We all know what she really means: His fireman’s pole. Easy there, tiger.
Fashion interlude, hurray!
Siobhán sweeps in looking like she’s en route to a 1992 rave at Sir Henry’s.
Remember when those patterned PJs were all the rage? Amy calls it an outfit. I call it iconic. Those glasses! Let’s just canonise her and get it over with, ok?
She mourns: “Ah, poor Johnny, we hardly knew ya.” She then scolds the group for scoffing the breakfast spread as if she’s the one slaving over the sausages.
The Faithfuls and Traitors trudge out into the rain to find old-fashioned school desks in the middle of a field. Siobhán does a roll call of murdered players, which doesn’t go down too well with the gang scrunched into the desks in the spitting rain.
Meanwhile, Eamon’s decided to have a full-on Traitors chat with Paudie and Katelyn in the hall. He’s convinced he’s being subtle, but he reminds me of Krusty the Clown when he’s asked why he voted for Mr Burns’s movie.
“Let’s just say it moved me …. TO A BIGGER HOUSE. Oops, I said the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet.”
Even Katelyn is rolling her eyes. “The two of them are as thick as two bulls in the same field,” she snipes.
The mission is peak Irish farce. The Faithfuls and Traitors trudge out into the rain to find old-fashioned school desks in the middle of a field. Siobhán does a roll call of murdered players, which doesn’t go down too well with the gang scrunched into the desks in the spitting rain.
The task? Row rafts across a river, answer maths questions, crack a code, or something.
Is there nothing to be said for a nice game of Snap in the cosy castle, lads?
Anyway, the twist is that the Traitors already know the code.
Chaos ensues. Faye’s team spins in circles like a Skibbereen row boat team with only one O’Donovan brother.
Ben’s team-mates manage to position themselves perfectly inside it, before realising they have to actually carry it to the water. Arf.
But maths proves to be the real assassin: “I’m a fucking idiot,” Faye admits. “Do we have a brain cell between us? Absolutely not.”
Oh, fabulous Faye, you’re definitely one of my favourite Faithfuls. Never change.
Eamon is banished from the castle, leaving to the sounds of the Faithfuls going wild with relief that they finally caught a Traitor.
Back at the castle, Paudie goes in for the kill and gets Eamon squirming. The round table is the best yet, and not just because Siobhán is dressed like a scout leader.
Christine (still rocking her post-river Monica-in-Jamaica hair) calls out Katelyn. Eamon is scrambling. I must admit it’s very satisfying to see him under pressure. Oyin, whose wig just might have psychic powers, cuts through all the noise: “Is this a fight among Traitors?” Crown her President immediately.
And then — oh happy day! Oh glory be! Eamon is voted out. He launches into a farewell speech worthy of the Abbey, and the crowd goes wild. Finally, the Faithfuls actually get one right.
Andrew almost leaps into Daddy Paudie’s arms before remembering to play it cool.
The remaining Traitors, Paudie and Katelyn, must decide: Murder or recruit? Paudie fancies Nick or Andrew, Katelyn’s set on Nick. Will he accept? We’ll have to wait and see.
The Traitors Ireland airs on Tuesday at 9.30pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.