{"id":609633,"date":"2026-08-30T23:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T23:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/609633\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T23:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T23:04:10","slug":"the-traitors-ireland-an-underwhelming-start-to-the-new-season-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/609633\/","title":{"rendered":"The Traitors Ireland: An underwhelming start to the new season \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judging a season of The Traitors by its opening episode is a mug\u2019s game because the contestants are still strangers \u2013 to each other and to the viewer. And so we should perhaps not read too much into the fact that series two of The Traitors Ireland (RT\u00c9<\/a> One, Sunday, 9.30pm) is off to a ho-hum start. <\/p>\n

But ho-hum it assuredly is. It says it all that the biggest star thus far is the chapeau writer and psychotherapist Denis plonks on his noggin en route to the castle. <\/p>\n

Hats off to him. However, it\u2019s a shame that the rest of the instalment is so underwhelming and raises the question of whether there is a potential breakout to rival hug-resistant retiree Paudie from season one<\/a>. No Paudie, no party? Early doors and all but it\u2019s at least a possibility. <\/p>\n

The producers seem alive to the risk of a snooze at Slane Castle<\/a> and do their best to raise the ante out of the gate by having the three traitors selected by presenter Siobh\u00e1n McSweeney<\/a> recruit a fourth turncoat of their own.<\/p>\n

Their choice will not be revealed until part two \u2013 a frustrating sign-off from a table-setting episode that never really gets going. That\u2019s not for any lack of effort on the part of McSweeney, who, perhaps feeling threatened by Denis\u2019s heroic headgear, dons a variety of interesting hats of her own and does a good line in pantomime villainy while selecting her trio of hooded deceivers with a fateful tap on the shoulder.<\/p>\n

They are actor Fionula from Cork, academic P\u00e1raic from Kildare and early-years educator Carla from Dublin. They\u2019re all personable. But it\u2019s as yet unclear what level of melodrama they will contribute or how adept they will be at stirring the psychological pot.<\/p>\n

The night\u2019s obligatory challenge is a typically confusing mix of obstacle course and giant Lego building contest in which participants have to cobble together a dolmen. The talking point here is bright spark Donal\u2019s suggestion that the players all step outside the circle as they complete it \u2013 meaning none of the team is immune from murder on night one.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a Faithful, and his actions are genuinely altruistic. But the other players don\u2019t know that. So there is a danger that he has put a target on his head and that, even if he hasn\u2019t, he\u2019ll be voted out on account of being a goody two-shoes.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Traitors Ireland host Siobh\u00e1n McSweeney: \u2018I\u2019m not getting paid enough for it. That\u2019s RT\u00c9\u2019s fault\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The only other moment of interest is Carlow call centre trainer Se\u00e1n\u2019s reveal to McSweeney that he has Tourette\u2019s, which, he says, can make him \u201cseem shifty\u201d and which he hopes to \u201cact up on a little bit\u201d when it is to his advantage.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, it\u2019s just more cloak-and-dagger social deduction in a big house. Hopefully things goes completely unhinged in the near future. For now, this returning Traitors is still finding its feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judging a season of The Traitors by its opening episode is a mug\u2019s game because the contestants are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,6085,6762,13081,282],"class_list":["post-609633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rte","tag-siobhan-mcsweeney","tag-slane-castle","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}