At the end of the first series of The Traitors, during December 2022, I wrote "I'm not one million per cent sure its success can be successfully repeated without the next batch of contestants being too knowing of what they're letting themselves in for and going in with prepared strategies" and, it turns out, I was more wrong than right.
I was right in that some of the contestants did, indeed, go in with prepared strategies but I was one million per cent wrong about it not being able to repeat its success. Series two of The Traitors (BBC1/iPlayer) was, if anything, more enjoyable than the first one. I was hooked from start to finish. I even took to watching The Traitors:Uncloaked (with Ed Gamble) on BBC2 afterwards. That's seventeen hours devoted to The Traitors alone. A little bit more if you count Marina Hyde and Richard Osman's 'emergency' The Rest Is Entertainment podcast about it. A lot more if you count the time I spent talking to Adam and Darren about it.
A show like this, of course, relies on good contestants and here they didn't disappoint. Okay, some of them still can't spell each other's names, some don't know what the word 'convoluted' means, and some have never heard of Agatha Christie but they're a likable bunch, even those who come across slightly unpleasant under stress reveal themselves to be decent sorts eventually, and they've even (mostly) stopped talking about being one million per cent faithful, instead preferring the more mathematically accurate one hundred per cent.
While they're still worried about having "eyes" on them, it's another body part that has taken precedence. Often contestants will talk about going with their "gut". I don't think I've heard the word 'gut' used quite so many times. I'm not sure how many times exactly. I didn't keep count. I'm not the quantifier of the gut.
The contestants, all twenty-two of them, are introduced at the beginning and, to start with, it's hard to remember who's who but seventeen hours of viewing helps focus your mind on such things. There's Anthony, a chess coach who can work either a formal waistcoat or a casual baseball cap look, there's Charlotte, a recruitment consultant who the producers have noticed looks good in the bath (she does too), and there's Sonja, a sixty-six year old volunteer who claims not to have an "off button" - setting off cliche alert klaxons up and down the country.
Diane is a retired teacher who the editors, for some reason, are setting up to appear very suspicious, Ash is a friendly events co-ordinator from Walthamstow, and Aubrey, sixty-seven, is quite the dandy and owns a cat called Luther Vandross. Quite the character. Ginger haired Paul is a business manager who seems determined to act the pantomime villain to the degree that you suspect he is using his Traitors appearance to tout for work in Dick Whittington at Morecambe Winter Gardens.
Zack is a parliamentary affairs advisor (which ought to arouse suspicion immediately) who combines a strong moral compass with a passion for winding people up (or being rude to people and hiding it behind the guise of being a wind up merchant). He's also the self-appointed in-house witchfinder general who accuses pretty much everyone else of being a traitor. Tracey boasts of being a clairvoyant, a sonographer, and a psychic medium so she's obviously going to be shit at this, and Charlie is a very excitable mental health area manager with a strong Bristol accent. When, during a catapulting incident, she announces "this one's for Bristol" you imagine they can hear her there - and she's in the Scottish highlands.
Miles is a mild-mannered, quietly confident, veterinary nurse, Andrew is an insurance broker with a lovely Cardiff brogue (when he speaks on important subjects he carries the gravitas of a young Richard Burton - who came from nearer Swansea but let's not split hairs) and a buff body that is testament to years of working out, Meg's a quiet lass who wears dungarees and works as an illustrator, and Jasmine is a sales executive who has the annoying tendency of ending major statements with "let that sink in". For my money, the new passive-aggressive version of "end of" or "period". A way of saying "I'm right and you're wrong so this conversation is over".
In other words, I find it rude. Though Jasmine is very pleasant otherwise. Twenty-two year old Harry's a helicopter engineer and, in his own words, a "typical lad" who loves football and boxing, sheepish Brian is a photographer who has tattoos instead of a personality and seems to lose the plot pretty quickly in the Traitors castle, and Jonny is described as 'ex-military' which suggests there's probably a story there - and there is.
Jaz, an account manager, is a bright guy but he's unable to get people to listen to him, Mollie is a friendly disability model - just twenty-one years old, Kyra (the same age as Mollie) is an apprentice economist, Evie (very quiet) another veterinary nurse, and Ross, the last one we're introduced to, is a video director who seems a good laugh and who, in a classic moment, becomes the only one of the gang to break the fourth wall.
Then, of course, there's Claudia (Winkleman). The public face of The Traitors, friend, confidante, and nemesis to the contestants. Great hair (fringe included naysayers), great clothes (she can even work a diamond knit tank top), and great eyeliner. Sit back and enjoy it as she feigns emotional investment in both challenges/missions and banishments.
The latter of which are far more enjoyable to watch. So let's start with the former. The missions were, last time, the least interesting part of the show and so they remain. They look like fun to do (up to a point where some of them start to look a bit daunting) but they're nowhere near as involving as all other parts of the show.
This time, our hapless recruits are sent on a (sort of) treasure hunt with some creepy scarecrows, they're made to use a giant catapult, they're sent on some kind of gold rush, they're forced into abseiling and spelunking, there's a 'cabin in the woods' with skeletons, toads, and a Shawshank Redemption vibe, there's an overly convoluted (if you know what that word means) beacon ignition, a challenge to find birds and mimic their calls, and there's a trip to a cemetery at night where a rather macabre 'funeral' will take place.
That one's pretty good, actually. Back in the big Scottish castle, competing for a prize of somewhere around £100,000, there are noble deer, leaping salmon, and mad owls. There are black Land Rover Defenders, peacocks, and, it being Scotland, midges. Then there's the soundtrack which kind of works yet I still have reservations about.
Mock goth covers of REM's Losing My Religion, Bowie's 'Heroes', Chris Isaak's Wicked Game, The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony, Soft Cell's Tainted Love, Bon Jovi's Wanted:Dead Or Alive, Cutting Crew's (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight, The Police's Walking On The Moon, Fugees' Ready Or Not, and, giving the blog its title, the long forgotten Who Can It Be Now? by Men At Work.
Not heard that for a while. It's one of the subject that's not discussed on Uncloaked (The Traitors answer to Big Brother's Little Brother) in which Ed Gamble chats with a host of comedians, podcasters, drag queens, Strictly contestants, and those who competed in the first series of The Traitors about what's just happened and what's about to happen. The likes of Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Nick Grimshaw, the Reverend Richard Coles, Clara Amfo, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Stacey Dooley, Nish Kumar, Ivo Graham, and Suzi Ruffell are all entertaining enough but leave you longing to get back to the show proper.
Alongside the stories about IEDs in Afghanistan, broken families, plastic surgery, and colostomy bags (the last one particularly moving, actually) there's a poisoned chalice full of fizzy rose wine, a dungeon, a supremely good familial twist, and a neat little trick right at the beginning that lets you know they're not just repeating the formula of 2022 but they've got some new tricks to add to the mix.
Some things remain. The big cloaks, the round table, the sumptuous breakfast buffets, the half-arsed pool games, and the incorrect guessing. There's top level skullduggery, world class backstabbing, double bluffing par excellence, and, could you even doubt it?, lots and lots of tears. Not all of them genuine. Are some of the contestants too nervous? Are some too confident? It's easy for us as we know who the traitors are. If you were in there, your mind would be working overtime trying to iron out all the crossing and double crossing that's going on.
Which makes it all such fun to watch. The final episode was particularly tense and even quite emotional but the whole thing, from start to finish, was absolutely great. I won't be so cynical about the prospects of a third season now I've seen the second season. Bring it on. Let the games begin.
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