So we have seen the end of John. And who will miss him? The bossy gob on legs.
Certainly not Tom or Matt, who both breathe a sigh of relief when they see Alex walk through the door to the breakfast room. When Claudia comes in she starts to brief them on the next money making task that has been dreamt up. She doesn’t say much. She asks if their brains are sharp or something and then tells them she will see them in church.
Reach for the fast forward button now as this episode’s mission begins. There is another split into teams before they are taken into church. The gist of the mission is that they must go and see Claudia in ‘confession’. There they will receive the location of a riddle within a great big, bible-looking book. If they can solve the riddle they build up money in the fund. There are four rounds of this, most of which I miss because I know that nothing of consequence is going to happen. This is the bit in The Price Is Right when the contestants hear their names called and begin sprinting down the stairs waving their arms around manically. Exciting for those involved but absolute cringe TV.
More interestingly, there have been masked figures within the church watching the riddles game unfold. At the end it is revealed that two of them are none other than Kieran (so that’s his name?) and Amos. They were the pair removed from the game before they even got into the castle in the opening episode. Now they are back, re-entering the game as Faithfuls. Only they know that they are Faithfuls, of course. Apparently they have been hidden away somewhere unspecified until it was time to spring the surprise of their return on to the remaining players. The other players greet them with wild enthusiasm. Clearly they haven’t stopped to think about the integrity of a game which allows two players two chances and everybody else only one.
The two returnees will be exempt from the banishment at the round table which is about to take place. Counterbalancing that is the fact that they will not get to vote on who does go at tonight’s round table carve up. Before that there is one more piece of business to attend to. In her armoury within the castle, Claudia has placed a number of small treasure chests. Each member of the winning team in the earlier church-riddle challenge will go inside the armoury and select one chest. When they open it, if it contains a shield then they will be exempt from being murdered by The Traitors for the night to come. They can still be banished by the vote, but get through that and they can sleep soundly knowing that they are not going to be the one missing breakfast in the morning.
In a twist not totally believable the shield is uncovered by Tom. Tom who has upset pretty much everyone with secret relationship with Alex and his pitiful inability to read people which saw the popular Ivan turfed out last time they met at the round table. Effectively, everyone on Tom’s team during the church riddle fiasco is save from The Traitors. Since they don’t know which of them has the shield The Traitors have to assume that murdering any one of the winning team is potentially a waste since they may have protection for the night. The murder will be of someone from the losing team.
But first the dreaded vote and the now familiar pre-vote conversation/argument in which tenuous reasons are offered as to why various people absolutely must be a traitor. The most significant remarks belong to Maddy who is absolutely convinced that both Wilfred and Aaron are Traitors. Well, she is half right which is about 50% better than anyone else has managed through five episodes so far.
Happily for Wilf, Maddy is the only one with this line of thought and so hers is the solitary vote that he receives. Much of the attention is again on Tom and Alex. The group just can’t get over their deceit of a few days ago. Matt has stopped crying about it, but he is still voting Tom’s arse out of here as soon as he possibly can. It is looking close between the two until the latter part of the process when Tom streaks ahead and is bounced out. The magician with the uncanny ability to read people will get no more opportunities to do so. It feels a little contrived. Not the fact that people would vote for the proven liar with so little else to go on, but the fact that he exposed himself as the liar in the first place. Why would he go into the competition having plotted to keep his relationship secret for the long haul and then blurt it out less than a quarter of the way in? I wouldn’t be surprised to find out in a later episode that Tom and Alex are not a couple at all.
Saying his goodbyes Tom has the duty to inform the group that they have yet again failed to find a Traitor. Of course, despite his bonkers magic circle spiel and his secret coupling, Tom is not A Traitor. So that is Tom, Imran, Ivan and Nicky all voted off by their fellow Faithfuls who – it transpires – couldn’t find a Traitor in a room full of Sol Campbells. It is not going well. The thought crosses my mind at this point that Kieran and Amos have been summoned back into the group to bump up the number of Faitfhfuls because there are still another seven episodes left after this one. At the rate they are going they might not last the distance.
Tom’s exit makes Alex curiously tearful. As if it is some kind of gut-wrenching break-up when in the first place she could do about seven levels better and in the second place he will be waiting for her in about a week when this whole charade comes to an end. For everyone else it is the deja-vu of befuddled conversations about how stupid they have all been and how sure they all were that Tom was a wrong un’. Still the chat amongst them is that one of Tom or Alex has to be a Traitor. Which, while absolutely false, does seem to leave Alex a fraction vulnerable if she makes it to the next round table ousting.
Which she will. She will because Matt will not. It is becoming a little formulaic but The Traitors again come up with three names for potential victimhood when they begin their discussions about who to murder next. This time it is Matt, surprise candidate Andrea who has done nothing whatsoever to offend anyone but is considered because of the potential shock value of such a move and because – apparently – she is forming a bond with Amos which is considered dangerous. Lastly there is Fay, who has looked a likely candidate for the boot for some time now but continues to dodge the nightly bullet.
Episode six begins in its now traditional fashion, at breakfast. When it turns out to be Matt who doesn't come through the door it is Aaron who seems most affected. He looks far more upset about it than Matt is. Matt is quite philosophical about it, which is interesting since it now means that he has been torn away from Alex. Maybe he's got over it. That didn't take long considering he was bursting into tears over her just a couple of days ago.
Things move fast inside the castle.
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