Celebrity Traitors cliffhanger spoils first roundtable vote, Faithfuls make a huge mistake

Watching Celebrity Traitors makes Saturday to Thursday feel like the longest wait imaginable as the BBC show has become perhaps the most effective around at incredible cliffhangers.

This has led to the BBC show being must-watch live viewing, with a whopping 8.9 million live viewers on the Celebrity Traitors season two premiere.

Episode two of the series however ended with a cliffhanger in which Richard E Grant, fresh off his arguably the worst start to a Traitors career since Linda, looked on the brink of being booted from the series at the very first vote, joining Amol Rajan who was killed when Grant and Maya Jama picked James Acaster as the final traitor over him.

This has never happened in the history of the UK version of The Traitors, civilian or celebrity, with Hugo currently holding the ignominious record for being booted on the second banishment.

When trying to figure out what happened in the Celebrity Traitors cliffhanger however, the clue is in the cliffhanger itself, but if that’s the case then the Faithful have made a huge mistake.

Richard E Grant is definitely gone if you pay attention to how BBC typically edit Traitors

This could be an even worse blunder than Linda in season three (BBC)

The way the final minutes of episode two are edited give away that it will be a huge shock if anyone other than Richard E Grant were voted off on episode one of the BBC show.

Whilst interesting (albeit incorrect) theories were thrown out about Leigh Anne Pinnock’s makeup touch-up or that Julie Hesmondhalgh had been selected as a traitor without the faithful realising, neither are convincing enough to overrule Grant telling everyone he was a traitor.

If, however, this had been a possibility, the show would have been edited in a very different way. Generally the cliffhangers will be edited in whichever way makes them most dramatic. In situations where voting is 50/50 between two people the show will usually be cut partway through the vote to ratchet up the tension.

Romesh raises the point that Richard has 'forced their hand' in one of the episode's last exchanges (BBC)

This was picked up on by fans online, with one post on X from a fan whose caps lock appears to be jammed said: “No Voting Cliffhanger which means EVERYONE voted for Richard E Grant. He will OFFICIALLY go down as the WORST Traitor of all time.”

If you think about the strategy of The Traitors however voting out Richard could be a massive mistake from the faithful.

Voting out Traitors early gives no real benefits, and could actually make things even harder

Maya and James could quite easily join in with voting out Richard and simply recruit straight away (BBC)

The Traitors has never, in the history of the show, made it to the final endgame with no Traitors in the castle.

This would of course be an utterly boring idea for a TV show, but is a vital part of strategy in the castle. Ultimately, the way to win The Traitors is to enter the endgame knowing who the Traitors are.

Whilst cutting down the number you’re searching for is important, Acaster and Maya Jama can simply recruit a third member the following night and the faithful will be left none the wiser about who it could be.

Acaster and Jama are, however, left with a conundrum of whether to throw Grant under the bus (BBC)

If the faithful had decided to keep Grant in, knowing that he was a traitor they could vote out at almost any time, the dynamic could have been a fascinating one that would have allowed the faithful to focus on just finding the other two without needing to worry about the actor.

Now, would production have been overly pleased about there just being a known traitors lounging around the castle? Probably not. But by getting rid of Grant so early on the faithful are essentially back to square one as they have so little information to judge how the faithful recruited ‘changes’ once they are chosen.

All in all, the moment could be an iconic and hilarious one, but if the faithful really wanted to win, they’d have kept Grant around a few more roundtables.

Celebrity Traitors returns Thursday, 8 October, on BBC One at 8pm.