Faithfuls make terrible Celebrity Traitors error after Richard E Grant's fate is decided

Not only did last night’s (8 October) episode of The Celebrity Traitors feature two banishments, but it also made UK history for the franchise.

That’s as the first Round Table of the series saw a majority vote for Richard E Grant marking a monumental Traitor banishment.

But while it might have been Traitors history, it wasn’t exactly a surprising reveal after the actor had basically confessed from the get-go.

And although the Faithfuls might have considered it too obvious to ignore, viewers have suggested it was actually an error to get rid of him straight away.

Grant’s banishment of course posed the choice to murder or seduce, with the remaining Traitors, Maya Jama and James Acaster to recruit Hannah Fry. Then episode three rounded-off with Myha’la being banished as viewers began to ponder the Faithfuls’ decision.

If the Faithful want to win, keeping Grant in would've been a smart choice. (BBC)

Was banishing Richard a mistake?

Look, it’s pretty fair to say the Faithfuls who truly didn’t believe that Grant was a Traitor were fools. Even if we were watching it blind – he literally told them ‘I am a Traitor’.

But when you look at previous series of The Traitors, the best way to win is by entering the endgame knowing who the Traitors are.

So, keeping Grant in could have been an edge for the Faithful – you’ve already caught one, so it would limit how many are left to catch.

Whereas by getting rid of him, the Traitors have been able to recruit a replacement and leave them back in the suspicious dark.

“If someone as obvious as Richard was a traitor, would it not be an advantage to keep him in the game to monitor how he interacts with people to find the other traitors?

“Like you’re just back to square one now,” one user pointed out on X.

“Exactly. You get a Traitor early they just get immediately replaced. There’s no reason to celebrate,” another agreed.

Although, there is the other side - the Faithfuls need a win to give them a confidence boost. Short but sweet. And how long can you justify keeping someone in when the very point of the game is to get them out?

Newly recruited Fry could easily be banished and replaced. (BBC)

Could this take James and Maya to the final?

There’s never been a UK edition of the show without a Traitor in the final (I mean it would be pretty boring otherwise), so it would’ve surely been smart to take Richard to the end, banish him and win the money.

Plus, by keeping Grant in, us viewers would have got to watch a pretty interesting dynamic of a known Traitor walking amongst the Faithful while they tried to work out the other two.

This doesn’t exactly bode well for Fry either. She’s got a lot of heat on her already and by their demonstrated strategy, we could see the Faithful banish her tonight.

And then, the Traitors could just replace her. Rinse and repeat.

A decent strategy for Acaster and Jama - perhaps one that could take them all the way to the end – but an absolutely doomed one for the Faithful. The best thing they could do right now perhaps is keep Fry in.

But, if you’re rooting for the Traitors, the Faithful can just keep banishing the obvious Traitors the second they get a sniff.

The Celebrity Traitors returns Friday 9 October, on BBC One at 8pm.