Traitors fans say Stephen 'messed up' in major error most of us missed

Warning! Major spoilers for the latest episode of The Traitors!

Well, that was quite the dramatic development wasn't it, ladies and gentlemen? We're well into the midgame of this latest season of The Traitors, and fans are sinking their teeth into the juicy meat of the show.

This is the point where pretty much all the faces at the roundtable are known to the viewers, and they all have some history with accusations and suspicions, making for a very enjoyable watch.

Last we left off, a trio of contestants had been given the chance to speak to the Traitors, Rachel and Stephen, though of course only two would, because Rachel was one of the people who'd won the chance to speak.

While Matthew made the daring play of instructing the Traitors to murder Jessie and then recruit him into their ranks, which would put him in a very strong position, author and barrister Harriet went for a different tack.

She told Rachel she knew she was a Traitor, and while she couldn't actually see her, it turns out she was bang on the money.

Fans picked up on Stephen making a slip-up, but other players didn't (BBC)

As such, last night's (14 January) episode focused largely on Harriet's efforts to bring down Rachel, though fans have pointed out that her fellow Traitor Stephen made a big mistake at breakfast, which he seems to have gotten away with.

Harriet boldly accused Rachel over breakfast, and when she had a chance to speak with Stephen later, he told the Faithful: "This morning in breakfast when you said 'Look at who isn't going for Rachel and who's protecting her'. I'm not protecting her by saying that."

His problem is that Harriet didn't say that at breakfast; that came up the previous night, when she was speaking to the Traitors, and a few fans picked up on the error.

People wondered if Stephen had 'messed up' as they were sure Harriet had 'said it at the confessional', but luckily for him, she didn't seem to spot the error that she 'said that in the church not breakfast'.

To get a smidge philosophical here, if a Traitor commits and error and nobody notices, then did they really mess up?

Stephen mentioned something Harriet only told the Traitors, but fortunately she didn't notice and got voted off (BBC)

Indeed, the verbal slip-up appears to have gone undetected among his fellow players, as it wasn't picked up on by Harriet during the episode, and when she made her appearance on Uncloaked ,when she got to see who the Traitors were, Harriet seemed surprised to read Stephen's name.

She was understandably less surprised to see Rachel's name just below it.

Sadly for her, by going so hard at Rachel, it seems as though Harriet had done herself in as she turned the other players at the roundtable against her and was voted out by a wide margin, with only Adam, Ellie and herself not voting to kick her off the show.

She was right, of course, but when she claimed she had 'evidence' to bring to the table, the episode edit didn't show a smoking gun. Eventually, Harriet told them to vote her out if they wanted to check she was a Faithful, and the table obliged.

Even as fans felt Stephen had come close to 'dobbing himself in', he actually seems to be one of the safer players in the game after having so much heat taken off him by more dramatic events.

Meanwhile, he and fellow Traitor Rachel appeared to make the decision to murder instead of recruit on a night when there were five Faithfuls with shields, and two of those were named among the three players they were considering killing.

Adam, Jessie and James are in the crosshairs for murder, but of the trio, only Adam hasn't got a shield.

The Traitors continues tonight at 8pm on BBC One.