Screams, haunting scenes and deadly hide-and-seek, as Celebrity Traitors heats up
BBC- Spoiler warning: This article reveals details from the fourth episode of The Celebrity Traitors, series two.
Being a Traitor must be a nightmare.
While other people are out enjoying their lives, they have to kill it, night after night. Even on the weekend, there is no rest for the wicked.
Friday's episode saw the the Traitors at it again, murdering Last of Us actor Bella Ramsey, before the faithfuls did their dirty work for them by banishing another of their own, Julie Hesmondhalgh.
The previous episode - watched on Thursday by 10 million people - saw another faithful, unlucky Industry star Myha'la, follow self-sabotaging traitor Richard E Grant out of the castle.
And so viewers went into Friday's show knowing that traitors Maya Jama, James Acaster and their newest recruit, Prof Hannah Fry, had been debating murdering one of three Bs: Bella (Ramsey), (James) Blunt and Bash (Sebastian Croft).
When Ramsey failed to arrive for breakfast it soon became apparent what wickedness had taken place overnight.
"That's our biggest threat," explained Jama, in a flashback from the previous night's scenes in the traitors turret. "Get them out the way, that group disperses."
Acaster agreed: "People are doubting their instincts after that roundtable. If Bella's proven to be a faithful, they're going to be even more spun out."
Jama continued: "Chaos, regardless... Bella, you're a genius, but you gotta go."
On receiving the news, Ramsey was shocked but not surprised.
"I think this is a clever move by the traitors," they responded in the diary room.
"I was going to re-set and start from the beginning because I got it so wrong with Myha'la.
"So I think that they were right to murder me because I think I would have maybe figured it out."
I guess now we'll never know.
Back at breakfast, Hesmondhalgh's apparently earnest but over-the-top reaction to Ramsey's removal immediately raised suspicions.
The former Coronation Street star had been voted as the most trustworthy of the group by her peers in episode one and given a shield, but that counted for little by episode four.
The cleverest among the group, on paper at least, Fry, found questions being asked of her too as the day rolled on.
"I did not choose the traitor life, the traitor life chose me," said the latest recruit to the dark side. "I know there are people who are suspicious of me but I'm going to enjoy every last moment."
Comedian and Miss Marple impersonator Miranda Hart is one of them. "Hannah lied to us," she rightly noted, with reference to the professor's confusing shield story that helped to see off Myha'la the night before.
Singer and ex-military man James Blunt, however, had other ideas, ramping up his campaign against Hesmondhalgh, whom he believed to be a little too trustworthy to be true.
Friday's mission raised more money for charity and also raised spirits, but not in a good way.
It involved the group paying a visit to a graveside haunted cabin to converse with the dead about matters unresolved.
"It's creepy, it's giving murder," noted Barbie actress Sharon Rooney on arrival.
Comedian Romesh Ranganathan joked that his mum was going to "absolutely hate this", as the the group gathered in a graveside chant led by the booming voice of big dog actor Michael Sheen.
The spooky task made Ranganathan himself let out a hellish scream and saw Hart come face-to face with a masked hooded creature, before team-player Croft volunteered to go head-first into a stinky old toilet in scenes resembling ITV's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.
"Guys, it's a little bit of poo," noted hardman Ross Kemp, as all around him gagged. "It's not gonna kill you."
Croft received a protective shield for his troubles, at least. "If I'd have put my hands and head down a toilet for nothing, I would've been fuming," he fairly noted.
The group, with a little help from the undead, had to find a child's toys and a woman's wedding dress and shoes. This later prompted model Jerry Hall to reminisce about her own wedding to Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger.
"Before I got married to Mick - we'd already been together seven years, had two children - I put on a wedding dress every day until he agreed that we get married," she revealed.
Some rancid wine that tasted like "salty bin juice", according to comedian Joanne McNally, topped off possibly the most revolting task yet.
On the way back to the castle, YouTuber King Kenny raised more suspicions about Fry having allowed him to grab a shield. "She held off to make herself look a bit innocent," he told his fellow faithfuls.
Traitor Jama smartly deflected attention away from herself by latching on to the growing suspicions around Hesmondhalgh.
Ahead of the roundtable, Fry told producers she knew she would have to fight like her life depended on it - because it did - and try to disguise herself as still being a faithful.
Once discussions were under way, she played the sympathy card, claiming she had been left feeling "vulnerable" as she knew her reputation as a brain box would make her a target.
Mrs Marple aka Hart wasn't going to let her off the hook that easily, however, noting how Fry's argument the previous night had contradicted that of the innocent but now sadly now departed Myha'la.
In a nice moment of levity in another tense debate, comedian Joe Lycett reminded the traitors - and pointedly, Hesmondhalgh - that he would "like to be recruited at some stage". He stressed: "I'm still very much available."
Hesmondhalgh laughed about how "going all dry mouthed" while defending herself was not helping her cause.
"It would be a cruel move taking the most trusted member of our group," noted Sheen.
"Cruel but clever," added Hart.
Ranganathan offered: "The person that we nominated as our most trustworthy person, we have now completely flipped on."
The conclusion was to banish Hesmondhalgh, who, in her parting words, said it had been an "immense experience".
"Alas," she continued, confirming her fidelity as tears appeared in eyes around the table: "It may mean I am not a phenomenal actor."
Singer Blunt, who had led the charge against her, appears to have now put himself in the frame. He told the group: "I'm so sorry, that's my fault."
"He's been wrong about every theory he's came up with," said Rooney.
"So have I," added a frustrated Croft.
Hart declared that "everything is up in the air" now, following Hesmondhalgh's eviction, which King Kenny called the team's "biggest loss" so far.
But what of the traitors?
First recruit, Acaster's strategy is to continue playing the game as if he is a faithful, he said. Jama is enjoying her time on the dark side while Fry, it's fair to say, is not.
"You two saved me," Fry told the other two of her stressful day, while back in the turret in their cloaks.
The episode ended not with a murder but a fresh twist - the promise of a deathly game of hide-and-seek for four chosen contestants.
The traitors opted to stay out of the game themselves, before settling on Kemp, Ranganathan, his comic pal Rob Beckett and Little Mix and solo singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock.
"I think this is gonna mess with everybody's heads," said Fry.
Presenter Claudia Winkleman greeted the four of them outside the castle in the dead of night.
"Have we won?", quipped Ranganathan.
"If only it was that easy Romesh," replied the host, explaining how when they go down to the woods tonight they'll be in for a big surprise: one of them will be killed face-to-face.
Only Pinnock, it was decided, will be immune from murder in the game within a game, though the Traitors aren't to know that.
This much terror and mischief and it's not Halloween for weeks yet.
Celebrity Traitors continues on Thursday at 20:00 BST on BBC One and iPlayer.
