Betrayal Unveiled: The Addictive Allure of The Traitors Series 4

When The Traitors’ fourth UK season started, my first reaction was that it had come too soon after the wildly successful celebrity edition and that perhaps the series was played out. The Celebrity Traitors had assembled a brilliant and impressively high-profile cast and, as they weren’t regular people playing for life-changing amounts of money, the show had a lighthearted air that made it even more fun.

The ho-hum start of season 4 didn’t do much to change my mind. I didn’t even make it through the first episode before switching off. But while flicking aimlessly around on the TV, I returned to it on BBC iPlayer and was swiftly hooked. The format still has the power to surprise and here’s how series 4 did just that.

The faithful Traitors turned everything upside down

Traitors Rachel Duffy and Stephen Libby were complete opposites in many respects – black cat and golden retriever – but their surprisingly unshakeable bond was one of the great pleasures of the season.

I can’t be alone in losing interest towards the end of a season of The Traitors, when the sharpest Faithful have been murdered and the highest-profile players have been banished.

By this point, the biggest personalities tend to have been voted out one way or another, and I find myself trying to get a read on contestants who’ve flown under the radar for most of the season: is that silent guy in the brown jumper called Jake, James or Jack, and where was he for the first 10 episodes?

It’s a bit of a problem in a show where being nondescript can be a huge advantage. It’s difficult to be invested in the fates of people whose names you struggle to recall. And, if they win, it feels much less deserved.

Meanwhile, the Traitors get messier as the season goes on. They backstab, flame out, recruit and then throw new recruits under the bus, so it’s tough to root for them either.

But season four was different. Not only did it have a plot line that couldn’t have been neater or more satisfying if it had been penned by Harriet the crime author herself, but the pact between day-one Traitors Rachel and Stephen provided genuine stakes for the outcome and a nail-biting finish.

It seemed almost impossible that they could both hold their nerve. It was like watching the Prisoner’s Dilemma in action.

The biggest twist of all was that they stayed true to their word and didn’t write each other’s name down on their slates to save themselves, even when it seemed that only one of them could possibly win.

Thematically, that turned the show inside out. When the Traitors won this time, it was because of their faithfulness, which made their traitorous victory surprisingly upbeat and celebratory. And it would be hard to argue that anyone deserved the win more than Stephen and Rachel.

Compare this to the only other memorable Traitors UK finale. When Traitor Harry Clark won season 2, his victory was at the expense of broken-hearted, weeping bestie Mollie Pearce. Sure, she’s an influencer and minor celeb now and seems to be living her best life, but at the time, the real-life consequences of the betrayal did somewhat take the shine off a thrilling conclusion.

The Secret Traitor twist failed successfully

BBC

Most of the twists that have been added to the format have had mixed success at best. Season 3’s “Seer”, for example, didn’t make a return in season 4, probably because the concept didn’t quite work as a game mechanic. To gain a short-term dramatic payoff, it wound up making the outcome of the game more predictable.

Arguably, the Secret Traitor twist didn’t exactly take off either. Many felt that Fiona’s identity was revealed much too early, for a start. However, it had two key benefits.

The first was that her identity was hidden from Traitors, Faithful and viewers alike, providing a bit of meta fun. It gave the audience at home a sense of how difficult it actually is to identify a Traitor. In spite of the endless social media posts complaining about the Faithful team’s inability to spot a perfectly obvious Traitor in their midst, it turns out that the public were equally useless, building theories that hinged on an irrelevant turn of phrase or sample of handwriting – exactly as the Faithful do.

The second was that dropping a new Traitor into the established team unsettled all of them. While Stephen and Rachel largely kept their cool – although Stephen was cool in his characteristically sweaty, wide-eyed way – Fiona became convinced (probably quite rightly) that Rachel would betray her. When Rachel decided to tell everyone that just-banished Amanda was a retired detective, Fiona’s response was apocalyptic. She launched an absolutely unhinged attack on Rachel, which climaxed with Fiona outing her as a Traitor.

Unbelievably, Rachel survived it – and the entire sequence was thrilling TV.

But does this mean we need a Secret Traitor again next season? No. Like the ill-fated Seer, I hope it’s retired in favour of a fresh twist. Much of what made this season so watchable was the way the cast handled each twist – in this case, by absolutely losing their minds.

The season in which style was weaponised

BBC

The Traitors is always a bit of a spectacle. There’s the ersatz castle, the lovely Scottish countryside, the creepy games and the masked cultists, of course. It’s the most camp show on TV, without a doubt. But one of its chief delights is host Claudia Winkleman’s wardrobe.

Her high-end, Highland goth attire is always worth tuning in for, and adds a certain tongue-in-cheek gravitas to her interactions, whether she’s theatrically instructing an owl, draping herself over a cloaked lackey, or imperiously admonishing the Faithful after yet another hopeless Round Table. If you’ve been missing her looks since the season ended, check out stylist Sinead McKeefry’s Instagram account for a more detailed look at Claudia’s outfits.

Season four is when the cast really twigged that they could do the same, using their outfits as a costume to distract or disguise.

No one did this as well as Stephen Libby. Much like Alan Carr on the celebrity edition, it seemed incredible to anyone watching at home that fellow contestants couldn’t read the guilt and panic written across his face as indelibly as a forehead tattoo reading TRAITOR.

But perhaps that’s because they were too busy looking at his fabulous jumpsuits. And this choice of clothing was entirely intentional.

In the final episode of The Traitors: Uncloaked, Stephen told the audience: “I thought if I wore clothes that are a bit flamboyant and loud then maybe they’d just be going, ‘Oh, Stephen you look really great today’, rather than looking up here and going ‘You’re a traitor’.”

Much was also made of fellow winner Rachel Duffy’s choice of outfits. With a love of primary colours, dungarees, outsize knitwear and cute cherry earrings, her look was described as “CBeebies presenter” on Uncloaked. But her unthreatening outfits seemed to make her fellow contestants blind to the fact that she was leading the group by the nose from the start of the game to the very last vote.

You might not expect to see fashion theory play out on a prime time BBC reality TV series-slash-gameshow, but this is precisely the kind of prejudice that leads us to underestimate someone who wears dungarees.

All four seasons of The Traitors UK are now available to stream on BBC iPlayer, as is the celebrity edition. If you’re based in the US or abroad, you can catch up using our guide on how to watch The Traitors from outside the UK. And here’s what we know about season 5 – although information is limited so far.

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