Yes, The Traitors, that high camp masterpiece of reality TV, is back to release us from our January blues with more hilariously hubristic schemes, disturbingly primitive groupthink and luxury knitwear.

There have been several twists to the game this year: there are slightly more contestants (25, up from 22), and those who make it to the final will no longer have to reveal their allegiances when banished. Most welcome of all are the added incentives for Traitors to sabotage the missions, which many considered to be skippable interludes.

But the evergreen format largely remains the same. What really matters is the cast, and Studio Lambert’s thorough but simple, “would you go for a pint with them?” approach (as revealed to The Times) has found them another colourfully ordinary bunch who somehow don’t mind subjecting themselves to weeks of paranoia and public humiliation.

Each week, we’ll be closely following all the action in an attempt to trace the constant shifts of power in the castle. Who’s playing a blinder? Who’s on the chopping block? Who’s at least having their name spelt correctly?

Although, if previous series have taught us anything, it’s that your luck can change faster than you can say “I’m 100% Faithful.” So take the following with a heap of salt.

Woman power(?)

After Claudia Winkleman took a moment in the last series to call out the Traitors for forming a boys’ club (“just like the olden days”), it perhaps didn’t come as a surprise when she recruited an all-female trio this time around.

Having said that, these three were off to a rocky start. Jake instantly clocked Linda spinning her head in Claudia’s direction after she addressed the Traitors, and she has been held to account at the Round Table ever since. Then we have Armani, who admitted to Claudia that she wouldn’t hesitate if it came to backstabbing her sister, Maia, only for Maia to immediately catch a whiff of Traitor-ish ingratiation. Armani should’ve known that after a lifetime of witnessing one another duping your parents to get away with murder, you learn their tactics and tells all too well. But maybe that’s just me and my sister.

Meanwhile, Minah has completely flown under the radar. But more on her later.

Armani: More is More

She may share her name with a quiet luxury brand whose owner’s mantra is famously “less is more,” but Armani joins the ranks of reality stars like Ekin-Su who are bold, brash and bursting at the seams with main character energy.

Shedding crocodile tears at breakfast, brazenly sabotaging missions and stirring the pot with reckless abandon, Armani even turned on a fellow Traitor at the very first Round Table. But just when you started to think that she might somehow storm her way to victory, she was eliminated in the last episode for her assertiveness literally the day after she advised her fellow Traitors to “be more assertive.”

It was an immensely satisfying case of poetic justice, helped along by her sister’s perfectly-timed betrayal, but it also spelt the end of a gloriously chaotic flash in the pan. I’ll miss seeing her stomp into breakfast in her activewear and mercilessly munching on a pain au chocolat like it’s her next victim.

Linda, Oscars 2025 Frontrunner

The head spin was just the beginning of Linda’s long and hilarious campaign to what should be a guaranteed Academy Award win for Best Actress.

Her days are clearly numbered. With each ‘elderly’ dawdle through a challenge, each heavy facepalm after a Faithful is banished, and every melodramatic line reading at breakfast (“Oh my God, who the hell isn’t going to come back?”), she hammers another nail into her coffin.

But perhaps we should’ve expected such operatic antics from a retired opera singer?

Scouse Charm

Having spent an ungodly number of hours on the phone with a certain internet service provider last year, Minah is the charming Scouse call centre manager I can only wish I’d been put through to. Poor Kasim found out that you can’t even raise a toast to a fallen Faithful without arousing suspicions, but Minah has so far threaded the narrowest needle of being friendly but not too friendly, savvy but not outwardly smart, and neither too loud nor too quiet. She could go all the way.

Assassin Barbies, Secret Priests and Fake Accents

We’re seeing some bold impersonations this year, albeit some far more feasible than others.

Ex-soldier Leanne turning up in a Barbie-pink power suit and posing as a nail technician was a stroke of genius. Last year's winner, Harry Clark, an assassin of the baby-faced variety, was ex-forces and has possibly tarnished their reputation within the game.

And your occupation seems to count for a lot here, especially in the early stages when intel is scarce. The Traitors were so intimidated by Yin, a Doctor of Communication whose bio boasts three-time Oxford attendance, that they murdered her on the first night.* And now Kasim’s on the Faithfuls' chopping block simply because, what, he saves lives for a living?

There's a certain logic to Charlotte’s gameplan: the innocent-sounding Welsh accent has served certain Traitors well in the past (series one Traitor Amanda Lovett reckons her accent lent her a helpful trustworthy guise). But how can she keep up the act for the whole two weeks? Ironically, both Charlotte and the genuinely Welsh Elen were reduced to tears in the second Round Table after facing their own barrages of accusations. All the elongated vowels in the world can’t protect you from the mindless groupishness of the Faithfuls.

Meanwhile, Lisa’s priesthood may have led to this series’ first iconic line**, but it hasn’t really blessed her with the divine inspiration she might have expected following her chat with “upstairs”. So far she’s cast some bafflingly contrarian votes. But perhaps it’s ‘the Lord as her shepherd’ who is guiding her away from the herd mentality.

Rail Replacement Wagons

South West Trains eat your heart out: this is the kind of rail replacement bus we can all get behind.

It was fairly predictable that the three self-sacrifices from the train (diplomat Alexander, Yorkshire market trader Jack and outreach manager Fozia) would return. The show never officially announced their elimination and the producers pulled a similar stunt in the first series. But it’s still a welcome bombshell – in that it’s an unwelcome one for the surviving players who are probably only just starting to find their footing.

At the same time, perhaps these three will bring some much needed team spirit to the castle. The vibes were absolutely awful on that last boat mission and there have been some pretty distressing Round Tables, so they could probably do with some professional diplomacy or a Yorkshire lad to crunch on some more humbugs.***

Quotes

*“I have enjoyed every hemi-, demi-, semiquaver of this experience so far, as short as it has been,” said Yin upon being murdered, telling us she’d been to Oxford without telling us she’d been to Oxford. “It’s like a mayfly, or a lunar moth, which is a famous moth that lives for only one day but shines very brightly and then is extinguished… for ever more.” Pure poetry. She deserves to have this planned “narrative” of hers published in an academic journal.

**Amid her appraisals, Claudia asked Lisa, “Have you told upstairs?” “We’ve had a chat,” she replied. “Can you lie?” “Yeah, I’m a priest not a saint.”

***No I wasn’t just channelling my inner Dickens here. “If someone passes me a humbug,” said Jack when explaining his bravery, “I don’t sit for three hours sucking it. I crunch it and I chew it. Suppose I might have just crunched me humbug a bit too quick there!”

“How am I gonna tell a 70-year-old lady to speed up?” – You can’t, sorry Brendan. Even if that lady is a Traitor and she’s purposefully sabotaging your mission.

Bonus Round: Bad Spelling Bee

“Nather” by Keith. Even Nathan, on the brink of elimination, could barely contain his laughter.

“Armania” by Brendan. Although even that wasn't as bad as his logic behind his suspicions of Kasim.