Thank God for The Traitors, the hit BBC reality show making our January evenings a little less, well, bleak. Now in its third series, the show has had us cancelling our plans for all foreseeable Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (not that that was too big a demand post Christmas, anyway…)
So far, series three has already been packed with twists and turns. Three players were kicked off the train before it could even reach the Traitors castle (although they might be making a comeback), while Claudia Winkleman also revealed that this year’s final will be very different, as the finalists won’t reveal whether they’re Traitors or Faithful along the way until the very end.
With three female Traitors initially being chosen and one already having been caught, the show has given us all the uber-tense round tables, banishments and murders we’ve come to expect and love. God, we’re not sure we could handle the tension during those breakfasts, when the contestants come through in small groups and have to figure out who was murdered that night. Watching at home alone is nerve-inducing enough.
But over on X and TikTok, fans have theorised that, while trying to make the murder reveal exciting for The Traitors viewers, the show might just be giving away who is the Faithful to the players. Yep, some viewers have argued that you determine who is a Faithful based on the order they come in at breakfast.
The viewers at home are shown the Traitors deciding who they could murder the night before, and to ratchet up tension the last people to walk through the door are often those whose names were being considered, but didn’t actually get murdered. By that theory, the last ones to come through have to be Faithful, not Traitors.
However, this theory has been shot down by comedian Ed Gamble, who hosts the official Traitors spin-off show Uncloaked. Speaking exclusively to heat, he said that those online detectives ‘need to do their research’.
‘I've seen a little bit of chat about the order that people come into breakfast, saying that if the last three are coming into breakfast, then you know they're definitely not Traitors, they're definitely Faithful,’ he said.
‘These people need to do their research. There's so many examples of times when Traitors have come in with the last two Faithful or something. So I think you can't use that as an indicator of someone being faithful.’
However, Ed, who also hosts popular food podcast Off Menu and the Taskmaster companion podcast, said that potential contestants could learn something from the order they come in at breakfast.
‘What I would use it as an indicator of [is], if I was a faithful and I was coming into breakfast second last, I'm being chatted about in the turret. Then I'm getting worried. I think I'd be really scared if I was coming into breakfast last,’ he said.
We'll be keeping our eyes going forward, then...
Traitors Uncloaked is available directly after every episode of the main show on BBC Two and iPlayer and an extended version available on BBC Sounds.