It’s been yet another gripping season of The Traitors UK, but ThreeNow has made one final betrayal.
Anyone who watches The Traitors knows what an addiction it can become. The murder-mystery game brings together a group of total strangers and chooses a devious subset of “traitors” to secretly pick off the “faithfuls” one by one. Meanwhile, the faithfuls are doing their damnedest to sniff out the baddies because, if they make it to the end with a traitor, they lose all the prize money and the traitor trots away gleefully with armfuls of gold bullion.
The current UK season has been humming since it began on January 1. In the very first episode, the train to the Traitors castle in the Scottish Highlands stopped suddenly in the middle of nowhere and the group were forced to boot three people off immediately. That was just the start of the crazy challenges and endless curveballs, including card-based death matches, terrifying clowns and popping balloons, and haunted dollies singing backwards nursery rhymes.
The lies have also been constant and brilliant. There’s been a woman from the military pretending she is a ditzy nail technician, a London-born business owner pretending to be from Wales, and even a priest lying about being a priest, until she accidentally said “with god as my witness” and freaked everyone out. Others haven’t been so skilled in their deceit such as poor traitor Linda, who turned to look when she heard the word “traitors” like a well-trained dog.
Which is all to say, it has been another ripper season of one of the most exciting new reality formats in recent years, and we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy episodes express from the UK via ThreeNow. For the last few weeks, that has meant our household has been plotting our movements almost entirely around The Traitors UK arriving from Thurs-Saturday, and relishing in the bizarre ThreeNow ads including throwback comedian Jimeoin (?) selling ink (?).
In the lead-up to the finale over the weekend, we had planned our entire Saturday around having the perfect window to enjoy what is always a breathless hour of reality television. We plated up our burgers, we got the dog settled, plumped up the cushions and opened up ThreeNow, expecting to see Claudia Winkleman’s steely kohl-rimmed gaze. “The Traitors final episode will be available next week” the app taunted. Well played, ThreeNow – one final betrayal.
For fear of being banished, I am not at liberty to comment on whether we remained faithful to ThreeNow and Jimeoin in the hours that followed. But what I will say is this: if you get all of us on the train and then biff us out right before our final destination, don’t be surprised if we look around for alternative transport options. For those who are still onboard, I have it on good authority – with god as my witness – that the final will be on ThreeNow “later today”. Enjoy.
Update, Tuesday 3.11pm: A spokesperson from Three has returned to the round table and delivered the following statement. “We know fans love The Traitors UK and so have been fast-tracking this show. Unfortunately, there was a delay in delivery of the file, but we have it now and are turning it around as a priority so that fans can watch this afternoon. Our apologies to The Traitors UK fans who’ve been waiting, but we promise this episode will be worth the wait!”