Series / The Traitors (UK)

Get them, before they get you.

"You think you know how to play the game, you don’t know anything."

The Traitors is a British reality television series broadcast on The BBC from 2022, hosted by Claudia Winkleman and based on the Dutch series De Verraders (which translates to "The Traitors" in Dutch). It is produced by Studio Lambert.

The format features twenty-two contestants living together in a Scottish castle. Three of the contestants take on the role of "The Traitors", while all other contestants are "Faithfuls". The Faithfuls don't know who the Traitors are but the viewers are made aware in the first episode. Each night, the Traitors gather in secret to decide whom they wish to eliminate from the game; this contestant is said to have been "killed" and doesn't show up at the next day's morning breakfast. In each episode, the contestants take part in a challenge to earn money to be added to the prize fund (up to £120,000). In some challenges, contestants can also either (in Series 1) win a trip to the Armoury, which gives one of the contestants a shield which protects them from elimination by the Traitors that night, but not from being banished; or (in Series 2) collect one of up to three shields during the challenge. After completing a challenge, the contestants return to the castle to take part in the Round Table, a voting round in which all contestants cast a vote on who should be banished from the game. In this round, the Faithfuls hope to eliminate a Traitor from the game. The banished person reveals, before leaving, whether they were either a Traitor or a Faithful.

The series was filmed alongside The Traitors (US), with the two shows sharing the same filming location and challenges.

As the show relies heavily on twists and turns, please expect unmarked spoilers on this page.

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General tropes, or tropes that apply to multiple series

• Amateur Sleuth: What the contestants become in the hunt for the Traitors.
• Anyone Can Die: In the context of the show, everyone except for the Traitors (and Faithfuls with a shield) can get "murdered" - and none of them are safe from being banished from the Round Table.
• Bait-and-Switch: In the first episode of Series 1 and before the game officially began, Claudia asks the 22 players to line themselves up in order of how well they think that they would do. The two who placed themselves last in terms of confidence are asked to leave the castle grounds. At the start of Series 2 and before the game began, Claudia again asks the latest batch of players to line themselves up. The players, having seen the first series, are a lot more hesitant this time around, but when they are done, Claudia tells them that they wouldn't be doing the same thing twice and waves them into the castle.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Believed by the Faithful. People are banished almost constantly for being too quiet, which is taken for suspicious.
• Black Girl Dies First: In Series 1, the Traitors' first murder victim is the Black woman Aisha. Subverted in Series 2, as the white male Aubrey becomes the first victim... but the Black woman Kyra is the second to be killed off.
• Celebrity Edition: Thankfully averted. The vast majority of countries play the game with celebrities, or more rarely celebrities and civilians; and Studio Lambert originally wanted to do the same (yet the BBC convinced them otherwise). The UK and Hungary are the only countries which play it with only civilians.
• Confession Cam: Used to show the thought processes of both the Faithfuls and the Traitors, who discuss both their thought processes and strategies on how to play the game.
• Dramatic Irony: Everything about the contestants - in particular the identities of the Traitors - is made clear to the audience from the get-go, as are things about the contestants that they are keeping secret from the others during the show itself (such as Tom and Alex's relationship and Maddy's acting career in Series 1, and Diane and Ross's connection in Series 2). However, the choices the Traitors make are often left hanging until the Internal Reveal of who has been murdered or, in the case of the second season, which Faithful they chose to be the final starting Traitor.
• Drawing Straws: In a tie at the Round Table, the players tied are excluded from the vote and the rest of the contestants vote between the two tied at the top. If this fails, the contestants draw straws (but it hasn't had to happen yet).
• Dwindling Party: The killers "murder" one person most nights, and the team banishes one with every Round Table, meaning that the group dwindles most episodes.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The only way the Faithfuls can win the prize pot at the end is to root out and banish all Traitors before the final; otherwise, if one or more traitors remain, the Traitors take the entire haul and remaining Faithfuls get nothing. On top of the grueling physical missions and having to point the finger at fellow Faithfuls and Traitors alike, all of whom will have formed close personal bonds, this is a high barrier for the Faithfuls to overcome.
• Elimination Statement: After a banishment, the banished player often gives a short speech to the other contestants before they reveal whether they were a Faithful or Traitor.
• Everyone Meets Everyone: The train to Scotland stops at two stations, where all the contestants gather.
• Evil Wears Black: Claudia plays up a manipulative, "evil" game, and wears black to all the Round Tables, and the Traitors wear black robes. Whenever she stops by the Traitors' Turret to throw another twist into the game, she accessorises this look with red fingerless gloves.
• Game Show Physical Challenge: There's a physical element to many of the show's challenges. The very first episode of season one asks the contestants to light wicker men — part of the challenge is finding fuses and unlocking access to accelerant, but another part involves rowing across a lake, bringing the flaming torch to light the fuse.
• Hidden Depths: Several of the contestants are hiding parts of themselves from the others, some of which are revealed during the show to the other contestants (see Internal Reveal). Several, however, have their Hidden Depths known to the audience but get eliminated before they can reveal them to the other players.
• Internal Reveal: In addition to the reveals of whether a contestant is a Faithful or a Traitor after banishment at the Round Table, several of the contestants end up choosing to reveal their Hidden Depths during the show to the others.
  • In Series 1, Tom and Alex are a romantic couple, but initially hid their relationship from the other contestants before revealing it in Episode 4 after Alex is put on trial.
  • Also in Series 1, Maddy works full-time as a receptionist in a care home, but is also a professional actress (with credits in EastEnders and CASUAL+Y), which she reveals unprompted in Episode 8.
  • In Series 2, Diane and Ross are mother and son, which the duo make a pact to not reveal until they have to - which Ross eventually reveals upon his banishment during Episode 10 after Diane died of poisoning a few episodes prior.
• Kiss of Death:
  • The Traitor, Amanda, kisses Amos in Series 1 to kill him.
  • Subverted in Series 2. It's discussed in Series 2, where people consider the possibility of a kiss being what killed Diane. It's actually Miles, who poisoned Diane with a drink.
• "Leave Your Quest" Test:
  • When the Traitor's numbers are reduced to at most 2, the remaining Traitors are allowed, should they so wish, to seduce (recruit) a new Traitor from the ranks of the Faithful, presenting one of these, in the form of a Face–Heel Turn to the contestant in question, but at the cost of not murdering that night. The person being recruited has the option of refusing the request, although doing so puts a target on their back for the Traitors to kill them the next night.
  • A player can be blackmailed into joining the Traitors. Unlike with a seduction, the player has a face-to-face meeting with the Traitors and has to decide whether they will join the Traitors or be murdered on the spot (and thus be taken out of the game). If they do accept however, the Traitors, including the newly blackmailed Traitor, can choose another Faithful to kill.
  • In Series 2, Claudia selects her initial Traitors in Episode 1 and then tells everyone that the Traitors will recruit their own Traitor that evening to complete their team - which, like the original selection that Claudia made, can't be rejected.
• The Mole: The Traitors are this among the rest of the contestants.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: Faithfuls who are murdered overnight receive their letter in a room by themselves before they leave the castle forever. Unlike banished players, they do not have a chance to say their piece or to say farewell to their fellow players.
  • Somewhat subverted in the case of Diane's death in Season 2 - due to the slow acting poison, they live long enough until the end of the next day's mission, and she did say bye to her son just minutes before Claudia closed the coffin lid on her and saying that she's now dead.
• Reality TV Show Mansion: In this case, a castle in the Scottish Highlands. Played straight in many other versions, which use a mansion instead. The idea for the show was originally to play it on a ship.
• Ten Little Murder Victims: Pretty much the whole plot of this show.
• The Summation: Which each contestant has to do when declaring who they believe is a Traitor at the Round Table.
• Tonight, Someone Dies: Not dying in the literal sense, but a key part of the show's premise.
• Voted Off the Island:
  • What happens at the Round Table, when all contestants must decide which one of them to banish and eliminate from the game. In the case of a tie, all contestants not tied for the vote must vote again between the tied players, and if the tie still isn't broken after that, the contestant banished would be left up to chance between those still tied.
  • A limited example occurs each night in Traitors' Tower where the Traitors decide which of the remaining Faithfuls will be murdered and thus will no longer participate in the game.
• Your Days Are Numbered:
  • As one of the gameplay elements thrown into the mix of Series 1, the Traitors have to put three players on trial and then murder one of the three by the following morning. On top of that, Claudia confirms at breakfast that the Traitors can also put themselves up on trial. The players on trial are thus not only under the prospect of murder, but they also come under a cloud of suspicion of being a Traitor and become the likely targets for banishment at that evening's Round Table. Alex, John, and Ivan are put on trial. Ivan ends up being banished that evening, John is murdered that night, and Alex, already under a heavy cloud of suspicion, doesn't last much longer in the game before the Traitors attempt to recruit her and then eventually have her murdered after she rejected the offer.
  • In Series 2, the Traitors must condemn four players to the castle dungeon and one of these four players must be murdered by the following morning. As with the trial in the previous series, the Traitors can also put themselves in the dungeon. As with the previous Series, all four of the condemned players come under a great deal of suspicion and become the likelier targets for banishment at the Round Table that evening. The difference this time is that the Traitors place two of themselves in the dungeon. Traitors Ash and Paul and Faithfuls Andrew and Meg are put in the dungeon. Ash is banished that evening and Meg is murdered the following morning. Paul banks on his popularity among his fellow players for being saved from murder that evening, but Andrew is saved instead. This move and the fact that he survives murder the following nights afterwards eventually set Paul up for his eventual banishment.
  • Also in Series 2, the Traitors have to poison someone in plain sight. However, unlike the poisoned kiss in Series 1, which killed the target overnight, the poisoned drink is slow acting - meaning that the victim, Diane, doesn't die right away, meaning that come breakfast, Miles has a look of shock after seeing that she is still alive, which helps towards his eventual banishment after Diane "dies" at the end of the day's mission.

Series 1

• Artificial Limbs: Nicky lost her hand in a car accident, and her plan for spending the money if she won was to buy herself a specialist prosthetic.
• Betrayal Insurance: Wilfred raises fellow Traitor Amanda as a suspect because he thinks she'll betray him first. She doesn't, and Amanda ends up eliminated that same night. Kieran also betrays Wilfred after Wilf betrays him first.
• Buried Alive: Happens to some of the contestants (specifically Hannah, Alex, Kieran, Fay, Meryl and Rayan) as part of the challenge in Episode 6, in which their teammates are tasked with finding the clues to locate where they're buried and free them. For Rayan, doing this requires facing one of his biggest fears.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Meryl, to the point where the Traitors explicitly state that this is why they don't want to recruit her, as they cannot take the risk of her revealing herself or others to the group. When she wins a shield in Episode 9, she openly tells her teammates she has it, unlike everyone else previously, who made a point not to tell anyone (even their own teammates) so that the possibility of any of their team members having the shield might deter the Traitors from murdering them.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: While the Traitors are this by default due to how the game works, special mention goes to Wilfred, who not only commits murders against the Faithful, but also successfully convinces them to vote out his fellow Traitors to ward off suspicion against himself (Alyssa, Amanda and Kieran, in that order). In Kieran’s case, this ends up backfiring on Wilfred hard, as it gives Kieran the motive to implicate him as a Traitor before his exit from the competition, causing Wilfred’s own banishment shortly after.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Maddy, whose unusual methods of reasoning and tendency to make bizarre, random comments at inappropriate times (such as starting a discussion about how people in the care home she works at had died on the toilet while she and her fellow contestants are eating dinner) has seen her compared by fans to Alice from The Vicar of Dibley.
• Cool Old Lady:
  • The first series' oldest contestant, 72-year-old Andrea, a lesbian who used to work in a bar popular with Old Hollywood celebrities like Ava Gardner.
  • Downplayed with Amanda. While 54 isn’t exactly elderly, she ends up taking a similar role within the group by acting as the strong rational glue holding them together while simultaneously winning money in the challenges. Where she really shines, however, is her skillful manipulation of the situations around her as a Traitor, successfully keeping suspicion off of herself for most of the game until her undoing at Wilfred’s hands.
• Dumb Is Good:
  • Apparently believed by the team, who accuse the smartest players of being Traitors and banish Imran (a very young PhD student)^note Note the team didn't actually know this, Ivan (out of the knowledge that he is a Game Master), and Alyssa, on the basis that she's smarter than she seems (which is correct, as she's a Traitor).
  • The Traitors also believe this. They murder Aisha, Claire, Amos and Fay because they're all analytical personalities who might recognize them.
• Dwarfism in Media: Meryl, whose dwarfism is caused by achondroplasia. After winning the show, she noted she might possibly be the first dwarf to win a Reality TV series.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Aaron, Hannah, and Meryl, all of whom are Faithfuls, manage to win the prize pot after banishing Wilf, a Traitor, in a highly emotional finale.
• Exact Words: In the first episode of the first series, the very first choice led to two of the players (Amos and Kieran) being removed from the game. Later on, it is revealed that they weren't eliminated from the game, as the only way to leave is either by banishment or being killed.
• Forgot the Disability: The other contestants' main reason for banishing Nicky was that she didn't raise her glass to a toast... however, as she points out, this was because she only has one hand, and the glass was in front of her arm that's missing one.
• Hidden Depths: See General Tropes.
  • Imran hid that he is the youngest scientist ever to get an Astrophysics PhD.
  • Rayan hid that he is a lawyer.
  • While Alex eventually revealed her relationship with Tom, she still hid both that she had a Psychology degree and that, in addition to being a TV presenter, she is a professional actress.
  • In addition, Wilfred's background as both a dancer and a boxer was not revealed to the audience until it became relevant in Episode 10 thanks to the challenge requiring him to navigate a Laser Hallway (which he successfully does twice).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Wilfred, having manipulated the banishments to stab his fellow Traitors Alyssa, Amanda and Kieran in the back, gets taken out in the final elimination by Kieran's Thanatos Gambit.
• I Did What I Had to Do: How Wilfred justifies betraying fellow Traitor Alyssa, which results in her being banished.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: According to some cast members, the reason why Alyssa was correctly found out (though not revealed on broadcast). Apparently, they played a game off-screen about what they expected Claudia would say to the Traitors, and Alyssa's response of "Hello, Traitors" was suspiciously accurate.
• Intergenerational Friendship: 54-year-old Amanda and 72-year-old Andrea form several of these, by virtue of being old enough to be the mother and grandmother, respectively, of almost all the other contestants. Of particular note is the strong bond Andrea formed with 30-year-old Amos to the point where she broke down in tears after discovering he'd been murdered.
• Laser Hallway: The setting of the challenge in episode 10, with contestants required to steal as many valuable objects from a nearby stately home as they can in 20 minutes - with a minute from the clock being deducted each time they trip the laser.
• "Leave Your Quest" Test: See in General Tropes. Alex is offered this in Episode 7, and rejects it. As a result, the Traitors murder her the following night. In Episode 11, Kieran is offered the same choice in a face-to-face meeting with the last remaining Traitor, with the ultimatum that refusing will result in automatic elimination, but accepting will allow them to kill another Faithful instead. He accepts, and the two Traitors then decide to make Andrea their last target.
• Manipulative Bastard: Several of the contestants engage in this as part of the game, particularly the Traitors (for whom it's practically a necessary skill) but also some of the Faithfuls.
  • Particular mention goes to the two Traitors for most of the first season, Wilfred and Amanda - especially Wilfred, who stabs his fellow Traitor Alyssa in the back in order to deflect attention from himself, and then manages to get Amanda banished the same day suspicion about her is first raised. In the finale, he manages to get yet another Traitor, Kieran, banished, but ends up falling at the final hurdle after Kieran pulls a Taking You with Me on him.
• Momma's Boy: Aaron. His plan if he wins the money is to buy his mother a house. He does, too.
• Motor Mouth: Meryl.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination:
  • Seemingly in play in the opening episode of Series 1. Before all the contestants even set foot in the castle, Claudia asks them to line themselves up in order of how well they think they will do in the competition. Amos and Kieran end up placing themselves in the last two positions (i.e., least confident that they would do well). Claudia then orders them to leave the castle grounds. This is ultimately subverted, as Amos and Kieran are brought back in Episode 5, and Claudia clarifies that the only ways a contestant can leave the game are by being murdered or by being banished.
  • Offered as a gameplay mechanic in Series 1, Episode 8, following the dinner party, where the contestants are asked to name the person there that they most trust, with each person named sitting down. The person who is left standing, Maddy, is then offered the chance to leave with the day's prize pot (£3,000), or to turn it down and put it back in the prize pot. She doesn't take the offer, though it should be noted that she also had won the shield that day, protecting her from murder (which nobody bar her knew).
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When suspicion falls on Wilf in the final episode after Kieran drops hints that he's a Traitor, he panics and tells everyone that if they vote him out, he'd never be able to speak to him again. Hannah later cites this ultimatum as a reason for voting against him at the Circle of Truth, saying that it seemed very unlike him to say something like that.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • In Episode 2, after Aaron breaks down upon being suspected of being a Traitor, Maddy incorrectly assumes that his breakdown came from being accused by a fellow Traitor, namely Wilfred. While she's wrong about Aaron's breakdown, she's completely correct that Wilfred is a Traitor. Not only that, but in Episode 6, Wilfred does accuse a fellow Traitor (Alyssa) at the Round Table, causing them to break down in tears, but Maddy fails to spot it. Incredibly, Wilfred does it again in Episode 10, being the casting vote to eliminate Amanda, and Maddy doesn't spot it then either.
  • Similarly, in Episode 11, Aaron mentions that he thinks Kieran is a Traitor, assuming they had turned on their fellow Traitor Amanda the night before. While Kieran is a Traitor, he had not been until after Amanda's elimination, getting recruited by Wilfred later that night. To rub it in further, the person Aaron says this to is Wilfred, a Traitor himself.
• Secret Relationship: Tom and Alex from Series 1, in that they're keeping their relationship a secret from the other contestants on the show.
• Taking You with Me: A non-lethal version occurs in Episode 12. Upon realising he will be voted out at the final Round Table no matter what due to Wilfred’s manipulation, Kieran decides that if he can’t get the prize money as a Traitor, then he’ll make sure it goes to the Faithfuls instead. Before his exit, he indirectly names Wilfred as his co-conspirator, which results in the remaining Faithfuls turning on Wilfred at the last minute and banishing him too.
• Team Mom: Amanda ends up taking this role within the group of contestants, mostly by boosting morale and keeping everyone’s heads in the game. Theo and Momma's Boy Aaron end up bonding with her because of this.
• Terrifying Pet Store Rat: One challenge features the contestants having to complete tasks in a terrifying room filled with things like insects and rats. Said rats are clearly harmless pets, and even have colour patterns that are not typical of wild rats.
• Thanatos Gambit: Kieran works out by the end of Episode 12 that his fellow Traitor Wilfred has convinced the other contestants to eliminate him. So he responds by naming Wilfred as a Traitor in the final vote as "a parting gift", banking on the other contestants picking up on it and eliminating Wilfred too. It works, even if it needed Wilf to drop a massive hint first.
• That Liar Lies:
  • The whole team immediately turns on Tom and Alex because they lied about being in a relationship, so they're likely lying about being Faithfuls too, and they exile them the episode after learning the truth. Neither are. Given the circumstances under which Tom, in a panic, revealed the relationship, it wouldn't make sense for either of them to be Traitors, as this would have required not just the double-bluff of Alex deliberately putting herself on trial but a second double-bluff of making themselves even more suspicious by the reveal. However, as the rest of the players point out, they're really short on clues and the only people that they can prove are willing to lie are Tom and Alex.
  • Maddy also falls in for some of this when she (voluntarily) reveals that she is an actress, and is suddenly viewed as more suspicious.
• Villainous Breakdown: Upon the Faithfuls turning on Wilfred after Kieran’s successful Thanatos Gambit, he loses what composure he had left and begins desperately defending himself with any excuse he can muster. His sudden and dramatic change in behaviour is what convinces Hannah and Aaron to hold another banishment vote, leading to Wilfred's elimination and outing as a Traitor.
• Wham Line: Tom's revelation that he and Alex are in a relationship.
• Wham Shot: In Episode 5, two of the masked figures in the church are unmasked after the mission, and revealed to be Kieran and Amos, who were previously taken out of the game in Episode 1 and thought to be eliminated.

Series 2

• Aborted Arc: Ross announces that he's going to get revenge for Diane. The very next episode, he goes after Andrew rather than Harry (despite saying that he was going to target Harry), and gets banished.
• Accents Aren't Hereditary: Diane and Ross have different accents.
• Actor/Role Confusion: Many wondered if Paul was his sociopathic Traitor persona in real life. No, he was just reading American Psycho before bed while he was in the castle.
• Attending Your Own Funeral: Episode 7's mission for Diane, where it's revealed she was poisoned by the Traitors and wouldn't survive the mission.
• Bad News in a Good Way: Claudia when Diane dies. "A terrible loss for the Faithful... however you've added £7,000 to the prize pot!"
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Ross looking to the audience when he 'jokes' about what if Diane were to be his mum. Bonus points for the wink to camera.
• Comically Missing the Point: The hilarious end to Episode 6: Paul asks "Is this the library?" in a room full of books.
• Discreet Drink Disposal: Variation in the hilariously chaotic 'murder in plain sight' task in E6. Miles has to convince fan favourite Diane to drink from a specific chalice, so that the Traitors can kill her.
• Downer Ending: From the Faithful's perspective. Faithful Jaz and Mollie make it to the final three with Traitor Harry, who Jaz has suspected for some time but was unable to banish due to his popularity. When Jaz votes to banish again he's almost successful in convincing Mollie to banish Harry, with her going as far as writing Harry's name down on her slate... only for her to change her mind at the last moment, voting to eliminate Jaz over her closest friend in the game. Having said she wouldn't forgive Harry if she discovered he was a Traitor she's understandably heartbroken over his deception, and Harry himself acknowledges that he hurt her in a confessional and hopes that he can make it up to her.
• Dying Clue: When Diane said "Bye" to Ross, he mistakenly thought she said "Miles". This, in turn, made him Right for the Wrong Reasons.
• Easter Egg: Before every Round Table producers play The Hanging Tree from The Hunger Games as the contestants walked in. In the final episode it was played as contestants came to the end game.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Turning on his fellow ex-serviceman Jonny ruins Traitor Harry.
• Hates Reading: Miles stays by the door to the library in Episode 6 as lookout, as the other cast members knew he didn't read very much.
• I Knew There Was Something About You: Jasmine guesses Harry's shield ruse in Episode 10 during a random spot of Wild Mass Guessing, but puts it to one side and it's conveniently forgotten about.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: It was the Traitors who pushed the idea that the Poisoned Chalice was a drink in Episode 7, and not anything metaphorical.
• If I Do Not Return: Diane says to Evie and Paul that if she is revealed to be poisoned, she is certain Miles killed her - inadvertently offering Paul a convenient opportunity to turn on him. It's this that gets Miles banished at the Round Table.
• Internal Reveal: Ross reveals to the cast when he is banished in Episode 10 that he's Diane's son. The other cast members can't believe it!
• It's Always Sunny at Funerals: Likely as it couldn't be controlled by the producers. The funeral procession mission in Episode 7 takes place on... a sunny day.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Episode 3 is cut right at the end after Ash is voted out but before she reveals she is a Traitor. Fans suspected she might incriminate her fellow Traitors or similar, but... nothing happens.
• No Honor Among Thieves: The traitors exhibit a particularly strong Chronic Backstabbing Disorder in this season. Paul and Harry set up Ash, then Paul turns on Miles after Diane's poisoning (Harry votes with him too but Paul is shown to be the architect of this banishment). Then Harry turns on Paul and gets him banished. Harry then recruits both Andrew and Ross, who are both planning to turn on Harry because they know he can't be trusted. Unfortunately, Ross tries to turn on Andrew, causing him and Harry to cut him loose, and Andrew would be banished during the endgame, allowing Harry to walk away the sole winner.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Shields are now won by performing well at - or completing a side-quest in - the missions, to fix the issue of the Armoury being a Luck-Based Mission.^note Talking of Luck-Based Missions, two of the cast were previously on Deal or No Deal.
• People of Hair Color: In Series 2. Zack suspects that Paul is Diane's son, as both are Irish with ginger hair. Diane points out that she dyes her hair red. But her son is in the game. It's just not Paul - it's Ross (who has dark hair). It eventually becomes a Running Gag among the contestants once both Paul and Diane deny it.
• Revenge is Sweet: Ross becomes a Traitor to avenge them killing his mum earlier, though they don't know his secret. Invoked when Harry says that Diane was getting too good at the game, and needed to be "put back in her place." Sadly, this is Averted as Ross was banished at the next Round Table while going after the completely wrong Traitor.
• Right in Front of Me: Jaz guesses (correctly) that Paul is a Traitor, but makes the mistake of telling... fellow Traitor Harry, who warns Paul at that night's turret. Jaz finally works it out by Episode 9, but doesn't have the support.
• Secret Relationship: Diane and Ross in Series 2 are mother and son, which isn't revealed to the others until after the former is dead, and the latter was in the process of being banished.
• Shrine to the Fallen: Tracey receives a shrine as part of the funeral procession mission, complete with her picture.
• Stay in the Kitchen: The Traitors were perceived to be particularly sexist in this series, with the highest proportion of Traitors to be men in any version of the show and Harry's remark about Diane being particularly harsh.
  • Lampshaded by Claudia when the Traitors recruited Ross:
    Claudia: Another man? It's like the olden days.
• This Is a Competition: The Traitors in their turret, especially this series, just to up the drama.
• Villain Ball: A problem for the traitors in this particular season. Paul and Harry leading the early banishment of Ash, and then Miles, create a dynamic where none of the other traitors, even Paul and Harry themselves, trust each other. That leads Harry to lead the banishment of Paul, which only worsens the problem. Though Harry recruits both Andrew and Ross, neither of them trusts him and both of them figure out they've only been recruited to be a Fall Guy, which Ross ends up becoming with his quick banishment, followed by Andrew during the endgame.
• Wham Line: Diane.

  Diane': It's ridiculous. Paul isn't my son. But Ross is.

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Next time, on The Traitors...

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