
And we'll find out tomorrow. So let's quickly debrief. This clearly wasn't the Everything Kicks Off episode that I suspected. It was the Let's Reluctantly Banish Jerry Hall episode; much less fun, but probably necessary at this stage.
But that isn't to say that it was a bad episode. The conclusion of a plain sight murder, plus a narratively significant task, actually gives us all quite a lot to chew on going forward. What will happen next? My bet is a Miranda murder and then a Joanne banishment. But let's see. The Traitors is finally picking up steam! Meet back here tomorrow at 8pm? Great.
To the actual murder. The traitors mull killing Miranda, and Bash, and Romesh. Surely the logical choice is Miranda here, because that would put all the heat in the world on Joanne. Surely. SURELY.
To the turret, where the traitors will murder someone. The way this episode has gone, it will be a miracle if that someone isn't Acaster.
As Miranda badmouths Joanne, Joanne walks in. Miranda, bless her, absolutely loses her chill and ends up looking wildly suspicious. Remember this moment.
Still, at least, we're back on the perfume bottle theory. However, it might have backfired, because James Blunt thinks her discovery of the theory is performative, and only traitors are performative, even though literally every single contestant in the series is literally a professional performer.
Even Claudia can't get angry at them for the banishment. Such an anesthetised rountable, this.
Well this is weird. An almost unanimous vote for Jerry, but nobody seems to think that she is actually a traitor. What a weird anticlimactic shrug of a roundtable. Jerry reveals that she's a faithful. Nobody is particularly shocked. How odd.
Anyway, it's voting time.
Joanne votes JERRY, for not explaining things very well.
Sharon votes LEIGH-ANNE.
Jerry votes JOANNE.
Leigh-Anne votes JERRY, who doesn't seem to care
Acaster votes JERRY
Bash votes JERRY
Romesh votes JERRY. That's that, then.
Michael votes JERRY
Blunt votes JERRY.
Kenny votes BASH. Interesting.
Maya votes JERRY
Miranda votes JERRY
Meanwhile, Sharon – who is suddenly proving her worth an awful lot – puts Romesh safely in the faithful category by saying that she could hear him sniffle statically throughout the task. But nobody knows who to vote for. Usually by this point a frontrunner emerges, but that hasn't happened yet.
Leigh-Anne's honest explanation – that she made Miranda Hart do hip thrusts for fun – is met with even more suspicion, on the basis that something being fun in the year 2026 is completely unheard of.
James Blunt tries to figure out who was with Ross when he was murdered. All the traitors admit to being with him, as does Jerry, as does Bash. But as the walls close in, Michael Sheen goes off on a tangent, pointing the finger at Leigh-Anne for encouraging Miranda to do hip thrusts, which is famously a thing that most or all murderers do.
Now to Sharon's perfume theory. Acaster is excited, because this was his pet theory. While he is being excited, Maya and Kenny glare hard at each other. This is getting quite tense.
Miranda goes first, to debunk her 'bouncy floor' theory (that Joanne is a traitor because she felt the floorboards next to her). But Joanne guns straight back at her in an act of pure concentrated vengeance, because even a debunked theory is still a theory.
Claudia, dressed an an antimatter mirrorball, gets things going. We have 18 minutes left. This should be quite tasty, I think.
They've discovered that the sleeping perfume is empty. This won't take a lot of detective work to put Ross in a room with Maya and Acaster. Let's see if that actually happens during the roundtable.
Sharon gets to talk out loud now. And for good reason! She found a picture of some perfume bottles, and announces to the group that this might have had something to do with Ross Kemp's murder. The first person she tells is James Acaster, who mentioned it back in the glory days when he was a faithful.
In another room, Michael Sheen very astutely guesses what happened during the task – that essentially the traitors got mixed up and scared and gave up – and I'm growing more impressed with him by the second. James Acaster says "I wouldn't like to sneak around the room" and Maya Jama stares at him with such repulsion that it's a wonder his bones didn't instantly dissolve.
Well, that was an unexpectedly significant task. They're still discussing it in the castle. Miranda is convinced that Joanne is a traitor. Acaster says that the traitors messed it up, and King Kenny stares at him with a look of absolute death. Might THIS be the bit where everything kicks off?
The traitors – well, the two good ones at least – get to work. But they bottle it, and refuse to sabotage anyone, on the basis that it would be too risky. They didn't even push Acaster's shield over, which shows an incredible amount of restraint on their part. In their shoes I might have tried to make him eat it.