Don’t judge me, but I’ve recently become a fan of the UK version of The Traitors, specifically the most recent season on Channel Ten, Celebrity Traitors. Sure, in a landscape of prestige television, The Traitors is the weirdest reality show ever devised, but perhaps this is what makes it watchable. Bear with me as I explain.
Let’s be honest. few television shows manage to combine medieval cosplay, social betrayal, and moral philosophy quite like The Traitors. Cloaked in black velvet and bathed in flickering candlelight, it’s reality TV’s answer to the confessional booth — except instead of seeking absolution, contestants are plotting each other’s symbolic deaths. It’s Machiavelli meets Sunday school, hosted by Claudia Winkleman, the high priestess of deadpan drama, with every line delivered with a side of ham.
At first glance, The Traitors is a game about deceit: a group of “Faithful” contestants must work together to complete missions and earn prize money, while a small band of “Traitors” secretly murder one player each night, all while pretending to be innocent. Every evening culminates in a round-table “banishment,” where paranoia, manipulation, and the occasional tearful apology flow freely. It’s a test of trust, a pageant of suspicion — and oddly, a parable of human nature.
The confessional quality of betrayal
If you squint, you can almost see the spiritual parallels flickering beneath the castle chandeliers. Each round-table feels like a distorted version of confession: players desperately searching their souls, explaining away their suspicions, and sometimes — as in the case of wrongly accused Faithfuls — being sacrificed for the sins of others. The guilty sit in silence, feigning righteousness. The innocent are cast out. It’s the oldest story there is.
Watching a Traitor squirm as their lies close in has shades of moral theatre. The game offers them two paths: double down on deceit (the revenge route), or make a desperate play for redemption by revealing the truth. Of course, few choose the latter — not when half a million pounds is at stake. Yet the tension between confession and concealment gives The Traitors its moral charge. It’s not just “who dunnit,” but “how far would you go to stay safe?”
In that sense, the show becomes a mirror for every sermon about the wages of sin. Lies buy you time, but not peace. Betrayal might deliver short-term gain, but it always costs something deeper. When a Traitor is finally unmasked, the resulting mix of shock, fury, and heartbreak feels oddly biblical. Judas could hardly have done it with more flair.
Revenge served at dinner
For all its dark grandeur, The Traitors thrives on petty human impulses — none more so than revenge. Once you’ve been banished unfairly, the pain is real. Players vow to expose the liars who sent them packing, even as they shuffle off to the “graveyard.” It’s vengeance by proxy, and viewers eat it up.
The show’s genius lies in turning that vengeance into entertainment. Claudia, ever the knowing guide, presides like a mischievous vicar overseeing a congregation that’s completely lost the plot. She doesn’t sermonise — she twinkles. “Murderers, you may now meet,” she whispers, as if announcing communion. The ritual of revenge becomes strangely communal, shared among contestants and viewers alike.
Yet amid the backstabbing, something surprising happens: glimpses of grace. Contestants form genuine friendships, apologise for misplaced suspicion, and occasionally forgive. There’s a sweetness to the way people reconcile after banishing someone unjustly, as if trying to stitch together the moral fabric they’ve just torn. It’s not full-blown redemption — more like reality TV’s version of confession and absolution.
Redemption, one episode at a time
Every season seems to produce a redemption arc or two. A player who begins as ruthless and calculating softens under the weight of their own deceit. Another, written off as gullible, emerges wise and steady. When truth finally triumphs — when the last Traitor is revealed and the Faithful take home the prize — it feels less like a victory for cunning and more like a triumph of integrity.
There’s a whisper of gospel logic in that: evil eventually unmasks itself, truth endures, and the meek (or at least the honest) inherit the cash. The show’s moral universe is messy, but not meaningless. Watching The Traitors is like watching a secular morality play dressed in velvet cloaks and eyeliner. Everyone is capable of treachery; everyone is capable of change.
Even the viewers undergo a sort of confession. We cheer for deceit, groan at misplaced trust, and delight in poetic justice. It’s hard not to wonder: are we rooting for the fall or the redemption? The answer, as ever, is both. We want the chaos — and then we want it cleansed.
A guilty pleasure with theological overtones
Calling The Traitors a “guilty pleasure” feels almost redundant. It’s built on guilt. Every episode invites moral reflection under the guise of entertainment — sin, suspicion, forgiveness, and the thrill of human weakness, all served up with Claudia’s impeccable fringe and a Gregorian-chant soundtrack.
It’s not high theology, but it is a study in human frailty. The castle becomes a kind of secular cathedral where mercy and manipulation coexist, and where even the most hardened Traitors eventually face their day of reckoning.
Perhaps that’s why The Traitors has been made in so many different versions (there is a US version, with a local version hosted by reality queen Gretel Killeen in 2026) but the UK version is the original and best. Beneath the camp and candlelight lies a show that takes sin seriously — but not too seriously. It’s a masterclass in the art of judgment without cruelty, confession without penance, and redemption with a cash prize attached.
As the credits roll and the mist closes over the Scottish hills, you might just find yourself whispering a small prayer of gratitude — not for the winners, but for the strange, forgiving world that lets us all start again after the final betrayal.
And then, naturally, you’ll press “Next Episode.”
All three series of The Traitors UK are on Ten Play On Demand, with Celebrity Traitors airing currently every week.
