Celebrity Traitors finale is ridiculous but riveting TV

Who'd have thought watching dumbed-down personalities could be so addictive? Hannah Ewens loves the Traitors franchise even more after the finalists got things so wrong

- By Hannah Ewens

It could have only ended this way. Traitor Alan Carr, a very obvious Traitor, who on multiple occasions almost admitted to the others he was a Traitor, blubbing in a white suit with gold sequins. He has won the first-ever series of Celebrity Traitors, an exercise in celebrities and TV intellectuals showing that money, books and jobs in the media (!) do not make an intuitive or remotely switched-on human. The remaining two Faithful in that deciding round of banishing – David Olusoga and Nick Mohammed – were coo-cooing at Carr to calm him, soundtracked by the heartbreaking tones of Ludovico Einaudi. Just moments before, they voted out the most obvious Faithful in the game, Joe Marler. It was a ridiculous scene to end a ridiculous series full of hopeless people – and I have loved every minute of it.

Our not-so-cunning finalists were the Traitors, Cat Burns and Carr, and the Faithfuls, Marler, Olusoga and Mohammed. To catch up on all the previous eight episodes, all you need to know is that the Faithful have been abysmal at their one job, mindbogglingly out of touch with their surroundings and the subtle workings of other people. “I made some friends in here; I’m starting to feel quite sad murdering them,” said Burns in the opening interviews of this finale, and it was possibly true. She had, after all, been on a killing spree. The only Traitor to not make it to the finale was Jonathan Ross, who had to get voted out a couple of episodes ago because, despite being a great liar, he emanated pure evil.