At the tail end of 2022, my partner and I were searching for something fun and easy to watch together and stumbled across a show on iPlayer called The Traitors. The show is a British adaptation of a Dutch format called De Verraders in which Claudia Winkleman guides a series of guests through missions to earn cash. Amongst them, however, are traitors, looking to murder faithful players every night and sew the seeds of chaos. Players vote to eliminate traitors and if any are left at the end of the game, they steal the whole prize pot. It’s a simple format, which has spread across the globe to broad success, but the British series is king for me, primarily because it casts normal people. The American and Canadian versions both fill their casts with celebrities, which still makes for entertaining TV, but loses the sheer purity of the game. And if we’re talking purity, the second season of The Traitors UK is the place to go for the purest joy that reality TV has to offer. It kicked off the year in TV with a bang in a way that left everything else in the dust.

As a warning, this is sort of going to devolve into a recap of The Traitors UK season 2 as that’s the easiest way to explain why it’s so excellent. I will keep spoilers on other seasons light so that there is still plenty for you to discover if this makes you realise what you’re missing out on. Our first two episodes are pretty standard fare, with the players going on missions together and our traitors being chosen. This series there are four traitors, three chosen by Claudia who are then tasked with recruiting a fourth. Our first three are Harry, Paul and Ash, who recruit Miles and start off pretty strong. Ash’s name is thrown around but the traitors all look out for each other. Things start to get special though in episode three. Everyone has been joking that Paul looks like the son of Diane, another contestant on the show. Diane jokes about it in a confessional interview and says “Paul’s not my son… But Ross is.” Usually on the show, when a pair know each other from the start the audience are told this information. Here though, we are surprised, deceived and flummoxed. It is an incredibly exciting structural move that sets up an insane episode.

One of the joys in every single season of The Traitors is that the people who breakdown, lose their mind or otherwise act a fool are almost always innocent. People with nothing to hide suddenly become the most volatile cast members and borderline force the group to banish them out of sheer confusion. Episode 3 features one such case, as a faithful named Brian gets in his head. During a mission, it is revealed that the other players all think he is a sheep, allowing himself to be led blindly by others. This disconnect between how the others see him and how he saw himself sends Brian mad and he is rabidly running around the group asking people what they think of him. It is unbelievably suspicious behaviour that itself pushes him to a rambling monologue at the round table in which he cuts off Claudia Winkleman, just to dig his own grave deeper. Early on, it felt like a special moment we would all remember forever, a chorus of “am I or amn’t I?” ringing out across the nation.

The moments kept coming though. Ash eventually found herself banished and the three male traitors carried on, planning to murder Diane, which was to be a murder in plain sight. For this to work, they had to convince Diane to drink a glass of pink fizz. Unfortunately, Diane bloody loves pink fizz and downed the whole thing. However, the juicy part of this is that the murder isn’t instant and the traitors all have to come to breakfast, expecting Diane to be dead and seeing her alive and well. That’s because today is her funeral. The mission for the players is to work out who hasn’t been killed, slowly whittling down options and leaving a handful of players walking to what might just be their grave. Once we reach the graves, the final three must climb into caskets and the players put flowers in the grave of the person they think has died. This leads to a genuinely heartbreaking moment as Ross walks up to his mother’s grave and throws a rose on her body, having to avoid tears because no one knows about their connection. This whole scene is a moment that somehow rides a delicate line between delicious camp and genuine sentimentality, in a way that I think even a scripted show might struggle to.

Shortly after Diane’s death comes a big moment. This season, Paul was a particularly smug traitor, someone who seemed very certain of his own success from the word go. Even though the show often has you rooting for the traitors, he was someone whose downfall promised to be legendary, a promise which the show wisely delivered. You see, while faithfuls usually crack over nothing, traitors are often tripped up when they buy too much into their own hype. Become popular, get traitors out, but don’t look too in control while doing it or people will be suspicious. It’s a tough balance and it’s fair to say Paul got vertigo. Earlier in the season, he attempted an elaborate double bluff that, to cut a long story short, ended with Paul losing his place as the most trusted faithful and casting a permanent shadow of doubt on himself. Harry saw this and understood that a downfall was coming. With Paul having kicked out two fellow traitors already, Harry lays his trap, allowing all the faithfuls to do the talking for him while he comes in with the killer blows. The mere reaction alone to what comes next is a highlight of the show. Paul is voted out, delivers a speech and bows as he admits to being a traitor. Cue screaming and shouting, chairs being thrown, people hugging Harry, pure cinematic chaos.

With Harry being a “traitor hunter” now though, he needed a get out scheme, which leads us to the smartest play a player has ever made for their game. In a mission, Harry picks up a shield, meaning he is safe from murder that night, though obviously as a traitor he is safe every night. His friend Molly, a faithful, sees him get the shield, but he asks her to keep it a secret. Later in the day, Harry tells two other players about this shield in order to gain their trust. That night, he recruits another traitor and at breakfast, magic happens. Due to the recruitment, there was no murder, but the three who knew about Harry’s shield immediately start blabbing that the traitors must have tried to kill Harry the night before, meaning Harry couldn’t be a traitor and that anyone gunning for him probably was. It was an absolutely stunning move which cemented a trustworthy clique around Harry and made him one of the all time great Traitors contestants.

After that play, there was almost no way Harry wouldn’t have made the final, which is fortunate as he leads us somewhere very emotional. Over the episode, the numbers are slowly whittled down and the only thing standing in Harry’s way is a man named Jaz, also known as Jazatha Christie. Jaz has been picking up clues very slowly but has been the only one with solid suspicions of Harry. It became a race against time for Jaz to gather enough evidence and create enough alliances to take Harry down before it was too late. Alas, Harry’s trump card was Molly, an ally who he knew would take him straight to the end. Indeed she does, eliminating Jaz and triggering the end of the game. The two stand there, excited. Both are asked to reveal their allegiance. Molly smiles, saying faithful. Harry pauses. Molly’s smile fades. She has been absolutely played like a game of Kerplunk and now the balls have finally dropped. She runs off crying and Harry wins every single penny of the prize fund. What a brutal game, ending on a note that only isn’t dour because the strategy was just that impressive.

Those paragraphs leave out so much, so genuinely, don’t consider this season a loss if you still fancy watching it. It really is one of the most gripping seasons of television I’ve ever been lucky enough to witness. This year I also got properly into the franchise as a whole, watching all the US, New Zealand and Canadian seasons, as well as the final Australian season. The only one of those I wouldn’t recommend is Australia S2, in which the faithful are complete fools the entire season, reject all potential evidence and are blindsided at all times. Its sole redemption is the final three minutes in which the traitors face off and get what was coming to them. As I say though, all the others are well worth your time. Aus 1 is a special blend of a season with some phenomenal moments, the New Zealand seasons have some of the best connections between contestants and both UK seasons do remain a golden standard. With UK and US seasons 3 starting this week (and in fact, UK starting tonight), now is the perfect time to get into The Traitors. Enjoy what these new seasons have to offer, before enjoying the extensive and highly rewarding back catalogue of the greatest reality competition show with men in capes that isn’t Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

Honourable Mentions:

Ru Paul’s Drag Race US16, All Stars 9, UK vs the World 2, Canada vs the World 2, France 3, Global All Stars, UK 6, Down Under 4 and Canada 4 and 5 – Welcome to Drag Race corner! Lots of confusing seasons this year with wrong winners (according to what the show was telling us, all love to the queens), with the highlight being, for the first time ever, the UK season. All the queens were instantly iconic, wore terrible wigs and made us fall in love with them in every fantastic lip sync. Something to be patriotic about finally!

Hunted – This year I finally got into Hunted, a show in which contestants must go on the run from fake police officers. The hook is simple and the show always seems to deliver the goods, it’s that good kind of reality TV done well.

Baby Reindeer – Look, I did watch things that weren’t reality TV! Baby Reindeer burst onto the scene with an unbelievable mix of gripping shocks, dark humour and complex exploration of how we allow ourselves to be manipulated. If you didn’t see it, it really is the show this year you have to see to believe.

Doctor Who – I like Doctor Who and I think it’s nice to have a good series of it again. Nothing mindblowing, just fun Saturday night viewing with big ideas and a heart, even (and often especially) when it’s being stupid.

Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee (Aus and NZ) – One of my favourite discoveries from Taskmaster New Zealand was Guy Montgomery, whose dry absurdism I find hysterical. Here, he transplants that to his own show in which spelling is mixed with torturing comedians for our enjoyment. Until you watch it, you won’t realise what you’re missing.

Taskmaster (UK and NZ) – As I was saying above, nothing warms my heart like dry absurdism, stupid challenges and melting comedians brains. Of the year, my highlights were cricket nut Andy Zaltzman, as well as frenemies Rosie Jones and Jack Dee. Long may the mighty Davies and the pathetic Horne reign!

Boybands Forever – I have an issue with where this documentary ends, especially given recent incidents in pop culture, but it’s a really interesting documentary that allows its villains to dig their own graves and allows the exploited boyband members plenty of time to air their grievances.