There was a theory going around that the winners were actually siblings (Picture: BBC / Studio Lambert)
The Traitors finalist Francesca Rowan-Plowden has shared a theory she had at one point in the game that winning Faithfuls Leanne Quigley and Jake Brown were actually siblings.
Claudia Winkelman’s incredible murder mystery gameshow came to a dramatic end on Friday night, with Leanne and Jake walking away with £94,600.
Throughout the ten episodes, tensions had been high with paranoia spreading through the group, especially as host Claudia continued throwing in twists.
Viewers were also suspicious of some secrets being kept by contestants, after it emerged that Traitor Charlotte Berman was faking her Welsh accent, Lisa Coupland is a really an ordained Anglican priest, and Leanne wasn’t really a nail technician.
Several shared theories of certain secret relationships among the players, which wouldn’t be a surprise after the dramatic ‘red breakfast’ reveal where Tom Elderfield and Alex Gray confessed to the others that they were secretly in a relationship in season one, and the Bafta-worthy moment from Diane Carson last year where she told viewers that Paul Gorton wasn’t her son, ‘But Ross is…’.
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Francesca made it all the way to the final (Picture: BBC)
We did have two sisters taking part in the game this time around, with Armani and Maia Gouveia telling the others from the outset that they were related.
But fans continued to ponder over relationship theories, questioning whether Lisa and Alex Oleksy were mother and son, or if Charlotte and British diplomat Alexander Dragonetti were actually married.
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And they weren’t the only ones, as Francesca has now revealed she had a theory in mind.
The 44-year-old interior designer told Metro: ‘I think at one point I did, I had a thought about Lisa and Alex being related. I thought that maybe Jake and Leanne, at some point, were brother and sister.
‘But they were often just quite fleeting thoughts, and then you just go, oh no, and likewise of Charlotte being Welsh. In hindsight, maybe I thought something was a little awry, but it just wouldn’t occur to me that she wasn’t Welsh.’
It was a dramatic final episode (Picture: BBC / Studio Lambert)
The only remaining Traitor, Charlotte, wasn’t even Welsh (Picture: BBC)
Another prediction involved Francesca herself, with viewers and several players convinced she was the mother of Freddie Fraser.
She added that people in the castle did ask her if she and Freddie were mother and son, and some still continue to be convinced, with both Jake and Leanne telling us they believed in that theory.
‘I still believe that Freddie may be Frankie’s son. I’m still waiting for the big reveal,’ Leanne quipped, while Jake said: ‘So the episode where Frankie and Freddie cried at one of the roundtables, and he got a lot of heat, and Frankie consoled him. They had this mother-son hug, and I remember looking at that and thinking that I just felt like it was a mother and son hug, so I always was suspicious of that.’
Frankie does have four sons of her own, who she had to lie to in order to spend weeks away filming in Scotland.
Several fans and players thought Freddie was Frankie’s son (Picture: BBC / Studio Lambert)
She explained: ‘I said I was doing an interior design project in the Hebrides. So I was still in Scotland, but there was no Wi Fi and no TV, no nothing.
‘They couldn’t quite get their head around that, but they did actually believe me, and it’s probably the biggest lie I told out of the whole experience.
‘I didn’t lie once in the castle. So my biggest lie was actually just where I was.’
After the casting team contacted her to be a part of the show, she considered whether one of her sons would play the game with her, but decided against it after Diane and Ross appeared on the programme last year.
Frankie became a ‘Seer’ in the final episode in a huge twist (Picture: BBC / Studio Lambert)
Before the show aired, Frankie had shared that her motivation behind playing had to do with her sons, saying: ‘I’ve got four sons, and I think they just see me as mum, and that I do Interior Design – I don’t think they even realise what that involves. I believe they literally think I just plump cushions and hang some curtains.
‘I also entered the competition on a personal level which was I really wanted to challenge myself. I suppose part of me wants to show my sons that anything’s possible.’
Talking about the prospect of winning the prize money, she added: ‘I would put it towards my boys, who are the motivations of my life. When I was a single mum, I had a difficult time, and then people started to say, “Oh, I like the way you’ve done your house. Can you come and do my house?”
‘The requests kept coming and soon I was designing for stately homes and hotels. So it was a strange experience, but I was to able build a business and provide for my kids, and that’s always been my motivation.’
She faced a huge final challenge with Alexander as they dangled from a helicopter (Picture: BBC / Studio Lambert)
Despite the fact that she didn’t win the game and suffered a turbulent final few hours as the task of being a Seer took its toll and she was forced to try and convince the others that she was truly a Faithful, Frankie declared she had ‘the best time’.
She said: ‘I had the best time. Even when I was dangling from a helicopter thinking I was about to pass out or being interrogated at the round table, there was still a part of me just relishing every moment of being there and enjoying it.
‘I just had the best, fantastic experience and time doing it.’
Her final challenge saw her dangling feet above the ground from a helicopter, and attempting to throw bags of money into a ring of fire.
Recalling her terror, she said: ‘No part of my body wanted to do it, and I was worried that I’d actually not stay conscious, or that I was going to throw up on the camera, but I just thought that I’d got this far in the game… I don’t even go on the tea cups at a fairground! I always have to sit at the front because I get terrible motion sickness, I hate heights.’
She went on: ‘I thought I’d be so cross with myself if I didn’t do it, and if the boys saw that I didn’t do it, they would be like, “Mum, you’re so boring, you never even go into that roller coaster.”
‘So I thought, I’m just going do it. This is a once in a lifetime moment, and I strangely liked it and didn’t like it at the same time. But I’m really proud that I did it.’
The Traitors is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
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