The Traitors season 3 has been the best television in 24 years

Charlotte saved this series of The Traitors (Picture: BBC)

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Traitors season 3 finale.

The Traitors season 3 found redemption when it mattered most.

I wasn’t always convinced by this series of The Traitors. There wasn’t a second when I wasn’t gripped but for the most part, it felt like Minah was carrying the entire series on her own while surrounded a pack of completely useless faithful.

I couldn’t imagine this series without Minah and when my faith in her winning began to dwindle so did my hopes we were going to get the nail-biting final we’ve become accustomed to.

Then Minah recruited Charlotte and her fake Welsh accent as a traitor and suddenly the stakes had never felt higher. The potential for The Traitors to be pulled in so many exciting directions was paramount and thank god the final week was exactly the torture I love, literally screaming at the television louder than I have since Will Young beat Gareth Gates on Pop Idol in 2001 and the neighbour checked to see if I was ok.

Tonight’s finale was a Traitors-first. Last night, Francesca was given the power of The Seer, the chance to pick one other player and discover if they were faithful or traitor.

Instead of picking a player she was unsure of, she chose her closest ally Charlotte and, against her judgement, it paid off. Unbeknown to Francesca said ally was in fact a traitor and not just any traitor – the last one standing.

Jake, Frankie, Alexander and Leanne made it to the final four after banishing the last remaining traitor, Charlotte (Picture: BBC / Studio Lambert)

Theoretically then, if Francesca had caught the only traitor left, it was surely game over, right?

Wrong.

Charlotte wasn’t giving up and came to breakfast with a plan and a bathtub worth of tears ready for battle.

Still, it never felt as though the remaining faithful – Alexander, Leanne or Jake – ever really bought Charlotte’s story but at no point did I ever feel like the game was a done-deal.

Charlotte played an absolute blinder and was done dirty by The Seer twist, the poisoned chalice for both its beholder and whoever they picked to reveal their true identity.

Four faithfuls battled it out to the very end (Picture: BBC)

It was a Shakespearean tragedy you could never find on any other television show and a poetic injustice we’ve never even seen on another series of The Traitors.

When it came to the final roundtable, it was clear Charlotte’s brilliant time was up. The game beat her when the faithful never could have and she would have been £94,600 richer.

But of course there was another twist to this final – the remaining players wouldn’t know if they’d banished a faithful or traitor until the game was officially over.

They could never trust Frankie and for the first time in a final no one really trusted anyone else 100%.

They had to banish until they couldn’t banish anymore, when there would just be two players left. Poor Alexander’s cards were numbered from the moment he was freed from that cage alongside Fozia. He was the best faithful in the entire game but he was never going to be convince anyone else he could be trusted when surely at least one newbie was a traitor.

Jake and Leanne would have been fools to not have a shred of doubt about Leanne when Charlotte threw her under the bus so brutally.

It felt inevitable Jake and Leanne would take the prize money going into tonight’s final and that’s exactly the outcome we got – but the journey to get there didn’t feel any less stressful than any other series we’ve had so far.

Leanne and Jake split the £94,600 jackpot (Picture: BBC)

It was a wonderful hell from start to finish.

This series of the Traitors has been an endurance test for the show’s most loyal following. At times, it felt unpleasant and got way more personal than we’re used to. The roundtables are meant to be uncomfortable, they are so spectacularly uncomfortable often I don’t want to watch but can’t take my eyes away from the chaos either. But when Kas was ganged up on, Freddie was redirected to tears and Leanne viciously went for Alexander it wasn’t The Traitors I was here for.

Thankfully, the real star of the show – the game – came through. Francesca accidentally catching the last traitor and the only player no one suspected was the most exceptional television in years.

Linda confirming she was a traitor seconds into the game with the first mention of ‘traitor’ by Claudia Winkleman was spectacular; the audacity and delusion of Armani telling her team of traitors they needed to be ‘more assertive’ when she was so clearly next for the chopping block; Minah just being a such a talented traitor with genuine passion for the sisterhood – the highs of season three might have been the greatest highs across any series of The Traitors for me. Even Minah’s eventual downfall, the moment I’d been dreading, was television at its absolute best.

Somehow there’s a whole year to get through until we return to the castle and meet 22 strangers, 19 faithful and three traitors.

Until then, we have Celebrity Traitors coming this Spring which if the rumoured line-up has even a little bit of truth to it, will be extraordinary.

The Traitors is available to stream on BBC iPlayer now.  

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