This article includes spoilers for the first episode of the second season of The Traitors.
After an excruciating year of waiting for Claudia Winkleman and her disturbingly large turtlenecks to return, The Traitors is finally here.
The second season had the daunting job of competing with the first, which produced the most spectacular television episode ever.
However, after meeting the cast of Series 2 and physically shouting at the game-changing twists, The Traitors may have outperformed itself.
We have several high camp loyalists, and more crucially, Claudia has chosen the three traitors: Paul, Harry, and Ash.
But why did she choose them?
‘They were passionate,’ she said at a recent Q&A. ‘You can’t show all of those chats because otherwise that would be hours, but I do talk to them for a long time.
‘Paul was adamant and I mean adamant in the same way that Alyssa in series one she was like, “give it to me – I have come here for this title and you’ve got to give it to me.”
‘Harry, because he’s compelling and I thought would play a good game because he did that whole “you want to kiss me or you’re gonna punch me – I’m going to pretend to be an idiot.” You’re not an idiot so I look forward to watching what happens here.
‘Ash because she really, really, really wants to win the money and she wants to be a traitor.
‘They felt like a good trio and then I wasn’t in control of the fourth which, you know, I’m not a control freak or anything but I was angry about it…’
Claudia summed up her confidence in them as excellent traitors in one phrase.
‘Charm,‘ she said. ‘I think all three of them in their own very different ways could charm anybody. If you think about Amanda, who I still text a lot, she was very charming.’
The Strictly Come Dancing host, on the other hand, would always prefer to be a loyal – and she’s very convinced she knows how to win.
‘If you watch the first series, you work out actually how to win is to be lovable, and inoffensive and to be close to the traitors,’ she continued. ‘I can’t say anything else. Honestly, I’ve probably just been fired but that is a that that’s the smart way to enter the castle.
‘So I don’t want to be a traitor, somebody I suspect is a traitor I’ll just get closer to them.’
In a new twist, Paul, Ash, and Harry each choose a fourth traitor to join them, leaving viewers in the dark as everyone is stuck attempting to figure out which loyal isn’t truly a faithful at all.
Even better, the fourth traitor has no idea who they’ll be seeing later that night when they take off their cloak to murder the first loyal.
The Traitors is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.