The key facts
- Miranda Hart is 'murdered' in the eighth episode; 10 players remain out of 21
- The players kept the heads of traitors Maya Jama, King Kenny and James Akaster, receiving the 'double dagger'
- The vote over Sharon Horgan and Joanna McNally cut off in the second round
Miranda Hart leaves the castle
The eighth episode of the second season of The Celebrity Traitors, according to BBC News, left the series 'on a knife's edge': the traitors — Love Island host Maya Jama, recruit King Kenny and, finally, James Akaster, who had recently joined them — decided to eliminate one of the three 'faithful', and the victim turned out to be comedian Miranda Hart. After her 'murder', 10 contestants remained out of the original 21.
The detective who was wrong about herself
Hart, who had behaved like a 'self-proclaimed Miss Marple', failed to spot the threat: the day before, at the 'round table', she herself, according to BBC reporter Paul Glynn, 'absurdly' debunked her own theory that the traitor was Joanna McNally. Upon receiving the note about her 'murder', the actress threw it to the ground: 'No! Absolutely not. Oh, damn!' She explained that she had been focused on 'the Joanna problem' rather than on the real suspects.
The mission in the 'field of screams' and the double dagger
Friday's mission took place in the 'field of screams' — a field of scarecrows, where contestants used pitchforks to retrieve sacks of gold for the charitable prize fund. The surprise was that a 'game-changing' power was also up for grabs: to obtain it, the group had to blow up the pumpkin-headed scarecrows of everyone except the three 'most reliable' players. The players kept the heads of Maya Jama, James Akaster and King Kenny — that is, all three active traitors. 'I could barely contain my laughter. Of all people, you saved us,' Jama admitted in her diary. The reward was the 'double dagger', which grants two votes at banishment; Kenny became its keeper.
The vote cut off at the most exciting moment
At the evening 'round table' chaired by Michael Sheen, suspicion fell on Sharon Horgan, Joanna McNally and Sebastian 'Bash' Croft. Horgan and McNally received four votes each, and after fruitless final pleas, a second round began. Kenny, preparing to deliver 'the decisive blow with the double blade', said: 'It's a shame I took this dagger. But I vote for…' — and the episode cuts off there. The BBC notes that the traitors are now in an 'enviable' position: seven (soon six) faithful against three traitors in the two final episodes before Halloween.
Context and where to watch
Off-screen, at the Mercury Prize ceremony, Hart's Little Mix colleague Jade Thirlwall called her 'faithful through and through, in real life too' — words that, as the BBC jokes, are worth little given the traitors' current success rate. New episodes air on Thursdays and Fridays on iPlayer, and the banished and 'murdered' celebrities discuss their experience in the spin-off Uncloaked.
Miranda was gutted to leave but delighted to have played the game
'The trustworthy trio' — Kenny, Maya and James A — kept their scarecrow pumpkin heads while all around were losing theirs
Kenny double-voted for Sharon the first time around, but we were left guessing as to whether or not he had stuck the knife in her again during a second round of votes
