In a genius twist – just as cunning as we've come to expect from the makers of the three seasons of The Traitors so far – the murder we expected to happen was drawn out exquisitely over the course of the episode.
We began the show by learning that, yes, as expected, traitor Alan Carr had indeed "murdered" his good friend Paloma Faith by touching her face with the poison pollen. Poor Alan – but what else could he do? Spontaneously grab a relative stranger's cheek?
But while the faithfuls, traitors and all of us at home waited to see the slaying confirmed at the breakfast table ("An all-expenses-paid trip to the castle and not even a croissant?" joked Ruth Codd), we were brilliantly thwarted when all the contestants arrived for their bowls of Shreddies.
The victim, it turned out, didn't die overnight. They were due to die later, during the course of the day's challenge. And so we watched as the faithfuls had to first identify which three contestants the traitors had chosen to lie in their coffins based on a series of clues sung by the funeral choir, and then select which was the real murder victim.
All while sheltering from some suitably funereal Scottish rain.
But when the clue was sung - "You filled the airwaves with laughter and jest, completed your task, now time to rest" - the mourners were torn. Was it Lucy Beaumont or Nick Mohammed? Both had done comedy radio shows, and both had appeared on Taskmaster, which seemed to fulfil the terms of the clue.
What to Read Next
When the next clue arrived in the form of a model of the Apollo 11 rocket, Nick was adamant: it was him. Everyone (except Lucy) agreed equally adamently, and they were wrong. Because Lucy once did a comedy show called Space Mam. She was the actual fake victim.
But why was everyone so confident that it was Nick? It wasn't immediately clear from the context, but everyone really did seem sure. Was there a deleted scene in Ted Lasso where Nate the Great went to the moon? Not quite: because the comedy radio show he was referring to was called Apollo 21. It was a mockumentary series in 2009, which purported to be accounts from lunar astronauts of their time in space.
And so we said goodbye to Paloma. At least she got a croissant.
Subsequently the faithfuls all continued to make the classic faithful error of reading too much into the wrong things, even though at the outset of the round table, Stephen Fry sagely quoted Sherlock Holmes in his observation that "'it is a cardinal error to theorise without data' and we have no data."
At which point everyone laid into Kate Garraway and Niko because they made the other cardinal error of drawing attention immediately at the table to their own position as suspects. If you think people suspect you, don't flag it up!
Traitors flourish in silence...
The Celebrity Traitors is on BBC1 on Wednesdays and Thursdays and available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
The new edition of Living Legends is here! Buy Gaga in newsagents or online, priced at just £8.99.
Editor, Digital Spy Chris has over 25 years' experience as a writer and editor, having worked as a journalist covering TV and movies since the '90s. Starting out as a TV listings editor at the Press Association, he was quickly hired by the nascent Heat magazine, where he rose to become Senior Editor, interviewing the likes of Simon Cowell, Boris Johnson and Paris Hilton. Over the years he has written about entertainment with clarity and wit for Heat, Elle, Q, The Telegraph and of course Digital Spy, and has served many times as a judge in the Royal Television Society awards. He has written and recorded a novelty single with Lord Lloyd-Webber, written scripts for the National TV Awards, made Noel Edmonds cry, accidentally punched an Inbetweener and stolen a small piece of rubble from the Battle of Hogwarts movie set. (They can't have it back.) LinkedIn
