Every year, The Traitors shakes things up a little with a new twist on the show's format. Not enough to up-end the round table, just a little tweak here and there. This year the first of these was the Secret Traitor, a quirk that livened up the first week of the show and put the cat among the pigeons/bats in the Traitors' turret.
For the last week, Claudia dramatically introduced a new power: the dagger. And we mean dramatically. She slammed it point-first into the dinner table.
But what is this sharp and scary device?
What does the Traitors' dagger do?
Whoever has the dagger has a double vote at the round table. With only nine players left in the game, that's the power to change everything.
The additional devious element is that the Traitors get to choose who has the dagger. Will they give it to one of themselves and risk a triple-bluff manoeuvre? Because ownership of the dagger undoubtedly puts a very bright spotlight on the person wielding it.
Related: The last of the Traitors cast, ranked by who will make it to the final and win
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Have they been given it because the Traitors expect them to vote 'wrongly'? In which case the other players will need to look closely at who the dagger-wielder votes for and look in the opposite direction.
Or have they got it because they're a Traitor and need the power to remove their biggest threats?
To say it sets a strategic minefield for the Traitors is an understatement. They have to predict what the other players will think about the person who has the dagger, which means remembering everyone else's opinions of everyone else simultaneously.
Is it any wonder Stephen usually looks like he's about to blow steam from his ears?
Fans seem convinced Roxy is the right choice for the dagger.
"Surely Rachel and Stephen are going to give the dagger to Roxy without any hesitation, as she's made it abundantly clear in front of everyone that she doesn't believe that either of them are Traitors," one viewer wrote on X.
"Give that dagger to Roxy," said another, "She's no danger to the Traitors."
But that, to us, seems short-sighted because if the Faithfuls are sure of Roxy's faithful-hood, then they'll surely take her nomination as evidence that she's looking in the wrong direction.
A wiser choice – if they don't want to risk the triple-bluff – would be to take the chaotic choice and pick a faithful who's been right some of the time. Whatever happens, it's raised the stakes for the Traitors and made a high-risk situation even harder to navigate.
Good work, The Traitors…
The Traitors season 4 airs on BBC One and iPlayer.
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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
