Fiona’s grenade on tonight’s episode of The Traitors crossed a line

Rachel should never have shared Amanda’s secret with the group post-banishment, not because she could have predicted Fiona would stab her in the back, but because sticking your neck out in any way can just as easily backfire as bolster you. 

It doesn’t even make sense to reveal anything about a banished contestant – there’s no use crying over spilt milk, or departed Faithfuls, after the fact. Roxy and Ellie knew enough to keep schtum about their late loved ones.

But the real mortal sin is on Fiona’s part, for a scene of Traitor on Traitor violence that will no doubt go down in the show’s history. 

The murderous cabal is always betraying one another, particularly in later weeks once the herd has thinned and the paranoia sets in, but this move came when suspicion had barely troubled Fiona or Rachel. I can’t think of a more spectacular unforced error.

Fans might have bemoaned the secret Traitor reveal coming too soon, but Fiona’s behaviour shows its biggest drawback yet – going from omnipotent to almost powerless leaves her in serious danger. 

For days on end, she was the only player who could completely orchestrate the game, with near-total impunity. The secret Traitor was essentially a producer.

That power has been taken away, putting her on a level footing with the other Traitors, but Fiona’s accusation that Rachel is donning the cloak has all the arrogance of someone who still thinks they’re presiding from that elevated position.

If Fiona was still operating from the shadows, Stephen and Rachel’s pact would likely have fallen to pieces when the real suspicion started to fall on either, which I say charitably, because it would definitely have been Stephen. 

That said, neither of them would have dared to do what Fiona has. There’s no honour among Traitors and even less when one was once a secret Traitor.

‘This game has officially started,’ Rachel said in response. Except, it hasn’t, because Fiona’s bold kitchen accusation that Rachel is a Traitor, knowing full well she is, will only result in their mutual demise. 

Suspicion can swing like a pendulum from one person to another on things far smaller than this argument. Although I’m as giddy as anyone to see the pyrotechnics go off in that turret during tomorrow’s episode.

What’s even worse is that Stephen is probably on his way out too. 

He had one slip of the tongue at the roundtable yesterday, another at breakfast and has the constant ruddy hue of someone who’s hiding something. What a disappointing batch of Traitors this series has provided so far.

The cast all wanted to be in the turret this series, but on the UK series it’s most often been the Faithful who have won it. Harry Clark’s series two strategy proves that staying under the radar is key to clinching the cash as one of the green-cloaked baddies. 

Every Traitor this series has failed to strike the balance between stoking suspicion among others and avoiding it themselves.

But Fiona has blown things up by openly turning on one of her own for no apparent reason other than annoyance at not having been let in on the secret and – for the first time this series – being out of the loop.

The coming fisticuffs will certainly be good TV, even if it isn’t good gameplay; maybe that’s what Fiona wanted all along.

I backed her as the dark horse to become the frontrunner, but she’s fallen at the first hurdle. 

Either way, she’s thrown her grenade, and the fallout will be explosive.

The Traitors continues on BBC One and iPlayer on January 7 at 8pm.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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