*Warning: spoilers ahead for The Traitors
Matthew’s chief claim to fame before this evening’s instalment of The Traitors was that he was one of the miscellaneous white blokes it seemed that none of us could tell apart.
The 35-year-old creative director would pop up in the castle, only to prompt reams of ‘Who is Matthew?’ tweets from viewers.
Admittedly, he hasn’t been given a heap of screen time and when we have spied him at the roundtable or at breakfast, he often looks like he’s bored or asleep with his eyes open.
Perhaps sensing he was being relegated to the role of Forgettable Faithful, Matthew has pulled an audacious manoeuvre in the chapel confessional, in the hopes of conspiring to be a Traitor recruit.
The reinvention of the show’s missions to give them stakes in the actual murder mystery has been a masterstroke over the years.
This latest one dangled a gift greater than the Flavor Flav-style shield necklaces to ward off murder, instead offering the opportunity for some face time with the Traitors. Or at least, letter-writing time.
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When Harriet, Matthew and Traitor Rachel emerged victorious, I was most eager to see what sort of squeeze secret barrister Harriet would be able to put on Stephen and Rachel (who’s on an astounding run of good luck, for now).
But headstanding Matthew has instead thrown a curveball with his attempt to strike a Faustian bargain.
His suggestion to the Traitors that they next murder fan favourite Jessie has already proven Matthew has more mettle than half the turret, after Stephen looked like a wounded dog during Fiona’s banishment. But the temptation to don the green cloak has left Matthew incredibly vulnerable to be thrown like chum to the Faithful at a future roundtable.
Matthew doesn’t know it, but he couldn’t have picked a worse moment to try and muscle in on the conclave. Stephen might have blubbed away as he stabbed Fiona in the back at the roundtable, but he still did it and it will shore up his shaky pact with Rachel, after Fiona’s grenade blew up in her face and shattered the green cloak circle of trust.
Rachel survived the Fiona death match, which was more like a thumb wrestle in the end, but Harriet has told us she has the comm’s manager’s number and has proven she doesn’t drop a lead when she’s latched onto it.
So Rachel will be looking for another person to pin the suspicion onto and the addition of a Traitor she bears no allegiance to, much like Fiona, will be a brilliant choice for recruitment.
And that’s how Matthew may have signed his own death warrant.
Because, whether the Traitors accept or decline his request, Matthew has boxed himself into a corner. Having secured the prized opportunity to have a gab with the baddies, he’s going to have nothing concrete to take back to the Faithful, unless he intends to divulge their plan to murder Jessie.
In a reasonable game with shrewd players, he could get away with it. But on The Traitors, the pack are waiting to pounce on anything they dub ‘suspicious’, whether it be Ross and Netty being on nodding terms pre-game or vibes-based notions of someone’s personality having changed along the way.
The Faithful have banished their own for far less than coming back from a meeting with the Traitors, which they will all be waiting to hear the outcome of, iffily empty-handed.
Just like Fiona’s handbags at dawn fight with Rachel over who was better mates with Amanda, Matthew’s power play is another dazzling unforced error.
So far, Matthew has been as low-key in the castle as he is unknown out of it, having only been on the receiving end of glancing suspicion from James, who is in contention for having the most shambolic judgment of them all this series.
Matthew could have kept his head down for the game and become one of the unremarkable Faithful who emerge from the middle of the pack to end up winning.
Instead, I feel fairly certain the Traitors will take him up on his offer and his proximity to them in the chapel, with nothing to show for it in the way canny Harriet will have.
That will pull him out of the game’s periphery and into the crossfire.
We won’t know what decision Stephen and Rachel will make until next week’s episode, but I suspect that when the ripples of his summit with the Traitors start to be felt, Matthew will long for the gentle anonymity of being the bloke nobody could remember.
Do you think Matthew has sealed his own doomed fate?
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No, it was a canny move
The Traitors continues on BBC One and iPlayer on January 14 at 8pm
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