Warning: This article contains spoilers for season two, episode eleven of The Traitors Ireland.

Pauric pictured during the roundtable. RTÉ RTÉ

IT TOOK A while to get going, but The Traitors Ireland has found its form.

After a relatively slow start to its second season, the last two episodes delivered the sort of chaos we had been waiting for in some spectacularly misplaced trust, increasingly desperate traitors and roundtables that could have gone either way.

Tonight’s penultimate episode was no exception.

With just five players remaining, Anna and Pete had finally worked out that Carla and Pauric were the traitors. All they needed to do was convince Diego.

Simple, surely? Well, this is The Traitors.

‘Looking like a Fruit Loop’

Pauric was delighted to arrive at breakfast first, giving him a chance to start “planting seeds” before anyone else appeared.

Pete joined him and questioned his decision to vote for Anna at the previous roundtable rather than choosing between Pete and Ian.

He had also been thinking about Aoife’s parting shot at Carla when she was banished. Perhaps the faithfuls should have paid more attention to it.

Carla arrived just as the two men were discussing her, and Pete’s suspicions grew as she and Pauric continued to question Anna’s decision to take €2,000 during the previous mission.

“It’s almost like they’re pushing it,” Pete told the camera.

Carla had her own assessment of him: “You are looking like a Fruit Loop, man.”

Diego arrived confused but keen to explore the possibility that Carla was a traitor.

Anna was last through the door, confirming that Kayleigh had been murdered.

“Absolutely raging,” Kayleigh said in her farewell clip. Diego was particularly shaken, saying she had been the only person he trusted.

After breakfast, Pete and Anna discussed Carla and Pauric, while the traitors attempted to turn Diego against Anna.

It did not seem to be working. Diego suggested Carla might have kept Anna alive precisely because she intended to turn on her later.

Diego pictured at breakfast. RTÉ RTÉ

By the time they headed to the mission, Anna was certain.

“It’s 100 million trillion percent Pauric and Carla,” she told Pete.

The only problem was Diego, whom she identified as the swing vote.

Meanwhile, in the other car, Pauric asked Diego whether he would raise Anna’s name first at the roundtable.

“But I’m not putting pressure on you if you don’t want to,” he added.

The challenge

The contestants arrived in Ravensdale Forest, where Siobhán McSweeney was waiting with some magnificent Irish wolfhounds and talk of a ransacked castle.

Intruders had apparently drained a sacred well and scattered 30 ancient relics throughout the forest.

The players had 20 minutes to recover the relics, worth up to €6,000, and refill the well. If they succeeded with the water, there would be no murder that night.

Cue plenty of footage of Pete charging uphill with buckets.

Pauric also put in an impressive shift, although his motivation was slightly different.

“Me being the super faithful I am, I get the pails of water up the hill, just trying to make it look like I am Mr Faithful here,” he explained.

Carla noticed that his leg was absolutely soaked, while Diego wondered whether her apparent uncertainty about what to do was an attempt at sabotage.

With time running out, the players resorted to scooping up muddy puddle water.

They filled the well with just 20 seconds to spare, preventing a murder and bringing the prize pot to €35,850.

All five would now face the roundtable.

‘You better not fuck me’

On the journey back, Carla attempted to get Anna questioning Pete again, suggesting he might have manipulated her into taking the €2,000.

Anna admitted that Pete had spun her head somewhat.

Diego, meanwhile, asked Pete who he suspected alongside Carla.

Back at the castle, Pauric told Diego he would not mind if Carla were banished, although losing another traitor would complicate the bigger picture.

Pauric and Diego pictured in the castle. RTÉ RTÉ

Carla sensed the danger.

“If you do me dirty, I’m not taking anything in this game personally, but I will take this personally,” she told the camera.

She confronted Pauric directly.

“You better not fuck me.” He assured her he was a man of his word.

Diego then told Anna he intended to vote for Carla. For once, the faithfuls appeared to be getting somewhere.

‘Dropping the bag makes me a shit person’

At the roundtable, Diego declared that this was their most crucial vote yet. There were still two traitors in the room, he said, and they needed to catch one.

Pete and Anna revisited Aoife’s vote for Carla, but the discussion soon turned to Pete’s behaviour and his argument with Ian.

Then Pauric raised Anna’s decision to take the €2,000.

He claimed she had described Pete as a “big scary man” while explaining why she felt pressured to drop the bag.

Anna was furious. “When the fuck did I say big scary man?”

Anna pictured at the roundtable. RTÉ RTÉ

She clarified that she had described Pete as muscular and much bigger than her, not frightening.

Pete, at least, was happy to accept the compliment. “Yeah, you said muscly, and I take a compliment from that.”

Anna then delivered a fairly compelling defence of her decision.

“If I was a traitor, why the fuck would I drop a bag for €2,000, put a target on my back, and have everybody staring at me?”

“Dropping the bag doesn’t make me a traitor. Dropping the bag makes me a shit person, that’s it.”

She turned her attention to Carla, suggesting she had been kept alive because Carla considered her an ally.

Anna also revealed that she had heard Carla and Pauric were planning to vote for her.

Carla denied having discussed this with Pete, whom Anna identified as her source.

Eventually, it was time to vote.

So close

Carla voted for Pete. Anna voted for Carla.

Diego, despite telling Anna he would vote for Carla, chose Pete instead.

Pete voted for Carla, leaving Pauric with the deciding vote.

He chose Anna.

The result was a tie between Pete and Carla.

Both were given one final chance to make their case, and Pete was visibly furious.

Pete pictured at the roundtable. RTÉ RTÉ

“I’m not smirking like some people here,” he said, warning that banishing him would only benefit the traitors.

Carla insisted that she, too, would stand up and declare herself a faithful.

Anna stuck with Carla. Diego voted for Pete. Pauric once again held the deciding vote.

And once again, the traitor saved his fellow traitor.

Pete was banished.

Before leaving, he revealed that he had lied about his occupation. He was actually Sergeant Peter O’Flynn, a military police investigator with the Irish Defence Forces.

He told the group that the experience had been one of the best of his life and that he could not wait to return to his wife and son.

Then came the confirmation.

“I’m a faithful.”

Carla could scarcely believe her luck.

“I’m literally squeezing the tears out because I had to react,” she later admitted.

‘Can a traitor win? Me, yes’

Anna was not surprised that Pete was faithful, but Diego’s change of vote had left her doubting him.

She told Pauric that she now suspected Diego and Carla.

Diego, meanwhile, also confided in Pauric.

Both remaining faithfuls had placed their trust in the one man they really shouldn’t have.

The final four then sat down for dinner, where the game briefly gave way to a genuinely moving conversation.

Anna revealed that she was a postwoman who had been unable to work because of problems with her hips. She missed the sense of community that came with checking in on elderly people along her route.

Carla spoke emotionally about her grandmother, who died in 2019 and had encouraged her to appear on television.

The final four players pictured at dinner. RTÉ RTÉ

Diego recounted returning to Brazil to spend time with his mother after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She later died, and he said he tried to honour her through the way he lived.

The others were in tears, with Pauric putting an arm around Diego.

“She’d be so proud of you, man.”

It was a lovely reminder of the people behind the increasingly frantic accusations.

The sentiment did not last long. At the conclave, Carla and Pauric were already discussing how to eliminate Anna before turning on Diego.

Carla asked whether Pauric intended to betray her. He pointed out that he had saved her twice already.

But in his private interview, he made his priorities perfectly clear.

“Can the traitors win? I’m not sure.

“Can a traitor win? Me, yes.”

The faithfuls may have one last chance to save themselves. Carla might need to watch her back, too.