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LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago
Warning: This article contains spoilers for season two, episode eight of The Traitors Ireland.
SOME PEOPLE HAVE been commenting that the drama is slightly lacking in the latest series of The Traitor’s Ireland, but that criticism couldn’t be levelled at Monday night’s episode.
The hour-long programme ended on Sunday night with traitor Carla quite brutally telling someone to their face: “We’ve decided to murder ya.”
But before we get to that, we’ve the little matter of breakfast and the shield from yesterday’s mission still causing tension.
Donal and Anna are the first to enter and get straight into “addressing the shield” which was secretly claimed by Diego.
And while Diego might have been hoping for a quiet breakfast, he is the next to enter the castle and finds himself “sat beside the two ‘raging-because-of-the-shield people’”.
Donal queries why the person who took the shield wouldn’t just own up to it (presumably because of the angry reaction from others).
Anna then says she would love for host Siobhán McSweeney to reveal all at breakfast.
“That’d be the bastard caught,” says Donal, the same person who can’t quite understand why the shield holder isn’t forthcoming.
Elsewhere, Kayleigh is denied another celebratory croissant over a player’s murder.
Kayleigh said she was delighted over faithful Laura’s murder in an earlier episode, and another celebration is foiled, for now.
She said she clocked Pauric O as soon as she walked in and told the cameras later: “Damn it, I was kind of hoping you would be killed.”
Kayleigh goes on to discuss Carla as a potential traitor over breakfast, while viewers hear a song in the background with the lyrics: “The walls are closing in.”
Indeed, the walls appear to be closing in for Carla, and as she enters the castle, it’s confirmed that Seán C was murdered by the traitors.
As the players digest news of Séan C’s demise, Carla openly seeks out a meeting with Donal and Anna regarding the shield.
“I’m after waking up and choosing violence,” she tells the room, which captures the attention of the others, clearly not in a good way.
But before Carla gets a chance to speak to Donal, Kayleigh gets in first and that exchange sets the scene for a tense roundtable later.
She asks Donal who he thinks has been recruited, and the conversation seems to go nowhere. He says any of the “lads” would have made sense for a recruitment.
Elsewhere, Aoife’s parting shot at Carla seems to be gaining traction at last.
Ian approaches Carla to tell her that Aoife, who was recruited by Carla and swiftly thrown under the bus, “tapped down on the board and looked me in the eyes” as she voted for Carla.
Meanwhile, Kayleigh is telling Pauric O about her discussion with Donal, but there are discrepancies with her retelling when compared to Donal’s.
“All I know is, one is telling one story, the other is telling another story, and it’s my job to come in with my big spoon and stir the pot,” says Pauric O.
“Someone’s digging a hole for themselves, and I’m going to throw them right into that hole.”
Amid all this scheming, we get an interesting tête-à-tête between Diego and Janet, in which Janet remarks that Diego’s husband “probably won’t want to meet me now” after last night’s roundtable.
Today’s mission saw the players being taken from their cars by people wearing gold masks and dressed in brown robes.
“Holy Jaysus, what is this?” said Donal.
They were blindfolded, led into a hay shed and chained, which Janet compared to “something from a horror movie”.
The somewhat convoluted mission involved hanging voodoo dolls with the names of each player on them, as well as Siobhán McSweeney’s name.
Once players managed to get the specific key that unlocked them, they would have the chance to “stab” a doll in the back, with McSweeney’s doll coming with a double cash prize.
A shield would go to the player whose corresponding doll was left untouched.
Kayleigh’s eyes lit up at the thought of stabbing Pauric O in the back, but a magnanimous Pete decided that each player would stab themselves in the back to prevent any arguments.
“We’re not going to go against Pete,” says Anna, “because he’s seen as the strongest with all his muscles.”
If viewers struggled to keep up with the mission, so did the players.
Janet conceded that there was “a lot going on” with the mission, while Ian wondered: “What is going on here?”
McSweeney then noted that with the way the mission was going, no one would get a shield.
However, as the mission neared its conclusion, it was quickly decided that Pete would take the shield.
“It was a team effort, yet you’re the one who ended up with a shield,” said McSweeney to Pete, as Kayleigh fired off a suspicious glance.
At tonight’s roundtable, Carla kick-started proceedings and mentioned the unaccounted-for shield from yesterday’s mission, with Anna rowing in behind her to say the deceit was written “all over” Diego’s face.
Kayleigh however pipes up to remark that the “anger” over the shield is “mental” and Pauric O soon draws a line under this discussion, but not before DJ told Carla to “relax” (the second night in a row such a statement has been made towards a woman).
“I’m chilled out, man,” she replies, but it seems that the pressure is indeed getting to her.
Kayleigh meanwhile raises her suspicions on Donal, who accused her of “twisting things” in relation to their breakfast discussion.
“You are literally on television, lying,” Donal told Kayleigh, but it appears that both of them are misremembering aspects of their breakfast conversation.
“Someone is lying, and now my head is scrambled,” says Pauric O.
The suspicion then comes back to Carla, with Janet correctly theorising that Aoife put Carla’s name down after being recruited and then thrown under the bus.
“When she said Carla, she was mad,” adds Janet.
When it comes to the vote, Janet tells the players that she is “trying to not let friendships cloud me in this game” and casts her vote for Carla.
Carla remarks that the roundtable has gone “mad” as she votes for Kayleigh, setting up a three-way tie between herself, Donal and Kayleigh.
At this point, McSweeney allows the three players one last attempt to plead their case before another vote, from which they will be excluded.
Carla says she’s “as confused as anyone else” and wonders how something that happened days ago and is “now coming back at me”. Viewers at home will be wondering the same, given the intensity of Aoife’s parting shot.
After another round of voting, Kayleigh is safe but Carla and Donal are still tied.
“I am older than you, but I actually look up to you,” Pete told Donal during the third round of voting, as it all became too much for Donal.
“You are an amazing person and I hate to do it, but I have to vote for you,” Pete adds as the votes start to mount and Donal is banished.
“The reason why I’m upset is… I am, and I have always been, a faithful,” Donal says as the others crumple with the realisation that another faithful has been banished.
“What a night,” says McSweeney as the tears flow at the roundtable.
Diego remarks that his “head is spinning” because of the “insane” game, but it’s about to get madder.
Because while Carla skirted banishment, the work of the traitors is about to get harder as Pauric O is informed that tonight, they will have to murder in plain sight.
To do this, a traitor will have to hold hands with a faithful and say: “Good night and thanks for the dance.”
The faithful marked for murder will face a slow death and will return for breakfast and face their demise at tomorrow’s mission.
“Happy days, exactly what I need at the minute,” says Carla when informed of this news.
Pauric O and Carla enter another room to strategise and it appears as though Kayleigh will take the fall, as Carla mentions that she, apparently, is “letting people hug her, kiss her, everything”.
But as the traitors deliberate, Janet enters the room to air her suspicions on Carla and inform Pauric O that she doesn’t suspect him at all.
Little does she know, she has presented herself as the perfect prey for tonight’s murder.
Pauric O, “panicking”, hugs Janet as the three of them leave the room and quickly reaches for her hand.
“Good night darling, and thank you for the dance,” he says in a funny accent as both of them laugh.
It seems as though he’s got away with it, until the penny drops with a gasping Janet.
“Did you murder me?”
The walls seemed to be closing in on Carla at the beginning of the episode, but it’s now Pauric O who has his work cut out.
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