Semi final stage. For me this episode threw into sharp relief the identity crisis that the series has undergone. It seems to me that all of those involved in the show think that it’s the Traitors. Not least the contestants. But it’s not. Last night’s show saw the 4 remaining passengers plotting with and against each other and agonising over the ways to behave towards their fellows. None of which made the slightest bit of difference to the outcome.
Divided into pairs the contestants faced a challenge to
match pairs of symbols to gain an extra clue. “I have great problem solving
skills” boasted Nuclear Judith. It may well be true, but they deserted her last
night. Now, all four contestants did get to see a number of clues. First up we
saw the Mona Lisa captioned with ‘she’s got company’. You got it? Mona + Co?
Now, okay there was a red herring with the words ‘Ma say’ – Marseilles. But
when all could see some hardhats, two of which bore the names Grace and Kelly,
then that pretty much confirmed Monaco.
All four could have worked that out. Marketing Saskia and
Pilot Josh won the challenge and received the clinching clue – a toy formula 1
racing car. So they knew it had to be Monaco.
This left Nuclear Judith and Taxi Daren to pool their
knowledge and come up with, well, not a lot. Daren misremembered the caption on
the Mona Lisa so plumped for the Louvre in Paris. We were only just over
halfway through the episode’s run time, when SHOCK! Our heroes were ordered
into the map room. Marketing and Pilot knew where they were going. Judtih
thought about Paris, but then remembered how hot it had been during the
challenge and plumped for the south of France. Taxi Daren, with nothing to go
on apart from Mona, went for the Louvre.
Game over for Taxi D. then? Well, not quite. For the
episode took one of the biggest swerves of the series so far. On their own each
player would be asked 3 questions. For each one they would win distances, which
they could either use to move their X closer to the target, or to move an
opponent’s further away. They could stop after 1 or 2 if they wished. However
if they answered any question wrong, then they would not have any distance to
use.
Which is where my observation about the Traitors comes back
in. For their was a clear opportunity for the other three players to conspire
to banish front runner Pilot Josh.
Before I get to the outcome, I will reiterate that I don’t
like these seemingly arbitrary offers of the ability to use what are
essentially dirty tricks. I can’t help it, I think that the winner should be
the one who gets closest to the destination. I don’t like the randomness of it.
We saw Josh use the opportunity to move an opponent’s X 150 km away in episode
5 and I didn’t like that.
Thankfully skulduggery didn’t work then and thankfully it
didn’t work last night either. For all of the hand-wringing and breast-beating
about who was in an alliance with whom, about playing to win and no more Mr.
Nice Guying etc. in every map room the player who placed their X furthest from
the destination has been eliminated. Taxi D’s relative lack of geo-knowledge
actually saved him last time out. Yesterday his inability to separate the
literal from the cryptic did for led to an emotional farewell. Give our regards
to Jackie P., Daz.
----
So, the fact that I’ve written so much about the show is a
sign that I’ve been enjoying it. I’m just hoping that tonight’s final can nail
the landing. What do I mean? Well, in no particular order:-
We know everyone REALLY, REALLY wants to win. So please don’t
show them sitting in the diary room reminding us that they do.
We know that each is playing for themselves and there can
be no alliances now and each will be prepared to do whatever it takes to win.
Likewise I don’t want to see them in the diary room banging on about this.
I really hope that we don’t see a silly challenge in which
one contestant gets an unbeatable advantage. If one of them wins through being
given a dirty trick in a challenge, then I’ll be honest. I will feel cheated.
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