** Celebrity Traitors episode six spoilers follow **
Given how paranoid Ross Kemp spent his first day on Celebrity Traitors, the hardman will be fuming if he manages to get murdered in plain sight.
It’s on a knife edge between Ross and Jerry Hall, depending on who yawns first in the presence of the Traitors.
But after all the yawning theatrics involved, it’s Maya Jama I am most fearful for.
The Love Island host has been an exemplary Traitor thus far. Given the number of times she went into the diary room saying she didn’t want to lose her besties Richard E Grant or Hannah Fry, only to roll over and flatten them at the roundtable, I’m genuinely quite frightened of her.
The 32-year-old has proven to be a ruthless player of the game, which is frankly needed amid my midpoint complaints about complacency elsewhere in the castle.
Maya would never do what Joanne McNally and Miranda Hart have and refuse to vote for someone because they’re a pal.
After she recruited King Kenny to the turret, who has taken to the role far better than anyone else who had it thrust upon them this series, the conclave looked impenetrable.
Which might be why the Traitors producers threw this audacious murder in plain sight at them.
Much like the missions, it is overly complicated and liable to provoke suspicions.
A peacock-emblazoned perfume bottle that had to be sprayed. Then the murder victim needed to yawn. Finally, a Traitor must say ‘Am I boring you?’ followed by the victim’s name. Maya realised the only way to get someone to yawn is to do so yourself.
Bless Maya and James Acaster, but they are not born actors. It might have been amplified in the editing, but the episode ended with an extended sequence of the hammiest yawning I have ever seen. Even Ross, who has acted in EastEnders, looked unimpressed.
Maya’s only gaffes so far have been some miserable recruitment picks, but this yawning business puts the Traitor supremo in real jeopardy. I was surprised she was gung-ho to do it, rather than just making James – who already looks pretty knackered most of the time – take on the task.
Tiredness is a concrete clue the Faithful can point to when Traitor hunting. Last season, Stephen Fry was at his sharpest when he noted that Cat Burns was partial to an afternoon nap and the Traitors would be needing them.
The conclave stays up far later than everyone else to film their scenes in the turret or out in the gloomy grounds. US Traitors star Lisa Rinna said they remained in the Scottish castle with the cameras rolling for hours longer than the Faithful, not returning to their rooms until two or three in the morning.
So when Kenny let out a big yawn along with his Traitors in tonight’s episode, it was no surprise Sharon Rooney leapt on it, asking him if it’s ‘tiring murdering’.
Even always-wrong Joanne brought up the tiredness theory with Romesh Rangannathan at breakfast, making the case for suspecting him as: ‘You don’t lose the rag, you’re diplomatic and we can never tell if you’re tired.’
It puts Maya, the most flamboyant of the yawners, in a dangerous position. It’s a question of whether Ross or Jerry can seize upon it once the murder in plain sight is made known.
If the former supermodel survives, Maya and co can rest easy. The only correct thing Jerry has offered so far was when she cosplayed in a Miss Marple outfit last night and said, ‘I deduce that I am still alive.’ If she keeps being wrong and strong, it will stay that way.
But what about Ross? He is already furious with the Traitors, accusing them of ‘using him like a donkey’. If he finds out Jerry has been murdered in plain sight, the extravagance of those yawns could flicker in his mind.
His issue is that he doesn’t seem to have a clear crew of allies who he could convince of what unfolded. The Faithful remain suspicious of him and his unblinking ways, so the Traitors could turn the doubts back to point at him.
Even if that succeeds and Ross goes, he would have planted the seed of doubt about Maya, who is currently so removed from suspicion that the Faithful volunteered to give her the mission shield.
But that was before she over-yawned herself into the firing line.
Celebrity Traitors returns on Thursday at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
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