The Celebrity Traitors final review – more muted but still thrilling to the last

The endgame came with perfect touches of turmoil, from last-minute wobbles to yet more wilful wrongness

They took it right down to the wire but in the end we finally got a moment of true treachery in this series of Celebrity Traitors where none of the contestants seemed to have understood the brief. Or the title. At the final round table, King Kenny turned on the queen and voted Maya – with her Cruella de Vil cheekbones but without the villainous heart to match – out.

As if that were not unexpected excitement enough at the end of a five-week, 10-show run whose record-breaking viewing figures have somewhat belied its comparatively muted nature, we had a last-minute wobble from Romesh that threw the endgame into turmoil. Turmoil! TURMOIL!

As Maya left, you see, a shimmering, furious vision in jade, she added to her goodbye, “Good luck. You’re going to need it.” Romesh considered James Blunt to be uncharacteristically dismissive of what that might mean and – à la Nick Mohammed with Joe Marler last year – was suddenly convulsed by doubt and voted to banish the man who could not have been more clearly a Faithful than if he’d been … well, Joe Marler.

Blunt, who had remained so consummately untouched by self-doubt throughout the show despite being 100% wrong 32bn times – “God give me the confidence of a perfectly pleasant white man” could become his new family crest – was shattered by the volte-face. Kenny, meanwhile, silently rejoiced because it left him in pole position to win. Until Bash – Bash, that tiny sweet wisp of a child! – stepped up, split the vote, talked sense into Romesh and got the last remaining Traitor banished instead.

Then it was just the three Faithfuls left, and all were set to call it quits and split the prize money three ways. Except there was one last chance for Blunt to be wrong again and so he looked once, looked twice, and seized it. And was duly voted off. Perhaps “Consistency in all things” will do, in Latin, under a berk rampant. Bash and Romesh split their prize money between two charities for refugees and displaced persons. It was a result everyone could enjoy. And it was some form of oblique justice for Leigh-Anne, who had only ever been cheering up Miranda with her impromptu choreography and it hurt all our hearts to see her suffering for it.

And if that last sentence makes no sense to you – well, that is sort of the point of The Traitors, in its celebrity incarnation or otherwise. You need to get into it. You have to commit to the run. There’s no point dipping in and out – you either get to know the personalities, the ebbs and flows in popularity, the alliances made and broken, the tiny moments that become pivotal (or the huge blunders – hope you’re OK, Richard E G, or the massive curveballs – hi, James A, we’re still processing that one) and join in the fun, sign up to the temporary national pastime, or you don’t.

The latter will piss and moan about its existence and the former will enjoy that rarest thing – a few hours of respite from the world that is too much with us, by immersion in a game that doesn’t matter and that harms precisely no one. It’s true this season is unlikely to go down as a classic – too few twists, not enough suspense, too few metaphorical jugulars severed, not enough Celia Imrie farting in a shack – but it still got its main job done. And left us with the hope that one day Maya will turn to politics, ideally on a joint ticket with Joe Lycett, rise again and come to rule us all.