Celebrity Traitors proved nice guys can win a game of lies

Spoilers ahead. What happens when a show built on betrayal ends with two men hugging and revealing that they're both honest? Apparently, the internet cries happy tears. That was the scene on Friday night, when Faithfuls Romesh Ranganathan and Sebastian "Bash" Croft won season 2 of The Celebrity Traitors and split the prize pot.

The facts: the Traitors lost, and plenty of people were thrilled

Per Metro, the final pot was £83,000 for charity. Traitors Maya Jama and King Kenny had murdered Michael Sheen before the last roundtable. Maya was then banished, with Kenny casting the deciding vote against his fellow Traitor. In the endgame, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and then Kenny went out. James Blunt insisted on one more vote, which sent him home too and left only Romesh and Bash. Both were Faithful, so the money was split.

The fan reaction was warm. One viewer quoted by Metro wrote: "I've got tears in my eyes. The perfect two to win. Love the love between Romesh and Bash." Bash himself said it "might actually be the best day of my life."

Warmth won, but let's not overstate it

The tempting thesis is that audiences now prefer kindness to ruthlessness. We think that's half right. Last year, as Express reports, Alan Carr won as a Traitor and took the whole pot. The finale of that series became the most-watched UK television broadcast of 2025, peaking at 12 million live viewers. Nobody was punishing treachery then. Viewers rewarded a villain they adored.

So the lesson isn't that nice beats nasty. Audiences reward charm, and charm can be devious or sweet. Alan was a lovable liar. Romesh and Bash were lovable survivors. The common thread is that we want to like the winner. The cruel, calculating player has rarely been the one we cheer for, on this show or most others.

It also helps that this is a charity format. Nobody here is pocketing the cash, and when the money goes to good causes, a Faithful win feels like a communal gift rather than a heist. A Traitor victory means the Faithfuls leave with nothing. A Faithful victory means everyone's goodness is vindicated. Of course that lands softly.

The warmth has a cost: the season felt too polite

Not everyone loved it. The Independent's review headline called the finale "an anticlimactic finish to a frustrating sophomore series", and The Guardian's headline spoke of "Sky-high ratings - for a lacklustre series". Headlines are not full arguments, and we won't pretend to know what the pieces say beyond them. But they point to a real tension. A game that depends on suspicion gets duller when its players are this agreeable.

There's evidence of that in the season's own events. James Acaster, a reluctant Traitor, told the group he was a Traitor before being voted out. Some fans were angry that it influenced the roundtable, while others defended him. His own explanation, per Metro, was that he reminded himself the players "don't have a game" without someone playing the Traitor. That's a lovely sentiment, and also a slightly alarming one for a show whose engine is deception. When the villains apologize in advance, the drama thins.

Our verdict: enjoy the glow, but demand sharper Traitors

The feel-good ending was earned. Bash and Romesh were, in the words of one Metro live-blog writer, "savvy players throughout." It was a fine, human finale. And it also became a small culture-war flashpoint, because Express reports some viewers raged at the winners' choices of refugee charities. Warmth, it seems, is only universal until someone reads the charity list.

Our advice to the BBC is simple. Keep casting people we love, but cast a few who will lie without a eulogy for the game. The best seasons of this format probably need at least one Traitor who isn't sorry. Let us root for the nice guys, but make them sweat for it.