This is why The Traitors could be more devious and brutal than ever: spoiler review of first two episodes

Hit BBC reality competition The Traitors is back for a third instalment with some fresh changes this year – and it’s got potential to be the most brutal and devious series yet.

The Traitors is a psychological adventure competition where contestants are moved into a castle in the Scottish Highlands in order to complete a series of challenges and missions together as a team.

Described as the ‘ultimate reality game of trust and treachery’, the mind games and white lies began before the new traitors were even picked.

We’ve had people bizarrely pretending to be Welsh, a former solider claiming to be a beautician and even a secret priest.

In true Traitors fashion, two members from the same family are among the contestants. This gave us one of the most iconic moments last year – THAT wink to the camera by Ross when talking about his mother, Diane.

This year, two sisters in Armani and Maia have entered the competition but they revealed that fact on the train before their arrival at the castle.

With one sibling already suspicious of the other, after she was selected as a traitor, do not be surprised if we see some family back-stabbing going on later in the series.

Going back to the train ride, the first bombshell was delivered by host Claudia Winkleman when one person from each of the three carriages had to disembark and seemingly leave the game before it even started.

The longer they took to make a decision, the more money they lost from the overall prize pot. This was a great test of character and a brutal way to start the show.

But we shouldn’t be surprised.

If you cast your minds back to the very first season, two contestants left just as they were about to enter the castle but returned later in the show. Could this happen again? Most likely.

There are some changes to the format this year – with the eventual finalists forced to use their instincts at the end, as those voted out will not reveal their identity as a faithful or a traitor.

There was even a clever twist on the first challenge which, if successfully completed, meant that the faithfuls would be safe from murder that night. This meant the traitors had to try to secretly sabotage the challenge.

Before this challenge got underway, we had already seen three contestants depart either through murder or banishment.

You do really feel a sense of tension for those at risk of murder and the roundtable is still just as nail-bitingly entertaining as ever.

As the show often tells us, being the smartest can often be your downfall. Yin was immediately identified as being very intelligent and, as such, a threat to the traitors. So off she went just as her journey started. It’s very hard not to feel sorry for her – she would have been a great asset to the faithfuls.

The same can be said for Keith who was seemingly murdered for being too nice.

The faithfuls have so far failed to banish any traitors and have got rid of two of their own – including Ellen, who correctly predicted that there was at least one strong female traitor.

At the end, her emotions got the better of her and that made her look suspicious.

Horsham’s Livi – one of two Sussex contestants on this year’s show – was among those to vote for Ellen.

She said: “I feel emotional. It’s such a brutal game. We need to find a traitor. Being a faithful is hard so I don’t know how the traitors are coping.”

Things are already heating up and there’s even some tension between the traitors, with Armani perhaps too confident for her own good. Episode three can’t come soon enough.

To watch the first two episodes of The Traitors, series three, visit www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0db9b2t/the-traitors.

Episode three airs on BBC One at 9pm this evening (Friday, January 3). The show continues next Wednesday (January 8).