Celebrity Traitors left on a knife edge after a trip to the field of screams

• Spoiler warning: This article reveals details from episode eight of The Celebrity Traitors, series two.

Original Celebrity Traitor Maya Jama, latest recruit King Kenny and now even the reluctant James Acaster - hurrah! - have developed a real appetite for murder this week.

And going into Friday's episode we knew that their collective cruel intention was to see that one of three faithfuls, Miranda Hart, Romesh Ranganathan or Sebastian "Bash" Croft, did not make it to breakfast.

When it became clear that the murdered Miranda had danced her last dance in the castle - leaving only 10 of the initial 21 players - the pressure began to mount and speculation was rife.

The self-declared Miss Marple wannabe had been stitched up, of course. "Miranda is a good detective," noted James A in a flashback to the turret talk from the night before.

"I don't know who I'm becoming," responded Maya - who has taken to treachery like a duck to water - "but I feel it in my loins, and Miranda is the only one that makes sense."

Miranda, who had been in her element sleuthing away on the show, did not take the news of her untimely death at all well, throwing her murder note to the ground. "No! Absolutely not," she cried. "Oh bottoms!

"I'm so cross with myself, I was wholly focusing on my Joanne issue," she added with reference to her theory about Joanne McNally being a traitor - one that even Miranda herself had - unwisely - "debunked" at the roundtable.

Ending on a more positive note, the comedian, who has had health issues in recent years, reflected: "Ultimately, in my little personal story, this has been quite extraordinary that I've been able to get back and do the thing that I love professionally and do the things that I love personally.

"Like wandering around a Scottish island and being in nature and laughing and connecting. There were times that I didn't think that would be possible again".

With Miss Marple now out of the picture, James A told viewers that two of the remaining traitor hunters, James Blunt and Michael Sheen are like "Holmes and Watson".

"Luckily they're completely looking in all the wrong places," he added.

Leigh-Anne, having lost her new Big Mix dance partner from episode six, said she was now praying that the heat on her would go away.

While Miranda was being murdered on Thursday night, out in the real world another Little Mix star Jade Thirlwell told BBC News - at the Mercury prize ceremony - that her groupmate was a real life "faithful through and through".

Those kind words would be worth little if the now nicely positioned traitors kept going at this rate, however.

"This is actually embarrassing," declared comedian Romesh at breakfast.

"We are getting battered," a sneaky Maya agreed. "This is just getting harder and harder by the second."

Nudge, wink.

Breaking character in the safety of the diary room, the Gentleman actress and presenter admitted: "I'm not gonna lie, I feel terrible about Miranda, I really do and she will be sorely missed.

"But with great honour comes great pressure, and here I am, "OG traits", still flying it up."

After breakfast, James B, who has been pretty consistently wrong with his theories throughout the series, continued his fine form, saying of Maya and Kenny: "I think they are the two most innocent."

He joked (it was a joke, right?): "Watching me in this castle must be like watching Sherlock at work."

With less heat on her than Christmas Day in Blackpool, Maya started planting a seed that roundtable "chief investigator" Michael Sheen might be up to something.

"How has that guy not been killed?" asked Romesh.

"It's like not getting rid of [Hercule] Poirot," he added, as the literary detective references kept coming.

Michael and Sharon - fast becoming a dark horse with her theory about Ross Kemp having been killed with perfume - said she was determined to catch a traitor and would "not be taking any prisoners".

On to Friday's mission, as the dwindling group arrived in a "field of screams", as presenter Claudia Winkelman aptly put it, full of scary-looking scarecrows.

"This is like the Wickerman," said Joanne. "A solo scarecrow is sinister enough. A gaggle of scarecrows is terrifying."

The task involved them attempting to retrieve bags of gold from inside the straw men with a pitchfork, in a bid to add thousands of pounds to the charity prize pot.

Joanne's knot-tying badge she claimed to have been awarded in her youth didn't seem to help her much, though, as she struggled initially to grab any gold.

"I have a newfound respect for the farming community," she declared.

But it wasn't only gold on offer, it transpired. An as-yet unrevealed game-changing power would be bestowed upon one player, but only after they had to blow up the proxy pumpkin scarecrow heads of all but three of the most trustworthy contestants.

Things got tense when Sharon, by her own later admission, "got mad at the boys" - James B, Michael and Kenny - over which heads should roll.

In the most remarkably stupid moment of the series since Richard E Grant told everyone he was a traitor, the group chose to preserve the heads belonging to Maya, James A and Kenny.

"I had to hold in my laughter," said Maya, privately afterwards. "Of all people, you saved us. I just thought, 'oh my gosh, have we completed this game already? We are trusting. We are unsuspecting. We are killing you all'."

The special power was revealed to be a double dagger, enabling one of "the trustworthy trio", as James A newly described them, to have two votes at the night's roundtable.

King Kenny became King Arthur being crowned keeper of the special blade.

"I think it's in the right hands," declared James B back at the castle, now colder than ever in terms of catching a traitor.

"I feel like whoever it is, they are five sets ahead of us," noted a befuddled Leigh-Anne. "We don't have a clue!"

Romesh then had to remind Joanne that her policy of not voting off Michael because he's "great company" is not really how the game should work.

With the double dagger in play and time running out for the faithful, Michael declared that he had to catch a traitor tonight.

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As discussions began, double trouble Kenny warned: "Be nice to me everyone!"

"You're a powerful man," noted Joanne.

Bash, who had flown under the radar until this point, drew some heat along with Leigh-Anne and Sharon at another roundtable led my Don Michael.

"If you're a faithful, why are you still here?" Bash asked the Welshman, who noted he had a shield last time out.

Romesh agreed: "I definitely would have killed you by now if I was a traitor. And I mean that as a massive compliment, because I think, for the morale of the group, you not being here would decimate us."

In an attempt to deflect attention away from himself, Michael stressed how Sharon had been acting like a "totally different person" of late.

Kenny bought it, sticking his double dagger into the Barbie actress. And James B voted the same way due to her "suspicious" looking tantrum in the task earlier on.

Scotswoman Sharon received four votes, along with Irish comic Joanne, meaning that - after desperate final pleas from the pair - it went to second round.

"Do whatever youse want, it's a game," offered a seemingly defeated Sharon.

"I wish I didn't take this dagger," said Kenny, ahead of his decisive second thrust of the double blade. "But I'm gonna vote for..."

The producers then left things, quite literally, on a knife edge.

Ten contestant remain (for now): seven faithfuls and three traitors, putting the cloaked interlopers in a great position going into the final two episodes.

With the hurly-burly done for another week, we will wait with baited breath until Hallowe'en's double header to see how the battle will be lost and won.

Celebrity Traitors continues on Thursday at 20:00 GMT on BBC One and iPlayer.