Faithfuls Romesh Ranganathan and Sebastian Croft win Celebrity Traitors in riveting final

An often chaotic season of The Celebrity Traitors (BBC One, 8pm) at last comes good with a riveting final in which comedian Romesh Ranganathan and actor and singer Sebastian Croft claim victory on behalf of the Faithful.

It’s been an anarchic and often frustrating return for the A-lister spin-off of the backstabbing reality juggernaut, which started with the farcical self-outing of Traitor Richard E Grant and then lurched into full-fledged absurdity when comedian James Acaster cracked at the round table and revealed he too wore a cowl and hung around in bell towers after hours.

With another omnishambles looming, the grand decider needs to go above and beyond – and it does just that during the final bonfire segment, as butter-wouldn’t-melt Traitor King Kenny is voted off.

It’s a close-run thing and Kenny can see victory within his grasp as Faithful Romesh disastrously mistakes James Blunt for one of the hooded ones. However, the Faithful are saved when Sebastian rightly sees the treacherous intent behind Kenny’s low-key vibes and ousts him.

And so the game ends and the Faithful win ... Only they don’t, because, gasp, James Blunt is fuming that Romesh thinks he’s a Traitor and decides to get his own back. “You knocked me for six,” he tells the comedian – looking so angry you half expect him to do the worst thing he could to an enemy and start singing You’re Beautiful at Romesh.

As a former army officer, Blunt will know about the dangers of jumping on your own grenade, which is exactly what he does as he insists they vote again – only to be expelled, leaving Romesh and Sebastian to stagger their way to glory.

This is genuinely tense stuff – as is the exit of Traitor Maya Jama, banished at the final round table, after carrying the entire show in its early weeks after she was burdened with the two most useless Traitors in history in the form of Grant and Acaster. But despite keeping things on the road early on, her refusal to really engage at the round tables began to look suspicious and, with the herd thinning, her departure was inevitable.

What was more surprising is that Kenny would turn on her so as to avoid bringing a hit on himself. “It was terrible voting for Maya,” he says – not sounding particularly traumatised.

It’s a cracking final and is exactly what The Traitors requires at the end of a season where things constantly threatened to go off the rails. Whether it was James Acaster banging on about not wanting to be a Traitor or Joe Lycett doing exactly the opposite, Celeb Traitors was blighted by celebs who seemed not to appreciate they were taking part in a game – and were expected to abide by the rules.

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One contestant who can count themselves unlucky not to have gone further was Irish comedian Joanne McNally, who made it to the final week only to be banished. She was soon followed by actor Michael Sheen, whom the Traitors murdered because he was far too clever and was piecing everything together.

They are sorely missed during the final – but the audience is at least spared Grant’s demon headmaster routine and Acaster’s irritating ambivalence about the entire premise of the show. In the end, then, the Faithful are the winners – but so, too, are viewers who’ve stuck with a series that, for long stretches, was flatter than Claudia Winkleman’s fringe.