Celebrity Traitors ended its eighth episode without revealing who leaves the castle, after a second round of voting finished level and the producers cut away before the result was announced.

This article discusses the events of episode eight of the second Celebrity Traitors series, including the murder and the roundtable.

The episode began with the aftermath of Miranda Hart's murder. The traitors had targeted one of three faithfuls, Miranda, Romesh Ranganathan or Sebastian "Bash" Croft, and Miranda did not take the news well. She threw her murder note to the ground. "No! Absolutely not," she said, before admitting she was "so cross" with herself for focusing on her theory about Joanne McNally instead of protecting her own position.

The traitors' confidence

Maya Jama, King Kenny and James Acaster have settled into the game, and the show leaned on that confidence. In a flashback to the turret, James said Miranda was "a good detective". Maya replied: "I don't know who I'm becoming, but I feel it in my loins, and Miranda is the only one that makes sense."

Maya later told the diary room that she felt terrible about Miranda but that the pressure came with the role. She called herself "'OG Traits'" and said she was "still flying it up". Joanne joked that Maya would not be killed or banished because "she's too hot. The hot ones always survive".

Across the castle, several faithfuls were reading the game badly. James Blunt, who the show has presented as persistently wrong, said of Maya and Kenny: "I think they are the two most innocent." He added: "Watching me in this castle must be like watching Sherlock at work." James Acaster compared Blunt and Michael Sheen to "Holmes and Watson", then noted: "Luckily they're completely looking in all the wrong places."

The field of screams

The group left the castle for a mission in what host Claudia Winkleman called a "field of screams", a field full of scarecrows. "This is like the Wicker Man," Joanne said. "A solo scarecrow is sinister enough. A gaggle of scarecrows is terrifying."

The task was to pull bags of gold from inside the straw figures with pitchforks, adding to the charity prize pot. Joanne's claimed knot-tying badge did not help her at first. "I have a newfound respect for the farming community," she said.

The mission also carried a game-changing power. To unlock it, the group had to destroy the proxy pumpkin scarecrow heads of all but three of the most trustworthy players. After an argument in which Sharon was "so mad at the boys", the group preserved the heads belonging to Maya, James Acaster and Kenny.

"I had to hold in my laughter," Maya said 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 double dagger

The power turned out to be a double dagger, which let its holder cast two banishment votes at the next roundtable. Kenny, renamed King Arthur for the occasion, became its keeper. "I think it's in the right hands," James Blunt said. Leigh-Anne Pinnock was less certain: "I feel like whoever it is, they are five steps ahead of us. We don't have a clue!"

At the roundtable, Michael Sheen led the questioning and said he had to catch a traitor that night. Bash turned on Michael: "If you're a faithful, why are you still here?" Romesh backed him up, saying that if he were a traitor he would already have killed Michael because his absence would "decimate" the group's morale. Michael tried to redirect attention to Sharon, saying she had been acting like a "totally different person" of late.

Kenny used the double dagger on Sharon. James Blunt voted the same way, citing her "suspicious" actions earlier. Sharon and Joanne each received four votes, which sent the decision to a second round. "Do whatever youse want, it's a game," Sharon said. Kenny, who had earlier said he wished he had not taken the dagger, began his second vote with the words: "But I'm gonna vote for..." The episode ended there.

What is not known

The result of the second round is not in the BBC's report, and neither is the identity of the player who leaves. That is the nature of the cliffhanger: the coverage can confirm the tie, the double dagger and the votes that produced it, but not the outcome. Ten contestants remain, seven faithfuls and three traitors, with the final two episodes still to come before Halloween. The BBC says new episodes air on Thursday and Friday.

The safe conclusion is narrow. Miranda was murdered, the faithfuls lost another player, the traitors helped decide which scarecrow heads survived, and Kenny's double dagger left the roundtable level at four votes each. Who goes next is still to be revealed.