Warning: spoilers ahead for the latest episode of The Fortune Hotel.
The Fortune Hotel kicked off this week with series 2 on ITV – and it’s safe to say that viewers are well and truly hooked.
In last night’s second episode, there were two shocking eliminations. First, father and son duo John and Atholl were sent home after being handed the early checkout card, and then, at the end, brothers Jake and Mike became the next casualties.
Metro spoke to both of the latest eliminated pairings, and one of them dropped an unexpected bombshell about how their exit came about… a revelation that they didn’t even discover until months after they’d filmed.
The first episode of the new series ended in an excruciating cliffhanger, as couple Nella, 31, and Tope, 34, had the power to give another pair the early checkout card.
In the end, it was handed to Atholl, 30, and dad John, 58, with the former revealing that it wasn’t until months after production had ended that he learnt that fellow contestant James was the reason they’d been booted out.
‘It doesn’t come across on TV, but when you’re actually in The Lady Luck bar, it’s so hard to hear,’ he explained.
‘We were on one side, I could hear what Min and Fred, Guv and Gurks, Maz and Max, and Jeremy and Sue were saying. Anyone else on the other side, I could not hear diddly squat.’
Atholl outlined how, for months after their elimination, they thought that the reason they were sent home was simply because Nella and Tope just wanted to ‘get rid of us’.
‘It wasn’t till we actually got to watch it back, and we were like, oh my god, because James said what he said!’ he added.
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At the start of the season, it appeared as though Atholl and John could be strong contenders, and the latter revealed how they would have played the game if they’d remained in the competition.
‘As the game goes on, there’ll be alliances coming together,’ he said.
‘I think if we had managed to get through that round, I would have maybe tried to get an alliance with a parent, because you’re sometimes better as a double team until it gets near the end.’
As for Jake, 29, and Mike, 33, they’ve had a fascinating journey on The Fortune Hotel, as they found themselves secretly holding the £250,000 fortune in just the first episode.
However, in order to avoid any suspicion coming their way, they had to give the money away by swapping their briefcase with another pair.
Speaking to Metro, Mike admitted that in a moment that wasn’t shown on TV, he actually considered sticking with their briefcase rather than swapping with anyone else. But this would have surely been a huge giveaway that they held the fortune.
‘Mike was going, “Stick, stick, stick.” And I was whacking his leg, going, “Definitely not”, because obviously the cards could have come to us,’ Jake recalled, emphasising the fear they had that someone else would give them the early checkout card.
‘We did the right thing,’ Mike acknowledged, as Jake continued: ‘In that scenario, because the card had gone in front of us, we knew if we stopped, we could have gone there and then. So we had to get rid of it.’
Nonetheless, they admitted that they did go wrong elsewhere by giving the early checkout card to Fred, 60, and Min, 59, as the couple were then able to hand the card on to another pair, rather than being eliminated themselves.
‘We messed up giving the card to Fred and Min, because we didn’t think, “where’s the card gonna go”. We just thought, we’ll be fair, chuck it to the back of the line. Obviously we just didn’t think,’ Mike said, after Fred and Min came last in the first challenge of the series.
Over the past few nights, fans of the ITV show have been singing its praises, with Mitchell tweeting on Thursday: ‘Another great episode I’m completely addicted!!’
‘LOVE The Fortune Hotel,’ Natasha wrote, while Dylan remarked: ‘I wasn’t sold on #TheFortuneHotel first series but I’m enjoying this second series a lot more!!’
Thomas admitted that he ‘can’t wait for next week’ after a ‘fantastic episode’, while Luke hailed it as ‘the best reality TV show on the tele’.
The Fortune Hotel returns next Wednesday at 9pm on ITV1 and is available to stream on ITVX.
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