The task is even more mysterious than usual in this exclusive Taskmaster clip

Even more so than usual, we should clarify, as the clip lays out one of the tasks from tomorrow’s episode, an exercise in deception-based rule following. Suttie and Petts (who’ve been two of the highlights of the season so far; Petts, especially, has low-key stolen the “mad genius” role you might have expected other, more established comedy names to yoink this year) have to convince a watching audience that they either are, or aren’t, getting instructions from a secret earpiece while interacting with big pieces of industrial machinery that we desperately hope aren’t actually hooked up to anything. 

As is sometimes the case with Taskmaster, the joy here is less in the completion of the task itself—since we don’t end up finding out who is, or isn’t, being fed the secret rules—as it is the ways Petts and Suttie approach the problem. Petts, for their part, is a picture of confidence (at least, until they catch themselves poking a finger through a random metal donut right at the end); Suttie, for her part, exudes the same affably mild sense of flop sweat that she’s brought to every task all season—but is that natural bafflement, or a cunning ploy? We won’t know for sure until Thursday, when the new episode of Taskmaster arrives on YouTube, and on Channel 4 in the U.K.