I HAVE TO SAY…

Hello! We’re back with another podcast episode and it’s linked blog post. This one is about The Traitors US, Season 4, and episodes 1 through 8!

If you prefer to listen, you can access the podcast here. Below is an abridged version of the podcast episode!

Today, I have to say, I love The Traitors!

About the Traitors

The Traitors is a competition reality show where a group of people are brought in. In the US, the first season was a mix of civilians, like everyday people, and reality tv celebrities, but to this day I believe that the way that season ended changed the format of the show. Like the show runners and whoever else was involved saw the outcome and was like, “We should not do this again” and so they brought in all reality tv celebrities from different shows, like housewives on Bravo, other competition reality shows, like Big Brother and Survivor, an athlete or two, actors and other well-known or well-known adjacent personalities.

So, in the show a group of people come together and the host, Alan Cummings in the US version, has everyone sit around and close their eyes while Alan selects the people who will be traitors. Everyone else is considered a faithful and the goal is for the faithful to guess who the traitors are.

Things get a little more complicated when you get more into the specifics of the game, because every day there is usually two people going home, one that goes home at night during the roundtable and one the traitors “murder” late at night, after the roundtable. Everyone finds out who was murdered when they don’t show up for breakfast in the morning.

The person who is banished at the roundtable is voted out by a majority vote and then they reveal whether they are a faithful or a traitor. 

Traitors 101

The game is less about getting traitors out and more about making it to the end. I mean you do have to get the traitors out, because if you, as a faithful, make it to the end with one or more traitors still alive, the traitor or traitors will automatically win, which means you don’t get the money, but you also have to make it to the end in order to get the money. 

There’s also no incentive to getting the traitors out right away because more can just be recruited later if you do.

It’s also really hard to figure out who the traitors are. The faithful don’t get any clues. There is nothing to go off of, especially in the first couple days and episodes, so people’s implicit biases come into play, but also tiny things can become big things at the roundtable, which can be both entertaining and frustrating depending on the situation.

But when it comes to approaching The Traitors, it’s best to approach it as a numbers game because you need majority votes at the roundtable to be banished, you need to keep track of the number of traitors you’ve gotten out because it will give you some insights into how many are left or if any have been recruited, and you need to know how many people are left in the game, so you know when you’re close to it being over.

There’s so many different ways to approach the game, and it really depends on the type of people you are playing with. 

From the faithful perspective, you want to be faithful but not too faithful, because if the traitors know that no one will ever suspect you as a traitor, you’re an easy person to get rid of. You need to be smart, but not too smart, be vocal, but not too vocal, because if the traitors think you’re on to them, you’re out.

There is a world though where being vocal can actually be beneficial, because if you’re vocal about who you suspect, it can be too obvious to get rid of you.

But it’s also a strategy to keep your cards close to your chest and to get close to the person you think is a traitor, because you know they will keep you safe and at the final fire ceremony, you can vote them out.

Also, if you’re really good at challenges or if people gravitate towards you, you’re easy to keep around.

But half, really more than half, of the game l is about luck. 

Only a select few people can make it to the end, so the faithfuls really aren’t even a team either because anybody can be voted out whether you’re a faithful or traitor. And you just have to hope as a faithful that people won’t try to come after you for any reason. So, really everybody has to watch their back all the time. Like you really can’t trust anybody or anybody’s intentions to you.

Traitors have to decide if they want to stay loyal to the turret or throw each other under the bus when needed, and this decision has to be constantly made throughout the game as the faithful’s minds sway.

There may be more strategies at play, and I can’t say which is the best to operate under, but I think that being too loyal and taking the role of leading others, whether you’re a faithful or a traitor, is almost always, if not always, a bad idea. I think it’s more beneficial, especially in the beginning, to like, stay in the background and lay low a bit because people who are vocal or who take charge are easy targets, either to get rid of in banishment or at the end of the night. And you shouldn’t trust anybody, no matter what.

My traitor picks vs. actual picks

Going into season 4 of The Traitors I was so excited about the lineup and buzzing with who I wanted to be a traitor. I recognized about half the cast from Big Brother, Real Housewives, Love Island, Survivor, and Top Chef.

I figured there would be three starting traitors, because most of the seasons I’ve watched have had three starting, and I wasn’t sure who would be picked because there were a lot of good options to pick from. 

When it came to the “gamers”, I knew I wanted to see Tiffany as a traitor. Game wise she’s strategic and she is able to build great connections with people, and I wanted to see how she would fare playing Traitors and playing it for herself, because she didn’t get to play big brother entirely for herself.

And if we couldn’t get Tiffany, I was hoping for Rob Cesterino. I didn’t watch his season of Survivor, and even though I recognize some of the Survivor people, I don’t really watch that show, but I do tune in to Rob’s podcast about competition reality tv shows and I wanted to see how he would show up as a player.

I also would’ve been happy with Porsha and Candaice as a traitor, because they both have big personalities and it would’ve been fun to see them together.

I didn’t really have anyone else in mind and was open to whatever. The show is about the traitors, so I knew whoever was casted in that role, we’d probably see a lot of. I wanted personality and strategy in the turret. 

And we did get personality with sprinkles of strategy. I was so happy to see Candaice being chosen as a traitor, shocked to see Rob R actually, and annoyed to see Lisa Rinna.

I’m not a big Lisa Rinna fan, and since I usually root for the traitors, I wanted to see Rob R and Candaice fool everyone and take the money home.

I wasn’t sure how to feel seeing Rob in the turret because I wasn’t a big fan of him on Love Island, but post Love Island I’ve been amused and infatuated and he was lowkey a menace and very dramatic in his Love Island edit, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that his media personality translated so well on Traitors.

Thoughts on the Eliminations

Seeing Ian go first shocked me. I didn’t watch his season of Big Brother, but I’ve heard good things about his game, and it sucks that we didn’t get to see any of it shown in the season. 

I feel similarly about Rob Cesterino’s elimination, because, like I said I didn’t watch his season of Survivor, but it would’ve been so fun to see him playing, and playing alongside Tiffany, especially because I do watch his podcast, like pretty often. With what we got of Rob, it’s clear he’s smart and he knows the game well and I wanted more of him! I hope they bring him back for a future season.

Porsha hurt me more though. I was so excited to see how she would navigate the game and she’s also hilarious and knows how to make a moment.

Ron’s was a difficult elimination to watch. It’s been said already but I do agree that there were double standards at play when it came to him incorrectly guessing a traitor than Colton incorrectly guessing a traitor.

Some of it may be internal. Like Ron might’ve reigned it in after getting it wrong and just stopped being vocal about his guesses, but it also doesn’t make sense how people can label him as more suspicious than Colton who did the same thing.

Out of every elimination though, Tiffany’s hurt the most because it was just seeped in unconscious bias and I really felt for her and felt her tears through the screen. She was really crying for people to believe her, and everyone was committed to misunderstanding, and it was just rough to watch. There was really nothing she could do because they seemed to make up their minds and it hurt.

And if Colton approached it as “I’ve seen you play before and I know what you can do,” I would’ve understood a little more, barely, but still I would’ve understood a little more, why he was so sure she was a traitor, but his assumption wasn’t based off of anything except that he was intimidated by her for whatever reason and he wouldn’t let it go, even when given the facts of the situation.

Eric incorrectly, mind you, saying that he heard her laugh was also crazy and it’s like, “Why did you think it was hers?” His preconceived notions and confidence in the incorrect answers is wild to watch honestly. Like borderline comical, depending on the situation.

Secret Traitor

The secret traitor twist itself is interesting and it could be fun if it was used by someone who knows what they’re doing, no offense to Donna. The idea of guessing along with everyone else is interactive and fun, and though the edit may influence some of our beliefs as a viewer, it would’ve been so cool to put ourselves in the faithful’s shoes and see how off base or right we are.

Part of why faithfuls seem so ridiculous and so wrong, besides how they’re edited, is because we have all the information. So it’s easy for us to say that a move or decision is suspicious or that it’s stupid because we have way more information and in a way we kind of know the effects a certain decision or move will have. Of course, this isn’t applicable to everything. Like, some of the guesses this season, especially with Eric have been so out of left field and they’ve been so wrong, even in the context of us knowing everything. But, there are other times where it’s because we have the information. Like people are saying, “I can’t believe people don’t know that Rob is a traitor.” And it’s like, if you look at it from the faithful’s eyes, why would they guess he’s a traitor? Like what has he done that’s suspicious?  

The secret traitor gives us an opportunity to check our own biases and play along and it’s a twist that I hope is brought back in a future season. I know that it has been used in different countries’ versions of The Traitors and so I will be watching to see what it’s like when it’s actually utilized well. Again, no offense to Donna.

Rob vs. Candaice

Even though the secret traitor twist was anticlimactic and I wish there was a gamer either in the turret or in secret, as a whole, I’ve been really enjoying this season and I actually like it more than last season. I don’t know how I would rank them all, since this one hasn’t ended yet, but in this season, season 4, things really took a turn during The Black Banquet episode. 

It was fun seeing everyone scream at each other and fight for their lives and Yam Yam being dragged out was hilarious and dramatic. I loved it, even though I do get some of the criticism online about him being able to say that he thought Lisa was behind his offing. But I also think it’s borderline nitpicky and I think in the context of this activity it was fine because Yam Yam just threw out a random guess. He could’ve been wrong, and he was half wrong, he just also  happened to be half correct. And again, it was so dramatic and I love the drama of it all, so I’m really not mad at it.

At the following roundtable, we see Rob lead the charge against Lisa to get her banished, and there’s been A LOT of conversation about this online. There’s questions of if Rob was right in turning on Lisa and if he was wrong, and I have to say that I think he did a lot, like he didn’t need to speak up and put the nail in her coffin like that. But I honestly believe she was going home whether or not he led the charge and he could’ve just casted the vote for her instead of pitching an argument against her.

BUT, he was NOT wrong for turning on her. Candaice not turning on Lisa, and casting a self-proclaimed throwaway vote is actually what brought suspicion onto her. If you don’t believe me, some of the faithfuls said in a later episode that it made her look suspicious, and I really think if she didn’t try to stand up for Lisa and voted her out, or even if she voted for anyone except for Rob, she would’ve lasted longer in the game. Those were the first two strikes against her.

I’ve said it already, but I need to say it again. The Traitors is NOT a team sport. It looks like it is because you’re divided between “Traitors” and “Faithfuls” but it’s not. Only a few people make it to the end, and you have to hope and do what you can to make sure you’re one of the people who make it there, whether you’re a faithful or a traitor.

Rob was smart by turning on Lisa, and I’ll die on that hill. He didn’t have to alla that, but why would he go down with a sinking ship? And if I’m being honest, I think his goal from the beginning was to be the sole traitor and take the money for himself, and confessionals earlier in the season hinted a little bit that he was okay with being cutthroat if needed to be. Sorry, but that is the game. Traitors revolves around lies and betrayal, so expecting honesty from him goes against one of the tips I gave earlier. Don’t trust anyone!

And even though it might not sound like it, I am picky when it comes to traitors outing each other.

It’s one thing to vote for someone who is already being suspected by others, but it’s another thing to publicly be the first to say someone’s name.

I understand why Candaice did it on a personal level. She was trying to check Rob and call out that she knew what he was doing, but the second she said his name I knew it would backfire and that’s because it wasn’t a strategic decision, even though it was entertaining to watch and caused the type of tension that is entertaining in these games.

She wasn’t even fighting her fight when she was going after Rob for Lisa. Like, in a way it was avenging Lisa and I understand that it was moreso like, “I’ve seen what you do to Lisa and I know what you’ll do to me,” but I don’t think Lisa would’ve done the same if the roles were switched and I also think there were better ways to go about checking him. Like, I think that was information she should’ve put in her back pocket and used later, instead of outwardly making a show that she was on to Rob’s game.

From the outside looking in, I could tell that Rob has the numbers on his side. He was aligned with the faithful, especially after that dagger pact and because he voted out Lisa. I saw someone saying that it should be suspicious that he would share it with that many people, but I would argue it solidified him more as a faithful because he was showing how much he trusted those people. 

People might read into why she, as a traitor, wrote down Rob’s name later in the game, and I don’t think that game move is justified, because there’s still game to go and he hasn’t had any suspicion on him yet that’s been shown in the edit. And even if this has been done in other countries before, I still feel how I feel about it. Don’t argue with me. 

If that makes me strict, then I’m strict! I love traitor on traitor crime, but I do think some things are in bounds and others are out of bounds and just saying a traitors’ name as a traitor when they don’t have suspicion on them, at a roundtable specifically, I think is not cool.

She should be turning on him and she should be planting seeds cause obviously he wasn’t trying to go to the end with her. And even if he was, like he couldn’t be trusted at that point ‘cause he turned so quickly on Lisa without having a conversation with her. Like, I get where she was coming from but the move itself just wasn’t strategic. And I just don’t like traitor on traitor crime in THAT way. Like plant seeds, but don’t publicly out people at a roundtable.

Of course, I think Rob being conventionally attractive and white plays a role into how he is perceived in the castle, but I think people are downplaying the game he has been playing and putting too much weight on the implicit biases in the game. I think that unconscious biases have played a role in some eliminations, like we talked about it a little bit earlier, but I don’t think it’s played a role in all of the eliminations and it’s not playing that big of a role in the game as a whole the way that people online are trying to say it is. Like, it’s definitely there and should be called out, but to act like people aren’t being strategic, is just a lie. And I don’t think implicit bias played a role in Candaice’s elimination because she just didn’t have a good argument in the first place

Conclusion

Regardless, I’m sad to see Candaice go, and will be tuning in to whatever she does next.

The first eight episodes ended with a recruitment, bringing the traitor tally back up to two. I personally could’ve done without it, and I was hesitant about Rob’s choice, but after listening and seeing people discuss it, I actually understand why he made the choice that he did.  Bare minimum it had to be a man because people were starting to realize only women have been traitors so far and chances were there was at least one man in there. So saying that he just wanted to go to the end with a man is incorrect.

The person that Rob chose is seen as a faithful and I don’t know how much sway he truly has in the house, so he’ll be easy for Rob to handle and personality wise I think Rob can handle him. So far, I think Rob is on track to win, but this is The Traitors. There’s still three episodes left and anything can happen.

I’ll be talking about this again when the season is actually over. It’ll probably be pos- reunion. Depending on what happens it’ll either be it’s own episode again or I’ll tie it into the Reality TV Chat. It just kinda depends on the rest of the season goes and if anything explosive happens at the reunion.

 Next week, we’re switching it up and I’m going to be talking about the Bring it On movies.

Okay. thank you for joining me. Thank you for being here. Bye bye.