The Traitors (US) is an American adaptation of the show The Traitors. Some C list celebrities that you would know if you regularly watch reality television shows, especially on CBS or Bravo, come together with some everyday people in the hopes of winning some money.
Disclaimer: This contains spoilers. This is not a recap and will not discuss what happens in each episode. It’s a general rundown of and my thoughts and perspective on the show.
The premise of The Traitors is similar to the game Mafia or the app Among Us. At the beginning of the game, there are people who are picked to be the Traitors by the host by a tap on the shoulder. The remainder of the group are Faithfuls. Everyone is tasked with completing missions to add money into the pot. Instead of during the missions, like in Among Us, the Traitors “murder” someone at the end of the game, who will then be kicked out. Then as a group, the following day after a mission, everyone votes on who they think is a traitor. The person with the most votes gets kicked out and has to reveal if they are a Traitor or a Faithful. At the end, if there is Traitors left, the Traitors get all of the money, even if it is only one.
In this rendition, there is about twenty or so people and three people at the beginning are chosen to be the Traitors: Cody Calafiore from Big Brother, Cirie Fields, from Survivor, and Christian de la Torre, who has never been in reality television. Later in the show, they recruit Arie, from the bachelor, to be a Traitor too.
The show in itself is most interesting for the roundtables. The challenges mean nothing because the traitors aren’t sabotaging, though on Silent Podcasts, one of the podcasters says it helped with team building. Some of the challenges led to there being a shield, meaning the person was unable to be murdered. However, Arie won all of them so at a certain point it didn’t matter. It would’ve been completely boring if Kate from Below Deck wasn’t there, since she was sabotaging because she was bored and wanted to go home.
Things speed up and I, at least, became more invested when Cody begins to get in his own head and deteriorate as a Traitor. He talks about his mindset on his podcast, The Winner’s Circle. Overall it was hard for him to mislead and manipulate people who he was getting to know and had personal relationships with. He is also used to a team environment and felt more alone in this game.
Cody is the first traitor to go. Christian goes soon after because he talked too much. He gives out information unnecessarily and it makes the Faithfuls rightly suspicious of him.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the show, going into it, but the finale made it worth it. It comes down to four people, Cirie and Arie who are Traitors and Andie and Quentin who are Faithfuls. In order to win and split the money as a Faithful, no more Traitors can be left. They get to the fire of truth where they are given the chance to end the game.
Cirie is the only one who isn’t ready to end the game yet. She says she believes there is still a Traitor in their midst. Arie ends up confessing and stepping out. Viewers saw this as honorable and I did at first. However I now think he knew he was going to be booted either way, because Andie and Quentin had immense trust in Cirie and decided just to make it easier for everyone. Andie and Quentin are excited, thinking it means even more money for the three of them and end the game, only to find out that they actually lost and Cirie was a Traitor the entire time.
The ending was great because of how unsuspecting the remaining Faithfuls were. And although the Traitors definitely have an upper hand because nothing in the game ever points to who they are, it is still wild how wrong the Faithfuls were throughout the entire game.
The reunion came out last week and it seems people still hold a grudge about how everything went down. Cody was upset Cirie and Christian voted him out. Quentin and Andie felt like Cirie used personal information against them. Arie was bitter, I think that Cirie forced his hand.
Cirie played a brilliant game. It helped that the people she played with were generally clueless. No one noticed how she moved with the crowd because they liked her so much. No one paid attention if her words didn’t align. She honestly deserved the money for herself and I have to commend how she played.
In the future, I hope that they even the playing field slightly for the Traitors and Faithfuls. Or at least make the challenges mean something more than putting money into a pot. I also hope the next season is all celebrities or all regular people.
I Have To Say 