Over the course of the last three episodes of The Traitors, it’s become clear that this season will be nothing like last season. Last season, for weeks on end, the Faithfuls struggled to find a Traitor in the midst, and banishment after banishment they were left bewildered and stumped. Not to mention the fact that at least three of the four Traitors last year (Phaedra, Parvati and Kate) excelled at shape-shifting and appearing neutral (Dan had his moments, but ultimately he did himself in), while this year’s Traitors are all doing SO MUCH.
Sure, Boston Rob has historically been a strategic mastermind, but in selling out of one his own, Bob The Drag Queen, he put a target on his own back, and betrayed the trust of fellow Traitors Danielle and Carolyn. And once that happened, it seemed like it was a Traitor free-for-all, with Danielle starting to spread Carolyn’s name around as a Traitor, too. It’s all so unbecoming, so crass… honestly, so un-Phaedra. At the beginning of this week’s episode, Danielle admits to Carolyn that she did start spreading her name around, but then the three remaining Traitors appear to have a come-to-Jesus moment and realize maybe they’re stronger as a unit. They hug, apologize, Carolyn tells Danielle and Rob she still wants to murder them, and all is right in the turret. Well, at least for the night because the following day, Carolyn and Danielle’s drama is going to resurface.
While debating who they should murder, they float Ivar Mountbatten, Bob Harper, and Wes Bergmann’s names. At breakfast the next day, Derrick makes the fine point that, after all the scheming and, y’know, strategery that Boston Rob has been pulling off thus far, if he’s a Faithful, he should absolutely be getting murdered right about now, because why would any Traitor put up with him? Derrick’s basically like, if Boston Rob is still alive by the time I eat my eggs, he’s clearly a Traitor and I’m coming for him. When Boston Rob walks through the door, Derrick’s mind seems made up. And in the end, it was Bob H., friend to all, who got the axe. “No f—ing way!” he says when he reads the Traitor’s decree declaring him murdered.
That day’s mission involves unlocking a bunch of trunks filled with either gunpowder or immunity shields (Carolyn immediately grabs a shield like a Faithful would, unlike Danielle who gave one to Dolores the previous day because… I don’t know. Chrishell and Dylan also get one.) The goal of the mission is to fill a barrel with enough of the gunpowder so that they can blow up a 20-foot statue of a Traitor. During the mission – which they do complete successfully, Traitor go boom – Carolyn wrestles it out of Gabby that Danielle has indeed been spreading her name as a possible Traitor. Those amends they made in the turret mean nothing to Carolyn now.
Have I mentioned how much I love the post-mission meal? Not for the conversation but because it’s literally just my dream to live in Alan Cumming’s house and have all my meals catered. So many salads! So many meat skewers! At this week’s post-mission meal, everyone starts floating theories per usual, with Wes revealing to Dolores that Tom Sandoval has put her name out there as his top pick for banishment.
I’m not terribly impressed by Tom “Wrong Answers Only” Sandoval’s turn on this show so far, but is it possible he’ll become the MJ of this season and somehow take it all the way to the end? I guess if anyone could surprise us it would be him. Or Sam Asghari, who isn’t even worth murdering because he’s basically already a ghost on this show. Either way, Tom’s theory doesn’t gain traction, but at the Round Table, the two names that everyone begins to debate are Rob and Wes and the two men argue over over who’s telling the truth. When Gabby and Chrishell accuse Wes of demanding loyalty of them and pressuring them to vote for whoever he picks, he gets defensive and explains that anyone who votes for him tonight, “I’ve got my eye on you.” It’s a threat that no one takes kindly, but it’s quickly overshadowed by Carolyn who pipes up for one of the first times all season during a Round Table conversation.
Carolyn explains that because she’s a little weird, she didn’t come into this game with allies and the one ally she thought he had was Danielle. Until recently. Carolyn lays into Danielle as a backstabber who can’t be trusted, and Danielle, denying it all (even though it’s true) keeps her cool while Carolyn sobs. Rob seems relieved to have some of the heat off of him, but good lord, to have three Traitors’ names thrown around in one Round Table? This is too chaotic.
When the votes start coming in, it’s closer than any vote thus far, with Rob and Wes in a dead heat (Carolyn wastes her vote on Danielle to make a point, and Danielle is scared shitless about the fact that she voted for Rob, who might turn on her if he stays). Wes repeats his threat one more time, telling those who voted for him that he’ll be coming for them, and when Ciara casts the final vote, the nail in his coffin, she explains, “Wes, I voted for you. Saying that you’ll ‘gun’ for whoever votes for you, it’s just uncomfortable.”
When Wes steps into the Circle of Truth, he drones on and on about being one of the best competitors that ever was, before revealing “I’m a Faithful, f— all you guys.”
To sum up the personal situation with the Traitors, Rob says, “It’s a shitshow, dude. A disaster.” (He later adds, “This is the worst group of Traitors that I’ve ever seen,” a statement with which I concur.) Things devolve even more in the turret when the Traitors confront one another for their disloyalty. “You were making up lies that I was coming for Britney,” Carolyn tells Danielle. “You were,” Danielle says, hollowly defending herself. “In a way.” Now, you know it’s bad when even Boston Rob is like, “What!!?” But Danielle just shrugs, but says that she wasn’t lying at all, “You did bring her name up, you brought it up to kill her.” Ooh, I hate Danielle right now. It’s such faulty logic and even she knows it, and it’s dirty.
“So I’ll just let her know that that happened in the turret? Come on, girl,” Carolyn says.
“I don’t even know what to do,” Rob says. “We’ve just got to go after Danielle,” Carolyn says without breaking eye contact with Danielle. I genuinely love and hate how this is playing out! Will this create an unforeseen Rob-Carolyn alliance where they really do push Danielle out once and for all? I could live with that. We don’t even hear about who they actually want to murder because the answer is exclusively “each other.”
One final though before I go… I hope I’m not the only one who noticed this but Rob has clearly never worn a Traitor cape (or perhaps even a poncho) before and he has no idea what to do with his arms and hands and it’s all I can think about.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.