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The Traitors

The Traitors caught my eye due to the location, premise, and twist on the normal competition reality show. Ten contestants locked in a remote castle in Scotland. Three of them are traitors – picked randomly by the show host Alan Cumming – while the rest are faithfuls. The faithfuls must figure out who the traitors are before the traitors knock the faithfuls off one by one.

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The Traitors

The contestants are made up of ten “celebrities” from other reality shows like Big Brother, Survivor, Below Deck, and Real Housewives. Plus ten regular human beings. This mix made for an interesting dynamic. Most realty TV stars are simply people who have played other games before. Sure this gives them a slight advantage when it comes to social game play, but other than that it is equal footing.

The contestants must earn money each day by competing in challenges. This means that even a real housewife has to get her hands dirty if she wants a chance at winning anything. The challenges also helps you get to know your fellow player. Remember, at the end of the day the motive is to flush out the traitors.

For me personally I would not want to be a traitor. Yes your chances of winning the money are greater, but the constant lying and manipulation would be exhausting. We even see a few times the emotional toll it plays. As friendships are built you have to lie to someone’s face constantly that you are starting to care about.

The social aspect of the game says a lot about us as people. There are times when Mob Rules take over the decision making. A contestant might be convinced someone else is a traitor. They do everything in their power to convince everyone else of this. The accused can beg, cry, and plead all the want; to no avail. Then the group finds they voted out one of their own.

This was a great show to binge and a lot of fun to watch. Full of humor, frustration, and a poignant look at human nature. I hope they come back with another season. Check it out now streaming on Peacock.

WARNING – SPOILERS BELOW

The most intriguing part of this show was watching how far people are willing to go to win the money. How much they are willing to lie to and deceive another human, just to win some money. Granted, yes, they all signed up for the same show. But in the final episode it is gut wrenching to watch.

A catch to the show is that if only faithfuls make it to the end those remaining split $250,000. But if a traitor makes it to the end they take it all, and the faithfuls who made it to the end get nothing. Watching the faces of those who think they are about to get a large sum of money only to find out they get nothing was heartbreaking. Especially when they discover that the person they trusted and helped along the way was lying the whole time. Now this person who you thought was an ally takes it all leaving you with nothing.

One traitor actually quit the game rather than do this. You could tell it wasn’t worth it. Another traitor did though. Can you fault them? Should we judge? That is the question of the show for sure.

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