If you’re a Bravo fan, the first three episodes of The Traitors Season 3 are devastating. Tom Sandoval is still on the prowl in Ardross Castle, and two out of our four Real Housewives stars—Dorinda Medley (RHONY) and Chanel Ayan (RHODubai)—were murdered in the dead of night.. Traitors Bob the Drag Queen (RuPaul’s Drag Race), Danielle Reyes (Big Brother) and Carolyn Wiger (Survivor) were ruthless in executing our favorite women. Their motive was made clear by Bob the Drag Queen during Episode 2 when he said: “These Housewives are a fucking infestation. They have too much power.”
While he was right about our girls being powerful, Medley, Ayan, Dolores Catania (RHONJ) and Robyn Dixon (RHOP) were not given the chance to share a smoked salmon croissant together in the breakfast room before their group was unfairly broken up. Did Phaedra Parks’ stellar performance in The Traitors Season 2 doom the Real Housewives before they even stepped foot in the castle? Did her shrewd, hilarious, conniving game put an instantaneous target on their backs? Or did their actions in the first mission of the season put the nails in their coffins?
Season 3’s first mission was a doozy. Host Alan Cumming led the contestants to a beautiful Scottish lake where a dragon boat awaited them. He then tasked them with rowing the boat as a team across the water and stopping at various floating pontoons along the way to collect gold and containers of fuel so that they could later light a protective ring of fire on shore. Any player standing within the ring of fire at the end of the challenge would be safe from the Traitors’ first murder of the season. If they failed to light the fire, no player would be safe and none of the gold they collected would be added to the prize pot.
With stakes so high, there was obviously a lot of tension among the contestants as the cast struggled to row the massive dragon boat across the loch. When they reached the first pontoon, they realized Cumming had a twist in store for them. “To take the fuel you must sacrifice two players, who must remain shackled on the raft until the end of the mission,” read Bob the Drag Queen from a wooden sign. “[They] will not be protected from murder tonight.”
As the group hems and haws about who will stay behind, Dixon almost immediately gets up and walks off the boat. “It sucks, but I’m a selfless person,” explains Dixon in a voiceover. “I sacrifice myself for murder so I expect the people on this boat to get all of the money and win this mission.” In the world of Real Housewives, reciprocity is everything. Dixon’s mistake was assuming the rest of the players had the same values as her.
The men in the group push for another woman to self-eliminate, and Ayan succumbs to thte pressure. As she gets off the boat, the clearly confused Ayan asks Bob the Drag Queen what this means for her. “It means you won’t be safe from murder,” he says simply. Not wanting to leave a fellow Real Housewife behind, Ayan continues her exit from the sea craft. “The problem is I don’t think, and I rush into situations,” explains Ayan in a voiceover. “That is dumb. Now I’ve doomed myself to die.” Both Dixon and Ayan acted impetuously—a classic Real Housewives move— but also got out of a physical task. Respect!
At the next pontoon, a similar scene unfolds. Catania, known for her loyalty and level head, immediately volunteers to sacrifice herself so that the team can collect the gold waiting for them. After seeing her friend’s selfless act (and probably tired from rowing), Medley jumps up to join her. “It’s the Real Housewives of The Loch,” exclaims Wells Adams (Bachelor In Paradise). While Bravo fans know Catania always puts the group before herself, the cast of The Traitors does not. “If you get off the boat, you’re not scared. And if you’re not scared, it’s because there’s no possibility of murder tonight,” explains Adams in his confessional. “Now I’m focusing on the Housewives.”
While Adams ends up being wrong, so very wrong, his reasoning is sound—especially since he was not familiar with the dynamics of the Real Housewives. As the women wave to each other across the water, Catania soon realizes what they’ve done. “Oh wait, now they’ll think we’re Traitors because we didn’t care about giving it up,” she exclaims in horror. “Now we’re targets.” In shock, Medley agrees and says, “See, generosity never works.”
Even though Bob the Drag Queen, Reyes, Bob Harper (The Biggest Loser) and actor/model Sam Asghari also sacrifice themselves, the other players end up with only half the gold in order to complete the mission. Afterwards, the stranded players are left on the pontoons for what feels like hours as the rest of the group goes back to the castle to eat dinner. As all Bravo fans know, drama happens in moving vehicles. There are no sprinter vans in Scotland, and the Housewives stew on the ride home. “I’m pissed,” says Medley in her confessional. “I’m feeling a little Housewife-y right now.” In the SVU, she says to Harper and Reyes, “If I’m not murdered tonight by the grace of God, I’m going to remember every one of those faces on that boat.”
While Medley is enraged by the group’s selfishness, and she and Ayan and Catania find more evidence of that back at the castle. Upon their entry into the dinner room, the cast-offs see that the others have already started eating. “They’re not dying and they ate all the food without thinking of giving us some,” complains Ayan. As an Italian woman, this slight is most offensive to Catania whose love language is food and quality time together. “We just sacrificed our lives for strangers, and they didn’t even wait for us to eat,” says Catania. “I’m actually pissed off at that.”
Medley shares in Catania’s outrage. “We are freezing cold and we’re starving,” says Medley in her confessional. “I was hoping at least we could all sit and have a little meal together.” Unlike Catania—who stifles her anger—Medley unleashes on the crew in the kitchen. When Dylan Efron (Down To Earth With Zac Efron) tells her they feel like “shit” for letting them down, Medley responds, “you felt so bad you sacrificed the money for our lives.”
In typical Medley fashion, she lets the other players have it. “I would have never have done what I did for the team if I knew you weren’t all-in,” snaps Medley. “When I saw Dolores get off, as a fellow Housewife, as a woman, as someone’s who’s loyal, protective, and who was working for the team,” continues Medley before she’s interrupted by Lord Ivar Mountbatten who says, “As someone who could be a Traitor.” Medley doesn’t suffer fools lightly and lets him have it: “If I do make it tonight, things change.”
Seeing the chaos a strong and powerful woman like Medley can cause and the ramifications her murder would bring for the group, Bob the Dragon Queen, Reyes and Wiger do not hesitate to make her their first victim. In Episode 3, they later kill Ayan to further quell the Housewife threat. While many players seem to be doubting whether Dixon is a Faithful (she is!), it feels like it is up to Catania to outlast and outplay her fellow contestants. Long live our Jersey queen!
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