After a long, scheming season of The Traitors, the show wrapped up with an Andy Cohen-hosted reunion filled with drama, revisionist history, and conflicts we didn’t even know existed.
The show kicked off by welcoming the season 3 winners, Faithfuls Dylan Efron, Gabby Windey, Dolores Catania, and Lord Ivar Mountbatten, whose correct name pronunciation, even after a whole season, eludes me. Iver? Ivah? WhatIVAR! Dolores is wearing a puffed-sleeve tartan dress that looks incredible and Gabby is in a slinky red dress that shows off her newly-married glow. Dylan is trying a moustache, interestingly. Now that the cast is seated, here are the most interesting Bits and Bobs (and Boston Robs):
Dolores’s Track Record
Andy immediately gets to the point – the elephant at the Round Table, if you will – calling out Dolores for having voted incorrectly 8 out of 10 times on the show. “That’s like my life,” she quips, explaining that pretty much all of her votes to banish Tom Sandoval came from a place of anger.
Danielle vs. Carolyn
When Andy brings out the first four Traitors (Bob the Drag Queen, Danielle Reyes, Carolyn Wiger and Boston Rob), they have all dressed for this. For once, Even Boston Rob, who’s in a suit jacket and left his backward cap home. Bob the Drag Queen even wore red gloves to symbolize all the blood on his hands. Love it. Before he gets into the Traitor on Traitor betrayal that pervaded the season, Andy asks them all, “What the fuck are you guys doing, killing all the Housewives at the beginning of the show?” eliciting applause from the Housewives-heavy peanut gallery backstage. There’s no real response to that, so he moves on, asking Danielle why she was so hell-bent on eliminating Carolyn. It was an issue that existed all season long, but her response is that she though Carolyn and Boston Rob were getting too close and she wanted to weaken their alliance. That’s fine, but then why keep attacking Carolyn all the way to the end? Andy never follows up on that, to my annoyance.
When Andy asks Carolyn if her quirky personality worked to her advantage in the game, she then explains that she knows it benefits her, but it was often hurtful knowing that people were underestimating her or rolling their eyes at her, and the camera immediately cuts to Danielle rolling her eyes at Carolyn. I really needed Angy to bring up Danielle calling Carolyn Forrest Gump, because I would love Danielle to justify that, but he doesn’t. When Andy asks Carolyn, “Do you think Danielle respected you?” Carolyn bursts into tears, eventually answering, “No, I don’t.” Danielle rebuts her by saying she does respect her and she did listen to Carolyn throughout the game, to which Bob Harper backstage responds, “That’s what we call a backstroke.”
Bob The Drag Queen vs. Boston Rob
It’s fascinating to see Boston Rob outside of the game, because I do think he seems like a nice guy who is able to be a normal person on the outside and look in on his gamer self and provide insightful commentary. During the segment about Rob turning on Bob the Drag Queen to get him banished, Rob explains that it was all down to Bob’s suggestion that the newest contestants on the show, the “cage boys,” Rob, Wes, and Derek, could be Traitors. Danielle explains that Bob’s comment “wasn’t that impactful” to the rest of the players, and Rob tells her she’s absolutely correct, but in that moment, he felt threatened and decided to turn on Bob. Even more importantly, Rob admits that he is the reason the Traitors all started turning on each other. “You’re such good TV,” Gabby sweetly tells Rob later, and he replies, “Thank you!” In the spirit of being good TV, he then declares that he’s loyal to “my people” and that’s the reason he keeps getting cast on reality shows, because even though he’s a villain, he takes care of his squad. The uproar backstage from Jeremy Collins, and onstage from Danielle and Bob, is wild because that’s patently false. Rob then admits he’s loyal to his squad until he eliminates them in the end. There it is.
Money > Grandkids
During a conversation between Danielle and Dolores, Danielle admits that she appealed to Dolores’s background as a family woman (and an Italian, Danielle nearly launches into an “Its’a me, Mario!” accent when saying this) when she swore to Dolores on her grandkids that she was a Faithful. “I got you!” Danielle boasts about her duplicity. “You got me, and no one will ever get me like that again,” Dolores says. Andy then asks, “Danielle, did you swear on your grandkids more than once? How do you reconcile that?”
“That money wasn’t life-changing but it would have made a big impact for my family… I was there for the money,” she replies. Yoinks. I hope Danielle’s grandkids aren’t watching.
It’s Britney, Bitch
When the fifth Traitor, Britney Haynes, arrives on set, most of my most pressing questions about this season finally get answers. First, Andy asks Dolores if she was really trying to signal something to Britney with her eyes at the end of the penultimate Round Table about whether she was going to vote Danielle off. Britney suggested as much in the final episode, saying that she though Dolores was communicating a vote for Danielle to her, when in reality, she just wasn’t. “She,” meaning Britney, “made that up,” Dolores says. Britney seems incredulous, but Dolores turns to Danielle to say, “You deserved to get voted out by her. She screwed you once. Screw me twice, shame on me.”
When it comes down to Britney and Danielle’s relationship, Britney cuts Danielle off when Danielle starts to discuss how close they are in real life. “We spent three cumulative hours together before Reindeer Games,” Britney says, saying that Danielle’s story about their lengthy friendship just serves to make Britney look bad. But, she adds, she was “genuinely heartbroken” to feel like she had to vote Danielle off.
Is Zac Efron in the house?
A lot of mean-spirited insults were thrown around on the show this season, and Andy brought up one that was particularly harsh. A clip from the Round Table where Bob the Drag Queen is shown, the moment when Dylan told Bob “I grew up with an actor,” meaning his brother Zac Efron, to which Bob responded, “Not a good one.” Dylan reveals that Zac did see that clip, and his response was, “He asked if you’ve seen Baywatch, he thinks you’ll love it,” eliciting a guffaw from Bob TDQ.
I Didn’t Know They Were Fighting
This reunion special addressed a lot of issues we saw on The Traitors all season long, but it also referenced drama we barely even knew existed. There was a tense exchange between Bob TDQ and Dorinda Medley about Bob speaking ill of Dorinda in a post-show interview and declaring he didn’t even know who she is. When Bob declared, “I don’t have anything against Dorinda!” she turned the shade on him, replying, “That’s great, and I don’t know who you are.” Bob TDQ shared another feisty moment with Chanel Ayan, who said it was obvious Bob TDQ wanted to murder her because she stole focus from him because of how gorgeous and funny she is. Bob responded to her explaining, “When your comedy special comes out, I’ll be the first one to watch it.”
Queen Gabby Gets Her Moment(s)
It’s no secret that Gabby is the breakout star of the season for good reason. Not only did she help the Faithfuls win the game, but she’s proven herself to be a style maven and comedy genius. Those traits were on display at the reunion throughout. Early on, Andy asked her how her experience on The Bachelor prepared her for The Traitors. “Oh, you sniff out bullshit fast, dating 26 men. BOYS,” she responded, later adding, “And now I’m gay!” Later she compared herself to a dollar sign emoji, saying that, like Danielle, she was only “there for the money. If you think I was thinking about anything else besides the dollar sign emoji… you’re dead wrong.” And in another segment, when Andy asked her to do her best Jennifer Coolidge impression, she nailed it, quoting The White Lotus star’s iconic, “These gays are trying to murder me” line. “And all the straights!”
Danielle Gets Her Flowers
For all the annoying things Danielle did this season, the reunion episode went out of its way to shower her with praise (maybe in response to the fact that people found her frustrating to watch? I don’t know). She was gifted an award for “Best Performance In A Scottish Castle” for her daily tears, shaking, and overall doing the most-ness, and then, when the cast was asked whether it’s fair that she was often referred to as a bad Traitor, they came to her defense. Robyn Dixon explained, “I’ve seen online where people say ‘Danielle is the worst Traitor ever,’ but she was there the longest. We weren’t on to her for a long time. So was she the worst? Or maybe just – “
“The most annoying,” Danielle (correctly) replies.
“In my opinion, she did a damn good job,” Robyn adds.
Overall, this reunion was not quite as feisty as it could have been, but it did force Tom Sandoval to admit he wasn’t as good a player as he thought he was, and it prompted some conversations that forced some players to reflect on their good and less-good choices. And it also provided confirmation that there’s more Traitors to come, and the show will be back for season four. Until then, sleep with one eye open, my Faithfuls.
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