Full disclosure: I turned on this week’s episode of The Traitors in a bad mood. All it took was my remembering that Danielle Reyes referred to Carolyn Wiger as Forrest Gump, a cruel, nasty remark that appeared to go unchallenged or commented last week at the Round Table, to make me remember that I’m no longer rooting for the Traitors in this game. Cousin to the King, Ivar Mountbatten, last-Bambi-standing Gabby Windey, Dylan Efron and his beefy Gaston-forearms, and all the rest, any of those Faithfuls deserve this more than this clusterfluff of Traitors this season. Gabby put it best when she said this week, “All the Traitors are clinically insane. There is one more kooker on the loose and it’s Danielle.”
This week, Britney Haynes has been flipped, having been recruited as a Traitor by Danielle. How different would this show have been if she had been one of the initial Traitors? I have no doubt she would have steered this ship in an entirely different direction. As much as she and Danielle claim to be loyal friends despite their shaky footing early on, watching her take control in the turret with a steady hand once she becomes a Traitor was such a drastic change from Danielle’s argumentativeness (and let’s face it, superiority complex) with Carolyn all season. Britney and Danielle decide to murder Tom Sandoval, which seems right for the game but wrong for the show’s entertainment value. (“Who is the most threatening of the guys? Obviously me… I’ve enjoyed this so much, I didn’t realize I was going to be so good at it,” Tom says after learning of his own demise. Never change, sweet prince. He continues writing his own 360 work review, adding, “Overall? I was a pleasure to work with for the most part. And valued. Respected.”)
“Ah, Tom. For once, you actually were faithful,” Alan says during his breakfast eulogy. Let’s hope Tom was buried with that rubber ducky he loved so much.
After breakfast, everyone is left to campaign for who they think is a supposed Traitor, and Gabby goes hard, telling everyone that she thinks it’s Danielle. Danielle then sits next to Gabby in an armchair, just the two of them stewing in uncomfortable silence, each one refusing to move or speak to one another. The tension is palpable. “You cannot hang with me on this battle. I am going to annihilate you,” Danielle threatens Gabby in her confessional.
Danielle thinks she has four votes locked in to banish Gabby (herself and Britney, plus Dylan and Dolores), but it turns out, Dolores and Dylan are still on the fence, which will become very important at the Round Table. At that day’s challenge, Alan reveals a new twist to the game: the player who earns the most gold in this week’s challenge will become “The Seer,” and they will earn the chance to select one other player who will have no choice but to reveal their honest Faithful or Traitor status. It could potentially upend the game depending on who wins that privilege. If it falls into the hands of a Faithful, it would provide essential clues about who can be trusted, but if a Traitor gets it, it could be used for more nefarious misdeeds.
The challenge of the week features flashbacks to previous challenges. One round consists of a game of Ten Clown Monty, and the second one features incredible talking dolls who givetha nd taketh away dollar amounts from each player depending on how many times their string is pulled.
Each challenge offers the players the chance to earn money, and then gamble with their luck to keep playing and earn more, or risk losing it all. By the end of Round Two, Ivar, Gabby and Dylan have all pressed their luck too much and have no money, while Dolores is the only Faithful with anything in her pot. Traitors Britney and Danielle are feeling pretty confident that one of them will become the Seer going into the third challenge, which requires them all to rummage through actual sacks of shit to collect gold coins. When all was said and done, a Seer was determined, though their identity won’t be revealed until after the Round Table.
And what a Round Table it was! Gabby led the charge against Danielle, explaining that she was pretty sure the reason Danielle came after Carolyn was because she was “privy to firsthand information.” Traitor-on-Traitor crime. Gabby goes on to explain that she thinks the Traitors have kept her around because she’s an easy target, to which Danielle responds, “I think you’re super smart, Gabby,” and Gabby shoots back, “I’m not saying I’m dumb.” (A glorious moment.) “I think I could have been kept around this long for this particular moment,” Gabby adds. Gabby and Danielle’s argument ends at a stalemate, but that’s when Dolores, a woman known for throwing away her votes in petty fashion, reveals somewhat randomly that she’s voting for Ivar. Her reasoning, she says, is based on the fact that Bob the Drag Queen tried to vote Ivar out early on, and that has stuck with her. “Dolores wasting her vote again,” I noted. And that’s when the most incredible thing, truly, the most strategic surprise I never saw coming, transpired.
The Round Table vote. I don’t know if it happened through telepathy, darty eye communication or off-camera plotting, but after all of Danielle’s “evidence” against Gabby was presented, she, Dolores and Britney ALL voted to banish Ivar. Danielle, claiming to have had an a-ha moment, did not cast a vote for Gabby at all, likely realizing in the moment that there would always be three votes against her, and any chance to banish Gabby would be wasted knowing that Dolores would be voting otherwise, It’s a stroke of genius that results in a tie, three votes for Ivar, and three to banish Danielle.
Danielle crumples at Dylan’s vote against her. The mistrust! The disloyalty of it all! It. Is. Rich.
But it also requires a tie-break. Ivar and Danielle are told they must abstain from voting, but each is allowed to plead their case. While Ivar keeps his brief, Danielle appeals solely to Dylan, asking him not to make a huge mistake. It’s smart to appeal to his humanity. “You’re going to have the biggest regret if you do this to me. Like she did when we played,” Danielle says, alluding to Britney’s actions toward her on Big Brother. But in the show’s final moments, with the new votes cast, Dylan holds the line and votes for Danielle again. But wait, what’s this? Is it possible that Britney, after exchanging vague eye contact with Dolores, may have switched her vote and betrayed Danielle once again?? That’s what the editing has us believe, but we won’t find out till next week. But oh, sweet Jesus, wouldn’t that be something?
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