SourK

Based on watching the other English-language versions, I think the rule changes when they get down to one Traitor. If it happens too soon, suddenly the Traitor doesn't have a choice about whether to recruit or not, and the person they're recruiting gets an ultimatum instead of an invitation. I have never seen anybody turn down the ultimatum and I'm not 100% sure they actually can. I really wish we could see the rules written down.

I was surprised by how sorry I was to lose Tom. I would have laughed really hard if he'd won. At this point, I guess I'm cheering for Britney? I think so. From their POV, they know votes are coming for Danielle, so they have to go with Dolores if she says she's going for Ivar. I actually thought Danielle played that well when she read her vote out -- kind of like, "I'm not going to go after Gabby just because she was misguided and went after me. I'm actually looking for a Traitor." But unless there's stuff we weren't shown, no one made a very good argument for Ivar. I also think Danielle probably won seer. So, if she's about to get voted out and have nobody get the seer power, that's anticlimactic and I can see why they would cut the episode where they did. However, I can also see a scenario where Danielle is not about to get voted out, but she still has the seer power, so nothing interesting happens, and that's why they cut the episode here. Either way, the weird cliffhanger is a good sign that nothing interesting will happen.

My read on Danielle is that she's trying to make herself feel more emotionally and psychologically secure by attaching to some other person she feels she can depend on, and she's confusing that with increasing her security in the game. I think the producers really, really made a mistake by choosing her as a Traitor, because she's not even actually playing right now -- all she's doing is trying to rearrange who's in the tower so that she can calm down enough to play. I feel bad for her, and I'm sure she's doing the best she can, but I also found it annoying watch her act all martyred around Carolyn just because Carolyn didn't want to be her emotional life raft.

IDK. I already can't remember the first season. That might be the end of my conspiracy theory.

I love Carolyn and I'm sorry to see her go, but she really misplayed the chess challenge. Not because of what the answers were -- because she kept insisting on the right answer when no one else was saying it. Side question: Does someone British have to be in the cast in order for the show to get filmed at the castle or something? Because I feel like the American version always has this lone English player. I keep forgetting Ivar is there. I thought it was so funny when the dramatic music was playing and everyone was voting Carolyn or Danielle, and Tom was like, "So, I voted Dolores..."

In principle, I'm fine with the Traitors recruiting, but I think it means the objective of the game for Faithfuls is a little different than stated. You're not really trying to banish all of the Traitors. You're trying to stay in the game until there are X number of players, while knowing who the Traitors amongst them are. When Alan reminded everyone that the Traitors won't reveal themselves in the final rounds, it suddenly made me remember that, if you think you know who the Traitors are, you might not want to vote them out before the end.

Thank you Sam for finally asking the important questions and wanting to hear what Alan was wearing. I admire how steadfast Carolyn is being in just, like, asserting that she has a memory and doesn't have to pretend to trust Danielle just because that would be convenient for Danielle's game. And Danielle's game, so far, seems pretty terrible to me. Something about it suddenly snapped into place for me this episode -- I think she genuinely doesn't know how to play if she can't choose her own alliance. Also, Tom doesn't seem like that great of a person, but it was kind of mean that everyone made fun of him for being the only one who tried to do the challenge properly.

I feel like production probably dressed them in the red wedding outfits, so I'm hoping there were just multiple copies of the outfit. The thing that caught my attention was when they had cockroaches dumped on them, because you don't want to bring those back to the mansion or the hotel.

I have never heard of Tom outside of this, but I like his outfits. I have mixed feelings about losing Rob. He was an interesting player, but I felt like the show was milking it too much. Like, when he gave his speech about Britney, and the music was soaring like it was so happy for him -- I was like, "Okay, he speaks well, but it doesn't warrant this much fanfare." He does remind me of Dan, in that I think he is invited on reality shows partly because he's good at setting up moments for the camera, and he might have been prioritizing that above his actual game. Maybe now that he's gone though, the editing will turn some other people into stronger/more interesting characters. He was really charming in that moment. I thought it was interesting that the all-female pairs were like, "We'll both close our eyes and encourage each other," and the all-male pairs were like, "Snuh-huh-huh -- you have bugs on you!"

I respect Carolyn for not being two-faced and just telling Danielle they're not allies anymore. It might not be good for her game, but I like that she's not afraid for things to feel uncomfortable. Rob can cover his face and be aghast if he wants to, but maybe the lesson is not, "My teammates are terrible," so much as "I should have gotten the lay of the land more, before I made a big move." Normally I think players should focus on voting for people they actually think are Traitors but, this early in the game, I fully support voting someone off just because they're making the show feel unpleasant. You don't have to deal with that every day for the rest of the game. In the last Traitors Canada season, there was literally one person who voted for someone and said, "I don't want you to be on the show," which was hilariously honest. And I feel like that is the sentiment here. I feel like they had the same reaction to Carolyn, and I wonder about what that will mean for Carolyn's game. Because, she's not in a position where she can do a Boston Rob and come to the table and convince everybody to vote with her, but she is in a position where she sort of looks more Faithful, because, when people listen to her, they're not saying, "Here's a Traitor trying to shank another Traitor," they're saying, "Here's Carolyn going off about some person who hurt her feelings -- let's focus on something else." I agree with this. I think, on Survivor, your motivation for doing whatever you're doing is assumed -- it's because you want to stay in the game as long as possible. But on The Traitors, your motivation is the whole thing that people are supposed to be questioning. Almost against my will, I'm kind of interested to see how Rob plays this. But I don't think there's any way he can retaliate against Danielle for voting for him right now. I have never understood the people who lose a game show and then get up and say, "What you don't realize is that I should have won this game show, because I'm superior to you." WTF.

I never saw Carolyn's season of Survivor, but I think I love her? And the more the other contestants talk about how incapable she is, the more I hope she goes far. I think, also, people bring a bunch of baggage in with them that we don't know. Based on what she said during the discussion and then when she left, it seemed like she felt like they were rejecting her for being different -- and not, like, feeling and emoting the exact way they wanted her to -- and, depending on what your other life experiences have been, and I can see how that might make you shut down and not want to say anything. That's a good point. In most hidden role games, it's literally random, but, in this game, people get picked by the producers, so you could speculate about who the producers would pick and why -- especially if you're used to being on television, which these people are. But I feel like reality shows don't want to show the contestants talking about production for some reason. Not sure why.

Episode 11.

Same. I know that's his stage name, and they have to differentiate him from the other Bob when they talk about him, but it made me laugh because it sounded like they thought they had to specify, in every context, that he was a drag queen. IMO, he's not insanely great, but he is unusually cool-headed in his game play. He's the rare person who doesn't go out of his way to be mean and dramatic but would also backstab his best friend if he thought that was the right move, mechanically. There are usually a lot of social politics in these kinds of games where people are like, "Hold my hand and stare into my eyes and say we're allies forever," and that doesn't work on him, so that might be why people think he's intimidating. But, no, it's not because he wins.

This could be true of any version of the show, but I will say it here: IDK whether those bad, weird pop songs on the soundtrack are made just for this show, but I wish they were tailored even more to the show, and literally describing the events. Like, "Ooooo, Rob's gonna turn against Bob; now Danielle's crying; awkward meeting later in the turret." I watched this immediately after the latest episode of the UK version, where they do a different version of the statue challenge. In the UK one, they have a group discussion about who should get the shield, and work together to assemble the statues, and end up doing a vote to make the final decision. And, as I watched that, I was like, "If they do this on the US one, they'll all run up the hill with their own heads." LMAO. Anyway. Rob did a very good job of taking out Bob, and it was the first time he looked like he was having fun all season -- doing what he loves & backstabbing people at a vote.

I just caught up on season two, and I really enjoyed it. One of my fave Traitors seasons for sure. I liked most of the contestants, almost everyone was respectful and a good sport, and a lot of really funny things happened. My favourite subplot was Lauren and Kevin both being Faithfuls, convinced the other person was a Traitor, trying to make a Traitor-Faithful alliance with each other. I loved how, every episode, Tranna was giving these powerful, eloquent speeches about things that were totally wrong. She was a really good communicator in the bridge challenge, though -- she and Lauren both. I do think Kyra's mistake was trying to get rid of Michael John because he annoyed her -- and then gunning for it so hard. But it was also funny that she was trying to throw him under the bus for so long and the Faithfuls were too busy pointing fingers at each other to notice. Neda played a good game, but I thought she had lost right at the end with the Kyra vote. I was pleasantly surprised to see her pull it off, but honestly would have been happy with a win for Tranna and Lauren, too. Had mixed feelings about Nick. He seems like he's genuinely a very nice person who loves his sister, but I'm not sure how I feel about someone coming into the game and trying to help the opposing team. I wonder if she would have recruited him, if she'd managed to get rid of Neda. Anyway, it was a really fun season. I wish they got to play for more money.