S02.E06: Backstab and Betrayal

[AntFTW]

Quote

With the Traitors having so far avoided detection, the Faithful finally have a chance to strike back; the treacherous trio starts to turn on each other and faces a difficult dilemma that could backfire.

Air date: February 1, 2024

[DEL901]

Peter…PETER is the strategic genius?   Not only did he peg 2 of the 3 traitors, but he correctly assessed CT’s reaction and realized he was not a traitor.   

[MicheleinPhilly]

Good riddance, Dan! 

I have no idea what his gameplan was here. Go after another traitor, sure. But instead of focusing on the one who presumably has as much heat on her as you do, you go for Phaedra??? 

What a numpty. 

[Thalia]

I know it was happenstance, but it was tragic that we lost the forums after Dan completed his implosion on The Traitors.  I still have trouble believing how he blew it.  I am most surprised at how he didn't seem to try and have relationships with the Faithful.  If I was a Traitor the first thing I'd do is start dishing the conspiracy theories with two or three or four Faithful.  

Anyhow, it was shocking that he went after Phaedra instead of Parvati.   Since the show aired, I've seen analysis that going after Phaedra might have worked if he'd done it earlier, before he was under so much scrutiny.  For example, maybe he could have saved Janelle, and she wouldn't have attacked him as savagely as she apparently did at the roundtable.  

Dan kept saying that when he gave a name it would be a Traitor.  He's now saying that it was a Hail Mary because he knew uncovering Phaedra at this point would be seen as "Wow, Dan really does know things!"   Going after Parvati wouldn't pack the same punch since she was already under so much suspicion.   But Phaedra wasn't going down easy, and the others saw it as a desperation move.  Goodbye Dan.   

And remind me never to cross Phaedra.  

It will be interesting to see if Peter accepts the offer.  I can't remember something.  If he says no, do the Traitors get to immediately murder someone?  

 

Edited February 5 by Thalia

[AntFTW]

Phaedra, even though she’s mad and caught off guard by Dan, still calls Bergie “Bergalicious.”

Bergie was on Johnny’s podcast and says that Peter started laughing with Dan called out Phaedra at the roundtable and said “I think Dan just threw out another traitor’s name” and Bergie says he kind-of believes that. However, he chooses to defend Phaedra if she is a traitor because he’s playing a long game. He would like for Phaedra to not murder him.

Also, they offered to save Dan for one more round if he flipped on Parvati. As we see, he didn’t do that.

5 minutes ago, Thalia said:

I know it was happenstance, but it was tragic that we lost the forums after Dan completed his implosion on The Traitors.

I know! I was struggling last week because no one I know IRL watches these shows so I have no one to talk about it with, theorize what’ll happen, get some insider tea, or just talk shit.

Edited February 5 by AntFTW

[AntFTW]

17 hours ago, Thalia said:

Anyhow, it was shocking that he went after Phaedra instead of Parvati.

I thought it was really stupid to not give up Parvati if he wanted to stay in the game. It was clear that the votes were either going on him or Parvati. He wasn’t going to sway anyone off of himself or Parvati. The only other reasonable shot he could have taken was Parvati, but he chooses the long shot which was Phaedra.

People say they go into these roundtables with open minds, but they don’t. They go in with their minds already made up. The only way they change their minds is if they believe the majority is going somewhere else, and they go wherever they think the majority is going. The majority was going with either Dan or Parvati. The same applied to the previous roundtable when they voted out Janelle. Janelle threw everything she had at Dan because there was only two ways that vote would have went, Janelle or Dan going home.

17 hours ago, Thalia said:

It will be interesting to see if Peter accepts the offer.  I can't remember something.  If he says no, do the Traitors get to immediately murder someone?

I don’t believe so. I think they gave up their chance to murder for a chance to recruit, and if he says no, then it’s a lost murder.

I thought about something. Let’s assume Peter will decline, leaving just Parvati and Phaedra as traitors. If Parvati gets voted off, I wonder would Phaedra be forced to recruit anyone. Being a lone traitor is a safer bet.

Edited February 6 by AntFTW

[ladle]

A minor point in the greater scheme of things: it grates that people consistently mispronounce Parvati's name as "Poverty." Even my closed captioning is now getting in on the action! 

1 hour ago, AntFTW said:

no one I know IRL watches these shows

I have the same issue, and I'm shocked that nobody's watching this. It is objectively so, so good! I was just talking to someone who said that in the UK everyone watched The Traitors, since it's on network TV, but here... tragically confined to the sad garret of Peacock. :( 

[AntFTW]

 

[Ivana Tinkle]

1 hour ago, AntFTW said:

I was struggling last week because no one I know IRL watches these shows so I have no one to talk about it with, theorize what’ll happen, get some insider tea, or just talk shit.

Same! This was such a glorious episode and it definitely sucked not having a place to discuss it.

Dan sure loves to do these dramatic, drawn out ploys doesn't he? His "game" at the round table was so reminiscent of the POV Nomination Roulette and Dan's Funeral from BB it was almost embarrassing to watch. 

Sometimes I forget Phaedra is an attorney, but HOLY SHIT she spanked Dan back to Michigan. Bye Dan, perhaps you should have stayed "retired". 

I definitely think Peter will accept the traitor role, and it will be interesting to see how he plays it now that he's basically the ringleader for his crew. I'm not sure when Peter grew a spine and turned off the button his mom was using to control his mind but I like this version of him so much better than Bachelor Peter.

[DEL901]

28 minutes ago, Ivana Tinkle said:

Same! This was such a glorious episode and it definitely sucked not having a place to discuss it.

Dan sure loves to do these dramatic, drawn out ploys doesn't he? His "game" at the round table was so reminiscent of the POV Nomination Roulette and Dan's Funeral from BB it was almost embarrassing to watch. 

Sometimes I forget Phaedra is an attorney, but HOLY SHIT she spanked Dan back to Michigan. Bye Dan, perhaps you should have stayed "retired". 

I definitely think Peter will accept the traitor role, and it will be interesting to see how he plays it now that he's basically the ringleader for his crew. I'm not sure when Peter grew a spine and turned off the button his mom was using to control his mind but I like this version of him so much better than Bachelor Peter.

If Peter does accept, I hope he stabs Parvati in the back….he can explain to Phaedra that it will deflect suspicion, but if he changes to someone else, people might suspect he has been recruited.  

[Duke Silver]

Admittedly, my reality tv bona fides are relatively lacking, but Dan is the most mehhh "legend" I've ever seen on a screen.  YMMV obviously, but "underwhelmed" would be an understatement.

[DEL901]

32 minutes ago, Duke Silver said:

Admittedly, my reality tv bona fides are relatively lacking, but Dan is the most mehhh "legend" I've ever seen on a screen.  YMMV obviously, but "underwhelmed" would be an understatement.

“Dan’s Funeral” on Big Brother was truly iconic, but it was the kind of Hail Mary that only works once.   Now people know how clever he can be, no one believes him.

[MsNewsradio]

1 hour ago, DEL901 said:

If Peter does accept, I hope he stabs Parvati in the back….he can explain to Phaedra that it will deflect suspicion, but if he changes to someone else, people might suspect he has been recruited.  

My roommate and I were saying the same thing. If we were Peter, we'd accept (everyone thinks he is essentially the leader of a massive group of Faithfuls at this point) and immediately knock out Parvati at the next roundtable. The heat is so high on her there is no way Peter veering off her at this point would not be viewed as suspicious, especially after his "I'm writing Parvati's name here so that people remember once I've been murdered that she is ALSO clearly a Traitor" at the roundtable. It would require some serious tapdancing at this point to save her.

[AntFTW]

1 hour ago, DEL901 said:

If Peter does accept, I hope he stabs Parvati in the back….he can explain to Phaedra that it will deflect suspicion, but if he changes to someone else, people might suspect he has been recruited.  

5 minutes ago, MsNewsradio said:

My roommate and I were saying the same thing. If we were Peter, we'd accept (everyone thinks he is essentially the leader of a massive group of Faithfuls at this point) and immediately knock out Parvati at the next roundtable. The heat is so high on her there is no way Peter veering off her at this point would not be viewed as suspicious, especially after his "I'm writing Parvati's name here so that people remember once I've been murdered that she is ALSO clearly a Traitor" at the roundtable. It would require some serious tapdancing at this point to save her.

If Peter accepts, there is no incentive in saving Parvati. It only tanks his game. She just has too much heat on her to be saved.

However, if he accepts, I think it gives Parvati a little ammunition to plant seeds about Peter, or go out with a bang and throw Peter on the fire like Dan tried to do with Phaedra.

[Thalia]

2 hours ago, Duke Silver said:

Admittedly, my reality tv bona fides are relatively lacking, but Dan is the most mehhh "legend" I've ever seen on a screen.  YMMV obviously, but "underwhelmed" would be an understatement.

As @DEL901 said, Dan really was "all that" on Big Brother.   He may still be the only player in 25 seasons to win with a unanimous vote.   Two masterful seasons, with the second even more unbelievable because the new players had had the chance to see how he worked.   But he was terrible on this game, I agree.  I'm really disappointed.  

Interestingly, last season's winner of the Traitors, Cirie Fields, was on BB this summer.  And she was awful.  At that point I hadn't seen any of her Survivor seasons or Season 1 of Traitors and was amazed at how masterful she was in the proper game for her personality and skills.  

I was listening to an interview with Janelle and she "speculated" on whether Peter would accept the invitation.  Spoiler Alert: 

Spoiler

She was on a show with someone named Johnny Fairplay and Rachel Reilly.  I didn't listen to much because Fairplay is in love with the sound of his own voice and wouldn't let the women talk.   At one point, tho, she DID talk and was adamant that Peter would never agree to be a traitor, that he was all in with the Faithfuls and wanted a Faithful to win. 

Well, I thought about that.  Janelle KNOWS whether he accepted or not.  She had just said she was still in the castle when Dan was voted out and this was the same night.  

 

[AntFTW]

1 hour ago, Thalia said:

Interestingly, last season's winner of the Traitors, Cirie Fields, was on BB this summer.  And she was awful.  At that point I hadn't seen any of her Survivor seasons or Season 1 of Traitors and was amazed at how masterful she was in the proper game for her personality and skills.

I thought Cirie was great in Survivor. Her politics, strategies, and social game was masterful on Survivor IMO. The reason she never won Survivor was pure bad luck. Cirie and Parvati had a very well-known “Black Widow” alliance on Survivor, if you hadn’t seen that season of Survivor yet.

A game like Survivor gets you ready for a game like The Traitors because a good social game wins Survivor like it does on The Traitors. Your key to winning is solely in other people’s hands. The downside to that is, like you mentioned with Dan, people will have seen you play before and assume you’re a threat.

[Irlandesa]

3 hours ago, Duke Silver said:

Admittedly, my reality tv bona fides are relatively lacking, but Dan is the most mehhh "legend" I've ever seen on a screen.  YMMV obviously, but "underwhelmed" would be an understatement.

I haven't heard him but apparently he did a recap and admitted to a lot of mistakes he made.  For one, he kept thinking about what would be good TV (which is why he recruited Parvati)  more than he thought about strategy. 

But I think his biggest mistake was assuming the non-gamers had no game when the only difference with the non-gamers is that they've never had to play a game before not that they couldn't play a game. 

2 hours ago, AntFTW said:

However, if he accepts, I think it gives Parvati a little ammunition to plant seeds about Peter, or go out with a bang and throw Peter on the fire like Dan tried to do with Phaedra.

I don't know if Parvati will try this but I do think she has a little room to put suspicion on him.  He told three people he suspected to be traitors that he had the shield.  (And more that he didn't.)  The fact that he told two traitors meant that they'd be able to figure out he was pulling a fast one on them and I think that would have led to his death or a death in the unprotected group.  And Parvati did realize that.  It's just that Dan was so dumb thinking Bergie was a good move.

 

[AntFTW]

21 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

I don't know if Parvati will try this but I do think she has a little room to put suspicion on him.

Parvati will have some inkling as whether the votes are going her way before the roundtable. I’m sure she’ll talk to people to try to get the heat off of her or buy herself one more day. When she goes into the roundtable, she just might throw it all on the table if she believes she has nothing to lose.

25 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

The fact that he told two traitors meant that they'd be able to figure out he was pulling a fast one on them and I think that would have led to his death or a death in the unprotected group.  And Parvati did realize that.  It's just that Dan was so dumb thinking Bergie was a good move.

It wasn’t the greatest move, but I understand why Dan made it. It was a reasonable response given Bergie indicated he was not going to let up on Dan. I get why he’d take the chance.

I think it was an equally good chance to take on Peter. It’s probably a good guess that Peter was lying about having the shield, so murder Peter. Also, that could have been used as evidence in Dan’s favor if Peter was murdered, because if Dan was the traitor and knew Peter had a shield, why would he choose to murder Peter? The argument could have been made that the traitor was someone who knew Peter didn’t really have a shield.

[LeDucDiableBleu]

9 hours ago, AntFTW said:

Parvati will have some inkling as whether the votes are going her way before the roundtable. I’m sure she’ll talk to people to try to get the heat off of her or buy herself one more day. When she goes into the roundtable, she just might throw it all on the table if she believes she has nothing to lose.

It wasn’t the greatest move, but I understand why Dan made it. It was a reasonable response given Bergie indicated he was not going to let up on Dan. I get why he’d take the chance.

I think it was an equally good chance to take on Peter. It’s probably a good guess that Peter was lying about having the shield, so murder Peter. Also, that could have been used as evidence in Dan’s favor if Peter was murdered, because if Dan was the traitor and knew Peter had a shield, why would he choose to murder Peter? The argument could have been made that the traitor was someone who knew Peter didn’t really have a shield.

 

Dan really should have guessed that Peter was lying about the shield. The quote mentioned above from him makes sense when he says he thought the non-gamers couldn't play, but that doesn't mean he himself shouldn't play. His game lacked any kind of two-steps forward thinking. Even when Parvati explicitly said Peter may be lying about the shield, he didn't take it into account. He had tunnel vision and was like a deer in headlights.

 

I think Cirie thrived in the Traitors because it's a fast-moving game like Survivor. You vote out people every couple of days or even daily, and in a matter of hours after the immunity challenge. You don't have a chance to have long conversations with anyone, and information doesn't have a lot of time to change and be manipulated. Big Brother is the opposite.

 

[Ilovepie]

What a great episode! I am happy Dan is gone - he was really terrible at this game. I do kind of love that he called out Phaedra and not Parvati - Phaedra has too much power at this point, and I love that Trishelle is now going hmmm.......maybe there is some truth to what Dan said.......

I think both Parvati and Peter are now in a tough position. The smart thing is to accept because the deck is stacked against a faithful ever winning. But even if he accepts, I think Parvati is toast. He can't reverse on her after everything he's said about her being next without looking super suspicious, and I don't doubt for a second that Phaedra would turn on her as well. Honestly, if Peter is as smart as he seems he should work on getting Parvati out and then Phaedra and recruiting someone weaker, maybe someone like John.

[sugarbaker design]

4 minutes ago, Ilovepie said:

Honestly, if Peter is as smart as he seems he should work on getting Parvati out and then Phaedra and recruiting someone weaker, maybe someone like John.

or Bergalicious.

[Thalia]

7 hours ago, LeDucDiableBleu said:

Even when Parvati explicitly said Peter may be lying about the shield, [Dan] didn't take it into account. He had tunnel vision and was like a deer in headlights.

Not sure if Dan was doing some creative rewriting of history, but: 

According to a post-show interview he says that while watching episode 5 he messaged Pavarti to tell her that he had no memory of her saying that Peter had to be lying.  Apparently Janelle really went after Dan in the roundtable and out Dan as a lying liar who lies and uses that strategy to win Big Pots of Money.  He was so upset by that, followed by Bergie's assertion that Dan's name had a permanent spot on his blackboard, that he couldn't focus in the turret.  He is now saying that of course he needed to listen to Pavarti, who knows how to suss out lies.  

Edited February 6 by Thalia

[SoMuchTV]

Is it just me but is Peacock making the aftershow/postmortem really hard to find? It came up briefly if you want to skip credits, but otherwise, it’s not in Extras or You might also like. I had to back out and search for it. I only knew it existed because someone mentioned it in a previous episode post. User error?

[SoMuchTV]

On 2/5/2024 at 6:10 PM, ladle said:

A minor point in the greater scheme of things: it grates that people consistently mispronounce Parvati's name as "Poverty." Even my closed captioning is now getting in on the action! 

There are so many regional accents where people either add an r or drop an r, that the difference doesn’t really register for me. But totally agree that the cc’s should get it right!

[AntFTW]

1 hour ago, SoMuchTV said:

Is it just me but is Peacock making the aftershow/postmortem really hard to find? It came up briefly if you want to skip credits, but otherwise, it’s not in Extras or You might also like. I had to back out and search for it. I only knew it existed because someone mentioned it in a previous episode post. User error?

Not user error. I think it should have been in the extras rather than on its own. They post them on Youtube as well.

 

 

[zenithwit]

I think Dan's problem here is he played this game too much like Big Brother.  In Big Brother, you can eliminate your direct threats openly and keep information on a "need to know" basis with the other players.  As long as you can move the people in the middle to vote with you, you're fine.  You don't need to talk to everybody in the house (except for basic housekeeping stuff).

In this game, the murders need to be random to throw the scent off the traitors.  Dan was so lucky that Parvati poisoned Ekin-Su and not MJ like he wanted because Dan would have been out two episodes ago.  What Dan should have learned from that murder was that by going after someone other than the expected target (MJ in this case), the house was thrown into disarray.  Even if Peter was telling the truth about the shield, Dan was being too obvious with the Bergie shot.  This group would have figured it out regardless.

 

11 hours ago, Ilovepie said:

I do kind of love that he called out Phaedra and not Parvati - Phaedra has too much power at this point, and I love that Trishelle is now going hmmm.......maybe there is some truth to what Dan said.......

I think Dan has totally blown up Phaedra's game at this point.  It may have looked like a desperate attempt at the roundtable but now that it's known Dan was a traitor (who knows who the other traitors are), Trishelle is right... a player like Dan would throw out another traitor to save himself.  Maybe if Dan started dropping hints about Phaedra earlier in the day, his Hail Mary would have worked.

Assuming Peter accepts becoming a traitor, I think Peter's challenge next episode will be persuading others not to pursue Phaedra because of Dan's antics at the roundtable.

[30 Helens]

I binged these first 6 episodes in a couple of days, and it’s been frustrating to wait a week for the next chapter. I probably should have waited to watch until it ended.

Watching Dan be the poster boy for How Not to Play Traitors was both hilarious and cringe-worthy. I mean, did he even watch an episode beforehand? Or did he really think this was just Big Brother in a Castle? I had high hopes for him at the beginning because I’ve seen him be devious and manipulative, but apparently he can also be spectacularly stupid. I can’t even get into his multi-point presentation on How I Unmasked Phaedra, because that wouldn’t have swayed a toddler.

Parvati is not doing much better, which is disappointing because I love me some Parv and I want her to stick around. But she’s another one who hasn’t really adapted her game to this setting. In Survivor, it’s good to hang back and listen. As long as you’re friendly and don’t present as a threat, you can go a long way. But here, hanging back and listening just draws suspicion. Has she learned nothing from Dan’s mistakes? At least she knows better than to immediately target someone who floated your name.

Phaedra is the traitor who probably came in with the best skill set. I’ve never seen an episode of Housewives, but I get the sense that all they do is gossip and talk trash about each other, which as it turns out, is wonderful cover for a traitor. 

On 2/5/2024 at 5:10 PM, ladle said:

A minor point in the greater scheme of things: it grates that people consistently mispronounce Parvati's name as "Poverty." Even my closed captioning is now getting in on the action! 

It took Jeff Probst 4 whole seasons to get it right. 

[MicheleinPhilly]

8 hours ago, zenithwit said:

In this game, the murders need to be random to throw the scent off the traitors.  Dan was so lucky that Parvati poisoned Ekin-Su and not MJ like he wanted because Dan would have been out two episodes ago.  What Dan should have learned from that murder was that by going after someone other than the expected target (MJ in this case), the house was thrown into disarray.  Even if Peter was telling the truth about the shield, Dan was being too obvious with the Bergie shot.  This group would have figured it out regardless.

This is what frustrated me about Dan's gameplay from the jump. Could he have been any more obvious? 🙄

[Ohiopirate02]

On 2/5/2024 at 11:55 PM, Irlandesa said:

But I think his biggest mistake was assuming the non-gamers had no game when the only difference with the non-gamers is that they've never had to play a game before not that they couldn't play a game.

It also never occurred to Dan that being a Housewife is a different type of game.  Just because there's no winner crowned at the end, does not mean that the various housewives are sitting by and the camera just happens to document their lives.  Phaedra, Tamra, Sheree, and Larsa all have agendas when the Bravo TVs show up.  They plan, plot, and scheme to further their goals whatever they may be--promote their business, take down their rival, or tell their side of a story to sway public opinion.  I do find it amusing that the contestants here all know about Dan and how he approached Big Brother, and they know all about Parvarti and Sandra in Survivor, but no one watched a season or two of RHOA in preparation for this show.  I can see writing off Kevin or Bergie, their shows are total fluff; but, the Housewives have always been a force.  

[Ilovepie]

I think more than anything, having a block of housewives on this show has altered it somewhat because now you have people who came in as a "group" so to speak and they are a voting block unto themselves. I think Dan calling out Phaedra was the only way she doesn't win this thing, so for the long game it was disastrous for her, even if she refuted him in the moment.

[DEL901]

30 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

It also never occurred to Dan that being a Housewife is a different type of game.  Just because there's no winner crowned at the end, does not mean that the various housewives are sitting by and the camera just happens to document their lives.  Phaedra, Tamra, Sheree, and Larsa all have agendas when the Bravo TVs show up.  They plan, plot, and scheme to further their goals whatever they may be--promote their business, take down their rival, or tell their side of a story to sway public opinion.  I do find it amusing that the contestants here all know about Dan and how he approached Big Brother, and they know all about Parvarti and Sandra in Survivor, but no one watched a season or two of RHOA in preparation for this show.  I can see writing off Kevin or Bergie, their shows are total fluff; but, the Housewives have always been a force.  

And add to that,Phaedra is a lawyer.  

[Ohiopirate02]

21 minutes ago, DEL901 said:

And add to that,Phaedra is a lawyer.  

I want to quip "not a very good one" after that episode of RHOA where she is representing Sheree and Sheree's ex-husband, Bob, schooled her in front of a judge.  But, she also is a free woman while her ex-husband did time for fraud or is still doing time for fraud.  I do remember Apollo and one of his co-conspirators were quite vocal about Phaedra knowing about Apollo's fraud and maybe even a part of it.  That could very well be the chatter of guilty people upset that they were caught or there was not enough evidence to indict Phaedra.  

I will say that this is why having Phaedra on this show is so delicious.  She is shady AF, and she also knows how to give a good sound byte.  

[MerBearHou]

On 2/5/2024 at 6:28 PM, DEL901 said:

If Peter does accept, I hope he stabs Parvati in the back…

After years of me being "so over" Parvati from Survivor days, I would love it if Peter did this.  I've never been under Parvati's spell...

[SourK]

I never watched Big Brother, but I read an article this week about the Dan's Funeral thing: https://ew.com/tv/2019/08/29/big-brother-14-oral-history-dan-funeral/

What's interesting about it, in light of how he tried to save himself on this show, is that they're describing a situation where he made a big speech and threw one of his allies under the bus, but half of the people there weren't really convinced by the speech, and the thing that really improved his standing in the game was a one-on-one conversation with someone who had strategic reasons for making an alliance with him.

Which, IIRC, was what Phaedra suggested Dan do to take some of the heat off of himself.

There's a trend this season that I don't like where the competitive reality show vets are treating this as a pure numbers game where you just group up and eliminate someone from an opposing alliance. It might be a smart way to play -- I'm not sure yet -- but it's boring, because it's just like every other show.

I'm finding it a lot more fun to watch seasons where no one has been on a reality show before and they're learning to play Traitors as its own thing.