All hell has broken loose in Alan Cumming’s castle, and America is here for it. The Traitors has been praised as the best thing to happen in reality TV since the crossover genre revolutionized the billion-dollar industry. With the recently wrapped third season setting viewer records for Peacock, it’s clear why the concept has become a global hit, originating in the Netherlands and replicated in more than 20 territories: The viewers love a bad guy almost as much as we enjoy catching them, and the show has turned that theme into a murderous game, slashing in the shadows of corruption and democracy. Already well-versed in how one bad apple can ruin the bunch, the American version adds a twist by bringing together iconic figures from reality TV franchises like Real Housewives, Survivor, The Bachelor/Bachelorette, Big Brother, and even pulling in a player from the British monarchy
The show’s premise revolves around deception. The host secretly selects a few cast members as traitors; the rest are faithfuls. The traitors are tasked with “murdering” one player each night; the dirty deeds are revealed via the departed’s absence during morning breakfast. Each day, the cast faces a series of unhinged missions to add money to the prize pool, but the most cutthroat moments come each evening at the round table, where the faithfuls must plead their cases, hurl accusations, and vote to banish potential traitors. If any traitors survive to the end, they take the entire $250,000 prize.
Perhaps a game that thrives on division and chaos is a mirror to the present moment. But it’s also a unifying force, a chance for a divided nation to connect through the power of fandom. American fans get to see familiar faces interact outside the vehicles that drove them to stardom, with the layered histories of each player adding an extra charge. Each season of the show has leveraged a roster of some of the most brazen reality TV personalities, with season one garnering an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Competition Program, season two becoming Peacock’s most-watched reality show, and season three beating that record. Season 3 saw the largest number of faithfuls ever win, including Dylan Efron (Zach’s brother, and an IG influencer), The Bachelor/ette’s Gabby Windey, Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Dolores Catania, and British aristocrat Ivar Mountbatten.
Naturally, as with any hit TV show, success in the present doesn’t guarantee anything in a culture obsessed with what’s trending tomorrow. Although seasons four and five have already been commissioned, one must wonder how The Traitors plans to keep the knife of its murder mystery stuck in viewers’ attention. Season two was arguably the season that put The Traitors on the map, so Observer resurrected some of its stars from death and exile to ask them how the crossover game show can stay ahead of its success.
When Real Housewives of Atlanta OG Shereé Whitfield, Survivor legend Parvati Shallow, and Love Islander Carson “Bergie” Bergersen arrived at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands for season two, alongside 19 other players, they agreed to a lawless game that captured America’s heart. Unfortunately, they were killed or voted off by their peers before they could claim the jackpot.
Host Alan Cumming — wearing a red velvet suit with hand-bedazzled cuffs, a black shirt, and a plaid cape with a floral bow — circled the round table of Faithfuls to select his Traitors. His hand fell on Shallow’s shoulder, a woman who once served as the ring leader of an all-female pack called the Black Widow Brigade on 2008’s Survivor: Micronesia and won the $1 million cash prize. (Note that a fellow member of the Black Widow Brigade, Cici Fields, also known as the best player never to win Survivor, won The Traitor’s first season.)
Shallow believes that, for most of the show’s beloved stars, money is a secondary motive. “We wanted to play The Traitors to be part of this iconic moment in time, this phenomenon, right?” she says. “You’ve got Alan, this award–winning actor, just doing the most. You’ve got his incredible fashion, and you’re in this castle. It was more about being on the show than winning the game because it’s also tough to wrap your mind around strategically. It’s a really difficult [game to master]!”
Increasing the prize pot could raise the show’s profile, but boosting the star power has proven to be the better formula for capturing viewers’ attention. Season 3 saw The Traitors further permeate the zeitgeist by including “Zach Efron’s brother” (Dylan Efron) and “Brittney Spear’s ex” (Sam Asghari), and shamelessly promoting them with those titles. According to Shallow, production better keep host Cumming on retainer if they want to ensure future success. “Working [as a traitor] with Phaedra, an icon, and working with the other Housewives made me really get their franchise,” she says. “These women are a real-life soap opera…What was cool for me was watching the queer communities from the Survivor fandom and Bravo come together.”
Shallow says the alternate universe The Traitors creates for reality stars cannot be beaten in setting and nostalgia. The show hasn’t just been a collision of fandoms but also of reality TV pioneers, like former Real World stars (turned Challengers) who helped define the very format of throwing strangers into a house to see what happens. Reality TV wasn’t immune to running out of fresh ideas, like dating apps and other things that were once shiny and now considered archaic. The popular behemoth franchises are older than the new generation of stars. Shallow says she’s putting Survivor behind her in lieu of new programming, such as currently starring—and making it to the finale— of Deal or No Deal Island. One can’t help but think the best path forward for Traitors would be to keep channeling legendary franchise names, ready to begin a new chapter in streaming.
Unlike Shallow, Whitfield tells the Observer she entered Cumming’s castle with every intention to leave a quarter of a million richer. A cast member on 10 of the 16 seasons of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, she notes that stars from reality TV competitions “came to play” and played the game well. “This is what they’ve been doing for 20 years,” she says. “But I had watched several versions of The Traitors in other countries to study and figured I could not show up calling attention to myself like a Housewife. You can’t take that energy and attitude and expect to fly under the radar. But the edit that I got, it looked like I was Lolly Lolly lolly. But no, I went in with strategy.”
Whitfield is no stranger to the omnipotent power of production. But she doesn’t need to prove she can hold her own—she’s one of the rare Housewives who has left and returned to RHOA three times since its inception. There are many unprecedented aspects to The Traitors, and one of them is the near-miracle of getting Housewives to be on their best behavior. Whitfield believes future Housewives will catch on to the fact that drawing attention to themselves too early often leads to an early death or banishment. That was certainly the case in season three, where Housewives were nuked like bedazzled battleships, their out-of-the-box personalities betraying their coordinates.
Indeed, the early elimination of Housewives sometimes felt like foolishly getting rid of the personality hires. Whitfield’s Kumbaya attitude nearly brought her to the jackpot until she was murdered in the last episode. Although she loved her time on the show, she says it wasn’t as financially lucrative as a season on Housewives, which almost guarantees fame and fortune for all its stars. Of course, in The Traitors, a large cast is forced to fight for screen time and face the possibility of elimination every episode. Whitfield says this was her first reality show outside of RHOA and made her open to going on other crossover shows.
For Bergessen, the series not only offers former stars a chance to reignite their flames but also provides a platform for contestants who were overlooked on previous shows. He recalls feeling out of place during Love Island USA season five but entirely at home on The Traitors. Still, he doesn’t believe the show’s success relies solely on star power from reality TV staples or celebrity-adjacent figures. “I definitely think if Peacock wanted to do a civilian cast, it could,” says Bergessen. “But it’s also easy to forget how good these reality stars are at [confessionals] and owning the show’s theatrics.”
Bergessen hopes to one day return to Cumming’s castle for an all-star season. Right now, The Traitors offers everything to viewers except for romance. The Love Islander doesn’t believe the show has enough room for the theme of his own franchise. “There’s just not enough time to develop a storyline for that,” he says. Perhaps a future season needs former Bachelors and Bachelorettes in the turret to bring some flirtation with the nightly murders.
At last, the allure of The Traitors still seems to be in full force, so the best way forward could be following the timeless adage: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But then again, the best traitors always think a few hits ahead.
