TVTVThere’s a new Traitor in town, but as the Winter Olympics rage on, all eyes are on Johnny Weir and Tara LipinskiGetty Images/Peacock/Ringer illustrationBy Andrew GruttadaroFeb. 13, 3:00 am UTC • 9 min
The best running reality show on TV, The Traitors, hath returned. To commemorate this momentous event—and keep tabs on this absurd cast of characters—each week, we will be evaluating the power dynamics of the Traitors castle, determining who’s running the show, who’s playing the best game, and who’s avoiding the ire of the murder-happy Traitors and, even more importantly, the paranoia-driven Faithfuls. We’ll also be holding ceremonies for the players we lose along the way. Here’s where everything in the castle stands after Episode 9.
In Memoriam
Dorinda Medley (Murdered)
Last week, I wrote that Dorinda was “probably the most useless player still in the game.” With Candiace’s banishment, all of Dorinda’s allies were officially wiped off the board. And despite a heretofore little-known relationship with Rob—in this week’s episode, Kristen calls her Rob’s “little wifey”—there was zero chance of her murder being traced back to him or his newly recruited partner, Eric. She was the obvious choice to be killed, and killed she was.
At least she made it further than last season.
But with that, all of the Housewives are gone—five in total this year. And that officially brings the Housewives’ record on The Traitors to 1-for-13; only Dolores from The Real Housewives of New Jersey has ever made it to the end of this thing. It’s easy to understand why The Traitors brings in so many Housewives—they’re popular, and they’re part of the Peacock family—but I think we’re at a bit of an inflection point here. Because the Housewives are downright bad at this game, and they low-key kind of ruin it because they treat it like just another season of Housewives rather than a game of actual strategy. And since there are so many in the cast, even an idiot like Michael Rapaport can deduce that at least one of them has to be a Traitor.
We don’t need to do this in Season 5. Let’s just pick two or three legends and fill the cast out with more people from the various Love Islands.
Stephen Colletti (Banished)
If you think about it, Stephen’s banishment is probably the funniest one of the season. (Aside from Rapaport getting banished simply because everyone fucking hated him.) The suspicion mounts against him for two main reasons:
- Lisa Rinna, a Traitor, gave him her gold in a challenge like three episodes ago.
- Candiace Dillard Bassett, also a Traitor, asked Dorinda and Johnny Weir to leave the room last episode so that she and Stephen could have a private conversation.
Neither Lisa nor Candiace was trying to put the sus on Stephen, but inadvertently, they absolutely fucked him. There was really no coming back from this.
There was maybe only one way that Stephen could have saved himself: if, when Johnny was bringing up the conversation with Candiace, Stephen had remembered that that conversation abruptly ended when Rob requested to speak privately with Candiace. Come on, man! This happened, like, a day ago! How’d you drop the ball on this?!
Instead, Stephen just keeps going, “No, I’m serious. I’m a Faithful,” and no one really buys it. In his own words:
All images via Peacock
The Traitors Power Rankings
Power, in this context, is a measure of who is controlling the house, who seems furthest away from being banished, and who has the best odds to prevail at the end of the road.
1. Rob Rausch (Traitor, Last Week: 1)
King stays the king. All of these people spend most of this episode being like, “We need to consider new theories,” yet somehow none of these new theories even come close to touching Rob. Last week, Kristen called him a “sweet, sweet man.” This week, Natalie tells him that she trusts him “100 percent.” It’s actually getting a little ridiculous now.
Rob’s strategic prowess was on display yet again in this week’s challenge, in which every player had to go into a box (naturally) and try to guess how questions would be answered by the Traitors, who had to emerge from their boxes to submit their selections. This challenge, far more than any other this season, had the potential to reveal actual information about the identities of the Traitors—not only did Rob and Eric need to be careful about not making noise while coming out of their boxes and not submitting names that directly implicated them, but posing as Faithfuls, they also needed to be careful not to get every question correct.
Rob solved the second issue by just throwing the challenge, eschewing the money prizes and picking Tara for every question regardless of whether it made sense. This made it impossible for the Faithfuls to get a read on the Traitors in any way, but it also had the knock-on effect of putting more heat on Tara, with Kristen assuming that Tara was putting her own name out there as a misdirect. Rob may meow at the camera from time to time, but goddamn it, he is good at this game.
Tracking Season 4 of ‘The Traitors’
Tracking Season 4 of ‘The Traitors’
The one decision of his that I question just a little bit (and this is a first) is his picks for the short list to be murdered at the end of the challenge. With Tara, Johnny, and Stephen picking up the majority of the castle’s suspicion, my four would’ve been one of the Traitors—Rob or Eric—and then Mark, Maura, and Natalie. Because of Rob’s status as the perfect Faithful, it’s getting a little hard to believe that the Traitors wouldn’t be gunning for him—putting himself on the list might be a small enough signal to that effect. As would throwing in three of his closest allies, while simultaneously leaving Rob and Eric a pool of strong, pure Faithfuls to pick from to murder.
Instead, Rob short-lists Tara, Johnny, Kristen, and Natalie. His reasoning is that he thinks the Faithfuls will assume that the Traitors nominated one of their own as a diversion—and in turn, he does immediately start working the narrative that this is what Johnny did. But this feels like playing with fire in a way Rob hasn’t really done to this point. First off, that’s a big assumption. But more importantly, Rob is now doing the thing that comes back to bite so many Traitors: He’s leading a campaign against a known Faithful. This feels awesome when you’re getting that Faithful sent home instead of a Traitor, but you reap what you sow and it starts to be way less fun when that banished player confirms that he or she is a Faithful. That’s when people start to be like, “Hmm, why was he pushing so hard for that?”
Then again, this is Rob we’re talking about—on this show, apparently, he is immune to suspicion no matter what’s happening.
2. Kristen Kish (Faithful, LW: 6)
Kristen came to play in this episode. For the first time, she appeared to have real sway in the castle. Her initial suspicion of Tara is, of course, wrong, but still, you gotta give Kristen credit for being able to look another person in the eye and tell them, I can’t trust you because you act like a scared little baby all the time.
More importantly, Kristen comes for Eric at the end of the episode for (a) being too quiet and (b) never having his own opinions. And even more crucially, she does this in a public forum, essentially shielding herself from murder in the process. Of the four short-listed, she was probably the best option for Rob and Eric—because killing her would’ve put even more heat on Tara—but now they can’t do it because of how much it would implicate Eric. Well played, chef.
3. Mark Ballas (Faithful, LW: 4)
Two things:
- For some reason, in this episode Mark was dressed as one of the guys in Netflix’s upcoming Peaky Blinders movie.
- It is hilarious that everyone is shocked when Tara and Johnny “come out” as best friends. Do you people really not watch the figure skating at the Winter Olympics?! Are you seriously unfamiliar with their signature banter and ability to ooh and aah in sync whenever someone pulls off a triple salchow? Tara and Johnny have been a package deal for, like, a decade. Where the hell have y’all been?
4. Maura Higgins (Faithful, LW: 2)
Add Maura to the list of people who come close to suspecting Rob—she tells him at breakfast that she’s a little surprised he wasn’t murdered—only to abandon it the second he beats his lashes at her. I still think she’s going to get a piggyback ride to the final from Rob, and I still think that is where she will lose.
5. Eric Nam (Traitor, LW: 3)
Upon being recruited by Rob to become a Traitor, Eric says, “I need a helmet and an adult diaper.” And yeah, that’s a pretty fair summation. My guy is way out of his depth here.
Within the turret, Eric is just deferring to Rob completely. Basically, Rob says a thing, and then Eric goes, “Yeah, genius move, man. Totally agree. Can I kiss your face?” And then outside the turret, Eric is struggling to maintain the Faithful facade. He’s just too sweet! And less than 24 hours into Eric being a Traitor, Kristen has thrown his name out.
Ultimately, recruiting Eric was probably a good move by Rob. Two outcomes seem most likely: Either Eric plays a smart, strong game as a Traitor and he and Rob win in the end, or Eric self-destructs and shields Rob from suspicion long enough for him to make it to the final. There is a third outcome—Eric, with his feet to the fire, turns on Rob—but genuinely, it does not seem like Eric has the balls to try that, let alone the castle equity to pull it off.
So yeah, this dude is probably cooked.
6. Natalie Anderson (Faithful, LW: 5)
Natalie: smart enough to sense that Johnny isn’t a Traitor, but not smart enough to guess who actually is. Ultimately, she leads the charge against Stephen, a fact that Rob seems primed to use against her in upcoming episodes.
Can I also just say, though? How friggin’ weird was it that Natalie outed Rob as the one who has the dagger? That was just an absolutely bizarre sequence of and extremely reminiscent of Natalie’s behavior the last time she was on the chopping block, when she freaked out about drinking an antidote during the banquet. When her back is up against the wall, this lady does some weird shit.
Anyway, she’s on the short list to be killed, and the other three people are Tara and Johnny, who are much better candidates for banishment than murder, and Kristen, who basically can’t be killed. So … RIP to Natalie?
7. Tara Lipinski (Faithful, LW: 10)
For the first time this season, I wondered whether Tara might make it to the final, because at the beginning of the episode, when Rob and Eric are listing out people to kill, they don’t even say Tara’s name. Like, I’m pretty sure they just straight up didn’t remember she was still on the show. Being forgotten isn’t the worst way to avoid murder.
That said, Tara may be in too deep a hole to dig herself out of. Everyone is convinced that Johnny is a Traitor and Tara is doing his bidding—or vice versa—and neither of them did anything to dispel that notion. Honestly, it kind of seemed like they were tanking in this episode because they had to get to Milan.
After the first three rounds of the challenge, when everyone realized that the Traitors were just repeatedly writing Tara’s name as the answer and thus made a pact to guess Tara for the fourth question, Tara and Johnny were the only ones who didn’t guess Tara. This isn’t, on its face, Traitorous behavior—but it is questionable behavior, and on this show that’s enough when people are already suspicious And then the two of them go and do this “We’re besties” reveal/non-reveal, which, as Rob points out, makes them even less trustworthy to others than they were before.
If I had to bet on which Winter Olympics commentator makes it further, my money’s on Tara, simply because she’s less of an overall threat than Johnny. But ultimately, she will go only as far as everyone allows her to go.
8. Johnny Weir (Faithful, LW: 9)
Now, I will say, as stupid as it was, it was also charming—especially after this week of watching figure skating—to see Johnny and Tara finally let their friendship flag fly. It has long seemed like NBC cast these two as subliminal marketing for the Winter Olympics broadcast, and, well, it has worked on me.
The other night I heard Johnny say that Ilia Malinin grew up out of the ice and then also calmly explain that, yes, the blade of a skate could slice someone’s femoral artery. He’s a national treasure. He’s probably also going home next week.
