Did the conspirators turn on each other in the end?
Peacock dropped all 12 episodes of The Traitors U.K. concurrent with the NBCUniversal streaming service releasing the Season 4 finale episode of the U.S. version of The Traitors.
Although your mileage may vary as the saying goes (and other than On Patrol: Live), The Traitors might be one of the few forms of content that makes a Peacock subscription worthwhile, particularly if escapism is what you’re after.
Some spoilers follow.
Although the premise of the sister shows is basically the same, with some variations, and both take place in the same Scottish castle over a few weeks of filming, the vibe is somewhat different.
For one thing, contestants on the British version of this psychological game seem generally less performative, albeit with interesting backgrounds and engaging personalities, while the cast of the American counterpart consists of perpetually attention-seeking reality show “stars.”
Perhaps because of that, The Traitors U.K. has a lot less profanity and preening..
Other differences include that host Claudia Winkleman is somewhat less theatrical than Alan Cumming who emcees the U.S. version, and who has admitted he’s playing a character.
The Traitors U.K. also gives viewers a glimpse of the support staff who assist in the activities on the castle grounds.
[Note: The Traitors U.K. aired one celebrity version so far, and U.S. series has issued a casting call for a season to feature “normies.”]
Loyalty or lack thereof was the primary takeaway from Season 4 of The Traitors U.K. More on that below.
The legacy media here and abroad continues to lose credibility and viewership. As Wikipedia explained, in a reversal of that trend, the U.K. series is a big hit for the London-headquartered BBC:
“During the game, a small group of contestants become the titular ‘Traitors,’ and must work together to eliminate the other contestants to win a grand prize, while the remaining contestants become ‘Faithful’ and are tasked to discover and banish the Traitors by voting them out to win the grand prize.
“Since the show launched, it has become a huge success for the BBC, with viewing figures growing substantially each series. It has become one of the most watched British reality gameshows of all time. The show has gained a cult following.”
All kinds of entertaining intrigue, betrayal, backstabbing, bandwagon effects, and flawed decision-making can occur as Faithfuls try to sus out who among them is a Traitor and send him or her home.
Everyone among the contestants, of course, denies being a Traitor, even obviously the Traitors.
The BBC separately calls it “the ultimate reality game of trust and treachery.”
In general, The Traitors is a reality show for viewers who dislike reality shows but might enjoy watching competitive individuals in close quarters use mind games and social skills to either locate the conspirators, and otherwise scheme and deceive, while forging wholly transactional alliances either in the Traitor or Faithful mode.
It’s common knowledge that showrunners heavily manipulate what happens on “reality” TV shows.
As of now anyway, The Traitors may be exception, other than what the twisty rules (that are often revised, added, or swerved from season to season) require.
During each roundtable ceremony, the contestants (22 of them to start in Season 4) collectively weigh in on who they suspect as Traitors — and prior to the Survivor– or Big Brother-style vote.
Logic suggests, however, that the production team can see which name a contestant writes down on their slate once the votes are locked in.
That’s because the host often seems to call on each person to reveal their vote in an order that creates maximum tension and/or surprise.
Although it’s all about the editing, viewers may find themselves rooting for certain players to either be banished or survive banishment at the roundtable – or get “murdered” or avoid being murdered by the Traitors who secretly meet in the castle turret to make their decision.
At crunch time, Traitors typically turn on each other, too.
For an organization with such vast resources, far-left BBC seems stingy, though, with the grand prize — which is incrementally compiled through successfully completing a series of elaborate physical and/or mental team-building (or destroying) missions — and which totaled in Season 4 to about $100,000 in U.S. dollars split up among the winners.
While the missions pile up the cash, the instructions for the challenges are cleverly designed to drive a wedge into the group and create more paranoia.
Viewers might want the show to get the missions over with so that the roundtable banishment vote can get underway, where the primary drama takes place.
Win or lose, the contestants, however, are likely to receive career opportunities given the notoriety from the show, including going on the media circuit.
As a contestant, it’s very difficult to play the game effectively while avoiding being targeted for either banishment or murder, which makes it fun for the viewer watching at home.
For example, someone on the Faithful team with a reserved demeanor can create mistrust among the other Faithfuls, while the Traitors often perceive an outspoken Faithful as a threat to their game control.
And an opinionated Faithful can also prompt the mistrust of other Faithfuls who may incorrectly conclude that the former is overcompensating to hide the fact that he or she is actually a Traitor.
Just about every Faithful in the castle seems to jump to conclusions based on verbal or non-verbal cues as they hang out with each other in the castle.
Although they both participated in booting out two other Traitors during the course of the show, Traitors Rachel and Stephen vowed to stick together to the very end.
And they decided against recruiting anyone else as replacements.
Rachel was remarkably articulate and composed throughout the entire show as was Stephen to a lesser extent.
In every season, a lot of crying or cringe, emotional outbursts occurs among the entire group who, for the most part, just met each other, and despite a fundamental understand going in that eliminations start almost immediately.
The tactics employed by Rachel and Stephen throughout Season 4 ultimately proved effective when they managed to make it to the final round.
But there was legitimate and riveting edginess and unpredictability as to whether Stephen would vote out Rachel and take home all the cash as the sole remaining Traitor.
In a world where personal or professional loyalty is in short supply, in the end Stephen indeed voted out Jack, the remaining Faithful, and lived up to the shared promise with Rachel.
The duo perhaps is among the most-savvy Traitors that the show has ever seen.
A columnist for The Guardian, another far-left, London-based news outlet, who seems hardly a fan of The Traitors or its mandatory ethical shortcomings, praised Rachel’s strategy, in a way:
“…She was, of course, the figure who managed to bend the show’s entire gravity field around her…For better or worse, Rachel’s machinations meant that this year’s entire series was cast in her image. It, and she, was ruthless to a terrifying extent…And while this is a terrible trait for a human being, it’s a great one for a reality TV contestant. Rachel’s innate untrustworthiness meant that we were kept on the hook right to the very end…”
The BBC brought the other contestants together in an auditorium to watch the premier of the final episode, where it was evident how impressed they were with Rachel and Stephen’s gamesmanship. There also seemed to be minimal, if any, hard feelings unlike Season 4 in the U.S.
There’s a lot that could be unpacked in terms of the cast’s castle interactions otherwise.
One is that a mystery writer/lawyer and a hair stylist seemed much more perceptive than two retired cops who were practically ‘clueless’ in trying to figure out who were the Traitors among them.
As of now, in addition to four seasons each of the U.S. and U.K. show, two seasons of an Australian version, and one from New Zealand, are also available on Peacock
The Traitors franchise (which is based on a Dutch series called De Verraders) is also on in Ireland and Canada, although neither have appeared on Peacock as yet, although that might be oversaturation.
Parenthetically, viewers can decide for themselves whether The Traitors showrunners in America or in Britain emphasize identity too much as a metric in selecting cast members.
Original article
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