“Pass the Eggs. Did I Say That as a Faithful or a Traitor?”
I wasn’t super impressed when I watched the first season of the US version of The Traitors. Before my Peacock subscription expired last year, I decided to go ahead and give the second season a chance. I’m glad I did because I enjoyed it much more.
The premise is still the same – a group of around 20 people head to host Alan Cumming’s castle in Scottland (or a castle he is claiming). There, three will be tapped as traitors. The rest are the faithful. Each night, the traitors pick one person to be murdered. The next evening, the faithful have a chance to vote out someone from the group, hoping they can get a traitor out. During the day, everyone is working on challenges to build their pot. At the end, if any traitors remain, they gain the prize. However, if the faithful have eliminated all the traitors, they win.
Make sense? After you’ve watched an episode or two, it all makes sense.
In the first season, there was a mix of reality show veterans and people who have never been on a reality show before. This season, it’s all reality people from a variety of shows like Survivor, The Challenge, Big Brother, The Batchelor, the various Real Housewives shows. The one exception was John Bercow, the former Speaker of the House of Commons. A different reality show, if you will.
While the premise was the same this season, there were a couple of reasons I enjoyed this season better. One, none of the contestants really bugged me. Everyone seemed to be there to play the game. Yes, they did take things personally at times (it would be hard not to in a game like this), but there wasn’t endless whining when things didn’t go their way. Yes, they fought to come out on top, but they accepted the outcome of the game when they didn’t.
It was also more fun because the contestants were really playing. All of them. Yes, there were a few that were in charge of the alliances, but it was interesting to see how everyone approached things. And how the strategy worked out or didn’t. We also got to see some of them hurt themselves with what they thought was great strategy. I felt sorry a time or two when that happened, but it made for great TV.
There was a big surprise half way through the season I thought might ruin it for me. To my surprise, I even enjoyed that.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there were moments that really did bother me. But that’s the case with most reality shows. This was much more in keeping with other reality shows.
Sadly, a couple of the reasons I tuned into the season left fairly early. I was spoiled for that, but I was still disappointed.
As with the first season, Alan Cummings was a fantastic host. I loved his levity and his outfits were over the top in the best way possible.
These episodes were originally released on a weekly basis, but since the season was over before I started watching, I was able to watch them more quickly. Frankly, I’m glad because their manufactured cliffhangers are so annoying. It makes you appreciate the style of Survivor and The Amazing Race, which shows you who is leaving at the end of each episode. Here, they seem to think it is a great idea to tease you with you to leaving and end the episode on that cliffhanger. Sorry, but you can just tell me. I’ll still be back next week.
While the first season had it’s moments, season two of The Traitors was much more entertaining. Honestly, this is probably the biggest reason I’m happy I was able to renew my Peacock subscription for cheap. I’ve just got to make the time to enjoy the international versions and watch season 3, which starts tomorrow.
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