What ‘The Traitors’ Is Telling Us About The Nation’s Trust Issues
Image Credit: Ardross Castle
Cut your bangs, smear on that eyeliner, and grab your cloak - The Traitors is back for its third season this year! The return of this Emmy Award-winning, social deduction reality show has been highly anticipated as an engaging distraction from the January blues. But you wouldn’t be alone if you suspected something slightly different in the air this year…
Whilst Linda and Fozia are serving ‘mother’ moments to fill the hole left in our hearts by Season 2’s Diane, national treasure Claudia Winkleman’s witty one-liners are as sharp as ever, and we are still being kept on our toes by new twists and turns, somehow the game feels a little more serious this year.
For starters, we’ve witnessed a lot of herd mentality this season, with Faithful contestants quick to turn on their closest allies as soon as the majority opinion becomes evident. Take Tyler, for instance. Whilst not the sharpest tool in the shed, the bird-watching barber initially acted as the leader of a close-knit ‘clique’, seeming untouchable for the first four episodes. Nevertheless, the group quickly fell apart in the space of a single episode, leading to a landslide banishment led by his two closest friends, who had, in previous episodes, asked him who he would vote out at the Round Table, in order to align their votes with his.
The Faithful contestants have also been turning their suspicions onto those they perceive as intellectually threatening this year, resulting in some taxing losses of detective brains in their own team. Likeable doctor, Kasim, was the target of a Faithful-led witch hunt claiming he’d “make a good traitor”. Admitting on the show that he felt ‘ostracised’ by his teammates, the NHS practitioner raised an interesting point on the illogical, and frankly quite offensive, connection contestants were making between his occupation and his game status, by accusing Faithfuls of “basically calling [him] Harold Shipman or something”. With the public health sector being a notoriously underpaid and underappreciated line of occupation, one can’t help but wonder where the motivation for Kasim’s ostracization stemmed. It seems some Faithfuls need to practice what they preach when they assert that “it’s just a game”…
These hard-hitting suspicions have not been the only example of career-based and personality-based suspicions, as autistic contestant Dan was banished for “playing the game his own way”, and former British diplomat (and latest reality TV heartthrob) Alexander has been suspected by his teammates for remaining calm and speaking eloquently - two attributes one would surely expect a diplomat to have before entering the castle.
Nevertheless, the behaviour of this year’s contestants raises a wider issue - how sustainable is this beloved BBC reality show? As many contestants appear to be looking for who they believe the producers would select to be an entertaining Traitor (whether that be Jake’s prediction of a doctor ‘saving lives by day, killing by night’ or Ellen’s of ‘a strong female Traitor’), we appear to have entered into a ‘metagame’ where contestants are no longer taking the game at face value and looking for actual evidence. Instead, they appear all too aware of what the ‘ideal’ Traitor would look like, apparently forgetting that all of them have been selected for this show because they display characteristics that would make a good Traitor. Many of this year’s banished and murdered contestants have even admitted on Ed Gamble’s aftershow, Uncloaked, that their theories and suspicions arose from patterns they expected from previous series, such as Livi’s adamance that Freddie couldn’t be trusted, stemming from his similarities to legendary Season 2 Traitor, Harry, whilst Anna, in a BBC interview, justified her decision not to accept the Traitors’ invitation to join them by explaining that ‘no one has ever won who has been recruited’. Thus, as the show continues, with casting applications for Season Four already underway, could we be at risk of losing the whimsy and unpredictability of previous seasons?
So, if you’re thinking of applying for Season Four, remember the checklist that will help you gain trust and fly under the radar: don’t display intelligence, follow the crowd, try not to form any ‘cliques’… and remember your fake Welsh accent!