Americans watched with surprise as liars and manipulators were humbled last night. Sure, I watched the State of the Union address. But I’m actually talking about Peacock’s sleeper hit reality series “The Traitors,” which dropped its second season finale right before President Joe Biden arrived at the U.S. Capitol.
A fresh spin on the reality genre, the series is based on the Russian party game commonly known as “Mafia” or “Werewolf.”
The series debuted in January 2023, but over the past year has managed to grow its audience by 75%. “The Traitors” season two is the most watched unscripted series in the U.S., period, and Peacock’s third-most watched original overall. (Peacock, like MSNBC, is part of NBCUniversal.) A fresh spin on the reality genre, the series is based on the Russian party game commonly known as “Mafia” or “Werewolf,” and, like all American reality series (save “The Bachelor”), “The Traitors” is an import. Originating on Dutch TV in 2021 as “De Verraders” it was remade by the BBC in 2022 as “The Traitors.” The British public went wild for it, and Studio Lambert, which produces the U.K. version, offered it to America.
(Season finale spoilers below.)
“The Traitors” leans into its early 20th century parlor game origins, playing up its Agatha Christie house party vibes. In a remote Scottish Highlands castle, host Alan Cumming, impeccably dressed in over-the-top Victorian costuming, picks out a group of “traitors” from among the 20-odd contestants. Their job is to identify their fellow miscreants and work together to secretly “murder” the innocent players (the “faithful”). The faithful, in turn, must uncover the traitors and vote them out. If, by the end of the season, all traitors have been eliminated, the remaining faithful split the prize money. If they don’t, the traitor (or traitors) who remain win the cash.
The audience witnesses this all-important ceremony from on high. Now omniscient gods, the viewers know exactly who the traitors are, and they can smugly howl as foolish faithful place their trust in the wrong hands and find themselves dead at breakfast the next morning.
Unlike in the U.K. version, however, the cast has been harvested from Hollywood’s thriving cottage industry of full-time reality show performers. And this small tweak may be the key to the show’s American success. By casting these D-list celebrities, “The Traitors” was able to cash in on existing IP, something usually not available to new reality show formats. The first season’s cast was half celebrities, half unknown contestants; the second has gone all in on “public figures,” with contestants pulled from a mix of old school and new reality shows, from “The Real World” and “Survivor” to “Bling Empire,” “Real Housewives,” “Love Island,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and even the retired Maksim Chmerkovskiy from “Dancing With the Stars.” A few people from the real-real world are also thrown in, like former heavyweight boxing champion Deontay Wilder, and, my personal favorite, former speaker of the U.K. House of Commons, John Bercow. (The American version of “The Traitors” is very big in the U.K.)
This extended reality TV multiverse is both tantalizing and chummy. “The Traitors” feels like an Ultimate Reality Show Crossover Battle — the “Iron Chef” of reality contestants, if you will. The formula is working so well, there’s already a campaign by the “Vanderpump Rules” cast to land slots for the upcoming third season. Upending expectations is also how last night’s finale managed to land a gripping twist. But just because many of the faces are familiar doesn’t mean the show is predictable. Take for instance Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio, who originally rose to fame back in 2006 on MTV’s “The Real World: Key West.” Devenanzio is perhaps best known as a devious competitor on “The Challenge,” which was MTV’s own reality crossover competition pitting contestants from “The Real World” against “Road Rules” stars. Devenanzio was the sort of competitor many fans assumed would go far on “Traitors”; instead he was murdered by the second episode. Upending expectations is also how last night’s finale managed to land a gripping twist, despite the remaining three faithful sniffing out the final traitor early in the hour. That traitor, Kate Chastain, was a holdover from season one and seemed poised to turn the final faithful against one another — until she was suddenly tossed out. However, the remaining three, Chris “CT” Tamburello and Trishelle Cannatella (both “Real World/The Challenge” alumni) and Mercedes “MJ” Javid (from Bravo’s “Shahs of Sunset”) then turned on one another, despite there no longer being any traitors in their midst. After a first round of voting that ended in a 1-1-1- stalemate, Ramburello and Cannatella teamed up to vote out Javid, just so they could get a bigger share of the grand prize. It was exactly the ending fans deserved, as we watched ferociously competitive back stabbers keep playing a game they had ostensibly already won. In the end, they were all traitors. Lucky us.
Ani Bundel
Ani Bundel is a cultural critic who has been writing regularly since 2010. Her work can also be found at Elite Daily and WETA's Telly Visions, where she also co-hosts "Telly Visions: The Podcast." 
