Last week’s supersized premiere of The Traitors: New Blood left us on a cliffhanger as Traitor hopefuls Xavier and Katie raced to recover hidden murder warrants doubling as their potential ticket to the turret. The resolution is almost anticlimactic in its efficiency with both retrieving their warrants successfully, meaning the existing Traitors, Joe and Tomica, have to choose which accomplice to promote. Both plead their case—Katie offers a fairly boilerplate promise to be a good teammate while Xavier rebuts with a warning that there’s already suspicion around Katie brewing, thanks to a seed he planted himself during breakfast. Joe and Tomica consider their options before interpreting Xavier’s gameplay as a hint of his potential to turn on a fellow Traitor down the line. With that, they decide to bring Katie into the fold and give Xavier the axe. He’s led off by the guards, and just like that, our marketing manager is a full-fledged Traitor while the MLB analyst is the season’s next body.
Since we already witnessed Xavier’s ouster, the following morning’s breakfast doesn’t offer the suspense it typically carries. However, it does feed viewers a dose of revisionism courtesy of our first arriving group, nurse Abbey Benjamin, designer Wyatt Gillespie, therapist Niyyah Hayes, good ol’ Joe, and Michael, in a shirt-and-tie combo clearly inspired by Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” music video. Victor’s still in the hotseat for nabbing a shield at the very start of the previous day’s mission. Niyyah and Michael claim Victor never defended his short-lived paramour Madeline when she was up for banishment, conveniently forgetting that he absolutely did defend her by refuting the accusations Kriste levied against her and refused to vote for Madeline, even when the tide was against her. Never mind that Madeline was technically the one who “turned on” (as much as you can in a game about survival) Victor when she voted for him out of self-preservation. Accuracy is no match for a good pile-on, and Victor, ever the sweaty boy, is learning that lesson fast.
After all the players arrive, Xavier’s murder is finally revealed. The group briefly mourns before wondering if the dearly departed left behind any clues. Nobody speaks up in the room but Tennessee realtor Logan Smith, equipped with a pleasing Benoit Blanc-esque drawl, acknowledges Xavier’s mention of Katie in a confessional, confirming that he’s keeping his eyes trained on her.
Before the day’s mission, the castle splinters into the usual huddles. Abby L. confides to Katie about her growing suspicion of Tomica, adding—with the confidence of someone who has no idea she’s talking to a freshly minted Traitor—that she can’t imagine Katie being one herself. These little pockets of dramatic irony never get old, no matter who’s playing the game.
Then there’s physician Jay Vinnedge, who strolls into the kitchen to announce, apropos of very little, that he intends to “say two names at the end of the day.” When Joe reasonably asks if he’s willing to share them with the group, Jay declines, providing a circuitous non-explanation about how naming them early would somehow make him “appear suspicious.” It’s the kind of logic that collapses the moment you look its way, given that refusing to explain yourself is itself the more suspicious act. Educator Clyde Moser has him pegged early— not necessarily a Traitor, he figures, but certainly not playing a competent Faithful game.
We finally arrive at the mission, delivered by Alan, dressed in a monochromatic blood-red fever dream that ends, delightfully, in rain boots. The challenge is the kind this franchise excels at: one that aggressively stirs the pot. The group must collectively lug a giant battering ram to three ancient crypts, which hold up to $30,000 to add to the final winnings. When they arrive at one, the group must send two people to retrieve the loot. Alan warns that these decisions are crucial, as the crypts may contain “more than gold.” Victor already knows to just push the ram and keep his mouth shut.
The group takes off for the first crypt and, after bashing the door, send Arisa and Morgan to raid it. The chest only contains $5,000, which Arisa delivers to the group pretty swiftly. Morgan stays behind for a few seconds to keep searching for a potential shield, but comes up empty. The second crypt, raided by Tomica and Clyde, presents the first messy choice: $10,000 or $5,000 plus a shield. They decide to take the $5,000 while Tomica, aiming to secure as much trust among the Faithfuls as she can, advises Clyde to take the shield for himself. Kriste is immediately suspicious of the math.
The third crypt, raided by Michael and barrel racing Texan Ben McDonnell (a pair that Alan, in his own mission to secure an Emmy win in 2027, says “bounded into my crypt like two gay Lara Crofts”), contains a live grenade in the form of the mission’s biggest gift to the Faithfuls: a choice between a quick grab of $15,000 or $5,000 and “top secret Traitor information.” Opting for the intel, the pair learn that “last night, two players battled in plain sight to become a Traitor.” The mission ends with $15,000 added to the pot and Michael and Ben immediately sharing that they received intel, which they will discuss at the roundtable.
In a thoroughly absurd car ride back to the castle, Arisa is a hot topic. Niyyah brings up the weird “human lie detector” bit between the dog groomer and Victor from the previous day. Cut to Michael—famously not one to leap to conclusions—claiming “that’s exactly what the clue said happened” and labeling the moment, which he just learned about, an obvious “recruitment ritual” from a Traitor. Odd, I don’t remember the clue saying anything about an Angeleno pulling pretty standard woowoo Angeleno shenanigans, but all unusual happenings are fair game when it comes to the roundtable. In a separate car, Abby L. claims she saw Arisa pocket a shield from the outside. Morgan, who was physically shoulder-to-shoulder with Arisa, hedges that she didn’t see her grab anything, but doesn’t exactly launch a confident defense of her fellow raider.
At the roundtable, the misfires come fast. Abby L. airs her claim that she saw Arisa pocket a shield while sitting next to Morgan, who actually lingered behind to hunt for one. Abby L.’s hazy theory inexplicably absolves Morgan—the one who actually dedicated “15 seconds” in a timed mission to this search, per Abby’s own admission—of the very same self-serving behavior that Arisa’s being actively accused of. Nobody interrogates that. Cool, cool, cool. Michael and Ben reveal their intel from the crypt, which prompts Niyyah to add fuel to the growing fire underneath Arisa by, again, bringing up the moment between her and Victor. In turn, Victor, who Arisa once called a good friend, douses the flames with his own kerosene by calling the moment “weird.” Arisa, for her part, can only look baffled as the room decides her harmless quirkiness is proof of treason.
Kriste, not nearly as gung-ho as she was at the last roundtable but still vigilant, circles the conversation back to Xavier’s murder and, unbeknownst to all, correctly guesses that he lost the battle for the last Traitor spot. Jay, in an all-too-brief moment of usefulness, brings up the Katie crumb Xavier left behind, which Logan co-signs. But before it leads to any actual resolution, episode three ends with him also “revealing” that he is a “body language expert” who has been watching carefully all day for some serious clues and odd behavior. Then the end credits arrive, capping one of the most asinine cliffhangers in the show’s history. Thankfully, this week offers up another double helping, so the suspense lasts mere moments before we head into episode four, where Jay the Body Language Guru reveals…
…Absolutely the fuck nothing. And why, you may ask, does he lack any info to back up his credentials? Per Jay, “I’ve been taking a beat because today was a lot for me.” The only balm to soothe the sting of this total flop of a moment is the collective groan of pure exhaustion from the group only slightly drowning out my own.
The conversation flips back to Victor, naturally, as he is now accused of doing Arisa dirty (one of the few fair accusations of the night), prompting him to turn the attention to Michael by questioning why the smart lawyer wasn’t murdered by the Traitors. Joe ardently defends Michael by endorsing him as a Faithful, which seems to settle that argument before it gains any real steam. It’s here where we see that Joe and Tomica, like many effective past Traitors, have now fully gained the trust of most of their fellow players by simply being legitimately kind.
In the end, Arisa is banished (with Morgan interestingly choosing not to vote for her despite not having her back during any discussion) and in all honesty, the apparent dearth of any tangible regret amongst a group that got it completely wrong makes me almost miss the celebrity castle dwellers, who at least had the media training to look guilty about miscarriages of justice.
We get our first fully occupied turret with Katie joining Joe and Tomica for the next murder. With three affable Traitors and zero early tension, the meeting’s only real excitement lies in their short list of potential victims: author Sherry Kuehl, who inspired suspicion mostly with her silence; outspoken Abby L.; personal trainer Mark Zgoda, who the Traitors consider this season’s most faithful Faithful; and the keenly observant Logan. They go with Logan, despite it possibly bringing some additional heat to Katie after he mentioned her at the roundtable. Katie, for her part, doesn’t seem to mind.
At breakfast, Alan delivers the day’s mission in all-black, a chic fashion choice that historically hints toward a grim day ahead. During the usual post-meal chatter, Jay goes against the general assertion that the Traitors are playing a good game and hints, once again, that he’s got a name in his pocket that he’ll reveal at the roundtable. Sherry, previously mum, calls out Jay’s dramatically withholding nature, which Kriste supports by calling it “chaotic.” In a confessional, Jay confirms this is by design: His strategy is to intentionally put a target on his back with untethered chaos so the Traitors keep him around as a human shield. It’s not a wholly unfounded theory—history has shown that a decent shield does tend to last longer in the castle, albeit uncomfortably. But their position is usually determined by unlucky circumstances and some clever framing, not a man deciding to artlessly navigate the grounds at, as Niyyah later characterizes, “Level 1,655” nonstop.
We really see this instinct at work during the Death Parade mission, where the group is being slowly chased by a foreboding parade of cloaked guards pulling a wheeled cage. The group must outrun the parade while pulling two carts full of heavy barrels representing $24,000. Along the path they will run into gates, where they will not only open them by solving puzzles but will also decide which players to sacrifice at each one so the remaining group can escape, race to the finish line, and light the path behind them on fire, blocking the parade for good. Any player captured in the parade’s cage will automatically be placed on the shortlist for murder. From the very first gate, Jay is already running out the clock by dangling the promise of intel in exchange for his life. It’s understandable to a degree, but an unwelcome distraction as the parade nears. Victor, Mark, Niyyah, and Morgan decide to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group, but the stink of Jay’s selfishness lingers throughout the mission, causing dissent and visible frustration among his fellow players, made worse by his constant blustering. (“After that last gate, I’m even more sure now.” “Jay, you need to stop talking.”)
By the end of the mission, and after leaving some barrels behind at the last gate, the group banks $12,000. As they light the path, Jay finally tosses out Kriste’s name. By that point, nobody cares. In the end, Victor, Mark, Niyyah, Morgan, Kriste, Sherry, Clyde, and Abby L. are on the shortlist for murder, with Traitors Joe and Tomica cosplaying as potential victims in the cage alongside them.
As the tension between Jay and the rest of the castle mounts, he arises as the first real crack in this season’s fresh-blood premise. There are far sleeker versions of Jay’s brand of havoc that have made for great reality television, and nobody can speak to that better than most of The Traitors U.S.’s past contestants. A celebrity cast, whatever its sins, comes stocked with people who have an innate feel for the line between good television and exhausting television. Jay has no such governor, so his chaos doesn’t really propel the episode, it swallows it. When he shrugs that he’s fine if his whole strategy backfires because “at least I did something different,” you start to suspect the game itself is beside the point for him.
The end of episode four arrives at the very start of the next roundtable, where Jay begins to launch what appears to be an actual professionally delivered case against Katie (not Kriste, who he named at the mission). Will he redeem himself by helping the group catch their first Traitor, or has his unwieldy behavior caused too much damage? We’ll find out next week when The Traitors: New Blood shifts to weekly single episodes.
Stray Observations
“Victor, this was the perfect time to stand up for Arisa…You’re throwing her to the wolves, the same way you did with Madeline.”—Niyyah, who has been throwing Arisa to the wolves all day.
Two more song entries joined “Cry Me A River” on the Ominous Pop playlist this week: Eagle-Eye Cherry’s “Save Tonight” and “I Ran” by A Flock Of Seagulls.
Michael can be loud and wrong, but he’s also at the center of multiple refreshingly human moments: At breakfast, when he’s explaining the French press to Abbey B., then when he thanks Joe for defending him at the roundtable and talks about growing up on Long Island around guys that looked like him. Even when he refuses to fully dismiss Jay in the face of all his mess.
Castle Keeper Twins Spotting: seen revealing the Death Parade cage and then disappearing for most of the two-hour block.
Sherry mentions to Abby that “you know there’s not three female Traitors,” and we witness the birth of another Abby L. Theory. Abby can’t totally be blamed for not having the gift of omniscience, but there’s something to be said about being so trigger happy after being so recklessly wrong.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.