In his short but memorable TV career, we’ve seen a bit of a pattern emerge from Rob Rausch’s onscreen behavior: From Love Island USA through The Traitors, the 27-year-old reality star immediately charms everyone in the house (in this case, a Scottish castle), then upends that sweet-Southern-boy persona with some some wicked behavior (in Love Island, romantic betrayal; here, pretend murder), and then goes all woeful and weepy in the wake of those devilish actions. (Who can forget that poolside cry session in the villa?)
At this penultimate point in the Peacock game, Rob is toggling somewhere between sinful and sorry. “It’s taking a toll on me,” the snake wrangler says of his continued duplicity against close pals like Maura Higgins. “I can’t help but genuinely feel bad…it’s hard for me to distinguish, you know, I’m playing a game versus ‘Oh, this is just a person that I like that I’m using their feelings and emotions to win this game.’” For her part? “I really do trust Rob,” Maura maintains (while wearing an excellently bitchy leather beret).
But with only eight contestants left—nay, seven, after the breakfast-table reveal that sleuthing chef Kristen Kish was taken out by the Traitors the previous evening—and just one roundtable remaining, cracks are finally starting to form in the players’ heretofore unshakeable faith in Rausch. Tara Lipinski is the first to bring up Rob’s name as a potential villain during a convo with gamer Natalie Anderson, who admits that Candiace Dillard Bassett’s throwaway vote against him is still weighing on her. Nobody has formally questioned Rob’s loyalty. “Maybe that is where we need to look, because it’s so obvious,” Tara reasons.
Needing numbers to take down Rausch, especially since he still has the dagger advantage of two votes at that evening’s roundtable, the women bring up their theory to Maura, who is quick to rebuff. “It could not be Rob,” the TV host assures them. “You can’t be 100-percent but if me and him were at the end and he was a Traitor, I would probably storm out of the castle because I am so convinced. I would drop dead.” Still, Natalie takes Tara’s tip-off and runs with it through the castle, saying that they have to “go bold and go big” to take down the mighty Rob.
At the mission—where contestants have to race around a fairground and find satchels of gold hidden inside stuffed animal prizes—things look to be going the ladies’ way, with Rob knocked out of shield contention almost immediately when he fails to race back to the carousel in time. His ticked-off response is clocked by Natalie: “Rob has never been upset about not having a shield…it feels like Rob is acting.” It ends up being Rausch’s ally Eric Nam, though, who manages to snag that coveted protection. Other than Mark Ballas, who still has Kish’s criticisms of Nam on the noggin, nobody is all that suspicious of the singer being unfaithful—yet, that is.
Just to be sure, though, Rob starts laying the groundwork for a Natalie banishment, arguing that his onetime close ally has been distant in the last few days. He kicks off the roundtable that evening saying as much, though Anderson pushes back that Rob’s demeanor has been curiously out-of-character lately, particularly the annoyance he displayed getting knocked out of the mission early. Guns out (literally—incredible biceps, Anderson), Natalie is more than up for the fight but she starts throwing in the gloves when Tara, who had been very down to go in on Rausch, suddenly goes timid at the table. “I’ve been trying to trust people, and I was told something else by some people and now it’s very different,” Natalie laments. “I was taken advantage of.”
Rob, unsurprisingly, is absolutely delighted to see the women’s plot against him crumble right before his eyes, with both Natalie and Tara wasting their votes vengefully on each other. “It’s a game of paranoia, and this is the most paranoid I’ve been,” Rausch admits. But his counter-scheme works, and, one by one, his allies vote Faithful Natalie home.
A sobbing Tara declares that she no longer wants to play the game, a depth of emotion that convinces Mark that the Olympian must be a Faithful (or otherwise an Oscar-level actor). He also points out that Eric was awfully quiet during that heated roundtable. Has he been under-the-radar for too long? Rob warns Nam of that very thing in the turret later that evening, before they’re interrupted by Alan Cumming with some less-than-ideal news. Their last kill “is gonna be a scorcher,” he tells them, but one that will happen out in the open.
Indeed, the players are summoned from their bed chambers at the Marriott, er, the castle and brought outside to find Alan proceeding over a rock circle with a casket in the center. The Faithfuls will be told then and there who won’t live to see the morning, but, of course, we won’t find out who until next Thursday’s big finale episode. Will Rob and Eric break up the skating twins and kill off Johnny or Tara? Will they betray their closest allies Mark or Maura? “This is definitely the hardest time to be a Traitor,” Rob worries. Sharpen those fangs, Rausch. It’s time for ruthlessness, not remorse.
Stray observations
- • Alan’s outfits never cease to thrill, but Cumming might just have outdone himself with the astonishing ensemble worn during this week’s mission: He was a vision in seafoam with enough accessories (habit-like headscarf, bedazzled hairpiece, flouncy pussy bow) to make my head spin like I just got off that whirling carousel myself.
- • Best supporting actor: Groundskeeper Fergus, who remains silent and reliably hilarious.
Christina Izzo is a contributor to The A.V. Club.
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