Did you watch the finale of Traitors Season 2? I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m somehow even more invested in this game than I was before. It’s such a great mix of strategy, betrayal and interpersonal drama, and while I initially had some issues with how over the top Alan Cumming went, I now live for his theatricality and know in my heart I was wrong. I can’t wait for Season 3, as Peacock has already given it a renewal, and I’m already fantasy casting who I’d like to see at the roundtable next year.
But when the show does return, it needs to come back with a rule change because the game as we watch it is broken. There is a fundamental flaw people like Sandra Diaz-Twine have uncovered, and if the show doesn’t change the rules now, people will start really exploiting it.
Right now, as the game is currently configured, finding Traitors and voting them out prior to the last few episodes is a bad thing for the Faithfuls. Think about it this way. Let’s say you spend three episodes gathering evidence and thinking someone might be a Traitor. Turns out you’re right! You banish them from the castle. Well, the remaining Traitor(s) then get to immediately recruit someone else. Their numbers don’t change, and this person they just recruited could literally be anyone. So, in essence, you’ve gone from being pretty sure you know who one of the Traitors is to having literally no idea. Despite doing what you’re supposed to (find a Traitor), you’ve put the Faithful in a worse position (starting over with zero evidence).
The good news is this is easily fixable in one of two ways. Option 1 is the Traitors can start with a fixed number and not recruit when they lose one of their members. That way getting a Traitor out really does put you closer to victory. It works from a tactical standpoint, but since recruitments are a fun part of the game and this runs the risk of a season ending after like 5 or 6 episodes if the Traitors are particularly obvious, I don’t like that.
Instead, I like Option 2. There should be a separate prize pool the show pays out every time a Traitor is voted out that goes to everyone who casts a vote against that Traitor. For the sake of argument, let’s say this number is $50,000. If during the third episode, ten people work together to vote out a Traitor, they each get $5,000 a piece. Anyone who voted for someone else gets nothing. That creates an incentive for the Faithful to actually find Traitors, and as you go later in the game and it takes less votes to get someone out, these $50,000 bounties would become extremely lucrative. Imagine if you got out a Traitor only using the votes of 3 people.
It also creates another fun incentive for Traitors to potentially turn on each other. Right now if one of the villains is going down, the others need to decide whether to defend them or vote against them to try and deflect suspicion. I love the idea of having some money thrown into the equation to make that more morally complicated. Given what a runaway success story the show has been for Peacock, The Traitors could definitely afford to sprinkle in the extra $150,000 or $200,000 this would cost in the budget.
The Traitors has the potential to be an all-time reality competition show. It has so much intrigue and is only getting better. It’s really fun to see legendary reality stars spend time in the castle and try to win an entirely separate game. The producers need to recognize there’s an issue that needs to be fixed here, though. If they don’t, I guarantee on a future season Faithfuls will start to conspire with each other not to eliminate Traitors until the very end, and that will undermine the point of the game. A bounty for eliminated Traitors would fix that.
