SPOILERS AHEAD
Season 4 of hit reality television show The Traitors culminated this Thursday in an explosive finale. The show has quickly climbed high in the reality television stratosphere. For those who have not watched, The Traitors brings stars of different reality TV programs or athletes into a Scottish castle where host Alan Cumming picks a handful of them to be “traitors.” The rest of the players are “faithfuls” whose job is to hunt and banish traitors from the castle. Traitors must fly under the radar and each night they meet in the turret to choose a faithful to murder; they must survive round tables where each player casts a vote for the person they believe to be a traitor. The person with the most votes each night, assumed to be a traitor, is banished from the game and must reveal whether they were a “faithful” or a “traitor.”
This season of The Traitors included names like Lisa Rinna, Rob Rausch, Donna Kelce, Colton Underwood and more. Rob gained fame through the wildly popular season six of Love Island USA. His time on Love Island made him known as the incredibly attractive, yet emotionally unavailable, man, a trope which many of us—myself included—have fallen for.
Rob was chosen as a traitor along with Lisa Rinna of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Candiace Dillard Bassett of The Real Housewives of Potomac.
They began as a fabulous traitors trio, staying nonchalant and murdering in the moonlight. All three of the traitors were trusted and stayed unsuspected. All was well until episode six: “Planning a Coup.” Lisa Rinna’s name was brought up in conversation and she was suspected to be a traitor.
Instead of supporting a fellow traitor, Rob quickly decided to turn against Lisa and vote against her at the roundtable. She was able to maintain her innocence but come episode seven, her banishment was signed by none other than her fellow traitor Rob Rausch. Rob and his “best friend” in the castle, Colton Underwood, led the crusade against Lisa.
At this point, this served as a strategic move for Rob that would keep him in the game. However, Candiace did not see it this way. Candiace cast a “throw-away” vote for Rob at the roundtable. Rob quickly turned against Candiace and planted seeds of doubt against her in the heads of the faithfuls. The very next night Candaice received the most votes and was therefore banished from the castle.
“Finally some peace and quiet,” were the first words spoken by Rob after he banished Lisa and Candiace. This flippant remark placed both women into the box of being stereotypically loud, obnoxious, and “too-much,” a category in which strong and opinionated women are often inaccurately placed.
Rob also implied that he was doing the majority of the work by the traitors, when this was objectively untrue. Sometimes traitors must pull off a “murder in plain sight” in order to give the faithfuls a chance to catch traitors in the act of “murder.” They are given a task to complete in order to choose someone for murder but they must do this inconspicuously in front of all the faithfuls. This season, they were tasked with getting a faithful to touch an amulet at a banquet. Lisa wore the amulet and successfully murdered a faithful in plain sight.
Even after doing all of the work for the murder, Rob chose to stab Lisa in the back by voting for her at the roundtable. In a confessional, Lisa summed up the whole situation perfectly: “Rob blindsided me, and he did nothing at the murder in plain sight. I did all the work like all women do.”
What Rob doesn’t understand is that his natural charm and good looks would not have brought him this far in the game without the strategy and distraction that Lisa and Candiace brought. They both laid low, yet fed into their housewives personas to act persuasively as faithfuls.
For those who are consistent watchers of Traitors, Rob’s choices are strategic and smart for the game. However if we take a deeper look at his strategy, something doesn’t sit right.
Due to the rules of the game, once Rob had successfully banished his fellow traitors, he had to recruit a faithful to become a traitor alongside him. When faced with this decision, Rob didn’t even consider a single woman for the position and unsurprisingly he chose a man to join him. As a viewer at this point, I was sad to have no women in the Traitors Turret. Sure, Rob is an attractive male manipulator, but he is far less exciting than two housewives.
Singer Eric Nam was the traitor chosen by Rob. He accepted the role and he and Rob began their murderous deeds that night.
Less than 24 hours after Eric was chosen as a traitor, he became a suspect. The second his name was so much as mentioned, Rob was sure to defend him.
“I gotta have my boy’s back,” he said.
Now, this exactly sums up my issues with Rob’s game play. It was a no-brainer for him to defend Eric even when it may have posed a disadvantage to his game but not once did he defend Lisa or Candiace. This sort of “boys-club” loyalty is deeply rooted in patriarchal standards and why so many women feel they cannot fully trust men. Eric has only been a traitor for 24 hours, while Rob started the game with Lisa and Candiace, yet he feels more loyalty towards Eric? Make it make sense.
His ability to discard Lisa and Candiace without a second thought could have been considered a consistent strategy, but after his defense of Eric, my image of Rob changed. It is always disappointing to see a man choose another man over a woman who earned her place.
Eric did not need to do anything to earn Rob’s trust and loyalty, because men automatically respect each other more than they would a woman. This same consideration is not given to women.
Lisa, Candiace, and Rob made a great team and if they played their cards right, could have won it all. Though I have a sneaky feeling that Rob didn’t want to share his spoils with two housewives, even though he is more than willing to share with another man.
Look, either way, I love this show and you really can break down the psychology of what traitors do when they are forced to lie and be deceitful. Obviously, this is just my opinion, and I do not know any of these people personally. If you were thinking of watching The Traitors, please do not let this deter you. If anything, I hope this encourages you to watch, analyze, and form opinions on your own. The Traitors is an Emmy-award winning reality competition series that is an incredibly entertaining and fun watch. It is available on Peacock and all episodes of season 4, including the reunion, are currently streaming.