RECAP: The Traitors (U.S.) Season 3, Episodes 7 & 8
First, sorry for the delay on the Episode 7 blog. We’ll get into the big development that episode here, as we also break down where things stand after Episode 8 — which I consider to be the start of Act III, AKA the season endgame. For as utterly guileless as most of these players are, as of this moment I think there are enough interesting strings to pull to get us to a satisfying conclusion of the season. That’s remarkable, because prior to the last two episodes, I was finding this a profoundly frustrating watch.
Read on for my takes on Episodes 7 and 8 of The Traitors Season 3. SPOILERS AHEAD!
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Episode 7
The headline was, of course, the banishment of Survivor alum “Boston” Rob Mariano, who had been running this show for at least the four previous episodes. I knew in my gut that there was no way that these people — as dimwitted as most of them appear to be — could allow Rob to run away with this game as boldly as he had been doing and offering up no resistance. But I really was sweating it there for a while. The other two Traitors, Danielle Reyes and Carolyn Wiger, knew that Rob had to go, but seemed powerless to stop him. Too many of the Faithful, particularly the otherwise astute Dylan Efron, were firmly under Rob’s sway to see the obvious evidence pointing to him.
And yet hope came from the unlikeliest of sources Vanderpump Rules’ star and Faithfuls whipping boy Tom Sandoval, who appeared to be key in rallying the Faithful at the deliberations to finally put the heat on Rob. Rob tried to deflect and push the other reasonable target, Big Brother vet Britney Hayes, into the line of fire, but with a slim margin, Rob was ousted, revealed as a Traitor, and the game opened up significantly.
The big twist at the end came from the Traitors having to “murder” a player in a face-to-face elimination, done in a very elaborate church setting. The Faithful up for elimination were Dylan Efron, Tom Sandoval, Bachelor alum Gabby Windey, Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause, Real Housewife Dolores Catania, and Carolyn, who obviously was never in any real danger. This ended on a cliffhanger, but my assumption was that the Traitors would axe either Tom (who had just been instrumental in getting out Rob) or Dylan (who aside from Rob has had strong instincts in this game).
Episode 8
…but it was neither. The Traitors decided to cut Chrishell, telling her that she was “too Faithful,” and that nobody would suspect her of being a Traitor. I guess I see the logic in that. I agree that nobody was looking at Chrishell as a possible Traitor, which meant she would be useless as a decoy in Round Table deliberations. But you could have made the same argument for Dylan and Tom, and they were actually actively playing the game to route out the Traitors. Chrishell, if anything, was assisting the Traitors with her nonsense allegations against her friends and fellow Faithful (see: leading the Nikki Garcia boot by stating that her “energy shifted”).
I was not sorry to see Chrishell go. She was not a strong player. I did enjoy her dunking on Sandoval, as the Tom Pinata has become the most reliably entertaining part of this entire season. But this felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity for the Traitors, who badly need a win right now. Interestingly, after meeting the Traitors, Chrishell said that she had suspected Danielle, but was blown away that Carolyn is a Traitor, adding that she is playing the best game there. I’ve been saying that since the beginning and it was nice to have that validated by an actual member of the cast.
Carolyn’s excellent game started to show some cracks, however, at breakfast the next morning. Sam Ashghari decided to finally show up and put forth a genuinely good piece of strategy: as the Faithful who were up for elimination came into breakfast, they relayed their versions of what happened to them the night before. If they were safe, Alan Cumming went in to retrieve them. And Alan being Alan, he had on an outrageous outfit and frilly hat. So Sam realized that anyone who could not describe Alan’s outfit was automatically sus.
The problem was, Carolyn didn’t see Alan. As a Traitor, if she interacted with him at all, it was in a very different capacity than any of the surviving Faithful saw him. So the edit, at the very least, suggested that Carolyn stammered and froze at Sam’s line of questioning, before someone — I believe it was Sandoval (of course it was) — jumped in and gave her the answer. It’s difficult to know how much of that was edited to make Carolyn look like she was on the ropes, and how much of it really happened. I am also left to wonder if Sam has actually consistently been putting forward good suggestions like this, and they’ve been cutting them out as they didn’t have space for his “character” yet. But he was very much in the mix from a gameplay perspective this season, and while I was lusting after him physically before, I am now even more obsessed with this man now that I know he has a brain, too. More shower scenes AND strategy sessions with Sam, please!
The challenge was a wild, complicated affair that split the group in half. Five members went into the woods to investigate a hellish doll house, trying to locate five dolls that sang nursery rhymes backwards. They had to then memorize the sounds they were making and sing them via phone line to the five members back at the castle. Those team members had to then memorize the sounds themselves and sing them into a gramophone contraption that could reverse the sounds, which theoretically would sound approximately like the nursery rhymes everyone knows. Also, the only players with access to a shield were the ones in the field in the doll house, and there was only ONE shield hidden among the dolls.
The scenes in the dollhouse were absolutely hilarious. In addition to the whole set being nightmare fuel with creepy dolls and sounds, some of the dolls also sprayed out water at the players and made threatening sounds. Lord Ivar Mountbatten, in by far his best moment on the show, reacted brilliantly to this multiple times. But all of it was a hoot to watch. Also the height of entertainment: Tom Sandoval taking lead on the singing part of the challenge, monopolizing the phone to transfer the songs, and being dragged by absolutely everyone for how terrible he sounded. Epic trolling by this cast and crew.
That said, Tom got the job done, and the teams got the maximum amount of money in the prize pot, and Summer House star Ciara Miller found the sole shield. She felt she needed it, as her name was coming up again as the only real loose thread in terms of information about the Traitors. Ciara was the last person left from the coffin marked-for-death twist, and the other eliminated players — Nikki Garcia and Survivor winner Jeremy Collins — were both revealed as Faithfuls. The assumption quickly became that ONE of them was likely a Traitor as a decoy, and by process of elimination, it had to be Ciara.
That was the thrust of the conversation at the Round Table, with Ciara defending herself weakly, and instead trying to throw suspicion on Big Brother’s Britney Haynes, who so far has done a whole lot of nothing in this competition. I mean, she’s not wrong. Of all the “gamers” in the house, Britney has taken the least amount of initiative and played a very passive game.
Ciara’s defense fell on deaf ears, and in a nearly unanimous vote she was banished, revealing herself to be a Faithful. This lead to some interesting fallout, as Sam, Dylan, and Ivar — who, along with Tom, are the only men left — have realized that statistically at least ONE of the remaining Traitors has to be a woman (given that both of the exposed Traitors, Bob the Drag Queen and “Boston” Rob, were both dudes). They plan to start focusing fire against the women going forward.
This is actual strategy, which we have seen precious little of this season. Given that we’re down to 9 players, and that 2 out of the 5 women left are, in fact, Traitors, this could get very dangerous to Danielle and Carolyn very quickly. They’re going to need to be smart to survive the next Round Table unscathed.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure they’re really capable of that. Because when they ascended to the Turret to choose their next victim, they were presented with another twist: they could make a murder as usual that night, OR they could attempt to recruit a Faithful into becoming a Traitor. (This sounded like an opt-in situation, so if they MADE the overture, there is no guarantee the player would accept it.)
Carolyn wanted to continue murdering as usual, and I actually think she’s got it right. From a numbers perspective, they need to take out as many men as possible as quickly as possible, or they risk being overwhelmed by numbers in the end. Danielle however was adamant that they should try to recruit a new Traitor, and specifically that it be a woman — ideally Britney, her Big Brother bestie. Carolyn is no idiot — she literally said that directly to Danielle — and immediately dismissed Britney being brought into the Turret, as it would instantly put her on the outs of the Traitors alliance, and essentially put an expiration date on her own time in the game. There is zero good reason for them to add Britney, and I’m not sure why they’re not considering men. I would try to seduce Dylan over the Traitors in a heartbeat, and not just because he’s dreamy. He’s smart, capable, and help to disarm the boys’ “attack the girls” plan.
We’ll see what the Traitors decide next episode. I suspect it will be either Gabby or Dolores, but if it’s Britney, Carolyn will have made an enormous mistake.
What do you think of The Traitors Season 3? Drop your thoughts in the comments. The floor is yours!
