Fun idea! The execution needs tweaking, though.
Photo: Euan Cherry/Peacock
Spoilers follow for the first three episodes of the fourth season of The Traitors, which premiered on Peacock on January 8.
In no other situation in life would I say this, given that the woman is the wealthy mother of two extremely successful athletes, a spokesperson with her own endorsements, and a mainstay in Taylor Swift’s circle. But also: Poor Donna Kelce! The Traitors sort of did her dirty, didn’t it?
As the Secret Traitor, the latest twist in the series’ ever-evolving gameplay, Kelce wasn’t set up to succeed. Sure, she’s the competitor with the most recognizable name, but Kelce definitely has the least experience with any kind of strategy game, and you’re placing her in a role that demands inherent conniving, intentional subterfuge, and enforced individuality. That’s denying Kelce a legitimate chance at actually playing the game, or even enjoying being in the castle, since she’s immediately isolated from the Faithful and other Traitors alike. On top of that, how obvious is it to select Kelce, who many players described as “America’s mom,” as a Traitor? It would be so shocking to make her a murderer that it actually becomes quite predictable, so it’s not surprising that the Faithful clocked her so fast. In fact, it kind of makes the whole Secret Traitor idea feel like a flop.
With its fourth season, The Traitors is as flexible as ever, throwing unexpected challenges at the Traitors and Faithful alike. Host Alan Cumming demands the Traitors pull off a murder in plain sight on their second night, and there’s a roundtable in the middle of the day to vote someone out. The biggest change of all, though — one which actually could alter the structure of the show — is the concept of the Secret Traitor, whose role is to provide a shortlist of people whom the main Traitors can select for murder. Selected as soon as the group arrived and tasked with staying anonymous, the Secret Traitor was not allowed to interact with the other chosen Traitors until Alan allowed it. That meant that neither the other competitors nor the series’ viewers knew who the Secret Traitor was, and the show didn’t give us any clues. Outside of showing us the Secret Traitor’s handwriting on their shortlists, there were no tells from the production team about who this person could be, just shadowy footage of some hooded player wandering the castle with a lantern. They’re a complete mystery inside the castle and outside of it, and that seems like a good idea in theory, but didn’t actually work in execution.
It’s tough to speculate how far Kelce actually could have gotten, because like Michael Rapaport, she was coming into the castle with no natural allies. She did connect with a couple of the other loners in the castle, including Rapaport and comedian Ron Funches, but otherwise had to rely on an “I’m a superfan” approach toward the Housewives, gamers, and other reality-TV personalities, a strategy not built for longevity. Also not helping was the specter of “the Swifties,” who came up more than once when people were talking about Kelce, like contestants didn’t want to cross her because they thought Swift’s practically militarized cadre of superfans would go after them. And maybe there was a part of Kelce who would have eventually been uncomfortable with the game’s physical challenges; the woman is 73 years old, and I can understand if she doesn’t want to be buried alive, hike up cliffs, or do whatever else The Traitors would have demanded. But again, this is all speculation, because The Traitors was more concerned with keeping her Secret Traitor identity a secret than showing us how she would have played this game. We didn’t get to know her because the series wouldn’t let us.
Does this mean the Secret Traitor idea itself is a non-starter? Not necessarily, but it certainly needs to be tweaked if it’s going to continue being an element of this season’s gameplay. It’s unclear at this point whether Alan will select another Secret Traitor from the remaining Faithful, or if that concept exits the show once the original Secret Traitor does, but for now, let’s talk about the Secret Traitor concept as it’s been shown to us. Putting the murder shortlist in one person’s hands, rather than letting the shields do the work of specifying who can be killed off, is a major change that gives the Secret Traitor a ton of power without a ton of explanation for their thinking. We don’t know how the Traitors might have continued to react to being curtailed. Kelce’s shortlists seemed to work out for them, since the Traitors murdered off two seemingly threatening gamers in Ian and Rob C., but we just don’t have enough data yet to gauge the various ways this could play out, successfully or not.
If the Secret Traitor is going to return, the show itself could do more to show their motivations, and to let us actually play along in figuring out who the person is. Slap a distortion effect on their audio and let them tell us what they’re thinking about who to kill. Or make the Secret Traitor only a secret within the castle, and let us know who they are from the beginning so that we can watch how they’re playing the game. None of this would have helped Kelce stick around, but it at least might have made the big swing of the Secret Traitor land better.