their way to $100,000<\/a>. This season, the players are clued up on strategy and they\u2019re all motivated to win. They\u2019re fizzing at the bung to cheat and scheme their way to that prize money, and they\u2019re relishing the opportunity to step out of their ordinary lives and become someone else for a few precious weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\")
The cast of The Traitors NZ (Photo: Three)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s 51-year-old receptionist Jill, whose strategy is to play the \u201cclueless old mum\u201d to hide her true cunning and knowledge of the game. Award-winning children\u2019s author Rachel is observant and perceptive and unafraid to speak up, while Dave may be familiar to reality TV fans who watched Treasure Island: Fans vs Faves. There are several teachers, an audio engineer, an athlete and a stay-at-home mum. This diverse mix of everyday New Zealanders is the show\u2019s biggest strength, as youth pastors compete against HR consultants, and professional DJs try to persuade professors that they can be trusted and that they are, indeed, faithful.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The twists keep coming, even after Mike hoons it back to Auckland. Each player is given a tiny wooden box which may contain a secret power: the choice to become a traitor. There\u2019s an astonishing reveal in episode two that had me squealing with delight. And then there\u2019s all the illuminating moments that reflect our society back at us, like the depressingly predictable first murder and a physical challenge that quietly reveals where the power in the game actually lies. The first round table is a delight, with clueless faithful assigning guilt based on whether someone either blinked too much, or didn\u2019t blink at all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Madeleine Sami (Photo: Three)<\/p>\n
New host Sami is a worthy replacement for Paul Henry. She brings the ideal balance of theatrics and humour, and will no doubt relax into the role as the contest unfolds. She makes a farewell speech at Henry\u2019s grave (and later tells the players, \u201cDaddy\u2019s gone, the drama\u2019s about to begin\u201d), she gleefully sends contestants into a giant pool of gunge, and she appears out of the darkness at the round table, resplendent in a dramatic gold shirt with big sleeves. Is this the best job in television? I think it might just be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the greatest thing about The Traitors NZ is that it continues to know how ridiculous it is, and it\u2019s having a great time making entertaining telly. Already, this feels like the game we already know and love, but with so many twists and turns, it also feels fresh and reborn. The Traitors NZ\u2019s return bodes well for another season of deliciously deadly television, finger scissors and all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Traitors NZ streams on ThreeNow, and screens on Three on Sundays and Mondays at 7.30pm.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tara Ward recaps the first two episodes of season three of The Traitors NZ. Warning: contains spoilers.\u00a0 Mike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,160829,111,139,69,208349,72270,1066,143510,1529],"class_list":["post-457070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-madeleine-sami","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nz-reality-tv","tag-nz-tv","tag-pop-culture","tag-the-traitors-nz","tag-three"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}