The Traitors (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Fill your boots, all versions and series are fair game.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

My opening takes, having watched the two UK series almost in parallel, finishing series 1 after series 2, are the couple of ways in which they were similar towards the end which may cast doubts on how they can keep the format going in the longer term:

In both cases, when it got to the final, the longer standing traitor turned on the newer traitor (although it happened slightly later in series 2), and in both cases the newer traitor, with nothing left to lose, then basically pointed at the other one.and said "but so is he" - the difference between the two series being that Mollie either didn't pick up on it, or didn't want to because of her closeness to the traitor.

In both cases, the newer traitor visibly changed their behavior after being turned, to the extent that they were raising major suspicions in the group, so were at a disadvantage in the end stage.

It seems it will usually get to a point where one traitor fucks over the other one at the end and has a decent chance of getting support from the others, on the grounds that the newer one is under suspicion, but then running the clear risk that the other will basically grass them up, and then it's a gamble over whether the others believe them.

[diggedy derek]

Yes, to drill down a little bit on this crucial subject, a key question to the viability in the longterm might be whether a Traitor can grass up another Traitor with something close to 100% effectiveness.

Like, what would happen if a Traitor had perfect recall, and they could say: "I know X is a Traitor also, because he told me about all his reasons for wanting to murder this series of Faithfuls, and they are such and such". If they could make that completely convincing, then the format would start to falter, because it would always be obvious when one Traitor was correctly identifying another.

I think ... think... that statistically, Faithfuls are slightly more likely to win in the long run. For exactly this reason. The Traitors are more powerful in the game to start with, but finding an exit strategy is very difficult. In Series 2, Harry managed to persuade Mollie, an unusually trusting fellow housemate.

It makes me wonder what rules they have about what Traitors can say at the round table. Presumably they can't actually admit they are Traitors, in a suicide mission to out other Traitors, for instance. Or they can't say, ‘OK, I'm certain I'm going to be voted out now. Ask me anything about who is a Traitor.’

[pebblethefish]

I was convinced that Harry had cocked it up when he showed the shield to Jazz and Zak. To me, it made it blatantly obvious that he was a Traitor, and that therefore they had recruited that night. However, no one twigged and blatantly made sure Jasmine and Evie went. So, shows how much I know.

[RaggedTrousered]

I thought Harry should have lost when he went green instead of red at the final three. That's based on him telling Mollie just a few hours before that he wasn't sure of the others - would have been more consistent to go red for Mollie to think it was Jaz.

[NHH]

I was convinced that Harry had cocked it up when he showed the shield to Jazz and Zak. To me, it made it blatantly obvious that he was a Traitor, and that therefore they had recruited that night. However, no one twigged and blatantly made sure Jasmine and Evie went. So, shows how much I know.

Jas and Jasmine held that possibility, but Zack's forceful advocacy of his theory seemed to blind everyone to that. Zack seems to have no doubts about being one of the smartest guys in a room, and Harry played him beautifully, making him think that he'd been jolly clever in putting it together.

Jas should have (though he might not have been able to) said to Molly that if he was a traitor, the only reason he had for wanting to revote was to force Harry out who was also a traitor and whom he didn't want to share the cash with. So, Harry is either a traitor and about to share with Jas unless the Jas can persuade Mollie to vote him out, or else Harry is a traitor and Jas isn't. So, Mollie had absolutely no reason to vote for Jas, since the only chance she had to win under either scenario was for Harry to be voted out and hope Jas wasn't a traitor too.

[diggedy derek]

Nice post. Although I'm not sure that's quite true. Just because she voted for Jaz doesn't mean he thinks he was a Traitor. Mollie had to vote for someone, because that's the rules – she might have been fairly confident that both of them were Faithful, but it's not surprising she went with the one she felt less close to, Jaz.

Once they had to banish again, she had Hobson's choice. She might well have thought that Jaz was banishing again even though there were no Traitors left.

That's the thing that would mess me up if I played the Traitors. How to gauge when there's no Traitors left.

[Artificial Hipster]

I thought Harry should have lost when he went green instead of red at the final three. That's based on him telling Mollie just a few hours before that he wasn't sure of the others - would have been more consistent to go red for Mollie to think it was Jaz.

I fully agree. It would've been the one false move he'd made all game and would have proved fatal had Molly not been blinded by trust and crumbled under the sudden, terrible weight of pressure she was feeling there.

It was in the drama of that final scene that i think the limited longevity of the series resides. Not only will people now be applying for a place on that hugely successful show that the whole country is talking about, but no one is ever going to trust anyone again. It'll be interesting to see how the next series pans out given the lessons of this one but I'd be surprised if anyone will be able to play his fellow contestants next time round as well as Harry did here.

[Artificial Hipster]

It makes me wonder what rules they have about what Traitors can say at the round table. Presumably they can't actually admit they are Traitors, in a suicide mission to out other Traitors, for instance. Or they can't say, ‘OK, I'm certain I'm going to be voted out now. Ask me anything about who is a Traitor.’

They have to swear an oath agreeing not to give any of their fellow Traitors away don't they? Whether this was the case in series 1 I'm not sure because as far as I'm concerned the bloke who all but named Wilf at the end broke it. I wouldn't say anything coming even close to that has happened this time round though.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Andrew very directly went for Harry at the fire pit when he realised Harry had sold him out, saying he'd been a Traitor since day one, though might have wrapped it in a "in my view", I can't remember.

[Artificial Hipster]

Fair enough, I didn't take it as him having made anything obvious. I thoroughly enjoyed the show but not so much enough I can be bothered watching it back again to check!

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

It was more of a reaction that he blurted out, rather than a calculated move, but I remember being moved enough to comment "fucking hell, this has got brutal" in the family chat, even before Mollie's existential crisis.

I'm still interested in the longevity point, and watching the two series in parallel I was keen to spot how the series 2 contestants differed in their tactics from those in series 1, having had the advantage of watching series 1 themselves, and how this will now influence further series. Much like the early series of Big Brother were more interesting before it sort of turned in on itself (and in that case, had to keep resorting to more and more gimmicks to try to keep it interesting).

[diggedy derek]

I think the tactics varied quite a lot. Traitors were certainly lots quicker to turn on each other, they knew it could potentially happen at any moment. The rest of them seemed to be more socially fluid moving between different groups, aware perhaps that if they were infiltrated by a traitor those groups become a liability. And certainly everyone seemed more comfortably with the 'game' nature of it. Mollie and Harry seem to be quite fine with each other, for instance, despite him basically ripping her off to the tune of 95k.

[That Night In Barcelona]

Apparently the show is based on a game called Werewolves, which was created by a Russian academic to prove a point about information asymmetry - that when two groups have competing objectives, the better informed group will almost always win out even when they are much smaller in number than the less informed group.

I think that's been the case in Traitors - in season 1, the "faithfuls" only won in the end because one of the traitors as close as told them there was another traitor to find. In season 2, for the most part the only reason any traitors were caught is because other traitors turned on them. I think maybe Ross was the only one who was actually caught by the "faithfuls", and their reasons for picking him were wrong (it's just a coincidence he was recruited as a traitor the day before).