Note: The following story contains spoilers from “The Traitors” Season 3, Episodes 1-3.
After becoming a global phenomenon in its second season, “The Traitors” is back with its third installment, which has already distinguished itself with fresh dynamics from a new cast of reality stars and unexpected twists and turns.
“We always say the show is like a murder mystery, and no two murder mysteries are ever the same,” EP Mike Cotton told TheWrap. “The core game always stays the same, but we see how we can change it. We’re really aware that the more series that go on, the cast come in, and they think they know how to play it and we want to keep them on their toes — we like to change things.”
The essence of every season comes from its traitors, which were revealed for Season 3 as Bob the Drag Queen (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”), Carolyn Wiger (“Survivor”) and Danielle Reyes (“Big Brother”), all of whom expressed their desire to take on the role to host Alan Cumming, which EP Sam Rees-Jones said is “key” to their selection. While the EPs had “an idea” of who the traitors and faithfuls would be this season, the selection was finalized after the players arrived at the castle and had their goal interviews with Cumming.
“We thought the viewers would enjoy seeing those three traitors play in different ways,” Rees-Jones said, noting the three different personalities serve as an interesting mix. “They’re all approaching the game differently, so we thought it would be a really eclectic and interesting mix to have in the conclave — there’s a lot of fun moments in the traitors turret to come this season.”
The first twist of the season arrived pretty immediately, when Cumming presented the players with the option of bringing in “Survivor” star Rob Mariano, also known as Boston Rob, and subbing out another player before even entering the castle. None of the players opted to bring him in and eliminate one of their own, but nonetheless, Boston Rob was brought into the castle by Cumming as a traitor at the end of Episode 1.
Regardless of the players decision, the EPs revealed that whoever had been exiled from the castle during that decision was slated to become the fourth and final traitor. “We didn’t know what they were going to do — if they decided to swap Tony out or Brittany had swapped Daniel out, it would have completely changed,” Cotton said. “As it happened, they didn’t let Rob in and by doing that, they sealed his fate as becoming the final traitor. We like the idea of choosing some people and then that last one could have played out in many different ways.”
“Like Alan says to the cast, every decision has consequences,” Rees-Jones said.
Another riveting during happens at the end of Episode 3, when the traitors are challenged to meet in the cellar during the day, and seem to be spotted by former “Bachelorette” and faithful Gabby Windey, which Rees-Jones prompted “one of the most terrifying moments of my life.”
With Episode 4 dropping on Thursday evening, Cotton teased shooting the episode was “heart-stopping” for the EPs, recalling “I thought we’d have a heart attack.”
Below, Cotton and Rees-Jones unpack fan response to Dorinda Medley’s early exit, those three additions, and tease Episode 4 sees one of the biggest 180s the show has ever seen.
TheWrap: There was a bit of criticism from fans about adding Rob, Wes and Derrick. Why did you add them in and what did you make of this criticism?
Sam Rees-Jones: We like to keep players on their toes. As it becomes more established, it’s even more important than ever to keep the players on their toes. These little twists and turns do just that.
Cotton: We knew that someone was going to be exiled from the castle — we didn’t know whether it was going to be Rob or not, but we always wanted to bring that person in with some other players because people coming, you don’t know whether they’re coming in as a faithful or a traitor, so they wanted to bring them in some other players. I’m sure there was some criticism from some fans —we saw that online. Other fans loved it. They were three heavyweight game players, and actually, I think as we get further into the run, I think the viewers will be really interested to see how that unfolds. They were three big like alpha males, in a way, going into that game, and it was just a point of difference for us this season.
Fans were also sad to see Dorinda go as the first murder. Had you hoped to see her in the game longer?
Cotton: Of course, we would loved to have seen Dorinda stay longer. I read a comment on socials when they were like, “the producers really messed up deciding that Dorinda should go first.” Hopefully people understand we don’t control the game. We always say we set up the rules of this game, and how that has played out is entirely up to them — It’s entirely up to the traitors. We were sat in the control room and being like, “I can’t believe they’ve chosen Dorinda as the first person.” We were surprised by that, but that’s what happens and that’s what’s really good about the show — it’s completely unexpected. If we sat down and plotted that, would we have chosen her to be the first gone? Maybe not, but you never know what’s around the corner.
Rees-Jones: It’s really brave by the network to book these big names and know that they could go at any moment. It’s our job to make sure that the viewers sure they might tune in to see Dorinda, but hopefully they’ll fall in love with Gabby, let’s say, or I might be a Tony fan, but gosh, Dylan Efron — what a game player he is. We have different fandoms come and hopefully they follow different narratives from players that they didn’t actually know before.
It already seems like some people are suspecting Bob and Danielle. What did you think of how they started off the game and what can you tease about how their strategy continues?
Cotton: It’s really powerful, interesting combination of traitors this year, and I think it’s great, thrilling watching. I wouldn’t want to say any more than that.
Rees-Jones: It can turn 180 immediately. From all the seasons we’ve done, it can always do that — I would say this series more than ever, for the U.S. season of “Traitors,” it would flip. Episode 4, I’d say, is one of the biggest 180s we’ve had, and it can just change in different directions all the time.
Who is a player that surprised you?
Rees-Jones: I think a lot of viewers have picked up on Dylan Efron, and they weren’t familiar with him before. To a point we were surprised by [the fact that] he’s really competitive, but when we first got on Zoom and chatted to him, you could see he had this competitive spirit in him, and he proves that. You don’t always need to be coming from a game-playing background, this competitive drive and wanting to win and this excitement to take on the game is so important.
Cotton: That’s what I love about this show, is that the “Housewives,” some of them, can be amazing gamers, and they’ve just never done it before, and they’re quite astute in some of their observations that they can make.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
New episodes release every Thursday at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET on Peacock.
