Photo: Euan Cherry | Peacock

This article contains spoilers for The Traitors season 4 episodes 1-3.

The Traitors is back with another season packed with stars, lies, and strategy. And this time, it has introduced a secret traitor twist. It’s a clever idea in theory, but one that immediately fell apart thanks to one fatal flaw.

For those uninitiated, The Traitors is a reality competition series that first aired in 2023, which was based on the Netherlands’ De Verraders. The success of the show’s concept spread to the U.K. in 2022 and gained immense popularity in the U.S. soon after. The premise is essentially an extended game of Mafia, minus the doctors and cops, with host Alan Cumming prowling around a castle and savoring every syllable he delivers. The cast is typically made up of reality stars and notable figures, divided into Traitors and Faithfuls. Each round, the Traitors secretly “murder” a player while the Faithfuls attempt to identify and vote them out.

If the Faithfuls eliminate all the Traitors by the end of the game, they split the prize money. If  even one Traitor survives undetected, that person walks away with the entire pot; this happened in season 1, when former Survivor star Cirie Fields managed to make it all the way to the finale. The following two seasons saw Faithful victories, making this season’s twist feel like an effort to swing the balance back in the Traitors’ favor.

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The secret Traitor is hidden not only from the Faithfuls, but from the other Traitors and the audience as well. Each week, the secret Traitor would submit a short list of potential murder victims, from which the known Traitors, Rob Rausch (Love Island USA), Candiace Dillard-Bassett (The Real Housewives of Potomac), and Lisa Rinna (The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills), would choose.

The twist was clearly designed to delay suspicion and eventually unite all four Traitors. Instead, by the beginning of episode three, the Faithfuls successfully identified and eliminated the secret traitor: Donna Kelce.

The famous mother of NFL stars Jason and Travis Kelce, Donna was simply a poor choice for this role. Although she didn’t play badly, her name recognition and not-quite-made-for-reality-TV demeanor made her stand out immediately. Tiffany Mitchell (Big Brother) was the first to clock her, interpreting Donna’s quietness and lack of alliance-building as the behavior of someone who knew they couldn’t be murdered. Candiace echoed the suspicion because she “just felt” it was Donna, which unfortunately for Mama Kelce, was enough.

Targeting quieter houseguests, or someone the Faithfuls believe would be an easy vote, becomes a convenient way to thin out the herd. As Donna said herself at the round table, going after her felt like “low-hanging fruit.”

Still, she didn’t go down without a fight. After surviving episode two’s banishment, Donna attempted to lead conversations and connect more intentionally with the group. But the narrative was already locked in. When the votes came down, nearly everyone wrote her name.

Upon her elimination, Donna revealed that her strategy was to lay low as a sweet mom fangirling over the celebrities. However, I don’t quite believe her game plan would have changed if she was a Faithful. She’s genuinely a mild-mannered Midwesterner who was thrilled to be in the same room as Lisa Rinna and felt a little shy in such a large group. The irony, of course, is that she’s probably the most famous person in the cast right now.

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However, Donna may have helped the Traitors more than she knows. Her short lists targeted players she felt were flying under the radar. Those players also happened to be the Traitors’ biggest threats. Ian Terry (Big Brother) was known as an elite deceiver and competition expert; eliminating him early was a massive win. Rob Cesternino (Survivor) was the only player to figure out that there was a murder-in-plain-sight in episode two. Whether intentional or not, Donna set the traitors up beautifully from behind the scenes.

She also wisely excluded Michael Rapaport (actor) from her lists. From episode one, it was clear that he was a loose cannon and anything but a team player. By keeping his name off the table, Donna denied the Traitors the chance to eliminate one of their most valuable assets, even if he was insufferable. Michael’s loudness and round table monologues serve as a perfect distraction, and the Traitors can hide behind his larger-than-life presence and remain unsuspected.

As a result, the twist unraveled almost immediately, and viewers never got to see all the Traitors unite. Perhaps, if they wouldn’t have picked the cast member that stuck out like a sore thumb among the rest, it wouldn’t have gone this way. Still, the season is far from doomed. Rob R. has emerged as the Traitors’ strongest asset. He’s someone the Faithfuls would want to keep around: he’s athletic, highly motivated in group challenges, and therefore a lucrative asset to the Faithfuls looking to build the prize pot.

To me, picking Lisa as a traitor is a little too obvious (I wouldn’t be surprised if she only signed the contract because she was promised this role). This actually works out in her favor though because now the houseguests almost think she’s too obvious of a pick, so Lisa’s gone relatively unsuspected. Plus, any unnatural or heightened behavior from her can be explained away by her outsized personality. Candiace, however, remains the group’s biggest liability as someone who indulges in a little too much table talk and finger pointing.

If this season proves anything, it’s that poor strategy doesn’t always lose the game—poor casting does. The secret traitor twist may be dead, but this season is just getting started.