The best running reality show on TV, The Traitors, hath returned. To commemorate this momentous event—and keep tabs on this absurd cast of characters—each week, we will be evaluating the power dynamics of the Traitors castle, determining who’s running the show, who’s playing the best game, and who’s avoiding the ire of the murder-happy Traitors and, even more importantly, the paranoia-driven Faithfuls. We’ll also be holding ceremonies for the players we lose along the way. Here’s where everything in the castle stands after Episode 8.
In Memoriam
Colton Underwood (Murdered)
The reveal that Colton got murdered by the Traitors—although, let’s be honest, by Candiace specifically—was the first thing this season that made my jaw literally drop. I did not see this coming! I certainly didn’t think Colton was going to make it to the end, but I assumed he would get banished by the Faithfuls, most of whom had long tired of his annoyingly brash style of play.
But there are two reasons why I thought Colton was safe for at least another week: (1) He was Rob’s closest ally and friend, and (2) his name was on the lips of so many Faithfuls that you’d think the Traitors would have no reason to waste a murder on him. There are separate explanations for why neither of these things ended up mattering, but they ultimately boil down to one person …
Candiace Dillard Bassett (Banished)
In the history of The Traitors, I cannot remember another person making this many bad decisions. I’ll try to recap them all in order:
- First, after yelling at Rob for making good strategic moves and sending Lisa Rinna home, Alan Cumming tells the two remaining Traitors that they have the option to recruit a Faithful to their side rather than murder. Rob immediately says he doesn’t want to bring anyone else into the turret, and Candiace, with little pushback, agrees. She says that she doesn’t want to create a two-versus-one situation where Rob has a Traitor ally, but that acknowledgment alone—that everyone’s fondness for Rob is so total and so guaranteed that no matter the recruit, they would choose his side over hers—seems like exactly why Candiace would be wise to bring on another Traitor. (At least then, Rob would have less control.) She also seems to not spend a second considering why Rob would be so against it.
- As an olive branch, Rob fully cedes the murder decision to Candiace. And her top pick is Colton. This doesn’t make a ton of sense. At this moment, she does not know that Colton is starting to say her name; also, at the end of the last episode, Candiace was planting a seed in Johnny’s mind that Colton and Rob were both Traitors—and he was buying it! But no matter: She merely says that he’s “messy” and thus needs to go.
- Rob puts up the smallest amount of resistance to this because he does know that Colton has been saying her name and that everyone will shift their suspicion to Candiace if Colton is killed. But again, Rob allowing his closest ally to be killed raises no alarm bells for Candiace. She merely takes it as a W that she sent Rob’s boy home.
- Based on many things—confessional quotes, her reasoning for not wanting to recruit—it is clear that Candiace knows how much everyone in the castle loves Rob. Yet she presses on with her mission to make everyone not love Rob. (It fails.)
- At the roundtable, the best argument she can come up with to implicate Rob is that he dropped his fork at breakfast.
By the time we get to the end of the roundtable, Candiace has managed the situation so poorly that even her two biggest allies, Johnny Weir and Dorinda Medley, vote against her.
From day one, Candiace played this game with emotion and ego first. She could not stop herself from defending her friends—one of whom she knew was a Traitor!—when it would’ve been smarter to shut up and go with consensus. She was so upset that Rob betrayed Lisa that she could not restrain herself from writing his name at last week’s roundtable—a decision so incredibly random and inexplicable that it immediately came back to bite her. And she could not swallow her pride and do the only thing that would’ve ensured her survival: buddying up to Rob and letting him run the show.
Candiace wanted to win The Traitors her way and only her way—and that’s why she lost.
The Traitors Power Rankings
Power, in this context, is a measure of who is controlling the house, who seems furthest away from being banished, and who has the best odds to prevail at the end of the road.
1. Rob Rausch (Traitor, Last Week: 1)
Has anyone ever dominated the game like this? Holy fuck, this dude is killing it. Bro is feeling himself so much that he’s out here quoting MARK TWAIN (or at least trying to).
It seems like every lever Rob pulls is the right one. I was skeptical about him declining the opportunity to recruit a Faithful, but clearly that was the correct instinct: It simply postponed recruitment to after the one-on-one battle with Candiace that he had the numbers to win, leaving him with full control over who becomes a Traitor. I was stunned that he didn’t fight harder to keep Colton, but he (wisely) saw it as a way to get Candiace to seal her own fate and to once again dump an ally the second it became useful to do so. I was surprised he didn’t employ the dagger to give himself another vote at what seemed like a pretty split roundtable, but that gamble also paid off: It was a practically unanimous decision against Candiace, and Rob didn’t waste his advantage.
So I should probably just trust that Rob’s decision to recruit Eric Nam is the right call, too. You can certainly see the logic: Eric is perhaps the most faithful of all the Faithfuls. He has less suspicion on him than Rob does. But crucially, he also has less power than Rob does and less killer instinct, too—meaning that it’s highly unlikely that Eric could overthrow Rob, let alone try to do so.
It is very hard to win The Traitors as a Traitor. Odds are still that Rob will suffer a precipitous downfall. But be honest: Would you really bet against him at this point?
2. Maura Higgins (Faithful, LW: 6)
Honestly, she’s just this high because I think Rob will carry her to the end. These two crazy kids have something great going on.
3. Eric Nam (Faithful, LW: 7)
Well, well, well, look who just fell into some actual power! Little Eric Nam, the singer-songwriter whose songs we all definitely know and love, has been recruited by Rob to be a Traitor.
That obviously puts Eric in an advantageous spot, especially considering how unlikely it seems that the Faithfuls will ever suspect him. Now we’ll have to wait and see what he does with the opportunity. Surely he’s not stupid enough to go home out of sheer loyalty to the Faithfuls, but beyond that, will he actually be able to leverage being a Traitor? Unlike Candiace, will he recognize Rob’s power and treat him as an asset rather than an enemy? Or will he just be a sacrificial lamb for Rob to keep around until he needs to offer the Faithfuls some blood?
4. Mark Ballas (Faithful, LW: 2)
5. Natalie Anderson (Faithful, LW: 8)
Rob, Eric (because he’s a Traitor now), and Maura (because young love) will all see another morning in Scotland—that seems safe to say. Everyone else is at risk of being killed, though. Mark and Natalie feel like they’re in the best shape out of this unfortunate pack because they are part of the Dagger Six, the group of players who know that Rob won the dagger in last week’s challenge. (It’s technically the Dagger Five now since Colton went home.) Rob (and by proxy Eric, who is also a part of the Dagger Six) is more likely to keep them safe not only because they’re all allies, but also because they know that Rob has double-vote power and are thus disincentivized from going after him during a roundtable.
They themselves are not responsible for this brief respite from the fear of being murdered, but at this point, you just gotta survive another day. (And props to Natalie for lying low in this episode, letting the funk from her temper tantrum wear off.)
6. Kristen Kish (Faithful, LW: 5)
Kristen, meanwhile, is guaranteed survival because she found a shield in this week’s challenge. The chef has played a fairly uninspiring game so far—even to say she’s “played” feels like an overstatement—but oftentimes on The Traitors, it’s the people who float beneath the noise and luck into some timely immunity who make it to the end.
7. Dorinda Medley (Faithful, LW: 10)
I mean this in the most respectful way possible: Dorinda is probably the most useless player still in the game.
8. Stephen Colletti (Faithful, LW: 9)
You keep waiting for Stephen to make a move, but he is very clearly comfortable letting his game be dictated by everyone else’s. This week, his feet get held to the fire because (a) he’s too normal and quiet, (b) Colton also said his name before getting murdered, and (c) Lisa Rinna inadvertently fucked him when she put her gold in his chest last episode. None of that sticks, of course, but more and more people keep being like, “It seems like there’s a boy up in the turret … a boy you’d least expect,” and even though this description also fits Rob to a tee, no one can bring themselves to consider that reality. Thus, all of that suspicion is getting heaped onto Stephen.
He’s a good candidate for both murder and banishment. That’s a tough spot to be in.
9. Johnny Weir (Faithful, LW: 3)
I spent the entire episode yelling at Johnny through the TV screen for being so alliance pilled. He’s been trying to treat The Traitors like it’s Survivor for weeks now, and with heat coming down on one of his best pals, Candiace, it seemed like he was letting the suspicion steel his faith in her rather than shake it. But that’s how bad a game Candiace played: Not even Johnny could stick it out with her.
You gotta give him credit for remembering what the point of this game is. However, as Johnny falls asleep next to his framed photo of Tara Lipinski …
… he’s in real danger. Even though he voted against Candiace, his alliance to her—and his dejection after she reveals she’s a Traitor and goes home—is going to be a source of strong suspicion; at the end of the episode, Maura is already saying his name, and some of the other cast is remarking on how Candiace was trying to get Johnny a shield in that day’s challenge. Traitor-on-Traitor crime did happen in this episode, but it wouldn’t shock me if the cast made the incorrect leap that Johnny was the other Traitor in that situation. He was also one of the loudest voices accusing Colton, which looks pretty bad now that it’s clear that Colton was a Faithful.
Plus, for a guy who tried to turn Traitors into an alliance game, he really doesn’t have the numbers anymore. People firmly in his corner: Tara and maybe Dorinda and Kristen? Oof.
10. Tara Lipinski (Faithful, LW: 4)
I mean, even Tara spent this whole episode talking about how much she sucks at this game.
