The Traitors: New Blood Recap: Poisoned Apples

The Traitors New Blood
Wake of the Living Dead
Season 1 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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We missed a week! Men had to play baseball, so we had to wait a week to see what fanciful, queer-elf-at-a-masquerade outfit Alan Cumming would wear this episode. It’s okay, though. I’ve seen Ted Lasso. I understand that sports are very important to people somehow, somewhere. I was over here waiting on tenterhooks to see if Jay would unmask Katie as a Traitor even though everyone hates him now.

We’re back at the round table, having been left hanging two weeks ago. Do I remember who these people are? Not entirely. I 100 percent forgot Mark’s name, and no chance for Wyatt. You’ve gotta make more of an impression, Wyatt. Jay, for better or worse, is unforgettable, and he continues to rant about Katie. Katie does an excellent pivot and tells everyone that Jay also said Kriste was a Traitor. I very much don’t want Katie to be caught. She is a delightful Polly Pocket of a person, and seemingly beloved by the whole cast. 

Jay has made a lot of asinine moves in this game, but one of them was publicly coming after Kriste. Kriste will tear your throat out at the round table. She tells Jay that what he has to say is as informative and interesting as picking gnat crap out of pepper. “I don’t know how you do that,” responds Jay. Is this a phrase where you’re from, Kriste? Did you come up with it for the show? It’s so descriptive. I confess to having been anti-Kriste because she had Karen energy, but I’m coming around on her. If I were on the show, I’d endear myself to Kriste and then make her fight for me at the round table. “Say another folksy thing people have never heard before, Kriste!” I’d say. 

Abby L. is one of the many people there irritated by Jay, and she pivots the conversation to Sherry, because Sherry said there were three Traitors, and apparently that’s evidence. Not to make this recap a paean to the older women on this show, but don’t take Sherry, I love her. Sherry is 65 years old and makes me look forward to that age. Sherry goes after Jay and says he seems to delight in creating a crockpot of confusion. He is “a detriment to all of us playing the game.” Oooooh. Here’s the thing. I know it’s different when you’re there. I know that. But how is Jay not so damn annoying that they all just vote him out anyway? Same with Victor, honestly. But instead!! The vote goes Shane (Jay), Kriste (Jay), Mark (Jay), Tomica (Sherry), Katie (Sherry), Victor (Michael), Abbey B (Sherry), Clyde (Sherry), Michael (Sherry), Sherry (Jay). Niyyah (Jay), Ben (Sherry), Joe (Sherry), Wyatt (Sherry), Jay (Sherry), Abby L (Sherry), Morgan (Sherry). Obviously, Sherry is not a Traitor, so instead, they voted out a hilarious older woman.

COME ON, GUYS. Niyyah is furious that Jay didn’t vote for either of the two people he went after and tells Jay that she will write his name down every time, because to accuse people and not write their names down is insane to her. Jay tells the camera he needed to lean into the groupthink, so he voted for Sherry. Emotions are running high! We’re in a closed environment, and everyone is losing it. This is like week six on The Bachelor. Katie and Joe discuss how terrible they feel as Traitors and how it feels more personal than a game. Where is cold, calculating Rob when you need him?

Alan interrupts and tells the players they all have a wake to attend, and he will meet them outside as dusk falls. One of the players shortlisted during the death parade will be murdered. The Traitors learn they have to kill in plain sight by tossing the victim an apple (the victim also has to catch it). Joe almost murders Morgan (Sherry and Morgan in the same episode? How dare you?), but Morgan has absolutely zero catching instincts, and it just hits her in the arm. Amazing. See, those of us who were not watching baseball last week will survive the apple toss murder apocalypse. Joe now doesn’t know what to do, so he just eats the apple as Tomica stares at him, dumbfounded. So then Tomica goes in the kitchen and starts offering people fruit, and now Victor — Victor, of all people — is freaking out and tells Katie he thinks this is how they’re murdering people. Victor figured it out?? So then we don’t see who caught the apple, if anyone. We assume it was Mark or Clyde.

We go to the graveyard. Everyone on the shortlist has a tombstone and an open grave. “Here, hope and despair dance by the same pale flame,” Alan says. I love it so much. The shortlist is Joe, Niyyah, Victor, Kriste, Mark, Morgan, Abby L., and Clyde. Everyone else sits at a long table in front of the graves. The potential victims all have to get into their coffin, which is then shut. Everyone is freaking out about this. I don’t know what it says about me, but I think I would really thrive in this situation. It’s a cozy box, and you can lie in there with your thoughts. Or you can, if you’re not Kriste, whose coffin is next to Victor, who starts farting. “I farted. I farted. Oh, I just farted. Oh, it smells in here now,” says the business executive they keep not voting off. 

Alan tells the players about the murder in plain sight and asks if any of the table-sitting players have any last words about the potential victims. We hear that Mark is the goldendoodle of the castle, Niyyah speaks her truth, Joe makes Michael smile every day, Kriste is an emotional touchstone, and none for Morgan, Tomica, Abby L., or Victor. I’m sure things were said, but we get to hear none of it. Alan starts proclaiming who is safe this week. We get Tomica, Kriste, Abby L., Morgan, and Victor out of their graves, but Mark, Joe, Clyde, and Niyyah remain. 

And then we END THE EPISODE. And no more for a week! Two-episode weeks spoil us, and then we’re left with the feeling that barely anything happened in one week. I mean, a murder in plain sight is always fun, if stressful. They really biffed it with the apple tossing, though. Did no one ask Mark if he could juggle? Even if you’re the best, though, a murder in plain sight can still get you? Do you remember how smooth Lisa Rinna was, and then effing Yam Yam was like, she kissed me and that was the murder? And it wasn’t! Ugh, I’m still mad about it. She did such a good job. 

Okay, so Mark or Clyde is getting killed. I think it’s Clyde, but who knows. Who should it be? Absolutely Jay, but he guaranteed he wasn’t on the shortlist by bitching about it the entire challenge. Get off my show, Jay.

You Have My Vote

• Who would I vote for on Traitors? It’s hard to judge what one would do without having the insider knowledge, because who knows the full context of what’s happening in that castle, but based on what’s presented, here are my picks:

No Insider Knowledge: With the information presented at the round table, I think I would have voted for Jay because of how annoying he was being.

Yes Insider Knowledge: I don’t like how Victor caught on to the Traitors because I want the Traitors to win, so Victor’s outta here.