The Traitors Season-Premiere Recap: Grave Danger

The Traitors
Let the Cards Fall As They Will
Season 4 Episode 1
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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It’s the most wonderful and murderous time of the year — The Traitors is back. The hit Peacock competition series that merges Mafia-like gameplay with our favorite (and least favorite) reality stars and miscellaneous celebrities has returned for its fourth season. This time around, our Traitors and Faithfuls are a beautiful assortment of Housewives, Survivors, athletes, actors, and plenty of mothers — both literal (Donna Kelce) and in the colloquial sense (Porsha Williams).

As this motley crew of personalities arrives at the castle, which has more pyrotechnics going off than a funeral planned by Erika Kirk, we get to watch our players finally see who they’ll be playing with and against. Dorinda Medley, back from the dead after her painful first elimination last season, is thrilled to see fellow Bravolebrity Lisa Rinna, and tells her that she’s even wearing her brand of lip liner. An alliance has already been forged in cosmetics. Meanwhile, Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski are playing it much cooler — barely even making eye contact with one another, so as not to let their close relationship come across as a threat. 

But before our players even make it into the castle, host Alan Cumming has a surprise in store: He’ll be choosing a Secret Traitor whose identity will not only remain a mystery to their fellow players but also to us. This shrouded figure will be pulling strings solo from behind the scenes, coming up with a short list of players to murder that the other Traitors have to choose from. But who will those other Traitors be? 

Via his typical game of deadly duck-duck-goose, Alan selects Candiace Dillard Bassett (The Real Housewives of Potomac), Lisa Rinna (The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills), and Rob Rausch (Love Island USA) to don the Traitor cloaks. As they point out, this marks the first time we have two Housewives in the turret, but it’s also worth noting that there are no game players. Thank fucking God, especially after last season’s disastrous batch of gaming Traitors who ended up cannibalizing each other the whole season. This group already seems much more positive. Rob R. feels up to the challenge since he says every girl he’s dated has told him he’s hard to read. Candiace is thrilled to take her rightful place as a main character. Lisa is happy she gets to “lie, deceive, and kill people.” Doing two out of the three on Housewives was good prep.

Conversely, the disgusting scourge of this otherwise enjoyable cast is Michael Rapaport, whose near-constant racist and xenophobic posting made him a perplexing choice for the show — especially given that NBCUniversal has fired talent in the past for far less. From the moment he steps onto screen, filled with pus and vitriol, I can feel him inducing headaches nationwide. Each time he hobbles into frame, I hope that it’s actually just a blobfish with psoriasis, but alas, he’s there to insufferably expose just how dumb he is at full volume — so much so that within moments of meeting him, Tiffany Mitchell (Big Brother) can’t help but point out how horrible he already is at this game. We can only hope and pray that he’ll be murdered soon so we can enjoy the rest of the season.

But before we can get to any murders, we have our first mission of the season, in which 100 coffins are floating in the loch, 12 of which are worth gold for the prize pot. Our teams have to row out to collect them, then drop them in a grave corresponding to each player. Whoever has a coffin in their grave at the end of things, is up for murder. Some just ditch the coffins in the closest grave, while others try to be strategic — “America’s mom might need to die,” Candiace says after targeting Donna. And listen, if there’s anyone who can take on the Swifties, it’s Candiace. Also of note: Johnny fully falling into the lake and Colton Underwood (The Bachelorette, Gay) lifting an entire coffin up out of the water by himself with such ease that you’d think it was a pool float.

When all is said and done, nine of our players are up for murder: Michael (who is 65 percent phlegm), Ron, Donna, Eric, Ian, Dorinda, Rob C., Mark, and Rob R. — though the latter is of course safe given that he’s a Traitor. You can feel Dorinda having war flashbacks through the screen. Getting killed off first once is tough enough, but twice? I fear she wouldn’t leave that castle without real blood being shed.

But her odds of survival were almost slightly better, because Porsha came dangerously close to being on the chopping block as well, but luckily for her, her coffin didn’t make it into the grave in time. On their drive back, she wonders why she was being targeted in the first place, and Candiace tells her that Michael (who I kept mistaking for a waterlogged banshee) had said to go after the Housewives. “When we were in our boats, Michael was like … let’s do the Housewives,” she says, admitting in a confessional that she’s just throwing gas on the fire because he’s a perfect distraction. 

But telling Porsha something in confidence is a fool’s errand. Within seconds of returning to the castle, she calls out Michael (the first documented case of full-body gout) for targeting the Housewives, which he denies. The whole gang then wants to get to the bottom of where this rumor, so they all storm the kitchen to confront Candiace. When Porsha repeats the exchange, Candiace — delivering a tour de force performance — says, “Oh, where was this?” I’m cackling. But she’s skilled, and without missing a beat claims that Porsha misheard her and she was referring to something he had said yesterday. 

When it’s time for the Traitors to meet in the turret, my primary concern is the havoc these cloaks will wreak on Lisa Rinna’s classic shag hairstyle. But their primary concern is about the impact the Secret Traitor’s shortlist will have on their game. For this first murder, their short list is Rob R., Ian, Mark, and Eric — leaving them with just three names to choose from and a lingering mystery over who’s pulling their strings. While we get a glimpse of the handwriting (which I’m tempted to cross-reference with Survivor players’ tribal votes), it’s tough to gauge much from it. Some names are written in all capital letters, others are not. Some letters have a feminine curve to them, others are more block letters. All we know for sure is that it isn’t Ian, Mark, or Eric.