The Traitors Became a Reality Sensation by Keeping Things Simple

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There are practical reasons why the American iteration of “The Traitors” has exploded in its second season, which concludes this week. The reality competition show doubled down on its casting of established reality performers, drawing on such disparate fanbases as “Survivor” geeks and “Real Housewives” devotees. Its platform, Peacock, wisely pivoted to a week-by-week release, recognizing that the binge model saps the tension from regular eliminations. Finally, Peacock itself is just bigger than it was early last year, with hits like “Poker Face” and an exclusive NFL game expanding its subscriber base to the point where “The Traitors” could break onto the Nielsen streaming chart.

But mostly, “The Traitors” works because it adheres to one of life’s great principles: It kept things simple, and thereby elevated a genre often dismissed as stupid.

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“The Traitors” dresses its concept up with some elaborate accessories: famous contestants, a Scottish castle decked out like a four-dimensional game of Clue, and a kilted, campy hosting performance by a clearly elated Alan Cumming. But the basic setup is familiar to anyone who’s attended a summer camp since 1986, when Soviet psychology student Dmitry Davidoff claims to have invented the game of Mafia. Three killers and their pool of victims take turns murdering and making accusations of murder until all is revealed. “The Traitors” — originally a Dutch franchise, now with a slew of international spinoffs — adds new terminology and a financial windfall for the winners. Its core game is nonetheless so simple a child could play it, and millions have.

For Season 2, “The Traitors” streamlined itself even further. The game’s first edition split the cast between civilians and reality veterans, complicating the black-and-white binary of Traitors and Faithfuls by adding another division to the mix. Proponents of the U.K. and Australia editions, both of which are also available on Peacock and have rapidly accrued an audience of Americans unwilling to wait a full week for new episodes, will tell you there are advantages to an all-everyman ensemble. Competitors tend to need the money more, and don’t have to balance their tactics with an instinct to preserve their brand; it’s also more surprising to see ruthless instincts emerge from someone who hasn’t already earned a nickname like “The Black Widow.” But by mixing regular citizens with more experienced counterparts, Season 1 became an uneven playing field, with sore losers unwilling to admit they were outmatched by victorious “Survivor” alum Cirie Fields.

An “Avengers”-like group of attention-seeking egos should, at first blush, pose its own set of challenges. It would take hundreds of viewing hours to catch up on the collective origin stories of nearly two dozen contestants, spread across flagships as disparate as “The Bachelor” and “Big Brother.” When pitching “The Traitors” to friends who haven’t watched yet, I’m constantly asked, with audible skepticism, if one needs to be versed in these shows of origin to appreciate the action. Luckily, the answer is an enthusiastic “no.” The bare bones premise of “The Traitors” acts as a blank canvas onto which larger-than-life personalities can project their charisma, freed of cumbersome context. It takes several seasons of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” to fully unpack Phaedra Parks’ fraught relationship with her ex-colleague Kandi Burruss. (It involves spreading rumors about date rape. Quite the rabbit hole!) It takes only eyes and ears to appreciate Parks verbally dismantling her fellow Traitor to avoid elimination, or dressing down airline pilot turned ultra-Faithful Peter Weber. “This ain’t ‘The Bachelor,’ and I don’t have to kiss your ass for a rose” is a quip worthy of a woman who spent nearly a decade coining taglines, without the need to learn exactly how Parks acquired that skill.

One of Season 2’s most entertaining subplots still draws on metatextual knowledge. Players broke into factions based on their shows of origin: the “Bravo girls,” a voting bloc who protected Parks until the penultimate episode; the “gamers,” alumni of “Survivor” and “Big Brother” who drew suspicion for strategic know-how; and the “Peter pals,” a ragtag crew, including a British politician and a “Bling Empire” himbo, who rallied behind Weber. Sometimes, this reputational baggage added to the gameplay, as when “Big Brother” alumna Janelle Pierzina correctly observed that Traitor Dan Gheesling was running back his old playbook of lying low to avoid suspicion. Mostly, it added an extra dimension — not to mention entertainment value — to an otherwise stripped-down scenario. Without much real evidence to go off of, contestants make the same snap, surface-level judgements as the average reality viewer: Politicians are liars! Housewives perform for a living! Everyone acts as both a producer and consumer of media narratives, turning the entire group into audience surrogates.

The few weak points of the season have tended to arise when production interrupts this self-generated momentum. Amid a brewing showdown between Traitor Parvati Shallow and ultra-Faithful Weber, a convoluted torch-lighting ceremony tabled an elimination vote entirely and protected Weber from murder. Headed into the finale, Shallow and Weber are now both gone, but the season never quite recovered from their confrontation that wasn’t. The interpersonal spats and alliances were more than enough to sustain the story. Elaborate rituals not only aren’t necessary; they risk being counterproductive.

“The Traitors” is an effective advertisement for the other franchises it uses as talent pools. I came in with a healthy knowledge of the Bravo-verse, and will leave with a desire to see Parvati in her prime. But in removing its stars from their native habitats, “The Traitors” also strips reality TV down to its most essential elements. When assigned to a sufficiently interesting group of people, even a slumber party pastime like Mafia becomes a must-watch event. The catapults, cloaks, and crossbows are just a (poisoned) cherry on top.

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