Is ‘The Traitors’ still the best reality TV competition show?

Beware! Spoilers for Season 3 of “The Traitors” (and earlier seasons) abound.

If you ask us, “The Traitors” is one of the greatest reality shows ever. Obviously, we were glued to Thursday night’s season 3 finale.

A spin-off of a popular Dutch show that has now been re-created in more than two dozen countries, “The Traitors” is a murder mystery crossed with a “Survivor”-style elimination contest starring, at least in the United States, a bunch of reality TV stars and not-quite-stars. (Think: a giant game of Mafia or Clue played out in a fabulous Scottish castle.) At the start, the majority of the cast are designated “the faithful,” tasked with rooting out the smattering among them who have been chosen as “traitors,” with a mission of secretly killing a faithful every night while also avoiding their own banishment by group fiat at a heated roundtable discussion.

They’re all playing for the chance to take home a prize pot that’s grown thanks to the physical and mental challenges that make up each episode. If any traitors remain at the end, they take it all.

What sets the U.S. version apart is the campiness of it all, from host Alan Cumming’s ever more dramatic clothing ensembles to the outsize personalities of the cast, who each have their own running backstories and varying levels of narcissism. This season’s standouts included “Survivor” legends Rob Mariano (a.k.a. Boston Rob), Tony Vlachos, Jeremy Collins and recent contestant Carolyn Wiger; Gabby Windey of “The Bachelorette”; Danielle Reyes and Britney Haynes of “Big Brother”; Bob the Drag Queen from “RuPaul’s Drag Race”; Zac Efron’s brother Dylan Efron; Britney Spears’s ex, Sam Asghari; Dolores Catania of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey”; and Lord Ivar Mountbatten, one of a string of random British aristocrats to appear on the show. When Tom Sandoval, famous for cheating on his ex Ariana Madix on “Vanderpump Rules” was murdered (on the show!), Cumming quipped, “Ah Tom, for once you actually were faithful.”

The penultimate episode had ended with a cliff-hanger tie vote: Both Danielle and Ivar were in danger of being banished. As the finale opened, Danielle’s “Big Brother” cast mate, Britney, whom Danielle had just recruited to be a fellow traitor, cast the deciding vote against her. Useful backstory: Danielle lost her third appearance on the competition show in “Big Brother Reindeer Games” when Britney sold her out and they’d been estranged ever since — that is, until coming on this show.

Below, The Washington Post’s most obsessive reality TV fans discuss the endlessly watchable finale.

Elliot Smilowitz: What an ending. For viewers (like me) rooting for the faithful, it was a painfully long wait for a payoff, but boy did it deliver. Season 3 will likely be remembered by stans and haters alike as the Danielle Reyes season. And her downfall was worthy of a Scottish castle and Alan’s Shakespearean references — betrayed again by ally-turned-backstabber-turned-ally Britney Haynes, this time by accident. How did everyone feel about the demise of the “Big Brother” besties and the faithful’s victory?

Steven Johnson: Wow! Wait. Heartwarming? Seemed like fewer producer high jinks this season compared to last, and that made for a more satisfying ride. This IS such a moment in my life!

Lindsey Underwood: That cliff-hanger last week had me worried — and the rumors online about Danielle didn’t help. But thank goodness they got her, it would have been game over otherwise. Danielle, Danielle, Danielle — I was so glad to see her go. I bet she’s a lovely person outside the game — but the overacting, the shaking on the floor, the tears, it was too much!

Jada Yuan: Do you mean the rumors about Danielle cheating and telling Britney that she was a traitor, long before the recruitment? I really think there needs to be a rule that the banished player (or maybe just a banished traitor) can’t say anything in their exit speech that points to any other player. Maybe also when revealing their vote. Here, Danielle went around the table and said something nice to everyone, except for Britney, who she essentially scolded for voting for her. In season 2, I’ll never forgive Dan for basically revealing that Phaedra was a fellow traitor. And people in the U.K. (spoiler alert) are still mad at Kieran for writing down fellow traitor Wilf’s name in one of the final roundtables and saying “parting shot.” It just makes the game so much less interesting.

S.J.: I would be fine with no more “Big Brother” players. Personally.

J.Y.: I’ve never seen “Big Brother,” but I’ve hated all the players who’ve gone on “The Traitors,” except for Derrick this season. Would have liked to watch him more, sans Danielle. I just don’t get the point. No physical powers. Questionable social skills. Terrible fashion sense. Carolyn was right when she called out Danielle’s “J.C. Penney hat.”

But I did think it was poetic that Danielle’s whole story arc was about how she trusted Britney on B.B. and Britney betrayed her. And then the second she trusted her enough to recruit Britney as a traitor, girl betrayed her again!

What did everyone think of the new “seer” power, in which one player wins the ability to ask another to reveal whether they’re a traitor or a faithful, and the other player has to answer truthfully?

E.S.: Overpowered to have it pop up so late in the game.

J.Y.: Here, the power went to Britney, a traitor, who asked Gabby to reveal her identity, which Britney already knew. And then she revealed at the breakfast table that Gabby was a faithful, which I guess Britney did to throw off suspicion — but it really just handed over the money to Gabby! I mean, no one’s going to vote off someone they 100 percent know is a faithful, unless they want to look incredibly mean on national TV.

I was impressed, though, that Dylan played out every scenario, including that Britney and Gabby could be both be traitors and colluding.

E.S.: I thought Britney slightly misplayed it and I’m surprised people didn’t key in on it more. Once she knew Gabby was a faithful, she should have been saying, “I will only be okay in a final two with you, anything else is an unnecessary risk.” The idea that she kept her options open should have been raising suspicions.

A running theme of the season was traitors overplaying at the roundtable and drawing heat on themselves. It happened again tonight as Britney, who had gotten so far playing it cool when she was a faithful, went so aggressively after Dylan, not letting him finish a sentence. That behavior change had to raise red flags; you could practically see the lightbulb over Dolores’s head when Dylan said Britney could have been a recent recruit.

S.J.: “I’m going to have to vote this time with my brain, and not just my heart,” Dolores said. Yes!

L.U.: I was less surprised that they snuffed out Britney next. She played her role as the seer well (avoiding the inevitable suspicion if she had suggested Gabby was a traitor), and even put up a good set of evidence around Dylan at the last roundtable. Still she laid it on a little thick and got the boot because the other players still had seeds of doubt simply because of her time on “Big Brother” and connection to Danielle. I think the game is getting harder and harder for “gamers,” as in castmates who come from competition reality shows. Of course, some have come on top in the previous seasons, but I think this season showed the rest of the cast was wising up. No one trusted them!

E.S.: My biggest complaint about “The Traitors” is it hides the ball on strategy too much. Many faithful are not really trying to vote out traitors, because they know it just leads to more recruits; they’re trying to identify a traitor and align with them for a free ride to the end. Countless podcasts and interviews showed how many players clocked Danielle and kept her around on purpose, using the “traitor angel” strategy Sandra Diaz-Twine developed last season. That’s pretty interesting to me! I’d love to know more about the thought process! But no, the show insists against evidence that every vote is cast because that player honestly believes they’re targeting a traitor.

J.Y.: I really loved the moment last season when Sandra explained “Survivor” strategy to the housewives using pool balls, and wish we had a few more aha moments like that to bring viewers into how brilliant some of these strategic minds are. Like, this season, I loved Boston Rob’s master manipulation at the roundtable, talking his way out of banishment again and again, despite being such an aggressive traitor! Those were both times when the big personalities of the U.S. show became a reason to watch it rather than tune out. Usually they make the show more annoying than the other versions.

L.U.: The problem I have with “The Traitors” is twofold: There aren’t enough clues along the way for the cast to make actual strategic decisions, and no real mystery for the viewer to try to figure out themselves. The challenges are of basically no consequence to anyone in the game or the viewer. Other than the chess game, there weren’t many opportunities to dissect why one player was behaving in a certain way, or real conflict created. So what are we watching? Love an expensive and expansive view of a helicopter over Scotland, but I don’t really care if they get another $5,000 to split potentially four ways, and I doubt the players do either.

One of Britney’s arguments against Dylan in the finale was that he was all about the money. When you think about it, the stakes are so low in this game. Maybe you walk away with more fame than you had before you started (Gabby, Dylan). Maybe it’s about pride. For the gamers, the prize pot is laughable (on “Survivor” they’re playing for a million dollars). It’s hard to feel that excited to watch them split a prize that ends up to be about $50,000 (before taxes, and I’m sure they are compensated outside of this), knowing they’ve had previous winnings or at least earnings from other shows. Of course, if anyone has an extra $50,000 lying around, I’ll take it!

S.J.: Yes and yes. The challenges have never made much sense (why U.S. producers love the mealworm-cockroach combo I don’t know). And only occasionally do they relate to the more interesting social game (RIP Carolyn).

The celebrity angle is obviously the U.S. version’s strength, but it lowers the stakes a little and also invites metagaming. All-normie casts in the U.K. and Australian seasons have tended to be scrappier and cannier.

E.S.: This season saw some new approaches to casting, and it was a bit hit-or-miss, but ultimately Dylan and Gabby made it a success. (I even enjoyed Ivar in a weird way; go Lord give us nothing!) Danielle and Boston Rob sucked the air out of the game a bit, and I’m hoping we’re done with the “strategic gamers vs. Bravo drama machines” dynamic. Further expanding the definition of a reality star would help. Give me one of the “Queer Eye” Fab Five, give me a “Chopped” judge, a Mythbuster. Do you all have dream casting picks for future seasons?

S.J.: I suspect Lord Ivar’s been kept around to give Alan a gentle punching bag in lieu of more royal royals.

JY: I think the problem is that the producers go too big when picking the traitors. This season, they picked personalities so big (Boston Rob, Bob the Drag Queen, Carolyn, Danielle) they were constantly fighting each other in the turret and targeting each other at the round table. Terrible strategy, great television. It’s the trap of picking attention-seeking reality folks. But the best season of “The Traitors” is another English-language one (I won’t say which) in which an unassuming nice person gets all the way to the end as a traitor. You can really feel the stakes and sense of hurt. I’d like to see them pick less obvious people and maybe try an experiment where they keep the traitors’ identities hidden from the audience somehow, at least for a bit. Will also add that I think Dylan — a famous actor’s sibling — is a good model to follow for casting a “normie” on the U.S. show. I’m sure he’ll get a travel show out of this or something, but he’s not obviously influencer-y; he’s just someone who’s been around famous people a lot and isn’t fazed by them. Entertainment journalists would be great, just saying!

L.U.: On that note, what makes the show appealing? At first it was watching my favorite reality stars in one place, with a random Brit thrown in for fun. But I think knowing the players beforehand is unnecessary and leads to predictable game play. If you’ve watched any of the editions from the U.K. or Australia, you’ve probably gotten a taste of this already — watching players you don’t know. In the earlier episodes you would need to do more character building, but that might be nice either way to help feel more invested in the outcome, and give the players, particularly those from competition shows, a real shot at winning. I’m not confident having a different mix of reality stars would make that much of a difference to me.

S.J.: Alan saying “And now I will burn the evidence” in wedding speech voice. Doing a hypebeast remix of Gnossienne No. 1. A woman singing, like, “The woooolves are out to play tonight …” That’s what “Traitors” is all about.

E.S.: I have not seen the U.K. and Australia seasons, so take my view with a grain of salt. But for me, part of what makes “The Traitors” stand out is the players being various degrees of known quantities — to the audience and to each other. They can lean into their reputation or play against type, they develop biases based on what they’ve previously seen on TV. I’d like to find a way to keep that unique element while leveling the playing field.

Jada and I had a strong showing in our preseason predictions. Our calls on Tony Vlachos being an early target, Gabby and Carolyn Wiger impressing everyone, and the Danielle-Britney relationship being the key to the season were spot-on. Not so much our high hopes for Wells Adams, Jeremy Collins and Bob the Drag Queen. But Jada hit this one out of the park: “Least likely to make friends: Tom Sandoval.”

L.U.: I think Tom might have benefited the most from this show. Sure, Chrishell and Dolores picked on him. Sure, he had one of the best Freudian slips in reality show history when he accidentally said, “girls are better cheaters than guys.” Sure, he thought himself a better player and singer than perhaps we did. But he certainly didn’t get a villain edit. That’s got to count for something.

E.S.: I’ll be soothing myself to sleep tonight to Tom’s dulcet-toned lullabies.