The Traitors Recap: Bugging Out

Our Traitors are so intent on killing one another that they almost forget that the entire purpose of their turret meetings is to choose a Faithful to kill. Danielle, fresh from feeling Carolyn’s wrath, is so distracted that she says she doesn’t even care who they kill. Well, she says that but then goes on to shoot down every single name that gets thrown out. It gets so bad that it looks like there could even be a hung jury, with Rob wondering in his confessional what would happen if the Traitors just can’t agree on a person to kill.

But of course, the producers would never let that happen, so when it’s time for breakfast, there’s one less Faithful among them. And no, it’s not Ivar, despite the fact that Gabby fully started talking about him without realizing he was already sitting at the table with her. In her defense, I too often forget about Ivar, but maybe he’ll learn from this and be more interesting moving forward. As the table fills up, it comes down to Derrick or Dylan, and ultimately, it’s Derrick who the Traitors killed — a revelation that makes Danielle (who killed him) openly cry at the table. As we see in the flashback to their decision, Danielle didn’t want to kill Derrick and only agreed to it as a way to make peace with her fellow Traitors. They promise that they’ll all start fresh, which they’ve done hundreds of times so far this season. But hey, maybe this one will stick! (It won’t).

Killing Derrick was a bold move for the Traitors to make, especially at a time when they’re the most unstable. Rob wanted him out since he was onto him, but since everybody knows this, everybody could understandably suspect Rob. Being the gameplayer he is, he wastes no time trying to combat this and, right at the breakfast table, starts claiming that he’s being framed. But if even the dumbest person sitting at the table, Tom Sandoval, isn’t buying it, you’re in trouble.

Alan enters wearing the exact suit I wore for my first communion and tells them all that they’ll have to pair up for today’s mission. But before they find their partners, there’s plenty of whispering happening throughout the castle. Dylan shares his “big tea” with Rob about Derrick floating his and Britney’s names, but since he’s telling Rob this, it seems like he wants to work with him — which is smart. Something that only a few players have seemingly been able to grasp is that having a Traitor on your side is a huge benefit. After all, they’re in control of whether you live or die, plus you want to be as confident as possible of who’s a Traitor at the very end of the game. This relationship with Dylan is just as helpful for Rob since he can’t even count on having Carolyn and Danielle (who are supposed to be his built-in allies) on his side.

They share this conversation with Sandoval, but he’s not sold. He’s still convinced that Rob is a Traitor, and for the first time this whole game, he’s right.

For the mission itself, Alan switches sacraments to don a bridal gown and explains to our players (who are similarly dressed to the nines) that our pairs will go head to head, meaning half of them will ultimately walk away with a shield. All they have to do is hold hands for eight full minutes. That, of course, would only be a challenge if you were pairing up Chrishell and Tom, so there’s obviously more to it than that. Said hands will be inside a box, which will then be filled with big ass bugs (starting with giant millipedes).

Within 15 seconds, Chrishell yanks her hand out of the box, and while I’ve long maintained that Chrishell could never do anything wrong in my eyes, putting her partner Dolores at risk like this comes close. Luckily, she makes up for it when she says, “This is worse than my first wedding,” tossing a deserved dig at Justin Hartley.

As the clock ticks on, the creatures get worse and worse, with cockroaches, crickets, and mealworms being poured over their heads. Even so, the most disgusting thing on my screen remains Tom Sandoval’s top hat. Rob artfully coaches Ciara through it. Meanwhile, Sam and Ivar couldn’t seem less bothered. Even Sandoval doesn’t seem too fazed, but after all, he did once make out in a pool at the Golden Nugget, so nothing grosses him out. The big finale comes in the form of snakes wrapped around their necks, surely giving Sam Asghari flashbacks to “I’m a Slave 4 U.”

Nonetheless, everybody (except Chrishell and a frustrated Dolores) lasted the whole 8 minutes, meaning they have to go to sudden death: digging through a box of bugs for a ring. Danielle and Britney, as well as Sam and Ivar, come out victorious, which means the players at risk tonight are Dolores, Chrishell, Gabby, Tom, and Dylan.

After what I can only imagine are several Silkwood showers back at the castle, Rob tries to do more damage control by turning everybody’s attention to Britney. He insists that he would never kill Derrick because it would make him look guilty (it does) and says Britney has been lying suspiciously low. He seems to be doing a pretty good job of planting this seed, but he’s frustrated that his fellow Traitors are such a mess, making the game impossible. He tries to get them on board, something that should be the easiest part of the game, but it’s like pulling teeth.

When it’s finally time for the roundtable, Dylan kicks things off by sharing Derrick’s final words with everybody — that Boston Rob and Britney are Traitors, but he places the focus on Britney by pointing out how she was trying to signal him not to vote for Rob at last week’s roundtable. Naturally, Britney maintains her innocence and says that her challenging Derrick was enough of a blow to his ego to make him come for her — which seems to be exactly what’s happening. But her best argument comes when she points out that they’ve all sort of found themselves in a Groundhog Dog-esque loop, where every roundtable, they have the same conversation about Boston Rob being a Traitor, and time and time again, he gets out of it. She warns them that if he stays another day, they’ll just be having the same unproductive conversation again tomorrow.

Luckily, this seems to be a wake-up call to the table that when it comes to Boston Rob, they have to finally shit or get off the pot. Most vote for Rob, including fatal blows from Carolyn and Danielle, but there are a couple of interesting curve balls thrown in there, too. Chrishell is seemingly allergic to voting correctly, so she votes for Tom because she’s not sold on Rob or Britney and doesn’t want to once again be responsible for an innocent person going home. But most interestingly is that Dylan, who brought up Britney’s name in the first place, voted for Gabby. I guess if he thinks Britney is not only a Traitor but thinks she’s also going to survive the vote, he doesn’t want to give her a reason to kill him that night. He continues to be the best player in this game.

Even though it seemed inevitable, it somehow was still almost surprising to see Rob banished, just because we’ve watched him manage to wriggle out of certain death so many times before. As he comes clean as a Traitor, the room erupts, and nobody is rejoicing more than Tom Sandoval, who’s going to be painfully emboldened by this win. I worry that the audience isn’t ready for just how insufferable it’ll be to have him riding high — if he survives, that is. Amidst all this rejoicing, Alan tells them that the six (but really five) players at risk of murder will head to the castle church at midnight, where the Traitors will commit tonight’s murder face to face.

What I’m most excited about is to see how this decision gets made and how mortal enemies Carolyn and Danielle will work together as a twosome. While we know they hate each other, they also both hated Boston Rob — so when the hoods come off in their turret meeting, they both gleefully cackle at his absence. When Danielle promises that this is a fresh start and they’ll have each other’s backs this time, I laughed out loud. The number of truces that these damn Traitors have had to make, sometimes multiple within the same episode, is comical. Carolyn is too smart to buy it, so she’s basically like, “Okay, sure, Danielle, whatever you say,” and says she’s taking it day by day. But with only two of them left, I wonder if they’ll get to recruit (or be assigned) a new Traitor into their ranks. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, they have to figure out who they want to kill face to face.

The beautifully melodramatic scene is set at the castle’s church, and each gorgeously dressed player walks down the aisle and says what could be their final words. “Although I appreciate the theatrics, I am not ready to die today,” Chrishell says, just as I do anytime my flight has turbulence. Speaking of theatrics, Dolores should win an Emmy for the way she growls, “Traitors, you better kill me because I’m coming for you. Wanna play this game with me? Because I’m just getting started.”

As the episode ends, we see them all turn around, presumably facing their fate, and Sandoval is the only one who reacts. We don’t know what exactly he’s reacting to, and I’m skeptical that they’d really spoil the murder like that already, so who’s to say who really meets their end? But one of these five players won’t get to wear the rest of their outfits, and for that, I mourn.

Related

• The Traitors Are So Screwed