Netflix’s ‘The Trust’ Is a Psychological ‘Squid Game’

What happens when you bring 11 people to a plush, beachside mansion and offer them the opportunity to split a quarter of a million dollars, no strings attached? In its new reality show The Trust: A Game of Greed, Netflix bets on drama—and that wager does not disappoint, at least for a while.

The premise of this new reality competition show is simple: Will the group stick together and share the money over a series of weeks as they learn more about one another and make increasingly difficult decisions? Or will selfishness and suspicions win out and cause them to cut the group down?

Most of us can probably guess the answer before anyone casts their first vote of the game. A quirky business coach named Lindsey calls it from the jump. “A quarter of a million dollars is a lot of money to me, yes,” she says. “However, when you divide that by 11, that is not a lot of money to me.” Let the cutthroat elimination votes begin!

Week after week during private voting sessions with host Brooke Baldwin, players must decide whether or not to vote anyone out of the trust. Whoever receives the most votes will go home, and in the case of a tie, everyone stays. The result is a kind of psychological Squid Game, in which competitors work to discern who “deserves” the money and who does not. Each person casts their vote accordingly, and more often than not, they’re less than honest with their fellow players about their choices.

No one is ever required to vote; all eliminations that the group makes are completely voluntary. And yet, it’s just so hard for our competitors to resist the urge to cut those who strike them as unworthy. For instance: Should a person who became a millionaire at the age of 21 really get a slice of the pie, when others are in far more precarious financial situations? Is a self-described “hustler” actually going to honor his vow not to vote anyone out, or is he just posturing? Some players, like the unwaveringly honest rancher Brian, insist that everyone can make it to the end; others swear they could never be so naive.

To make matters more complicated, there’s also “The Vault”—an ominous lair designed to tempt players into grabbing some of the shared prize money for themselves with increasingly tempting “Offers.” With great power comes great responsibility, and the decisions made in the Vault can sometimes backfire.

There’s no shortage of personalities in the mansion, and at times, the group’s vastly different backgrounds can lead to friction. Julie, a self-described “trailer park girl from Montana” who grew up in foster care, is not exactly happy with the idea that she could wind up sharing the money with someone who already lives a comfortable life. Tolú, meanwhile, is eager to pay her parents back for the sacrifices they made to move their family to the U.S. from Nigeria—and she doesn’t really trust some of her housemates’ superficial communication styles. As one might expect, alliances form and feuds quietly simmer, all while everyone struggles to read the room.

Much like journalist Alex Wagner, who took on hosting The Mole alongside her usual MSNBC duties, Baldwin, formerly a CNN anchor, seems to be having fun with her hosting duties. At the same time, her presence is far less impactful than, say, Alan Cumming’s theatrical turn as host of Peacock’s The Traitors.

Although far from identical, The Trust does appear to share at least a little DNA with The Traitors—in which players attempt to suss out who among them is a “traitor” who plans to take all the cash for themselves rather than share the collective prize pot. Here, however, there are no formal “traitors”; instead, everyone receives small opportunities to betray the group in minor ways that can sometimes go undetected.

That said, the biggest distinction between The Traitors and The Trust is an aesthetic one; while The Traitors prizes its glimmering production value, from Cumming’s impeccable attire to the immaculately styled mansion, The Trust sticks with Netflix’s usual minimalism, plunking its cast into a common seaside mansion and patting itself on the back for a job well done. The lack of flair feels like a missed opportunity for a show built around an artistically inspiring theme like greed. The gargantuan compound’s chandeliers and travertine floors certainly evoke wealth, but nevertheless, our surroundings feel generic and forgettable.

That dedication to mystery can be both a gift and a curse. The first half of The Trust is about as riveting as this kind of show can get, as players size one another up and backstab accordingly. The men in this group all seem strangely devoted to playing the good soldier and sharing the money, while the women tend to be more guarded—a dynamic that sows an increasingly caustic rift down the middle of the cast.

Toward the end of the game, however, the stakes begin to evaporate. The finale feels almost like an afterthought, with mechanics that never quite come together to give us a sense of closure. Perhaps Netflix was banking on this show becoming successful enough to merit a juicy reunion special, but on its own, the season’s ending feels a little like a bored sigh. Given the show’s title, it’s hard not to wish we’d gotten something just a little richer.