‘The Traitors’ Season 2 Is Even Bloodier Than the Original

(Warning: This post contains spoilers for the first three episodes of The Traitors Season 2.)

At the start of Peacock’s The Traitors Season 2, Alan Cumming—our immaculately costumed host—issues a prescient warning to all of his celebrity players.

“In this game,” Cumming cautions, “there are no BFF’s, unless ‘BFF’ stands for betrayers, fakers, and fraudsters!” The words come out like a raspy gasp, snapping us right back into the murder mystery for another tantalizingly treacherous season.

The Traitors is essentially a celebrity-studded live-action roleplay of the game “Mafia”: 21 reality stars compete to split $250,000, but they must first suss out who among them is a Traitor. The show’s second season premiered on Peacock with three episodes on Thursday, and future episodes will debut one at a time on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.

While the Faithfuls will all split the money should they make it to the end, any Traitors who remain by the finale will take all of the money and run. Each week, the Traitors meet in the castle tower to “murder” a new player. The Faithfuls’ only recourse, meanwhile, are regular banishing ceremonies at the show’s roundtable—where everyone votes to decide which suspected Traitor should go home. If even one Traitor makes it to the end, the Faithfuls lose.

Last year’s inaugural season saw the brilliant Survivor player Cirie Fields crowned the winner in a gut-wrenching finale, and already this season is looking rough for the Faithfuls. With four Faithfuls gone by the end of the first three episodes, the Traitors are running amok, and at least one player is already starting to cave to the pressure. The stakes have never been higher, and frankly, neither has the production value; from the playful, pre-recorded character B-roll to the precisely timed music cues, this season feels more meticulously crafted than ever.

Our cast this season includes Real Housewives Phaedra Parks, Shereé Whitfield, Tamra Judge, and Larsa Pippen—whose boyfriend, Marcus Jordan (Michael Jordan’s son), is also in the mix. Also living it up in the castle are Survivor legends Sandra Diaz-Twine and Parvati Shallow, RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Peppermint, The Challenge rivals Chris “C.T.” Tamburello and Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio, and Big Brother stars Dan Gheesling and Janelle Pierzina. More random entries in the cast include Bling Empire’s Kevin Kreider, UK Parliament Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, Dancing With the Stars coach Maksim “Maks” Chmerkovskiy, Shahs of Sunset’s Mercedes “MJ” Javid, Trishelle Cannatella of Real World: Las Vegas, boxer Deontay Wilder, former Bachelor Peter Weber, and Love Island personalities Carsten “Bergie” Bergersen and Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu.

This season, like the last, includes a notorious Big Brother figure among its Traitors: Dan Gheesling won Big Brother’s 10th season in a unanimous vote, and he came in second in Season 14—so he clearly knows how to pull people’s strings. But it’s his partner in crime, Phaedra Parks, who might just take the whole game home with her. A general rule to live by in life: Never go up against a lawyer, especially if she’s also a Real Housewife. Plus, Dan’s strategy of flying under the radar has already begun to backfire, as players like Larsa call him out for being aloof.

The Traitors Season 1 kicked off with three Traitors from the jump, but this time around, Cumming threw us a little twist. The game starts out with two Traitors who then needed to recruit a third. Their pick? Parvati Shallow, whose ruthless presence on Survivor means she’ll have no problem getting the job done while playing innocent in her big, pearl-studded headbands.

The games this season are as diabolical as ever—part skill test, part social manipulation. During their first challenge, players needed to row (or swim) out into the loch by their castle to assemble a puzzle whose key was hidden in one of dozens of bottles sitting along the shoreline. To make things even harder, they all started out tied up.

…And on top of that, each game this season will include three shields laying around, each of which can grant a Faithful protection from murder for one night. Will players keep their eyes on the prize, or will they prioritize their own survival? Janelle, for her part, has not missed a single opportunity to go for the shield in any of the three episodes we’ve seen so far.

Other games this season include a running challenge (in which players must correctly guess who among them is the most popular, least trusted, etc. before digging cash out of a field of ominous scarecrows’ chest) and a grave-robbing challenge that tasks them with avoiding a searchlight while digging. (The perpetually underestimated Bergie turns out to be a real whiz at that game!)

And as for the eliminations? Well, they’re already pretty brutal.

First, the Traitors send home Johnny “Bananas”—a move designed to send a message as loud as he is. When it comes time for the players’ first banishing ceremony, however, things get very messy very quickly. Trishelle is convinced that Peppermint must be a traitor, thanks to her reaction to a joke the night before, and when Peppermint stumbles while trying to defend herself, the rest of the group sides with Trishelle. Imagine their shock when they find out that Peppermint is a Faithful. (Their other key suspect is John, who claims he started breathing oddly while Cumming was picking the traitors because he had asthma—which prompts Tamra to grill him about why he doesn’t need an inhaler during the running challenge.)

“I came into this game because I’m a huge fan, but the bigger reason for me to come here is because I’m trying to put all of my energy and use my platform to advocate for our transgender community,” an obviously peeved Peppermint tells the group on her way out. “I will keep being myself; that will never stop. But in this game, I think some of you all have been led astray.”

Once Parvati joins the Traitors, their next kill is Marcus—whom the group chose as the most influential player during the running challenge. “That’s dangerous,” Phaedra points out, “because that means he’s really controlling the game.” Having Larsa on his side, the group decides, makes Marcus too powerful to keep.

When it comes time for another group vote, however, the group once again latches onto ancillary details and sends an innocent Maks home. Deontay, who had been convinced Maks was a Traitor and swayed the group accordingly, is devastated to hear that his pick was, in fact, a Faithful. While the rest of the group tries to talk strategy after the painful elimination, Deontay sits silently until prompted for a response.

“I don’t know how much I can go on,” the boxer replies. “My heart… I can’t do this no more, man. This shit’s throwing me too much.”

Also fascinating, however, is a little strategy Peter Weber cooks up for himself and Kevin Kreider. The two pretended to have beef during that same roundtable, voting for each other while making up reasons they suspected the other was a traitor. It was a good idea in theory, but in practice it was mostly awkward, as the two ignored all of the discussion that preceded the vote (during which time they never mentioned each other) before writing each other down on their chalkboards.

Will people really fall for that nonsense? We’ll have to wait and see!

But it’s not just the Faithfuls who might be off their game come next week: To close out the third and final episode of this week’s batch, the show throws its Traitors a curveball as well. In lieu of a regular old murder, this week, they must “murder in plain sight” by convincing one player to drink from a poisoned chalice (hidden in the library for them to retrieve) before the night is over. The “slow-acting poison” will not take effect immediately.

Phaedra avoids joining in on the strategizing, while Dan and Parvati decide she should be the one to administer the tainted beverage. Whoever she winds up picking, however, will remain a mystery until next week. From everything we’ve seen in season previews, however, it seems the blood is about to hit the fan.