Recap of Season 3 Episode 9 of ‘The Traitors’: Betrayal Leads to Violence

The Traitor-on-Traitor approval rating is at an all-time low in the turret this week on The Traitors as Danielle Reyes and Carolyn Wiger kick off the episode with their prolonged, never-ending bickering. I desperately wish this show had a trap-door with a button one of them could push so we didn’t have to endure their in-fighting, but alas, if there is one, Alan Cumming and Fergus the Groundskeeper are keeping that information to themselves. By the end of the episode though, there’s no need for a trap door, because one of them will be banished by the Faithfuls.

Danielle is so very tired and worn out from bargaining with Carolyn and trying to convince her to make Britney Haynes part of their squad, she reminds me of me when I’ve had it up TO HERE with my kids. (The classic “Fine, you just do what YOU want to do” move, when your mom wants you to feel guilty but has also lost all the fight inside her. That’s essentially what Danielle says to Carolyn here.) And so, they do what Carolyn wants, which is not to seduce a new Traitor, but to murder sweet Sam Asghari, who had grown too inquisitive for his own good. (“The Traitors have deadlifted him to the eternal gym,” Alan eulogizes.)

As the cast prepares for this week’s challenge, Danielle and Carolyn’s rivalry bubbles up to the surface, with each of them planting seeds of suspicion about the other before that night’s Round Table. But first, they all have to get through the challenge that features our good old pals Kate Chastain and Parvati Shallow, dressed as the queens they are. For this challenge, Danielle and Carolyn were asked a series of questions that they and the Faithfuls now must guess how they answered. (Questions include things like, “Who is the biggest threat to the Traitors?” which, LOL, Tom Sandoval volunteers that he thinks he is and he really believes it. Kate and Parvati, who are there to emcee and observe from the sidelines, are truly tickled by Tom’s confidence. Unfortunately their presence in the episode is much too brief.)

Carolyn appears to set herself up as a target for banishment when, as a Traitor, she chooses herself to be the answer to the question of who the Traitors consider the most irrelevant of all. She quickly volunteers to the group that she’s often dismissed and ignored, and while that’s true, she pushes this a little too hard and Faithfuls like Dylan and Tom perk up at Carolyn’s new outspokenness in the challenge. (Danielle is, of course, pleased by all of this. As much as I get that she doesn’t like Carolyn, her goal to convert Britney to a Traitor and win this with her once-enemy-now-BFF just feels so off. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself…)

After the challenge, as everyone deliberates and lobbies for who to put up for banishment, Tom and Ivar discuss whether they think Carolyn could really pull off being a Traitor. Tom’s face says it all (and proves just how much of a non-threat he is to the Traitors.)

“If she was, she deserves an Oscar,” Ivar adds. Streep. Blanchett. Hepburn. WIGAR.

At the Round Table, Carolyn immediately comes for Danielle, bringing up the “lie” that Danielle told days ago, that Carolyn wanted Britney gone. (You’ll recall that Carolyn did say this, in the context that, as a Traitor, she’d like to murder Britney, not that she wanted to put her up as a candidate for banishment. Danielle’s logic shows, to me at least, she’s not really playing in good faith with her fellow Traitor, although in a game built on lies, all bets are off, right?) But then Danielle does for the jugular in a pretty cruel way, literally calling Carolyn “silly and dumb” (after previously likening her to the bumbling detective Columbo).

The two women attack each other until it’s time to vote, and it’s unclear as a home viewer if either of them has a real advantage here. Soon though, it starts looking like Carolyn is done for when Ivar, Danielle, and Britney all cast their votes for her. (LOL at Dolores and Tom each voting for each other out of spite.)

“Carolyn, you would be by far the most entertaining and best Traitor to watch, literally ever. I hope so much that you are one,” Britney tells a tearful Carolyn as she votes for her. Soon after, Dylan casts the deciding vote which seals Carolyn’s fate.

Once she’s banished, Carolyn heads to the Circle of Truth for her reveal. “Playing this game is not easy for me. I just wanted to have fun. But I have to get real with myself… Being a Traitor isn’t fun,” she says to screams and a standing ovation from everyone else. It’s a real chef’s kiss of an exit speech.

But Danielle collapses to the floor, hyperventilating as a result and, as with all of her performances this season, honestly it’s too MUCH.

Later on, Gabby (correctly) comes up with a theory: could the events at tonight’s Round Table have been Traitor-on-Traitor fighting? “It was giving Rob and Bob,” she says. This starts to make Britney think there’s something to that theory. Which is why, when Danielle is given the opportunity to recruit a new Traitor and requests Britney’s presence in the castle dungeon, Britney starts to question everything.

“Would she really recruit me? That’s so… obvious,” Britney says. But now that her presence is being requested in the turret, it’s kill or be killed, baby. Obvious or not, Britney has no choice but to say yes to the dress (er, okay, cloak) in order to stay in the game.