The Traitors Season 4, Episode 8
"A Queen Never Comes Off Her Throne"
Host: Alan Cumming
Cast: Natalie Anderson, Mark Ballas, Stephen Colletti, Candiace Dillard Bassett, Maura Higgins, Kristen Kish, Tara Lipinski, Dorinda Medley, Eric Nam, Rob Rausch, Johnny Weir
Last week, I thought the Traitors had created a civil war that would be won by Candiace Dillard Bassett, but it turns out that Rob Rausch won. He rebounded from having a shot taken at him from across the table and executed a second banishment of a fellow traitor.
Things are tense in the turret following Lisa Rinna’s elimination. Candiace doesn’t trust Rob, and therefore, he doesn’t really trust her either. But he tries his best, giving her an olive branch. Neither really feels up to recruiting, a wise choice given that both feel there’s already too much conflict between them, and adding a third only gives the other person another potential arrow in their quiver. So Rob tells Candiace that she can select which Faithful to banish.
A few names are thrown out. They are Colton Underwood, Natalie Anderson and Stephen Colleti. The first being because he’s controlled the discussions thus far. The second is that she’s a dangerous player. And the third, because it would be the most confusing for the Faithful. Ultimately, Rob says that he’s hesitant to get rid of Colton because of their friendship, but acknowledges that Natalie still has heat on her as a potential Traitor, while Stephen likely isn’t a threat that needs eliminating.
At breakfast, it’s revealed that Colton was murdered by the traitors. While Rob offered it as a peacekeeping totem, he has a more sinister motive. Knowing that Colton had already begun to plant seeds that Candiace was a Traitor, having her eliminate him will only further those suspicions about her. It’s a pretty fine move from Rob, especially once he could read that there was no hope of resolving the rift that had grown inside the turret. Candiace missed her shot the night before, so Rob shot right back.
The challenge is fun, but it didn't have as strong a game design as previous competitions. The players are split into three groups. The first will be in a warehouse filled with art, where they'll try to guess which tableau photos from the other two groups match the painting in the warehouse. It’s fun to see people like Johnny Weir and Dorinda Medley doing their best cow and horse impersonations, but there’s not much more to it. Ultimately, the group wins a little bit of money, and Kristen Kish earns a shield. The only real bit of drama that seems to come from it all is Candiace suggesting that Johnny should be eligible for a shield, setting up some speculation about why she was advocating for him later in the episode.
Back at the castle, Candiace has suspicion on her, but with Donna Kelce and Lisa having been the first two traitors revealed, Johnny wonders whether there’s a man among the traitors. Stephen’s name comes up. He flags to Candiace that her vote the night before on Rob has put her in the crosshairs of the other players. She goes in search of another person.
Dorinda wonders whether Stephen is a traitor because, the day before, Lisa had worked with him on the challenge to help him earn a shield. Maura Higgins seems to buy it as a plausible scenario. When Dorinda tries to join Stephen and Candiace for dinner, she asks for them to have a moment, increasing her suspicions on both of them.
In that conversation, Candiace learns that Colton had been throwing out her name. It gives her an opening to target Rob. While the Bachelor was revealed as a Faithful, she wonders whether he was being puppeteered by Rob. Her fellow traitor enters the room and, sensing that the battle between them might be continuing, asks for the two of them to talk. Candiace asks Rob directly when her name was first mentioned, and he says he first heard it this morning. She feels like she’s coming directly for him and issues a warning: if she comes under fire, she’s taking aim at him. Rob isn’t too happy with this and calls it poor gamesmanship.
To be fair to both of them, they both have a point here. It does feel unfair for Candiace to try to throw Rob under the bus, but also, I’m not sure what other choice she has at this point. The only thing that would have salvaged Candiace’s game is to try to feign allegiance to Rob well before this moment. Once Rob saw that eliminating Lisa closed the door to working with Candiace, he had to push for her to go.
At the round table, Candiace’s vote for Rob at the previous banishment is put under fire. The night prior, she called it a throwaway vote, but now she seems to really believe Rob is a traitor. It doesn’t quite add up. Was she suspicious of Rob, or was it a throwaway vote? It doesn’t seem like it can be both.
Stephen gets the tiniest bit of suspicion thrown on him by Dorinda, mostly because Lisa gave him her gold the day prior. He seems to defend the move pretty well, having explicitly asked for her gold rather than the two of them conspiring to get the golden dagger in the hands of a traitor.
Ultimately, Candiace votes for Rob, Natalie votes for Tara, but everyone else votes for Candiace. She reveals herself as a traitor, making it two in a row for the faithful. Rob has walked himself back from the brink of disaster.
Candiace’s elimination puts the target on Johnny as a potential other traitor. It aligns with how they worked together and with the theory that the last traitor left has to be a guy.
There’s one more decision for Rob to make before the episode ends. He gives a faithful an ultimatum: become a traitor or die. He runs through a few options in the form of Johnny (the most suspicious faithful), Stephen (as the most unsuspecting faithful), Mark (a person he works closely with already) or Eric (a person he thinks could be a smart player to work with). I think the other option for him could have been Kristen, but it seems he wanted to bring a guy in with him in case that becomes the impetus for future votes, which I think makes sense for him.
Ultimately, he picks Eric. I do think this is the best choice for him. Eric is perhaps the most unsuspecting person to be voted on for banishment, and the only real risk is that he hasn’t ever been under fire, so we don’t know how he’ll behave when he has to lie to the others. This move might have set up Rob to make it to the end and win as part of a team; it’s just a matter of whether Candiace threw enough shade on him as she walked out of the castle.
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