Every Traitor From ‘The Traitors,’ Ranked by Their Powers of Manipulation
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Traitors Season 3.]
Scheming, conniving, and trickery are just a few words to describe what the evil have to do on Alan Cumming‘s The Traitors. In 2023, the first season was released and was a huge hit. Fans loved seeing their favorite reality TV stars coming together to be faithfuls or traitors. The Real Housewives beauties, Survivor winners, Big Brother contestants, and more are cast to compete in daily challenges and figure out who the murderous traitors are.
Cumming assigns three or four members of the cast to become the traitors in the game, the rest are deemed faithfuls. The traitors’ goal is to murder the faithful one by one and make it all the way to the end, where they can win up to $250,000. The faithfuls have the chance to banish traitors from the castle at the daily roundtable, where they debate who is a faithful and who is a traitor. At the finale, if there are any traitors remaining, they will take home all the money leaving the faithfuls with nothing, but if no traitors last till the end, the remaining faithfuls split the cash.
Season 3 is currently airing every Thursday night on Peacock (the finale comes out on March 6), and for the first time ever in the US version, there’s a roundtable tie heading into the finale. The penultimate episode ended on a cliffhanger that will be resolved in the final episode, and the season’s last original traitor left standing is on the chopping block, with her longtime rival carrying the deciding vote.
Each season’s batch of traitors has their own unique set of skills and strategies that manipulate the faithful, but who really is the best? Here, we take a deep dive into every traitor’s history and rank them by their mastery of manipulation. (Note: This list does not include Britney Haynes, as we have not yet seen enough of her traitor skills to judge them.)
The Traitors, Season 3 Finale, Thursday, March 6, 9/8c, Peacock
12. Christian de la Torre (Season 1)
Christian de la Torre was cast for Season 1 as one of the non-celebrities on the show. No one knew much about him, seeing as he came on the show just as an everyday person (Season 1’s cast featured non-famous and famous people). When Cumming chose him as a traitor, audiences did not know what to expect. Despite his excitement to take on the role, her struggled to make his mark as a traitor and ultimately failed when he got banished. The faithfuls knew something was up with him because of his loud opinions and big voice in the house. People were onto him from day one, making him the worse traitor out of all three seasons.
11. Kate Chastain (Season 2)
Kate Chastain has made two appearances on The Traitors. The first was in Season 1, when she was a faithful. She came back in Season 2 as a faithful once again, but she was later recruited to commit murder. Kate is ranked low because she came into the game late and everyone was pretty suspicious of her from the start. She did not have the best strategy and gave up towards the end, leaving her to be voted out during the finale.
10. Cody Calafiore (Season 1)
Previous BigBrother All-Stars winner Cody Calafiore (above, left) was picked to be one of the traitors for the very first season. With Cody’s reality TV background, he was a good pick for the role, but we did not expect guilt to weigh so heavily on him after every traitor-led elimination. After the first murder, he let his emotions get in the way of his ability to be cutthroat and strategic like the game demands. These feelings made him an easy target, which eventually lead to him being banished early on.
9. Arie Luyendyk Jr. (Season 1)
Arie Luyendyk Jr. had potential for the wicked role, and he almost won the gold, but things took a turn in the last episode of Season 1. The former Bachelor star was given an important choice halfway through the game: become a traitor or continue as a faithful. He made a smart choice by becoming a traitor, because then he could not get murdered, and everyone was already confident he was a faithful. When he took on the role, he played it well and did didn’t raise suspicions. He made it all the way to the finale and expected to win it all alongside a fellow traitor, but at the last minute, the other traitor guilted him into confessing, causing him to lose and take home no money.
8. Bob the Drag Queen (Season 3)
In 8th place, we have Bob the Drag Queen (above, center). Cumming chose well when he tapped the RuPaul’s Drag Race winner on the shoulder in the first episode of Season 3. He played a convincing faithful because he used him charm to earn people’s trust. He was so well-liked so quickly that some saw it as unfair to think he could be a traitor. Zac Efron’s brother, Dylan Efron, saw Bob’s ability to influence other players as a red flag, but other saw it as him being a true faithful calling out traitors. Sadly, the fabulous drag queen was betrayed by his fellow traitor, Survivor star Boston Rob, who called Bob out during a roundtable and made a very convincing argument as to why he was a traitor, leaving him to be blindsided and banished. While Bob was thrilling to watch, he was the first traitor eliminated in Season 3, placing him lower on the ranking.
7. Dan Gheesling (Season 2)
Dan Gheesling was a sly fox in Season 2. He was dominating at the beginning and flying under the radar. He had good strategies and made great alliances. The Big Brother alum emphasized that he has a quiet personality would make him less likely to speak up, but that didn’t mean he was a traitor. This worked for a little while, but people eventually caught on. He started getting accused of treachery more and more, and his biggest mistake was quickly falling for a traitor trap laid by Peter Weber that led to his banishment.
6. Parvati Shallow (Season 2)
Survivor‘s Parvati Shallow was a hit for Season 2. The faithful-turned-traitor had to change her game midseason and adapt to being a villain. She did a good job making connections with the whole cast and pretending to be faithful. In the middle of the season, Cumming tasked the traitors with murdering in plain sight, and Parvati stepped up to the plate. She killed Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu by having her take a sip of wine out of a “poisoned” glass. Parvati was sneaky and almost the perfect traitor up until the faithfuls realized that her Survivor background prepped her for lots of lying. This got her eliminated later on in the season.
5. Boston Rob Mariano (Season 3)
The Survivor king was a big draw for Season 3. He was originally introduced in Episode 1, when the cast got to vote if they wanted to have him play. Being the reality competition show legend that he is (he holds the record for most days played of Survivor), no one wanted him to join, not even two-time Survivor winner Tony Vlachos. Little did the cast know, Cumming was planning for him to play no matter what. Rob officially joined the game with Wes Bergmann and Derrick Levasseur, but unlike the others he joined as a traitor. Boston Rob’s persuasive arguments at the roundtables gave him heavy influence over eliminations. The second he spoke about Tony and Bob the Drag Queen, it was game over for them. But shockingly, Tom Sandoval from Vanderpump Rules got Rob eliminated, saying that he didn’t believe the story that Rob was being framed by the traitors. This was the first time Tom was right in the entirety of the game. Fellow traitors Danielle Reyes and Carolyn Wiger left their fellow traitor with no support, leading to his elimination. So, he could manipulate others just fine, but he couldn’t maintain alliances with the traitors, placing him lower on the ranking than his teammates.
4. Carolyn Wiger (Season 3)
The quirky Carolyn was an unexpected traitor this season. Carolyn is known for being a little weird and used that to her advantage, because if she were to act suspicious, the others would just assume it was her personality (this is also what got her to the final three in Survivor 44). She made it far in the game, until she recently got banished because of a shocking betrayal from Danielle. Viewers grew close to Carolyn and wished she made it to the end. The fact that it was another traitor who took her out, not the faithful, places her higher in the ranking.
3. Danielle Reyes (Season 3)
Big Brother legend Danielle is quite the actress in Season 3. She made it known that she was excited for the murderous role this season and has made close allies so far. But Danielle does not have the support of the public. It seems that her theatrics have become too much for audiences to handle. All the fake crying and shaking has caused her to become more of an obvious traitor, and the faithfuls are catching on. She has been playing dirty as well. Like Boston Rob before her, Danielle has been throwing her fellow traitors under the bus instead of trying to work as a team. But she’s the only original traitor left, so her manipulation skills are strong even if audiences aren’t buying her performance. Danielle’s former Big Brother rival, Britney Haynes, was brought into the fold as a new traitor after accepting Danielle and Cumming’s offer. But did she side with Danielle or Lord Ivar Mountbatten in the tie-breaking vote? We’ll find out if Danielle trusted the right person — and how Britney’s traitor skills evolve — in the Season 3 finale.
2. Phaedra Parks (Season 2)
The Real Housewives of Atlanta queen Phaedra Parks was a fantastic addition to Season 2. She was set as the perfect traitor for the previous season, as she had an alliance with the other housewives and connections with mutual friends as well. She played the game to her strengths and did not show any sign of suspicion. She would have made it all the way to the end if Dan hadn’t pointed his finger at her the night he got banished. He dragged Phaedra with him when he left. The sweet and sassy woman made a great traitor and the fans of the show agree.
1. Cirie Fields (Season 1)
The best traitor out of all the seasons has to go to the one and only Cirie Fields. The Survivor fan-favorite has never won Survivor in her multiple seasons of playing (fingers crossed she comes back for Season 50), but she reigned supreme as the very first winner of this iteration of The Traitors. She took home all the money after tricking the final two faithfuls. Cirie was extremely cunning, sneaky, and smart with her game play. She made friends with the right people, and no one ever put her name on the chopping block. The cast declared her as a faithful and never picked up on the murders she was committing left and right. She’s the only traitor to win the show to date. Can Danielle join her on that list in The Traitors Season 3 finale?
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