If you’re at all interested in reality TV culture or strategy games, then you’re probably watching Season 3 of The Traitors (and living for the commentary in your group chat). If you aren’t—and I say this earnestly—please get yourself right and catch up before this Thursday’s finale.
Set in a Scottish castle, The Traitors is based on the game “Mafia,” featuring reality TV stars, B- and C-list celebrities, and strategy game champs. Host Alan Cumming secretly splits the cast into two groups: Traitors, who murder their costars at night under the shadow of darkness, and Faithfuls, who try to identify and banish the Traitors. Players compete in daily challenges for a prize pot of up to $250,000. If the Traitors remain undetected at the end, they keep the money; if the Faithfuls banish them all, the good guys win.
The show has become nearly my entire personality since I started watching. For one, it’s objectively great TV. It’s hard to beat the appeal of Alan Cumming as devious Master of Ceremonies, fan favorite Gabby Windey’s confessionals, the red herring theories that grip the blissfully clueless Faithfuls, or the sheer insanity of watching disgraced Vanderpump Rules villain Tom Sandoval regard himself as a primary theorizer and contender. Watching Sandoval warm up with vocal runs to sing backwards lullaby gibberish from a creepy doll into a payphone to win a few hundred bucks tops my list of best television moments of 2025: a scene well worth its weight in advertising dollars.
For two, the show is perfect high camp. Alan and rescue dog Lala Cumming are absolutely serving (nay, eating!) looks by the plateful. I’m talking about cloaks! Tartans! Blazers adorned with green gauze and actual moss! One single, tiny nub of a ponytail at the crown of the head! And don’t even get me started about the hats.
For three, there’s a new traitor in the turret, and she just so happens to be from Tulsa:
Alan Cumming called her a vision in tartan. Britney Haynes calls herself “just a sweet, innocent little mom from Oklahoma,” who is also “salivating” and “blood-thirsty” for some (make-believe) murder. By day, she’s a real estate agent for Own Tulsa and mom of three, but in the castle, she’s a former Amazing Race and Big Brother fan favorite getting a new turn at reality TV fame. Britney showed up on day one in a Cher Horowitz-esque plaid ensemble, and I have to wonder if she’s ever shown a house wearing that fishnet headpiece (I really hope so). But Britney isn’t just notable for her fashion and hysterical confessional quips. She’s also my pick to win it all.
The season started out with a number of rivalry plotlines, the most central of which was between former Big Brother contenders-turned-best-frenemies Haynes and Danielle Reyes. The two had some bad beef over something that went down in the Peppermint Forest while they were both on Big Brother: Reindeer Games. (File that under sentences I never thought I’d write in my life.) But when Reyes and Haynes found themselves on this season of Traitors, they decided to bury the hatchet and form an alliance. Even with Danielle’s status as a Traitor unbeknownst to Britney, the deal worked out, and Danielle has made it her beeswax to keep Britney in the game thus far.
Last week, in a move absolutely everyone watching at home saw coming, Danielle recruited Britney to the dark side. After successfully ousting fellow Traitor Carolyn at the roundtable (not shocking, as Danielle is a formidable player who doesn’t pull punches), Danielle gave Britney an ultimatum: switch sides and join her as a Traitor, or be murdered that night. Obviously, Britney tapped into her sinister side and accepted. Even to the other Faithfuls, it’s clear that Danielle and Britney are allies, but if this season has shown us anything, it’s that even the most united fronts implode, and our traitors are wont to turn on each other.
With the show now 15 players down, Britney is among six remaining contenders competing for the prize pot. But last week’s episode left us on a cliffhanger, with a possible ousting of Danielle from none other than Britney herself. It’d be a master move, as Britney would go on as the sole Traitor alive, and ostensibly keep the entire prize pot to herself.
So, what will Tulsa’s traitorous sweetheart do next? If you ask me, Britney’s loyalty to Danielle has a shelf-life, and it’s set to expire tomorrow night. Here are my predictions:
1. The producers are punking us, and have given us just enough nondescript Brit to make her place in the final four feel like a surprise.
We haven’t heard much from Britney at the roundtables, which makes sense. Her strategy to keep a low profile is consistent with most Faithfuls’, where the default play is to project the good of the order. But that’s not to say she’s skirting by. Her game is a mix of loyalty, narrative influence, personality, and being strategically forgettable (ironic, because her commentary is iconic). Her background on Big Brother renders her relatively unknown to her flashier reality TV-pedigreed opponents, giving both her and Danielle an unfair advantage. Like any smart player, she uses information tactically, is more likely to “plant” an argument over lunch than bring it up at the roundtable, and saves her hot takes for the secrecy of the confessional. Once she transitions to Traitor status, we immediately see her doing Danielle’s bidding to sway Faithfuls away from voting her out—but it’s possible that even this is an act, and a way to paint a picture of loyalty to Danielle before going rogue.
2. Britney will betray Danielle at the roundtable Thursday night, casting the nail-in-the-coffin vote for her banishment, and will assume the throne as sole remaining traitor.
Britney and Danielle have been thick as thieves from the beginning, but I’ve been saying for weeks that Danielle is way more into the relationship than Britney. The producers are giving us far more Danielle-on-Britney love than the inverse, and Danielle has protected Britney in ways that even she admits are odd. Add in the make-nice storyline planted at the beginning of the season, Danielle’s many call-backs to Britney’s “betrayal,” and her syrupy refrain of “you’re my person!” to Britney, and you’ve gotta wonder if the showrunners aren’t just making a metaphorical mountain out of a molehill—no doubt to make Danielle’s fall that much louder when Britney nudges her off it.
We came to that moment of truth at last week’s roundtable, where several Faithfuls had finally grown vocally suspicious of Danielle. Notable Danielle defector and former-Bachelorette-turned-new-queer-icon-bride Gabby “Gaggy” Windey teed up a Danielle banishment, with Britney’s vote poised to be the tie-breaker. But rather than show us Danielle’s fate, the producers left us on a cliff-hanger. This is telling: if Britney had stayed loyal and cast her vote for Ivar, the vote would’ve moved to a chance drawing, and likely necessitated an alternative episode cliff-hanger.
Instead, we get housewife Dolores Catania signaling to Britney that they need to take Danielle out, and Britney’s shocked reaction when she finds out that Dolores actually kept her vote with Ivar, sparing Danielle. Britney’s eyes go wide, as if she knows she’s caught in the act. Of course, it’s a far better plot progression to tease a Britney/Danielle betrayal than make fans wait for a coin toss.
All signs point to an exit for Danielle at the hands of Britney.
3. Britney’s damning vote for Danielle will spark suspicion among the Faithfuls, who will wonder how she could flip so quickly on her bff. They’ll spot it as the work of a Traitor and start gunning for Brit, and she’ll be on her heels fighting for an end spot.
After voting Danielle out, Britney will lean into the narrative that she misread Dolores’ head-shake as flipping her vote to Danielle, and claim that the outcome of Dolores’ switch would’ve been damning enough from a numbers perspective to make her vote moot, thus triggering her flip. She’ll feign shame about ousting an old friend, but in the confessional, she’ll chalk it up to doing what had to be done, and remind us that in games like these, loyalty will only get you so far.
To keep the upper hand, Britney will have to shift the focus to Ivar to keep herself safe and avoid being identified by The Seer. If she cannot, we’ll see a successful effort from Gabby to oust her next, and the Faithfuls will take the prize pot.
4. If the unthinkable happens, and both Danielle and Britney survive, the next murder will be Gabby.
If I’m wrong and Britney maintains her support of Danielle (highly unlikely), I predict Britney and Danielle will keep Dylan in the game and kill Gabby. Ivar is a helpful ruse, as Dolores is already wrongly convinced he’s a Traitor. Killing either Dylan or Gabby would be obvious, but Danielle at least has the benefit of a relationship with Dylan; she could easily sway him back toward loyalty vis-a-vis more of her “You’re my person” routine. And it still gives Britney the perfect opportunity to stage a secretive coup in the 11th hour and get Danielle banished, forcing her to reveal her status as a Traitor.
5. Either Britney or Danielle will be crowned the Seer.
Based off of the coin game performance last episode, I assume that Britney or Danielle won Seer Status. If that’s the case, and Danielle is still present, they’ll use the power to “interrogate” each other. Alternatively, if Britney won Seer Status, and Danielle is gone, I suspect she’ll confront Dylan and act shocked to find out he’s a Faithful. But my gut tells me Seer status is going to be null after a Danielle departure.
I could see a world where Danielle pushes to the end and scapegoats Britney to oust the final Traitor, but it feels like too many things would have to fall into place for that to work out. With all the facts laid out, my money is on our hometown hero taking it all, but only primetime will tell.
Note: Britney, if you’re reading this, please email me back so we can fully spill the tea post-finale.
