Who Should Be the Murderous ‘Traitors’ on the New Season?

Last year’s breakout reality TV hit The Traitors returns to Peacock this week for a to-die-for third season. In the Alan Cumming-hosted series, an eclectic collection of reality TV stars—and others who are more…tenuously famous—descend on an ostentatious Scottish castle for a high-stakes competition akin to the game of “Mafia” (or “Werewolf”) that pits a large group of ‘Faithful’ players against a few murderous ‘Traitors.’

This year’s cast includes renowned alumni from competition shows like Survivor and Big Brother, as well as Bravo mainstays—who wants to watch a reality show that doesn’t feature some Real Housewives feuding, after all?—and a former Bachelorette. There’s also Zac Efron’s hot younger brother and King Charles III’s second cousin. Sure, why not?!

Given existing interpersonal drama—there’s bad blood between Big Brother veterans Danielle Reyes and Britney Haynes, for example; and everyone hates Tom Sandoval—things will surely be messy from the get-go.

And of course the tension will be ratcheted further once the Traitors, those players chosen to secretly bump off their competition, are chosen and the game is fully in motion. The question on every fans’ lips, then, is who gets tapped for the killer gig. Here’s The Daily Beast Obsessed’s best guesses:

Chrishell Stause

There are few better candidates for the role’s inherently campy treachery than a former soap star turned high-end reality TV realtor. I’m calling it now: Chrishell’s reign of terror this season will take Traitors’ Tower to places it’s never been before, and probably can’t recover from. (She’ll probably also land a deal to list it as a vacation rental.)

The Selling Sunset star’s late-game undoing will be Survivor alum Tony Vlachos’ tenuous resemblance to the Netflix show’s Oppenheim bros, her bosses—and it will be tragic. Otherwise, the only missed opportunity here is that Chrishell is not competing on The Traitors alongside literally every one of her “Selling Sunset” castmates, past and present. (In this scenario, there should only be one Traitor, and it must be Davina.)

Sam Asghari

Britney Spears’ himbo ex-husband, Sam Asghari, meanwhile, is going to bumblef--- his way through the game with such charming incompetence that you’ll be cheering for him when he doesn’t get his Traitor cloak on backwards and walk into a wall. But maybe that will be his master plan!?

While Asghari is apparently seeking to rebrand himself as a model-actor type in his post-Britney era, you’d be forgiven, considering his thankfully small role in the 2024 John Cena/Awkwafina vehicle Jackpot, for worrying that he doesn’t have the chops to pull off the role of Traitor convincingly.

To that, though, I say, remember his 2016 cameo as a construction worker in girl band Fifth Harmony’s “Work From Home” music video? I know I was left wholly convinced that he knew how a cement mixer works. And besides, who’s going to argue with those biceps at the round table?

Dorinda Medley

Real Housewives of Atlanta legend Phaedra Parks’ turn as the Traitor during last year’s season of the show set a bar so high that precious few Housewives could meet it—paging Lisa Barlow ASAP. (Traitors producers should also be doing whatever it takes to land “Real Housewives of Melbourne” icon Gina Liano for season four.)

Certainly, none of the four Housewives in the mix this time around (New York’s Medley, Potomac’s Robyn Dixon, New Jersey’s Dolores Catania, and Dubai’s Chanel Ayan) seem to have what it takes; Dixon wouldn’t know what to do with the pressure of an actual plot—or plotline—, after all. But then, not every Traitor needs to be a competent player. It’s better when they’re not! So how’s Dorinda going to do as a Traitor, then? Not well, b---h. Will it be worth it regardless? Yes. A hundred times, yes.

Tony Vlachos

It’s difficult to know what to make of the Survivor cohort on the show this year—three intimidatingly alpha male former winners (in Vlachos, Jeremy Collins, and “Boston Rob” Mariano) and then a kooky runner-up (in Carolyn Wiger).

The fact that Vlachos, Collins, and Mariano have all played on a season together—the show’s 40th season, in which Vlachos won for the second time—is likely to complicate matters, and their collective reputations as strategic power players will further make things messy. So will the fact that the first season was won in a masterclass of strategy from Survivor legend Cirie Fields.

With all that said, though, Vlachos has proved himself to be the sort of bombastic character who thrives under such pressure. And if he can find a spot to set up a new “spy shack”—behind a bookcase or under a billiards table, say—in the castle, perhaps he’ll be able to stay ahead of the competition.

Bonus: Bob the Drag Queen

Honestly, I’m cheating here. Are you really a true fan of The Traitors if you haven’t attempted a frame-by-frame analysis of the teaser trailers released in recent weeks? That footage is more than the Faithful have to work with when they’re “Traitor hunting,” that’s for sure.

Anyway, such analysis yields a quick shot of RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bob in a confessional scene, and seemingly about to respond to a letter—a letter from the Traitors? (There’s a folded parchment on their lap if you hit pause at just the right moment.)

It seems hard to believe that another Drag Race fan fave would be allowed to fall so early in the competition following the controversy over Bob’s close friend Peppermint’s elimination from the show last year—rather, is it the case that Bob gets “recruited” into a (night) life of murder and mischief?